TalkLeft

Liberals Are Dumb Too, Part 2

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-02T11:22:50-05:00

Yesterday I wrote about liberal handwringing over Markos' book American Taliban. Meanwhile back at the reality ranch, David Kopel at the Volokh Conspiracy writes about Anne Coulter's claim that President Obama is an atheist:

Ann Coulter’s column today argues that Obama is not a Muslim; rather, he “is obviously an atheist.” [. . .] I disagree with both the facts and the conclusion. Coulter is accurate in calling Jeremiah Wright “a racist nut.” However, that does not prove that Wright (and by extension Obama, to whatever extent Obama believes in Wright’s theology) is not a Christian. Some practitioners of “liberation theology” (including the black liberation theology variant) may simply be Marxists looking for some broadly-appealing rhetoric to add to their political program.

Emphasis supplied.) This discussion of "liberation theology" of course is the new talking point delivered by Glenn Beck. Glenn Reynolds also writes about it:

[T]o take things beyond the Obama question — on a similar moral plane. In fact, if you look at a Marxist Utopia — say, Cuba — what you’ll see is basically a plantation. At the top, you’ve got the Massa and his family — Fidel, Raul, et al. — followed by various layers of overseers — the Communist Party apparat, the secret police — and House Negroes — e.g., the state-controlled media — all living off the surplus labor of the Field Negroes, whose produce is disposed of not according to their own desires (that would be capitalism!) but according to their betters’. This, we’re told, is for the best, since they aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions anyway, and the Massa looks after them with food, housing, and health care. Slaveholders even defended their system as more humane and less exploitative than atomistic capitalism, conveniently ignoring the role of the lash, just as apologists for Marxism conveniently ignore the role of the gulag.

I think Reynolds, in his oblique style, is arguing that Castro's Cuba is somehow related to progressivism. "Liberation theology" don't you know.

Do you think the guest posters at Fifth Column Sully's site will add this to their Miss Manners Guide To Political Discourse? Me neither.

And yet, the liberals at The American Prospect are very, very concerned with progressives analogizing among extreme religious movements in the United States and around the world. Obviously, religion has never ever been a force for discord and violence right?

Liberals can be as stupid as anybody.

Speaking for me only

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-02T11:00:42-05:00

Open Thread.

Dan Maes Retracts Claims He Worked Undercover

Jeralyn — 2010-09-01T20:30:28-05:00

Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate (and Tea Party Fave) Dan Maes admitted today his claim that he worked undercover on a gambling and drug investigation while a police officer in Liberal, KS, which led to his firing, was either technically inaccurate or false. Here's what he wrote on his website:

"At one point in my 2 years there I was place (sic) undercover by the Kansas Bureau of Investigations (sic) to gather information inside a bookmaking ring that was also allegedly selling drugs. I got too close to some significant people in the community who were involved in these activities and abruptly was dismissed from my position. I was blindsided and stunned to say the least."

Normally, this wouldn't interest me much. But, the reason he was fired has not been disclosed and his personnel records are not public. And the KS law enforcement folks insist there's no record of Maes working on a gambling or drug investigation, undercover or otherwise. Nor can any who are still there recall him doing so. Plus, the former police chief of Liberal says his department never worked on such an investigation for the KS Bureau of Investigation. [More...]

So now I'm wondering if Maes was fired because he was hanging out with the suspects and when confronted, he claimed to be getting info on them to help the police. Which of course they didn't buy. You see it in drug cases all the time, where a defendant charged with selling drugs says he thought he was acting as an informant for the cops and what he was doing is legal. It's a defense that rarely works.

Maes' latest explanation:

"Those comments might have been incorrect comments," Maes said. Who wrote them on the website?

"Whoever typed it, typed it. That's all I've got to say," Maes said, before referring questions to his campaign spokesman. Later, his spokesman, Nate Strauch, confirmed that Maes had written the comments.

Here's a screengrab of his website.

Another bad idea on Maes' part: Comparing himself to fired ICE Agent Cory Voorhis. Voorhis was acquitted, but what he did (which his lawyers admitted in pleadings, but claimed he didn't act unlawfully), accessing a private law enforcement database for information that would discredit a political candidate to give to his opponent, still stinks.

Maes has little chance of beating Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper in November, so he's not worth too much ink, but now I am curious as to why he was fired.

When You Fight For Issues

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T18:28:37-05:00

Krugman:

Why do people like me feel the need to revisit the fateful decision to go for an underpowered stimulus right at the beginning of the Obama administration? It’s not about “I told you so”, or at least not mainly. It’s about the economic narrative, which will matter long after the current players are off the scene. [. . .] So I’m trying to keep the record straight here. It may not matter for the immediate political debate, but I think it does matter for the long game.

When you fight for the issues, and not the pols, that's what you do. If you are all in for Obama, then you pretend the stimulus was a "progressive triumph."

Speaking for me only

"Fifth Column" Sully

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T17:58:00-05:00

Irony alert - Fifth Column Sully has two guest posters at his site decrying mean discourse. Patrick Appel:

Calling political opponents terrorists is so disgusting and so obviously beyond the pale it hardly requires rebutting.

Oh really? How about calling your political opponents "fifth columnists" for the terrorists? Does that make the Sully Guests' Miss Manners guide? Conor Friedersdorf:

I really don't think my standards are particularly exacting. Don't compare ideological adversaries to murderous totalitarians. Refrain from rudely interrupting emotionally troubled black women if your planned interjection is the n-word. Don't tell callers to your show that they're so annoying their spouse should put a gun to their head. (Note to skeptical Web historians: yes, those are all actual examples!)

Here's another actual example that the Sully Guests forgot -- "decadent left enclaves on the coasts [that] may well mount a fifth column [for the terrorists]." Maybe they can add that one to their Miss Manners book. Sanctimonious hypocrites.

Speaking for me only

Liberals Can Be Dumb Too

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T14:38:43-05:00

Case in point, via Digby, Jamelle Bouie of The American Prospect bemoaning Markos' new book American Taliban:

In another chapter, Moulitsas quotes a sermon by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay: "Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world -- only Christianity." And how does Moulitsas respond to that banal statement of exclusive truth, heard weekly by millions of law-abiding, patriotic Americans? With this comically reductionist conclusion: "For DeLay, only Christianity offers a methodology for daily life, whereas for Osama bin Laden, only Islam does." Also, Hitler was a vegetarian.

(Emphasis supplied.) What in the hell is that supposed to mean? Markos' point is that theocratic tendencies found in extremist movements and regimes around the world are also a part of the Extreme Right in the United States. This is a bit more than being a vegetarian, as any C student of world history could explain to you. A C student of American history could also tell you that religious freedom was one of the cornerstone ideals of our Founding Fathers. In any event, now we know -- liberals can be just as dumb as conservatives. Digby has more.

Speaking for me only

When Is The Bottom?

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T14:18:42-05:00

I'm getting confused - I thought the apologist story for the inadequate economic policies of the Obama Administration was that the Obama Administration saved the economy from hitting bottom. Now Jon Chait tells us that actually Obama had the bad luck of having the bottom hit after he became President:

[A] useful lesson for liberal[s] who compare President Obama with President Roosevelt [--] The latter's political success owed an enormous debt to the fact that he took power after the economy had hit bottom and begun to rebound. Indeed, Obama's situation is more like an election that took place in 1929, leaving him to take the oath of office in early 1930, just as the bottom was falling out.

So 2010 is 1932? Remember that Hoover was in the Presidency for only a matter of months when the Stock Market crashed, starting the Great Depression. In a way, Obama was lucky that the Financial Meltdown did not take place 6 months later - he could really be on his way to being considered a Hoover. Of course, these silly Obama apologias are not to the point - which is that the Obama Administration has done an inadequate job, to say the least, on the economy. Argue if you like that the GOP obstruction is why, but you have to accept the bare facts that the stimulus of February 2009 was inadequate to the task. FDR, perhaps because he could, provided bold leadership on the economy. Obama has not, maybe for good political reasons. But he hasn't.

Speaking for me only

Fight For Barbara Boxer

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T13:49:34-05:00

At daily kos, Barbara Boxer's campaign is passing the hat. I'll be giving to the Boxer campaign and I urge that you do too.

She fights for progressive issues. Progressives should fight for her.

Speaking for me only

Not The Bold Leadership We've Been Waiting For

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T12:16:22-05:00

Krugman:

What Martin Wolf Said [--] Obama was too cautious in fearful times.

The bad decisions of January 2009 will cast a shadow on America for years, and quite possibly decades, to come. At this point, what more can those of us who feared this outcome, who tried desperately to get the White House to listen, say?

Indeed, we've said it all before, but it needs to be said again -- "The best hope for a short-term economic plan that can win bipartisan support is a tax cut[.]" Oy. Tax cuts won't get it done. We need to raise aggregate demand and job creation - through government spending. As Krugman also notes - "[P]olicy makers aren’t being let down by standard macro, they’re choosing to ignore it, making up new doctrines on the fly even though the world looks very much the way the textbooks say it should. And somehow, the new doctrines always give a reason not to take action."

Speaking for me only

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T12:01:46-05:00

Open Thread.

Coffee's For Closers

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-09-01T10:37:01-05:00

Reading and commenting about this Scott Lemieux article about baseball managers and how much they matter (not much generally imo), I started looking for Bill James' writings on managers (specifically on Casey Stengel), and ran across this Joe Posnanski piece:

So, last night, I was doing what I often do … I was reading some old Bill James stuff in his wonderfully written but somewhat awkwardly named This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones. The book is a collection of excerpts and essays and thoughts from the Baseball Abstracts along with several other magazine articles he wrote.[. . . A]s often happens, I came across a paragraph that set my mind racing. In this case, the paragraph is about baseball managers and the general concept that nice guys finish last[:]

“Every good manager effectively threatens his players with professional extermination if they don’t give him the best effort they are capable of giving; Casey Stengel, Billy Martin, White Herzog and Earl Weaver are masters at it, as was Durocher. These are not nice people. They are manipulative, cunning SOBs, hard and crass and they drink too much. Nice guys finish last because a nice guy is not going to coldly exploit the insecurities of his players. Nice guys finish last because a nice guy is not going to kick an old friend out of his comfortable sinecure the minute that old friend becomes a milli-second too slow on the fastball.”

[MORE . . ]

Now, the first thing that strikes me about this is the first thing that strikes me about everything Bill writes: It just make sense. Being a good baseball manager — being a good coach of any kind — often demands a very different approach, even the opposite approach, of being a good person. [. . .] Here was a case where humanity and success clashed; iand it’s hardly the only case. “Nice guys finish last“ isn’t entirely true — Bill points this out in his essay — but there is truth in it, and the truth comes from the harsh reality that very often when you are trying to be successful the ”nice thing to do,“ is exactly the wrong approach.

Or as Alec Baldwin said in Glengarry Glen Ross:

”That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? … You see pal, that’s who I am. And you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a (bleep). Good father? (Bleep) you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here, close!“

Coffee's for closers. Most people take this to be some indication of a "survival of the fittest" ethos that brings out the best in merit and result. But is that really true? Certainly the performance of Wall Street and the Establishment Media in the past decade puts the lie to that idea. So what do we mean by closing? The Galtian myth of meritocracy is surely not it.

More likely, it is gaming the game. Sports is an interesting comparison. Generally speaking, we think of sports as a true meritocracy. But surely it isn't in a pure sense. Consider Roger Clemens or Lance Armstrong. Or even the late Bobby Thomson (the sign stealing by Durocher's Giants.)

But on a more basic level than that, even sports is imbued with politics, culture and expectation (see, e.g., the black QB issue.) Podnanski praises James for his "knack of looking at things — even the most common, every day things — like they are new to him."

I think the whole concept of "closing" - of "merit" and "success" - should be looked at in a new way. I'll draw on another cliche to drive home the point - "he was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple." Much of life is an exercise in this delusion, on all levels. We should take another look at it.

Speaking for me only

The "Top 100 Women of Weed"

Jeralyn — 2010-09-01T09:30:00-05:00

Via CelebStoner: Canada's leading magazine for marijuana reform, Skunk, has devoted its current issue to "lady legalizers." Among the features: "The Top 100 Women of Weed."

Thanks to Skunk for including me in the list. The list is pretty impressive with some names that surprised me: Arianna Huffington, Barbra Streisand, actress Kate Hudson and clothing designer Stella McCartney.

The list is heavier on activists, actresses and singers than attorneys, which makes me even more appreciative to be included. Examples: [More....]

Mary Louise Parker, Alanis Morrisette, Bette Midler, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Melissa Etheridge, and Francis McDormand.

Also making the cut: My good pals Anita Thompson (Owl Farm, where I am headed for Labor Day Weekend) rock star editor Shelby Sadler and conservative activist and Denver attorney, Jessica Corry, who is on the same floor as me and the TL kid in our new office digs.

For women who want to get more involved in legalization efforts, I recommend the NORML Women's Alliance.

The NORML Women's Alliance is a nonpartisan coalition of prominent, educated, successful, geographical diverse and high-profile professional women who believe that marijuana prohibition is a self-destructive and hypocritical policy that undermines the American family, sends a mixed and false message to our young people, and destroys the cherished principles of personal liberty and local self-government.

Marijuana prohibition makes the difficult job of parenting even more difficult by the state and federal governments not actually controlling marijuana use, cultivation or distribution--notably by American youth.

These diverse women will bring a contemporary approach to the public policy debate, and will proudly represent the interests of modern, mainstream women who believe that the negative consequences of marijuana prohibition far outweigh any repercussions from marijuana consumption itself.

The NORML Women present a core group of national spokeswomen ready to interact with the public and the media on the important issue of marijuana legalization.

Allen St.Pierre, NORML's outstanding Executive Director, has this to say about the Women's Alliance:

"The prominent role of women in the effort to end marijuana prohibition is pivotal, necessary, and long overdue. According to recent national opinion polls by Gallup and others, the dramatic rise in the public's support of marijuana law reform is being driven primarily by an increase in support among America's women. The NORML Women's Alliance will bring a contemporary approach to the public policy debate, and will proudly represent the interests of modern, mainstream women who believe that the negative consequences of marijuana prohibition far outweigh any repercussions from marijuana consumption itself."

NORML's Women's Alliance was founded in January, 2010. I am one of its charter members. It's goals:

The NORML Women's Alliance believes that the fiscal priorities of marijuana prohibition are wasting billions of dollars on a failed policy.
The NORML Women's Alliance believes that marijuana prohibition violates states' rights, and improperly expands the reach of government into the families and personal lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens.
The NORML Women's Alliance advocates for an open, honest conversation about marijuana with America's youth that is void of all propaganda and misleading information.
The NORML Women's Alliance endorses the science-based evidence regarding the therapeutic applications of medical marijuana as well as the continuation of research into the subject.
The NORML Women's Alliance strongly opposes the sexual exploitation and objectification of women in pot-culture and business marketing.

You can get additional information about the Women's Alliance here. If this is your issue, come and join us as we contribute our time and ideals to making a long-held dream for many, particularly those suffering from chronic pain, come true.

As Grace Slick would say, "It's a new dawn."

Obama Speech Open Thread

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-08-31T20:24:34-05:00

I missed it. How'd it go?

Obama Was Right About Iraq

Big Tent Democrat — 2010-08-31T19:03:55-05:00

Glenn Greenwald highlights this strange article by the NYTimes John Burns:

Hindsight is a powerful thing, and there have been plenty of voices amid the tragedy that has unfolded since the invasion to say, in effect, “I told you so.” But among that band of reporters — men and women who thought we knew something about Iraq, and for the most part sympathized with the joy Iraqis felt at what many were unashamed then to call their “liberation” — there were few, if any, who foresaw the extent of the violence that would follow or the political convulsion it would cause in Iraq, America and elsewhere. We could not know then, though if we had been wiser we might have guessed[.]

(Emphasis supplied.) Foresight is a more powerful thing than hindsight. And many, many, many people had the foresight and wisdom that people like John Burns (and more importantly, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz) lacked. Of course, as my headline indicates, our current President was one of them. But so did many other people - including Speaker Pelosi, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and hundreds of other Democrats (and also Ron Paul), who voted against the Iraq Debacle.

It is a strange thing when an allegedly objective reporter sets aside the record - in this case, the Congressional Record - in defending his own myopia. John Burns blew it. So did a lot of people. But John Burns needs to stop pretending "nobody could have known" - because the record is clear - many, many, many people did know and said so and voted so at the time.

Speaking for me only

Canadian Study: Three Puffs a Day Helps Chronic Pain Sufferers

Jeralyn — 2010-08-31T12:30:45-05:00

Via Web MD: A new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal finds that marijuana relieves chronic nerve pain and aids sleep. Three puffs a day is all it took for patients to find relief.

The study involved patients with chronic nerve pain due to injury or accident. Some received placebos and others received three different doses of cannabis.

How it worked: [More...]

'Each person was in the study for two months, and used all four strengths [including placebo]," Ware says. He rotated them through the four strengths in different orders, and they didn't know which they were using.

The cannabis was put into gelatin capsules, then put into the bowl of a pipe. Each person was told to inhale for five seconds while the cannabis was lit, hold the smoke in their lungs for 10 seconds, and then exhale. They did this single puff three times a day for five days for each of the doses and the placebo.

The results:

After each of the five-day trials, participants rated their pain on a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being the worst.

The highest dose, 9.4%, provided relief, Ware says. "They reduced their pain down to 5.4," Ware says. "Those on placebo were at 6.1."

The import, according to a doctor involved with the study:

"We've shown again that cannabis is analgesic," Ware says. "Clearly, it has medical value."