Room For One More?

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" - Abraham Lincoln

A little while ago, Colin Powell criticized Rush Limbaugh for "a kind of nastiness we would be better to do without." Limbaugh responded by calling Powell "just another liberal," and suggested that he do what Arlen Specter did, leave the GOP, and join the Democratic Party.

To which I say...we'll take him!

Let's look at the facts. Powell is pro-choice. He favors moderate gun control, but is not a Second Amendment wingnut. Most importantly, he has apparently opposed the Iraq War from the start and made repeated attempts to dissuade the Bush Administration from invading. In fact, until his stint as W's Secretary of State, he was best known to scholars of International Relations for his authorship of the Powell Doctrine, which states that the United States should under no circumstances initiate a foreign conflict unless a) clear and vital US interests are at stake, b) risk to US troops is minimal, and c) public opinion was firmly in favor of the foreign intervention. Partial application of this doctrine (under Powell's supervision, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) led to a First Gulf War that was short, decisive and concluded with very few American casualties (and certainly few civilian casualties compared to the Second Gulf War). This doctrine was hand-tailored to guarantee that the United States would never, under any circumstances, enter into another conflict that could be gainfully compared to Vietnam, in which Powell served. Cue violins.

(A brief digression: anyone who hasn't should watch this clip of Cheney explaining in 1994 why the US was right to avoid an invasion of Iraq after we'd swept up in Kuwait. He uses the word Quagmire. It is tragically priceless.)

The point I suppose I'm making is that I thought Rush Limbaugh was a better strategist than this. I thought he understood that we live in a republic, with a representative government, where the ferocity and zeal of your followers count for nothing unless you have more followers than the other guy. I thought he understood that the extreme poles of the political spectrum cannot hold a majority by definition, or they wouldn't be the extreme poles - that every modern election is essentially decided by moderates who need to be told, there's a place for you here.

Most of all, I thought he understood what started this country down the road to where it is now - the election of 1980, in which moderate (anti-torture, pro-compromise tax-and-spender) Republican Ronald Reagan took power with the help of his Big Tent concept: the notion that Reagan's Republican Party would take your moderates, your wishy-washers, the ones put off by the loopy fringe of the "loony left." Moderates are who he recruited to serve as the foot soldiers of his revolution. That's why he was able to win so handily in 1984. That's why he was able to create an America that would take twelve years to elect another Democrat, only to realize it had made a mistake and elect a Republican Congress to go after him. That's why he was able to create an America where "liberal" was an obscenity for almost thirty years, an America in which conservatives were powerful enough to drag the entire country to the right.

Well, guess what. Republicans think they're the party of Reagan, but the Democrats have his playbook. The Republicans have created a rallying image of Reagan - the folksy, fundamentalist Anti-Communist crusader - and forgotten the reality: the canny, intelligent, well-advised moderate who knew how to speak to the right and play to the middle, who believed in compromise when it would broaden his appeal and who had mastered the rhetoric of optimism. He told the majority that things were good, they could be great, and this was still the shining city on the hill, and the majority believed him.

Obama's speaking to the majority now; he's acting smart, taking good advice, and mastering the rhetoric of optimism. He'll take your moderates and anyone else he thinks he can work with, and worry later about dragging them to the left. Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans can burn all the bridges they want, throw out all the so-called "liberals" they want, and create the purest conservative movement the country has ever seen. The fringe is the fringe for a reason, and it might be our turn to make "conservative" a bad word for a while.

On Self-Righteous Pricks

DISCLAIMER: You’re totally allowed to not like Obama. I’m not saying you have to agree with me. I’m just directing this at a certain variety of idiot.

Well Obama has been elected. Glory and hallelujah. Yes we can. Etc. But there are some people out there in Amurica that aren't satisfied with the results. I'm not talking about McCain supporters. I'm talking about the guys that wouldn't have been satisfied no matter what the outcome was. The people that were declaring the outcome of the election to be negative after it became apparent that Ron Paul would never win, which took much longer than it should have for them. I'm not even really talking about Libertarians, whose philosophy I actual agree with in certain areas (I have a blog post planned on this topic for later). I'm talking about these fashionable cynics.

You know the guys. They're usually freshmen in college, at least in spirit. They take an intro to polisci class as an elective and annoy everybody with their retarded bullshit. They think they know more about politics than anyone in the country because they read a blog once. A blog with fucking revolutionary ideas. They insist that Barack Obama and John McCain are totally the same, perhaps using as evidence something vague like "they're in the pockets of the major corporations", and they like to drop truth on people, which basically amounts to being condescending jerks to Obama supporters and parroting political philosophy they read about on the internet, while not knowing anything about how to apply it to current events..

They're not completely wrong about Obama. They're just obnoxious and their ideas are unrealistic. And whether they admit it or not, most of these guys are just trying to be "edgy". They try so fucking hard to be outside the mainstream. It would be cute if they weren’t so goddamned unbearable. These guys, these guys. I tell ya.

Don't use the term Republocrats. It makes you look like a moron.

Don't tell me that Obama and McCain are exactly the same. It makes you no better than your slightly less informed cousin: the dreaded undecided voter. Such over-simplifications are unbelievably naïve.

And for the love of god, under no circumstances should you ever, EVER use the phrase "Wake up, Sheeple!" unironically. This is one of the only phrases in the English language that has the power of immediately letting me know that you are a worthless human being.

Yes, I agree that a lot of core problems with the government will probably not be changed under Obama. I am fully aware of this. Please stop telling me about it. The difference is that I am realistic, so I'm not going to bother getting mad about it. At this point, any sort of progress at all is positive. I don't care how small it is. Obama will (probably) do it, and it will be a step in the right direction. If you want guys like Ron Paul or whatever politician you support to be taken seriously, it's not going to happen now. Stop being shocked and appalled about it. Obama will start to open the door if we’ll let him. As long as we stay on his ass to do the shit we actually do expect him to do, real change will come. Eventually. Change on the level you're talking about doesn't happen overnight without a violent revolution. So either start a violent revolution or calm the fuck down and start trying to make gradual change from within the system. Just being a smug prick isn't going to help anything. Always remember, there is a difference between rational and thought out cynicism and the kind of bullshit you practice. You need to learn this before you go around lecturing "Obamamorons" (or whatever immature haughty word for Obama supporters is in style this week) about their own problems. To quote Carry On:

I thought the ideas we shared could only make us strong
But you're caught up in self-righteousness; it shows in the words of your songs
And now you've separated the best of us, the only ones that seem to care
You forced your ideas where they didn't belong
You separated the scene and that's fucking wrong
Fuck you and your politics
In the real world they don't mean shit
I know you're a fraud
It's only a phase
In time you'll be over it

The Bright Side of Life

So today I opened up reddit, as is my wont, and saw a link entitled: "McCain four times more likely to win if Obama loses in PA! Come on, PA, GOTV!" The link led here, or more specifically here, to a site measuring McCain's odds for victory at just under 3%.

Now, a look at the reddit poster's history reveals (to my distress) that he is an Obama supporter, and that the headline was meant ironically. But man. For a second there, weren't you just praying that was someone's serious attempt to be optimistic?

Joe the Plumber: Ordinary People?

I can't possibly imagine that anyone who actually inhabits the Planet Earth is unfamiliar with a man named Joe the Plumber.

For those of you from Betelgeuse who have deigned to fuse your hive computer with the World Wide Web, Joe the Plumber is some random guy from some random place who asked Barack Obama some random question that got him called a socialist. For those of you from Venus who have not brushed up on American politics, a socialist is something most Democrats basically are but don't like to admit it.

I think we're all up to speed. Let us continue.

The question I'd like to raise is about a very popular concept in modern American politics and culture - the "elite." I think we've probably heard more about the so-called in this election than any other in American history - and none of it was very good. When John McCain calls Barack Obama a "member of the liberal elite," he doesn't mean that as a compliment; when Sarah Palin says she's not a "member of the Washington elite," she doesn't mean she wants to join. "Elite" has become synonymous with "elitist" - rich, snobbish, out of touch. The elite, it's implied, are superior sumbitches - convinced their wealth and education make them better than the Average Joe. Or the Average Plumber. Or...you see where I'm going with this.

My question, then, is this: what makes the elite, elite?

The reason I ask is pretty personal: when a conservative talks about the "liberal elite," he pretty much means me. I went to a private grade school, attended a competitive high school, and am now in college on my parents' dime - and eager for a position in scholarly academia. I am also - in what many would see as no coincidence - aggressively liberal. The current political discourse, particularly the conservative discourse, would love to argue that those characteristics make me a card-carrying member of the "liberal elite."

But let's take another look at Joe the Plumber - the reason, you may recall, that he was irritated with Obama is because he'd been planning to buy the plumbing business for which he'd worked these last 100,000 years. If he bought it, however, he'd be making more than $250,000 a year, and Obama's tax plan would 'unfairly' increase his tax burden. No sooner had he asked his question than Joe the Plumber became a symbol of working-class ill-will towards Obama; and so John McCain, friend to the working man, echoed Joe's question to Obama. Why?

Now, my father, under whose auspices I might be considered a member of the "liberal elite" made - in a good year - $60-70,000. That was before his retirement, and only during those years in which he sold a book, or made particularly generous royalties. Joe, on the other hand, that blue-collar Everyman, is complaining because he might be about to make over a quarter of a million dollars.

To return to my original question, what makes Joe the Plumber 'working-class' and me 'elite?' Doesn't the working-class cease to become an actual 'class' when it starts running the gamut from six-figure salaries to just above the poverty line? Doesn't the 'elite' stop being 'elite' when the supposedly average characters who hate them make four to five times as much - or does 'elite' perhaps mean more than just an economic class? If so, is the entire vocabulary of this debate faulty? Do these terms have a practical definition?

This is an idea in progress, and I feel as though I have not yet gotten to the heart of the matter. The fundamental paradox, though, is that Americans who are just plain rich - big houses, fast cars, trophy wives - have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the dirt-poor and struggling and said "Washington economic policies privilege the elite at our expense."

Who are they talking about?

UPDATE: Apparently, Joe the Plumber just revealed that he had misunderstood Obama's tax plan, and would NOT be making more than $250,000 a year. What? Ordinary, salt-of-the-earth Americans don't make a quarter million dollars? Will wonders never cease?

Question of the Day: Right-Wing or Wrong-Wing?

McCain keeps saying that "now is the time for bipartisanship." Coming from a Republican, might that not simply mean it's time for a Democrat?

The Great Debaters

I suppose I should have known better than to think the media might be honest.

I'm speaking, of course, about last night's debate - which I suppose I should analyze before I analyze the analysis.

I'm going to step right up and say that Obama knocked it out of the park. Of course, I should preface this by saying he started off with the home team advantage - a little less than half the debate was on the economy, an area where Democrats in general (and Obama in particular) have a decisive lead. To add economic questions to any debate is a coup for the Democratic candidate, but this was supposed to be John McCain's night - it's Foreign Policy, where the Republicans are supposed to be right at home.

Key phrase: supposed to be.

Because John McCain was not at home - he was in the past or out to lunch, constantly harping on the Troop Surge when he wasn't defending himself from accusations of outright falsehood. Obama gets points from me for levelling those accusations, and even more points for sticking to his guns on the current Foreign Policy hot spots: the Iraq War and the possible invasion of Pakistan to capture terrorists. He could very easily have taken a middle road on either one of these issues; that would have been both the default Democratic strategy these days and a complete disaster.

First of all, the mere fact that we're winning the Iraq War is a ridiculous and superficial reason to praise it - too many liberals have fallen into that trap. McCain's attempt to paint the Iraq War as both a military triumph and a political irrelevancy was bold, but ultimately unsuccessful. He's counting on unconditional American love of victory, but the American people are frankly not convinced we've won anything - as well we shouldn't be. Obama was right to declare that our reasons were wrong, right to declare that too many lives were lost, and right to declare that the next President should do it differently. A lot of pundits have been singling out key quotes; one I haven't heard is "No soldier ever dies in vain, obeying the orders of his commander-in-chief." An absolute masterstroke! Our soldiers were noble, but our leaders were wrong!

But if I was pleased at Obama's handling of Iraq, it was nothing compared to the glee I felt at his handling of the Pakistan remarks he made earlier (discussed below, in "The Political System We Deserve"). This was an area where Obama could certainly have justified backing down - indeed, I would be shocked if there was not pressure from the liberal establishment to do so. Now, as it happens, I think he's advocating absolutely the right course of actions - but even if he weren't, to back down last night would have been an unmitigated disaster. As it was, John McCain was placed in the unenviable position of accusing the Democrats of war-mongering; how did he think that would play with his base? Did he really think that giving his opponent the opportunity to say "Osama bin Laden must be killed" was a good idea? "Counseling moderation in our pursuit of terrorists has worked wonders for the Democrats...I think I'll give it a shot!"

So, to recap: Obama won. I know it, McCain knows it, everybody knows it.

But an interesting thing happened while I was watching this debate. CNN, you see, adds a lot of nifty stuff to its debate interface - six Analyst Scorecards line the sides of the screen, while a focus-group line on the bottom tracks audience response by party. Even had I not watched the debate at all, I would have been able to tell just by this machinery that Obama was winning. The focus-group lines reached their highest points of the night while Obama was speaking - even the Republicans never got as high for McCain - and the scorecards gave him a dominant lead in points. Four out of the six analysts gave Obama the higher score - two by a considerable margin - and at the end of the night it was 44 Obama, 21 McCain. A decisive Democratic victory.

Or was it?

After the debate, of course, CNN turned to Anderson Cooper for a special edition of 360 wherein he asked the analysts what they thought. Every single one declared the evening more or less a tie.

Their scorecards were still on the screen!

Paul Begala, Democratic advisor and former "liberal" host of Crossfire, awarded the night to Obama by a margin of - if I remember correctly - 12 points to 2. When it came his turn to give an opinion, he said both candidates had been strong - but that Obama represented himself just a little better. Another analyst - Castellanos, I think - gave it to Obama 14 to 10, as any viewer could confirm, but called the event an outright tie. One of the commentators finally remarked that the focus group line had hardly moved, exhibiting no serious highs or lows, and nobody argued with him. By the time I checked my news sites this morning, the media consensus was in: the debate was a tie.

What in God's name happened between 10 and 10:30 last night? Castellanos is a conservative, as is Bennet - the only CNN commentator to seriously favor McCain - so no surprises there. But which of Paul Begala's kids did the Republicans have at gunpoint? Where are they holding the child? Is he or she okay?

Why, oh why, do they think we're so gullible? Why, oh why, aren't they wrong?

UPDATE: CNN.com's Debate Report Card actually has McCain scoring slightly higher, mostly by virtue of using almost none of the analysts who scored the debate live. Paul Begala gives Barack Obama a B, and John McCain a C. Yep; that's how I'd translate 12 to 2.

(Paul's child: if you are reading this, call the police!)

The Political System We Deserve

I find myself, in recent months and years, becoming less and less convinced that politicians deserve our scorn and disillusionment. Don't get me wrong - I think the current state of the Democratic Party is shameful in many respects. The idea that this nation's liberals have to make do with these washed-up moderates in lieu of genuine representation is almost unconscionable. I'm not convinced, however, that the politicians are to blame for this. They face opposition from both their left and their right, and the middle position they're attempting to navigate satisfies no one - but it's what they need to get elected. Allow me to explain.

It's become an article of faith (no pun intended) that religion has become the decisive factor in this election - one blogger I read said that (my paraphrase) the divide between religious and non-religious, or practicing and non-practicing, has become a more useful categorization than any set of individual demographics. The Republican religious base is so conservative, in fact, that a newly Baptist (try not to snicker) John McCain was inadequate to satisfy them: he needed a bonafide small-town Bible-thumper named Sarah Palin to finish gathering his flock. Sounds fine for the Democrats, right? They don't need the religious vote.

Wrong. The religious vote has become the decisive minority in this election, to the point where the Democratic nominee had to beat the Republican in faith-based politicking in order to become a viable candidate. Fundamentalist Christianity makes up only one-fourth of the American population, but another one-fourth identifies as Catholic, and they're a tough vote to put in a party: the so-called "Catholic vote" has gone to every winning Presidential candidate since 1976, with the exception of George W. Bush (the first time. Not the second. I wish).

So the religious vote has become more than just a Republican issue - it's a nationwide issue, demanding acknowledgement from both major political parties. And what, you might ask, is the biggest issue for religious people? Why, Abortion, of course.

Evidence exists to suggest that Abortion has become a bigger issue for Catholics in this election than in either of the two previous - the Catholic Church has become more aggressive in their indictment of abortion, more insistent that Roe v. Wade constitutes endorsement of genocide, less willing to accept a compromise position. Five years ago, a devout Catholic could reasonably have been under the misapprehension that there was a plurality of Catholic opinions on abortion: now, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have come under strong fire for similar views (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/592xzarb.asp). The reason for this is simple: there is no plurality of opinions. The Catholic Church explicitly forbids abortion - and states that no devout Catholic can support legislation that permits it. Worst of all, most Catholics know it. So long, Mario Cuomo.

The non-religious in America might still insist that religious faith is a private matter, with no bearing on politics; the religious, however, are increasingly unwilling to stomach that position. They - and by they, I mean a majority of the population - insist that the law of the land reflect their morality directly. In light of this, the Democratic Party's Platform on Abortion starts to look like quite a risky move:

"The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right."

Wow. Strong stuff. Stronger, in fact, than any recent Democratic platform on abortion. The Party cannot have been ignorant of the immense risk it was taking: they have totally and irrevocably alienated the pro-life population, with no hope of reconciliation. What do you suppose they would have to do to make up that kind of ground in America's heartland?

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and Musharraf won't act, we will."

Quid pro quo, America. Obama supports a woman's right to choose, but he will act decisively against hostile terrorist elements around the globe - while no less a luminary than Sarah Palin hems and haws to Charlie Gibson about the same issue.

Now, to me, this quote came as quite good news - not because I necessarily agreed with the sentiments being expressed, although I'm pretty sure I did (and a hush fell over the liberal crowd). No, it came as good news because a Democrat had distanced himself from the image of the weak-kneed liberal - unwilling to hurt anybody's feelings, unable to do what must be done. Democrats, Obama told us, can be tough on terror. Democrats can get it done.

Then I talked to a liberal friend of mine, who professed himself to be scared by this sentiment - uncertain that Obama should be so willing to invade another country without authorization. I think that's a very valid debate, and one that we as liberals should certainly have - just as soon as we win this election to the Presidency of a country that hates us.

That's right: this country hates liberals. It has exactly the Democratic Party it wants, unless of course it could have none at all.

It is an inability to recognize this that frustrates me about modern liberals. They seem unwilling to acknowledge that we live in a representative Democracy - that the government we have is the one we asked for. It's not that this country isn't producing liberals - it's that this country isn't electing them. You want to get elected in Chicago? Be a Democrat. You want to get elected in America? Be a moderate. This is a simple fact of the current political landscape - the Democrats are drifting to the right because that's what we'll elect.

Am I happy that a pro-choice stance is a political liability that Obama has to make up for? No - but I don't blame him, I blame the people of America. Am I happy that peace has become a bad word, synonymous with weakness? No - but I don't blame the left, I blame the people of America. Am I happy that the Republicans are very successfully spreading the same view of liberals as they did in Reagan's America - high-tax moral midgets without the stomach for tough choices? No - but I don't blame the left, I blame the people of America.

Or I would - if liberals would realize how badly we are losing this war, and how wrong a time to be choosy this is.

We have lost the fight on taxes - the country won't stand for them. We have lost the fight on drugs - the country won't legalize them. Obama hasn't abandoned the staunch liberals because he doesn't like us - he's abandoned us because America hates us, and it will take more than one election to fix that.

So if Obama wants to look tough on terror, let him - if it's that or lose the fight on abortion, I think he's made the right choice. I'm not happy that we have to pick our battles, nor am I happy that we get so few - but it's the truth, and if we can't face up to it we'll be just what they said we were.

If the Democrats are moderate, it's because America is moderate. Obama is as liberal a candidate as America will permit - and for that, I blame America, not him.