On Actually Governing (Drill Baby Drill!)

Look, I'm no fan of offshore drilling. But I'm amazed at how many smart people don't understand the strategy revealed this morning.

First, let's be clear, Obama never claimed (as far as I can recall) that offshore drilling was an evil to be avoided at all costs. His primary response to the "Drill Baby Drill" refrain from the election was that drilling was "only part of a comprehensive solution for energy independence." Anyone thinking seriously about policy for transitioning to sustainable green domestic energy knows that increased drilling and increased use of nuclear power, as unpopuluar as they are, are indispensible early steps in that transition. What distinguishes serious policy advocates from sloganeers like Palin is their ability to think beyond more drilling to the actual long term solutions. But this isn't my point.

My point is best illustrated by referencing the argument as forulated Yglesias (normally the smartest guy on the internet):

I don’t understand this at all. Increased coastal drilling would be a small price to pay in exchange for actual congressional votes for an overall energy package that shifts us to a low-carbon economy over time. But any price is too high a price to pay in exchange for nothing at all. This isn’t the greatest environmental crime in human history, but it sure does seem like poor legislative strategy.

True. This would be a poor legislative strategy. But as a political strategy, it's a revolutionary application of the same political jujitsu that shocked the Clinton camp with the greatest political upset in half a century. By pre-emptively implementing precisely the policies that the GOP have historically demanded (modulated slightly by reasonable environmental concerns), Obama has created an opportunity for the Democrats to recast themselves as the only adults in Washington.

The American people want results. If the Democrats in Congress can come together a few more times in support of Obama's effort to solve real problems with a healthy mixture of Progressive values, reasonable compromises and common-sense solutions, then November will be nothing to fear. He's already pushed major legislation through during a election year--which Conventional Wisdom took to be impossible--and he seems on track to do it a few more times. His largest obstacle has been the fact that Congressional Democrats are too thoroughly driven by the outdated Groupthink of the Beltway pundocracy to follow through on the gamble.

On Right-Wing Strawmen

The single most frequently used weapon in the arsenal of your standard right-wing propagandist is the Strawman Argument. Close competitors are projection: cast your opponents as weak on your own greatest sin; and caricature: cast your opponents in general as reflective of the most extreme characteristics associated with them.

Barone's defense of the teabaggers today is riddled with all three:

The Progressives' scorn for the Founders has not been shared by the people. First-rate books about the Founders have been best-sellers. And efforts to dismiss the Founders as slaveholders, misogynists or homophobes have been outweighed by the resonance of their words and deeds.

[...]

Polls and recent election results tell us that racial minorities and the so-called "educated class" -- the people who expect their kind will administer centralized institutions -- still take the side of the Progressives. Most Americans, however, are rejecting the path of dependence and are intent on declaring their independence once again.

It is disingenuous to suggest that "good government" and "big government" are synonymous. To suggest otherwise is to commit the worst kind of Orwellian newspeak in the tradition of Madison Avenue and Frank Luntz. We can do better than that, America.

(How brave to stand up for Liberty! It is indeed a time for all of us to put aside petty politics in an effort to make hard decisions. And, by the way, who wants to take Jefferson out of the text books?)

Ha! You're Going to Prison! (Enjoy Your New Swastika Face Tatoo, Boys.)

Eugene Robinson gets to the heart of the equivalency argument currently being trotted out on the right to rationalize their well-armed redneck base coming completely unhinged:

The episode highlights the obvious: For decades now, the most serious threat of domestic terrorism has come from the growing ranks of paranoid, anti-government hate groups that draw their inspiration, vocabulary and anger from the far right.

It is disingenuous for mainstream purveyors of incendiary far-right rhetoric to dismiss groups such as the Hutaree by saying that there are "crazies on both sides." This simply is not true.

[...]

It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.

Demagogues scream at people that their government is illegitimate, that their country has been "taken away," that their elected officials are "traitors" and that their freedom is at risk. They have a right to free speech, which I will always defend. But they shouldn't be surprised if some listeners take them literally.

Wolverines! I couldn't help it. (But seriously ... Go Blue!)

This Is Rediculous

More evidence that the teabaggers don't actually believe anything:

In her speech at the rally, Sarah Palin of course paid homage to the Constitution. “Our vision for America is anchored in time-tested truths that the government that governs least governs best, that the Constitution provides the path to a more perfect union — it’s the Constitution,” she exclaimed. And so it’s extremely puzzling that Palin introduced this new attack line against
President Obama yesterday:

"In these volatile times when we are a nation at war, now more than ever is when we need a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor lecturing us from a lectern."

Ironically, the crowd cheered wildly at Palin’s line.

Fuck You, Kid!

Lighten up, douchebag:

The teenager who persuaded the California Assembly to approve a No Cussing resolution earlier this month has a message for Vice President Joe Biden: Watch your mouth.

South Pasadena High School student McKay Hatch held a news conference Friday in front of his city's post office where he asked the vice president to apologize for letting a profanity slip during a bill-signing ceremony earlier this week.

Quit being such an asshat!

It Would Be Funny, If It Weren't So Disgusting

Benen today:

THE LIMITS OF AN EXTREME IDEOLOGY.... The Washington Post ran a profile of Mike Vanderboegh, a 57-year-old former militiaman from Alabama, who disapproves of the new Affordable Care Act. Vanderboegh, who describes himself as a "Christian libertarian" and has been part of various clandestine militia groups, has been encouraging those who agree with him to throw bricks through the windows of Democratic offices nationwide.

It's about what you'd expect from someone like this, and Vanderboegh is unapologetic about his extremism. In his interview with the Post, he makes multiple references to people who "are armed and are capable of making such resistance possible and perhaps even initiating a civil
war."

Given the threat of domestic terrorism, all of this is disconcerting, to be sure. But Josh Marshall flags the punch-line from the profile:

"Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension."

I see. So, Vanderboegh has a physical ailment, so instead of working, he's turned to the government to supply him with a modest income. Whether Vanderboegh appreciates the irony of a radical libertarian, who demands that a small government leave people alone, getting taxpayer-financed checks from the government not to work, is unclear.

Seriously, W! T! F!

What He Said

The root of my obsession with the disarray on the American Right is summed up perfectly by Krugman today:

In the short run, Republican extremism may be good for Democrats, to the extent that it prompts a voter backlash. But in the long run, it’s a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don’t.

I like the short-run political benefits of this insanity (assuming people don't actually start shooting) because the current GOP does not deserve to be taken seriously. But I share Krugman's concern about the lack of a coherent antithesis in this country. The sooner the GOP can add Pragmatism to its Reaganism, the better.

Update 1: Hope on the horizon?

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said GOP colleagues privately expressed weariness with the hardball political tactics that have heightened partisan tensions.

“There have been a couple of [Republican] senators who have said sometimes, like last night, that ‘this is pointless, I don’t know why we’re doing this,’ ” McCaskill said in reference to a voting session that lasted until the early morning hours Thursday to consider GOP amendments to healthcare reform.

As a side note, I really like Claire McCaskill. Don't rule her out as the first woman POTUS.

The Blood of Patriots

This is getting out of control, and Rachel is the only one covering it seriously:



Update: This is getting dangerous:

Updated: 1:55 p.m. Federal and local authorities are investigating a severed gas line at the home of U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother, discovered the day after Tea Party activists posted the address online so opponents could “drop by” and “express their thanks” for Perriello’s vote in favor of health care reform.

The gas line connected a propane tank to a gas grill on the home’s screened-in porch, according to sources in Tom Perriello’s office.

The incident is being viewed as an attempted threat to a member of congress, sources said.

Two members of the conservative Tea Party groups in Danville and Lynchburg posted the home’s address online Monday, mistakenly believing it belonged to the congressman. The home actually belongs to Bo Perriello, the congressman’s older brother.

Update 2: Here are some of the highlights from Stupak's voice mail:



Sounds like these people really love Jesus, huh?

Update 3: Their words, not mine:

If we can get across to the other side that they are within inches of provoking a civil war in this country, then that's a good thing.

All the Party People in the House Say "Yeah"

Tomorrow's the day, and the Teabaggers can feel it coming. You can tell because they're talking about getting their guns, whipping out their racist and homophobic epithets and spitting on members of congress. Meanwhile, in Fantasyland, Republicans in Congress are taking victory laps.

Getting Shit Done

Yglesias is a smart man:

Which is just to say that nobody lasts in office forever, no congressional majority lasts forever, and no party controls the White House forever. But the measure of a political coalition isn’t how long it lasted, but what it achieved. From the tone of a lot of present-day political commentary you’d think that the big mistake Lyndon Johnson made during his tenure in the White House was that by passing the Civil Rights Act he wound up damaging the Democratic Party politically by opening the South up to the GOP. Back on planet normal, that’s the crowning achievement of his presidency.

It's time to pass Health Care Reform.

On the Legality of Drone Strikes

I'm a well known advocate of smaller-lighter-faster, so I'm not exactly against drone strikes, but this article does point to a need for reform in international law.

In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.

Rendition (not the "for torture" kind, but the "for trial" kind) and the surgical application of force are the future. And that's great news for civilian populations. A new framework of international law would be worth the effort.

Methinks the Lady Doth Protest Too Much 2

I guess the Neo-cons aren't aware of the Buchanan wing of the Republican Party, because they clearly don't know that paranoid anti-government, Isolationist, 9/11-Truther rants mostly emerge from fellow-travellers on the Right. They are so completely oblivious to this verifiable fact, that they are willing to take anti-Bush rhetoric as definitive evidence, asking their readers to:

Save this link when Big Media tries to portray him as a Tea Partier or right-winger.

I guess things get confusing when you spend all of your time constructing reality and none actually dealing with it.

Update: This (the Penatagon shooting for the link-lazy out there) is the story of the day in the right-wing blogosphere. Malkin is pretending to take the high road:

But just as I passed on playing the blame game with the global warmicides earlier this week, I’m not playing MSNBC/NYTimes-style “gotcha” with this one, either.

Of course, that's just how she rolls. Pure class, all the time.

But, here's the interesting part. She actually summarizes the substance of the reality-based community's critique of all the Teabag rhetoric perfectly while trying to appear classy:

But the truth is, paranoid people simply feel threatened by the external power structure in general, so they lash out at any symbol of authority, regardless of its political affiliation.

So "respected" public figures playing lip-service to this paranoid ideology is a good idea? These guys are less likely to go postal when Perry un-apologetically implies that he supports secession or Beck emotionally asserts that we are on the precipice of full-blown tyrannical statism?

On a related note ... it's amazing how fast these people find their story and "agree" to stick to it.

Update 2: Yes, I am aware of the 9/11-Truthers in the Anarchist wing of the Left. But my point is not that such crazies don't exist, but that the left-wing establishment doesn't actively try to get them worked up for political benefit (or even really acknowledge their existence).

Update 3: Think Progress is doing a great job of connecting the dots outlining this guy's right-wing philosophy:

The blatant violations of the Constitution’s limitations on the economic role of the government accomplished through many subtle usurpations over many decades are perhaps even more pernicious than and are certainly a key motivation for the violent seizure of the United States government.

Update 4: The "lady" protests again. Make no mistake about it, the party registration of this person does not change the "Libertarian"/"Strict Constructionist" substance of his ideology. Nor does it change the willful insistence by some major players on the right to fan the flames of insurgency.

Update 5: Can we stop pretending this is a question now?

The California man who opened fire last night outside the Pentagon was a property rights extremist who railed against the government's ability to "confiscate the resources of their citizens to fund schemes that need only be justified by lies and deception," and wanted to "eliminate the role of the government in education."

In a recorded manifesto called "Directions To Freedom", the audio of which he posted online in 2006, John Patrick Bedell, of Hollister, California, praised private property as "the most successful basis for structuring society that humanity has ever known."

Bedell shot two police officers last night during the rampage, before being mortally wounded himself.

"Communist and socialist governments that abolished or disregarded private property," said Bedell in the recording, "created poverty, repression and murder on a truly enormous scale." But, he continued, "Even in the United States, however, there has been a continual erosion of protection of private property justified by the belief that government is an efficient instrument for the positive direction of society."

Bedell added: "Governments lack the profit and loss incentives that individuals and private organizations must use..."

And he warned: "When governments are able to confiscate the resources of their citizens to fund schemes that need only be justified by lies and deception enormous disasters can result."

(Emphasis mine.) Does that sound left-wing to you?

Update 6: More from Crooks and Liars pretty much in alignment with my own analysis (emphasis in original):

Remember that DHS bulletin warning of a potential outbreak of right-wing domestic terrorism that so freaked out conservatives because they claimed it "smeared" conservatives? Let's recall what it actually said:

DHS/I&A assesses that lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.

[..] Similarly, recent state and municipal law enforcement reporting has warned of the dangers of rightwing extremists embracing the tactics of “leaderless resistance” and of lone wolves carrying out acts of violence.

[...]

As we saw in Austin, far-right extremist rhetoric plays no small role in inspiring these acts. And inevitably, it is ordinary Americans who pay the price.

All I know is that if this had been a Muslim man who had walked into the Pentagon and opened fire, all the talk this morning would be about an "act of terrorism". Instead, it's just another "isolated incident." Funny how that works, isn't it?