More on Frum

I just said on Hardball . . .
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Gosh. Super. Marvelous. Tweety still cares what you think!

Yep. Terrible thing for America.
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While we’re talking about Frum & Bartlett, here’s my comment from the previous thread on that…
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Frum’s excommunication is, I think, more shocking than that of Bartlett. Bartlett had primarily policy based grounds for his book criticizing George Bush Jr., at a time when Bush was “the movement and the cause” of conservatism, as Bill Kristol put it. The right wing was unprepared to hear that massive debt spending, as done by the GOP Congress and president/hero, wasn’t actually conservative. I think it was Matt Yglesias who called the GOP the “follow the leader” party. There’s a lot of cult of personality there, and it’s not surprising that it was too emotionally difficult for them to hear that policy criticism of their leader.
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But Frum opposed the health care bill. He wrote that the GOP should have been willing to discuss the bill with Democrats to get a more congenial policy result. And even that political argument gets you shunned from today’s GOP. Unbelievable.
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Frum’s reasons for opposing the HCR bill are critiqued, in passing, here: ( link ). Recall that Bartlett’s follow-up book to Impostor was a book about how the Democrats had really pretty much been the party of Jim Crow. That was a pretty stupid, peripheral thesis, an obvious attempt to generate talking points for the right-wing and get to be pals again with his old colleagues and benefactors.
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It didn’t work, and he’s been condemned to honesty. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Frum. Because the background fact here is that not only does the GOP have zero sane policy ideas, they eject anyone from their circle who tries to say otherwise, or who hints that Obama might not actually be a socialist/fascist/secret Muslim/radical Christian/weak, apology-obsessed autocrat. How will they ever grow up?

Joe: the AEI has always been an odd duck in terms of scholarship. There are one or two people of note but the rest are baggage carriers for what passes for CW on the right. David Frum is a Canadian and in spite of his spell at the Bush White House he was never a “believer” as far as the Texas Mafia was concerned. His recent utterances on the state of the Republican Party made a “get out of jail” card inevitable; and it will do him good.

JK:

If Moynihan was correct on so many things, why do you and the looney left still push the policies and programs that Moynihan concluded were failures?

I am sure you and Chrissy Tingles will come up with some gems. Add Olbermann or Clift and you have the 3 Stooges of the MSM left.

OK, Elvis, since you re-posted your comment in its entirety from the thread below, I won’t feel extra-bad about re-posting mine:
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It’s tough to get New Democrats to be honest about their goals and political philosophy, because their entire existence is rooted in the self-described “Don’t Scare The Bear” politics, as Peter Beinart (one of the centrists who somehow didn’t shove the word “liberal” under the bed, and take up “progressive”) fancifully relates in his version of history (link to “Democrats, Forever Changed” by the tool Beinart):

For close to a decade now, Democrats have been arguing with each other about what kind of country this is, and what kind of party they should be. On one side stands a group of politicians, consultants and wonks who believe that America is, at its core, a pretty conservative place. These Democrats form something of a political generation. In their youth, they saw their party move left during Vietnam and get booted from power in 1968. Then they saw George McGovern, the most left-wing major party presidential candidate of the twentieth century, lose 49 states. Then they saw Jimmy Carter’s presidency destroyed in part because he looked weak during the Iran hostage crisis. Then they saw Ronald Reagan, once considered as an unelectable right-wing nut, become the most popular president of their adult lives.
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In the late 1980s, they responded to these disasters by creating the Democratic Leadership Council, which pushed the party to the right on welfare, taxes, trade, crime and defense. They claimed vindication when a president of the DLC, Bill Clinton, became president, and claimed double vindication when, after Clinton pushed for universal health care and got creamed in 1994, he won reelection two years later by triangulating against the liberals in his own party.
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For this generation of Democrats, which includes Al From, Mark Penn, Joe Lieberman, William Galston, Elaine Kamarck, Dick Morris, Ed Koch, Jane Harman, Evan Bayh, and to some extent Bill and Hillary Clinton, being a liberal is like walking past a bear. Move cautiously and reassuringly and the bear will purr contentedly. But make any sudden or threatening gestures, and you’ll be mauled because, fundamentally, the bear distrusts liberals. As Galston and Kamarck wrote in their famed 1989 essay “The Politics of Evasion”—a document that helped define the “don’t scare the bear” wing of the party—Democrats can pass liberal programs “but these programs must be shaped and defended within an inhospitable ideological climate.” To pretend that the American people are liberal at heart is to evade political reality, with devastating results.
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By the late 1990s, “don’t scare the bear” Democrats pretty much dominated Washington. But in the Bush years, a new faction began to emerge. These Democrats were mostly newer to politics. They had never seen a McGovern or Mondale mauled for being too far to the left. What they had seen was the post-1994 Bill Clinton, who shied away from ambitious liberal reform. And they had seen the Iraq War, which DLC types largely supported, partly out of fear that opposing it would allow Republicans to paint Democrats as soft on defense.

Now, of course Beinart makes an absurdly contradictory set of claims, and in doing so, reveals the weird denial-world in which Third Way centrists live about their ideology.
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First, he correctly claims that Democrats

…responded to these disasters by creating the Democratic Leadership Council, which pushed the party to the right on welfare, taxes, trade, crime and defense…

, but then he says something very odd, indeed:

Democrats can pass liberal programs “but these programs must be shaped and defended within an inhospitable ideological climate.”

The obvious question there is that, if the party has been pushed to the right on all of its key issues, then why would they seek to “pass liberal programs” at all?
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And, of course, these Democrats haven’t sought to sneak liberal programs past the terrifying rightist bear of the American people –people who support a public option 2-1, and opposed the Iraq occupation 2-1– they’ve put forward Something Else.
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That Something Else isn’t a program of liberalism disguised as “moderate conservatism,” but the Third Way program itself, which is its own set of policies and principles as distinct from liberalism as movement conservatism is. It’s not like we wanted them to sneak NAFTA into law for us, or to repeal the New Deal protections against the banksters’ gambling, or to give the telecoms legal immunity from lawsuits brought against them for spying on the American people.
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What’s happened recently, as popular opinion turned against movement conservatism put into real-life practice during the Bush Administration is that “don’t scare the bear” politics were used again, but instead of the bear being the state of Utah superimposed upon the whole nation, the bear became us, the energized base of liberals who reached out to our friends and neighbors and co-workers and colleagues with enthusiasm to elect Barack Obama –the New Democrat– President of the United States.
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We liberals became the bear past which New Democrats had to sneak their Third Way policy, and so we had the fake “public option” debate, and now we have the Dole-Daschle plan via the Bipartisan Policy Center (minus the 20 Republican votes Dole promised) passed into law using our browbeaten support!
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Did we ever expect MoveOn.org to whip us into calling our Congresspeople to demand that the House pass a public option-less Dole health care bill? No, because the bear –in this case us– dutifully slept while the New Democrats triangulated against movement conservatives this time.
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So we’re the new Beinart bear, and it’s going to be a real challenge to get New Democrats to be up front about their policy goals after the exuberance of winning fades for them, and they go back to sneaking around us again.

Is it just me?

The extreme GOP of the present must be counterbalanced by the extreme dems (Joe’s opinion) of some 30 years ago. The teaparty protestors must be tempered by comparisons to DFHs (including one-time bonger Joe) from the Vietnam era. And, of course, we all know Glenn Greenwald = Glenn Beck.

Thank god for the likes of Joe (& of course Tweety f’ing Matthews) for illustrating these troubling resemblances.

Those heaping praise on Joe for calling out such (rightist) extremites: be aware that the next time the populist left is in ascent, the next time war protests heat up (I guess when a GOP pres. next takes the office), he’ll be compared our heated rhetoric with these arsehats.

Thanks for saying it for me, FT.

I wondered why the Diane Rehm show went from being AEI flack central to not really having many of them on ever since health care became a big deal.
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How incredibly creepy is it that Republican “scholars” can be told to shut up and the obey?
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Republicans and conservatives are authoritarian worshiping fools and followers from top to bottom.

“I just said on Hardball, “It’s getting pretty close to Jonestown.”
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I was saying the other day “I HATE when people quote themselves”

The survival of the GOP is in no way beneficial to democracy in the USA. It isn’t that they’re a party with no ideas, it’s that they’re a party with ideas that are so unpopular they aren’t willing to be open about what they are. The entire GOP narrative as told on Fox News is fiction, and fiction masquerading as news is not something democracy needs.
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There’s no equivalency to be drawn here. The left isn’t as manipulative and deceitful as the right. Hippies aren’t as ignorant and malicious as teabaggers. Policies promoted by progressives wouldn’t universally be improved if they had to make concessions to Rupert Murdoch. And in regards to the main point of your post, if the GOP were to finally lose all credibility and vanish, you wouldn’t have single party rule, that vacuum would be filled pretty quickly, and almost certainly by something with a more cohesive and rational point of view than the modern GOP.
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Perhaps the Green party would emerge as a labor/consumer counterweight to the Democrats, who are more than willing to continue representing business interests as they do now. Maybe the Libertarians would emerge as advocates for an actual return to a state-centric union (as opposed to the GOP’s occasional lip service to that perfectly valid notion). Democracy requires debate, but that doesn’t mean all debaters are valuable or productive. I could find plenty of people to disagree with in a world without Glenn Beck or Newt Gingrich.

Actually my favorite Saint Pat quote seems perfect for now-
“[T]here is no health care crisis in this country.”
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But, but, but…then who would the Third Way compromise with?

Joe, you’re the man, and you had Matthews laughing like many wish they could, but that was a wee bit over the top…what do you call that, a double-down metaphor?

Looks like the President is going pedal to the metal here – moderate student loan reform, some HAMP like reforms on Friday, and so on. The big test will be the financial reform package.

Klein is like a human balance scale caught in a constant state of equilibrium.

Dis, excellent comment. Last paragraph is a divine thing to contemplate. And thus wholly unrealistic. Nothing is more useful to status-quo preservationists than having our corp-friendly estab. dems confronted by the crazy. Of course, right wing crazy = mag covers. Left wing crazy = crickets.
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A bit of tiger-riding notw/standing, the denizens of Versailles on the Potomac are perfectly happy with the current debating teams (i.e. dedicated above all things to preserving the narrowness of the debate). They’ll ignore the thrown bricks, hate speech, or threats/acts of violence up until these goons gain power and their blacklists suddenly, gasp, appear to name them as enemies too.

BTW, here’s an excellent interview with Izzy Award winner, Jeremy Scahill:

http://www.alternet.org/world/146162/izzy_award_winner_jeremy_scahill:_

So AEI is basically a pass through for these big winger companies like coal mines and oil cos. and eccentric billionaires to launder their money to influence politics.
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One or more of these big donors dropped the hammer. I wonder who it was?
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My bet is it was the one of the Koch family, who are also bankrolling the campaign to stop the wind power project on the Cape and making Joe Klein mad in the process.

Democracy requires debate, but that doesn’t mean all debaters are valuable or productive.
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Well said.

Agreed. It’s weird how commenters and bloggers will cheer Klein on when he rags on the wingnuts, as though he’s a long lost old friend come back to the fold.
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And then every time, every single time he says something stupid about FISA or not investigating war crimes or the teachers unions, people are shocked and appalled.
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It’s this weird sort of amnesia we have going on.

Stuart,

Please do me a favor and read the following comment and let me have your thoughts.

Another Schoolyard Taunt March 25 Post 19

The GOP Storm March 23 Post 5.13 and 5.14

Thanks 3xfire3

Amnesia or as a Chinese proverb puts it:
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“It is good to strike the serpent’s head with your enemy’s hand”

Sure, will do.

Granting Joe’s premise, why do the Republicans hate America? Why do they want to enslave us in crushing public debt, and deny reasonable health care to We the People?
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To which “America” did John McCain refer with his “America First” if not _our_ America and _we_ Americans?

Did AEI miss something?

Most people think the idea of a think tank is to ponder topics of importance to society and explore ways to improve our knowledge and understanding.

It appears the American Enterprise Institute is a parrot tank, not a think tank. The tent needs to be a little bigger.

The same thinking that fires a research fellow for writing a column at odds with groupthink is the thinking that told us that the best and brightest knew what was best for the American economy.

“A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as ‘losers.’ With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party.” – David Frum

Then later:

“Leaders of the Republican Party,” Obama said, “they called the passage of this bill ‘Armageddon.’ Armageddon. ‘End of freedom as we know it.’ So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling or some cracks opening up in the earth. It turned out it was a nice day.”

Conservatives lost and the American people won.

Thank you too all who made it happen!

HealthCare:
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act:
Children’s Health Insurance Reauthor-ization Act:
Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act:
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act:

Keep on truckin Dems.

3xfire3:
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Well, I’m not sure what comment or comments the first post of yours is referencing.
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I thought that this:

Your lack of respect for a man that has served his country in a Vietnam prison and still his the physical handicaps from the torture he endured show how ignorant and morally corrupt all of you people on the left who have made these the4se posts are.

would be the right offense to take if McCain weren’t a politician, and hadn’t been a politician for over 30 years.
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Being a war hero over 30 years ago doesn’t give a politician a pass on his conduct or character for life, 3xfire3. I think that’s a rational position, not an immoral position. I don’t think that John McCain, if he were here with us having this conversation, would say to you or I that he thought we should judge him (or anyone) as a Senator primarily on the basis of his POW experience.
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I think we have to be more skeptical of our politicians generally, and even though I don’t think that John McCain is the least moral, or worst character, or most corrupt amongst our legislators, I don’t think that ordinary citizens are meant to judge their temporary public servants on their stories, or their personalities, but on what those public servants accomplish on our behalf.
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So I judge John McCain on his McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation, for example. I look at what he has done for my country, and what he hasn’t doe for my country while in office. I don’t fault commenters for doing the same, although mindless ideological or partisan tribalism is certainly nothing to be proud of.
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I take a bit of umbrage at your characterization of people on the left as being somehow more disrespectful of McCain’s service than people on the right, 3xfire3, especially when this:

Speaking before the Young America’s Foundation, who invited her over CPAC’s objections, the conservative author [Ann Coulter] spent most of her time viciously attacking her party’s new presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain.

No topic was out of bounds, including the five years McCain spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
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“I know that [he was a POW],” Coulter declared, “because he mentions it more often than Kerry mentions he was in Vietnam. There were hundreds of POWs and we are not going to make all of them president. Can’t we find a POW who doesn’t want to shut down Guantanamo.”

So I hope that I’m fairly clear on that.
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1) I don’t think that politicians –even politicians who were legitimate war heroes– should be immunized from criticism, not in a democracy
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2) politicians should be judged on their records as politicians, not their life stories or personalities
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3) some of the most outrageous attacks on John McCain’s character have come from the right, not the left, so it’s wrong to assign all the blame for inappropriate or offensive insults to McCain to liberals
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OK, let’s see if I have time for the second comment…

3xfire3:
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OK, now I’ve read this one from this drive-by commenter:

3xfire3, might I suggest gasoline over yourself to express the ‘outrage’ you see coming in November.

Once you put it on Youtube, more people may ‘win’ from you devolving to acting like the very same muslim terrorists your side ‘saved’ us from than you’d think over this ‘debacle’.

So this person was a douche, whoever they were.
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Either they were a coward posting under a fake name, or they were a drive-by dickhead, it happens all of the time on blogs like these.
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I can’t say that I see that sort of thing as representative of liberalism, just general douchebaggery, if that was your point.
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What did you want me to understand about that comment, 3xfire3?

this clears some things up for me. Where might i find a good representative of this 3rd way? maybe a book or website that really lays out this philosophy? I’ve already read a good bit of Klein’s stuff (that’s how I ended up on this blog) but it’s generally more commentary and less overt political philosophy.

also I’d love to hear the liberal case against NAFTA or free trade in general. NAFTA was back when ‘trade’ was what I did when I ran out of gold mines in Age of Empires II. I always figured liberals were against it to protect unions. Tell me that’s not all it was.

Stuart,

My point is that apparently you and the other commenters on the left seem to have no problem with hateful comments when made against people who are not liberal in their political views.
I guess I expect that hypocrisy from many on the left but I expected better from you and some of the more rational liberal posters.

Do you have any views of the other post I ask you about?

You know, 3xfire3, the more I think about it, the more I think that you should test this statement of mine:

I think we have to be more skeptical of our politicians generally…I don’t think that ordinary citizens are meant to judge their temporary public servants on their stories, or their personalities, but on what those public servants accomplish on our behalf.

against what I say or criticize about what is said with respect to liberal or Democratic politicians, don’t you think?
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In order for my thinking to be right and principled, and not just conveniently applied to my political enemy, e.g. the rightist Republican John McCain, it must be the standard for all politicians.
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I guess you’ll have to judge me on the basis of that sort of principled consistency, 3xfire3.

Do you have any views of the other post I ask you about?
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Don’t you mean the one I addressed at 15.2?

Stuart,

My point is not that McCain should not be judged on his record as a senator, but that the post made by many people on the left about this particular article were over the top hateful.

Given what this man has done for his country as a prisoner of war and the honorable manner in which he served his country that he deserves a level of respect.

If you read the many hateful comments made against him, I do not understand how you can stand by and not say it is wrong.

It’s OK to disagree with him on his political views. It is not right to demonize him. He deserves better that that. He has paid in blood and has earned better than that.

That is my point. If you don’t understand these points, than I guess you have shown that the possibility of liberals and conservatives and independents working together for the betterment of our country is not a reality.

Cliff, I don’t think I’ve ever made that mistake.

The fact that McCain is now inventing stories to inflate his Vietnam experience (i.e. the “cross in the sand” story), shows that even he doesn’t respect his Vietnam experience anymore.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080818041113AAyjOMj

I like ‘Parrot tank’.

“Just in terms of the negative impact on our democracy, it’s sad to see what’s happening over in the GOP.”
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It has been happening since Nixon, the onlky thing I ahver noticed is that it it more accepted by the media in general. It sells good.
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I know you guys do not like it, but it is the way I see it.
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Blame me if you want, but it is me you need.

In my sensing, Boehner usage of the term “armageddon” was a direct code word expression to the particular megachurch – evangelical folks who are highly sensitized to respond to key phrases, code words, and “concepts” regarding their particular form of a wider religion. Not a knock on all megachurch goers by any means at all, just some. Way too much follow the leader going on here.

I find it hard to believe that he did not know what he was doing or saying. Just doesn’t add up.

A generation ago, the term “secular humanist” began to be used to describe a noticeable politico-socio movement. Now many of those that had defined and mocked that tribe (for wont of a better term) are now seeing it turned upon them, as the “Fox Right” is showing all of the hallmarks of an extended tribal movement, replete with the jargon, code-words, purity tests, doctrine, and fierce defense of “borders” (I don’t mean that geographically) but most of all, a willingness to swallow orders whole with no chewing.

Most people are susceptible to memes to some degree. In the US, there are highly polarized segments, but there’s a malleable middle that is influenced by some memes and rhetoric, yet is also attuned to seeing the truth to at least some degree. If the Dems don’t alienate this middle, it should be an interesting fall.

The Wall Street reform bill will show the true stance of the Dems.

We’ll see.

It’s been a full generation of erosion of personal freedoms, dismantling of common-sense protections for individuals and small business mixed in with some interesting signals of wealth, so it’s almost understandable that many citizens would consider these recent moves to be a socialist agenda in action.

I think that what a lot of people who oppose the very idea of this bill are assuming is that the legal and regulatory economic climate is just like it was under Reagan. One can argue about moving left of 1982, but my sense is that most really don’t understand how kleptocratic this country became since 2000.

And I’m no leftist.

Working off of Frum’s theme, a good way to look at the passage of this bill is to remember art class in grade school.

The pottery table is spinning and everyone talks about the properties of clay. No clay on table.

Now the lump of clay is on the table. It’s not going away, but it will be formed, honed, carved, etc.

That’ll work.

..parrot tank..
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Perfect. And the AEI site now needs an edit:

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution…

Emphasis mine, link is here:
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http://www.aei.org/about

I think Joe was quoting himself so it didn’t appear he had created that quote for this post. chill, guys.

No there’s not an equivalency, but I expect I’m not the only liberal from the 60′s who has paused and considered the similarities between what seemed like the only way to get the attention of power back then, and what seems like a dangerous fringe now.

Great comment.

kathy, I heard this on All Things Considered yesterday and thought of you. (As I recall you are from Vermont – hope I don’t have the wrong person) Reading the last sentence aloud makes the point of what I heard!

BLOCK: And finally, yesterday I spoke with Museum of Modern Art curator Paola Antonelli about her museum’s acquisition of the at-symbol, as in @AOL.com, for its design collection.

SIEGEL: Well, thats struck Matt Ficktinbaum(ph) of Chelmsford, Massachusetts as an apt decision. He writes: I was amused to hear that New York’s Museum of Modern Art has acquired the at-sign, but it’s not a new concept. Here in New England, we’ve been calling it the Museum of Modern At for as long as I can remember.

swissArmyBrainBETA:
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Where might i find a good representative of this 3rd way? maybe a book or website that really lays out this philosophy?
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Here you go:
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link to ThirdWay.org
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link to PPI
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link to the DLC
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link to Wikipedia entry for Third Way
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link to Zakaria on “Obama’s Third Way”
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link to NYTimes article on the Democratic politics of Third Way New Democrats in 2006

Freepina.
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Clinton’s welfare reform was exactly what Moynihan was seeking to reform.
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It included:
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1) Giving welfare to married couples with children as well as to single women. Prior to this, to receive full benefits, a man had to move out of the home. Welfare reform went further. It gives more to married couples than to single mothers.
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2) The punishment for work. Prior to welfare reform, if a welfare recipient got offered a chance to work at McDonalds part time, they would loose 100% of their benefits and, therefore, starve their children as a punishment for getting a job. Now there is a scale which gives gradually decreasing benefits as the recipient’s income rises. So, if the beneficiary, starts earning, say, $5,000 per year, benefits decrease less than $5,000 (I do not know exactly how much). So, for every inch a person on welfare makes towards self improvement, their lives get better and better.
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It included two things which were not Moynihan-like at all:
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1) A lifetime limitation of five years in which one can receive welfare.
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2) A ban on anybody born outside of the United States (even if they arrived as infants and know no other country outside of the US) from receiving any form of welfare regardless of the circumstances.
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Hence, Moynihan did lead the Democratic party in a different direction.
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Unfortunately for the party as a whole, it happened during a long bout of Republican rule.
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As for the change #1 which was not from Moynihan, since extremely few people received welfare for more than five years, Democrats found it tolerable.
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Feepina, this is something called bipartisanship.
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It is a good thing to have. Legislation gets passed and no lunatics spit on members of congress.

Lowell Wicker was what I believe may be the best path for Republicans today.

The Swamp is not working and ate the rest of my remark.
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Wicker was a “Rockefeller Republican”.
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He voted with Democrats far more often than he voted with his own party.
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He was beaten by a Democrat who promised to be more conservative than him: Joe Lieberman.
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He was, later, as an independent, governor of Connecticut.
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If the Republicans can deal with the success of most progressive policies and be a part of the solution instead of a brick wall, we can take this country further and further into the future.
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I can not see the Green Party or any type of Labor Party (unless, maybe, is the labor party is going to be conservative on social issues to get the evangelicals vote) coming in out of the blue and succeeding.
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There will always be people who are relatively conservative.
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So, it seems most likely to me that, after a 2010 and 2012 pounding, the Republican party could stop their fiscal reactionary platform and just move with progress.
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Republicans do not need to a brick wall and weren’t always a brick wall.

Given what this man has done for his country as a prisoner of war and the honorable manner in which he served his country that he deserves a level of respect.
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It’s OK to disagree with him on his political views. It is not right to demonize him. He deserves better that that. He has paid in blood and has earned better than that.
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3xfire3, Are you saying that all politicians deserve better than that or are you saying that ex-POW politicians deserve better than that? Because those are two completely different statements and I am not clear about which you are making.
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A moment’s thought will show that holding politicians to different standards based on life experiences is a dangerous idea. Mussolini and Hitler, for example, exploited their experience as WWI veterans to gain power. A fair political debate is impossible if the participants are held to different standards.
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But demonizing political opponents is harmful. (That’s why I’ve defended people like Sarah Palin from false attacks.) It’s harmful because it undermines the influence rationality and empirical evidence have on politics. It also discourages nice, sane people from entering politics and encourages people who enjoy that political culture of superficial and nasty personal attacks.

From time to time, I have wondered whether the Dems and Reps aren’t in cahoots to prevent one another from going extinct. To prevent that power vacuum and the rise of another party you describe. And the way to do this of course is to piss off the other side’s base as much as possible. Frankly, the Dems do a better job representing what Rep voters hate than they do what Dem voters like. And vice versa. Because as long as they do that, voters feel like they can’t possibly waste their vote by voting for a third party. The phenomenon is made worse by our lack of run-offs. Which means the more hated the parties get, the more likely they are to stay in power.
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I’m not saying I believe this is what’s happening. But if it is, it’s a diabolically clever idea.

Rose83,

Thank you for your post. It is nice to hear from another person on this Site who does not condone personal attacks against people simply because the have a different political view than they do.

Almost all commenters on this site make personal hateful attacks against people with other views. This is UN-American. As citizens we should respect each other as individuals even if we do not agree politically.

Even a normally rational guy like Stuart refers to John McCain as his Rightist Republican Political Enemy.

Should we really think of our fellow citizens as our enemies?

Many people on this site claim a person who expresses disagreement with President Obama’s policies is personally attacking him.

I do not consider the President my political enemy. But as an American I have a right to disagree with him.

If I sincerely believe that by his actions he is a Socialist, that is not a personal attack against him. It is simply my honest perception of him based on how I see him as a result of his actions.

Do I not have this right? Should I and other conservatives and moderates be personally attacked for stating our honest beliefs?

Why do liberals think disagreeing with their political views is a personal attack?

I have tried to bring some rational, common sense discussions to this site and all I see and get is personal attacks and the demonizing of anyone that is not of a liberal point of view.

I’m beginning to think this site has become totally irrelevant and servers no useful purpose except for liberals to talk to each other and make no meaningful contribution to the betterment of our country. Their actions will probably dome them to another 40 years in the desert simply because of their inability to work with people with different political views to find solution to problems and improve our great country.

iggydwonderlla…,
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Run off are a great thing.
I heard a great idea on Air America apparently copying the Australian system:
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In a three way race, everybody first votes for their first choice and then their second choice.
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This is “automatic run offs”.
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Right now, Nader ate Democratic votes, Ross Perot ate Republican votes.
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With automatic run offs, people who would have preferred Nader to Gore but Gore to W would have been able to do so.
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France has proportional representation. So, if 40% goes to to party A, for ten seats, four people from party A serve. Then 30% goes to party B and, therefore, three seats… etc, etc.
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Our system forces us into two parties.
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One exists of cultural liberals, non-interventionists and economic reformers/labor supporters for Democrats and religious traditionalist, military interventionist and pro-corporate together for the Republicans.
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Peace and love Christianity (or other religions, also preaching such) is crowded in bed with cutting off welfare and attacking every country that looks at us cross eyed.
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I would love some kind of way we could have an eight party system. Republicans as we know them would be the smallest since cutting budgets and going to war do not mix with each other just as the better side of religion does not go with either one of them.

I have to take a bit of exception to the reasoning of this stream of postings.

To refer to the President as a socialist, is, IMHO, a personal attack, the same as someone calling someone else a communist during the time of McCarthyism.

The same as referring to someone as a “douchbag” is a personal attack.

I see all too much of this in the Swamp. I am all in favor of reading and commenting on all manner of political topics and issues here. But there are way too many instances of name calling and other insulting remarks. We can and should be passionate in our beliefs. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t always be civil in our disagreements.

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NewsBusters — David Frum: Joe Klein’s Kind of Conservative
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2010/03/26/david-frum-joe-kleins-kind-conservative

OBAMACARE = SOCIALISM

REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER

Jellypants,
Do you have any idea what socialism is?
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“Obamacare” = Bob Dole’s and Richard Nixon’s proposals.
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2010 Republican obstructionism = Republicans selling the US out to big business.
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Remember in November, after you can get your children a chance to go to the doctor.

Hot Air — AEI insiders: Frum’s a liar
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/03/26/aei-insiders-frums-a-liar/

Patrick,

When the average American hears President Obama talk about income redistribution, Government Control and then see him surround himself with anti capitalist advisors, they tend to believe he is a Socialist.

This may not fit your definition of Socialist but it does fit the views of most Americans.

The following is an interesting link which illustrates the importance that Obama places on actual business experience.

Normally when one does not have personal experience in an important knowledge area, you would expect they would have expert advisors to help them in that area.
Strange that a President with no business experience, has placed so little importance on having good advisors to help him in his area of weakness.

http://blog.american.com/?p=7572

Alan Greenspan is anti-business?
Timothy Geithner is anti-business ?

3x,
Who is anti-business or anti-capitalist in Obama’s cabinet or, like Greenspan, advising him on economic issues who is even not a conservative?
Larry Summers is considered a conservative on most issues.
So, I think that this is just some kind of misinformation you have.
Please mention who these anti-capitalist people are and how they advise the president on anything tied to economics.
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Many progressives are uncomfortable with how conservative this crew is, none are “anti-capitalist”
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Summers was on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan. Is Reagan the screaming anti-capitalist you are looking for that would corrupt the Obama administration with it’s former people?

It doesn’t break mine or anyone else’s heart to see the GOP reap what it has sewn over the last 10 years. Truth is, the republicans have been manipulating the public with fear and shame and other low life tactics in an effort to compensate for a lack of a coherent message. The only coherent message of the republicans is no. Americans demand more. Republicans have contributed nothing to the welfare or well being of Americans but just the opposite, causing war, death, and destruction. 2 unfinished republican wars remain at a cost of $1.2 Trillion taxpayer dollars. Of course the republicans created most of the deficit also by financing the wars to China….who now owns us like a lien. The republicans created the worst economic and banking meltdown since the 1930′s. President Obama’s Health Care reform will ensure that 32 million Americans have health care, will provide tax breaks to small business owners thus helping the economy also, and it prevents the insurance companies from refusing coverage or canceling your coverage when you need it most. Sounds pretty logical to me! What is not to love about it? The Republicans did nothing to contribute one iota to Americans Health, Now of course they are coming our with all kinds of ideas and trying to con the public into repealing Health Care Reform. Everyone knows that isn’t going to happen. You want to know why things continue to be grim for republicans? Look at Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, and the rest of them. They incite their sheep followers to violence; which we have recently scene. They do this by filling them with lies and by making them feel like victims and that the government is out to “take over” their lives and other stupid paranoid drivel. The republicans look like a bunch of sad sack idiots….that is why they are going the way of the whigs and the dinosaurs.

Congratulations, Time & Swampland:
You posted a very large ad & you have continued to post it.
How does it feel to fail to collect a fee for posting an obvious ad?
Henry Luce must be turning 1,842 rpm in his grave.

SwissArmyBrain:

You asked for a liberal case against NAFTA or free trade in general. You are right, protection for unions is not all it is. Now, I am a liberal but I am not sure that most Democrats have evolved enough to see the facts clearly, and are – sadly – victim to the same big money politics that drive most US policy of the past 40 years as Republicans are. Anyway, here is the case against free trade in general.

50 years ago, the Republican party (GOP) was a high tariff party. This was to protect American jobs. During this period of history (e.g, roughly 1940-1975), the standard of living in the US was very good – certainly much, much higher than today. In the 1970s, we saw the rise of the conservative mantra “The unions are what is killing business innovation” and thus begun the modern era of anti-union politics. It is important to understand what underlies this mantra. The GOP began to listen to the large capitalist class, who had realized that the road to increasing profits was blocked by fixed labor costs. They understood, correctly, that production expenses could be cut significantly by relocating manufacturing sites to locales that had cheaper labor costs. But, how could they ship their goods *back* into the US (for sale) when there were those pesky high tariffs? How could manufacturers get around the tariffs? It took some innovation, but they did it by lobbying for “free trade,” in which there are no tariffs. Free trade benefits no one except the capital class who can afford to relocate manufacturing and ship back into the US. GOP (and Democrats, as well) fell prey to the opiate of huge campaign contributions. When some raised concerns, they were told that the benefits to consumers (in the low cost of goods) would outweigh the loss that comes with switching from skilled (high-paid) to unskilled (low-paid) labor.

Not all countries see “free trade” as a good thing. Many countries in Western Europe have retained high-technology production of goods, and also tariffs. Most of these countries have higher standards of living than the US. Let me illustrate clearly that the standard of living is lower now than it was in, say, 1965. Then, a family of 4 could be supported by a single-earner’s wages (typically, the male “bread-winner”). One or two cars, a mortgage, and the children had the expectation that they would enjoy an even higher standard of living. BTW, the only debt families carried at that time was generally the home mortgage. Now, a family of 4 has a hard time making ends meet with *both* adults working. Much of the “mirage” of prosperity is borrowed money (e.g., maxed out credit cards, a mortgage on a home bigger than they need, etc.). It only *looks* like the standard of living is higher now. It is most certainly not. BTW, this is true not only for individuals, but for most states and certainly for the national government as well.

The economics of why things were better when we manufactured goods here (in the US) is simple: value added. We took raw materials, added value, and sold the goods overseas for profits. More money coming in to the country than left it. Yes, we paid workers high wages, but they spent that money in their local communities, which kept countless other businesses afloat. Since we lost manufacturing, we have consistently run trade deficits, we are operating on borrowed money, and the standard of living has declined. I would like to hear your *defense* of free trade. Please don’t say “The benefits to consumers outweigh the loss of income in switching from skilled to unskilled jobs,” because that is simply not true.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-27/laffaire-frum/?cid=hp:exc
Article by Christopher Buckley backing Frum and what his father, Bill Bucklley would have thought.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-27/laffaire-frum/?cid=hp:exc
Hope this isn’t a repeat. Having some trouble posting to this threat
Above is an article by Christopher Buckley and his opinion on Frum.

alexanderai:
This is an excellent historical bit of information, which makes a lot of sense to me. I lately have wondered where have the jobs gone (the answer is obvious; overseas or to robots), but have been unable to determine the actual mechanism which allowed this to happen over time, and how did the public buy into it.

I am neither a politician nor an economist…I am simply a working stiff with an engineering degree, who wondered 18 months ago “how did a couple of bad mortgages take down the US economy?” This will serve as another part of the answer to myself.

So, if I may ask, what is the “free trade” contribution as a cause for Nixon Shock and the breakdown of Bretton Woods?

My topic: Econ and a love of history.
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First, in 1944 in New Hampshire the non-Communist allied powers (remember that the Soviet Union took five times as many losses since Hitler hated communists so much that he made Joseph McCarthy look like a Communist by comparison, but was not there) met in the Bretton Woods hotel.
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Second, everybody wanted stable currency exchanges, free trade and a balance of trade.
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Third, Economists know that when a country has foreign currency it can go to one of two places: to buy goods from the other country or to buy businesses and land of the other country.
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Fourth, to handle this, all of the countries put a tax on foreign investment of all kinds within each other’s country.
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It worked.
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Whenever we sold to, say, Germany, we bought something back from Germany.
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In the 1960s the US began to have inflation.
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With all of the currencies tied to each other, we were creating French, German, English, Italian inflation.
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France was the first one who wanted out.
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The deal was broken.
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After that, Germans and Japanese would sell us cars and use their money to buy up businesses in the US.
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Having stock in, say, McDonald’s bought by an engineer in Dusseldorf does not create American jobs.
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Everything began to change.
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Internally, the US highway system was, also, being finished in the 1970s.
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Union factory jobs began to go to non-union parts of the US for lower wages than ever.
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Eventually, many of those businesses went completely abroad for their workers as transportation got cheaper and the race to the bottom of which company can pay the least per worker began leaving McDonald’s jobs behind for people who do not have a completed college education.
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Republicans today pretend that we are still in 1968 and after high school a unionized factory job can hire even an illiterate person and pay them enough to support a family of four.
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1968 is when my parents married, so, I never had any idea where conservatives got their ideas from.

So Patrick, when you say the deal was broken, that was when the Bretton Woods agreement met it’s demise? From what I have been able to research this is kind of when we shifted from Keynesian theories to a sort of econ no-mans land, before the GOP and Reagan brought Friedman ideas into our economic policy.

As I was born during the end of the Truman presidency, I recall a few things from my youth: why were all of these people running Nixon out of South America, and when a bit older, why were the unions pricing themselves out of jobs? I recall the NYC teachers strike, and the US Steel strike, and I suppose from there the birth of the Rust Belt.

well, at least the yacht business has been brisk in the last twenty years. Sorry to get so off the Frum topic, but I learn where I can.

“Keynesian theories to a sort of econ no-mans land, before the GOP and Reagan brought Friedman ideas into our economic policy.”
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No, there was an unrelated crisis for Keynesians.The original theory for monetary supply was tossed out the window when Milton Friedman proved it all wrong.
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Friedman, being arrogant, then tried to say that all of the other theories of the Keynesians were wrong. They are called Monetarists. They never did get very much credibility.
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Keynesians became the New Keynsians. They adopted that they had what to do with the Federal Reserve wrong, but held onto everything else.
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Stagflation, which no economic theory predicted, threw everybody for a loop when Opec under Nixon and, later, Carter, cut the oil supply.
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No economist had worked out what would happen when one commodity could not be substituted for and could hold an entire country hostage. Paying more and more for oil both required layoffs and increasing prices. The answer: create alternatives to oil. (Which needs chemical engineers, not economists).
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Prior to this inflation meant that the economy was too hot. There was too much money chasing every good with very, very low unemployment.
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One major explanation of Keynes himself was savings does not equal investment.
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If you save money, you will buy stock in, say, Google from me. I made my $50, but, no new jobs were created.
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Investment is when you expand your business, increase production and hire people.
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For no logical explanation in conservative think tanks came “Supply side economics’ claiming that savings were equal to investment.
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It was not peer reviewed nor accepted by Universities.
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Since it had no real academic grounding, in the Republican nomination process, Bush Sr. called it “vodo economics”. Soon he was drinking the Kool aid and had to deal with Democrats using his phrase back at him.
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Cutting taxes, according Keynesian economics, also, creates jobs because it increases spending.
However, a poor person spends money more quickly than a wealthy person. So, hiring the poor or cutting middle income household’s taxes would do better than cutting taxes for the wealthy.
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They Reagan spent a huge sum on defense spending. Despite ideology, this worked like the WPA giving poor or middle income people jobs.
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As it happens, recent information from the Soviet Archives will tell you that the Soviets didn’t even try to keep up with us since their economy had been crumbling since the 1960s.
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Reagan’s WPA was when we got into an arms race with our own imagination.
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After the fall of the USSR, we found out that we counted every Soviet missile three times. They had one third of what we did.
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Supply side was never an accepted theory by any academic and was buried by the time Clinton beat Bush Sr. in 1992.
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Thank you Patrick, for the insight.

Patricksartor brings up a very important point:

“No economist had worked out what would happen when one commodity could not be substituted for and could hold an entire country hostage. Paying more and more for oil both required layoffs and increasing prices. The answer: create alternatives to oil. (Which needs chemical engineers, not economists).”

The independent success of the American economy has been inversely proportional to the amount of energy (read: oil) that we have had to import to fuel our economy.

If for no other reason, whether you credit climate change research or not, either party neglecting calls to diversify US energy supplies is doing a disservice to the polity they claim to represent. Conservatives (who by definition are those who seek to preserve the status quo) fail to grasp the big picture: we will not prosper ever again like we did in the ’50s and ’60s without solving our dependence on imported fossil fuel. We must, as author Anne Korin says, “turn oil into salt.”

Chris,
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Much of our conservative population is in denial of even climate change.
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One other is aspect is, even if carbon offsets were able to work on a massive scale is the finite availability of oil and peak oil theory.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
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Alternative fuels is the only imaginable answer.
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Unfortunately, right now, if Obama says “good morning” to congress the Republicans will seek to pass a non-biding resolution to say that it is a terrible morning.
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I’ll put that book on that long to do list.
Thanks.

The Repubs have made it crystal clear that they don’t care about America or Americans one iota. But in the process, Dems have also showed their cards through the absurdity of squandering a supermajority to get REAL reform passed and a President who basically just made a deal with insuerers from day one and didn’t lift a finger. The truth is, there is very little difference between the parties at the end of the day. The US needs a real progressive movement, The good cop – bad cop two party farce is played out.

Patrick,
Did you take the time to look at the link in my post? Is it not unusual for a President to have almost all his top advisors without any private business experience?
As a person with a MBA and having served as CEO of a company with sales of $35,000,000 per year, I can tell you from my personal experience that there is a very big difference between Practical experience and Theoretical experience.
President Obama has placed substantially less importance on real world practical experience than any of his peers.

3X,
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I did a few hours ago.
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It was a very conservative source, but, seemed factually accurate and only made the implication that this was a bad thing.
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(“…having served as CEO of a company with sales of $35,000,000 per year.”
When I see that, my first thought is “Wow, how many square feet do you need in Midtown…”.
I am a commercial real estate agent. Most businesses are smaller than that.)
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First, it does seem to ignore that a huge number of those posts are unfilled.
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Second, after the last downturn it seems as if many people with private sector experience had – intentionally or not – a private sector agenda rather than the public good on their minds.
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A few of GWB’s appointees (most notably in agriculture) went back and forth each time they returned to business with higher pay. This appeared to be legal bribery to most of us. Work for a company, become a regulator, do the former company some favors and come back to the company with higher pay.
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Third, there are times when a fresh pair of eye not involved can be an advantage. Reagan, both Bushes and Clinton all made use of former Goldman Sachs employees.
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It seems to many of us that, even when these people are not returning to their old corporations or even do succeed in compartmentalizing their separate duties that being in private business made regulators blind to both unregulated (and incomprehensible) derivatives and the looming credit crisis.
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Academic and socialist are not one in the same thing.
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At the civil service level, I would be surprised if more than 10% or less have private sector experience and, I, also, bet that few in the private sector have civil service experience but went up the ranks from within.
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There is a strong argument for a having academic/civil service people dominate considering recent experiences.
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For the most part for most employment, employers want people with experience in the job they have done, not in a somewhat related field.
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Do you think that cops should primarily selected from or gain extra points on their exam if they are from high crime areas? It would, by your argument, give them a good point of view into the crime they are going to stop. It could, also, backfire and get somebody too close to the local street gangs, drug dealers, etc, to be effective.
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I see the same competing arguments for regulators/appointees.
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Industry insiders seem to have failed us.
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Not being an industry insider does not mean that your are a Marxist or any type of socialist. It means that you know academics and/or government and have an outsider’s vantage point.

“The President managed to pass the one bill they hated (and feared) the most.”

Uh…….pardon me……but as difficult as it was for the President to get his bill passed, considering the clear Democratic majority, how can it be considered such a huge victory for him?

After all, not only did ALL Repubs vote against it, but 34 Dems did the same. Considering the overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress, why did it take so much cajoling, deal-making, and under-the-table arm twisting for the Pres to get his bill?

I’d say he has a problem.