Brad DeLong's Egregious Moderation

Matthew Yglesias: America Really Doesn't Need the Washington Post

Matthew Yglesias: Allies We Don't Need: Media Matters notes a curious trend. The Washington Post endorsed the confirmation of John Roberts. The Washington Post endorsed the confirmation of Samuel Alito. Now, The Washington Post has gone an excoriated the recent spate of 5-4 decisions in which Roberts and Alito, predictably, joined with fellow conservatives... to do the sort of things that conservative judges do.

One wishes, at this point, that the Post would simply endorse the decisions as well. If the Post wants to become conservative on judicial issues, the way it's become conservative on foreign policy issues then it is, of course, free to do so. But hewing to a liberal line when it doesn't matter only adds a veneer of credibility when they put forward conservative views on question that do matter -- who should and who should not be confirmed. They could, of course, redeem themselves by noting the contradiction and swearing that they won't carry water for conservative nominees in the future. I, however, won't be holding my breath.

Henry Farrell: Life Imitates Ted (again)

Crooked Timber » » Life Imitates Ted (again): Norman Podhoretz on the National Review Cruise, 2007.

“Aren’t you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?” Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. “No,” Podhoretz replies. “As I say, they were shipped to Syria. During Gulf war one, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran.” He says he is “heartbroken” by this “rise of defeatism on the right.” He adds, apropos of nothing, “There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we’re winning.” The audience cheers Podhoretz. The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused. Doesn’t he sound like the liberal media? Later, over dinner, a tablemate from Denver calls Buckley “a coward.” His wife nods and says, “Buckley’s an old man,” tapping her head with her finger to suggest dementia.

Ted Barlow on the National Review Cruise, 2003.

4:00 (Lounge 3) Seminar: Dealing with Cognitive Dissonance: Economics: Lie down and relax, as the staff of the National Review explain, in soothing tones, how the massive growth in government spending, net loss of jobs, the steel tariff, and explosive deficit growth during the Bush presidency are all part of a clever, clever plan. So clever. (Featuring ambient mix by Mobius Dick- Glenn Reynolds samples the first Orb album in its entirety and then adds, “Indeed” in a dreamy voice. CDs available.) (Note: Dealing with Cognitive Dissonance: Iraq attracted more interest than anticipated. We will cover WMDs in a special session on Thursday)

Looks like the Thursday session ended up getting delayed again...

Matthew Yglesias: Stand by Your President

Matthew Yglesias: Solidarity: Josh Marshall wrote yesterday evening about the paradoxical political benefits of GOP congresspeople standing by Bush on Iraq even though the war is hugely unpopular:

As long as that's the case, as long as the vast majority of Republicans oppose Democratic attempts to end the war, that will keep Democrats (not saying it's right, just observing the dynamics) from really going to the mat over it. And as long as Democrats don't force a major confrontation that keeps it all sort of murky in the public mind who's for or against.

Now, Josh thinks this logic will break down eventually, especially because if it does break down "no one wants to be the last one to the door." This is all no doubt true, but I also think it's worth dwelling a bit on the paradox. It seems to me that one of the big lessons -- if not the big lesson -- of the past 15 years worth of legislative politics is that there are huge political benefits to party unity as such. Vote against the Clinton health plan and watch it pass, and you're screwed; but if everyone just stands and opposes it, not only does the plan fail, but the president becomes unpopular because he's a failure who can't solve the big issues.

This sort of thinking turns the traditions of the American system on their head, but I think it will persist into 2009 and beyond since the benefits seem real enough to me.

Demosthenes: January 16, 2003: Bright College Days, Dark White House Years

Bright College Days, Dark White House Years, by demosthenes - Democratic Underground: It is clear the personal style and deep-rooted sensibilities of both GWB and Bill Clinton were made, or at least made plain during their time in college.... Bush... never had to lie about money because he was never short of it. He was a Yale "legacy," there for his "gentleman's C" because it was expected of him. He regarded both learning and the learned with patrician disdain. Instead his focus was social, and elitist - Skull and Bones and the sons of his father's rich friends. If he furnished his mind at all in his time at Yale, it was with the "received wisdom" of the rich, and certainly not the bothersome and complicated "book learning" that he has never even pretended to value....

The elitism and cronyism which shaped GWB's life and 'education' are on display with every tone-deaf appointment of his father's old apparatchiks, men like Kissenger or Poindexter....

[Bush's] distaste for book learning and expertise has created a "White House sans white-papers." Decisions come from GWB's heart, where he "knows" such truths as that the rich pay far too much in taxes, from the K Street corporate lobbyists or straight from the right wing playbook via Karl Rove.

But proposing a policy change, whether from the heart or from K Street, is only the beginning of the process, right? Well, no. With Bush, there is no policy process.

John DiIulio's letter to Esquire conveyed his insight into the Bush White House. Remember, this is a friend of Bush's, the man he picked to head his Faith Based Initiative. DiIulio describes an administration where there is virtually no research, no discussion, review or consultation involved in the making of policy.

One of Bush's major foreign policy decisions was made by a speechwriter's rhetorical flourish. Hertzberg's article on how the phrase "Axis of Evil" was crafted after 9/11 to justify a war with Iraq and how it got, all-too-casually, populated with three very different nations for reasons that had nothing at all to do with that attack on our country. Nuclear weapons for N. Korea are what we got from that speech; what we wanted was a bullet for Saddam.....

I am unqualified to judge whether GWB is a better man than Bill Clinton - Clinton's flaws as a man have been made obvious to all, to our cost. But, for all his personal defects, Clinton clearly ran a far better White House policy team.... Bush's much-praised "character"... effectively poisoned the wellsprings of policy and cut his White House off from the resources of expertise, desperately needed for the many absolutely critical decisions that Bush must make, as he attempts to lead our nation through these complex and perilous times....

George W. Bush will never really outgrow his college days. He will continue to be what he is, what he has been all his life and what we clearly saw him to be, even as a candidate.

And so we, and the world, will continue to live with these consequences of his character.

May heaven help us all.

P.Z. Myers: The Corruption of Scooby Doo

Pharyngula: The corruption of Scooby Doo: Chris Mooney makes a point about the supernatural thriller genre.

Indeed, nearly five years ago I wrote a column entitled "Conversion Fantasies" in which I made the following point: In movies and TV series about the paranormal, the sterotypical "skeptic" figure always seems to convert into a believer by the end. And why does this occur? Well, because in fiction, the author can control the laws of nature, and in these fictional narratives (which show an abundant lack of creativity), the supernatural always turns out to be real.

I think an excellent example of this trend is the Scooby Doo cartoon. Way back when I was a young'un, they always ended the same way: the Scooby Doo gang would always discover that the monster/spectre/alien was actually Old Man Cargill, dressed in a costume, trying to keep visitors away so they wouldn't discover his secret uranium mine, and they always led him away in handcuffs at the end, while he muttered, "If it weren't for those darned kids, I would have gotten away with it." I know, the cartoon was cheesily and cheaply animated, the plots were boring and predictable, and the characters were annoyingly trite, but at least they had a consistent message that the supernatural wasn't real.

That changed last time I saw it — the ghosts were "real". It was very strange: it was a badly done cartoon, waning in popularity, and instead of trying to reinvigorate it by, say, coming up with creative plots, or getting better artwork, or making the characters more interesting, they chose to throw away the one novel element of the show. The supernatural resort is often the act of lazy hacks.

I'm not going to be quite as down on the supernatural in fiction as Mooney is — I do like a good cheesy horror flick now and then — but I agree with him that the conversion narrative always seems to run in one direction only, and it's gotten a bit tired. How about a movie where a confirmed, praying, ghost-fearing, gullible person sees the evidence and is enlightened, and sees at last the sufficiency of natural mechanisms? I don't just mean discovering it's Old Man Cargill under the sheet, but gets their whole worldview shaken up and realizes that hey, looking for material causes works.

That would be a hard one to write, I suspect, and me and Chris Mooney don't represent a very big share of the market.

Brad DeLong: Is Richard Perez-Pena an Idiot?

Richard Perez-Pena writes that some members of the Bancroft family fear that a Murdoch-run Wall Street Journal editorial page would be "sensationalist and politically slanted to the right." Now I know that the Bancrofts understand that their editorial page is already highly sensationalist, and not just slanted to the right but positively horizontal and on its back to the right. Does Richard Perez-Pena think we are idiots? Does he want us to (falsely) think that the Bancroft family is madeup of idiots? Is he an idiot?

Tentative Dow Jones Sale Pact Said to Give Murdoch Power to Hire and Fire at The Journal: By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA: A tentative accord on the editorial independence of The Wall Street Journal would leave Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation with the sole power to hire and fire The Journal’s top editors if it succeeds in buying the newspaper’s owner, Dow Jones & Company, people who have been briefed on the agreement said yesterday.

That is a far cry from the demands made by the Bancroft family, owners of a controlling interest in Dow Jones, and it remains to be seen how the Bancrofts — most of whom have not been told what was in the agreement — will react. Negotiators for News Corporation and Dow Jones continue to iron out elements of what has been described as “an agreement in principle” on editorial independence, and they expect to begin to debate the price of the deal soon. News Corporation has offered $60 a share, or about $5 billion....

The Bancrofts have said that their highest priority is to preserve the integrity of The Journal, one of the world’s leading newspapers, and guard its news and editorial pages from influence by Mr. Murdoch. Some family members have pointed to News Corporation properties like Fox News Channel and The New York Post that they call sensationalist and politically slanted to the right.... [T]he family gave Mr. Murdoch proposals that would allow them to choose most of the initial board members. They called for a board with the sole power to hire and fire the managing editor of The Journal, who is the top newsroom official; the editorial page editor; the publisher; and the managing editor of Dow Jones Newswires.

But the board arrangement tentatively worked out by negotiators for Dow Jones and News Corporation on Tuesday would not grant hiring and firing authority, according to people close to the negotiations.... [T]he board would not even have the ability to veto News Corporation’s choices.... The editorial board’s five initial members would all be chosen by agreement between the Bancrofts and News Corporation and would name their own successors.

In theory, under the agreement, News Corporation would not try to directly influence the operation of the newsroom or the content of The Journal. The editorial board would investigate complaints that the company had not abided by the rule, and it would be able take such issues to court. The tentative deal would allow the current top editors to remain after a News Corporation takeover, but not the publisher...

Reopen the Investigation of Abu Ghraib.

Think Progress » Reopen the investigation of Abu Ghraib.: McClatchy’s military analyst Joseph Galloway writes:

The president and his men, and Rumsfeld and his, happily put Abu Ghraib behind them and went merrily along knowing that the network of secret CIA prisons where high-value prisoners were subjected to extreme interrogation techniques was still secret.

The examples made of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki and Gen. Taguba weren’t lost on military commanders in the field or at home: If you dare speak truth to power in this administration, your career is toast, and any hopes you have of landing a cushy job in one of the defense industry behemoths are finished.

It’s long past time for Congress to reopen the matter of who’s really responsible for Abu Ghraib and let the chips fall where they may - even if that means they pile up around the retirement home of a former secretary of defense or the gates of the White House itself.

Matthew Yglesias on the New Republic on Hamas

Matthew Yglesias: So Very Clever: I wonder who wrote TNR's unsigned editorial on Hamas and what was going through his head when he wrote this:

A great debate has already begun on the subject of who lost Gaza. Increasingly, one hears that the Israelis did, or the Americans did; that the disaster is the consequence of Israeli policies or American policies, of Israeli harshness and American indifference. It is necessary to insist, therefore, that the primary responsibility for Palestinian actions falls on Palestinians. To believe the opposite is to hold a condescending imperialist view of the Palestinians as the passive objects of others; as nothing but the wretched playthings of power, of circumstances over which they have no control; as people in some way unqualified for history.

Could the author of those lines seriously expect a single person on the planet to regard TNR as the authentic voice of anti-imperialism west of the Jordan River? Obviously not. But so what's the point? It reflects, I think, a dangerous self-deception. The piece much more appropriately on a rancid note of smug condescension:

For many decades, the world has clamored for Palestinian self-determination. Well, the clamor can now cease. Palestinian self-determination is here for all the world to see. So is self-determination good news or bad news? It all depends on what is determined.

What the argument here is supposed to be, I couldn't quite say? Is a decades-long program of illegal settlement-construction really given retroactive legitimacy by the outcome of an armed struggle in June 2007? Would it really be "imperialist" of me to note that the self-fulfilling prophecies of the Israeli right have been the Palestinian rejectionists' best friend for a long time? Meanwhile, I don't want to say anything untoward, but the editorial has a remarkable way of not grappling at all with US policy, either forward- or backward-looking; of saying what, if any, American interests are in play here and how they might best be advanced.

Flashback on Frank Meyer and Fusionism on National Review Online

Matthew Yglesias directs us to an inspired bit of psychotic creepiness from National Review: its admission that its patron saint Frank Meyer's "casual reference to 'the totalitarian implications of the federal school lunch program" was "not... wholly positive":

Flashback on Frank Meyer and Fusionism on National Review Online: For fifty years, most American conservatives have stood for three basic propositions: that American foreign policy should seek to end totalitarian regimes; that the domestic functions of government, and especially of the federal government, should be strictly limited; and that the moral precepts traditionally associated with Christianity (sometimes the formulation includes Judaism as well) should be upheld....

Often, the intellectual coherence of conservatism has been challenged by people who shelter under none of its tents. Thus liberals charge that there is a deep contradiction between advocating low taxes and condemning low morals. In the founding generation of modern American conservatism, no one tried harder to answer that charge than Frank Meyer. Meyer attempted to show that traditionalism and libertarianism were indeed compatible and that both were necessary. He succeeded in persuading most conservatives. His thought became, to a large extent, the philosophical basis for American conservatism....

Meyer’s mix of libertarianism and traditionalism came to be called “fusionism.”... [T]he traditionalist was correct in affirming the existence of an objective moral order and the importance of virtue. The... libertarians were right to oppose statism. These truths were not at war, but merely “contrary emphases in conservatism.”....

The influence of [Meyer's] fusionism has not been wholly positive. Meyer contributed to an unfortunate tendency among conservatives toward theoretical maximalism, as in his casual reference to “the totalitarian implications of the federal school lunch program.” Another instance of that maximalism was his assertion that “society does not exist” (a phrase Margaret Thatcher later used). Did libertarianism really have to be founded on such extreme individualism, rather than, say, skepticism about or fear of the state?...

Profile in Uncourage: EPA Administrator Christie Whitman

Profile in Courage: EPA Admin Christie Whitman Resigns Over Principle!!!! | TPMCafe: By M.J. Rosenberg: Today's Washington Post article on the VP and his efforts to gut environmental law reveals that former EPA administrator Christie Whitman resigned in August 2003 to protest the administration's decision to ignore the law and allow "some of the nation's dirtiest plants" to continue operating "without installing costly new pollution controls."

Whitman first protested by going to the President himself and explaining how disastrous the administration's plan was. But then, in her words, she realized "that the decision had been made."

So she quit! She walked out to the North Lawn of the White House and announced to the media that she was going back to New Jersey because she could not serve as chief of EPA for an administration that violated environmental laws. Okay. That's not quite true. I mean, it's all true except for the last paragraph. She quit over principle but announced that she was leaving "to spend more time with her family."

In other words, she lied about her reasons for quitting to protect an administration that she knew was intentionally damaging the health of the American people to please campaign donors who owned dirty industrial plants. Why in God's name would she admit that now? I guess she hopes that revealing the real story -- when it no longer matters -- will enhance her reputation at a time when she is being attacked, rightfully, for her deception about the true quality of New York's air following 9/11. For that she is on the Congressional hotseat with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) really letting her have it!

In any case, Whitman's behavior, while deplorable, is standard operating procedure in America today. Nobody quits over principle anymore. The last one I can recall was Peter Edelman who quit the Clinton administration because he opposed the welfare reform act and told the country why. Then there was Secretary of State Cyrus Vance who quit over Carter's handling of Iran. A few Republican officials quit the Civil Rights division of Justice over Nixon's non-enforcement of civil rights laws. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned from his post to protest Woodrow Wilson's (America's worst President until very very recently) decision to go to war with Germany in 1917.