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Egging on the irrational

Steve Kornacki:

[Romney's] economic pitch is in many ways contradictory and incoherent, but that’s intentional. Romney isn’t trying to sell Americans on some detailed, comprehensive plan to rebuild the economy. His goal is to offer broad, pleasant-sounding policy prescriptions while playing up dire statistics and anecdotes about the economy and the deficit.

Kornacki's introductory characterization is correct--Romney's pitch is contradictory and incoherent; and Kornacki's subsequent characterization is correct--Romney's goal is to offer pleasant-sounding prescriptions. But therein lies Mitt Romney's internal contradiction: incoherent policy prescriptions cannot by definition be pleasant.

Not to the rational mind, anyway. Incoherence yields chaotic results, or at least it does yield chaotic results in execution and it should yield chaotic results in its campaign debut. Yet we have been deluged for years by torrential assurances from both expert political analysts and amateur political sociologists (one is, for instance, terrorized by the thought of another David Brooks column plucked from another mad social scientist's lab) that American voters don't vote according to the mind; they vote from the heart.

I am not here to refute those findings. Their transcendent validity comes in three little words: George W. Bush. I am here to argue, however, that future elections are not necessarily captive to irrational behaviors of the past; that is, if, perhaps, political observers were to stop insisting that voters vote mostly with their hearts and rarely with their minds, well, maybe voters would pause--in fact might even find it incumbent upon themselves--to think more rationally for a change.

As things are, these persistent assurances that voters' irrational behavior is indeed normal behavior only encourages the irrationality's persistence.

The pixilation of American democracy

The NY Times's notoriously astute Timothy Egan looks at America's political crackpot mecca, Arizona, what with its Sherlock secretary of state, its Maricopa sheriff of Nuttingham, and its frightfully pixilated grifter of a governor, and concludes that

There’s no mystery what a nation run by the Tea Party and talk-radio zealots who’ve taken over the G.O.P. would look like. It would be Arizona.

Well, that, or the U.S. House of Representatives majority, among whom progress is abhorrent, the status quo is unendurable, and the mythical past of a John Galtian Ozzie Nelson is hugged by the eye-twinkling pixilation of a Gov. Jan Brewer.

What did we do to deserve this? Egan says "The people who now control [Arizona] are proof of the old saying that in a democracy, voters get what they deserve"--meaning it's not so much what most voters did, as what they didn't do: vote.

It's a bit cruel to tell voters who actually took the time to vote and perhaps even registered other voters and worked at the polls and canvassed neighborhoods and licked envelopes and manned phone banks and in general surpassed the electoral elan of even Andy Jacksonian troopers that they got what they deserved--unless of course they labored for the triumphantly pixilated Galtians.

And therein lies a gross and rather curious disequilibrium of late. Right-wing crackpots aren't so disillusioned with the Haydenesque participatory democracy they despise with their Adorno-like authoritarian personalities that they reject its very real potential. No, they mobilize and vote--like they mean it. Everyone else, not so much; not even potentially and not even when in the hideous grip of some of the most horrifying crackpotdom around. Here, for instance, we should look not at Arizona, but to Wisconsin, the birthplace of progressivism, where a manifestly monstrous swindler of a right-winging governor can nonetheless justifiably envision a recall victory.

It's a fascinating, if profoundly demoralizing, conundrum. In American democracy a decided minority of anti-government zealots is determining the government we have, while the by-rights controlling majority is letting slip the government they demand. And in that, the majority would seem to be as pixilated as the minority.

Gingrich on "Hardball": yes, he can still shame himself

Newt Gingrich just made an appearance on "Hardball," and what an appearance it was. After comparing Mitt Romney--first, take a breath, it'll be OK--to Dwight Eisenhower, Gingrich casually defended his variegated attack on Romney during the primaries as altogether accurate enough, but "it doesn't work." That was Gingrich's only criticism of his own extended campaign against an opponent he still frames--as he did in so many words in the show's opening--as vastly inferior to Gingrich himself.

Gingrich sinisterly grinned and chuckled his way through the entire interview, vividly advertising that he didn't believe a word he was saying, except that which reflected his own, immense superiority to Romney. 

But mostly the impression I took away from Gingrich's appearance was that of a man committed to a deep, deep cynicism fashioned as a discreet pragmatism. He practically bellowed that he himself remains unparalleled in the annals of potential presidencies, and that his party is about to nominate a contemptibly empty suit. I appreciated the honesty, but I was also appalled, and frankly rather embarrassed for Newt by his too clever betrayal--even for that cesspool of a party.

Think again, Mitt

Mitt Romney may want to scale back his assaults on the deplorable state of American education. It's what elects Republicans.

Thanks, Wonk Wire

Thanks to 'Wonk Wire,' I just learned that "too big to fail" is legally known as a "systemically important financial institution."

Or, sifi, or si-fi? Do the phonetics.

That painful, sadistic-Romney laugh

To me, what stands as the GOP's most offensive rhetorical tactic yet deployed in modern American politics was reiterated yesterday by Mitt Romney, in his softball Mark Halperin interview--something Romney has uttered a gazillion times before, and he'll utter a gazillion times again, between now and Election Day:

It is a whole passel of elements that come together to create a strong economy, and for someone who spent their life in the economy, they understand how that works. And it’s very clear, by virtue of the President’s record, that he does not, and he is struggling. Look at him right now. He just doesn’t have a clue what to do to get this economy going.

And there you have it. Not merely a distortion--that this president just sits and thinks about economic reform, all alone, all by himself, sans any professional advisers; and not merely a lie--a twisted tale of unmitigated failure, "by virtue of the President’s record"; and not merely a misapplication of private experience to public service--"for someone who spent their life in the economy, they understand how [it] works."

True, it is all of those, but what reigns as supremely offensive is Romney & Co.'s medieval snickering over the president's "struggle," one compelled by the singular tortures of congressional Republicans who have racked, screwed, and burned at the stake virtually every economic remedy that Obama has proposed as further stimulus--the first of which did work, if only precisely to the degree by which congressional Republicans diluted it.

There is an emphatic element in this offensive line of attack that transcends the political and goes straight to the sadistic. Yet what makes it so painful isn't just Republicans' natural offensiveness or studied sadism. After all, we've had years to accustom ourselves to the GOP's soul-damaged decline. No, what makes it so excruciating is that so many Americans indeed accept it as "just politics" or, worse, actually lend it some credence; they actually say to themselves, "Yeah, that Romney guy has a point."

Vacate that credulity and you'd see national polling numbers of Obama vs. Romney, 75-25, which is to say, Romney would possess the polling strength of his hardcore base alone. This would not be a contest--at all; which is to say, further, that against an informed, educated electorate, the GOP would stand no chance whatsoever. Which finally is to say, with an easy certainty, that the GOP relies on a ghastly ignorance like no major party ever has, throughout the history of modern American politics.

George Will's got nothin'

If you google "George Will Elizabeth Warren Wall Street," your top results will yield abundant links to the battling George Will and Elizabeth Warren, but next to nothing about Wall Street. Upon your searching eyes there shall be dumped a stream of articles concerning Will and Warren and "diversity," but no "Wall Street."

With reference to Will, this seems odd, does it not, considering that Warren's nearly exclusive professional target has been, yep, the mercenaries and cowboys and criminals and mountebanks of Wall Street--and not, rather logically, her non-existent Harvard Law classes and her non-existent professional endeavors in cultural studies. Yet it's the latter--cultural studies; diversity--on which Will concentrates today.

The last time (that I'm aware of) that Will obsessed about Warren--but, again, not Wall Street--was when Warren had uttered this Teddy Rooseveltesque paradigm:

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.... You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless, keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

This, Will labeled the stuff of "a collectivist political agenda," just before reassuring us that what he amusingly persists in calling "conservatism," on the other hand, "urges government humility in the face of society’s creative complexity." In a more lucid and far less ideologically intoxicated moment, Will might have specified his conservatism of "government complacency" or "inattention" or "sloth" or "irresponsibility" or just downright "indifference" to all but the already, preposterously rich. Will prefers, however, an altogether imaginary version of conservatism.

Just as he prefers an imaginary version of Elizabeth Warren, an imaginary version of contemporary liberalism, and an imaginary version of what the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race is all about. Why? For the same reason the "distraction" campaign against Barack Obama is being conducted: "conservatives" got nothin' else.

Really high-brow cheekiness, from National Review

National Review's "Media Blog" confronts Steve Rattner's appearance today on "MSDNC." This frolicking word play, this sophisticated acronymic twist, this cleverest of linguistic trifles, is then repeated. MSDNC. Ah, I get it. I see. My, my, how deliciously dry.

Oh, the hours I'll spend reveling in the memory of this very, very humorous moment, courtesy the mordant wits at National Review.

Somewhere, Bill Buckley is again screaming "Stop!"

The Portable Rattner

On Mitt Romney, in condensed form, from Steve Rattner, the guy who was "used in a Romney ad in support of his position." 

Romney, writes Rattner,

has been foolishly reweaving history.

takes credit for every job ever created at every company Bain Capital invested in during his tenure — while ignoring jobs eliminated after his departure.

confuse[s] a leveraged buyout with job creation.

engaged in the less attractive practice of putting more debt on seemingly successful investments in order to take dividends out.

still trots around the country erroneously calling himself a "venture capitalist."

Oh, and Mitt Romney, concludes Rattner, is also "ridiculously false."

Quite some testimony from a guy in a Romney ad.

'The moral component of politicking a war'

Sullivan, on Beinart's must-read Afghanistan piece:

The moral component of politicking a war is acute here. But we shouldn't attribute magical foresight to the president. I see little here that is more troubling than the surge in Iraq. That too was effectively a face-saving strategy to stabilize the country enough to get out.

And then comes the emotional gut-punch:

This is Obama at his coldest. Which is very, very cold.

Yet I would reiterate what I wrote yesterday:

[A]n early-2009 withdrawal would have brought eruptions of "political consequences [that] might have been brutal"; and those eruptions might have been so violently burrowing as to doom Obama's presidency, and his reelection. Today we might have been facing a quite different fait accompli: a Mitt Romney--or some other neocon--presidency, brimming with imperially muscular imbecilities and, ultimately, far more than 1,300 American deaths, in some other godforsaken wasteland.

This reading of Obama's decision takes some of the chill out, I think. Strong presidents have historically made decisions that to you and me seem cold--very cold--but in the long run (which happens to be Obama's specialty) morph as not merely wise, but more "feeling" than anyone imagined at the time. One thinks, for instance, of FDR's "Germany First" decision, rendered in the immediate face of Japan's treachery; or, certainly, Lincoln's willingness to countenance what can only be described as Grant's tactical atrocities.

"The moral component of politicking a war" was indeed "acute" in those instances--as well as virtually undetectable, at the time.

Watson, the needle

In a stunning, even mind-blowing piece of investigative political journalism, Politico has interviewed "about two dozen Republican elected officials, aides, strategists and lobbyists" and has ascertained, for our edification, that these Republican officials, aides, strategists and lobbyists are now saying they think Mitt Romney can win!

The Politico piece also unveils such hitherto unknown factors as: Republicans, by and large, tend to "support their nominee"; and, what's more--brace for impact now--that Republicans tend to unify in the oppositional face of an incumbent Democratic president.

Whoa! This is way too much to absorb, far too much of a shock to one's conventionality and complacency, too too much upending of all we believed and held dear.

Watson, the needle.

Breaking free of reality's pull

There are a few little flaws in Conor Friedersdorf's righteous chastisement of "Hardball"'s host:

[Chris Matthews] expressed outrage that [Cory] Booker "chose sides" with private equity rather than Obama. He spoke as if he thinks politicians owe greater loyalty to fellow insiders and establishment norms of behavior than to the American people, even if it means misleading the public about their beliefs on the matter at issue....

[Matthews] ought to celebrate all truth-telling, even when it does involve "betraying" partisan loyalties.

I, too, criticized Matthews's Monday performance, although my criticism differed from Friedersdorf's in substance; it centered instead on Matthews's rather generous contribution to cable news's cyclical hysteria. One "Hardball" segment on Booker's exceptionally unorthodox boosterism was only proper, but Matthews's wallowing in the mayor's unsubtle knifing of the president could not be contained in one hour; he felt compelled to add another segment to another live hour. This, I thought, was a bit much. In short, Matthews overdramatized the political consequences of Booker's "MTP" appearance.

But, what the hell. We live in the real world of cable-news obsessions, and Chris Matthews lives in cable's real world of ratings. It seems, however, that Mr. Friedersdorf has checked out of the real world.

I, for one, would not for a minute dare to argue with Friedersdorf's somewhat saccharine pronouncement that politicians owe "greater loyalty ... to the American people" than to "fellow insiders and establishment norms of behavior." Oh my, how gauche that would be, indeed. But here's what Friedersdorf seems to have missed in Cory Booker's virtuous presentation: the greatest loyalty that Booker displayed was that only to himself. He sees himself as much more than Newark's mayor someday, and to achieve his goals he needs cash, and that cash will come--by hook, crook, or even betrayal of both the president and (some would say) "the American people"--from Wall Street bagmen.

But hey, that's the real world, too. When self-advancement is involved, betrayal is the mother's bile of politics. Yet was Matthews really wrong in asking--or insisting--that the president's supporters, when on-air, actually support the president? In terms of authentic political honor, would Booker not have possessed more if he had subordinated his interests to the president's? And did Booker's conflation of the private equity and Jeremiah Wright attacks not corrupt his self-interested betrayal from the get-go? Finally, was it not Booker himself who was "misleading the public about [his] beliefs"--that is, his motives?

Should not Booker, too, "celebrate all truth-telling"?

Beinart's brilliant assessment

Peter Beinart brilliantly muses on the presidential politics of Afghanistan:

Essentially, [Obama] played rope-a-dope, giving Petraeus & Co. the chance to prove what one suspects Obama already believed: that counterinsurgency in Afghanistan had no chance. 

Finally, a Democrat who knows how to play the politics of national security and win. But political victories can carry a human price. According to iCasualties, more than 1,300 Americans have died in Afghanistan since Obama took office, more than twice the number that died under George W. Bush. And since it is highly unlikely that Afghanistan’s future will be significantly different because America withdrew its combat troops in 2013 instead of 2009, one can reasonably ask: what did the United States accomplish during those four years that can possibly justify their deaths? It’s disturbing that Barack Obama doesn’t have a good answer to that question. It’s even more disturbing that politically, he doesn’t need one.

Some on the left argue that these 1,300 American deaths were not only needless, but inexcusable. Obama, they say, should have begun pulling our combat troops out of Afghanistan on Day One, notwithstanding his campaign pledge to beef up our efforts there, and to finish what W. so abruptly abandoned in favor of an even greater monstrosity. Our Afghanistan mission was always doomed--few among us ever doubted that, including, and probably more so than others, President Obama--and for the United States to squander more lives on a catastrophic fait accompli was merely an exercise in both imperial hubris and political cowardice. 

That, anyway, is one powerful argument, and a rather familiar one. The counterargument, however, is at least as powerful, even if less frequently argued. As Beinart suggests, an early-2009 withdrawal would have brought eruptions of "political consequences [that] might have been brutal"; and those eruptions might have been so violently burrowing as to doom Obama's presidency, and his reelection. Today we might have been facing a quite different fait accompli: a Mitt Romney--or some other neocon--presidency, brimming with imperially muscular imbecilities and, ultimately, far more than 1,300 American deaths, in some other godforsaken wasteland.

I don't know which argument is weightier. No one does, because there's no way to know, because there's no way to travel back in time and reset the clock and its circumstances. My instincts, however, tell me that Obama played an exceptionally bad hand as best he could; and what's more, that those lost, 1,300 American lives were not lost in vain--not, indeed, if they helped prevent another W.-like presidency.

I do know one thing for sure, though. I am damn glad I didn't have to make the decision.

A moment with Fehrnstrom

Eric Fehrnstrom, commenting to Fox on the latest WaPo poll, which, as does virtually every poll, shows Romney trailing:

You know, Mitt Romney came out of a pretty bruising set of primaries and before we even started our general election argument against Barack Obama, he's tied in the polls -- most likely ahead.

From where did Fehrnstrom get "most likely ahead"?

Anyone? ...

Anyone at all? ...

Yes, you, you there in the back ...

From "absolute thin air"?

Correct. Thank you.

3-4 talking points

On the question of "where [voters] stand financially compared with when Obama took office in January 2009," notes the Washington Post in its most recent poll findings, "Obama’s numbers continue to resemble those of George H.W. Bush, who lost his bid for reelection in 1992 amid a flagging economy."

And that, dear reader, is as pointless as any noted resemblance can get.

First, President Obama is no George H.W. Bush. Second, President Obama isn't opposed by a Bill Clinton. Third, President Obama is opposed by perhaps the most inept pol to hit the national scene since Horace Greeley. Fourth, on virtually every day of the vast campaign season that remains, see "First," "Second," and "Third."