The Expectations Game and the Presidential Debates

"Have we been telling you that our guy's great? Well, actually, he kinda sucks."

Both sides play expectation games - better to be underestimated and have your middling performance seen as a victory (Sarah Palin vs. Joe Biden) than to be expected to dominate and stumble. But this could be a case study. Following up on Chris Christie's bluster,

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says on CBS’ "Face the Nation" that Romney is going to do "extraordinarily well" in the debate and that after Wednesday night, "this whole race is going to be turned upside down."

Paul Ryan insists, in essence, "No, Romney's not a great debater, has never debated a single opponent, the President has been on a public stage for six years [don't ask what Ryan has been doing], and the debate's actually a pretty minor event."

The GOP vice presidential candidate calls President Barack Obama "a very gifted speaker" who’s been on the national stage for several years.¹

Ryan also is making the point that Republican nominee Mitt Romney has never been in a one-on-one presidential debate.²

Ryan tells "Fox News Sunday" that the race is close and he expects it will stay that way until Election Day on Nov. 6.

I suspect that from Christie's perspective, Romney needs to excel in order to change the trajectory of his campaign, so he's expressing what he hopes to see. Ryan, on the other hand, wants an debate that isn't completely embarrassing to Romney (an outcome nobody expects to occur) to be taken as a draw, and anything better than that to be perceived as a victory.

Meanwhile, the President's campaign is advancing a less blustery version of Christie's message - Romney's a great debater who repeatedly beat his opponents in the primaries. (Compare and contrast, for example, the banter of boxers in a title match.)
---------------
1. And Romney has been doing exactly what for the last couple of decades of his life, starting with his Senate race against Kennedy? A shrinking wallflower, he.

2. A pretty thin distinction. He's been in one-on-one debates when seeking both state and national office.

Truth is, Romney Could Have Done Worse

I recently elicited a comment on my description of Paul Ryan as an example of how"the media and party can sometimes elevate mediocre people to undeserved heights".

Just curious what you think....calling Paul Ryan mediocre and seeing him become the VP nominee.

Never mind that Ryan's continued rise exemplifies my point.

However, recent events suggest that Ryan could offer something important to the ticket, assuming Romney is willing to listen: an ear for politics. Ryan has, at this point, build himself a national reputation as an idea man and budget whiz based upon little more than spin. You can't do that unless you pay careful attention to the direction of the political winds. Romney seems perfectly willing to blow whichever way the polls tell him to go, but he appears to lack any instinct of when to stand against the wind, or when he's going too far. That is to say, he seems to have a proverbial tin ear for politics.

Right now, it's Romney who is pulling the Sarah Palin act (while she literally cheers him on from the sidelines), pushing the latest iteration of her "Obama pals around with terrorists" calumny, while Paul Ryan - the guy who gave up a good chunk of his reputation by "taking one for the team" with his ridiculous, mendacious convention speech - is playing the part of McCain. Sure, he's being politically opportunistic, and after a reasonable initial statement has reverted to platitudes, but he has chosen to leave it to clowns and hacks like Sarah Palin and Reince Priebus to look ridiculous.

Romney, alas, was one of the first out of the clown car.

Palin's Non-Endorsement, Translated

"In order to demonstrate my continuing power and influence, I am going to wait until I know who is going to win the nomination before endorsing a candidate."

In fairness, Palin offers some false modesty: "And I also believe that my endorsement and anybody else’s really sometimes doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when you consider the independent thinking and the wisdom of the voters." But... That would be the "independent thinking and the wisdom" that resulted in her losing the election as McCain's running mate? The "independent thinking and the wisdom" that has marginalized her within the party and caused her to sit out this nomination process? If she has so much respect for the independent thinking and the wisdom" of voters, and the resulting irrelevance of her endorsement, why the grandstanding?

Whose Fault Is It That Republicans Have Weak Presidential Candidates

It's certainly not Ross Douthat's fault....

What’s more, Republicans have only themselves to blame for his inevitability. Romney owes his current position to two failures: the Bush era’s serial disasters, which left the Republican establishment without a strong bench of viable national politicians, and the Tea Party’s mix of zeal and naïveté, which has elevated cranks and frauds and future television personalities to the party’s presidential stage.

Douthat does not explain how "the Bush era’s serial disasters" have prevented the development of "a strong bench of viable national politicians". It would be interesting to hear the names of the people Douthat perceives as having been wrongly displaced from the 'bench' or not allowed a seat at all, and his description of how Bush's disasters brought about those outcomes, but alas.

When I look around, I see that the Republicans have a lot of Senators, many of whom were in office before Bush. They have a lot of Members of the House, with similar tenures. The also have a number of former members who left during or after the Bush years. They have a large number of sitting and former governors, who to me look pretty much the same as the Republican governors the nation enjoyed before and during the Bush years. To see the present bench as "thin" is, in my opinion, a matter of perception - it's the same as it ever was. If the problem is that the better potential candidates aren't ready to run, that's always going to be an issue - it's a bit like the Olympics, where peaking a couple of years early or late can cost you the opportunity for the gold. But to the extent that good candidates won't run, the issue isn't Bush's legacy: this is in fact an excellent time for a strong Republican candidate to run for President. The problem is that they could not get nominated in the present Republican Party. As John Huntsman can surely attest, at least if you have presidential aspirations, being reasonable, mainstream and consistent does nothing to advance you in today's Republican Party.

What about the Tea Party and its supposed "mix of zeal and naïveté" that "elevated cranks and frauds and future television personalities to the party’s presidential stage"? I would argue that Douthat is missing the forest for the trees, but I think that would be to give him too much credit. The Tea Party did not even exist when the Republican Party's presidential nominee plucked Sarah Palin out of obscurity and made her a national media figure. Palin appears to have made her first Tea Party appearance in February, 2010, at the inaugural Tea Party convention - by which time she had run for Vice President, raised seven figures for her PAC, published a biography, gone on a national bus tour, served as the first guest commentator on Glenn Beck's TV show, and had been hired by Fox News as a regular commentator. Yes, she positioned herself as a darling of the Tea Party movement. And, oops, when push came to shove she didn't even run for President.

To look at it from another perspective, Sarah Palin's popular decline did not begin with her committing some sort of sin against the Tea Party or its ideological litmus tests. It began when Roger Ailes told her that she needed to keep her mouth shut for a while in the wake of the Giffords shooting, and she decided instead to make an "I'm the real victim" video. I don't want to put too much weight on correlation, but I've been arguing all along that Sarah Palin's status as a "fifty foot eyesore" depended upon her being pushed upon the public by the media, so to me it makes sense that her decline resulted from an apparent Fox News decision to put her on the back burner.

Let's take a look at the Republican candidates, and see which (if any) fit Douthat's bill - which are there because they have been elevated by the Tea Party? Not Huntsman. Not Santorum. Not Paul. Not Gingrich, Not Perry. Not Romney. So that leaves Bachmann and possibly Cain? But Cain's story is more one of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. If a Tea Party connection can be said to be present, it seems more that some of the same highly moneyed interests that coopted and shaped the early Tea Party (e.g., Americans for Prosperity) have a long history of working with Cain, but even that creates a carts and horses issue - Cain has been pushing their agenda since 2005. Also his momentary rise in prominence seems to have a lot less to do with the Tea Party than it does with the Republican Party's dissatisfaction with Romney as the default candidate. He just happens to be the anti-Romney movement's flavor of the month.

That leaves Bachmann, who started the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, and who does owe her ascendence to the Tea Party. But, even if Douthat were to make an explicit case that she were a "crank" or a "fraud", my interpretation of her run is a bit different. It's my interpretation that the moneyed interests that have slapped corporate labels on the Tea Party movement wanted her to run in order to discourage Sarah Palin from entering the race, and that the gambit worked. I also think that to dismiss her as a "crank" or "fraud" is to misunderstand and misrepresent both her intelligence and her commitment to her beliefs. I think she's a lot smarter than those "crazy eyes" photographs might suggest.

It might be argued that there is a correlation between the anti-Romney movement and the Tea Party, and that would make sense given that as the dust has settled the Tea Party has come to largely represent "the moral majority" - a new name for a consistently Republican, religious conservative voting bloc. If you're nervous at the thought of a non-Christian becoming President (and cannot reconcile the acceptance of The Book of Mormon with what you see as Christianity) and believe that being pro-life is a crucial litmus test for any Republican candidate, despite his assurances that his religious views are safe and that he's become pro-life you're simply not going to be comfortable with Romney. These hurdles have nothing to do with the Tea Party movement - they're the exact same hurdles Romney faced four years ago.

The truth is, the Republican Party's problems are entirely self-inflicted. They have created so many litmus tests for an "acceptable" Republican nominee that the only way to pass all of the tests is to be a fraud. You must be religious and, at some level, a Christian. You can't support marriage equality for gay people. You can't be pro-choice. You have to expressly disavow a belief in science on such issues as climate change and evolution. You have to disavow support for any form of tax increase (with the possible exception of creating a "consumption tax" that shifts more of the tax burden from the rich to the middle class), including allowing temporary tax cuts to expire or even eliminating tax subsidies to business and industry. And you have to reconcile all of that with balancing the budget and avoiding cuts to Medicare and Social Security or the military. In short, if you're a rational, honest Republican and you want to propose a serious platform that addresses the nation's most pressing problems, you're doomed. And yes, that makes it pretty much inevitable that Republicans who vote will end up having to vote for a disingenuous, self-serving, opportunistic, flip-flopping gasbag.

Douthat lectures his party,

To date, neither the establishment nor the populists have come to terms with the failures of the last age of Republican dominance. And despite occasional flashes of creativity, neither has groped its way to a credible vision of what the next conservative era should look like.

What they have to offer instead is a largely opportunistic critique of a flailing liberal president.

The problem with that being, Douthat is well-positioned to take on the status quo or to demonstrate some of the "flashes of creativity" he claims his party needs, but instead lectures, "Romney's the candidate, get used to it." Whether it's laziness, indifference or apathy, he can't even explain to us why President Obama's passage of the Affordable Care Act, in essence a federal version of Romney's Massachusetts plan" makes Obama a "flailing liberal" while Romney should be viewed as the inevitable Republican nominee and choice for President. We're in specks and beams territory, folks, with the Tea Party and Bush in the roles of the speck.

No, That's Not What Republicans Want

David Brooks describes what Republicans supposedly want in a Presidential candidate:

The central problem is that Mitt Romney doesn’t fit the mold of what many Republicans want in a presidential candidate. They don’t want a technocratic manager. They want a bold, blunt radical outsider who will take on the establishment, speak truth to power and offend the liberal news media.

David Brooks is a Republican, so it's telling that he is saying "they" instead of "we". Brooks is not describing what he or his peers want - his thesis, after all, is that the Republican masses need to get past their visceral need for "Braveheart" and accept Mitt "Organization Man" Romney. (Yes, he really said that Republican voters want their leader to be like "Braveheart".)

The first thing that comes to my mind, though, is that I can't think of a single Republican nominee who has come close to fitting Brooks' description. Certainly not Gerald Ford. Ronald Reagan was literally a spokesperson for corporate America. Bush I and II were the antitheses of "outsiders". If you were to identify a Republican who comes close to fitting the bill you could argue Richard Nixon, although by today's measures of Republicanism he was something akin to a socialist. While Ronald Reagan presented the affable cowboy persona and G.W. played the part of a Texas rancher, as part of their respective efforts to present a public image that might fool people into thinking them something other than insiders, they were both selected and advanced by the party because of the expectation that they would advance the interests of the nation's political and corporate elite - and they did so, in spades.

If you were to challenge Brooks to explain why Republicans keep nominating Robert the Bruce instead of Braveheart, why their typical nominee is a "that ain't me" from Fortunate Son, you're probably going to hear it explained that (as with Brooks' push for Romney) Republicans would prefer Braveheart but to the extent that there's an actual contest for the nomination they'll settle for electability. Barry Goldwater, millionaire's son; George H.W. Bush, Senator's son; George W. Bush, Senator's grandson and President's son; John McCain, admiral's son. Bob Dole was in Congress for more than thirty years before he led the ticket - humble beginnings can't transform a guy who has spent a quarter of a century in the Senate into an outsider. Gerald Ford, despite almost a quarter century in the House, was the closest of the post-Nixon bunch to an outsider, for all the good it did him. Bold? If Brooks means "brash," perhaps he's thinking of G.W. as "the exception who proves the rule," but which of the Republican presidents or nominees had a track record in office (whether in Congress or the Senate) that can truly be called "bold" or "radical"? Blunt? If Brooks means "dull"....

Somehow, despite supposedly wanting a bold, blunt outsider, the Republicans keep nominating and electing establishment Republican insiders. Instead of electing people who will "speak truth to power", they elect corporate spokespersons. Instead of electing candidates who "offend the liberal news media", whatever that is, they elect candidates who get kid gloves treatment from the mainstream media. If you didn't live through his presidency, you might be confused (as Brooks apparently is) and believe that Ronald Reagan was vilified in the media, while in fact he was the "Teflon President". When an obviously unprepared G.W. Bush ran for the Presidency, the mainstream media told us that we shouldn't care because he would nominate and delegate to competent people and he was the guy we would most want to share a beer with. Such harsh treatment....

As usual, Brooks condescends to Republican voters. He knows better than the masses in his party what is good for them and what is good for the nation. They're grunting savages who want Braveheart, and they now need erudite nerds like Brooks to tell them what is best for them. Do I exaggerate?

The only real shift between school and adult politics is that the jocks realize they need conservative intellectuals, who are geeks who have decided their fellow intellectuals should never be allowed to run anything and have learned to speak slowly so the jocks will understand them.

I think it's a fair characterization to say that, in that sentence, Brooks is describing his perception of himself in relation to the typical Republican voter.

Brooks might respond that he's correct about what Republicans want, even if they keep voting for consummate insiders who might, in the vein of an ad for a pain reliever, declare, "I'm not a bold, honest outsider, but I play one on television". But if that's the case he's still not really telling us anything. You may as well make a claim like, "Liberals want the President to be a philosopher king, but keep voting for people who actually exist." What voters of all stripes really want is for their elected representatives to share their values. What insiders like Brooks have done is to both recognize and create a set of litmus tests and cognitive shortcuts, and to instruct voters, "These are the measures by which you know that the candidate is 'one of you'". Voters say they want strong leaders? Outsiders? People who will "speak truth to power" (now a Republican slogan?), and the like? Then, by Jove, that must be what they're voting for in their party nominee until, at the end of the campaign, they compromise on somebody who they think can win the election. I guess we're not supposed to ask why the nominee that best fits the bill of "what voters want" is so often rejected in favor of one who is "electable". Political self-flagellation?

Meanwhile, Brooks' "lunch room poly sci" lunch buddy, David Frum, is dancing on the grave of a politician that David Brooks would have us believe comes as close to the Republican ideal as is humanly possible. To Brooks, that would seem to translate into, "We can't vote for the candidate we all want because nobody will vote for her."

The Power to Create a Competing Narrative

Paul Waldman comments on the ideological conformity demanded by the modern Republican Party:

What the right has -- as Gingrich discovered last week to his chagrin -- is a ruthless identity border patrol, with agents spread throughout the political system. Step over any one of a number of lines, even lines that didn't exist just weeks ago, and those agents will inform you, with all the subtlety of a truncheon to the kneecaps, that you are no longer within the conservative nation. "For Republicans running for president in 2012, there's a new political reality: Support Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan -- or else," wrote the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza....

As much as liberals like to imagine the right as a hierarchically organized, smoothly humming machine, the truth is that their system is diffuse, much more like a school of fish than one giant shark. A variety of players influence the school's course: politicians, media figures, activists, and advocates. It isn't a conspiracy in which orders are delivered from above. If there really were a conspiracy, it would be headed by someone with enough sense to say, "This Medicare plan is really risky. Let's not make it a litmus test."

Except that there are powerful right-wing players who can easily create a counter-narrative that will reduce the impact or even reduce the momentum of ideological conformity. There are people who can issue orders from above. One such person is Roger Ailes.

No, Ailes is not an all-powerful media figure who heads a conspiracy, dictating right-wing opinion. But he is the head of one of the most influential news entertainment operations in the world. Had he issued a memo instructing his news entertainers to do so, they would have backed off the "Newt is over" messaging. They could even have pushed back with a, "Ryan's plan is right-wing social engineering" message, or "Even if you disagree, Newt is the most brilliant Republican on the planet so we have to at least hear him out." Instead he unleashed the hounds. Safe to say, Ailes doesn't want Newt to win the nomination or to heavily influence the debate leading up to the nomination.

Let's not forget the "Attack of the 50' Eyesores" effect - recently seen with Donald Trump's flash-in-the-pan flirt with running for the Republican nomination. When international events pushed him out of the headlines the public lost interest - and the President's gentle but public humiliation of Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner left the media with little incentive to again pick up his cause. Is it a coincidence that when Palin irked Ailes by ignoring his advice to keep her mouth shut over the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, his network stopped taking a "damn the facts, liberals hate her" philosophy toward her various gaffes and personality quirks?

As long as people like Ailes have disproportionate power over who can obtain and maintain sustained media attention, they will have disproportionate power as kingmakers and in defining the public debate. Whether you think that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's reality.

Trump: The New Palin

I'm not sure if anybody else has made this observation... I expect so, as it's pretty obvious. Donald Trump saw a void in the Republican line-up created by the decline of Sarah Palin, and jumped in with both feet. Birtherism, "He couldn't really have gotten into a good college"-type sentiments, comments about "the blacks" (predictably followed by "some of my best friends are..."-type denials of racism), etc. - He's attempting to make himself attractive to uninformed, reactive, "not overtly racist, but not really fond of darker skin" set. And it's working.

Sara Palin, (Still) Dangerously Ignorant

Sara Palin is throwing another "You show me yours, I won't show you mine"¹ tantrum, this time about the White House's refusal to distribute war porn: "Palin claims the pictures should be released "as warning to others seeking America's destruction"...."

Were Palin interested, she would quickly learn that the sight of people - including children and civilians - killed by U.S. (and Israeli) forces are widely distributed in the Arab world, and that the reaction is generally not favorable to us. It also might have occurred to her, were she a bit more thoughtful, that suicide terrorists aren't particularly intimidated by the notion that if they survive they might be hunted down and killed.

Perhaps she's turning into Ann Coulter - say something outrageous, even if it makes you look like an ignorant simpleton, as long as it gets you into the press? On the other hand, perhaps she's a personification of "Act Naturally."
--------------
1. Is there a record of significance from Palin's entire life, including her partial term as governor, that she has not at least tried to conceal from the public?

And Then Along Comes The Ever-Predictable Charles Krauthammer....

There's not much point in reading a Charles Krauthammer column. He's as repetitive as Richard Cohen and 99% of the time you know what he's going to say by the time you finish reading the headline. Today, of course, is no different. His column is entitled "Massacre, followed by libel" - which is, apparently, the closest he can come to echoing the theme presently being pushed by people like Sarah Palin that anybody who draws a connection between violent rhetoric and violent action is committing "blood libel". (I wonder if Krauthammer will write a column decrying that irresponsible, inflammatory use of language... Sorry, I'm kidding - it's a Republican speaking, so I actually don't.) And that's before you consider that Rep. Giffords is Jewish. Do these people think?

Which brings us back to Krauthammer who, for a smart person, does remarkably little thinking. Which is probably why he so frequently resorts to dishonest, logically flawed arguments. For example, he starts out with the accusation,

The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the "climate of hate" created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Obamacare opponents and sundry other liberal betes noires.

Except that's not the charge. You'll find few examples of anybody with any prominent making anything that resembles the charge. The closest actual example I've seen produced is a blog post to the Huffington Post by Gary Hart, somebody who long ago faded from the popular consciousness. And the criticism is not that people can't engage in free speech, but something that the vast majority of politicians and commentators on both sides of the aisle demonstrate through their conduct - that when you're a prominent leader of an American political party, you should choose your words carefully. You won't find Mitch McConnell bandying about phrases like "blood libel" or using campaign slogans such as "don't retreat, reload", because he knows it's beneath him, that it's bad for the party and that it's bad for the political culture. The debate is about a handful of people who presently are the unofficial opinion leaders or potential political leaders of the Republican Party who think it's really cool to use violent rhetoric, and to give unqualified support to candidates who echo or expand upon their rhetoric.

Let's keep in mind also that the criticism of Palin's rhetoric is anything but new. The angry response of people like Krauthammer and Pat Buchanan didn't emerge when, for example, Rep. Giffords was discussing the break-in at her office, the crosshairs imagery used by Palin, and violent rhetoric.

Where was Krauthammer's over-the-top anger at Giffords for daring to say "...for example we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list. But the thing is, the way she has it depicted has the cross-hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize that there are consequences to that action." If he truly believes that criticism of violent rhetoric merits his present umbrage and the hysterical "blood libel" accusation he appears to echo in more sanitized form, why not then?

Let's imagine that a political leader depicts a set of targeted political seats by depicting them on a map overlaid by rifle crosshairs and setting forth below the specific candidates who are targeted for defeat, accompanied by a "Don't Retreat, Reload!" campaign theme. Now let's imagine that a psychopath, whatever his motivation, goes to a campaign event featuring a politician and starts shooting people including that politician and, when he runs out of bullets he... attempts to reload. And now let's imagine that somebody says, "You know what? Whatever was going through that guy's mind, this is 100% consistent with the violent rhetoric the political leader was using." What part of that is inaccurate?

There are many honest responses to that observation - after all, correlation is not the same thing as causation. Throwing a temper tantrum because somebody made the observation? That not only isn't an honest response, it invokes "The lady doth protest too much."

It's not surprising that Krauthammer chooses to recharacterize the accusation, creating a hollow man that he can more easily refute. He accuses "Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other rabid partisans" of drawing a direct causal link between the rhetoric of people like Palin and the shooting. Krugman?

It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

So Krugman believes that we need to look at the actions of Loughner in the context of our society, and consider the huge increase in violent threats against Members of Congress as perhaps the result of violent rhetoric? Krauthammer is free to disagree, but he did not make the accusation that Krauthammer is trying to put into his mouth. Olbermann? He said nothing about causation. The New York Times?

It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.

No claim of causation - in fact, the opposite. If Krauthammer wants to defend the described rhetoric of right-wing political leaders on its merits he has the column space to do it - but I'm not expecting he'll try. Hollow men are so much easier to fight. The Sheriff?

"I think it's time as a country that we need to do a little soul searching." Dupnik said. "Because I think it's the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business, and what we see on TV and how our youngsters are being raised. This has not become the nice United States of America that most of us grew up in."

So the Sheriff makes a curmudgeonly statement about how the country has changed since he was a kid, and that the current culture plays a role in incidents of violence like the one at issue, and Krauthammer thinks it's fair to edit out everything but his statement about vitriolic rhetoric? Ah yes, it's Krauthammer. Of course he does.

Predictably, Krauthammer next digresses into the personal history of Loughner and, for a psychiatrist, does a remarkably poor job of discussing mental illness. Krauthammer knows that somebody who is the grips of paranoid psychosis is indiscriminate about where he picks up the elements that feed his beliefs. Assuming Krauthammer's armchair diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia to be correct, you don't have to try to find some form of correlation between Loughner's pre-psychosis political beliefs and his latching onto such notions as the gold standard or violent rhetoric from other sources, because they were consistent with his delusions.

Perhaps also, Krauthammer spends too much time in an echo chamber. Too much time tuning out anybody who dares to disagree with him and listening only to sources that reinforce his pre-existing beliefs. Humans, after all, have that tendency. Perhaps Krauthammer's columns are so banal because he's not trying to do anything but preach to the choir. I admit that I find some amusement in the notion being advanced by a range of right-wing commentators that Loughner could not possibly have been affected by right-wing political statements because he wasn't a right-winger. Believe it or not, if you take the time to listen to the arguments made by well-intentioned people on the other side you'll find that some of them not only have merit, but are persuasive. Yes, sometimes your reflexes kick in and your mind slams shut, but if you can make the effort to prise your mind back open just a little bit you may be surprised.

What's up next? What a surprise, the tu quoque. Take it, Scott Aiken. For all of the effort that Krauthammer and other right-wingers have invested in trying to find examples of left-wing violent rhetoric, they've come up with next to nothing. Nobody but Keith Olbermann has argued that the mention of guns should be drummed out of political discourse. Nobody has disputed that military or martial allegories are commonplace in politics. But as I previously mentioned, there is a line that about 99% of politicians won't cross. If we're honest about it, Palin's rhetoric would quickly exclude her as a potential leader of the Democratic Party. If we're honest about it, so would her lack of qualification. Yet despite some prominent Republicans who have expressed concern in the past about both her qualification and her public manner, she's raking in millions of dollars, is embraced by the Republican party, and is viewed as its possible if not probable presidential nominee. Ouch.

So no, a line about not bringing a knife to a gun fight, or using barely discernible crosshairs in a TV ad about how your opponent has been "targeted" by the Department of Justice for investigation - an ad few in the nation saw from a different election cycle? Not even in the same ballpark as the rhetoric of Palin, or her choice to stand behind Sharon Angle and her suggestion of "Second Amendment solutions" to losses at the ballot box, or the more colorful examples from this election. Shooting a legislative bill - a stack of paper - after talking about "targeting it"? I think it's quite a stretch to suggest that the bill was a stand-in for a person, particularly given that such an interpretation would have the candidate shooting at an allegorical member of his own party. But let's call it equal. Why isn't the left up in arms¹ about the accusation? Why is the right so defensive of rhetoric so over-the-top that 99% of its political leaders won't use it - and, as previously mentioned, why take umbrage now when the criticism has been leveled for many months?

As for Krauthammer's closing line? Ad hominem abusive. A fitting way to end a poorly reasoned article.
----------
1. Sorry, Keith, if that's too much of an allusion to guns.

Language of Violence and Revolution by Politicians and Opinion Leaders

What mythago said.

I sense that we're going to be overwhelmed with attempts to distance Loughner from the right wing world. "Somebody who knew him in high school says he's a liberal (not that it matters)" kind of stuff. We'll probably also hear "He was crazy, so the fact that politicians and commentators use the rhetoric of violence may not have actually made this shooting more likely." But that misses the larger point, which is that the rhetoric of the likes of Palin, Beck and Coulter legitimizes a mindset that is inherently anti-democratic (small "d" - in a democracy we solve our political disputes at the ballot box, not with guns) and whatever the intention will inevitably be taken literally by some percentage of the population.

It's not acceptable to shrug, "They're speaking metaphorically, so it doesn't count." They only back away from their statements when a price is imposed - and a price is rarely imposed and is even less likely to be significant. "Oh, the crosshairs on targeted Members of Congress were 'crosshairs that you would see on a map'? [Added: the latest 'explanation'.] I don't think I've ever seen that, and it doesn't explain the associated slogan, 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!', but... good enough for us."

The more common result appears to be reward - the violent rhetoric or imagery is covered by the media but not criticized (or criticisms are reported from political opponents while the news show depicts the exchange as routine politics), the speaker continues to get "talking head" spots on mainstream media shows... or gets hired to host shows... the sky's the limit. Let's recognize this for what it is in the hands of people like Beck, Palin and Angle: the deliberate use of a known political formula that brings fame, money and political influence.

The political views of Loughner are irrelevant to this issue, as are the political views of the likes of Palin and Beck. Their conduct is the problem, not their political beliefs. If there were a left-wing radio firebrand using equivalent rhetoric, he too would be part of the problem. If he were embraced by the Democratic Party, were an opinion leader for that party, or were considered to be a serious contender for its next presidential nominee, that would highlight a serious problem within the Democratic Party. It's well past time for the mainstream media and the Republican Party to stop embracing the crazy, but if they choose to continue do so they should do as mythago suggests - take credit for legitimizing violence in the political arena and for its bloody consequences.

When Table Scraps Are No Longer Good Enough

Kathleen Parker appears concerned that Sarah Palin may damage the Republican Party in the 2012 election.

But [Rep. Spencer] Bachus [who alleged that Palin cost the Republicans control of the Senate], possibly the highest-ranking member of Congress to confront the obvious, or to tempt the fates that now await him, was brave to speak foul of the princess party girl as he now invites the considerable scorn of the new and improved GOP base.

Although Tea Party members tend to be over-45 white men - no implication intended regarding Palin's popularity, but infer at will - there is considerable overlap with the demographic formerly known as the GOP base, a.k.a. white Southerners and social conservatives, libertarian streak notwithstanding.

A year ago, Sarah Palin appeared quite content to be part of the Republican Party, and to want to bring the Tea Party movement into the party. Now she appears to be on the verge of war with that faction of the Republican Party that prefers to serve the business and financial elite, and which increasingly appears to view Palin as a detriment to the party and a likely catastrophe as its Presidential candidate.

This highlights one of the difficulties the Republican Party has, in effect, made for itself in trying to bring together three factions that have little in common - in simple terms, the wealthy, libertarians/small government conservatives, and social/religious conservatives (a/k/a "the base") - and to hold that coalition by feeding the rich while appeasing the other two factions. Sarah Palin's supporters may not like the Democratic Party, but they appear almost as distrustful of establishment Republicans. Palin appears to have the present intention of maximizing her personal fortunes based upon her popularity with social/religious conservatives, but it appears that she also wants to be respected within the party both as a politician and a power broker. Or, as Parker says,

Not only would Palin the presidential candidate drive away other Republican candidates, but she would most certainly lose a national election. Thus, the GOP finds itself in a pickle: How to shed itself of this attractive nuisance?

Embrace her, and they may have to live with her as their candidate. Push her away, and they may have to deal with her as a third party candidate - and, unpopular though she may be with the public at large, it's nonetheless possible that she would be a spoiler extraordinaire, and that she would outpoll the Republican presidential nominee. Because the Tea Party movement has tasted power and, assuming somebody like Palin decides to peel the scales from their eyes, there's no reason to believe that they're going to knowingly settle for the usual table scraps while the Republicans serve the wealthy. ("Just don't look... Just don't look" - But you can't stop yourself, can you....)

Sarah Palin for President in 2012?

Should Palin run for President in 2012, I've speculated in the past that it would be as an independent. Her recent comments suggest to me that she probably does want to run, but will only run for the Republican nomination if she's all-but-assured of a victory. Otherwise I continue to expect her to take the easier path of self-coronation; I expect that she has enough followers in any given state to be assured a place on the ballot.

But wait, you say, wouldn't Palin be a spoiler for the Republicans in the election, just as Ross Perot was arguably a spoiler for G.W. Bush? Yes - it's quite likely that as a third party candidate the votes she attracts would otherwise go to the Republican nominee, and that President Obama will be reelected in a walk. But I suspect Palin would argue that it "serves them right". Petty? Vindictive? Well, yeah.

It was not very long ago that Sarah Palin argued that the Republicans should work to bring the Tea Party movement into the fold. Now she's positioning herself, ludicrously, as an outsider - it's Palin and the Tea Party against the GOP.

The Palin-aligned website Conservatives4Palin is using the Politico story [reporting that advisers to top potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates are united in their desire to stop Sarah Palin from winning the presidential nomination] for fundraising, as well as for the opportunity to cast what it calls the GOP establishment as an all-boys club.

"The GOP Establishment deems that nominating Governor Palin in 2012 would spell disaster," writes Whitney Pitcher. "However, for whom would a Palin nomination be a disaster? The GOP Establishment? One of the GOP boys: Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Thune, Barbour, Daniels?"

"If Governor Palin were to win the GOP nomination, the Establishment dies," adds Pitcher.

It was fun and games for the GOP when Palin was a 50' Eyesore that the Dems couldn't stop staring at, but... funny how these things turn out.

I've heard it suggested that, as a Republican nominee, Palin could present a serious challenge to President Obama. Perhaps if the recession takes a second dip, or Obama hires David Broder as an adviser, but otherwise I don't think so. Leaving aside Palin's present unpopularity, it's highly unlikely that she's going to be coronated as the party's nominee in the manner of G.W. Bush. A primary fight will get ugly, and fast. And I would love to see who Palin might pick as VP who wouldn't make her look like a featherweight by comparison. I mean, she could appoint Dick Cheney to find a VP for her and then act surprised when he designates himself, but... that's already been done.

But seriously, note that some of the "best" candidates on the aforementioned list of "GOP boys" have little advantage on Palin in the résumé department. To the extent that some, at least, completed their terms as governor (as I've previously quipped) in their recent experience the only thing they've been running is their mouths. Newt Gingrich, devoid of charisma and a purveyor of fake awards; Mitt Romney, former corporate raider and proponent of healthcare reform that looks very much like the laws the GOP is now sworn to tear down (and was a terrible campaigner in 2008); Mike Huckabee, granter of an unfortunate pardon and resentful of the notion that a presidential candidate should be sufficiently versed in science to pass a test at the eighth grade level.... Rudy Giuliani, not even meriting a mention?

Oh yes, there's Jeb Bush. The GOP could coronate Jeb and, quite possibly, end up trailing Palin in the election returns. (But then, advice to the Republicans from Bob Shrum has to be taken in the same light as advice to the Dems from William Kristol or David Brooks - "Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly".)

So yes, everybody, keep staring at Sarah Palin. Don't point out how facially absurd it is for somebody who was crushed in the 2008 election to suggest that a vote that doesn't even take you out of office means that you "blew it". Yes, Rupert Murdoch, keep her on the payroll. Get her more reality TV shows. Keep her front, center, and "relevant". Bring her on.

The President Was Assimilated

A few days ago Michael Tomasky pondered why President Obama ran what seemed to be a brilliant election campaign, but has been so ineffective at getting his message across since taking office. He provides a number of possible explanations, concluding that the most likely answer is that Obama's campaign wasn't that brilliant, and seemed so only in comparison to the inept campaigns of his opponents.

I have a different theory. Candidate Obama ran for office from the outside, and was effective in the use of the Internet to build a significant, personal following and a substantial flow of campaign donations. It was easy for him to get the word out to his followers - type out an email or instant message, press send, and... that was it.

When he was elected he turned his organization and email list over to the DNC.

The White House also faces legal limitations in terms of what it can do. Perhaps most notably, it cannot use a 13-million-person e-mail list that Mr. Obama’s team developed because it was compiled for political purposes. That is an important reason Mr. Obama has decided to build a new organization within the Democratic Party, which does not have similar restrictions.

I believe that, as compared to the campaign, the Administration has not been as successful in getting its message out for two reasons. First, the President and the DNC have different goals. He cannot count on that organization to help him pressure members of his own party to act against what they (and the DNC) believe to be their electoral best interests. Second, he understands the need to work from within the party. If he were to try to bypass the party structure by rebuilding his network from the White House, he would upset a lot of powerful Members of Congress who benefit from the status quo. The type of narcissistic twerps who would snipe at a President with a line like, "This is our town". Perhaps Obama could win such a fight, given enough time and energy, but I suspect that it would be at the cost of advancing his agenda.

I would like to see both the White House and DNC do more to get their narrative out to the public, using the Internet. But not by putting out a video of a talking head, even if it's the President's. Have you seen any of the videos produced by RSA? Heck, have you seen the Annoying Orange? I think the DNC, and (although with a bit more caution) the White House should be working on simple, entertaining presentations that have the potential to go viral, because the appeal of the talking head stuff is limited - it's little more than "preaching to the choir".

A final note: if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the manner in which Sarah Palin is now using the Internet to build her fame and celebrity pays a high compliment to President Obama, the man she once attempted to smear as a "celebrity".

Romney, Palin and Huckabee

It's difficult to believe that those three are taken seriously as presidential contenders.

If I were running against them for the nomination, with their track records of challenging President Obama's qualifications for the job, I would be inclined to ask the rhetorical question, "How long has it been since any of my opponents ran anything but their mouths?"

Kathleen Parker: Obama's Not Girlie - Just Lacking Testosterone

The Economist's Language Johnson blog, in which its correspondents discuss the use of language, recently debunked an analysis of President Obama's BP speech, which Paul J.J. Payack of the "Global Language Monitor" claimed to have been at a 9.8 grade level and was thus above the heads of his listeners.

Microsoft Word can calculate the "Flesch-Kincaid" reading level for any bit of text. It tells me that the Gettysburg Address is on a 10.9 reading level, and the first section of Winston Churchill's storied "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech rates a downright incomprehensible 12.6. Yet of course neither speech is called "professorial". It seems that for the gullible reporters at CNN passing along Mr Payack's "analysis", confirmation bias is alive and well.

Language Log on the simplistic analysis used by Payack:

I think we can all agree that those are shockingly long professor-style sentences for a president to be using, especially in addressing the nation after a disaster. Why, they were almost as long as the ones that President George W. Bush, that notorious pointy-headed intellectual, used in his 9/15/2005 speech to the nation about Hurricane Katrina, where I count 3283 words in 140 sentences, for an average of 23.45 words per sentence! And we all remember how upset the press corps got about the professorial character of that speech!

Unfortunately for Kathleen Parker, while she obviously got the memo that she's supposed to attack President Obama as a girly-man, she apparently doesn't follow The Economist closely enough to avoid being, in its words, gullible. (She actually writes, "No, I'm not calling Obama a girlie president", before proceeding to attempt exactly that - again.)

After telling us that "Obama is a chatterbox who makes Alan Alda look like Genghis Khan," Parker writes,

When he finally addressed the nation on day 56 (!) of the crisis, Obama's speech featured 13 percent passive-voice constructions, the highest level measured in any major presidential address this century, according to the Global Language Monitor, which tracks and analyzes language.

Yes... he's so chatty, and so unable to shut up that it took him eight weeks to address the subject that Kathleen Parker thinks he should have been sounding off about from day one. Obviously she could argue that he's being aloof, unconcerned about the feelings of a region and nation that wants nothing more at a time of crisis than a strong presidential shoulder to cry on and some sort of many combination of "There, there, it's alright" and "I'm gonna beat the tarballs out of BP" - yet just like a man he didn't even notice the nation's emotional needs. Somebody who took that opposite view of the same behavior might even see Obama as demonstrating "cool detachment"... oh, wait.

But no, she complains that he used the passive voice. A manly President would never say something in the passive voice, like "Mistakes were made". (Ahem.) Of course, by limiting the "analysis" to "this century", we're effectively talking about only two Presidents and two sets of speechwriters - about as deliberately non-scientific an example as you can obtain.

Further, Sullivan offers nothing to suggest that use of the passive voice is more common for women than for men. She appears to grasp the word "passive" and conclude, "That references a personality trait" instead of "That means the subject in a sentence receives the action with the use of a passive verb." ("Mistakes were made," as opposed to "We made mistakes.")

With a bit more digging, Parker would have discovered that Payack's analysis of the use of the "passive voice" is anything but reliable. Payack "analyzed" the Vice-Presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, stating that the passive voice can be used to deflect responsibility and that it was heavily used by Palin, implying that her use was to distance herself from Bush and Cheney. However,

There are (by my count) eight passive clauses in this dataset, occurring in seven sentences, so 9% percent of her sentences have at least one passive clause. But let’s look at representative examples of these passives:

(3a) “And our commanders on the ground will tell us when those conditions have been met.”

(3b) “[...] those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.”

(3c) “No Child Left Behind was implemented.”

None of these use the passive to deflect responsibility. In fact, in all of these sentences, the agents would probably be proud to be explicitly named. “Me! It’s me who is not allowing a dangerous regime to obtain nuclear weapons!”, they’d scream.

Payack also reported that Palin spoke at the tenth grade level, and Biden at the eighth - after all, under Flesch-Kincaid, long, convoluted sentences test at a higher "grade level" than short, clear sentences, even when the thought being expressed is simple, incomplete, inarticulate, or platitudinous. Also, when you're analyzing a speech, the manner of transcription can change the result - if thoughts are transcribed as separated by commas instead of periods, the "grade level" goes up. (The post uses an example "I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." - that's supposedly a ninth grade level sentence, but if you change the comma to a period the two sentences score at third grade level.) The grade will also be inflated by speech errors.

Readability tests like Flesch-Kincaid are inherently imprecise, even for written text. When you try applying them to speech, the resulting number is pretty much meaningless. A precise estimate of the difficulty of a sentence requires psycholinguistic testing, not just pressing F7 in Word.

This isn't the first time Payack has excited the armchair psychologists of the right wing. A couple of years ago he wrote that Obama said "I" more than McCain during a presidential debate, kicking off a series of attacks on Obama as self-absorbed, even narcissistic. (That that type of analysis seems to tell us more about the speaker and their views of the subject than about the subject of their comments. The same people who hated Obama in 1998 and saw him as a narcissist are likely also happy to dismiss him as feminized, without regard to whether the two lines of attack are consistent.)

Parker also relies upon an article by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, written in 1998, that describes how Hillary Clinton was attacked "for the sin of talking like a lawyer and, by extension, 'like a man.'" Parker asks,

Could it be that Obama is suffering from the inverse?

You mean, could somebody who knows next to nothing about linguistics accuse President Obama of speaking like a woman, as part of a larger effort to diminish and marginalize him? Think really hard, Ms. Parker - where could you find the answer to that question.

Campbell's research, in which she affirms that men can assume feminine communication styles successfully (Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton), suggests holes in my own theory. She insists that men are safe assuming female styles as long as they meet rhetorical norms for effective advocacy - clarity and cogency of argument, appropriate and compelling evidence, and preempting opposing positions.

I'm not so sure. The masculine-coded context of the Oval Office poses special challenges, further exacerbated by a crisis that demands decisive action.

I somehow missed Parker's years of criticism, whether of President Reagan or President Obama, that they lacked testosterone. I have somehow missed Parker's analysis of Reagan's eight years, with her wringing her hands about how indecisive he was.

Parker also abuses Toni Morrison's comment about Bill Clinton:

When Morrison wrote in the New Yorker about Bill Clinton's "blackness," she cited the characteristics he shared with the African American community:

"Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

If we accept that premise, even if unseriously proffered, then we could say that Obama displays many tropes of femaleness. I say this in the nicest possible way. I don't think that doing things a woman's way is evidence of deficiency but, rather, suggests an evolutionary achievement.

(Evolution? Just like with Hillary Clinton, we should take it as a compliment, right?) Parker's is the popular conception of the phrase, but that doesn't mean it's correct:

[Morrison's] words have been used frequently and almost always out of their original context, as a way of signaling Bill Clinton's supposed comfort with and advocacy for black people, to the extent that Hillary Clinton even attempted to joke that she was "in this interracial marriage."

A look at the context of the words at the source is illuminating.... Morrison was not saying that Bill Clinton is America's first black president in a cute or celebratory way, nor was she calling Clinton an "honorary Negro." Rather, she was comparing Clinton's treatment at the hands of Starr and others with that of black men, so often seen as "the always and already guilty 'perp.'"

So, Ms. Parker, when you reflect on your work are you going to tell us, "Mistakes were made," or, "I made mistakes"?

Update: My analysis focuses principally on how Parker's argument is not logically supported. It's very much deserving of analysis based upon Parker's assumptions about the role of women and what it means to be a woman. See, for example, Feministe and Politics Daily. Nisha Chittal at Feministe reminds me of Parker's impression of Alan Alda, something that has always had me scratching my head,

Obama is a chatterbox who makes Alan Alda look like Genghis Khan.

For some reason, Alan Alda earned a public image as a new age, sensitive guy for his depiction of Hawkeye Pierce on MASH. Except Hawkeye's interactions with women were almost exclusively either focused on putting his superior officer, Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, in her place, or bedding a woman from the nursing staff. Sure, he used charm whereas a caricature of Genghis Khan might be expected to take the "rape, loot and pillage" approach to the fairer sex, but his chatter was literally intended to charm the pants off of his female co-workers.

To Parker, that means Hawkeye was somehow feminized? Or does Parker see Hawkeye as weak because he was opposed to war, and directed angry rhetoric at the heads of state responsible for sending him into what he perceived to be a futile war? If it's the latter, does she truly believe Hawkeye would view Obama as a kindred spirit, or as personifying the magnification of his beliefs? One way or another, Hawkeye seems like a terrible example of the new age, sensitive, "feminized" man.

Update 2: Language Log takes on Payack's claims and finds them wanting:

The real point emerges if you look at the passive examples themselves. I will list all of them, with the passive clause (the passive participle together with its complements including the agent by-phrase if there is one) underlined in each phrase quoted. Judge for yourself the extent to which these phrases look as if they were "used to either deflect responsibility, or to have no particular 'doer' of an action" — Payack's version of a familiar but thoroughly ignorant claim about the function of passives:

Passive clauses (underlined) in Obama's post-oil-leak speech

1. Seventeen others were injured


2. a team led by Dr. Steven Chu


3. a relief well … that's expected to stop the leak


4. an effort led by Admiral Thad Allen


5. millions of gallons of oil have already been removed from the water


6. five and a half million feet of boom has been laid


7. the second thing we're focused on


8. areas where the beaches are not yet affected


9. their way of life may be lost


10. whatever resources are required


11. the workers and business owners who have been harmed


12. this fund will not be controlled by BP


13. to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid


14. the account must and will be administered by an independent third party


15. The plan will be designed by states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents


16. the necessary precautions would be taken


17. known as the Minerals Management Service


18. a philosophy that says corporations should be allowed to play by their own rules and police themselves
    industry insiders were put in charge of industry oversight


19. Oil companies … were essentially allowed to conduct their own safety inspections


20. the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered


21. the path forward has been blocked — not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor


22. an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude


23. there are costs associated with this transition


24. the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II


25. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon


26. a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe


27. It's called "The Blessing of the Fleet"


28. a blessing that's granted

Tell me the truth: can you truly say that you think phrases like seventeen were injured, or a team led by Dr. Chu, or expected to stop the leak, or a way of life may be lost, or the resources that are required, or his days are numbered, or threatened by a menacing cloud, or costs associated with it, or brought from Europe, sound girly?

The author points out that Obama even used a passive phrase ("At this agency [the Minerals Management Service], industry insiders were put in charge of industry oversight") to direct responsibility.

Interpreting a raw frequency count of passive clauses as a measure of shiftiness or evasion is outright and obvious stupidity. But that's what Payack does. Parker merely stretches things to draw an even sillier conclusion (one that Payack cannot be blamed for) by confusing use of passive clauses with speaking like a woman.

Update 3: Parker offers some peculiar defenses of her column. She deflects, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say she ignores, all substantive criticism with,

Do I think people are too sensitive? Yes. Do I think I may have overstepped the line? No. It's a column, not a dissertation.

Let's be honest here - Parker was simply picking up a theme she has run with before, and which is being actively advanced by other, similarly situated Republican party hacks. She was in all likelihood coming up on a deadline, found herself with nothing new to say, stumbled across the Payack "analysis" and, without bothering to lift a finger to verify its accuracy or relevance, latched onto it as her opportunity to "phone in" her column. She either doesn't understand the difference between "passive voice" and passivity, or knows the difference but thought it was nonetheless a cute way to attack the President's masculinity, and has no real defense for writing a truly crappy column. But it's all about controversy, right? People talk about her column, she gets to write a second column defending the first, and her editors are happy because she's generating page views, facts and accuracy be damned.

So beyond, "It's just a column, so why would you expect it to be something better than half-baked nonsense," Parker also defends herself,

I don't view Obama exclusively as a black man -- no matter what he said on his census form. Not only is he half-white, but also he has managed to transcend skin color, at least from where I sit.

Strange.... It was not so long ago that Parker, while using the same line about Bill Clinton didn't seem to have difficulty identifying Barack Obama as a black man:

The contest between a black man and white woman for the Democratic nomination is both historic and fascinating to watch.

Did something change?

As a sidebar, there's another reason I don't see him as only black. He is my cousin. I had intended to save this nugget for a future column, but now seems as good a time as any to brag.... According to the family grid, Obama and I seem to be eighth cousins once removed.

Okay, so if you're related to Kathleen Parker she can't perceive you as black... but what does that mean for her argument that he's not a full-blooded American?

But that bond doesn't blind me to his -- and our -- flaws.

Meaning... Parker thinks she and Obama are both lacking in testosterone?

Meanwhile, let me just say that I'm proud that I'm related to every person on this planet in one attenuated way or another. It took a lot of effort, and... yeah.

Obama elected to employ a certain type of rhetoric in the Oval Office that put him in line with feminine rhetorical traditions and at odds with historical precedent and the expectations for his gender. Such a choice ultimately may prove to be a crucial step forward toward a better world. But the backlash against his rhetoric suggests we're not there yet.

Okay, so we're back to the premise - that there's something feminine about Barack Obama and his manner of speech. The basis of the argument is that he doesn't display enough public anger, and the nonsensical notion that it's automatically feminine to use the passive voice in a speech, facts (again) be damned.

Accusing Obama of "suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit"? I guess the take-away is supposed to be that Parker meant that as a... compliment.

Which Liberals, Again?

I recognize that David Brooks is inclined toward making platitudinous observations. The difficulty at times is determining if he believes them, or if he's pandering to those factions that pay him to speak or might buy his book.

First, let’s all stop paying attention to Sarah Palin for a little while. I understand why liberals want to talk about her. She allows them to feel intellectually superior to their opponents. And members of the conservative counterculture want to talk about her simply because she drives liberals insane. But she is a half-term former governor with a TV show. She is not going to be the leader of any party and doesn’t seem to be inclined in that direction.

Um... First of all, David Brooks plainly feels intellectually superior to (among many other people, including those for whom he sees himself as an opinion leader) Sarah Palin.¹ Is that why he talks about her? Second, if somebody truly embraces Sarah Palin as their "leader", why shouldn't their opponents (as personified here by Brooks) feel intellectually superior to the Palin adherent? What intellectual basis exists for regarding Palin as a leader?

Meanwhile, what "liberals" are "driven insane" by Palin? From what I can see, it would be more accurate to describe her as the punch line for a running joke.

The Sarah Palin phenomenon is a media psychodrama and nothing more. It gives people on each side an excuse to vent about personality traits they despise, but it has nothing to do with government.

A statement admitting that people like Brooks are the parents and principal beneficiaries of "The Sarah Palin phenomenon", that she substitutes personality for substance, and that whatever relevance she has to discussion of politics she has nothing to contribute to a discussion of government or governance. Which, no doubt, is a big part of reason he looks down his nose at her.

Palin for President? By all means, "Bring her on." It won't bring about anxiety, let alone insanity, on the political left. More like a sigh of relief, probably punctuated by laughter. Absent an absurdly unlikely "tortoise and the hare" outcome of the campaign, it would mean President Obama's reelection in an easy walk.
----------
1. When it was convenient for him Brooks acted more like a boy with a crush, gushing about her as personifying "freedom, individualism, opportunity and moral clarity"

George Will Knows Snobbery....

For that matter, George Will exudes snobbery. But does he know "loathing"? I mean, it's fun to jump on the contrived story line, "Everybody Hates Sarah", but isn't the reality quite different? Perhaps a small number of people loathe Sarah, but the vast majority of her critics have no appreciable emotional investment. Meanwhile, what does George Will hope to accomplish by spotlight on her... in an effort to prove that she's a non-entity? Attack of the 50 foot eyesores, redux.

She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states.

Conservatives, who rightly respect markets as generally reliable gauges of consumer preferences, should notice that the political market is speaking clearly: The more attention Palin receives, the fewer Americans consider her presidential timber. The latest Post-ABC News poll shows that 71 percent of Americans - including 52 percent of Republicans - think she is not qualified to be president.

Fair enough. But if we're going by that poll, 37% of Republicans hold a "strongly favorable" view of Palin, while 45% of conservatives and 29% of independents believe she's qualified to be President. Despite the effort of George Will's peers to breathe life into her presidential hopes, I agree with Will - she's not going to be the Republican nominee or, if that somehow happens, the result will be catastrophic for the party. But who says she wants to be the Republican nominee. Perhaps will didn't notice that she blew off CPAC 2010, widely considered to be a "must attend" event for Republican Presidential contenders, in favor of a paid gig at the Tea Party Convention. If you assume she's in it for more than the money, step back and consider what her goals may be.

Leading a political movement, flying around the nation on private jets to campaign events, speaking to adoring fans during the day and sleeping in luxury hotels at night, surrounded by suck-ups and sycophants. Depending upon your personality, that could be heaven, hell, or somewhere in-between. But I'm thinking that for Sarah Palin it's heaven.

I agree with Will that Palin's brand of populism isn't going to land her in the White House, save perhaps on a visitor's pass, but....

In 1992, Ross Perot, an only-in-America phenomenon -- a billionaire populist -- won 19 percent of the popular vote. But because of the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes, he won none of those.

I forget, George, who won that election again? The Republican? Oh, right....

Seriously, if all she does is tread water in the polls, Palin has incredible power as a spoiler in the next Presidential campaign - extorting concessions from the party in return for not running, or sucking away enough votes to ensure President Obama's second landslide victory. And if you look at her actions, her speeches, her advisors... she knows it. And sorry, George, your inability to turn your eyes away from her is evidence not of her weakness, but of her power.

Because Nothing Says "I'm Presidential" Better Than Quitting

I recognize that people see Sarah Palin as a potential presidential contender despite her habit of quitting jobs that she finds difficult, but must we extend that "reasoning" to every quitter on the block?

For months now, Bayh has been screaming at the top of his voice that the party needs to reorient toward a more popular, centrist agenda -- one that emphasizes jobs and fiscal responsibility over health care and cap and trade. Neither the White House nor the Senate leadership has given him the response he wanted. Their bungling of what should have been a routine bipartisan jobs bill last week seems to have been the last straw.

* * *

Quitting the Senate was a no-lose move for the presidentially ambitious Bayh, since he can now crawl away from the political wreckage for a couple of years, plausibly alleging that he tried to steer the party in a different direction -- and then be perfectly positioned to mount a centrist primary challenge to Obama in 2012, depending on circumstances.

Earth to Charles Lane: That's not what people mean when they say "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

It's more like... the scene from Idiocracy in which Private Bowers (Luke Wilson) explains, "Every time [the C.O.] says, 'Lead, follow, or get out of the way,' I get out of the way.

Pvt. Joe Bowers: Why me? Every time Metsler says, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way," I get out of the way.

Sgt. Keller: Yeah, when he says that, you're not supposed to choose "get out of the way." It's supposed to embarrass you into leading - or at least following.

Pvt. Joe Bowers: That doesn't embarrass me.

Then again, Bowers does end up in the White House, so maybe Bayh and Palin are on to something.... (My wife's initial reaction to Idiocracy was "This isn't a comedy - it's a horror movie.")

Update: James Fallows has called upon Evan Bayh to lead. Is anybody taking bets?

Being Used Isn't The Problem....

... It's being used but not getting paid.

The Tea Party Takeover

A statement of the Republican Party's intent, followed by... some wishful thinking.

"The Republican Party would be really smart to try and absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible," [Sarah Palin] said. A spokesman for the Republican National Committee agreed. "Chairman [Michael] Steele believes that when engaging grassroots the more, the merrier," said Doug Heye.

Some supporters at the convention took the same view. "I suspect the Tea Party strategy is to commandeer the Republican machine," said Roger Webb, a 65-year-old freelance photojournalist.

The last movement that thought it could take over the Republican Party was the religious right. The Republican Party bent a lot of its policy, particularly on things it didn't actually care about, to satisfy that faction. It's hoping the Tea Party movement serves as a stand-in for upcoming elections. But if its members think that their support is going to do much more than help the Republican Party advance its own agenda, or the Cheney-era agenda voiced by Sarah Palin at the convention, they're kidding themselves.

I like this, from the organizers of an expensive, seemingly profit-oriented and Republican Party-aligned convention:

Attendees were urged not to spend their money traveling to Tea Party rallies in 2010, and to support political candidates instead.

That sounds a lot like, "Support the candidates we pick, and don't go giving money to rival Tea Party factions."