“What The Hell Do You Expect Me To Do About It?”
Do yourself a favor and check out BagNewsnotes’ analysis of what is now the iconic image of Bush during the Katrina crisis — staring out the window of AF One.
There is another picture and it’s truly creepy.
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Supreme Joke
Bob Somerby brings up something today that has bothered me for some time:
A caller to C-SPAN’s Washington Journal said that Roberts should be required to state his views on the case. As a general matter, we agree. But [Charles]Lane expressed a different view—a familiar view which has never seemed to make any real sense to us:
LANE (9/12/05): Well, the dilemma of this situation is that everybody wants to know this, everybody wants to know about it, and yet if Judge Roberts were to declare flatly at his hearing, “I would vote to overturn Roe. v. Wade,” the decision that established, or recognized, the constitutional right to choose abortion, he would then be in a position where he might have to recuse if such a case came to the Court later on because the person bringing the case could sday, “He’s already said how he’ll vote.” So in a way, Judge Roberts, just like many others who have come before the Court, face that essential dilemma.
But where’s the dilemma? Surely, Roberts knows whether he thinks Roe was correctly decided. If he thinks it was wrongly decided, he must know, as a general matter, what he thinks the decision should stand as a matter of “settled law.” (Indeed, he called Roe “settled law” in his confirmation hearing for the District Court.) Would Roberts have to recuse later on if he said what he thought about Roe? We can’t imagine why. As matters stand, sitting Justices like Scalia and Thomas have openly said, in prior rulings, what they think of Roe v. Wade; indeed, in a January 30 Post profile, Lane himself described Scalia as “an opponent of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.” Does anyone think that Scalia’s prior statements would force him to recuse in the future? The notion is completely absurd—and yet the logic is widely applied to Roberts, as Lane does above.
For years judges have been dancing around hot button issues in their confirmation hearings. I understand they do this for political reasons. But people seem to just blithely accept this notion and it’s never made any sense to me either.
John Roberts has repeatedly asserted today that he cannot answer questions about any cases that may come before the court because to do so would prejudge the case. He says, for instance.
“Let me explain very briefly why. It’s because if these questions
come before me either on the court on which I now sit or if I am confirmed on the Supreme Court, I need to decide those questions with an open mind, on the basis of the arguments presented, on the basis of the record presented in the case and on the basis of the rule of law, including the precedents of the court – not on the basis of any commitments during the confirmation process.”
So, he’s basically saying that he can only speak in the vaguest of terms about abstract legal issues because otherwise he would jeopardise his objectivity.
Now consider this dissent from Planned Parenthood vs. Casey by Antonin Scalia:
My views on this matter are unchanged from those I set forth in my separate opinions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490, 532 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), and Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S. 502, 520 (1990) (Akron II) (Scalia, J., concurring). The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting. As the Court acknowledges, “where reasonable people disagree the government can adopt one position or the other.” Ante, at 8. The Court is correct in adding the qualification that this “assumes a state of affairs in which the choice does not intrude upon a protected liberty,” ante, at 9–but the crucial part of that qualification is the penultimate word. A State’s choice between two positions on which reasonable people can disagree is constitutional even when (as is often the case) it intrudes upon a “liberty” in the absolute sense. Laws against bigamy, for example–which entire societies of reasonable people disagree with–intrude upon men and women’s liberty to marry and live with one another. But bigamy happens not to be a liberty specially “protected” by the Constitution.
His views are exquisitely clear. Why then are we to assume that he can view any new case on this issue that comes before the court with an open mind?
Meanwhile, we are forced to believe that future Chief Justice John Roberts, whom Lindsey Graham just called one of the finest minds in our time, will not be able to keep an open mind if he tells the Senate where he actually stands on issues about which virtually every American has an opinion. What kind of silly kabuki is this?
Clarence Thomas got around this by saying he’d never thought about these issues, which was absurd. I don’t think anyone thinks they can get away with that again. So they’ve created this ridiculous rationale that if prospective judges discuss their political philosophy, express their views on commonly discussed issues or even their views on a particular settled laws, they will be unable to keep an open mind when a related case comes before them. Indeed, Charles Lane said that they would have to recuse themselves!
As Somerby asks, does anyone think that Antonin Scalia believes that he should recuse himself from hearing any cases that Roe vs Wade may be a part of since he has clearly stated that it was wrongly decided in his dissents? Of course not.
Roberts certainly cannot discuss a specific case that is coming before the court.But there is no reason that he or any other judge can’t say publicly whether they believe a specific case was decided correctly or if they agree with the principles on which it was decided. That’s what judges do. Or so I thought. I guess now we must pretend that a person is a blank slate until the day she decides her first casepertaining to any issue, at which point she can express opinions freely ever after and still maintain objectivity.
I realize that this little misdirection makes it possible to pretend that we have confirmation hearings instead of anointment pageants, but it’s insulting nonetheless.
Roberts is obviously a very, very smart lawyer. He talked circles around everybody on the committee today. There is no doubt in my mind that he will craft beautifully reasoned, elegant decisions that will result in as much destruction of the last 75 years of social and economic progress as he can politically get away with.
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Report Confirms that Louisiana Took Necessary and Timely Steps
Pursuant to a September 7 request by Representative John Conyers to review the law and legal accountability relating to Federal action in response to Hurricane Katrina, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report today about whether the Governor of Louisiana took the necessary and timely steps needed to secure disaster relief from the federal government. The report unequivocally concludes that she did.
Congressman Conyers issued the following statement:
“This report closes the book on the Bush Administration’s attempts to evade accountability by shifting the blame to the Governor of Louisiana for the Administration’s tragically sluggish response to Katrina. It confirms that the Governor did everything she could to secure relief for the people of Louisiana and the Bush Administration was caught napping at a critical time.”
In addition to finding that “…it would appear that the Governor did take the steps necessary to request emergency and major disaster declarations for the State of Louisiana in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina. (p.11)” The report found that:
* All necessary conditions for federal relief were met on August 28. Pursuant to Section 502 of the Stafford Act, “[t]he declaration of an emergency by the President makes Federal emergency assistance available,” and the President made such a declaration on August 28. The public record indicates that severa additional days passed before such assistance was actually made available to the State;
* The Governor must make a timely request for such assistance, which meets the requirements of federal law. The report states that “[e]xcept to the extent that an emergency involves primarily Federal interests, both declarations of major disaster and declarations of emergency must be triggered by a request to the President from the Governor of the affected state”;
* The Governor did indeed make such a request, which was both timely and in compliance with federal law. The report finds that “Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco requested by letter dated August 27, 2005…that the President declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period from August 26, 2005 and continuing pursuant to [applicable Federal statute]” and “Governor Blanco’s August 27, 2005 request for an emergency declaration also included her determination…that ‘the incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of disaster.”
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Music City
Austin must be a swingin’ town right now. I want to go there and have a beer with Amanda and Twisty Faster and listen to some fineNew Orleans music.
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LOUISIANA NAACP PRESIDENT
CALLS FOR EVACUEES TO TAKE CONTROL
OF THEIR OWN DESTINY AND FORM
“SHELTER COMMITTEES”Ernest L. Johnson, President of the Louisiana NAACP called today for Katrina evacuees in shelters to take control of their own destinies by forming SHELTER COMMITTEES.
“Each SHELTER COMMITTEE should elect a Chairperson and a Secretary and begin holding meetings, organizing, and working as a team for better treatment,” Johnson said. “In unity there is strength.”
Johnson called for each committee to begin writing down the name, telephone number, and next of kin of every shelter resident.
This contact information must be put into the FEMA database for evacuees to receive financial assistance.
Johnson urged each SHELTER COMMITTEE to send this information to 1755 Nicholson Drive, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802, or to fax it to (225) 334-7491.
The Louisiana NAACP is airing public service announcements on radio stations that explain the process for bringing participatory democracy to the shelter system.
“The Louisiana NAACP is with you in solidarity,” Johnson said. “The NAACP will stand with all displaced people until each and every one return to a brand-new New Orleans.”
Poeple need to take some control of their lives when they are at the mercy of strangers. I suspect that a lot of them are going to find themselves in need of advocacy very soon. It would be nice if they had a system set up to advocate for themselves.
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Our Little Man
When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that’s what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.
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Boo Hoo Hoo
I just threw up a little bit in my mouth watching that addled freakshow Tom Coburn shed crocodile tears about “incivility” at the Roberts hearings. Clearly he forgot to take his meds this morning. This is the same Coburn who famously said:
“lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they’ll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that’s happened to us?”
That claim is, of course, completely false, not to mention “uncivil” beyond belief.
Everybody’s asking what’s the matter with Kansas. I’d like to know what the hell is wrong with Oklahoma that they send both Coburn and Inhofe, two certifiably insane politicians, to the US senate.
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Tripping Over His Gum
Junior just said that the American people need to understand that he can do more than one thing at a time and that the government and other individuals can do more than one things at a time.
How does that square with this?:
“We’ve got to solve problems; we’re problem-solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I’m interested in is helping save lives.”
The American people need to understand that he can do more than one thing at a time — unless it’s answering questions about what went wrong. He’s too busy solving problems and saving lives for that.
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Deja Vu All Over Again
BUSH:“Look, there will be plenty of time to play the blame game,” he said. “That’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to say somebody is at fault. And, look, I want to know. I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on, and we’ll continually assess inside my administration.”
Yes, he always wants to know the truth. Indeed he demands it.
BUSH: … There’s just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.
[…]
I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.
He has held his staff to the highest standards on that case and I’m sure he’ll do the same on this one.
(Now that poor little Brownie has resigned, some enterprising reporter needs to tell him that he’s measured for a scapegoat suit. He might be feeling raw enough to spill some beans.)
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American Welfare
I promise that I will write about something else today, but I want to follow up on the post below just a bit to address an issue that comes up continually among liberals. It came up during the Democratic primaries and it will come up again I’m sure. There is a great desire to pivot the conversation to poverty rather than race because people believe that we will then be able to create a class argument that can appeal to working class whites and blacks alike.
Unfortunately, in America these issues are inextricably intertwined. You will never be able to separate them because the bedrock value of American “individualism” and the belief that the poor are simply unwilling to work is directly a result of our attitudes about race.
I linked to this moldy piece of mine in the post below, but I would like to put just a part of it on the front page so that people can see what I’m talking about. Ask yourself why America has never been able to put together a decent modern welfare state (or in less politically incorrect parlance — a robust safety net) when all the other first world democracies (and some second world democracies) have.
It comes down to the veto power or dominance of the conservative southern states in electoral politics, just as we see it today. And it is one reason we have been unable to advance liberal government programs short of a national crisis or brief period of consensus — and win much in the south since 1968.
The question has always been, why don’t southern working class whites vote their economic self-interest?
In this paper (pdf) Sociologist Nathan Glazer of Harvard), who has long been interested in the question of America’s underdeveloped welfare state, answers a related question — “Why Americans don’t care about income inequality” which may give us some clues. Citing a comprehensive study by economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth called, “Why Doesn’t the United States have a European-Style Welfare State?” (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2/2001) he shows that the reluctance of Americans to embrace an egalitarian economic philosophy goes back to the beginning of the republic. But what is interesting is that both he and the economists offer some pretty conclusive evidence that the main reason for American “exceptionalism” in this case is, quite simply, racism.
AGS [Alesina, Glazear and Sacerdote] report, using the World Values Survey, that “opinions and beliefs about the poor differ sharply between the United States and Europe. In Europe the poor are generally thought to be unfortunate, but not personally responsible for their own condition. For example, according to the World Values Survey, whereas 70 % of West Germans express the belief that people are poor because of imperfections in society, not their own laziness, 70 % of Americans hold the opposite view…. 71 % of Americans but only 40% of Europeans said …poor people could work their way out of poverty.”
[…]
“Racial fragmentation and the disproportionate representation of ethnic minorities among the poor played a major role in limiting redistribution…. Our bottom line is that Americans redistribute less than Europeans for three reasons: because the majority of Americans believe that redistribution favors racial minorities, because Americans believe that they live in an open and fair society, and that if someone is poor it is his or her own fault, and because the political system is geared toward preventing redistribution. In fact the political system is likely to be endogenous to these basic American beliefs.”(p. 61)
“Endogenous” is economics-ese for saying we have the political system we do because we prefer the results it gives, such as limiting redistribution to the blacks. Thus the racial factor as well as a wider net of social beliefs play a key role in why Americans don’t care about income inequality, and why, not caring, they have no great interest in expanding the welfare state.
Glazer goes on to point out how these attitudes may have come to pass historically by discussing the roles that the various immigrant support systems and the variety of religious institutions provided for the poor:
But initial uniformities were succeeded by a diversity which overwhelmed and replaced state functions by nonstate organizations, and it was within these that many of the services that are the mark of a fully developed welfare state were provided. Where do the blacks fit in? The situation of the blacks was indeed different. No religious or ethnic group had to face anything like the conditions of slavery or the fierce subsequent prejudice and segregation to which they were subjected. But the pre-existing conditions of fractionated social services affected them too. Like other groups, they established their own churches, which provided within the limits set by the prevailing poverty and absence of resources some services. Like other groups, too, they were dependant on pre-existing systems of social service that had been set up by religious and ethnic groups, primarily to serve their own, some of which reached out to serve blacks, as is the case with the religiously based (and now publicly funded) social service agencies of New York City. They were much more dependant, owing to their economic condition, on the poorly developed primitive public services, and they became in time the special ward of the expanded American welfare state’s social services. Having become, to a greater extent than other groups, the clients of public services, they also affected, owing to the prevailing racism, the public image of these services.
Glazer notes that there are other factors involved in our attitudes about inequality having to do with our British heritage, religious backround etc, that also play into our attitudes. But, he and the three economists have put their finger on the problem Democrats have with white Southern voters who “vote against their economic self-interest,” and may just explain why populism is so often coupled with nativism and racism — perhaps it’s always been impossible to make a populist pitch that includes blacks or immigrants without alienating whites.
So, we are dealing with a much more complex and intractable problem than “southerners have been duped by Nixon’s southern strategy” or that liberals have been insulting them for years by supposedly devaluing their culture. Indeed, even the nostalgia … for FDR’s coalition is historically inaccurate. A majority of whites have never voted with blacks in the south. (In the 30’s, as we all know, southern blacks were rarely allowed to vote at all.) In fact, FDR had an implicit agreement with the southern base of his party to leave Jim Crow alone if he wanted their cooperation on other economic issues. The southern coalition went along out of desperation (and also because they were paying very little in taxes.) But, as soon as the economy began to recover, and Roosevelt began to concentrate on programs for the poor, the division that exists to this day re-emerged.
When you all get a chance to read Rick Perlstein’s new book (which he generously allowed me to excerpt a bit of here) you will see how fragile and ephemeral the consensus that allowed the civil rights bills to pass in the mid-60’s was. You will see that almost immediately the backlash formed against the anti-poverty programs despite the fact that, contrary to myth, they worked quite well and actually lifted a lot of people out of poverty, black and white alike.
Racism informs many Americans’ ideas about poverty. It is also one of the darker philosphical underpinnings of our vaunted American individualism. From the beginning we had problems because government programs often had to help blacks as a last resort. It is why today many people believe that welfare has a black face even though far more welfare recipients are white. It is why we have developed the idea that the poor (pictured in our minds’ eye as black and brown) are lazy and shiftless rather than unfortunate. (Europe, with its long history of class division doesn’t see poverty this way.) It’s why certain people made the assumption that the poor and black in New Orleans were all on welfare rather than the truth, which is that many of them are members of the urban working poor.
There are certainly many conservatives who hold a philosophy of small government for different reasons than racism. They may believe that power corrupts or that big government is inefficient. But there is no sense of economic self-interest in working class whites being against high taxes for millionaires and corporations and there is no reason that they should be worried about big government takeover of healthcare when thiers is terrible if it exists at all. And yet many of them vote against the party that promises to tax millionaires and corporations and provide national health insurance.
The sad fact is that in that great sea of Republican red, there are many whites who would rather do without health care than see money go to pay for programs that they believe benefit blacks to the detriment of whites. Their prejudice overwhelms their economic self-interest and always has. They vote for the party that reinforces their belief that government programs only benefit the undeserving african american poor.
That is why liberals have to accept that race must be part of the argument. We are making progress. Things are better. But progress requires staying focused on the issue and ensuring that there is no slippage, no matter how difficult and cumbersome this debate feels at times. The liberal agenda depends upon forcing this out of the national bloodstream with each successive generation not only for moral reasons, which I know we all believe, but it also depends upon forcing it out of the bloodstream for practical reasons. Until this knee jerk reaction to black poverty among certain whites (and Pat Buchanan), particularly in the south, is brought to heel we are fighting an uphill battle to muster the consensus we need to create the kind of nation that guarantees its citizens a modern, decent safety net regardless of race or class.
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