Author Archives: Josh Eidelson

THE TIMES GIVETH, AND THE TIMES TAKETH AWAY

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Reading the latest New York Times John McCain puff piece makes you wonder whether the Times and company only started pulling the guy down with McCain deathwatch stories so that they could have the pleasure of building him up all over again:

Between jokes, he is steadfast in his support for the present course in Iraq, his voice hushing to a near-whisper during paeans to the United States military. He is also prone to solemn monologues against the evils of torturing prisoners and the atrocities committed by “those thugs in Burma” against pro-democracy demonstrators, neither of which are top-of-the-agenda issues for most Republican voters. But they are important to John McCain, never mind the polls and focus groups, which are too expensive anyway.

Groan. Mark Leibovich also refers to “his campaign bus, christened the Straight Talk Express during his insurgent presidential campaign of 2000,” a weird use of the passive voice that could leave us with the idea that it was so christened by David Broder or Saint Peter and not by John McCain. I guess the myth of McCain is just more fun when he’s the underdog.

YES WE CAN

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Considering the amount of money Ron Paul has raised, Glenn Reynolds asks

CAN YOU STILL CALL HIM A MINOR CANDIDATE?

The answer is yes.

But apparently libertarians have a lot of money. Go figure. Good thing that, for all the distorting undemocratic influence of money in politics, you can’t get elected in America without a bunch of people voting for you.

A SORT OF CONVENTIONAL CAMPAIGN BOOK FROM A LESS CONVENTIONAL SENATOR

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Just finished Paul Wellstone’s memoir The Conscience of a Liberal. It reads like a campaign book, which is what it is. Too much of it is taken up with descriptions of how much he respects colleagues who disagree with him, and how impressed they are with his courage. And Wellstone raises and then retires too quickly some questions that could have been the core of a better book – how effectively can electoral politics complement local issues-based organizing; did he vote for DOMA for the sake of re-election; how could Bill Clinton have pushed through more progressive policy. That said, Wellstone offers some telling reminders of the difference between merely opposing a bill and moving heaven and earth to stop it, and between paying lip service to a different kind of campaign and actually running one. And it needn’t cost you your job or your usefulness at it.

THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY THAT WASN’T

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Had the chance while I was back East for Rosh HaShanah to read George Stephanopoulos’ memoir, which I guess is a lot like you’d imagine it to be. Not to give away the ending, but Stephanopoulos closes with the image of Bill Clinton delivering his State of the Union in the thick of impeachment, and his final sentence is:

Wondering what might have been – if only this good president had been a better man.

This perspective on Clinton – that the great potential of his presidency was spoiled by his sex scandal – is pretty popular, but I don’t see a lot to support it. What were the big domestic or foreign policy initiatives that Clinton would have been able to push through in the last two-and-a-half years of his presidency if not for Monica Lewinsky? What’s the political strategy that would have overcome the hostility of Bob Dole’s Senate and Newt Gingrich’s House to get them through?

Sure, the Lewinsky scandal drew a lot of public, media, and congressional attention. But it’s wishful thinking to imagine that otherwise that airtime would have gone to important public policy. Bill Clinton spent much of the time he was being impeached at higher popularity than any of his peers at the same point in office. Like his wife, he did a deft job of parlaying Republican attacks into anti-anti-Clinton feeling. And if not for the impeachment overreach, it seems unlikely that the Democrats would have bucked history in 1998 by taking back House seats.

The story of a progressive savior that could have been if not for his adulterous appetites has a fun Greek tragic flair to it, but there’s not a lot to back it up. And it has the unfortunate effect of perpetuating the idea that a brilliant politician could have triangulated his way to big progressive reforms if only he’d passed up that blue dress.

WHITHER AMERICAN NATALISM? (OR "DAVID BROOKS’ WHITE FERTILITY")

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Kate Sheppard notes the passage of Russia’s “Day of Conception:”

Today falls exactly nine months before Russia Day, and as one of Putin’s policies to encourage more breeding in his country, he’s offered SUVs, refrigerators, and monetary rewards to anyone who gives birth on June 12. So the mayor of Ulyanovsk, a region in central Russia, has given workers there the afternoon off to make with the baby making. Everyone who gives birth is a winner in the “Give Birth to a Patriot on Russia’s Independence Day” contest, but the grand prize winner — judged on qualities like “respectability” and “commendable parenting” — gets to take home a UAZ-Patriot, a Russian-made SUV.

This seems like as good an opportunity as I’m likely to get (at least until June 12, which incidentally is the anniversary of two commendable parents I know) to ask why the kinds of natalist appeals and policy justifications that are so widespread in Europe are all but non-existent in the United States. Sure, American politicians seem to be expected to have gobs of kids to demonstrate their family values. But why is it much more common for politicians in Europe to push policies explicitly designed to make people have more kids?

Discouraging though it may be, I think the best answer is race. Politicians in Sweden or in Russia or in France get further with calls for the nation to have more babies for the sake of national greatness or national survival because that nation and those babies are imagined to look more the same.

Marty Gillens caused a stir with his research suggesting that Americans have negative attitudes towards welfare and its beneficiaries because of their negative views towards the racial groups imagined to benefit (Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, Bruce Sacerdote, Simo Virtanen, and Leonie Huddy further explore this). Americans are less inclined to support government spending on social programs, these scholars argue, because they’re less likely to imagine those programs benefiting people who look like them. Conversely, Swedes are more content with a robust welfare state because their immigration restrictions keep those benefits away from people of other races.

(In 1990, the top country sending immigrants to Sweden was Norway. In 2000, it was Iraq. And the increase in Sweden’s foreign-born populations in the 90’s roughly equaled the increase from the 70’s and 80’s combined. There’s cause for concern that as immigration to Sweden increases, benefits will decrease or access for immigrants will decrease – a process Swedish conservatives already began in the 1990s.)

I don’t think you can really explain the lack of natalist rhetoric in the US without similar logic, and particularly confronting animus towards a group Americans can’t deny welfare benefits simply by cutting off immigrants: African-Americans. What Ange-Marie Hancock calls “the politics of disgust” heaps shame on imagined “welfare queens” for working too little and birthing too much. In the controversy over the ’96 welfare bill, fertility came up plenty, but the imagined problem was too many babies, not too few. Churches and others made what you might consider natalist arguments against the bill, but they didn’t get much traction – unlike the GOP Congressman who held up a “Don’t feed the alligators” sign.

So when David Brooks wrote a paean to natalism in America, he left those hated Black women out. Instead, in a column a month after the ’04 election, he cited Steve Sailer (who even John Podhoretz recognizes as a racist) celebrating that “George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates.” Brooks’ column celebrates these fertile white parents for demonstrating good red-state values:

Very often they have sacrificed pleasures like sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling…The people who are having big families are explicitly rejecting materialistic incentives and hyperindividualism.

Can you imagine a prominent right-wing pundit or politician saying such things about a low-income Black family that chose to have more kids?

Now some will say that American conservatives are less natalist than their European counterparts because they’re more anti-government. Which is a fair point, but I think it’s difficult to explain the presence of “Christian Democrat” parties in Europe without considering race. Or you could argue that the natalist push in Europe is based in part in fear of immigration. Which circles back on the same argument: racial fears and prejudices map more easily along lines of citizenship in countries that have historically had fewer non-white citizens. Just as the comparative historical ethnic diversity of the United States plays a role in explaining why our political system has held down benefits for everyone rather than only restricting them to citizens (though we’ve done that too), it seems like the strongest explanation for why we don’t hear lots of appeals for America to have more babies.

Is there a better explanation? (This is where those of you who’ve been kvetching about the paucity of posting should leave comments)

STAND AGAINST GENOCIDE SUNDAY

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This Sunday across from UN Headquarters in New York, 24 Hours for Darfur will host the flagship rally of the Global Day for Darfur. From the press advisory sent along by my brother:

24 Hours for Darfur has collected video messages from concerned citizens around the world urging their political leaders to address the ongoing atrocities occurring in Darfur. Their videos will be projected on a massive LCD screen in front of UN headquarters at the rally, alongside videos from policymakers such as former Senator John Edwards and former UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown, celebrities such as actor-activist Mia Farrow and Olympic Gold Medalist Joey Cheek, and Darfuris such as Daoud Hari, one of three Darfuris granted refugee status in the US in the past four years…

At the rally, 24 Hours for Darfur will call on the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to send a high-level, full-time diplomatic team to the region to support a real peace process…The rally will also feature speakers from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Genocide Intervention Network, and the ENOUGH Project.

Not to be missed. There will also be a lot of Eidelsons there, myself included. The rally starts at 11 AM at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (47th St. between 1st and 2nd Aves).

FIGHTING WORDS (LARRY CRAIG EDITION)

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Esquivalience: “Given the constant, daily harassment women endure (come on now, don’t tune out; stay with me, here) — harassment that makes us compress our daily activities into daylight hours, that circumscribes where we go, who we go with, and even what we wear; intrusive harassment, ruin-your-day, make-you-feel-powerless/angry/depressed harassment — the overzealous prosecution of the toe-tapper really pisses me off. It’s like those sophomore discussions one has of human trafficking, in which someone invariably says “but what about the men?”, and then the rest of the discussion, in some form or another, is overwhelmingly preoccupied with those minority cases.”

Richard Kim: “I’d love to see Mitt Romney elaborate on what he finds so “disgusting” about “I’m not gay” Craig, or Mitch McConnell explain why admitted john David Vitter is still in the Senate or why crook Ted Stevens hasn’t been stripped of his committee assignments. The mutually assured destruction of the party of piety and hypocrisy is the best-case scenario one could hope for here.”

Hilzoy: “Apparently, Tucker Carlson thinks that when a man grabs him, it’s appropriate to shove his head against a bathroom stall, but that when a man harasses a woman it’s just good clean fun. Why? Is it that same-sex sexual harassment is icky but heterosexual sexual harassment is fine? Or is it just that sexual harassment is OK as long as he’s not the victim?”

Jim McGreevey: “I pray that the tide of American history continues to sweep toward the inevitable expansion of freedom that recognizes the worth and dignity of every individual — and that mine is the last generation that is required to choose between affairs of the heart and elected office.”

WORLD’S SHORTEST POLITICAL QUIZ

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Guess where you can read the following political history:

You know, it is a word that originally meant that you were for freedom, that you were for the freedom to achieve, that you were willing to stand against big power and on behalf of the individual. Unfortunately, in the last 30, 40 years, it has been turned up on its head and it’s been made to seem as though it is a word that describes big government, totally contrary to what its meaning was in the 19th and early 20th century.

Is it the pages of Reason Magazine? The declaration of some self-described “classicaly liberal” professor? Nope. Those words were spoken at last night’s Democratic Debate by the party’s frontrunner.

This is what people mean when they complain about the Clintons’ much-vaunted triangulation – although this particular argument is really worse than triangulation, in that rather than positioning herself between two bad boogeymen of the hard left and hard right, she’s just defining her politics against left-wing “big government” (didn’t her husband already declare it over?). And she’s defining “individual freedom” against “big government” too.

It’s not a mystery why she would do this. Conservatives have done an impressive job of convincing people over the past decades that more government means less freedom. That’s how they’ve peddled their attacks on the majority’s ability to legislate against plutocracy. It’s how they’ve pushed forward an agenda that leaves Americans less free – prisoners of fear of disaster, dislocation, and disintegration of their communities and their hopes for their families.

Democrats have not done a great job over the past few decades of framing the debate in a way that elevates freedom from want and freedom from fear and challenges the idea that we are more economically free if your boss can fire you for being gay or fighting for more money. Right-wing frames are powerful. That means contemporary candidates need to either co-opt them or challenge them. Which choice they make is telling.

A NATION DIVIDED

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I am not being cute when I say that I have no idea how this article made it into the paper of record. It’s like someone set out to write a not very relevant or interesting article, lost interest halfway through, and accidentally posted it on the website of the New York Times. Oops.

That’s the American Dream: Someday you too can become famous enough that when you and someone else famous you’re friends with support different primary candidates, that’s news – even (maybe especially) if you have no comment on it.

What’s the story here: That Oprah and Maya Angelou could prefer different politicians? That being friends hasn’t swayed one of them to change her endorsement? That making clashing endorsements hasn’t ended their friendship?

CINDY SHEEHAN: NOT SO PROGRESSIVE

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More surprising than Cindy Sheehan’s return from her ostensible break from activism is her willingness to embrace conservative cant against the income tax:

The Federal Reserve, permanent federal (and unconstitutional) income taxes, Japanese Concentration Camps and, not one, but two atom bombs dropped on the innocent citizens of Japan were brought to us via the Democrats.

The 16th amendment empowers the majority to legislate against subjugation and plutocracy. It institutes a critical tool to confront on the badges of slavery abjured in the 13th amendment and realize the equal protection promised in the 14th.

Cindy Sheehan’s inane legal argument and her outrageous ethical argument against the income tax are disappointing. What’s more discouraging is skimming through the comments and realizing that taking on Nancy Pelosi arouses more outrage from DailyKos commenters than taking on the income tax.

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

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Given the accolades I get my from my Dad for the general lack of profanity on my blog, I was curious to see how LWB would fare on the “film rating” site that been making its way around the internets. Imagine my surprise at discovering 17 year olds needed to be accompanied by a parent or guardian:

Online Dating

Must be punishment, I figured, for invoking the word “bitch” (to flag the sexist undertones of an argument, not to endorse the concept). But no. Apparently, the three offending words that did me in were “gay” “lesbian” and “Dick” (as in Cheney). My friend Zach’s unsurprisingly-revived blog, where he borrows liberally from Dick Cheney’s vocabulary, scores a PG.

Warms the heart to think that students with content blockers installed in libraries across America are being protected from being corrupted by my ramblings about the portrayal of class on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Meanwhile my Dad’s blog, Dangerous Ideas, rates a PG because he uses the word “dangerous” too much. Go figure.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON DEMOCRATIC DEBATE NUMBER THREE

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Is it just me, or was the difference between the questions asked and the questions answered more pronounced in this debate than the previous ones? Maybe because the questions asked the candidates to speak about the extent of racism in America or its role in exacerbating social ills. Maybe the most marked contrast was when the candidates were asked why Blacks with high school degrees are less likely to find jobs than Whites without them; most of the answers were about how to get more Blacks high school degrees.

The order of the candidates led to the delightful spectacle of Chris Dodd making funny faces every round about having to follow Mike Gravel saying something about how craven and nasty everyone else on stage was. And it gave Barack Obama repeated chances to echo John Edwards, one time even saying he was finishing his sentence – does that mean he doesn’t take Edwards seriously as a threat at this point?

The biggest revelation of the night though was that Joe Biden organizes rallies for Black men to tell them they can be manly while wearing condoms. When I say progressive masculinity, you say Joe Biden! Where’s YouTube when you need it? Someone should name a line of condoms after the guy.