What's the evidence that Walker — that red-meat-talking "disgrace" — is actually just boring? Embarrassingly, TNR's Bruce Beutler's evidence is Walker's Twitter feed, which is wonderful in a midwestern way Beutler [acts as if he] can't understand:
Up early 4 a haircut. Got some Badger wear 4 my parents @ Kohl's.
That's the title of a New Republic article by Brian Beutler, and I'm sure it makes some liberal-lefty readers feel good, but a competent consumer of propaganda begins with a thought like: So I guess Democrats are terrified that Hillary's pandering to the you-didn't-build that crowd is going to destroy her.
How can Beutler purport to predict that this sound bite cannot be exploited without backfiring? The Democrats won the last presidential election by exploiting one awkward thing Mitt Romney said.
Beutler doesn't mention that, but he makes much of the Republicans' use of Obama's "you didn’t build that" remark, which didn't prevent him from winning in 2012.
[I]n hindsight, many conservatives acknowledged that the GOP’s obsession with that gaffe revealed more damaging truths about the Republican Party than the gaffe itself revealed about Obama.
“One after another, [Republican businessowners] talked about the business they had built. But not a single—not a single—factory worker went out there,” Rick Santorum told activists at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference last year. “Not a single janitor, waitress or person who worked in that company! We didn’t care about them. You know what? They built that company too! And we should have had them on that stage.”
The fixation on [Hillary's] gaffe foreshadows another Republican presidential campaign centered on the preeminence of the entrepreneur, to the exclusion of the wage worker and the trade unionist and the jobless.
"Gaffe" is not the right word. The point isn't: Ha ha, you made a ridiculous mistake. It's: You said what you really think in a revealing way and we're going to use that against you. That's obviously part of American politics, and in 2012, both the 47% thing and "You didn't build that" were revealing and useful. Both were used, and if Obama won, I doubt that it's because the Republicans shouldn't have exploited "You didn't build that." It's more likely that Democrats (and their media friends) jumped on the 47% remark and used it ruthlessly.
The trick is to use these revealing statements well. It would be foolish for Republicans to take the advice to leave the Democrats' overly leftist lines alone. If it's good advice, you'd have to believe that Democrats would leave the Republicans' overly right-wing lines alone. Who believes that?
It's not a smear if it's true, but Salon's Brian Beutler asserts that "death panels" is "the single most contemptible lie about Obamacare."
What about the famous lie-of-the-year "If you like your plan you can keep your plan"? Must we have a contemptibility face-off between these 2 lies? Is the battle to be the most contemptible lie different from being the least true assertion of fact? Different from being the lie with the most clout in the political process? And if it's a contemptibility contest, who's the judge? Whose mind is feeling this contempt? Brian Beutler's?
More subtly, we need to distinguish the form of expression from the substance. "Death panels" was a hotly emotional way to express concern about something that was real — that there will have to be rationing and denials of expensive treatments to some older/sicker patients. It is contemned because of its power to replace close attention to the facts with instinctive, quick commitment to a political position — opposition to Obamacare.
"If you like your plan you can keep your plan" was a deliberately cool, seemingly unemotional way to assert something that was absolutely not true. It is contemned because it was an outright, knowing falsehood, and it reassured and pacified people who would have been lit on fire with opposition if they'd understood what was coming their way.
I remember when liberals were pushing civility in public discourse. I made the tag "civility bullshit" for this topic right away, because I knew it was bullshit, and this morning it seems that everywhere I look on the web, I'm seeing inflammatory rhetoric from liberals. Here are 3 things I happened to see first thing today:
2. And here's President Obama, the man who lectured us about civil discourse after the Tucson massacre, talking about the shutdown/debt ceiling problem, and he's using crime as a metaphor: "Think about it this way... The American people do not get to demand a ransom for doing their jobs." Why should we think about it that way? We're supposed to see the Republicans as kidnapping... I don't know... somebody. The Republicans are elected members of Congress, which makes the decisions about spending. They're having a hell of a time getting through this decision, but what makes it crime-like? The comments at that link, which goes to the NYT, pick up the President's cue. One comment — a NYT pick, highly rated by readers — begins: "President Obama is right. He should not be forced to negotiate with a rope around his neck." Suddenly, the metaphor is lynching.
3. "Will the Supreme Court Allow the Richest Donors to Corrupt American Politics Even More?" That's a front-page teaser at Slate leading to "Poor Little Rich Guys/The Supreme Court clamors to protect the right of Richie Rich, Scrooge McDuck, and the Koch brothers to further corrupt American politics." The article is by Dahlia Lithwick, who's been describing Supreme Court oral arguments for years. She's reporting on yesterday's argument in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which is a challenge to the limit on how much a person can donate to various candidates. It's not about how much you can give to any single candidate, just the ceiling on total contributions, when you're spreading money around to many candidates. (The limit is $48,600 every 2 years.) Richie Rich? Scrooge McDuck? Will Slate allow the stupidest bullshit to erode American minds even more?
You know who's also rich? In addition to those characters from comic books that Baby Boomers read when they were children? The owners of the Washington Post and the New York Times. How about a law that puts a ceiling on how much they are allowed to spend putting out their political speech? Poor little rich guys. Boo hoo. Who cares? Fuck them, she said, sarcastically.
There are probably better ways to inspire confidence in a candidate's prospects when he's in free fall than to call him a lost cause. But that's exactly what Sarah Palin did to one of her favorite tea partiers last night.
"Joe Miller - do not give up. It's you against the machine. This is it. 'Lost causes' are the only ones worth fighting for,'" Palin tweeted, quoting famed Scopes Monkey Trial attorney Clarence Darrow.
It seems unlikely that Palin is aware that Darrow was a big wig at the American Civil Liberties Union given her penchant for scoffing at...civil liberties. And one wonders whether Palin knows that, in the Scopes trial, Darrow defended John Scopes, who violated Tennessee law by teaching evolution. But there you have it.
Is there any evidence, anywhere, that Sarah Palin would like to criminalize the teaching of evolution? Is there any evidence, anywhere, that Sarah Palin doesn't love our constitutional free expression rights? Is there evidence, anywhere, that Sarah Palin would not admire a lawyer who fought to defend free speech rights against the oppressive government use of criminal law against a science teacher?
In her memoir, Palin explains her views on evolution. Confronted with the statement "science proves evolution," she said: "Parts of evolution... But I believe that God created us and also that He can create an evolutionary process that allows species to change and adapt." That is what an awful lot of people think, and I think most American politicians if pressed on the question, would interweave God with the theory of evolution.
In any case, you don't even have to accept evolution to oppose criminalizing the teaching of evolution. The issue about evolution today isn't about barring teaching evolution. It's only about whether creationism or "intelligent design" can be taught alongside evolution if that's what schools want to do. The restriction on freedom of expression, then, is pro-evolution. Not anti-evolution. And who knows what Clarence Darrow would think about that?
But even assuming Clarence Darrow should be anathema to Sarah Palin, the quote — " 'Lost causes' are the only ones worth fighting for" — isn't from Clarence Darrow. It's from the book that became the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Here:
ADDED: Sarah Palin does name Clarence Darrow in her tweet, so clearly she had the wrong source for the quote too.
AND: "The restriction on freedom of expression, then, is pro-evolution. Not anti-evolution." Is that too concise to understand easily? I usually resist verbosity, but let me expand. Let's assume someone — Palin, Beutler, the ACLU, whoever — cares about freedom of expression and would like to oppose restrictions on it. Now, they look at the current issues that have to do with the teaching and evolution. They will not see a restriction on teaching the theory of evolution, which is generally required. The restrictions that exist today limit a public school teacher who would like to introduce alternate theories like creationism and intelligent design. The key case is Edwards v. Aguillard (1987):
[Louisiana's "Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction" Act] is designed either to promote the theory of creation science which embodies a particular religious tenet by requiring that creation science be taught whenever evolution is taught or to prohibit the teaching of a scientific theory disfavored by certain religious sects by forbidding the teaching of evolution when creation science is not also taught. The Establishment Clause, however, "forbids alike the preference of a religious doctrine or the prohibition of theory which is deemed antagonistic to a particular dogma." Because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to advance a particular religious belief, the Act endorses religion in violation of the First Amendment.
If he's not mocking the mocking, he looks anti-Hispanic, and I'm pretty sure his show is careful about avoiding the appearance of bigotry.
Brian Beutler opines:
The campaign against Second-Circuit Court of Appeals Judge (and potential SCOTUS nominee) Sonia Sotomayor began in earnest when nameless former clerks on that court told The New Republic's legal correspondent Jeffrey Rosen that the Hispanic judge (and one-time George H.W Bush appointee) is too temperamental--and not intelligent enough--to serve on the Court....
The charges have been challenged loudly--almost immediately after the article came out, other people familiar with her work came forward to call the piece baseless. But once the cat was out of the bag, there was no stuffing it back in....
[T]he coup de grâce may have come last night when Sotomayor bashing traveled outside the beltway, and on to the Late Show...
Beutler notes the speculation that Rosen was trying to help his brother-in-law — go to the link for the details — and procures a denial from Rosen.
Here I am on May 4th wondering whether Rosen had ulterior motives:
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