Month: January 2010

Missing Flippers

by digby

I was going to write about this new idea floating around that if Coakley loses in Massachusetts, the House would just pass the Senate health care bill as is and it would all be hunky dory, but Dday made the point perfectly already:

If this were just a case of the merits of the bill, that could be the case. Enough of the 39 conservative Dems would see the Senate bill as closer to their priorities for health care reform to offset liberals who may defect. And House liberals always seem to come back to the herd anyway.

But that treats passage of the Senate bill in a post-Brown environment as a policy and not a political problem. Cohn says that anyone who has already voted for the bill has sealed their fate on it in terms of attack ads, but that doesn’t account for those who, in Cohn’s world would flip their vote to Yes after a Republican was elected in Massachusetts largely on the slogan that he would be the 41st vote to block health care. As Ben Smith notes, there would be mass panic (Mass panic?) in the caucus, and people don’t usually pass political courage tests in that environment.

And you would have to get some flippers, because the pool of 220 votes from when the House passed their bill in November is gone. Robert Wexler resigned, dropping it to 219. Setting aside the fact that the affordability credits aren’t good enough for the House, the excise tax deal with unions would be invalidated, the exchanges would be state-based, and all the rest – just on the abortion issue alone, and remember the Nelson amendment is in the Senate bill, which Bart Stupak has derided, you probably lose a dozen more. It’s pretty confirmed that you’d lose three – Stupak, Republican Joseph Cao, and Steve Dreihaus.

I read the Cohn piece to which he referred last night and couldn’t figure out what in the world he was thinking. The “centrists,” as he called them, are going to be the ones running for the hills if Coakley loses. Hell, they might run for the hills even if she wins at this point (and who knows what Nelson and Lieberman are going to do either?)Meanwhile, progressives could legitimately peel off because the Senate bill sucks too badly even for them. And then there’s still the damned anti-abortion nonsense.

So who does Cohn or anyone else think they are going to get to flip from a no to a yes in the wake of a Coakley loss? Read Dday’s whole post for the gory details.

Update: And speaking of Nelson, anyone who thinks he isn’t in play if Coakley loses isn’t watching what’s happening to him in Nebraska:

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and his wife were leaving dinner at a new pizza joint near their home in Omaha one night last week when a patron began complaining about Nelson’s decisive vote in favor of the Senate’s health care bill.

Other customers started booing. A woman yelled, “Get him the hell out of here!” And the Nelsons and their dining companions beat a hasty retreat.

“It was definitely a scene in there,” said Tom Lewis, a 41-year-old dentist and registered Republican who witnessed the incident. A second witness confirmed the incident to POLITICO.

It’s a new experience for Nelson.

.

Ideology Matters

by digby

EJ Dionne writes:

[T]he truth that liberals and Obama must grapple with is that they have failed so far to dent the right’s narrative, especially among those moderates and independents with no strong commitments to either side in this fight.

The president’s supporters comfort themselves that Obama’s numbers will improve as the economy gets better. This is a form of intellectual complacency. Ronald Reagan’s numbers went down during a slump, too. But even when he was in the doldrums, Reagan was laying the groundwork for a critique of liberalism that held sway in American politics long after he left office.

Progressives will never reach their own Morning in America unless they use the Gipper’s method to offer their own critique of the conservatism he helped make dominant. It is still more powerful in our politics, as we are learning in Massachusetts, than it ought to be

Actually, some of us have been arguing this point ad nauseam for years — and as recently as last week. One wonders where Dionne was during the presidential campaign when Obama was running around extolling Reagan’s understanding of the American people’s desire for small government and more “dynamism” and “entrepreneurship” in the economy. It’s not the worst thing anyone’s ever said, but it should have been a clue that the Democrats weren’t exactly challenging the ideological status quo which Dionne now seems to be surprised still exists.

And immediately after the inauguration, Dionne was positively giddy over this:

There are at least three keys to understanding Obama’s approach to (and avoidance of) ideology. There is, first, his simple joy in testing himself against those who disagree with him. Someone who knows the president-elect well says that he likes talking with philosophical adversaries more than with allies.

This part of him was once the detached writer and professor who could view even his own life from a distance and with a degree of abstraction. Seen with perspective, after all, the ideological differences in the United States are rather small. We have no major socialist party, and when it comes down to it, even conservatives are reluctant to dismantle our limited social insurance and welfare programs.

But Obama’s anti-ideological turn is also a functional one for a progressive, at least for now. Since Ronald Reagan, ideology has been the terrain of the right. Many of the programs that conservatives have pushed have been based more on faith in their worldview than on empirical tests. How else could conservatives claim that cutting taxes would actually increase government revenue, or that trickle-down economic approaches were working when the evidence of middle-class incomes said otherwise?

Obama’s anti-ideological talk is not just a vehicle for progressive inclinations but the real deal. Obama regularly offers three telltale notions that will define his presidency — if events allow him to define it himself: “sacrifice,” “grand bargain” and “sustainability.”

To listen to Obama and his budget director Peter Orszag is to hear a tale of long-term fiscal woe. The government may have to spend and cut taxes in a big way now, but in the long run, the federal budget is unsustainable.

That’s where sacrifice kicks in. There will be signs of it in Obama’s first budget, in his efforts to contain health-care costs and, down the road, in his call for entitlement reform and limits on carbon emissions. His camp is selling the idea that if he wants authority for new initiatives and new spending, Obama will have to prove his willingness to cut some programs and reform others.

At the time, Dionne and the rest of the liberal punditocrisy were thrilled with that approach. How exciting to have a president who could synthesize everyone’s desires by picking one from column A and one from column B and make everyone so very, very happy. Now maybe they’ve seen how completely ineffectual and self-defeating such an approach really is. But, you know, it wasn’t hard to see it at the time.

h/t to bb

Unintelligent Design

by digby

Blue Texan caught the National Review crowd having a little hissy fit over Bob Kerrey’s bon mot about Scott brown not believing in evolution. Jonah Goldberg and K-Lo and the crew are very upset that anyone would suggest Republicans hold such beliefs. Blue Texan helpfully supplies the polls showing that, in fact, a large majority of Republicans do not believe in evolution.

But the dust-up reminded me of a post I wrote a few years back showing just exactly how hamstrung even the alleged intellectuals in the GOP are on this subject:

This is fascinating. Ben Adler asked a bunch of leading conservative intellectuals whether they believed in evolution. As far as I can tell only about half of them have any intellectual integrity whatsoever, and only one is definitively honest in my opinion: Charles Krauthamer, if you can believe that. Richard Brookheiser and William F Buckley get honorable mentions.

Remember, these are highly educated people. The problem is not that they may believe in God or have a religious view of the origins of the universe. That is quite easily explained. It’s the weaselly, mushy way they try to divert the question elsewhere or explain what they know is a ridiculous position. It’s as if they are all terribly afraid that James Dobson might read TNR and berate them for not having a religiously correct fundamentalist view. William Kristol, as always, is the slickest guy around.

William Kristol, The Weekly Standard

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I don’t discuss personal opinions. … I’m familiar with what’s obviously true about it as well as what’s problematic. … I’m not a scientist. … It’s like me asking you whether you believe in the Big Bang.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “I managed to have my children go through the Fairfax, Virginia schools without ever looking at one of their science textbooks.”

Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I’ve never understood how an eye evolves.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “Put me down for the intelligent design people.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “The real problem here is that you shouldn’t have government-run schools. … Given that we have to spend all our time crushing the capital gains tax I don’t have much time for this issue.”

David Frum, American Enterprise Institute and National Review

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I do believe in evolution.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “If intelligent design means that evolution occurs under some divine guidance, I believe that.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “I don’t believe that anything that offends nine-tenths of the American public should be taught in public schools. … Christianity is the faith of nine-tenths of the American public. … I don’t believe that public schools should embark on teaching anything that offends Christian principle.”

Stephen Moore, Free Enterprise Fund

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I believe in parts of it but I think there are holes in the evolutionary theory.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “I generally agree with said critique.”

Whether intelligent design or a similar critique should be taught in public schools: “I think people should be taught … that there are various theories about how man was created.”

Whether schools should leave open the possibility that man was created by God in his present form: “Of course, yes, definitely.”

Jonah Goldberg, National Review

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “Sure.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “I think it’s interesting. … I think it’s wrong. I think it’s God-in-the-gaps theorizing. But I’m not hostile to it the way other people are because I don’t, while I think evolution is real, I don’t think any specific–there are a lot of unknowns left in evolution theory and criticizing evolution from different areas doesn’t really bother me, just as long as you’re not going to say the world was created in six days or something.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “I don’t think you should teach religious conclusions as science and I don’t think you should teach science as religion. … I see nothing [wrong] with having teachers pay some attention to the sensitivities of other people in the room. I think if that means you’re more careful about some issues than others that’s fine. People are careful about race and gender; I don’t see why all of a sudden we can’t be diplomatic on these issues when it comes to religion.”

Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “Of course.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “At most, interesting.”

Whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools: “The idea that [intelligent design] should be taught as a competing theory to evolution is ridiculous. … The entire structure of modern biology, and every branch of it [is] built around evolution and to teach anything but evolution would be a tremendous disservice to scientific education. If you wanna have one lecture at the end of your year on evolutionary biology, on intelligent design as a way to understand evolution, that’s fine. But the idea that there are these two competing scientific schools is ridiculous.”

William Buckley, National Review

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “Yes.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “I’d have to write that down. … I’d have to say something more carefully than I can over the telephone. I’m a Christian.”

Whether schools should raise the possibility that the original genetic code was written by an intelligent designer: “Well, surely, yeah, absolutely.”

Whether schools should raise the possibility–but not in biology classes–that man was created by God in his present form? : “Yes, sure, absolutely.”

Which classes that should be discussed in: “History, etymology.”

John Tierney, The New York Times (via email)

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I believe that the theory of evolution has great explanatory powers.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “I haven’t really studied the arguments for intelligent design, so I’m loath to say much about it except that I’m skeptical.”

James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “Yes.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “I could not speak fluently on the subject but I know what the basic argument is.”

Whether schools should teach intelligent design or similar critiques of evolution in biology classes: “I guess I would say they probably shouldn’t be taught in biology classes; they probably should be taught in philosophy classes if there is such a thing. It seems to me, and again I don’t speak with any authority on this, that the hypothesis … that the universe is somehow inherently intelligent is not a scientific hypothesis. Because how do you prove it or disprove it? And really the question is how do you disprove it, because a scientific hypothesis has to be capable of being falsified. So while there may be holes in Darwinian theory, while there’s obviously a lot we don’t know, and perhaps Darwinian theory could be wrong altogether, I think whether or not the universe is designed is just a question outside the realm of science.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “It probably should be taught, if it’s going to be taught, in a more thoroughgoing way, a more rigorous way that explains what a scientific theory is. … You know, my general impression is that high school instruction in general is not all that rigorous. … I think one possible way of solving this problem is by–if you can’t teach it in a rigorous way, if the schools aren’t up to that, and if it’s going to be a political hot potato in the way it is, and we have schools that are politically run, one possible solution might be just take it out of the curriculum altogether. I’m not necessarily advocating that, but I think it’s something that policy makers might think about. I’d rather see it taught in a rigorous and serious way, but as a realistic matter that may be expecting too much of our government schools.”

Norman Podhoretz, Commentary (via email)

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “It’s impossible to answer that question with a simple yes or no.”

Richard Brookhiser, National Review

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “Yes.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “It doesn’t seem like good science to me.”

Whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools: “No.”

Pat Buchanan, The American Conservative

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “Do I believe in absolute evolution? No. I don’t believe that evolution can explain the creation of matter. … Do I believe in Darwinian evolution? The answer is no.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “Do I believe in a Darwinian evolutionary process which can be inspired by a creator? Yeah, that’s a real possibility. I don’t believe evolution can explain the creation of matter. I don’t believe it can explain the intelligent design in the universe. I just don’t believe it can explain the tremendous complexity of the human being when you get down to DNA and you get down to atomic particles, and molecules, atomic particles, subatomic particles, which we’re only beginning to understand right now. I think to say it all happened by accident or by chance or simply evolved, I just don’t believe it.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “Evolution [has] been so powerful a theory in Western history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and often a malevolent force–it’s been used by non-Christians and anti-Christians to justify polices which have been horrendous. I do believe that every American student should be introduced to the idea and its effects on society. But I don’t think it ought to be taught as fact. It ought to be taught as theory. … How do you answer a kid who says, ‘Where did we all come from?’ Do you say, ‘We all evolved’? I think that’s a theory. … Now the biblical story of creation should be taught to children, not as dogma but every child should know first of all the famous biblical stories because they have had a tremendous influence as well. … I don’t think it should be taught as religion to kids who don’t wanna learn it. … I think in biology that honest teachers gotta say, ‘Look the universe exhibits, betrays the idea that there is a first mover, that there is intelligent design.’ … You should leave the teaching of religion to a voluntary classes in my judgment and only those who wish to attend.”

Tucker Carlson, MSNBC

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I think God’s responsible for the existence of the universe and everything in it. … I think God is probably clever enough to think up evolution. … It’s plausible to me that God designed evolution; I don’t know why that’s outside the realm. It’s not in my view.”

On the possibility that God created man in his present form: “I don’t know if He created man in his present form. … I don’t discount it at all. I don’t know the answer. I would put it this way: The one thing I feel confident saying I’m certain of is that God created everything there is.”

On the possibility that man evolved from a common ancestor with apes: “I don’t know. It wouldn’t rock my world if it were true. It doesn’t sound proved to me. But, yeah I’m willing to believe it, sure.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “I don’t have a problem with public schools or any schools teaching evolution. I guess I would have a problem if a school or a science teacher asserted that we know how life began, because we don’t so far as I know, do we? … If science teachers are teaching that we know things that in fact we don’t know, then I’m against that. That’s a lie. But if they are merely describing the state of knowledge in 2005 then I don’t have problem with that. If they are saying, ‘Most scientists believe this,’ and most scientists believe it, then it’s an accurate statement. What bothers me is the suggestion that we know things we don’t know. That’s just another form of religion it seems to me.”

Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “Yes.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “To the extent that I am familiar with it, and that’s not very much, I guess what I think is this: The intelligent designers are correct insofar as they are reacting against a view of evolution which holds that it can’t have been guided by God in any way–can’t even have sort of been set in motion by God to achieve particular results and that no step in the process is guided by God. But they seem to give too little attention to the possibility that God could have set up an evolutionary process.”

Whether intelligent design should be taught in public schools: “I guess my own inclination would be to teach evolution in the public schools. I don’t think that you ought to make a federal case out of it though.”

David Brooks, The New York Times (via email)

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I believe in the theory of evolution.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “I’ve never really studied the issue or learned much about ID, so I’m afraid I couldn’t add anything intelligent to the discussion.”

And these are the people who railed against campus political correctness.

What do you suppose it’s like to be intellectually held hostage by people who you know for a fact are dead wrong on something? It must be excruciating.

I’ve changed my mind about that. They don’t give a damn. They know it’s an act for the rubes and feel no compunction about being ideological whores. It’s just business.

.

Civility

by digby

Classy Republicans:

Standing on a platform in front of the truck he has often touted in his stump speech and campaign ads, Brown was in high spirits as he addressed a crowd of more than 100 supporters. The crowd responded enthusiastically as Brown made his case against AG Martha Coakley (D) — even interrupting frequently to make Brown’s case for him.

“I’ll tell you what,” Brown said, using a megaphone to address the crowd. “There’s negative campaigning, and then there’s malicious campaigning.”

“She’s malicious!” a man in the crowd cried out. “She’s a phony!” shouted another. “Shove a curling iron up her butt!” a third man interjected a few moments later.

You can see the video here. There’s no doubt that he heard it — and smiled that smug little teabagger smile. Nice guy.

Update: Here are some more Brown fans — who are also obviously big Beck fans:

.
.

Where Are The Locusts?

by digby

Just what we need. Kabul is blowing up:

Mark Dummett, BBC News, Kabul
I’m in a basement in the heart of the city surrounded by key government buildings, the presidential palace and various ministries.

About an hour ago we heard the first series of explosions. Since then we have heard the sound of gun battles on the street outside. We haven’t been able to speak to anybody in government as phone lines are down.

I have been told by security here that there is a gun battle and that there are at least two groups of attackers. Some were firing from the fourth floor of a building around here. Other attackers have detonated bombs.

We are not entirely sure what the scene is outside – but we think there was a series of bomb attacks followed by this fighting as the army and police try to clear the rest of the attackers.

The BBC reports::

A statement on a Taliban website said the attack had specifically targeted government buildings and the hotel.

There are reports of one recent massive explosion in the diplomatic quarter.

Nato has said international troops are helping Afghan forces secure the area.

Streets in the centre of the city have been closed and hotels and government buildings have been locked down.

A spokesman for the interior ministry has told the BBC that several insurgents had entered a private building – possibly a shopping centre – which was the focus of the gun battle with Afghan security forces.

One official trapped in a government building told the Reuters news agency: “It is a chaotic scene, we do not know what to do and where to go.”

Worse Than We Thought

by digby

Oh man …

As the numbers of dead and injured in Haiti continue to climb, Lt. General P.K. Keen, the man charge of military relief efforts there says, “we are going to have to be prepared for the worst”.

When I asked General Keen about death toll estimates ranging between 150,000 and 200,000 people, Keen said, “I think the international community is looking at those figures, and I think that’s a start point.”

.

.

No Words

by digby

From C&L:

I’m sure his Wall Street buddies are nostalgic for the sound of Bush’s voice too. They never had to put up with a bunch of complaints about their obscene compensation when he was around, that’s for sure.

.

On Sending Messages

by digby

If my comment section, email and other blogs are to be believed, there is a lot of netroots angst about the Democratic party these days. It’s certainly understandable. With the free floating anxiety that’s pervasive out in the country as a whole, the horrific spectacle of health care reform sausage making and the toppling of President Obama from his heavenly pedestal, we have the making of a full blown insurrection on our hands. The question is what to do about it.

Many people believe that the only thing Democrats understand is pain and so the thing that will change this dynamic will be to deliver them a loss of their majority and perhaps the presidency to show the consequences of failure to fulfill the progressive agenda. That certainly sounds right, except you can’t ever know exactly what lesson will be taken from this sort of pain and if history is any guide, the likeliest one is the simplest and most obvious: they lost because people preferred what the other side had to offer. Obviously, that’s not necessarily the case, but it isn’t illogical for them to believe that. And the exit polls or whatever other data may be available rarely clearly show that it was base demobilization that caused a turnover. Often people don’t even know why they failed to vote and you can’t exit poll those who didn’t bother.

More importantly, you have the ongoing, pernicious problem of the conservative Democrats who will always pimp the anti-liberal line and their friends in the media who pull the old “this is a conservative country” narrative off the shelf by reflex. Indeed, we can see it in its full glory already manifesting itself with this classic Adam Nagourney piece in today’s NY Times:

As Mr. Obama prepares to come here on Sunday to campaign for the party’s beleaguered Senate candidate, Martha Coakley, Democrats across the country are starting to wonder aloud if they misjudged the electorate over the last year, with profound ramifications for the midterm elections this year and, potentially, for Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Win or lose in Massachusetts, that a contest between a conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat could appear so close is evidence of what even Democrats say is animosity directed at the administration and Congress. It has been fanned by Republicans who have portrayed Democrats as overreaching and out of touch with ordinary Americans.

“It comes from the fact that Obama as president has had to deal with all these major crises he inherited: the banks, fiscal stimulus,” said Senator Paul G. Kirk Jr., the Democrat who holds the Massachusetts seat on an interim basis pending the special election. “But for many people it was like, ‘Jeez, how much government are we getting here?’ That might have given them pause.”

Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said the atmosphere was a serious threat to Democrats. “I do think there’s a chance that Congressional elites mistook their mandate,” Mr. Bayh said. “I don’t think the American people last year voted for higher taxes, higher deficits and a more intrusive government. But there’s a perception that that is what they are getting.”

[…]

The Massachusetts campaign has neatly encapsulated the major themes that have come to deplete Mr. Obama’s popularity, themes that have fueled the rise of the Tea Party movement on the right and created an atmosphere where growing numbers of Democrats in conservative-leaning districts and states have decided not to run again.

[…]

Mr. Brown has portrayed Ms. Coakley as an advocate of big government, big spending and big deficits; Obama advisers and other Democrats have worried that the expanding deficit, now at a level not seen since World War II, was hurting Mr. Obama with independents who lifted him to victory in 2008. Polls suggest that those voters have flocked to Mr. Brown, as they did to Republican candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey last year.

I don’t think you have to be a political scientist or a psychic to see where that little narrative is heading. You have to get all the way to the fourth paragraph from the end to see even a hint of the dynamic as we liberals see it:

But most ominously for Democrats contemplating the midterm elections, the battle here suggests an emerging dangerous dynamic: that Mr. Obama has energized Republican activists who think he has overstepped with health care and the economic stimulus, while demoralizing Democrats who think he has not lived up to his promise.

Three paragraphs later it concludes with this:

Still, some Democrats are wondering if Mr. Obama would be in a better position now if he had embraced a less ambitious health care proposal, as some aides urged, permitting him to pivot more quickly on the economy. Depending on what happens Tuesday, that is a debate that might be reverberating in the White House for a long time to come.

“Some” Democrats wonder if he should have been less ambitious with health care and even Obama advisors are terribly, terribly worried about deficits. The idea that they haven’t been liberal enough doesn’t seem to be resonating does it? And I have very serious doubts that it will resonate if the party of Teabaggers starts winning.

So, how do liberals exert what power they have and have the results be interpreted the way we want it to be? The first would be through protest votes for a third party that resulted in Republican victory. (There is virtually no chance that any third party will ever gain real power short of a fundamental change in the way we elect our representatives, so protest is all it will be.) It’s been done before. And if you can live with the idea of voting in a Republican party in the thrall of extremists that make Bush and Cheney look like Rockefeller Republicans, I suppose that might be the way to go. I won’t judge you, but I am personally unwilling to put the world through any more of this failed right wing experiment at the moment.

There is a fairly compelling theory in political science that says that after political parties come into power, fulfill some pieces of their agenda, get fat and bloated and are finally removed from office, they then tend to deny the reality of their loss and blame it on everything but themselves until they lose enough elections that they finally realize that their ideology has failed. The current GOP is not there yet by a long shot. They are still in the process of doubling down on their radical agenda at a time when the economy is still in ruins, the effects of globalization are being fully felt, the planet is in peril and about to reach a tipping point, and a radical fundamentalist movement is trying to blow people up. I don’t think the world can take any more of the right’s prescriptions for these problems right now: Lindsay Graham is considered too liberal and neo-Hooverism is their economic program. Yes, the Democrats are corrupt and inept. But the other side is batshit insane.

However, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing we can do but wring our hands about how the system is broken and fret ourselves into intertia. The other way to send messages to the Democratic party is through the unsatisfying and often thankless process of primary challenges. Nobody can have any problem understanding that message, not even Adam Nagourney.

It’s hard to find challengers and it’s no wonder. It’s expensive, time consuming and after all your hard work you will probably lose. It takes real commitment and a desire to not only win a seat in congress but do it by way of unseating an incumbent of your own party with whom you disagree, an act which is guaranted to make you an odd man out among the party hierarchy. But if you win, it can send shockwaves through the system.

And guess what? We are in the most favorable year for primary challenges in recent memory. The insane teabaggers aren’t going to allow any rational Republicans to run and the anti-uncumbent fever is going to be as high as it’s been since 1994. The Democratic base has an energetic activist faction, the netroots can raise money and there is a burning desire to show the party establishment that they cannot take liberals for granted. It’s a perfect environment for successful primary challenges.

And lucky for us, there are some brave progressives already out there taking on incumbents and there very well may be more. This time a few of them may win, and believe me if that happens, the Democratic party will not be able to spin those victories as being a sign that the party needs to move to the right.

Blue America has helpfully set up an Act Blue page with all the progressive challengers who have announced and we’ll add to it as more come forward. We’re calling it “Send The Democrats A Message They Can Understand.”

If you want a Democratic scalp, these candidates are out there offering to do the work to get it done. And you won’t be giving Adam Nagourney or Cokie Roberts or Glenn Beck what they want in the process. It’s a win that even the villagers and the party establishment can’t spin as good news for Republicans.

.

One Last Favor

by digby

I don’t want to speculate about why Chris Dodd would do this, but it doesn’t look good:

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd is considering scrapping the idea of creating a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, people familiar with the matter said, an initiative at the heart of the White House’s proposal to revamp financial-sector regulations.

The Connecticut Democrat, who announced this month that he wouldn’t run for re-election this year, has discussed the possibility of abandoning the push for a new agency during negotiations with key Senate Republicans as a way to secure a bipartisan deal on the legislation, these people said.

Mr. Dodd’s offer is conditional, however: Republicans must agree to create a beefed-up consumer-protection division within another federal agency, these people said.

The apparent willingness to forgo an independent consumer-protection agency would be a major concession for Mr. Dodd, who had blasted the banking industry for lobbying aggressively to prevent the creation of such an entity. “The very people who created the damn mess are the ones now arguing that consumers ought not to be protected,” he said in June.

Mr. Dodd’s shift comes amid a new sense of urgency to enact revamped rules governing the financial sector in what is now a narrow window before the November election.

Journal Community.“His ability to dictate terms has been lessened by his decision to not seek re-election … just go slowly out to pasture with a bit of dignity.”

Bipartisan support is believed necessary to pass such legislation, as Democrats aren’t likely to get the 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a potential Republican filibuster. With Mr. Dodd no longer seeking re-election, some of the pressure to apply a populist stamp on new financial regulations has eased

.

True for him, I guess. For the rest of the Democrats, not so much.

I don’t know which Democrats don’t support a new consumer protection agency, but I can guess. In this case, they are not only representing the owners of America over the people, but they are actively helping the Republican party electorally. Lieberman seems to be leading his own caucus now.

.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Mopey white guy with guitar, Pt. 2

By Dennis Hartley

Wait a minute…didn’t I review this film LAST week?

Well, sorta.



Can blue men sing the whites?
Or are they hypocrites for singing woo, woo, whoo?
Oh Lord, somebody help me!
-The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

There was a famous children’s radio show that ran on WOR in New York from the late 1920s through the late 1940s that became infamous when it was rumored that the host, Uncle Don Carney, had once signed off with his signature cheery goodbye to the kiddies, then (not realizing that his microphone was still “hot”) immediately wisecracked, “There! That oughta hold the little bastards!” I remember listening to it back in the 70s on an LP of legendary broadcasting bloopers compiled by Kermit Schaefer. I was disappointed to learn in later years that the gaffe was actually faked for the album (although most of the other cuts were genuine). Still, the enduring popularity of the urban legend says something about the twisted appeal of the subversive cynic hiding behind the clown face.

This concept has spawned a relatively small sub-genre of films that can probably be traced back to the 1957 Elia Kazan entry, A Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith stars as a backwoods conman-turned media superstar whose vitriolic disdain for his public belies his image as a benignly goofy, “family-friendly” entertainer. Tony Richardson’s 1960 film adaptation of John Osborne’s cynical and scathing portrait of a fading vaudevillian (Laurence Olivier), The Entertainer also deserves a mention. More recent films like Bad Santa, Shakes the Clown and Death to Smoochy have toyed with the same theme. Wonderful World, the directorial debut from Joshua Goldin, fits right in.

“The only crime left in the fucking world is negative thinking,” laments Ben Singer (Matthew Broderick) who holds the worldview that everything is fixed, yuppies are the root of all evil, and we’re all doomed anyway so why bother. A failed children’s singer (his sole album long relegated to the dusty cutout bins of history), the divorced Ben now works a dead-end job as a proofreader. When one of his co-workers chastises him for not sharing in the congratulatory excitement surrounding the news that another co-worker (an aspiring actor) has just landed his first television acting gig, he dismisses the scold with a shrug and says “I don’t delude myself with hopes and dreams.” He’s a real piece of work.

Interestingly, however, he does have friends. He participates in a weekly after-hours jam session in the back room of a music store with a small group of pals, and proves to be a decent guitarist; it makes us wonder exactly why he’s squandering his talents. As the music store owner surreptitiously observes, “That’s a shame, to be good at something no one cares about…” (as a blogger, don’t I know THAT feeling). His roommate Ibu (Michael K. Williams) a Senegalese immigrant, doesn’t let Ben’s chronic glumness dampen his perpetually sunny disposition, and considers him to be a good friend regardless. Ben does approach a state approximating enjoyment when he spends time with his precocious 11-year old daughter (Jodelle Ferland); although his negative waves are markedly straining their relationship and becoming a source of concern to Ben’s ex-wife (Ally Walker). Ben seems quite happy to continue wallowing in his half-empty glass bubble of apathetic detachment, until a series of unexpected and personally challenging events shakes his world up, not the least of which arrives in the person of Ibu’s sister (Sanaa Lathan) a Senegalese national who shows up on his doorstep one fateful day.

While this is a somewhat familiar narrative (the self-pitying mope gets snapped out of his myopic torpor by the Free-Spirited Other), writer-director Goldin delivers it in a fresh and engaging manner. I was initially expecting the film to go in another direction (i.e. another black comedy about a bitter children’s entertainer); but was pleasantly surprised by the genuine warmth and humanity at its heart. Broderick gives a nicely nuanced performance that I would put up there with his work in Election. Newcomer Lathan does a lovely job, as does the surprising Williams, whose gentle and endearing character here couldn’t possibly be any farther from the ruthless and cold-blooded villain he played so memorably on the HBO series,The Wire. Not a major film, but a rewarding one. BTW-although it is in limited release, it is also available on PPV-so check your local listings.

Previous posts with related themes:

The Visitor
Whatever Works
Happy Go Lucky
The Maid
A Serious Man

.