Month: March 2007

Michelle Makes Her Move

by digby

…to displace Coulter as Queen Bee. (You can find the link if you want it.)

I remains to be seen if the rest of the Noise Machine is ready to anoint her:

MM: Ann Coulter was here yesterday. She gave a very, mostly funny, speech, and at the end of it, dropped a stinker where she used the term “faggot.” And I’m glad, I have to honestly say, I’m glad I didn’t bring my children here because that’s not the kind of language I would use. What was your reaction to that? Because, predictably, the left is in high dudgeon about it. Howard Dean wants every presidential candidate in the Republican Party to renounce it. Do you think that was a really bad move on her part and should be condemned?

Sean Hannity: I didn’t hear it. I’d rather see it before I comment on it and whatever. You know, no other person is responsible for what a person says except that person. And so, if they have a problem with what Ann Coulter says, blame Ann Coulter. You can’t blame somebody else for what she said. So I didn’t see it.

MM: Except that we’re all role models here. And there are so many young people they inspire–

Sean Hannity: –I don’t use that term, so that’s my answer to you if she used it.

She linked to her post from last year when she condemned Coulter for her use of the word raghead. She didn’t mention Coulters other comments, not even the one in which she claimed that her biggest moral dilemma was when she had a clear shot at Bill Clinton. Apparently Michelle sees incivility as solely being the use of dirty words and racial epithets. Death treats, eliminationism and dehumanization, not so much.

I wonder if the Washington Post will term this a “catfight.”

Meanwhile, Malkin shares her photos of the wounded Iraq war veterans attending CPAC, including the often spat upon and discriminated against Joshua Sparling, who won an award as a Defender of the Constitution.

Malkin says:

After the dinner, journalist/happy warrior Joel Mowbray quipped to me:

“At left-wing conferences, you leave hating America. At right-wing conferences, you leave loving America.”

That’s exactly how I felt at the end of the dinner after shaking the hands of the disabled vets who came by crutch and wheelchair from Walter Reed to spend a few hours at CPAC.

I am, quite honestly, speechless.

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Kohlmann’s Opinions On Iraq And Yours. Plus An Announcement

by tristero

I want to thank all you folks for such an intelligent batch of comments to my post on Evan Kohlmann’s opinion that the US should not withdraw from Iraq. Some people agreed with me, but many argued, as Terry Steichen did:

I agree with every single point you made, except for two things. One is your assumption that things will get far worse when we leave. I suggest that there is every reason to believe that our presence as occupiers is inflaming the situation, and that our absence may have a calming effect.

To respond, I most certainly agree that the US presence is inflaming the situation in many different ways. However, we cannot predict what the situation will be in 2009, which is the earliest that a serious discussion about what to do in Iraq can take place.* There are so many variables it is impossible to predict what the situation will be like then. But I think that among the options that will almost certainly have to be considered is what the world response (including the US response) to a potential (or ongoing) genocide in Iraq should be. One commenter correctly reminded us that the 650,000 Iraqi civilian deaths that one respected organization reported really is genocide, or close to it, already. Others discussed, in addition to the calming effects of our leaving, the fact that Iraq’s neighbors won’t permit genocide.

Perhaps. But perhaps not. My only point is that withdrawal now isn’t going to happen. As a political tactic, perhaps it makes sense to organize around it, but I think calling for impeachment makes even more** even if it has as little chance of happening as withdrawal. With Bush in the high 20’s for approval, a sober movement to impeach Bush AND Cheney has an opportunity to make clear to the world that the US is repudiating Bushism.

Which brings us to Terry’s other point:

The other is your concern about that the onsequences following our departure will result in a lot of blame being heaped on us (which, presumably, we’re not getting now, and are avoiding now). My view is worrying about being blamed is about the dumbest reason possible for staying (even if it made logical sense).

In fact, I have no such concerns because Bush has created a situation in which the US will be blamed for all atrocities committed whether the US withdraws or stays. It doesn’t matter whether it’s America’s fault, there will be nothing we can do to prevent most of the world from blaming the US.

On the larger issue, whether world opinion of the US matters, of course it matters and it matters quite a bit. It matters In ways large and small. Plummeting world opinion of America will affect – has already affected – the ability of Americans to travel freely abroad, for pleasure and education as well as business; it affects the kinds of negotiations that take place on numerous issues, from trade to disamrmament to cultural exchanges. All of this has the potential directly to impact life for all US citizens, even those who have never ventured further afield than 75 miles from Springfield, MO.

Naturally, one doesn’t take world opinion exclusively into account, but it is plain foolish to ignore it. Need proof? The Bush administration has provided plenty of it. Sure, it makes good pr copy – uncompromising stance for principles and all that. But let’s get real here. World opinion matters.

Terry makes one final comment:

There is actually one more thing I’d add, and that is, beyond ‘internationalizing’ the Iraq situation, we need, even more pressingly, to ‘regionalize’ it.

Agreed. The question is how. And that is not a trivial question.

One final point. Several commenters suggested that it is racist to express the opinion that the US military is needed to keep Sunni and Shia from killing each other in Iraq. I’ve mulled the reasoning behind this opinion quite a bit but, quite frankly, I don’t see the racism. Or rather, I don’t see an intervention to prevent or halt genocide by the US as inevitably or predominantly racist. I believe each situation must be evaluated individually. To argue that the US must always stand aside, or must always intervene, seems like precisely the kind of foolish consistency Emerson warns against.

I realize that my position is sloppy, but that’s how the world works. There can be no “End to Evil” or other perfections. To a great extent, an intelligent theory of international relations has to have lots of room to take it as it comes and respond – not from idealism or realism – but with highly knowledgeable prudence. Such a theory must also have room for the interpersonal dynamics of the negotiators.

I realize many of you disagree and will take my refusal to condemn a possible US intervention to confront genocide as proof positive I’m a sell-out kind of a liberal, or that I’m really an American imperialist hiding behind a wimpy version of neo-con idealism. If you do, I think that would be a serious misconstruction of my position, perhaps more the fault of my inability to articulate both clearly and concisely what I mean than your failure to understand. I suggest, that if you really do feel I am advocating an Imperial America which has the right to impose its vastly clearly superior cooties on the rest of the world, you check out some of my posts on American Exceptionalism from my blog.

And now for something completely different.

I’m about to go off to an artist’s colony to start a major work. Basically, I will be in the middle of nowhere, at an undisclosed location, for two weeks with 7 other artists, a cabin with a piano (and electricity for my computer) and nothing (and no one) else. I’ve never done anything like it before and I’m excited about the chance to have such few distractions.

I’ll tell you more about it at a later date, but right now, I wanted to let you know my blogging will be extremely limited for the forseeable future. But, as you’ll see, that in no way means I’m abandoning the barricades. Just the opposite, in fact.

I’ve had a blast writing so often here, getting to know all of you. It’s striking to see how much liberal discourse has grown and diversified since 2003, not only in the diversity of political viewpoints but in terms of intellectual sophistication and toughness. I’m not terribly blogocentric, but even so, I’m convinced that if there are tendrils of improvement in the mass media discussions of politics, we, bloggers and commenters, contributed a great deal to that and have a continuing opportunity to contribute more. And man oh man is it needed!

But enough. I’ll be back in 2 weeks and tell all, or at least more.

* Until Bush leaves the White House, all one can hope to do is try to correct or minimize as many consequences of Bush’s incompetence as we can. We have a rogue president; it’s my opinion that Democratic congresscritters are trying to walk a fine line between doing what they can without precipitating a convulsive, overt constitutional crisis. In short, the Dems are hoping to wait Bush out by not taking up Bush’s childish dare to play chicken with the American system of governance. (Whether or not this is a good idea is a totally separate question.)

**Longtime readers will realize that I’ve changed my mind about this. Given the ongoing deterioration of the Bush administration’s standing, and their continued desire to break the law and create a modern America King to replace the presidency, the advantages of pressing seriously for impeachment far outweigh the dangers that concerned me earlier.

We’ve Lost Our Mindset

by poputonian

Back in September I wrote a post about the Revolutionary mindset and the conclusions it drew about institutions, power, and tyranny. If you are interested in this subject, please read the post along with the excellent contributions made in the follow-up thread. Both the post and the comments (see hv’s historical overview) serve as background and prelude to this one.

In connecting the prior post to this one, there are a few points to highlight. One is the Samuel Adams quote posted yesterday in which he lays down his opposition to the concept of a standing army. Hullabaloo regular pseudonymous in nc picked up on the point:

It’s actually important to take Samuel Adams’ words literally, too.
…
In fact, the cricket-chirps on Walter Reed from the right suggests it’s already happened: they’re supporting the concept of the standing army more than they support the people who are part of it. ‘Troops’ as abstract.

Another revolutionary era statement on the resistance to standing armies is timeless and gives a perfect description of the Cheney-Bush regime. This was written in a Philadelphia newspaper circa 1774 by the pseudonymous Caractacus:

History is dyed in blood when it speaks of the ravages which standing armies have committed upon the liberties of mankind: officers and soldiers of the best principles and character have been converted into instruments of tyranny by the arts of wicked politicians.

War as an abstraction is exactly what the Founders wanted so deeply to avoid. It’s why they put the military under civilian control. Another regular here, benmerc, mentions this James Madison quote:

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies. From these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Pseudonymous in nc goes on to another important and connecting point:

The Mutiny Act was introduced in 1689 as part of the Williamite settlement, on a one-year sunset, to ensure that parliaments would remain in session. That set the precedent for the Constitution’s enumeration of legislative authority over military regulations, and for the one-year military budget.

The suspicion of standing armies in the hands of the executive, funded without annual legislative approval, is bound into the structure of American governance.

But reader Charles sends in this link to Raw Story (original source Reuters), in which Joe Lieberman seeks to accomplish the exact opposite of everything the revolutionaries fought for. Lieberman demonstrates how the power now extracted by modern politicians allows the complete defiance of popular will:

Lieberman said on Tuesday that Congress should consider a tax to fund the U.S.-declared war on terrorism and reduce the need to cut domestic programs to pay for security spending.

A former Democrat who supports the Iraq war and backs President George W. Bush’s plan to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, Lieberman said the proposed increase in the Pentagon’s budget for next fiscal year will squeeze funding for critical domestic programs.

“I think we have to start thinking about a war on terrorism tax,” the independent Connecticut lawmaker said. “I mean people keep saying we’re not asking a sacrifice of anybody but our military in this war and some civilians who are working on it.”

Clearly there was a mindset among the revolutionaries that led them to safeguard against America becoming a warring empire. But today, politicians contemplate a standing tax, to fund a standing army, for a standing war.

It’s abundantly clear that we have lost our revolutionary mindset.

Saturday Night At The Movies

The Spy Who Came In From the Beltway

By Dennis Hartley

Early in 2001, the FBI capped off its investigation of the most serious national security breach in U.S. history by arresting Robert Hanssen, who had used his access as the Bureau’s top Soviet counter-intelligence expert to sell classified information to the KGB.

That case is dramatized in Breach, a superb new film starring Chris Cooper (in an Oscar-caliber performance) as Hanssen and directed by Billy Ray, who previously helmed Shattered Glass (another true tale dealing with deception and betrayal.)

The film opens just a few months prior to the arrest. A young, ambitious field agent, Eric O’Neill (Ryan Philippe) is “tasked” to work in Hanssen’s office as his assistant, while surreptitiously reporting on his boss’s “activities” (O’Neill has been told that Hanssen is under suspicion of engaging in “sexual perversion” while on the taxpayer’s dime).

The officious, guarded and inherently suspicious Hanssen is a tough nut to crack; when O’Neill introduces himself on his first day of work, Hanssen barks “Your name is Clerk, and my name is Sir” before slamming his office door shut. However, as O’Neill ingratiates himself into his boss’s life, he is surprised to find him admirable in many ways; he appears to be a true patriot, a good Catholic, and a dedicated “family man”. O’Neill can’t seem to dig up any dirt on the increasingly puzzling “perversion” charges.

When he confronts his “real” boss (Laura Linney) with his doubts, she lets the cat out of the bag and admits that he has been the victim of a ruse to ensure he could gain Hanssen’s trust. Hanssen, she tells him, is actually under investigation for something more ominous; he is suspected of selling information to the Soviets, possibly over a period of 20-odd years. The degree of damage from this breach is so devastating, that “We (the intelligence community) might as well have all stayed home (all those years).”

Some may find the film bereft of nail-biting suspense; but real-life espionage isn’t always as intriguing as a Le Carre novel or exciting like a Bond film. When the credits roll, Hanssen remains a cipher; although we are shown enough to quash any agent 007 comparisons (unbeknownst to his wife, he videotaped their lovemaking and got his jollies mailing copies to cronies-the very antithesis of suave and sophisticated, I’d wager). If Hanssen recalls any fictional invention, it would be a protagonist from a Graham Greene novel (typically a bitter, world-weary public servant, mulled in Catholic guilt).

The film abounds with excellent performances; it’s certainly the best work Philippe has done to date. Dennis Haysbert and Gary Cole lend good support, and Bruce Davison (as O’Neill’s father) makes the most of a brief, poignant scene with Philippe. Recommended!

Traitor Joes:The Falcon and the Snowman, Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within, Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter’s Story, Cambridge Spies, Yuri Nosenko: Double Agent, Benedict Arnold – A Question of Honor.

Normalizing Crazy

by digby

Glenn Greenwald does a nice job today dealing with yet another example of journalistic double standards, dealing with the predictable excretory spew of Ann Coulter at this year’s CPAC vs Howie Kurtz’s recent spell on the fainting couch over few anonymous comments that were removed from the Huffington Post. But he highights this comment from Andrew Sullivan which just floored me

When you see her in such a context, you realize that she truly represents the heart and soul of contemporary conservative activism, especially among the young. The standing ovation for Romney was nothing like the eruption of enthusiasm that greeted her. . . .

Her endorsement of Romney today – “probably the best candidate” – is a big deal, it seems to me. McCain is a non-starter. He is as loathed as Clinton in these parts. Giuliani is, in her words, “very, very liberal.” One of his sins? He opposed the impeachment of Bill Clinton. That’s the new standard. She is the new Republicanism. The sooner people recognize this, the better.

I am very glad that Sullivan finally recognizes this. But Ann Coulter and her vicious tongue has been a huge star on the right since her first vomitous anti-Clinton screed. That was ten years ago. She’s been receiving riotous ovations at conservative meetings for years. Rush Limbaugh has been blowing his bile for even longer and he too is a highly respected member of the GOP establishment. The annual CPAC gathering has been selling items like “Happiness is Hillary’s face on a milk carton” and “Muslim = Terrorist” bumper stickers like they were going out of style since they started.

This hideous face of the Republican Party has been obvious to those of us who have been paying attention for a long, long time. It is the single most important reason why our politics have devolved into a filthy grudge match.

For a long time liberals were paralyzed or indifferent as the GOP demonized liberalism as the root of every problem and pathology in American society. We were derided as unamerican, treasonous and evil. After the congressional harrassment of the 90’s, the partisan impeachment, the puerile coverage of campaign 2000 and the resulting installation of a Republican president under very dubious circumstances, Democrats of all stripes heard both the Republicans and the media smirking at our outrage and telling us to “get over it.”

And all of this was after Bill Clinton had moved the party to the center, had governed as a bipartisan compromiser and the Republicans impeached him anyway. Clearly, the Democratic party was blind if they didn’t take the Republicans at their threatening words.

When Limbaugh said, “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus – living fossils – so we will never forget what these people stood for,” we didn’t doubt him anymore.

When Ann Coulter said “we need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too, otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors,” to rapturous applause at the 2002 CPAC, we knew she wasn’t just kidding.

And, yes, when Andrew Sullivan said that we liberals in blue enclaves formed a fifth column, you’ll have to forgive us for assuming he was among the people who wished to see us jailed or dead.

It continues today. Dinesh D’Souza just published a book saying that liberals are the cause of terrorism. Ramesh Ponneru calls us “The Party of Death.” And when Michele Malkin then creates a career out of calling the left “unhinged” the Washington Post treats her like she’s discovered the Holy Grail.

This is why it is so shocking to us when we see people like Howard Kurtz and various others call for the smelling salts when some members of the left have reacted in kind by saying hateful, violent things about Dick Cheney’s assassination attempt. (These anonymous commenters, by the way, are not best selling authors making a personal televised appearance at a gathering that includes most of the Republican presidential candidates, members of congress and even the Vice President himself.)I certainly agree that such appalling comments are not to be accepted. Indeed, I recall how my stomach turned when when I read what Coulter had to say at CPAC last year:

On Democrats: “Someday they will find a way to abort all future Boy Scouts.” College professors: “sissified, pussified.” Harvard: “the Soviet Union.” John Kerry: the other “dominant woman in Democratic politics.” Her post-9/11 motto: “Rag head talks tough, rag head faces consequences.” For good measure, she threw in a joke about having Muslims burn down the Supreme Court — with the liberal justices inside.

Then came questions. A young woman asked Coulter to describe the most difficult ethical decision she ever made. “There was one time I had a shot at Bill Clinton,” Coulter said.

Howard Kurtz didn’t say anything about that. I don’t recall Michelle Malkin having the vapors. Nobody apologized. Perhaps if they had, some random anonymous commenters on the left wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that such ugly statements are acceptable. After all, that kind of disgusting rhetoric has been thoroughly acceptable in the highest reaches of the political establishment for years now and nobody but us unhinged liberals have said a word about it.

And you know what’s truly sad about the press’s indifference to these violent creeps? It isn’t just us they think should be killed:

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A Body Distinct

by poputonian

In a letter written in the months before America declared its independence, Samuel Adams described the way in which soldiers lose their sense of citizenship:

A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a body distinct from the rest of the citizens. They have their arms always in their hands. Their rules and their discipline is severe. They soon become attached to their officers and disposed to yield implicit obedience to their commands. Such a power should be watched with a jealous eye.
…
Men who have been long subject to military laws, and inured to military customs and habits, may lose the spirit and feeling of citizens. And even citizens, having been used to admiring the heroism which the Commanders of their own Army have displayed, and to look upon them as their saviors, may be prevailed upon to surrender to them those rights for the protection of which against invaders they had employed and paid them. We have seen too much of this disposition among some of our countrymen.

Impeachment scares modern politicians who have institutionalized into two competing tribes, each of them set apart as a body distinct from the rest of the citizens. Having been inured to political customs and habits, they long ago lost the spirit and feeling of citizens. They implore that impeachment should not be pursued, and explain why with political rationalizations that only protect the tribe.This political cartoon summarizes it brilliantly, including the Donkey and the Elephant placed outside the frame where the citizens are standing.Well done by Dave the Rave and Kagro X.

Damn Liberals

by digby

I once said, “‘conservative’ is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives’ good graces. Until they aren’t. At which point they are liberals.”

I have to say I never expected it to be demonstrated quite so blantantly as it was by Richard Viguerie at this year’s CPAC:

To have a successful future, it helps to understand the past.

First, let’s understand that conservatives and conservatism did not lose last November.

The election loss was a direct result of the Republican Party and its leadership in the White House and Congress moving left.

The Republicans became that which they beheld.

[…]

Goldwater became our hero when he and he alone in Washington stood up and criticized the Republicans for their big government policies.

On the floor of the Senate in 1960, he said President Eisenhower was running a dime store New Deal.

He spoke truth to power. Where is the Republican Presidential candidate that has stood up publicly to the big government Republican leaders in the last 6 years?

And if they haven’t stood up for conservative principles in the last 6 years, they won’t start if they become President.

And Reagan regularly criticized Presidents Nixon and Ford.

And the second test is, tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are.

Reagan walked with conservatives- long before he ran for President in 1976; he was at our meetings, our receptions, and our rallies.

And surrounding Reagan were conservative stars Lyn Nofziger, Marty Anderson, Dick Allen, Ed Meese, Judge Clark, Joe Coors, and many others.

If conservatives have not been around a Republican Presidential candidate before he began asking for our votes, I guarantee you conservatives will not be around him if he moves into the White House.

And I promise you; you will not have conservative policies or conservative programs without conservative personnel.

I don’t know about you, but I’m angry and I feel betrayed, but fortunately there are things we conservatives can do to become a governing majority in America.

However, it’s not likely to happen quickly, certainly not by 2008.

One of the strengths of the conservative movement is we’ve always approached politics as a marathon, not a sprint.

It may take 6-10 years for conservatives to be able to govern America.

And it’s going to require that conservatives give a whole lot of money to Richard Viguerie.

Oh, and here’s another item that’s not selling too briskly at this year’s CPAC for some reason:

*I received the speech from Viguerie’s email list. When it becomes available online, I’ll link it.

The Republican Party’s Biggest Problem

by digby

Here’s another dispatch from Bill Sher who’s blogging from CPAC. It may surprise you but it’s actually quite true:

Today through Saturday, when Republicans and conservatives gather in Washington for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, will they face up to the biggest obstacle preventing them from connecting with voters? Their “secular problem.”

Lots of ink has been spilled about how Democrats and liberals suffer from a “religion problem” — a perceived hostility towards Christianity and religion in general. But Pew Research Center exit poll data from the 2006 midterm elections shows the opposite.

Democrats crushed Republicans among secular voters, broadly defined as those who attend church seldom (favoring Democrats 60% to 38%) or never (67% to 30%). Republicans retained strong support among those who attend church more than weekly. But among those who only go weekly — the larger portion of the religious vote — the Republican lead shrunk from 15 points to 7.

In short, Republicans failed to be competitive among secular voters, while Democrats were at least competitive among regular churchgoers. And since the secular vote is roughly equal to the regular churchgoing vote, according to the last several national election exit polls, that means Republicans and their conservative base have a far bigger secular problem than their rivals have a religion problem.

How might the conservative activists conferring in Washington this week address their secular problem?

I can’t speak for all secular voters, only myself. But I would suggest it’s not an issue of language. Stripping all references of God and faith from conservative political rhetoric would only be dismissed as superficial and pandering. Sincerely conveying how faith shapes one’s views, in and of itself, does not turn off most secular voters.

One symbolic act that might be useful would be to have some conservative politicians come out of the closet and announce they are atheists or agnostics. If it was clear that conservatism fully embraced religious diversity, including those who do not worship God, that would allay concerns that conservatism is about installing a soft theocracy.

Now this is so jarringly outside conventional wisdom as to be laughable. But the numbers are correct. And people who follow religious trends in this country are worried about the fact that the fastest growing religious group in this country is the unchurched:

Since 1991, the adult population in the United States has grown by 15%. During that same period the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled, rising from 39 million to 75 million – a 92% increase!

These startling statistics come from the most recent tracking study of religious behavior conducted by The Barna Group, a company that follows trends related to faith, culture and leadership in America. The latest study shows that the percentage of adults that is unchurched – defined as not having attended a Christian church service, other than for a holiday service, such as Christmas or Easter, or for special events such as a wedding or funeral, at any time in the past six months – has risen from 21% in 1991 to 34% today.

This is not to say that the unchurched have no religion or aren’t involved in religious activities, once again proving that seculars aren’t hostile to religion:

Neither is there a way, yet, to measure the impact of this increasingly restless spirit on society — in debates on cloning, prayer in schools, abortion or the death penalty, in votes for president of the nation or the local school board, in the community roles played by churches, synagogues, mosques and temples.

Look at two traditional venues of religious expression: charity and values education.

Giving USA, which tracks philanthropy, says about half of all charitable dollars go to religious purposes. Sylvia Ronsvalle of empty tomb inc., in Champaign, Ill., which studies church giving, worries that if “religion doesn’t teach the basic lessons of personal giving, where will people learn it?”

However, Carl Dudley of the Hartford (Conn.) Seminary’s Institute for Religion Research, which issued a study last year examining the nation’s 350,000 congregations, says unchurched America, for all its glorification of individuality and spiritual exploration, still puts mighty volunteer time and financial muscle into programs to help communities. Programs such as literacy training, scouting or AIDS walks “attract a lot of people who act out their faith even if they don’t confess it.”

“A huge number of people see volunteering for a soup kitchen or tutoring children as a religious activity,” Dudley says. “This is the kind of altruism nurtured by the church but not exclusive to it.”

The Republicans may want to rethink their commitment to the social conservative religious right for other reasons as well. It is limiting their ability to reach out to voters beyond their base in the south and midwest:

Attendance levels are still higher in the “Bible belt” areas – the South and Midwest – than in the Northeast and West. 54% of those in the Midwest and 51% of those in the South and attend church in a typical week, compared to 41% of those in the Northeast and 39% of those in the West. (2006)

Pastordan at Street Prophets had a great post this week discussing this very thing.

I know the Republicans won’t address this looming problem in their convention this week, mired as they are in the culture war battles that define their identity. But this is a real problem for them, like it or not, and they are going to hit a wall very soon. A large and growing group of secular religious and non-religious alike are not liking what they are seeing in the Republican Party.

I expect to see a bunch of articles on the Republican Party’s Secular Problem, very soon. Right after I return from my trip to the fifth dimension.

If you’d like to see the depth of problem the Republicans are facing, this handy map to which I’ve linked before can show you the religious make up of every state in the union.

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Phantom Centrism

by digby

We hear a lot these days about politicians who polarize the electorate or how the people in the country just want everyone to get along. The conventional wisdom is the the nation is desperate for a leader who can reach across party lines and rule in a bipartisan fashion. Like Joe Lieberman. Or John McCain. I wrote about this ad nauseum after the election as this CW was taking hold, in the hope that the Democrats were not taking it seriously..

It just ain’t true. The country is polarized because it’s polarized. We actually believe different things depending on how we identify ourselves politically. I know this comes as a shock to those who think that the entire country is a nation of swing voters waiting to be drawn in by our fabulous arguments, ads or beer drinking companions, but this study says differently:

The story of 2006 was that regular Americans were sick of partisan divisions in Washington. The vast and consensus-hungry middle asserted itself in November, the narrative went, finally ordering the parties and their childish politicians to stop fighting and to work together.

After the vote, bipartisanship was all the buzz, and moderation the wave of the future. But something happened on the way to the evening campfire and s’mores. House Republicans started complaining about Democrats riding roughshod into the majority, refusing to consider their amendments to legislation. President Bush announced that he wasn’t going to let the opposition of congressional Democrats stop him from sending 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders trashed most of Bush’s domestic policy proposals as soon as they were announced in his State of the Union address.

One explanation for all this is that politicians are acting against the will of their compromise-loving constituents. Another is that Republicans and Democrats are simply being good representatives. We think the evidence supports the second interpretation.

The Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) surveyed more than 24,000 Americans who voted in 2006. The Internet-based survey compiled by researchers at 30 universities produced a sample that almost perfectly matched the national House election results: 54 percent of the respondents reported voting for a Democrat, while 46 percent said they voted for a Republican. The demographic characteristics of the voters surveyed also closely matched those in the 2006 national exit poll. If anything, the CCES respondents claimed they were more “independent” than those in the exit poll.

[…]

When we combined voters’ answers to the 14 issue questions to form a liberal-conservative scale (answers were divided into five equivalent categories based on overall liberalism vs. conservatism), 86 percent of Democratic voters were on the liberal side of the scale while 80 percent of Republican voters were on the conservative side. Only 10 percent of all voters were in the center. The visual representation of the nation’s voters isn’t a nicely shaped bell, with most voters in the moderate middle. It’s a sharp V.

The evidence from this survey isn’t surprising; nor are the findings new. For the past three decades, the major parties and the electorate have grown more divided — in what they think, where they live and how they vote. It may be comforting to believe our problems could be solved if only those vile politicians in Washington would learn to get along. The source of the country’s division, however, is nestled much closer to home.

The worship of moderate centrism is something of a fetish among Washington pundits who are said to represent “the left” like Cokie Roberts and David Broder, while an unabashed conservatism is evident in most right wing pundits like George Will and Charles Krauthamer. Among the Sunday Bobbleheads it is taken as an article of faith that the country is unhappy with Democrats who appear to be too partisan and equally unhappy Republicans who fail to adhere to their principles by not being partisan anough. I think we can all see what that adds up to.

Here’s an article from a FAIR by Peter Hart and Steve Rendall from a few months back that lays out the evidence:

While few commentators would disagree with the conventional wisdom that Republican success depends on the care and feeding of the GOP’s conservative base—GOP leaders would laugh at them if they did—pundits who make the same argument for the Democrats are virtually non-existent in national media. Instead, many of the most prominent political journalists in the country have made it their business to press the Democrats to move the party rightward.

Media advocates of centrism typically call on Democrats to reject their natural supporters, often denigrated as “special interests”: liberals, unions, civil rights and feminist groups, and environmental and consumer rights organizations. Meanwhile, corporate-friendly policies and conservative-leaning “moral values” are presented as the road to electoral success. Many political pundits say going centrist is not only the right thing—it’s the only way Democrats can win.

[…]

By April, Kerry had cinched the Democratic nomination, and George W. Bush looked vulnerable. The war was rapidly losing domestic support and a majority—53 percent—told a CNN/Gallup poll (3/28/04) they thought Bush had lied to the American people. That might have seemed to some like a good time for Democrats to accentuate the differences between themselves and their opponents—but not to Time’s Klein. In a column calling for bipartisan cooperation (4/4/04), Klein made a passionate case for Kerry to name Republican Sen. John McCain, who has one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate, as his vice presidential running mate.

Klein wasn’t the only one imagining a Democrat/Republican ticket. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (3/27/04) fantasized, “I want to wake up and read that John Kerry just asked John McCain to be his vice president.” Friedman explained that’s the only way to tackle the country’s problems, “with a bipartisan spirit and bipartisan team.”

[…]

But after the election, the storyline that Democrats lost because they were insufficiently “moral” was set in stone. In October 2005, the New York Times’ Bai claimed (10/2/05) that “all but the most obstinate liberals now realize that traditional values matter to American voters more than they thought. Gradually over the past couple of decades, the Democratic Party has ceded issues of faith and morality to the Republicans.”

Ron Brownstein (L. A. Times, 11/4/04) cited unnamed Democrats making this point immediately after the election. “To many Democratic analysts,” wrote Brownstein, the message of 2004 was that “the party will find it virtually impossible to reach a presidential or congressional majority without regaining at least some ground with socially conservative voters.” The only Democratic analyst quoted by name was the Democratic Leadership Council’s Al From, who affirmed, “We’ve got to close the cultural gap.”

None of this is news to those of us who have been following politics for the last 25 years from outside the narrow social confines of the DC establishment. This polarization is the result of the rise of the ideological thugs of the modern conservative movement. The deed was done a long time ago and after years of trying to appease, persuade and cajole, the Democrats in this country — at least the rank and file — finally realized the futility of such actions and are fighting back. Apparently the media find this distateful. Try to imagine how little I care.

Update: Speaking of rightwingnuts.

UpdateII: Oh fergawd’s sake. And after I was so nice to Joe Klein, here he goes again with his world class wankerosity. Sigh. Old Dog, old tricks, fleas.

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The Crazy Aunt In The Basement Speaks

by digby

… at the big CPAC convention:

“If our coalition withdrew before Iraqis could defend themselves, radical factions would battle for dominance. The violence would likely spread throughout the country and be very difficult to contain. Having tasted victory in Iraq, the (militants) would look for new missions. Many would head for Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban,” Cheney said.

He said others would head for capitals across the Middle East and work to undermine moderate governments. “Still others would find their targets and victims in other countries on other continents. Such chaos and mounting danger does not have to occur. It is, however, the enemy’s objective,” Cheney said.

“In these circumstances, it’s worth reminding ourselves that, like it or not, the enemy we face in the war on terror has made Iraq the primary front in that war,” he added. Then, to laughter and applause, Cheney said, “To use a popular phrase, this is an inconvenient truth.”

And like it or not, the abject failure of the Bush administration’s unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq which led them to incompetently wage the war in Afghanistan means that the Taliban and al Qaeda still exist and Osama bin laden and Mullah Omar are still at large. You’d think this notion that we’re fighting them in Bagdad so we don’t have to fight them in Kabul and elsewhere would sound a little bit silly considering that Cheney himself was targeted in Afghanistan just this week, but logic has never been their strong suit.

He’s very worried that terrorists are going to think we’re weak and attack us. Call me crazy but it seems to me that the fact that we made fools of ourselves with all the faulty WMD talk and have bungled the occupation of Iraq so badly that the country has devloved into civil war is a much more obvious object lesson in American weakness. In fact, we have exposed ourselves as so inept that we are far more vulnerable than we were before 9/11 on a strategic global level. When a great and powerful nation reveals itself to be the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, minor despots and rival powers tend to make some dangerous calculations.

“If you support the war on terror, then it only makes sense to support it where the terrorists are fighting us,” Cheney said.

And due to the Bush administration’s malfeasance, error and corruption, Muslim fanaticism and terrorism have become far more powerful and pervasive today than when Bush and Cheney took office.

Meanwhile, elsewhere at CPAC, the GOP faithful of faithful seem a little bit blah this year. Bill Sher is blogging it here. Ben Shapiro tries to get lathered about lesbianism but he ends up sounding a little bit wistful:

When society tolerates deviance … it normalizes deviance … lesbianism among young women has risen dramatically in the last 10 years alone. And that is certainly due to media and advertising, and certainly also because of the fact that we decide to tolerate it.

It’s really not up to his usual standards.

If you are unfamiliar with the psycho-convention that calls itself CPAC, read this fantastic article about the 2003 convention from Michele Goldberg in Salon:

Bush is revered so intensely among CPACers that all successes seem to issue from him, while failures are the fault of others unworthy of the great man. Jason Crawford, a 23-year-old who works in business development in New York, formed his group Patriots for the Defense of America right after Sept. 11 to promote “moral clarity” in the war on terror. Now, convinced that moral clarity requires attacking North Korea and fomenting revolution in Iran, he’s disappointed in the administration. Yet speaking along with Oliver North (who ranted against the “brie-eating, foie gras-sucking French”) at the “What Are We Fighting For?” panel, he put the blame not on Bush, but on some amorphous “us” who failed to rise to Bush’s challenge. “Today we can see from our actions that we lack moral clarity,” he told the crowd. “We are betraying the principles of the Bush doctrine!”

Rev. Lou Sheldon, the founder of the Traditional Values Coalition and sworn enemy of homosexuality, put it best. Asked if Bush was in sync with his agenda, he replied, “George Bush is our agenda!”

But Sheldon, a plump, pink man with pale blue eyes, wasn’t out celebrating the Bush presidency. Instead, the man who has pledged “open warfare” against all things gay, stood in the exhibitors hall before a makeshift carnival game called “Tip a Troll,” in which players were invited to throw gray beanbags at toy trolls with the heads of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Hillary Clinton and Tom Daschle, or trolls holding signs saying, “The Homosexual Agenda,” “Roe V. Wade” and “The Liberal Media.”

Sheldon, like the rest of the right, isn’t letting success distract from a monomaniacal focus on its foes. Indeed, the overwhelming message at CPAC was that it’s time to toughen up.

At a Thursday seminar titled “2002 and Beyond: Are Liberals an Endangered Species?” Paul Rodriguez, managing editor of the conservative magazine Insight, warned that the liberal beast wouldn’t be vanquished until conservatives learn to be merciless. “One thing Democrats have long known how to do is play hardball,” he intoned, urging Republicans to adopt more “bare-knuckle” tactics.

I hear that they’re having a big 71% off sale on last year’s biggest selling item:

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