Politics : The Atlantic

The Atlantic Politics Quiz: Big Tent Edition

2012-02-10T10:11:50-05:00

Test your trivia chops by answering these 5 questions.

<a href="http://theatlantic.polldaddy.com/s/the-atlantic-politics-quiz-5">View Survey</a>

CPAC's Opening Day Is Haunted by the Ghosts of Candidates Past

2012-02-09T16:40:40-05:00

The annual conservative confab hears the also-rans' excuses -- and tries to summon enthusiasm for those still in the field.

The opening day of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which kicked off Thursday in Washington, was devoted to failed presidential candidates of the not-quite-distant-enough past, who tested the audience's capacity for instant nostalgia with rueful jokes about their defunct campaigns.

"I thought you would be interested in knowing that running for president of the United States is really one series of humiliations after another," said a beaming Michele Bachmann, looking tanned and rested. "But it's also a very educational experience."

Bachmann proceeded to reference some of her own humiliations in the spotlight's glare. "I learned three things," she said. "First of all, I learned where John Wayne was born. Second, I learned the day Elvis Presley was born -- these are vital issues for our republic! And third, I learned: Never forget the three things that you learned."

That last one was a dig at Rick Perry, the Texas governor who was in the race to make all the other candidates feel brighter and more articulate. Perry, speaking a couple of hours after Bachmann, had his own take on his erstwhile presidential effort.

"Aggies never lose -- we just run out of time," he said, referring to his alma mater, Texas A&M University. "You could say my presidential campaign just ran out of time."

Perry devoted his speech to his favorite part of the Bill of Rights -- the states' rights part -- without mentioning the candidate he has endorsed, Newt Gingrich.

"A candidate I am no more, but a committed Tenth Amendment conservative I will be until the last breath I draw!" he said.

Gingrich also went unmentioned by the third former candidate to speak, Herman Cain. Cain, who also endorsed his fellow Georgian, was too busy exuberantly expressing his support for Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, the 2008 campaign minicelebrity who's now a congressional candidate in Ohio. Wurzelbacher, he explained (without attempting to pronounce his actual last name), had embraced Cain's "9-9-9" tax plan.

Cain's reflections on his campaign were more serious than Bachmann or Perry's. "There are two reasons I dropped out of the race," he said. "Gutter politics, and number two, I chose to put family first."

While Bachmann devoted her speech to foreign policy and Perry to the threat of an overweening federal government, the recitation of "9-9-9" was the extent of the policy content in Cain's speech.

The more consequential speeches will come Friday, when three of the four remaining presidential candidates are scheduled to speak: Rick Santorum, fresh off his surprise triple victory in Tuesday's votes; Mitt Romney, trying to regain his equilibrium after his losses to Santorum; and Gingrich.

The fourth candidate, Ron Paul, is skipping CPAC this year in favor of campaigning in Maine, having won the conference's straw poll for the last two years and gotten precisely nothing to show for it.

Gingrich and Santorum had volunteers out in force at the annual festival, whose large contingent of College Republican attendees gives it a party vibe. Santorum's stickering effort was particularly aggressive; he also had a booth selling his signature sweater vests for $50 a piece.

There was little enthusiasm for Romney on display among the attendees, but also little outright antagonism. Many seemed to have already resigned themselves to his inevitable nomination prior to Tuesday's Santorum comeback.

Others, though, relished Romney's setback.

"The whole momentum, inevitable narrative -- it's false. It's crap," said Eric McGrane, a 42-year-old IT manager from Chesterfield, Va. He was leaning toward Santorum, though only as the best remaining alternative -- he was troubled by the "bad votes" on the former senator's record.

"I think, of the current candidates, he's been more consistent," he said. "I wouldn't say I'm head over heels."

Image: Win McNamee / Getty Images

A Lonely Widow's Conscience Helped Gay Marriage Pass in Washington

2012-02-09T16:23:04-05:00

A Republican state legislator cited her relationship with her deceased husband to explain why she broke ranks and voted to allow same-sex unions.

In the video above, Washington State Rep. Maureen Walsh explains why she was one of only two Republicans in her chamber to break ranks and support a marriage-equality bill. A summary can't do justice to her moving words -- just click play and admire her candor.

The bigger news is that gay marriage will soon be legal in another state. As The Christian Science Monitor explains:

The Washington House of Representatives voted 55 to 43 Wednesday to approve gay marriage. The State Senate already had passed the measure 28 to 21, and Gov. Chris Gregoire (D), who calls it "a major step toward completing a long and important journey to end discrimination based on sexual orientation," will sign the bill.

The history of the Washington State bill mirrors the shift in public and political attitudes toward gay marriage around the country. In 1998, state lawmakers passed a Defense of Marriage Act declaring marriage to be a union between a man and a woman. In 2006, a state civil rights measure specifically including protections based on sexual orientation passed for the first time. The next year, a domestic partnership law was enacted, and in 2009 voters approved expanding that law to include everything but marriage. The new gay marriage law was approved largely along party lines. Just two Republicans voted for it, and two Democrats voted against it. Prominent companies in the Pacific Northwest -- including Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks -- publicly support same-sex marriage and endorsed the bill. (Some conservative Christian organizations launched a boycott of Starbucks as a result.)

Opponents of the bill say they'll try to collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot in hopes that voters will overturn it.

The Great Fallon-Obama Potato Sack Race

2012-02-09T15:45:45-05:00

It probably is said too much now, but coming from a time when black people were almost exclusively subordinate on television, this sort of thing is amazing. The Obama Presidency is, if anything else, a really special reality show for black people, a love letter to all of us disgusted with watching black families through the lens of sociology and "problem-solving."

What If the Press Frankly Acknowledged Its Role in Campaigns?

2012-02-09T15:21:23-05:00

Arbitrary journalistic conventions inevitably influence how primaries are covered. Why not say so openly?

Arbitrary conventions shape how the primaries are covered.

Early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are deemed especially important, rather than being assigned weight commensurate with the number of delegates at stake. Candidates are sometimes treated as "winners" even when they haven't won any delegates, so long as they've "exceed expectations." There is an obsession with momentum: candidates are said to be gaining or losing momentum; suffering from the fact that a primary in an unfriendly state is interrupting their momentum; or trying their utmost to stop an opponent's momentum, lest he or she "coast" to the nomination.

There are reasons for these conventions. They're shaped by experience. As every experienced political reporter knows, for example, victory in an early state really can impact a campaign beyond the small number of delegates gained. It can trigger a significant spike in campaign contributions.

Or a wave of newly positive media coverage.

That's where things get tricky. Say a candidate wins New Hampshire. Journalists expect that he or she will get a boost, so they report its likelihood. But isn't it then impossible to tell what caused the boost? Was it that the winning candidate proved to donors or voters that he or she is capable of winning? Or was the boost caused by the endless assertions in the media about the boost?

How much campaign coverage is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

As a political journalist familiar with how the press behaves, I agree with the New York Times when it reported, after Rick Santorum's Tuesday night sweep in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota, that it "could scramble the dynamic of the Republican race." But part of why I think that's true is the certainty that newspapers, network anchors, cable news pundits, and Web journalists will all say so. What few outlets typically acknowledge is the degree to which their own coverage and the stuff published or broadcast by their competitors are a primary mechanism by which the scrambling takes place! It is easy to imagine a political press that embraced different, equally plausible conventions -- that delegates are what matters, for example, and that only naive ignoramuses would attribute importance to the results of a race with few or no delegates.

That understanding would cause the press to confer marginal importance on Iowa or New Hampshire. Wouldn't the end result be the emergence of a very different campaign, and perhaps even a different outcome?

So far, this primary season has confounded journalistic expectations.

As Dave Weigel puts it:

Political reporters make for lousy gravediggers. Find a primary, pick a day, and I can point you to a story pronouncing the campaign "over" or "almost over" or over, pending the judgment of a proverbial Fat Lady. Let's make it easy and start last month. On Jan. 10, as Romney was winning New Hampshire, NPR quoted a Republican strategist who counted the margins and pronounced the race "over." On Jan. 18, the Los AngelesTimes informed us that South Carolina's primary "could essentially end" the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns. Two days later, NBC News told us that a Romney win in the first southern primary would make him "the de facto nominee."

When Romney lost, we got pre-Florida primary headlines like "Can Mitt Romney recover from his South Carolina 'disaster?'" Days later, Howard Kurtz was tap-tapping about the "distinct possibility" that the media would "bury Newt Gingrich for the third time" in Florida. No one was talking about Rick Santorum until yesterday, when the Wall Street Journal saluted Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri for "puncturing Mitt Romney's claim to be the unstoppable front-runner."

Given the frequency with which speculative analysis is wrong, it would probably be a good thing if journalists engaged in less of it. But horse race analysis isn't going away: readers want it, journalists want to produce it, and no style of journalism will ever end when both of those things are true.

The reform I'd suggest is for journalists to be less coy about what's going on. It isn't unduly meta to fully acknowledge the role the press plays in campaigns, even if doing so is a bit awkward. For example, The New York Times writes that many in the Republican establishment were urging GOP activists to fall in line behind Mitt Romney, but voters in three states refused to do so.

The story goes on:

Instead, the most conservative elements of the Republican Party's base expressed their unease with Mr. Romney by sending a resounding message that they preferred someone else. And they collectively revived the candidacy of Mr. Santorum, who has been languishing in the background since a narrow victory in Iowa's caucuses at the beginning of the year.

What if that last sentence read:

And they collectively revived the candidacy of Mr. Santorum, who won a narrow victory in Iowa's caucuses at the beginning of the year, but raised less money than his rivals and found it more difficult to attract free media attention too because many editors, reporters and pundits underestimated him, either erroneously speculating that he couldn't possibly sweep Tuesday's primaries, or else ignoring him until immediately before the vote, only to lavish new respect on him afterward. He'll almost certainly generate more headlines and soundbites in coming days, free attention his campaign needs given its fundraising disadvantage.

Isn't that more informative than passively noting that he "has been languishing in the background," as if that occurred as a natural phenomenon? Assumptions are always going to be built into campaign journalism, but they needn't remain static and unexamined. Perhaps shedding light on the assumptions that shape the way candidates are covered, and the impact the press is having on the race, would help the least defensible practices to be examined and discredited.

Image credit: Reuters

Obama Story Is Online

2012-02-09T14:21:24-05:00

Much of this past fall I was interviewing political figures to get their judgments on what-we-know, and how-we-know it, about President Obama's successes and failures in office so far.

The results are now online here (but of course it's always best read on paper!) plus a short video q-and-a with Corby Kummer, who was my editor on this piece as he has been for nearly all other Atlantic articles I've done since the early Reagan years.

Will have more to say about the background of this article, implications, cutting-room-floor info (yes, even with a 12,000-word piece, there's a lot left out!), and so on in the days ahead.
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Also, for the record, the Reddit AMA session I did yesterday was interesting, at least to me, and the results are here.

Are Pro-Israel American Jews Warming to Obama?

2012-02-09T13:13:42-05:00

Ben Smith (still writing in Politico, as if he's not busy enough with his new job), takes notice of a softening in opinion among hawkish Jews about President Obama:

"Most of the pro-Israel community is now convinced that when President Obama says he will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability, he means it," said Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.). He cited a litany of muscular actions, including SEAL raids on Osama bin Laden and Somali kidnappers, drone strikes around the world, and a shift of American military assets toward Iran, which he said have "for the moment given pause to those who wondered about the president's mettle in using force against America's and Israel's enemies."
The shift has had consequences through Democratic politics. Rothman, redistricted into a tough primary with Rep. Bill Pascrell, is seeking to draw a contrast based on Rothman's hawkishly pro-Israel record.
That's no longer a position that would put him in conflict with the popular Democratic president.
"Constituents and relatives who were otherwise regularly calling to inquire whether the president really felt the need to protect Israel in his guts are not now calling me so much with those kinds of questions," he said.
Indeed, the targeted actions against Iran - and in particular the assassinations of civilian scientists, for which the U.S. has not taken credit - have made it difficult to make the case that Obama is being insufficiently ruthless in his approach. (Difficult, but not impossible: Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton recently described assassinations as "half-measures.")

By the way, a Boltonesque "full-measure" re: Iran would be shooting an Iranian nuclear scientist, burying him, then digging him up and shooting him again.

Video of the Day: The Undead Budget Will Eat Your Brains

2012-02-09T13:07:04-05:00

Monsters meet money in an entertaining clip from Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

Washington is on the brink of a budget showdown, with President Obama's spending proposal for the year due at the end of next week. It isn't the sort of thing the average voter gets excited about -- unless, that is, it comes packaged in an entertaining YouTube video spoofing old-school horror B-movies.

The clip is from Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House majority whip. McCarthy gets social media and the Internet better than nearly any politician on the scene. He previously launched an mobile app that tracks legislation on the floor of the House and hosted Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg for a Q&A on social media.

For the record, though, we think calling the video "President Obama's Monster Budget" was a missed opportunity. Since Republican leaders like to cite the fact that it's been more than 1,000 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget, why not nod to zombie flick 28 Days Later and call this "1,016 Days Later"?

Thinking About The New Kennedy Revelations

2012-02-09T13:00:00-05:00

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It's interesting that Janet Maslin's review of Mimi Alford's new memoir takes Alford to task more than it does the man at the center of the book--John F. Kennedy. I guess that makes some sense given that Alford is the author and it was ultimately her story. But I've found myself overcome by a kind of visceral revulsion as I watched the story of Alford's affair with Kennedy unfold on Rock Center last night.

The point is often made here that when we discuss illicit sexual affairs with young women and powerful men, there is a tendency to infantalize the women--to treat them as victims without any designs or sexual urges original to themselves. I think that line serves as an important corrective, and indeed in her interview Alford is fairly clear that she wanted it to happen. At the same time, I think there has to be a way to talk about a humanistic morality, without young women as sexless stand-ins for that morality.

Call me old-fashioned. But I think it's an abuse of power to begin a sexual relationship with an intern in his office, one which the willingness of the other party doesn't allow you to evade. In the coldest most removed--and frankly mildest--sense, it opens the door for complaints of favoritism. Monica Lewinsky was not the only intern in the White House. In more malicious hands it can escalate to threats and blackmail. In this particular case it opened the door, according to Alford, to the abuser requesting that she service one of Kennedy's aides, and, according to Alford, his brother.

These are the firm questions that arise. Tougher ones remain: When the head of the free world requests that a 20-year old perform oral sex on one of his aides, does consent still having meaning? Is there coercion beyond beyond the physical, even if we grant that it's beyond the realm of prosecutors?

Someone with more experience in this area can speak for me, but somehow "Well she was an adult and she consented" doesn't feel particularly feminist, or humanist, to me. I also don't buy the notion that this sort of behavior has no impact on one's politics. In this age, at the very least a penchant to give one's foes ammo is an actual problem

What Obama's Playlist Says About His Re-Election Campaign

2012-02-09T11:58:15-05:00

The musical selections for the president's campaign events seem carefully calibrated to appeal to a wide range of voters.

Politico's Mike Allen scored a sweet scoop this morning: the 29-song playlist for President Obama's re-election push. Unlike Allen's usual fare, this isn't about political maneuvering and Washington wheeling-and-dealing. Or is it? Given the famous discipline of the Obama campaign, it's fair to assume this list is carefully calibrated to appeal for optimal demographic appeal -- age, gender, geography, race, and socioeconomics. Here's a quick tour through the playlist and what its selections mean politically.

CLASSIC ROCK
Number: 5
Examples: "We Take Care of Our Own," Bruce Springsteen; "Mr. Blue Sky," Electric Light Orchestra
What It Says: Classic rock is completely inoffensive, so it's bound to play a major role. Furthermore, its biggest fans -- middle-aged, middle-class voters -- are a key election bloc. The Springsteen song is new and could practically have been written for the Obama 2012 campaign, and the Boss is a liberal staple.

INDIE ROCK
Number: 5
Examples: "We Used to Wait," Arcade Fire; "You Are the Best Thing," Ray Lamontagne.
What It Says: It's a blatant pander to twenty-somethings. "Hey kids! Remember how much you loved me in 2008? Well, look, I'm still hip and with it." Arcade Fire played benefits for Obama in 2008, and their anthemic bombast is perfect for big rallies.

OLDSTER ROCK
Number: 2
Examples: "Your Smiling Face," James Taylor; "I Got You," Wilco
What It Says: Dad-rockers are basically Obama's key demographic: Well-to-do, suburban, educated, and (probably) moderate Democrats politically. The only surprise about Wilco's inclusion was that there's only one of their tunes on the list. The band is from Obama's home base of Chicago, it has played benefits for him, and he's noted his love for its members. If Obama loses, he'll be singing not "I Got You" but rather "Misunderstood" (I'd like to thank you all/For nothing/Nothing at all."). One might expect a president working hard to win the Tar Heel State might have chosen Taylor's "Carolina in My Mind."

SOUL AND R&B
Number: 9
Examples: "Let's Stay Together," Al Green; "Love You I Do," Jennifer Hudson; "Green Onions," Booker T. & the MGs
What It Says: This is the largest single genre group, but it runs the gamut from classic soul (Aretha is for the same aging boomer population as James Taylor) to more contemporary fare like Raphael Saadiq. A large number of R&B tunes helps the president connect with black audiences without turning off older white folks: Who doesn't love "Green Onions"? And after his own impromptu rendition, the Al Green standard was a mandatory selection.

POP
Number: 2
Examples: "Different People," No Doubt; "The Best Thing About Me Is You," Rick Martin feat. Joss Stone
What It Says: We're frankly puzzled. Obama has very few straight pop tunes, and the ones he does are a little offbeat -- No Doubt? Is he running for president of 1998? It's also a little surprising that he left off his pal Justin Bieber.

COUNTRY
Number: 7
Examples: "My Town," Montgomery Gentry; "Stand Up," Sugarland
What It Says: The president knows he needs to firm up his support among white working-class voters, so country is the second-largest group of songs after soul and R&B. The choices tend to be patriotic, small-town-America-celebrating songs, logically enough. But they show a rather limited taste for and knowledge of all things twang: there are two songs apiece from country-pop crossover stars Sugarland and from Darius Rucker, the former Hootie & the Blowfish frontman who's remade himself as a Nashville star.

RAP
Number: 0
Examples: N/A
What It Says: In a shocking omission, Obama hasn't included a single rap song on his list. That's despite vocal support and occasional musical shoutouts from Jay-Z, Nas, and others; despite his own professed love for Lil Wayne; despite his invitation of Common to the White House; and despite K'Naan publicly offering the president use of his "Wavin' Flag" even as he asked Mitt Romney to stop using it. But rap is dangerous territory for a politician, liable to scare off older white voters and with lyrics often marred by casual sexism and talk of violence. After Common's appearance caused a kerfuffle, the Obama team is trying to tread carefully.

MISCELLANY
Gender Breakdown: Only six of these songs center around a female singer, while 19 have male lead singers. Four are mixed, and one is an instrumental. The president is apparently not too concerned about losing the female vote, which he won 56-43 in 2008.
Nationality Breakdown: Surprisingly, nearly a sixth of the choices on the list are by foreign bands (including Arcade Fire, a Montreal-based group of American ex-pats). That includes a sizable English contingent: twee indie rockers Noah and the Whale, Florence and the Machine, and ELO. There's an appearance by Irish rockers U2, but they've become such a staple of campaign music that we're just thankful he didn't choose "Beautiful Day" (the song is perhaps tainted by being the theme of John Kerry's unsuccessful 2004 run). Skipping "With or Without You" was probably a smart electoral choice, too.

Does the Conservative Movement Really Want the GOP Nominee to Lead It?

2012-02-09T11:05:34-05:00

That people expect as much from Mitt Romney isn't just a problem for him -- it's a problem for conservatism, too.

Puzzling over why Mitt Romney isn't connecting with conservative voters, John Fund offers a hypothesis in National Review. "Mitt Romney doesn't seem to realize he is campaigning for two jobs, not one," he writes. "He is doing quite well in the race to become the Republican nominee for president, and must still be considered the strong favorite. But ever since Barry Goldwater captured the GOP nomination in 1964, the Republican nominee has been more or less the titular head of the conservative movement, the most important single component of the Republican party."

This attitude is shared by Tea Partiers to whom I've spoken. They want in the Republican nominee a Ronald Reagan figure who'll unite the right and govern as an unapologetic conservative. Understandably so. What they perhaps don't appreciate -- even correcting for the gulf that separates the Reagan of their imagination from the actual man -- is how singular a figure Reagan was, and that treating GOP presidents as titular heads of movement conservatism more often ends in disaster.

The recent example is George W. Bush, whose name and tenure go unmentioned in the race for the Republican nomination, so thoroughly did he discredit himself (assisted by self-described conservatives who put partisan loyalty before principle). Nor was it the first time that the Republican Party and its leader set back the several causes of movement conservatism.

Richard Nixon served in the White House from 1969 to 1974, when he resigned the presidency in disgrace. Put the Watergate scandal aside, for it doesn't bear one way or another on conservative orthodoxy. Instead let's review his domestic policy, bearing in mind that if you asked your average Tea Partier, "Who is more conservative, Richard Nixon or Barack Obama?" they'd call the latter a socialist. Yet it was Nixon who imposed wage and price controls. In a quirk of history, it was actually Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney who implemented them! The conservative movement also has Richard Nixon to thank for creating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And he sought to bring universal health care to the United States long before Bill and Hilary Clinton. One half-expects new research from Dinesh D'Souza purporting to uncover his Kenyan anti-colonial roots.

The Republican Party has very rarely been a force for conservatism. And while Reagan came closer than anyone since Goldwater, even he falls far short of what the average Tea Partier now demands.

As Reason.com editor Nick Gillespie puts it in Time magazine's recent symposium on conservatism:

At least since the election of St. Ronald Reagan, self-styled conservatives have repeatedly revealed themselves to be the biggest frauds or most delusional suckers in American politics. Conservatives ostensibly believe in limited government and individuals who are smart and moral enough to use voluntary associations and free markets to meet the needs of all God's children.

But under Reagan and, more recently, George W. Bush and a Republican Congress that spent like LBJ on a bourbon-fueled bender, they cheered an immense increase not just in federal outlays and borrowing but also in centralization of power in Washington. The "FDR Democrat" Reagan saved entitlements for the old and the relatively wealthy by jacking up payroll taxes on the young and relatively poor. Bush and his congressional playmates created No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription-drug plan, the Transportation Security Administration and at least two wars that can only be reckoned tragic wastes of blood and treasure.

This doesn't give Reagan his due, but I understand the impulse to puncture the myth that surrounds him. For decades now, it has caused conservatives to imagine that if only they can elect the right charismatic Republican president, he can double as champion of their movement and shrink the federal government, a feat that wasn't among St. Reagan's several impressive accomplishments.

Image credit: Reuters

Should We Restrict Food Stamps to Healthy Food?

2012-02-09T10:14:45-05:00

Kevin Drum reacts to a bill which aims to limit the stuff that welfare recipients can buy with their food stamps:

What a dilemma. On the one hand, this bill promotes the exact same nanny-state behavior that Republicans howl about when Michelle Obama or Michael Bloomberg starts nattering on about salt consumption or fatty foods. On the other hand, it punishes welfare recipients, something that's always good for a round of applause from right-wing audiences. What's a conscientious conservative to do?

This doesn't seem like much of a dilemma, unless you think that favoring drug legalization, and selling heroin, are morally equivalent.

Not, mind you, that I mean to imply that fatty foods are just like heroin. But it doesn't seem like some sort of crazy stretch to believe that

1) People should be free to buy fattening foods without government interference

2) The government shouldn't necessarily pay for those foods.

Myself, I think this sort of nannying is mostly pointless; if you want to help the poor, give them cash, and if you don't, then leave them alone. But if we are going to have a food stamp program, that implies exclusions--things like laundry soap are already verboten from the program. It's not especially crazy to put unhealthy food on the excluded list.

(Graph via Adam Ozimek)

The Contraception Coverage Debate Isn't Just About the Bishops

2012-02-09T10:10:21-05:00

Obama should do right by the progressive Catholics who made his health reforms possible and expand the religious exemption to the new contraceptive mandate in the law.

If abortion rights advocates are feeling their oats this week, they have good reason. In just two-and-half a weeks, they've claimed two major victories, forcing the Susan G. Komen Foundation to back off its policy change denying grants to Planned Parenthood clinics and convincing the Obama administration to maintain only a very limited exemption for religious employers in the new contraceptive coverage mandate, which is set to go into effect on August 1. Part of Obama's health-care reform bill, the new mandate will for the first time require most employer-provided private health-care plans to cover birth control without a co-pay or deductible.

These and other political fights over the past year have seen women's health activists adopt an increasingly combative stance. So news this week that the White House is considering broadening the religious conscience exemption have activists firing off action alerts urging the White House not to cave in to the Catholic bishops. But they might want to consider another message instead: thank you.

Let me explain. Abortion rights organizations, pro-choice Democrats, and the media have all characterized the debate over this contraception coverage rule as a struggle between the White House and the Catholic bishops. In its editorial supporting the decision, the New York Times praised the Obama administration for "with[standing] pressure from Roman Catholic bishops and social conservatives." But that's not accurate.

The list of Catholics who have lobbied the administration to consider a broader definition of "religious employer" than now exists -- one that would cover institutions like Catholic universities and hospitals -- includes politically progressive Catholics who have been close allies of the White House, like Father John Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame who stood up to conservatives who wanted Obama disinvited from giving the school's commencement address in 2009. It includes pro-life Catholic Democrats like Senator Bob Casey, who now faces an even tougher reelection campaign in Pennsylvania because of his vote in favor of Obama's health reform plan. And it includes precisely those Catholic hospital officials and progressive nuns whose support of health reform provided reassurance and cover for the holdout Catholic Democrats who voted to make it law. In doing so, they made possible the largest expansion of contraception access in U.S. history.

Without the work of women like Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, and Sister Simone Campbell of the Catholic social justice group NETWORK, there would be no health reform and therefore no contraception coverage mandate to argue over -- not just for the employees of Catholic hospitals and universities, but for the estimated 24 million other women who will benefit from this aspect of the law.

So, yes, a little gratitude from women's health advocates and other liberals would be appropriate. Instead, when these Catholic sisters and others asked for some flexibility with regard to the mandate, the advocates pooh-poohed as irrelevant their concerns about religious liberty and insisted that "the bishops" were the only ones who had a problem with contraception coverage.

The White House also bears its own large share of the blame for how it has mishandled the issue. Last August, the administration put forward the narrow exemption for religious employers as its starting point, giving it nowhere to go. Abortion rights groups didn't want a conscience exemption -- for anyone -- and Catholics balked at accepting such a limited definition, which covered only organizations that primarily employ and primarily serve individuals who share their religious tenets. This definition excludes most Catholic universities and hospitals, and many social service organizations, although it does include houses of worship. Then in November, Obama met in the Oval Office with Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops (USCCB), and reportedly assured the powerful prelate that he would "be pleased" with the administration's final resolution of the issue. But Dolan is most assuredly not pleased. He had requested the meeting to make clear his objections to the narrow exemption, and said earlier this week that he felt personally betrayed by the outcome.

But the most tone-deaf move -- the one guaranteed to turn the behind-the-scenes debate into a public controversy -- was made by whoever decided the administration should announce the final rule in connection with the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. The rule is not about abortion, so the signal the White House meant to send was unmistakable: this is a gift for our pro-choice supporters. The symbolism alone undercut the feeble attempts of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Obama advisers to insist that they had struck "the right balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing women's access to critical preventive health services."

Until David Axelrod and others began to indicate this week that the president was open to reconsidering the religious employer exemption, White House spinners had doggedly ignored the fact that the relevant issue that troubles Catholics about the rule is religious freedom, not contraception. Religious liberty concerns are why Catholic journalists like E.J. Dionne, Melinda Henneberger, and Mark Shields -- none of whom argue that contraception morally wrong -- have criticized the White House decision. Similarly, religious organizations like the Baptist Joint Committee, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, National Association of Evangelicals, and the Orthodox Union all support the use of contraception but have expressed their opposition to the rule as well. More than 90 percent of U.S. bishops, not all of whom are conservative, have spoken out against the rule, and many have sent letters to be read from pulpits in their dioceses urging Catholics to engage in civil disobedience. Meanwhile, while the White House touts lists of doctors and scientists who support the rule, no major religious group has stepped forward to defend the White House's decision.

The question for Sister Keehan and Father Jenkins, for Senator Casey and Sister Campbell, is not whether lay Catholics disagree with the Church's teaching on birth control (a majority do) or whether nearly all Catholic women use birth control at some point in their lives (they do). It is not even whether some Catholic institutions already pay for employee health plans that include coverage for contraception (some do). The question is whether the federal government should be able to require a religious institution to use its own funds to pay for something it finds morally objectionable.

There's no denying that the Conference of Catholics Bishops has made it very difficult for the president to extend a hand and negotiate in good faith. They have made the contraception rule Exhibit A in their claim that Obama is waging a "war on religious freedom," and they continue to provide fodder for Republican presidential candidates who attack Obama as anti-religion. Yet 28 states have passed similar measures mandating employer-provided contraception coverage without prompting cries of a war against Catholics. And even some Catholic dioceses, including the one in Madison run by the very conservative Bishop Robert Morlino, have decided that it is morally acceptable to select health plans that cover contraception when self-insured plans prove prohibitively expensive.

But just because the Conference of Catholics Bishops has effectively declared Obama a political opponent and is spoiling for a fight this election year does not mean that the administration has to respond in kind. And that's why Obama and his supporters in the women's health community would be wise to remember that the contraception mandate is not a showdown with "the bishops." The USCCB's point man on abortion issues, Richard Doerflinger, has already declared that the likely solution to this mess -- the so-called Hawaii compromise -- unacceptable. (In Hawaii, religious employers can invoke a refusal clause that allows them to exclude contraception coverage from employee health plans, while still entitling workers independently to buy contraception coverage from insurers at a cost that is no higher than the price the employer would have paid.)

Obama should ignore Doerflinger and he should ignore any abortion rights groups that say a reconsideration of the rule is "caving into the bishops." He and his administration committed an unforced error with this policy decision, but he can and should correct it. Admitting that the administration's initial solution was insufficient isn't weak. It's doing right by the brave Catholics who made his health reform law -- and this contraception coverage mandate -- possible in the first place.

Image credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Why Has Every Attack on Obama's Foreign Policy Failed?

2012-02-09T08:00:00-05:00

The electorate supports what he has done, is unpersuaded by his Republican critics, and doesn't care about his broken promises.

President Obama's foreign policy has provoked two very different critiques.

The one I've pursued, along with a small group of civil libertarians, non-interventionists, and disaffected progressives, emphasizes his broken campaign promises; his violation of the War Powers Resolution in Libya; the destabilizing effect of his drone campaign in Pakistan; the innocents the CIA is killing when carrying out his policies; and his embrace of indefinite detention.

Far more Americans are familiar with the critique offered by Republican politicians, conservative television and talk radio hosts, and neoconservative writers. In their telling, the president rejects American exceptionalism; is constantly apologizing for America; harbors an intense dislike of Israel; practices appeasement with regard to our enemies; seeks to cut military spending so much that we'll be vulnerable to foreign aggression; and is content to "lead from behind."

These critiques (the latter based mostly on distortions) share just one feature: the electorate is rejecting them both. Polling data suggests that as Election 2012 approaches, voters are broadly supportive of the actions he has taken, unpersuaded by Republican attacks, and unperturbed even by Obama's broken promises. Is he invulnerable to being attacked on foreign policy?

That's what I began to wonder after looking at the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. Scott Wilson and Jon Cohen wrote up the results:

The sharpest edges of President Obama's counterterrorism policy, including the use of drone aircraft to kill suspected terrorists abroad and keeping open the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have broad public support, including from the left wing of the Democratic Party. By better than 2 to 1 Americans say the president's handling of terrorism is a major reason to support rather than oppose his bid for reelection. The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents approve of Obama's decision to keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He pledged during his first week in office to close the prison within a year. But he has not done so.

Even the party base appears willing to forgive that failure. The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats -- and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats -- support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed. Obama has also relied on armed drones far more than Bush did, and he has expanded their use beyond America's defined war zones. The Post-ABC News poll found that 83 percent of Americans approve of Obama's drone policy, which administration officials refuse to discuss, citing security concerns... fully 77 percent of liberal Democrats endorse the use of drones, meaning that Obama is unlikely to suffer any political consequences as a result of his policy in this election year.

Those are remarkable numbers -- and so are these (emphasis added):

Romney has criticized Obama for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of last year and for the administration's plans to wind down combat operations in Afghanistan next year... The critique is a politically risky one to make after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, a conflict that a majority of Americans stopped believing was worth fighting some time ago. The Post-ABC News poll shows that 78 percent of the public supports Obama's drawdown plan, scheduled to culminate in 2014 with a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat troops.

How do you attack a president on foreign policy when his two most consequential initiatives -- the drone war and the troop drawdowns -- are both supported by roughly 8 in 10 Americans surveyed? Also wildly popular: the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and the successful assault on pirates.

There is one bit of good news in these numbers for non-interventionists. Americans want to bring our troops home. Civil libertarians have less to celebrate, but can at least console themselves with the possibility that public opinion on their issues could change if the substance of their critique is heard by more people, though it's difficult to see how that could happen prior to the election.

For Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum, the polling data is even bleaker. Few Americans accept the fantastical critiques the right has been making for the last few years, many of which will invite the retort, "Tell that to bin Laden." It seems as though Iran is the issue on which they're presently trying to distinguish themselves. Depressingly for non-interventionists, however, Obama can credibly talk and even act like a hawk on Iran, and attempts to get to his right risk triggering in voters bad memories of hawkish conservatives urging the invasion of Iraq in 2002 or 2003.

Image credit: Reuters

If You Are Feeling Sorry for Mitt Romney After the Results Last Night

2012-02-09T00:41:57-05:00

To lift your spirits you might watch this now-famous bit from Jon Stewart four years ago, after Romney dropped out of that year's race against John McCain. The part from time 2:50 to 4:15 is the heart of it. (Via Steve Benen.)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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I was indeed feeling sorry for Romney in human terms -- losing every county! - and then I reflected on the kind of person who would find solace, in time of trial, in sentiments like the ones we hear from him.

Never imagined I would end up saying this, but: Go Santorum!

What Obama Can Learn From George W. Bush

2012-02-09T00:31:27-05:00

In his March 2012 Atlantic cover story, James Fallows explores the U.S. president's "central mystery":

Has Obama in office been anything like the chess master he seemed in the campaign, whose placid veneer masked an ability to think 10 moves ahead, at which point his adversaries would belatedly recognize that they had lost long ago? Or has he been revealed as just a pawn—a guy who got lucky as a campaigner but is now pushed around by political opponents who outwit him and economic trends that overwhelm him?

Here, Fallows talks to Corby Kummer (who edited the story) about what Obama has learned in office and why he might do well to take a page out of George W. Bush's reelection playbook.

Santorum Is Still Losing the Most Important Race: Money

2012-02-08T17:24:38-05:00

Even if he gets an infusion of cash after his trifecta of wins Tuesday, Santorum is nearly broke and can't keep up with Mitt Romney.

Not to rain on Rick Santorum's parade, but the man needs help from Wall Street or Big Gambling and he needs it quick. The former senator from Pennsylvania and perennial underdog managed to win not one but three states holding caucuses and a primary last night. But clear away the confetti and it's an unhappy fact for the would-be threat to front-runner Mitt Romney that he is just about broke.

Santorum's campaign had just $279,000 left in the bank at the beginning of the year, a paltry sum by presidential-campaign standards and light years behind than conservative rival Newt Gingrich ($2.1 million) or libertarian rival Ron Paul ($1.9 million). It was multiple light years behind than Romney's $20 million. Even the hapless Jon Huntsman was able to put a few more pennies together. He raised nearly $6 million by December 2011, to Santorum's $2.2 million.

The picture for the super PAC supporting Santorum was even worse: The Red, White and Blue Fund had just $78,000 left after spending a paltry $2.2 million by year's end. The super PAC behind Gingrich's campaign, funded by Las Vegas casino operator Sheldon Adelson, spent four times that amount, and the Romney-loving Restore our Future, fueled by Romney's pals in the corporate restructuring biz, spent nearly 10 times that amount and ended the year with $24 million in cash on hand.

Why Clint Eastwood's Chrysler Ad Was Pitch Perfect

2012-02-08T16:27:00-05:00

Political undertones aside, the commercial's message holds true: Teamwork, community, and investing in American workers are a smart strategy.

Carlo Bishop, the president of United Auto Workers Local 551, didn't see the Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad for Chrysler Corp. But he knows it galvanized the blogosphere and talk radio, regardless of whether it helps to sell any Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep cars, trucks and minivans.

He also appreciates how his Ford Motor Co. plant on Chicago's South Side is humming, albeit without the sort of federal bailout that helps to partly explain conservative ire toward Eastwood's commercial. He's got more than 3,000 members producing the Taurus, Lincoln MKS luxury sedan and the Explorer sport-utility vehicle, with another 1,200 jobs coming in mid-April when a third shift is added to turn out versions of the Taurus and Explorer for police departments nationwide.

Meanwhile, his UAW union confreres at the Belvidere, Ill., Chrysler plant about 75 minutes northwest of him are more than happy with the federal help they got. Last week the company said it's hiring 1,800 new workers and will jack-up production of a new Dodge Dart and existing Jeep Compass and Liberty models. It already employs 2,700, which doesn't include nearby parts suppliers and vendors, but laid off nearly 1,000 workers in 2008 during the industry's dark days.

So it's a tale of two corporate successes, one unfettered and one with emergency assistance from the Obama administration. But, together, they underscore a pretty basic message of the Eastwood ad: teamwork, community, and investing in American workers are a smart strategy.

As propaganda, the "Halftime in America" ad was pretty effective and perhaps will rank right up there -- or down there, depending on your perspective -- with the 1984 "Big Brother" Super Bowl ad by Apple introducing the Macintosh personal computer. I suspect history will show that Apple's products were distinctly superior to Chrysler's often uninspiring cars.

And forget the hokiness of the whole matter of a coach rousing his minions at halftime, even if I have heard very similar rhetorical bombast from coaches of mine long ago. That was a passable rhetorical way to underscore that this is an important time and whether we "win" depends on how well we work together. Madison Avenue doesn't subcontract to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for creative help.

Some liberals were chagrined, finding the athletic imagery and frame of reference somehow too combative. Conservatives were far more exorcised, it seems, and for multiple reasons. In large measure, they saw it as homage to the Obama Administration auto bailouts.

Playing amateur shrink, I might posit that what also irked them was the rich irony of the front man being Eastwood, whose movies roles seemed to symbolize the angry, alienated individual willing to take matters into his own hands back during the heady Ronald Reagan era. Now, here he was waxing melodramatic over team work and community; in the process saying nice things about people who got all that money from President Barack Obama, a man many of them hate with a visceral rage.

So here was a guy that they assumed was a conservative just like them -- whom they once idolized -- talking about America coming back and how with some breaks and some investment, those often-belittled blue-collar workers can actually produce great stuff and achieve great things.

It spoke, too, to a degree of cooperation simply not in evidence in the political system. Blame both parties if you desire. But the passion on the conservative side seems more intense at the moment, perhaps epitomized by conservative zillionaires Charles and David Koch convening a private meeting of like-minded souls and procuring commitments of a reported $100 million to defeat President Obama.

Imagine if the Koch brothers and chums actually heard the Eastwood message about cooperation and sacrifice and then considered the world in which, say, auto workers actually exist?

It's a realm of dramatic budget cuts and stratospheric state deficits, crappy public schools, myopic regional competition to steal plants, huge pension liabilities, declining social services, and block-long lines at food pantries, such as one I volunteered at Tuesday in an upscale residential neighborhood on Chicago's North Side.

A little cooperation and sacrifice wouldn't be a bad thing, even assisted by some government investment.

I suspect the Koch brothers and anti-Obama allies would gag at the notion of driving a Dodge Dart. But perhaps it would serve us all if they took a trip to somber Belvidere and summoned up memories of the Clint Eastwood character they most revere -- Harold "Dirty Harry" Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department.

They could then exhibit Harry's merciless gall and tell those 1,800 new workers, and their families, that the brothers think they're government parasites.

YellowShirtGirl: Finale on 'Ominous Asian' Imagery

2012-02-08T15:01:46-05:00

Finale, at least from me. A few incoming items on the "we take your jobs" / "YellowShirtGirl" discussion.

1) From Julia Kim Smith, a further HTML exploration.

[If you're tempted to write in: No, that's not what the HTML actually shows. ]

2) From Funny-or-Die, a parody that is not exactly Oscar Wilde-like in its rapier subtlety but that has its moments. My favorite is in the first 20 seconds, a joke on the theme of "my excellent math ability!" Plus a Jeremy Lin reference right after that.

3) From a reader who notes our old friend "false equivalence" in an NYT item on the controversy:

While I think this is a relatively minor offense, I just thought it was interesting that the New York Times article you linked to in today's blog made certain to include this:
>Senator Stabenow has done some China-blaming of her own. From her Senate Web site: "China has a clear pattern of flagrantly violating trade rules and it is long past time to stand up to them." And on Monday, in a conference call with reporters, she said, "We can't continue to sit back and let China's policies cost us jobs.''<

How is this even remotely comparable to the offensive commercial in question? Why does it deserve inclusion? It just serves to tar Senator Stabenow, unfairly, with the same brush.

I liked the NYT item but the reader has a point. It's one thing to talk about trade rules, currency valuation, etc and something else to run "me likee!" ads. The "to be sure" reflex really is deep, for all of us in the journalism business.

4) From Chauncey DeVega at Daily Kos, a clip that exactly matches the "visual dog-whistle" that I said the video was evoking, with its use of a smiling but treacherous young Asian beauty, issuing broken-English come-ons to the unsuspecting Yanks. This is a scene not from Apocalypse Now but from Full Metal Jacket -- a movie made 25 years ago about events 20 years before that, but whose imagery left a mark in the public mind. Someone involved with this ad had seen this movie. Really, the scene is a remarkable match to the Hoekstra ad:

Up-to-date bonus: The Nancy Sinatra soundtrack can be a hipster allusion to today's Lana Del Rey controversies.

5) From a reader of the Vietnam Generation, with extensive experience in China -- and it's not me! -- spelling out the imagery:

* The ad is actually aimed at angry, declining Vietnam-era people. The imagery is of southeast Asia. The young lady looks far more Vietnamese than she does Chinese. If the ad agency is that smart (and not simply guilty of "seen one Asian/seen 'em all"), they aimed at a specific demographic in Michigan, the fat droopy-mustached "men" left over and falling into the shadows ever since Vietnam.

* The young lady is overwhelmingly Asian American. [Versus actually foreign.] Just listen to her. This ad's real insult is to millions of American young women of Asian descent,who look and speak like this young woman.

* Most important, Hoekstra with this pathetic loser's cri-de-coeur hands to the cynics and the tough hombres in Beijing the tool with which to bolster their own grip; they point to stupid China-bashing artifacts like this one (and all the others at the TPM site) and say, whenever some American rightly calls attention to some rotten thing they're doing, "There they go again! It's just more China-bashing." Thanks, Pete, for making all the things you don't like about China all the more likely to succeed.

I think that's it; thanks to all.

Video of the Day: Ron Paul's Theme Song

2012-02-08T14:52:11-05:00

The unorthodox Texan has adopted an anthem by a singer who claims the CIA tried to suppress her debut record for inciting revolution.

Here are some tunes to enliven a chilly mid-February afternoon. This song, "Revolution," by singer Aimee Allen, celebrates Rep. Ron Paul's run for president, and Paul has adopted it as pump-up music before speeches and stump appearances.

The video itself is a thing to behold -- a grimy, industrial, dystopian aesthetic that is something like George Orwell meets the Wachowski Brothers, or perhaps the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo joins the John Birch Society. And it's not just standard End-the-Fed rhetoric: there's even a reference to the Bilderberg Group. In a nod to the Paul's largely male support, there are some scantily clad women cavorting, just for kicks.

Allen has an interesting story. The song isn't new -- it actually got some attention on MTV in 2002. Allen was signed to Elektra, and "Revolution" was to be one of the songs on her debut record, I'd Start a Revolution (If I Could Get Up in the Morning). What happened next is a matter of debate. She claims Elektra refused to release the record because the CIA objected to her use of the term revolution, but it also refused to spring her from her contract. In 2004, however, Warner shut down Elektra, incorporated it into Atlantic Records (no relation to the magazine), and culled its roster; Allen was among those cut.

Paul's adoption of her song as his theme makes her a libertarian counterpart to Krista Branch, the Tea Party siren whose "I Am America" became Herman Cain's anthem; like Allen, Branch has a compelling back story. Allen is from California, Branch is from Oklahoma, which seem like good geographic stand-ins for the respective movements. (Branch's song is catchier than Allen's, but Allen's video is far more entertaining.)

Beyond Hacktivism: Komen and SOPA Fights Show How to Win Online

2012-02-08T13:20:03-05:00

Hacktivist protests have had a lot of collateral damage, and the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street all required a physical space. Now there's a new model.

Buried amid news last Friday of Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation's decision to re-fund Planned Parenthood in light of intense online objections was a little-noticed item about the hacking of a conference call between British law enforcement and the FBI. The relative weight given to each of these stories is revealing. After all, it was only a year ago that the world seemed overrun by hackers prosecuting a kind of vigilante-style digital justice. With exploit after exploit, groups like Anonymous and Lulzsec were putting paid to that adage, "the geek shall inherit the earth." But the force that dealt deathblows to SOPA and PIPA before bending Komen to its will wasn't a hacktivist mastermind -- it was a transparent bunch of civic-minded citizens. What we've seen in the last several weeks is a new kind of 21st-century protest, different even from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. It's fast, effective, takes place almost exclusively online and, most of all, helps tell a larger story about the rise and fall of hacking as a legitimate form of Internet politics.

For a moment last year, it was as though the Internet had suddenly wandered into a Philip K. Dick novel. Hackers chafing against what they saw as authoritarian systems of control seized the Western world's attention in May. They staged high-profile attacks on Sony and the Arizona state police, among other targets. Aspiring revolutionaries left provocative and conspiratorial messages on YouTube, forums and chatrooms exhorting the sleeping masses to action. Painting the picture of a dystopian present, the hacktivists announced they sought nothing less than an overthrow of establishment orthodoxies. Not knowing when and how the hackers would strike next only heightened the sense of their potential power.

But then came the inevitable police crackdown, followed by a creeping public skepticism that gradually eroded hacktivism's credibility. The latter was far more damaging. When it was discovered that Lulzsec had gotten a hold of -- and was releasing to the open -- highly sensitive data like credit card numbers, passwords and even home addresses, onlookers began questioning whether hacktivism's dark side was worth tolerating. It didn't help that Lulzsec took a casual attitude to the collateral damage, nor that their reputation as codemasters collapsed when their amateur techniques were revealed. The group's tone-deafness, indiscriminate behavior and technical brutishness gave disenchanted supporters reason to look elsewhere for inspiration.

No account of Internet-enabled protests would be complete without mention of Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. Yet in many ways, to view these movements as hacktivism's foil would be a mistake. As many were quick to point out in the days following successful regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt, the Internet actually played a peripheral role in what were fundamentally offline demonstrations. Physical protests were also a hallmark of the Occupy movement. And though these attempts at political action netted more dramatic results than the hacktivists could ever claim, the ultimate outcomes remain inconcluslive (see Egypt, Syria and Yemen).

By contrast, the kind of political expression that killed SOPA and PIPA and that convinced Komen to reverse itself last week took place almost entirely on the Internet, and produced decisive and nearly immediate results. Regime change and social reform are no doubt far more complex than stopping legislation or petitioning a board of directors with executive powers. But as any political advocate can attest, achieving limited aims will always be easier than shooting for the moon. Making the movements all the more potent were key Internet companies such as Reddit, whose early steps to protest the Internet bills established a precedent for others, and public figures like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who in response to Komen's actions pledged on Twitter to match donations to Planned Parenthood up to a limit of $250,000. The rippling influence of these major anchors not only spread the word about what was happening, but also helped persuade average citizens that they could play a role in the unfolding drama. As one reader of Andrew Sullivan's wrote in:

When I heard that [SOPA and PIPA] would not be brought to the floor of their respective chambers of Congress, I honestly couldn't believe it. Something that I did had real-world impact. And fast. This is the kind of revolution that my generation can get behind. Relatively tiny victories, but quick.

This year's cyberactivists have been more transparent, more popular and more directly successful than their hacktivist predecessors. They took an inclusive approach to advocacy, helping newcomers understand the precise issues at stake and what they could do to help. Participants grasped intuitively that coalition-building would be vital, and they all set out to activate the social networks they'd been carefully tending for so long for fun. There will no doubt be more of these to come, but the crowning moment so far in the short history of virtual protests came on Jan. 18, when a slew of respected websites -- Reddit, Google and Wikipedia, among others -- all announced they'd black themselves out to call attention to the perils of SOPA and PIPA.

Compare that collaborative, constructive model of online politics with the hacktivist approach -- a system that depends on the technical skills of an elite few who choose their own targets, despite claiming to speak for all; a system that envisions political action more as fait accompli than as part of a collective dialogue about what ought to be; a system that has led to a great deal of collateral damage -- albeit with some successes, such as a website supporting Iranian democracy activists.

Unlike those who protested SOPA, PIPA and Komen, groups like Anonymous operate on the assumption of democracy but are neither accessible nor accountable to the general public. In some ways, they are the definition of opaque. This creates problems when it comes to their representative claims -- theirs is a self-appropriated form of support. Moreover, although hacktivist methods can come off as highly technical, to achieve the kind of revolution such groups imagine would require vastly more sophisticated tactics. As it happened, hacktivists have had to settle for what they could get away with, which meant only indirectly addressing their grievances.

All of which is to say that, almost as quickly as it came, hacktivism is being replaced as a form of 21st-century protest. In its place is emerging a more evolved form of digital politics related to -- but distinct from -- the online manifestations of Occupy and the Arab Spring. The new digital activism draws from the Web's best traditions: transparency, network effects and an opt-in mentality -- and is proving surprisingly effective. A week after Reddit administrators announced what would become the world's biggest virtual protest, SOPA and PIPA were both postponed indefinitely in Congress. It took just three days for Komen to buckle under public pressure last week. How long the next virtual protest will last is anyone's guess, but to measure it in hours wouldn't be a bad bet.

Image credit: REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Birth Control and the 'Obama Independents'

2012-02-08T11:50:00-05:00

Sarah Kliff parses the numbers on birth control, insurance, religion and the illusive independents:

And a lot of this likely isn't about Catholic voters at all. Rather, it may well be about the demographics that are most supportive of this particular health reform provision: young voters and women. In the PRRI poll, both groups register support above 60 percent for the provision.

Those two demographics are important here for a key reason: they were crucial to Obama's victory in 2008. Third Way crunched the numbers earlier this month and found that the "Obama Independents" -- the swing group that proved crucial to his 2008 victory -- are, as Ryan Lizza put it, "disproportionately young, female and secular..."

These voters have tended to be difficult for abortion rights supporters to engage on reproductive health issues like abortion. Research from NARAL Pro-Choice America, which I wrote about last weekend, found a significant "intensity gap" there, with abortion rights supporters much less likely to see it as a crucial voting issue than their anti-abortion counterparts.

But when the conversation moves away from abortion to contraceptives - as it has this week - the intensity gap flips: A much larger segment of voters are willing to penalize a legislator who votes to defund family planning. That became apparent in polling that Democratic firm Lake Research Partners did earlier this year, which found that 40 percent of voters would be less likely to support a member of Congress who votes to defund family-planning programs. Just 22 percent would be more likely to support such a lawmaker.

Two things:

1.) I think it really helps to separate Obama independents--disproportionately "young, female and secular"--from the broad nebulous "Independent voters" that we are all so fond of invoking. Everyone claims to appealing to "independents." I think that has more to do with connotations and branding (independent="thinks for self") than the actual make-up of a candidates support.

2.) The difference numbers for Catholics and White evangelicals are really interesting. It's almost as if the issue for Republicans, isn't so much a hard pitch to Catholics, as it is a hard pitch to white Evangelicals, with the hope of clipping off some conservative Catholics along the way.

The Worst Mission Statement in the History of D.C. Journalism

2012-02-08T11:37:19-05:00

A new conservative website is online, backed by millions, and modeled on publications its own editor regards as vicious and unfair.

In national politics, imitation is less often a form of flattery than an admission of hypocrisy: "What I maligned when done by my opponents is so effective I'll now do it myself." In this way, folks outraged by media bias celebrated the Fox News Channel; partisans who saw the distortions of lobbying launched the K Street project; bitter critics of right-wing talk radio started Air America; conservatives who mocked the celebrity of Barack Obama cheered Sarah Palin; and progressives who called Dick Cheney a fascist for his national security policies continued to embrace Obama even after he transgressed against civil liberties in some of the exact same ways.

Seeing this inversion of Gandhi's maxim, this being the change one doesn't want to see in the world, shocks some people into disaffection: they find it glaringly obvious that picking a side and participating in a never-ending ideological arms race makes about as much sense as a cantankerous snake eating its own tail. Others choose a party or clique, survey the most effective new weaponry on the other side, and copy the form of the thing that they regard as most malign.

Take The Washington Free Beacon.

The new D.C.-based Web publication was started by conservatives who regard the Center for American Progress as so beastly that they liken the progressive non-profit to a vicious wolf. Their plan? Clone it! I am not imputing motives that aren't there. Says Matthew Continetti, The Washington Free Beacon's talented editor in chief, in an inaugural essay titled Combat Journalism:

Republicans were routinely outspent, divided, and distracted by the messes they had made for themselves. They lacked, too, the means by which the progressives had so effectively identified, frozen, personalized, and polarized their targets: the wolf pack. Tony Blair, in a 2007 speech, described the press as a "feral beast" that tore "people and reputations to bits." But the feral beast is not a solitary creature. Hunting in a pack, he surrounds his targets and devours them in swarms. The Counter-Counter-Establishment's greatest achievement was in serving as the wolf pack's sleigh driver. The left-wing groups, in concert with the Democratic Party, would select the Republican politicians, institutions, and media figures on which the beast would feed.
Whether the victim was George Bush, Joseph Lieberman, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Charles and David Koch, the Chamber of Commerce, Fox News Channel, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, or Mitt Romney, the technique was the same. The left blogosphere would manufacture a smear or distortion or line of attack. Larger blogs and liberal news sites like Huffington Post or Talking Points Memo would pick it up and publicize it. From there the critique would jump to liberal radio and MSNBC and Comedy Central's news parody shows. Before long, the mainstream media would be reporting the misinformation as news that was fit to print. By the time the wolf pack reached that point in their meal, the prey had little hope of survival.

Sounds vicious and unethical, doesn't it?

Yet here is what Continetti told Politico about the new publication he's running: "Our models are the Center for American Progress/Think Progress, TPM, and Huffington Post politics. These outlets have been at the cutting edge of ideological journalism for years, and it is time for the right to emulate their success."

This is what D.C. does to some people.

Among conservatives, it isn't even noteworthy that the editor in chief of a new publication is openly modeling his enterprise on a sort of journalism he regards as corrosive and dishonorable when others do it. Neither Jennifer Rubin nor John Podhoretz thought to mention it in their write-ups. Nor is anyone remarking upon the irony of the publication's name. It is inspired by a Ronald Reagan speech: "How stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

Reagan's words were hardly a call to build a publication devoted to turnabout as fair play, though if The Washington Free Beacon functions as one, drawing like-minded people as if by a magnet, it has chosen a perfect location: the publication is headquartered at 1600 K Street.

There is a part of me that hopes this new publication will transcend its flawed, soulless mission and do good work -- that Continetti realizes he's too talented to write hyperbolic apologias for pols like Sarah Palin; that Sonny Bunch, a staffer, lives up to the integrity I've seen in his past work; that the whole editorial staff (I know nothing of the rest of them) takes its cues from the best rather than the worst progressive and mainstream journalism have to offer, trying to cover politics with integrity rather than mirroring every pathology they perceive to be aimed against their allies. I've very much wanted that sort of outfit to thrive on the right for going on 5 years now.

But I'm not sure any amount of talent or integrity can triumph over a vision as flawed as the one Continetti has laid out -- and mimicking outlets he regards as vicious wolves is just the biggest of its problems.

In America there are so many conservatives doing first rate journalism. Upstarts would do well to emulate the best of what is published in City Journal, The Claremont Review of Books, The American Conservative, National Review, or National Affairs; or to take as their models Andrew Ferguson or Ross Douthat or George Will or Peter Robinson or Matt Labash or Heather Mac Donald (or even the best stuff Continetti has published) or any number of others.

But Continetti invokes different trailblazers when he describes the journalistic subculture he seeks to join:

Andrew Breitbart pioneered the new approach. His websites were dedicated, impassioned, and broke news. Glenn Beck exposed White House czar Van Jones's radical, 9/11-Truth past. Guerilla journalist James O'Keefe performed sting operations that led to ACORN, Planned Parenthood, and NPR having very bad days. Tucker Carlson's website, The Daily Caller, published excerpts from the Journolist, which showed liberal writers coordinating their party line.

Breitbart, Beck, O'Keefe: all three are firmly in the "be the change you don't want to see in the world" tradition. Breitbart, whose biggest pet peeve is when dubious charges of racism are cynically used as a cudgel, is best known for publishing a misleadingly edited video of Shirley Sherrod in order to persuade people that the NAACP is racist. Beck, lauded above for exposing another man's conspiracy mongering, did more than anyone else in America during his tenure at Fox News to spread dubious, conspiratorial nonsense. O'Keefe, who reacts with righteous indignation anytime he thinks he's caught a professional journalist behaving dishonorably, has released misleadingly edited videos; and he once tried to lure a female reporter aboard a boat in hopes that he could cruelly seduce her as a joke while secretly recording it.

I mean, really. Here is one of the guys Continetti is praising:

Whatever you think of The Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson's Web site, it shouldn't be lumped in with that trio. Its story about Journolist, the liberals-only email listserv, does have one thing in common with every Breitbart scoop, the Van Jones story, and the James O'Keefe sting: each was seen by hard core conservatives as a game-changing triumph, when actually they changed little of consequence. The ostensible goal of conservatism is shrinking government, ensuring public policy is consistent with the Constitution, and upholding the values of civilization. Why get so excited at forcing a re-branding at ACORN or a management change at NPR?

Later on in his manifesto, after going on about the poor performance of the mainstream media, Continetti writes:

What would happen, though, if a website covered the left in the same way that the left covers the right? What picture of the world would one have in mind if the morning paper read like the New York Times--but with the subjects of the stories and the assumptions built into the text changed to reflect a conservative, not liberal, worldview? What would happen if the media wolf pack suddenly had to worry about an aerial hunting operation? You are about to find out.

Once again, he is aspiring to mimic a product he regards as unfair and lacking in quality, but never mind that -- I quoted the above passage so I could point out that we are not, in fact, going to find out what the world would be like if a right-leaning publication covered the world like The New York Times. There isn't going to be any left-leaning equivalent of William Safire or David Brooks or Ross Douthat publishing opinion pieces at The Washington Free Beacon. There won't be an independent public editor who'll take the staff to task when they've behaved badly. Deliberately neutral language won't be adopted when matters of ideological dispute are characterized. Continetti is smart enough to understand that it makes no sense to say that you're modeling yourself on TPM and the Huffington Post... and that you're going to show the world what things would be like if the right were running The New York Times.

Near the end of Continetti's piece, there is one sentence that grabbed me. "Our talented staff will add to the chorus of enterprising conservative reporters, publishing original stories, seeking out scoops, and focusing on the myriad connections between money and power in the progressive movement and Obama's Washington," he writes. That isn't an awful vision for a publication. If Obama is re-elected and the publication hews to that vision, forgetting everything else Continetti has written, it'll be useful for four years. Honest partisan watchdogs have their place. The only trouble will come when a Republican is next elected, for The Washington Beacon has set itself up as an enterprise more interested in getting to the left than getting at the truth.

There were a lot of outfits like that when George W. Bush took office. Boy were they determined. Their mission was to keep attacking the left and defending the right no matter what, and they did it -- boy, did they do it -- even as the Republican Party ballooned the federal budget deficit, expanded entitlements, spied illegally on Americans, mismanaged two wars, created a new cabinet level agency, and so discredited conservatism in the minds of voters that they elected Barack Obama (who has proceeded to violate civil liberties and wage illegal wars as CAP looks on).

Maybe what Washington, D.C., needs isn't a new publication that targets the left, so much as one that targets bad policy, people abusing power, dubious ideas and nefarious behavior generally. Why can't money be raised to fund that sort of enterprise when The Washington Free Beacon's parent non-profit is reportedly being bankrolled to the tune of seven figures? Of course, if there's no ideological bogeyman, I guess then there'd be no convenient enemy at hand, no consistent other to blame for everything, no opportunity to tell yourself that you're doing "combat journalism," absurdly running an old AP photo of actual combat troops at the top of your piece, as if your "taking the fight to the left" resembles in any way the fights that they were waging.

Worst. Mission statement. Ever.

Why Politicians Keep Calling Your Home Phone

2012-02-08T10:53:34-05:00

The chairman of the RNC acknowledges that voters are annoyed by recorded calls urging them out to the polls, but he insists they work anyway.

The phone rings. You answer. But instead of a person on the other end, it's a recording. The voice is familiar, but it isn't a family member or a friend. It's a politician. He or she wants you to vote. "People are getting recorded phone calls all over the country," Hugh Hewitt remarked recently on his talk-radio show, prompted by emails from listeners complaining about the practice.

As it happened, he was interviewing Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. "What's your view," Hewitt asked, "of the utility of recorded phone calls when they come in waves?"

You're not going to like the answer.

"You know, it's surprising. What studies show is that when you get six calls, the seventh call, you're more likely to vote... people just want to drive right off the highway when they hear that," he said. "The reality is that recorded messages from the right people really help drive out the vote."

There's just one thing that's even more effective.

"I and others at the RNC, we think that volunteer calls are the way to go. And that's why I emphasize so much our voice-over-Internet program," he said. "We have a phone-from-home program that we've developed here where any person, no matter where you are. You could be in Alaska. And if you want to call into Missouri or Pennsylvania for the presidential election, we can hook you up with a phone-from-home program on the Internet where you have the phone numbers, you have the voters, and you can call. Okay, this is Hugh Hewitt, and we're going to give him a call, and we're going to find out whether he voted, and who he voted for, or what he needs to vote, or whether he turned in his absentee ballot. I think volunteer calls are the way to go."

He suggested the script might go like this:

I'm Phil Johnson, and I'm calling as a volunteer from the local GOP here, and I'm just really working hard for candidate X. I just really hope you consider him, and help us get our country back on track.

So there you go. If you're a registered Republican with a land line who lives in a swing state, expect a call like that -- or perhaps 6 or 7 calls like that -- before year's end. And if you're frustrated by it, marvel at the fact that out there in America the average recipient of such a call is more likely to do what the person on the other end urges, so long as they're polite about saying it.

Image credit: Reuters

Romney's Squeeze: Struggles With the Base and Independents Alike

2012-02-08T09:47:32-05:00

Though he's still the frontrunner, low turnout in three conservative states, along with slipping independent support, are worrying trends for Romney.

Rick Santorum's clean sweep of Tuesday's lightly-attended GOP contests underscored front-runner Mitt Romney's continuing struggles with the Republican base, even as recent national surveys show the former Massachusetts governor's standing eroding among independents.

Although exit polls were not conducted Tuesday night, the three states that Santorum swept -- Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri -- are all places where social conservatives represent a central component of the Republican electorate. And in all three states, one of the most striking aspects of Tuesday's results was the sharp decline in the number of people who came out to vote for Romney, compared to four years ago.