A weblog on Alaska politics, and other musings, ramblings, and vagaries.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The tyranny of the oppressed

This editorial contains perhaps the greatest concentration of classic right wing spin-based reasoning and phony "victimization" memes I have seen in a long time. The deal is, the Wisconsin Republican party (once home to Joe McCarthy, now under the control of his evangelical soul mates) has stuffed an anti-gay marriage amendment onto the ballot.

If the backers of this amendment were honest, they would say that they believe homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice," and that homosexuals thus cannot be a "class" of people subject to the "equal protection" provisions of the constitution. They would further say that homosexuality is a moral failing, and revolting to them, and that they do not want the state to recognize or legitimize this "immoral lifestyle choice."

Of course, the problem with this is that, although it has the benefit of being honest, it is an awful argument, interpreting constitutional protections through a filter of religious bigotry. Gays don't have the same fundamental right to get married as other people because ... well, because they're gays, and God hates that.

Realizing that this is a losing argument on all fronts, these folks do what they always do - they dissemble. And so it is that Mr. McIlheran fatuously avers that the real issue here is the right of God Fearin' Folk to disagree with that darned PC Thought Police!! Jiminy, it's gettin' so a guy can't blatantly discriminate against an oppressed minority anymore without being taken to court!

What a yutz.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

They can't run a gummint for s***, but they shore can campaign ...

So, just why is curl rove sitting in the White House ... I mean, he's a campaign guy, not a policy guy, and he's never actually run a gummint agency

The answer, of course, is that these guys aren't actually interested in running a government - because they don't believe in government. They do, however, believe in power, and so have honed their skills at achieving power - i.e. running campaigns.

And that is how the Bush administration is best understood - as a permanent campaign.

An insightful TPM reader noted this in discussing the "ferocity" of the attack on John Murtha, the PA Congressman and former Marine who called for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

"Instant response is what you do in a modern election campaign (unless you are way, way ahead). Discrediting a critic's argument isn't enough, because it takes too much time in an environment when time is everything. Campaign politics are the primary frame of reference for politicians in Washington today. Republicans of late have practiced this trade more aggressively, though I doubt that most of them are any more insensitive to non-campaign considerations than their Democratic colleagues."

And, of course, this is not just any sort of campaign - its a bushrove campaign, nasty, brutish, and apparently everlasting ...

"Another factor, I think you'd agree, is that a lot of politicians tend to take cues from Presidents of their party. Reagan led a generation of GOP politicians to speak with sunny optimism; Clinton influenced Democratic politicians to project empathy in a somewhat ostentatious way. Bush, being more than a little insecure, tends to want to lash out at critics even when this is not politically necessary or productive, and this tendency has radiated downwards through his administration and outward to some Republicans, particularly in the House. Karl Rove's influence on GOP political operatives may be even more profound, and GOP political operatives have vast influence in Republican politics."

Perhaps most significantly, this style has been tremendously effective - and the fault for that must be laid squarely at the feet of the Democrats ...

"Finally and very frankly, Democratic politicians tend to be wimps. Anyone can see how easily they get pushed around by interest groups in their own party; when criticized aggressively, they tend to seek sympathy rather than hitting back. This encourages Republican political operatives to use rough tactics."

Even the Dems agree ...

"There is a perception that Democratic politicians run when attacked that is rooted in a good bit of reality. My observations of the Kerry campaign (fairly up close) suggest that pusillanimous and risk averse consultants run campaigns. The are constantly polling the current situation and reacting. They rarely test how reframing the debate might change perceptions. You do not see ads attacking a messenger, attacking a message, using humor, using emotion and doing so on a sustained basis to build a brand."

As I've said before, FIRE THE CONSULTANTS!!

Friday, November 18, 2005

Funny

From WaPo (via Constructive Creativity)

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stop bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
4. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
10. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these reallybad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, serious bummer.
11. Decafalon (n.): The gruelin event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
12. Glibido: All talk and no action.
13. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
14. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
17. Congloomeration: when too many concurrent mishaps create a period of prevailing gloominess.

Well, yeah

This is part of a larger point I eventually want to make about Republicans and the lawyerization of politics. From TPM

"The real answer, I think, is as banal as it is devastating: I don't think they ever gave it much thought -- not in the sense of trying to get to the heart of the matter. A lawyer assembles a case. Whether his client is innocent or not is sort of beside the point. He's trying to get him acquitted. Very similar here. The point was to invade. Non-conventional weapons made it a real possibility. A connection to 9/11 would make it a slam dunk. Some of each might get you just past the goal line. And if that didn't something else might."

Monday, November 14, 2005

What's Wrong With These People

Where do you live when vicious insanity becomes the mainstream? From The WaPo ...

"As the Senate prepared to vote Thursday to abolish the writ of habeas corpus, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl were railing about lawyers like me. Filing lawsuits on behalf of the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Terrorists! Kyl must have said the word 30 times.
As I listened, I wished the senators could meet my client Adel.
Adel is innocent. I don't mean he claims to be. I mean the military says so. It held a secret tribunal and ruled that he is not al Qaeda, not Taliban, not a terrorist. The whole thing was a mistake: The Pentagon paid $5,000 to a bounty hunter, and it got taken.
The military people reached this conclusion, and they wrote it down on a memo, and then they classified the memo and Adel went from the hearing room back to his prison cell. He is a prisoner today, eight months later. And these facts would still be a secret but for one thing: habeas corpus.

...
In a wiser past, we tried Nazi war criminals in the sunlight. Summing up for the prosecution at Nuremberg, Robert Jackson said that "the future will never have to ask, with misgiving: 'What could the Nazis have said in their favor?' History will know that whatever could be said, they were allowed to say. . . . The extraordinary fairness of these hearings is an attribute of our strength."
The world has never doubted the judgment at Nuremberg. But no one will trust the work of these secret tribunals.
...
[My] heart begins to ache ... for the country I thought I knew."