Month: August 2006

Re-Runs

by digby

I am getting so tired of this nonsense. I read today from Avedon Carol that the wingnuts are attacking feminists again for not being sufficiently exercized by the plight of women under Islamic theocratic regimes:

Another re-run being linked by right-wingers is this crap about how western feminists are uninterested in condemning Islamic extremism. Of course, we do – all the time – but no one listens. We condemned Bush for leaving Afghan women high and dry after bombing Kabul, where the Taliban is now having a resurgence. We condemned the neocon plan to invade Iraq, thus unleashing extremist Islam in what had been a secular country. And we don’t like the way Bush’s policies have interrupted what had been a gradual weakening of extremism in Iran. Not one thing Bush-Cheney has done in the Middle-East has improved the lot of women, and in Iraq they have made things dramatically worse. The last thing the Islamic world’s women need is more of this kind of help.

And by the way, where were the wingnuts before 9/11 on this subject? I don’t remember them saying anything at all. But I do remember the Feminist Majority’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan:

October 21, 1998

Lenos Announce $100,000 Contribution to Raise Awareness of Gender Apartheid in Afganistan

Mavis and Jay Leno today presented a gift of $100,000 to the Feminist Majority Foundation to expand its Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan and to restore women’s rights to work, education, healthcare and freedom of movement. Mavis Leno will chair the national effort.

“Our contribution kicks-off an expanded organizing drive to mobilize public support and increase visibility for our Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid,” said Mavis Leno. “We are determined that every American know about what is happening to women and girls in Afghanistan. We must not remain silent. Jay and I are challenging others to lend their help and support.”

“Two years ago women in Afghanistan could work, be educated, and move about freely,” explained Leno. “Then the Taliban seized power. Today women are prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative and are forced to wear the burqa – a head-to-toe shroud. Girls and women are banned from schooling. . .even home schooling. Male doctors are forbidden to examine women. Women doctors are no longer allowed to practice. No healthcare. . .no education. . .no freedom of movement. This nightmare is reality for 11.5 million women and girls in Afghanistan.”

[…]

Smeal and Leno were joined at today’s the press conference by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) who has been leading efforts in Congress to stop gender apartheid, Zohra Rasekh, MPH of Physicians for Human Rights which has just completed an important study of the condition of women living under the Taliban, Jan Goodwin who has traveled extensively in Afghanistan and written on gender apartheid, and Sima Wali, an Afghan woman working in the U.S. to end gender apartheid.

Every couple of years some idiot rolls out this dipshit canard and everyone has to spend hours rebutting it. It’s ridiculous on its face, the same way it’s ridiculous that the rightwing claims that liberals, gays, women whomever are in league with the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. If there are any Americans who have a basic sympatico with these most conservative of social conservatives it’s the … American social conservatives.

.

Blind Cruelty

by digby

Glenn Beck is “driven out of his mind” by little signs in braille outside offices that tell blind people which office they’re entering. Apparently, this “political correctness” interferes with wingnut freedom to not have to look at little plaques they dislike … or something:

MILANO: Well, “Dare to Ask,” Glenn, like my book, I Can’t Believe You Asked That!, is — it’s a chance for people to ask those kinds of taboo cultural questions that we all wish we could ask but we’re so afraid of offending in this P.C. world that, you know, we — we dance around it, as you were saying earlier.

BECK: OK. I have one. I have one. I’m going to get to some of the questions that have already been asked, but I’ve got one that drives me out of my mind. I work at Radio City in midtown Manhattan, and up by the doors, you know, like where the — you know — the office kitchen is, in Braille, on the wall, it says “kitchen.” You’d have to — a blind person would have to be feeling all of the walls to find “kitchen.” Just to piss them off, I’m going to put in Braille on the coffee pot — I’m going to put, “Pot is hot.” Ow!

It’s downright cruel that society is so “politically correct” that they restrict the freedom of good and decent poeple like Beck from exercizing his god-given right to commit acts of physical violence against people with physical handicaps, too. Where will all this political correctness end, I ask you?

The good news is that CNN is making sure that men like Beck have a national forum from which to educate and entertain the people with commentary such as this.

.

Here We Go

by digby

When I wrote about the Duelling PageantsI never imagined that it would come to pass so literally. The cable nets are hammering Ray Nagin for his foot in mouth comment that it took New York five years to rebuild a hole in the ground so a reporter from NY ought to cut New Orleans some slack. Typical Nagin nonsense.

But it has provoked a case of the vapors among certain excitable folks that seems just a tad out of place considering the horrors that both cities underwent. Most officials of Louisiana and New York have respnded in measured tones like this:

The chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency created to oversee the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and downtown Manhattan, said that tremendous progress has been made in lower Manhattan, with the Freedom Tower, a transportation hub and a memorial to the nearly 3,000 attack victims under construction.

“We understand how difficult rebuilding a city after such destruction can be,” chairman Kevin Rampe said in a statement.

The guy who seems to be stoking the story is none other than Rep. Peter King (R-Asshole), who went on radio and TV and went nuts on Nagin today. This is, the same Peter King who commented during the Katrina crisis:

“The main problem in obstructing the relief operation – it’s almost like a Mogadishu-like gang situation that’s prevailing in New Orleans,” Rep. Peter King told WABC Radio’s John Gambling.

“It’s hard to get federal troops in to bring about order when the local police have broken down,” he added. “I just think the situation would have gone a lot better if there were a Rudy Giuliani down there – someone who could have set a firm tone from day one.”

King has always had a little problem with New Orleans and I think we can guess why. This was, you’ll recall, the prevailing view of many critics like King during the crisis last year. The “problem” was all the lawlessness. Mogadishu in America. The natives were running wild. This was later shown to be simply the fevered rumormongering you tend to find in crises where communication is down. But King and the rest of the hankie wringers naturally assumed the mob was taking over despite the fact that there were cameras all over the city and no one captured the crazed marauding beasts doing anything other than liesurely looting a local Wal Mart. Their bedwetting fearmongering did more to delay the response than any other single reason.

King isn’t alone today in his disdain for Ray Nagin and his constituents. Here are some nice comments from the CBS web site on its story about the Nagin comment:

Give me a break Nagin. More Kill Whitie, Poor Black People Garb! Hate to break it to you people, but the era of MLK is over. You have your equal rights. The only racism going on here today is that of Affirmitive action, and you cries over “racial profiling.” You have more liberties that the 30 year old white male today and Ray Nagin is another black trying to use the poor race card to get his 15 minutes of fame. Do the job you are hired to do Ray and rebuild the city which you have been given the funds already to build. But then again, maybe you are doing your job, maybe this kind of rhetoric is your base.

Nice.
Posted by ttennison at 03:38 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment

……………………………………………………………………….
I was in NO & Gulf Coast in Sept & Oct as a volunteer trying to help make a difference in some small way; a lot of us that came in from all over the country did more for NO than their mayor ever will, because we were doing it to serve others; the only thing Nagin serves is himself.
I was there and heard a press conference he gave to a large group of contractors. His words were “this is our time”; that and other things he said meant they were going to cash in for a lifetime. He accused a lot of “outside” contractors of being carpetbaggers; the biggest carpetbagger in Louisiana is sitting in the Mayors office.
And I saw parking lots full of school buses and city bises, sitting parked with water up to the windows; totally destryed and useless that could have been used to evacuate “his chololate city” before the worst hit.
Nagin is a first class jerk and I still can’t believe he scraped enough absentee voters to put him back in office

Posted by kancan71 at 03:32 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment
……………………………………………………………………….
Nagin is one the the biggest idiots of our time, not too mention a racist as well.
Posted by z3pr at 03:31 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment
……………………………………………………………………….
It’s time for the citizens of NO to face the truth and stop blaming the government for the life they chose to live and where they chose to live it. Grow up and accept responsibility for your own life. It should be pointed out to Nagin that New Yorkers were on their way work or at work when the unthinkable event occured. After the attack New Yorkers dug themselves out from underneath the distruction and strangers helped strangers. On the other hand the people of New Orleans were sitting at home on the front porch waiting for someone to tell them what to do. After Katrina every one sat on their butts and grew angry that no one is helping us. BooHoo!
You cant compare NO to NY and you sure as heck cant compare Rudy to Nagin.
Posted by Terrys1955 at 03:29 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment
……………………………………………………………………….
Being from Florida I’m very familiar with hurricanes. Hurricanes do not just happen spur of the moment. Comparison to ground zero is absurd. Maybe if there was less whining and these folks got their lazy behinds off their waterlogged couch things would be better. But that’s a lot to expect from the kind of people who would vote for Nagin. You got what you deserved. Maybe if we’re lucky a couple more canes will head your way and NO can become a great scuba diving spot. “See the ruins”.

Check ou the story yourself and you’ll see that these kind of comments are, by far, the majority.

Here’s a typical one from Free Republic:

I gave much more than I could really afford to give. It looks like it all went into someone’s pocket. There was a tremendous amount of money given to the red cross and other charities by people just like me. The residents of N O sucked up the “FREE” money like there was no tomorrow but they will not go to work and rebuild their own city. They are having to import Hispanics to get any work done and then they bitch about the change in population. I think the property should go to those who are willing to work to clean up the mess. If you won’t work to restore you own property then you should not get one dime from the government or private charities. One thing is for certain, they will not get another penny out of my pocket!

—————————————————————————–
The guy is a typcal “Jessie-Al” con artist…we can outsmart these white boys. New (old) New Orleans has garnered more money out of this tragedy than all the other affected states tgether…they still want to milk it for all it’s worth…All the Incometents.. Mayor, Governor, Senators, Congressman..all together now…”It’s Bush’s fault”…and the Democrats will play this up in the November elections…but it may backfire when they do…Us white boys know what is going on…. and will react accodrdingly,. Jake

If anyone is stil wondering why we have had trouble creating a decent safety net in this country, you need look not further. The benefits always seem to go to the “wrong people.”

Rove is hoping to tap into these primitive feelings to shore up his base and mitigate the perception of Republican incompetence in dealing with the most catastrophic American natural disaster in our lifetimes. So far, the news media seems more than willing to help him.

.

Never Trust The King With The Army by poputonian
As John Bonifaz described in his 2003 book Warrior King: The Case For Impeaching George W. Bush, the vote to authorize the Iraq war violated the War Powers clause of the U.S. Constitution:

“In drafting the War Powers Clause of Article 1, Section 8, the framers of the Constitution set out to create a nation that would be nothing like the model established by European monarchies. This is why they made the momentous decision of whether or not to send this nation into war a matter to be decided solely by the people, through their elected representatives in Congress.”

Before suggesting that it was Congress who made the choice for war, consider another example from Bonifaz. He says:

“Imagine this: The United States Congress passes a resolution which states: “The President is authorized to levy an income tax on the people of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to pay for subsidies to U.S. oil companies.” No amount of legal wrangling could make such a resolution constitutional. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants the power to levy taxes solely to Congress.”

But this is old stuff. Glenn Greenwald has the latest on who should make the call on war with Iran. Glenn’s post contains his normal extraordinary insight, coupled with Federalist gems that remove any ambiguity about who can make war.

Comment Of The Day

by digby

Dover Bitch responding to the JC Watts inanity on Plan B:

Yesterday, they said life begins with conception.

Today, they say life begins with intercourse.

Tomorrow, they will tell us life begins with dinner and a movie.

Dover Bitch blog

CNN Political Analyst

by digby

Just shoot me and put me out of my misery. I can’t take it any more:

BLITZER: Joining us now in our “Strategy Session,” radio talk show host Bill Press and CNN political analyst, former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts.

In this Plan B decision, the morning-after contraception pill, in effect, Hillary Clinton came out with a strong statement: “While we urge the FDA to revisit placing age restrictions on the sale of Plan B, it is real progress that millions of American women will now have increased access to emergency contraception.”

Women 18 and older can just go in and buy the pill. Seventeen- year-olds and under have to get a doctor’s note.

J.C. WATTS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well…

(LAUGHTER)

WATTS: … Wolf, I don’t know what is the difference in, you know, harming the child the night or the day after. I still don’t think that changes the debate. Those…

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You think this is abortion?

WATTS: I do. I think — I still don’t think it changes the debate one bit.

I think those who are opposed to abortion are going to be opposed to this. Those who support abortion, they will like this decision, as — as Senator Clinton said. It’s abortion the day after.

So, it doesn’t change the debate any. And I do. I agree that the FDA has made a huge mistake in this ruling.

BLITZER: The other side, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of — For America, says, “The FDA’s irresponsible action today takes those rights out of a parent’s hands and gives them to ill-intentioned perpetrators.”

Clearly, they’re very unhappy with this FDA decision.

BILL PRESS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, you know, that’s too bad, Wolf. I think this is a major breakthrough for American women.

And, J.C., it’s hypocritical to be against abortion and to be against Plan B. We heard Sanjay Gupta, who knows more about this than you and I do, at the top of the show, say, if a woman is already pregnant, this does nothing. This is not an abortion pill. It’s a contraceptive pill. It has been used safely by European women for years. It has been held up in this year only for — in this country only for political reasons.

And what this pill is going to result in is fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions, which I thought — is certainly my goal — I thought was your goal, too.

WATTS: Well, it’s ironic, Wolf, that we say it’s a contraceptive, but you take it the morning after.

PRESS: So what?

(LAUGHTER)

PRESS: You take one pill the day before. You can take one the morning after.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: It’s a medical breakthrough.

WATTS: The morning after.

PRESS: It’s a contraceptive.

WATTS: It’s…

PRESS: And it’s not funny.

WATTS: It…

PRESS: Three-and-a-half — no.

WATTS: Bill, the bottom line is…

PRESS: It’s…

WATTS: … your mind is not going to be changed by this decision. Nor — and nor is mine.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTS: I believe it’s abortion. I believe it takes the life of a — you don’t. So…

PRESS: No, but I…

WATTS: … that’s the issue.

PRESS: … would hope…

WATTS: That’s the issue.

PRESS: But I would hope people who have strong beliefs would listen to the experts and listen to the facts.

As Sanjay said, three — and he’s the medical expert here, not you, not me — three-and-a-half million unwanted pregnancies in this country. One-half of them could be eliminated because of this pill. I would think you would say…

BLITZER: All right.

PRESS: … it’s about time.

WATTS: But you want to listen…

BLITZER: All right.

WATTS: … to the experts on abortion, but you don’t want to listen to the experts on the war that says that evil people are trying to kill us.

BLITZER: All right.

WATTS: But you don’t want to do anything about that.

And then there are the Teen Sex Cults.

.

Slippery Flyboy

by digby

I understand that some alleged liberals are getting all tingly at the notion of John McCain as the next president. As Yglesias said, “And why shouldn’t he? A handful of additional wars and steep cuts in vital retirement security programs would be a small price to pay for minor alterations to the campaign finance system.” Not to mention that JJ, the manly fighter pilot, is just soooo dreamy.

The truth is that McCain is actually more hawkish and deceitful than Bush. The only difference in their rhetoric on national security is that McCain pretends he didn’t cheer every single move Bush made until it started to go wrong. Senator Straight Talk is very, very slick, I’ll give him that. Take this exchange on Press The Meat from 2005:

R. RUSSERT: Let me show you something that John McCain said describing a war situation: “And we have a horrific strain on the men and women in the military. We can’t keep our pilots. We’re lowering our recruiting standards. It’s a very serious situation. And to have another one of these extended, unending burdens placed on the men and women in the military has some consequences. All I’m saying is: Let’s develop a strategy overall and let’s also then develop an exit strategy for this particular situation.”

That was February 14, 1999, Kosovo. That’s exactly what the Democrats are saying about Iraq.

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: Aren’t they saying things that should be said and should be listened to?

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm. Well, I guess this is true confessions. I was wrong about Kosovo. I was right about Bosnia. We did the right thing in Kosovo by going in there and stopping ethnic cleansing. And we haven’t done what we should be doing in Darfur and some other parts of the world, by the way. But I–if there’s a strategy for withdrawal, it is success. It is the formula that the president described last week and the one I just described to you. I’m not for keeping troops there forever. I hope–I wish we could take them out tomorrow. It’s not a question of whether we want to withdraw or not. We all want that. The question is: Will conditions on the ground dictate whether we withdraw or not and when we withdraw, or will it be some arbitrary date? I say conditions on the ground.

He successfully deflects the logical charge that he’s an opportunistic partisan flip-flopper by just saying — “oh yeah, my bad” and then just blathers incoherently. Because Russert yearns to service him, he lets it pass. The fact is that McCain was screeching for more troops in Kosovo too, which may explain why nobody listens to him. No matter what, we never seem to be committing enough troops to fight the big land war that he thinks we should be fighting:

Tuesday, Apr 20, 1999

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today was joined by Senators Joe Biden (D-DE), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) in offering a Senate resolution on Kosovo. The text of McCain’s floor speech follows:

“As my colleagues know I am concerned that the force the United States and our NATO allies has employed against Serbia– gradually escalating air strikes – is insufficient to achieve our political objectives there – the removal of Serb military and security forces from Kosovo; the return of the refugees to their homes; and the establishment of a NATO led peacekeeping force. I hope this resolution, should it be adopted, will encourage the Administration and our allies to find the courage and resolve to prosecute this war in the manner most likely to result in its early and successful conclusion. In other words, I hope this resolution will make clear Congress’ support for adapting our means to secure our ends, rather than the reverse.

In exactly the same way, McCain began agitating for more troops in Iraq in August of 2003. And because the war actually was a dud this time, his arguments for more troops were taken up by just about everybody and have successfully framed the argument for many Iraq war supporters by implying that the war would have been a “day at the beach” if only they had sent in more troops when McCain wanted to.

But McCain knew that this was nonsense. The fact is that we have never had enough troops to do what he belatedly thought should be done and unless the administration was willing to institute the draft or pull troops from other vital missions (besides Afghanistan, where we’d already pulled them), we never did. The key to the mission that McCain and Bush sold was always to have large a multi-national force, which Codpiece and Unka Dick did everything but spit in the world’s face to avoid. McCain knows this very well but continued to argue publicly that we could just easily conjure up a larger military to “fix” Iraq and just slides on through like the oily political conman he really is.

It has certainly set him up nicely for a presidential run, though. He gives speeches more stirring than anything Michael Gerson ever dreamed of about liberty and freedom. He made the argument before Bush did that “some say” arabs can’t govern themselves, but he begs to differ! Remember, he’s Mr “National Greatness” which is all about the Glory That Is Imperial America. And somehow he manages to convince people that he would have magically won this stupid war and we’d all feel better about ourselves today if he’d been in charge — even though he backed Bush’s cock-up every step of the way and only came along later to carp about troop levels once it was already too late.

Here’s a good example of his weaselly ways, from this past July

KING: We have an e-mail for you, Senator McCain, from Heather in Epsom, New Hampshire and it says, “Larry, I would like to ask Senator McCain if there is any hope that, if he were president, he would take a new approach to securing peace in the Middle East?” What would you do differently?

MCCAIN: I’m not sure, Larry, and for me to articulate something different obviously might be a criticism and I’m not sure right now that I’d like to criticize this administration because I think they’re doing the very best they can.

I would have done things differently in Iraq, as you know, even though I continue to support our effort there. I think this is a very difficult situation.

Heather, as you know in the past, Henry Kissinger or Jim Baker or whoever was secretary of state could shuttle from one capital to another that basically controlled the fighting and that’s much more difficult when you’ve got terrorist organizations that are doing the fighting and so it’s much more complicated.

Slicker than owlshit, as my father always says.

John McCain is no better than George W. Bush on national security and foreign policy. This is best exemplified by their similar views of how to deal with the complicated issues in the mid-east. You’ll recall that Dubya was caught on tape recently saying, “What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit.” But that’s downright Churchillian compared to McCain’s view. From Steve Benen we have this report:

Jason Horowitz reports in the New York Observer that John McCain met with an exclusive audience of very wealthy Republicans in New York late last week, shortly after getting booed relentlessly at the New School’s commencement ceremony. The students weren’t terribly impressed, but apparently McCain “saved some of his best material” for the elite crowd that gathered behind closed doors in the back of the Regency Hotel.

In a small, mirror-paneled room guarded by a Secret Service agent and packed with some of the city’s wealthiest and most influential political donors, Mr. McCain got right to the point.

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,'” said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

Oh, so that’s what we need from the Oval Office. I’m sure the Iraqis will find this immediately persuasive and lay down arms thanks to the power of McCain’s personality and his desire to see the two sides get along. Somewhere, Bush is slapping his hand against his forehead, saying, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Or, as Brendan Nyhan put it, “So honest! So bold! What an innovative diplomatic concept! If only John McCain were president, we’d have peace in Iraq!”

Well, yes. That’s what the McCain would have you believe and there are plenty of people who want to believe it. As Benen pointed out:

It’s worth noting, however, all sarcasm aside, McCain’s audience ate this up. DioGuardi, the wife of former Republican congressman Joseph DioGuardi, said McCain was “fantastic” and has “a vision for what should happen to this country.

And if anybody thinks that McCain is more sane on some of the other foreign policy challenges, think again:

“The greatest single threat that we are facing right now to our national security is Iran,” he said. “If they get that weapon, and they have the capability to deliver it, put yourself in the position of the government of the state of Israel. This could be one of the most unsettling and difficult challenges that we have ever faced.”

Brilliant.

.

Club Mad

by digby

The governor of Alaska, Frank Murkowski, came in 3rd in the Republican primary on Tuesday, and although it has widely been interpreted as a revolt over local issues, there can be no doubt that it sent a chill down the spines of DC incumbents, particularly the Senate majority.

Frank Murkowski isn’t just some obscure Alaskan nobody — he was a US Senator for 22 years, a member of the most exclusive club in the world, from one of the most reliable red states. In small (population) states like Alaska, he should have been an iconic figure who stayed in office until he was forced out by term limits or death. For years he had the backing of the most important industries in the state as well as the religious right, the NRA and the Alaska GOP. And yet, he couldn’t get over 20% in the Republican primary this year. And the woman who won ran against the Republican establishment.

This is the fourth incumbent, two Republicans, one Replieberman and one Dem who have lost their primaries since August 8th. Lincoln Chafee is facing a very tough go from the big money Club For Growth challenge on his right. All of this is highly unusual.

I just heard Jeff Greenfield say that it’s coincidence. Perhaps so. But if this is a “throw the rascals out” election, which it appears to me to be, let’s just say there are a lot more Republican rascals than there are Democrats in national office these days. And even their own voters don’t like them.

.

Oh Daddy

by digby

Echidne has posted a piece about a professor who claims that liberals are being outbred by conservatives and are therefore, going to eventually go the way of the dodo bird. The professor writes:

Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They’re not having enough of them, they haven’t for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That’s a “fertility gap” of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%–explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today’s problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020–and all for no other reason than babies.

And here I thought liberals were the lovers and conservatives were the fighters.

But where’s the guarantee that Republican embryo becomes Republican voter? There are three kids in my wingnut family and only one is a chip off the old block, and he’s pretty apathetic. The rightwing politics in my family were what turned my brother and me into raving liberals. I think that happens fairly often — the old preacher’s kid syndrome. It’s certainly possible that a lot of conservatives come from liberal families as well — I just haven’t come across a lot of them. I do know quite few people who have been influenced by their spouses to change political directions, though.

I guess my point is that I’m not really sure that being born into politics is the predictor this professor seems to believe it is. According to Echidne there’s a pretty good possibility that this professor is pulling his data out of his ass, so perhaps that’s not surprising.

How many of you liberals out there came from conservative families?

.

Remedial Democracy

by digby

Scott Winship has an interesting article in The Democratic Strategist today in which he dissects one of those polls that measures how stupid Americans are about politics. And boy are they stupid about politics — only one in ten knows who Denny Hastert is. But the good news is that they aren’t measurably more stupid than they were in the 40’s and 50’s when there was a lot more illiteracy and many people didn’t graduate from High School. I suppose that’s good news.

Here’s the part I find interesting:

Bennett shows that consistency in positions taken across issue areas increases as political knowledge increases. Those who have little knowledge tend to have unconventional combinations of issue positions. If it is also the case that those with little political knowledge are less consistent in their positions on individual issues over time than other people are, then the result might be a sizeable constituency for demagoguery and misdirection. Bennett’s results imply that that bloc would be as large as one-third of the population. It seems important to separate these people out, to the extent possible, when analyzing characteristics of the electorate by, say, party or ideology. And it would be nice to know more about the positions they take on issues and the candidates they support.

I happen to know an excellent place to start. Chris Hayes wrote an article about exactly this odd phenomenon after the 2004 election and I posted about it here.
Hayes wrote:

Undecided voters aren’t as rational as you think. Members of the political class may disparage undecided voters, but we at least tend to impute to them a basic rationality. We’re giving them too much credit. I met voters who told me they were voting for Bush, but who named their most important issue as the environment. One man told me he voted for Bush in 2000 because he thought that with Cheney, an oilman, on the ticket, the administration would finally be able to make us independent from foreign oil. A colleague spoke to a voter who had been a big Howard Dean fan, but had switched to supporting Bush after Dean lost the nomination. After half an hour in the man’s house, she still couldn’t make sense of his decision.

[…]

A disturbing number of undecided voters are crypto-racist isolationists. In the age of the war on terror and the war in Iraq, pundits agreed that this would be the most foreign policy-oriented election in a generation–and polling throughout the summer seemed to bear that out…But just because voters were unusually concerned about foreign policy didn’t mean they had fundamentally shifted their outlook on world affairs. In fact, among undecided voters, I encountered a consistent and surprising isolationism–an isolationism that September 11 was supposed to have made obsolete everywhere but the left and right fringes of the political spectrum.

[…]

To be sure, maybe they simply thought Kerry’s promise to bring in allies was a lame idea–after all, many well-informed observers did. But I became convinced that there was something else at play here, because undecided voters extended the same logic to other seemingly intractable problems, like the deficit or health care. On these issues, too, undecideds recognized the severity of the situation–but precisely because they understood the severity, they were inclined to be skeptical of Kerry’s ability to fix things. Undecided voters, as everyone knows, have a deep skepticism about the ability of politicians to keep their promises and solve problems. So the staggering incompetence and irresponsibility of the Bush administration and the demonstrably poor state of world affairs seemed to serve not as indictments of Bush in particular, but rather of politicians in general.

[…]

undecideds seemed oddly unwilling to hold the president accountable for his previous actions, focusing instead on the practical issue of who would have a better chance of success in the future. Because undecideds seemed uninterested in assessing responsibility for the past, Bush suffered no penalty for having made things so bad; and because undecideds were focused on, but cynical about, the future, the worse things appeared, the less inclined they were to believe that problems could be fixed–thereby nullifying the backbone of Kerry’s case. Needless to say, I found this logic maddening.

Undecided voters don’t think in terms of issues. Perhaps the greatest myth about undecided voters is that they are undecided because of the “issues.” That is, while they might favor Kerry on the economy, they favor Bush on terrorism; or while they are anti-gay marriage, they also support social welfare programs. Occasionally I did encounter undecided voters who were genuinely cross-pressured–a couple who was fiercely pro-life, antiwar, and pro-environment for example–but such cases were exceedingly rare. More often than not, when I asked undecided voters what issues they would pay attention to as they made up their minds I was met with a blank stare, as if I’d just asked them to name their favorite prime number.

[…]

But the very concept of the issue seemed to be almost completely alien to most of the undecided voters I spoke to… So I tried other ways of asking the same question: “Anything of particular concern to you? Are you anxious or worried about anything? Are you excited about what’s been happening in the country in the last four years?”

These questions, too, more often than not yielded bewilderment. As far as I could tell, the problem wasn’t the word “issue”; it was a fundamental lack of understanding of what constituted the broad category of the “political.” The undecideds I spoke to didn’t seem to have any intuitive grasp of what kinds of grievances qualify as political grievances. Often, once I would engage undecided voters, they would list concerns, such as the rising cost of health care; but when I would tell them that Kerry had a plan to lower health-care premiums, they would respond in disbelief–not in disbelief that he had a plan, but that the cost of health care was a political issue. It was as if you were telling them that Kerry was promising to extend summer into December.

[…]

In this context, Bush’s victory, particularly on the strength of those voters who listed “values” as their number one issue, makes perfect sense. Kerry ran a campaign that was about politics: He parsed the world into political categories and offered political solutions. Bush did this too, but it wasn’t the main thrust of his campaign. Instead, the president ran on broad themes, like “character” and “morals.” Everyone feels an immediate and intuitive expertise on morals and values–we all know what’s right and wrong. But how can undecided voters evaluate a candidate on issues if they don’t even grasp what issues are?

Liberals like to point out that majorities of Americans agree with the Democratic Party on the issues, so Republicans are forced to run on character and values in order to win. (This cuts both ways: I met a large number of Bush/Feingold voters whose politics were more in line with the Republican president, but who admired the backbone and gutsiness of their Democratic senator.) But polls that ask people about issues presuppose a basic familiarity with the concept of issues–a familiarity that may not exist.

As far as I can tell, this leaves Democrats with two options: either abandon “issues” as the lynchpin of political campaigns and adopt the language of values, morals, and character as many have suggested; or begin the long-term and arduous task of rebuilding a popular, accessible political vocabulary–of convincing undecided voters to believe once again in the importance of issues. The former strategy could help the Democrats stop the bleeding in time for 2008. But the latter strategy might be necessary for the Democrats to become a majority party again.

I think Democrats need to do a bit of both. Certainly, the Republicans, for whatever reason, seem to better understand heuristics and are willing to demagogue wherever necessary. These last few years have taught us nothing if they haven’t taught us how far you can go even when you make no sense whatsoever.

But the fact remains that this is not good for the country. We simply cannot adequately govern ourselves if a large number of us are dumb as posts and vote for reasons that make no sense.

The polling data suggests that the best solution is this:

The surest way to enhance political information levels is to convince people to become more interested in politics. In 2004, the mean score on the PI scale for the least interested segment of the public was 1.7. Among the most interested, the mean score was 6.2.

Increasing political interest won’t be easy, however. One suggestion has been for schools to conduct more classes in civics or American history, but the link between the number of such classes taken K-12 and informed citizenship is extremely weak. Get-out-the-vote campaigns in the mass media have also been popular, but the people who most need such encouragement don’t read newspapers or watch the news on TV. “Kids Voting” programs may benefit some, but they tend to be too few in number around the country, and their effects are generally minor.

Tne possible solution is deliberative polls, as suggested by University of Texas professor James Fishkin. The 2004 ANES found, for example, that persons who reported discussing politics with family and friends were significantly better informed than those who eschewed political talk. It is likely that political information and political discussions are mutually reinforcing.

And that, my friends, is our mission, should we decide to accept it. As the trainspotting, vanguard political junkies, our job is to take this conversation offline and spread the good word to our families and friends and co-workers. We can hang out in the blogosphere and hash out the arguments and organize ourselves around issues and candidates and raise money and volunteer. But if we do nothing else, we need to talk about this stuff out in the real world and build this dialog into the body politic.

I don’t know how many people you can inspire or how many in whom you can even tweak an interest. But it doesn’t take very many. Once a poltically informed person is created they tend to create more. I’ve been quite hopeful that this will be a positive benefit of the blogosphere for sometime. And when you read that data you can see just how necessary it is.

.