Fmr. Gov. Ed Rendell: Democrats "made a mistake" pursuing the recall against Scott Walker.

He's responding to a remark by Joe Scarborough that contains a really annoying misstatement of fact:

"I hate politicians when they're asked, what mistake -- like George Bush was asked after four years, what mistakes have you made? 'I can't think of any.' When Scott Walker comes out and says, 'I messed up. I should have listened first before going out and doing what I did. I won't make that mistake again.' Again, you sit there and, go, 'hey, the guy is comfortable in his own skin.'"

Rendell then says:

"And conversely, our guys made a mistake by not -- at that point -- raising the victory flag. They'd accomplished a lot of what they wanted to accomplish, declare victory. Don't get an election that's divisive, that may have an influence on the presidential election. We made a mistake doing that."

But Scott Walker didn't say I should have listened first. He said he should have explained and won more popular support:

The mistake I made early on is, I looked at it almost like the head of a small business: identify a problem, identify a solution and go out and do it... I don't think we built enough of a political case, so we let ... the national organizations come in and define the debate while we were busy just getting the job done."

He's been very consistent about that. It's Tom Barrett's argument that what the governor ought to do is sit down with everyone, listen, focus, work together, etc. That's not Scott Walker. Walker had a plan, got elected, and put the plan into play. He just wished after the fact that he'd controlled the public discourse better.

From the ex-governor and his federal judge wife, who are separating after 40 years of marriage: "Please do not hesitate to include both of us in social occasions as we will not find it awkward or uncomfortable."

Ed and Majorie Rendell are breaking up, but please don't think you have to exclude one or the other as you plan your parties and other networking opportunities.

Are they Democrats or Republicans? Here's a clue: neither the word Democrat or Republican appears in the linked article. So?

"This is the old 'bitter clingers' (or 'What's the Matter With Kansas?') argument reduced to utter incoherence."

James Taranto quotes Gov. Ed Rendell...

[P]eople don't always vote on logical reasons. Emotion drives voters particularly when they have reason to be angry and frustrated. If you lost your job or lost your house or lost your 401k, you had every reason to be angry and frustrated and when you are, you have a tendency to blame the people who are in office...

... and — via me — UW polisci professor Charles Franklin:

I'm not endorsing the American voter... They're pretty damn stupid.

Taranto — being much nicer to Franklin than Rush Limbaugh was — includes the self-defense Franklin wrote in the comments to my blog:

... [V]oters embraced Ron Johnson before they knew much about him. . . . The race wasn't about specific details of Johnson vs Feingold, it was a rejection of Democrats more or less regardless of what voters knew about the GOP candidate... [D]espite not knowing the details of Johnson's policy positions, the voters did NOT make a mistake in choosing Johnson as the more conservative candidate and certain to be more favorable to cutting government....

Taranto finds this incoherent: "In other words, the electorate was smart. So why did Franklin call them stupid?"

***

By the way, I love Taranto's Best of the Web. This, from the same link, had me in hysterics:

Such as: What the Heck Is Tomosynthesis?
"Breast Tomosynthesis on Verge of U.S. Approval, but Questions Linger"--headline, DotMed.com, Nov. 24

"Janet's perfect for that job. Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family, perfect."

What Gov. Ed Rendell said about Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Okay, now, how bad is this? Rendell's getting ripped for being a big old sexist, but does he deserve it?

He was caught speaking casually, using the jocose expression "no life," which may not be as insulting as it sounds to some people. I don't think he meant anything like: She's not much of a woman (or human being) because she has no husband or children/she must be emotionally unfulfilled/cold/stunted.

I hear this as: She will be able to give absolutely the entirety of her attention and energy to a job that truly requires it.

Now, this may upset some people who want to believe that everyone has to live a life in which work is leavened and enriched with time in the warm embrace of a family. What's worse is the idea that a job requires all of a person's attention, so that anyone with a family is disqualified. And of course, there's one terrible implication: That men can have a family and a highly demanding job, but women cannot.

Did Rendell's statement contain that terrible implication? Perhaps! I do get a little whiff of: Normally, you don't send a woman to do a man's job, but that doesn't apply to Janet Napolitano. It's not that she has "no life," but that she has no female life. She can run with the men. I hear a bit of that.

But perhaps Rendell meant to boost opinion of Napolitano, to rebuff accusations that her lack of a family would make the job too tough for her. Remember when Laura Bush said this about Condoleezza Rice?

"Dr. Rice, who I think would be a really good candidate (for President), is not interested. Probably because she is single, her parents are no longer living, she's an only child. You need a very supportive family and supportive friends to have this job."

It could be that Rendell knew the way not having a family is used against women and he wanted to get out in front of that criticism to help Napolitano. There's sexism in that, but it's not Rendell's sexism. He's proactively defending her from attacks. Now, I might concede that it's better feminism to behave as if sexism does not exist, and maybe Rendell's proactive defense against sexism unwittingly promotes it in some ways, but I'm inclined to give him a pass.