The Carpentariat

Republicans hold firm again

This is just embarrassing.

[This] morning, Republicans blasted Democrats for rejecting the idea of reorganizing the cuts, and cast the [FAA] bill as a necessary legislative fix....

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) ... called the bill a Republican "hostage-taking" ... [but] the easy unanimous consent vote in the Senate belied these complaints, as did the 159 Democrats who voted with Republicans to pass the bill in the House.

And,

The White House said President Obama would sign the bill but condemned the piecemeal approach to alleviating the impact of the sequestration budget cuts.

Republicans, again, held firm. Their victory lap is legitimate. They took a grossly offensive hunk of social injustice and converted it into a lovely little piece of bipartisan legislation, courtesy Democratic cowardice. 

The latter inspires Republicans, it motivates them, it's what gets them up in the morning and provides them great hope on long winter nights: Democrats, they know, will always cave--although they'll only do so while issuing stern condemnations of the enormously bad policies they're agreeing to.

There's no secret to Republicans' success. They're simply willing to take withering fire. And why not? It pays. It galvanizes their base, while Democrats are busy demoralizing theirs. 

It's just about the only yin-yang thing the two-party system has going for it, or rather, keeps it going.

So now Republicans are the heroes of the day--the heroes of preventing some of the very fallout they inflicted. And you know what? Good for them. They're also the only ones proving that flashing steel balls in politics is neither entirely unfashionable nor completely unworkable. 

Congress' curious notion of doing the right thing

The Hill:

The Senate passed a bill on Thursday evening to end air traffic controller furloughs caused by the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester that have been blamed for mounting flight delays across the country....

Lawmakers in the House said ... they would consider bills to stop the furloughs.

Because they fly.

Now if only all congressmen were required to feed their elderly parents through Meals on Wheels, and if only their Washington residences were dependent on available housing vouchers, and heated the same, and if only their children were restricted to the most dilapidated public schools, and if only their salaries were fixed at the minimum wage--only then would things start changing for the better. Toot-sweet.  

Reading the cocoa-puff leaves

Damn the infernal, inscrutable caginess of ambitious pols:

[Rand] Paul is scheduled to speak to the New Hampshire Republican Party’s Liberty Day Dinner on May 20 [reports the Louisville Courier-Journal]. That’s 10 days after an address to the Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Cedar Rapids.

Pick a percentage, any percentage

What we all love about economics, economic forecasting and, above all, reporting on economics is the socially scientific precision of it all. 

From Wonkblog's "The incredible stagnant U.S. economy":

We’re still stuck in the muck.... The U.S. economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year.... But Friday’s report was nearly a percentage point below analysts’ expectations, and for the last six months, number averages to only a 1.45 percent annual rate of growth.

Via TPM, the AP's "U.S. Economy Grows At 2.5 Percent In First Quarter":

U.S. economic growth accelerated from January through March, buoyed by the strongest consumer spending in more than two years [italics mine].

The thrusts are confusing enough. Yet at the end of the AP story is this:

Ben Herzon, an economist at Macroeconomics Advisers, said the tax increases could shave roughly 1 percentage point from growth this year. He also expects the government spending cuts to reduce growth by about 0.6 percentage point.

Egads. Because in the middle of the AP story there's this:

Many economists say they think growth as measured by the gross domestic product is slowing in the April-June quarter to an annual rate of just 2 percent.

So, assuming Ben isn't among the "many economists," but also assuming that Ben is right, then substracting Ben's drags from the consensual mediocrity leaves us with a whopping annual growth rate of .04 percent.

Or not.

And now, for the neocons' next trick ...

No one quite knows how the neocons do it. Naturally we're never shown the wires, or the strings attached, and the trap doors are well concealed. Yet all the usual flimflammery behind neoconservative humbug is little compared to their flourishes of stupendously fatuous bravado--which somehow continues to impress a significant national audience that has nonetheless seen the trick flop in the end, time and time again.    

McClatchy has an excellent overview of the bad and nothing but "bad options" available to the Obama administration in confronting the possibly chemical-warfaring Assad regime. But none is worse than abetting another Afghanistan-like mujahideen:

Anything the United States does ... could aid Islamist groups that have emerged as the most effective fighting forces of the divided and poorly organized Syrian opposition. Those groups include ... the Nusra Front, a branch of al Qaida in Iraq, that has been joined by foreign jihadists and seeks to impose Taliban-style Islamic rule on Syria.

... who are, as the neocons' other rhetoric goes, America's #1 foe.

This would seem to present an insurmountable conflict in the neoconservative mind. Yet to the rescue is conflict resolution in the tediously familiar form of simian chest-thumping. The razzle-dazzle of invincible American firepower is never dismissed, as long as banishing the thought of any unintended consequences is always embraced.

I don't know, but maybe an extraordinary self-confidence in one's elaborate self-delusions is all it takes to be a good little neocon of magical mind and truly awesome flimflammery.

Moreover, Americans are weary of foreign entanglements after the more than eight-year U.S. occupation of Iraq and the 12-year war in Afghanistan, the longest in the country’s history. Even among the most ardent proponents of greater U.S. help for the Syrian opposition, there is no support for sending in U.S. troops.

cost? deficit?

Moreover, Americans are weary of foreign entanglements after the more than eight-year U.S. occupation of Iraq and the 12-year war in Afghanistan, the longest in the country’s history. Even among the most ardent proponents of greater U.S. help for the Syrian opposition, there is no support for sending in U.S. troops.

cost? deficit?

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/25/189715/obamas-options-to-curb-syria-range.html#storylink=cpy

Red morhere: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/25/189715/obamas-options-to-curb-syria-range.html#storylink=cpy

 

Holster that invasion force, Mister

From the widely reported, crossed "red line" in Syria to the Obama administration's actual position there's an ocean of escape routes. NYT: 

*the United States still need[s] “credible and corroborated facts”* *Even if the United Nations investigation proves the use of chemicals ... the White House must determine who used them and whether they were used deliberately or accidentally* *“The bar on the United States is higher than on anyone else, both because of our capabilities and because of our history in Iraq,” [says a WH official]* *“Suspicions are one thing; evidence is another,” [says DefSec Hagel]* *Although Britain and France laid out allegations of chemical weapons attacks in three places in Syria, neither country said it was certain that chemical weapons had been used* *Even within Israel, the military’s assessment has not been fully embraced by government officials* *Experts on chemical warfare said the administration’s methodical approach was warranted. The evidence that has emerged so far is suggestive of chemical attacks, they said, but not conclusive*

For the White House this is, however, a wonderful time for a tough, hard-nosed national-security story of distraction.

A shameful day

Other nations hang, or shoot, or behead, or poison, or in some other way execute--or at the very least imprison or exile--their war criminals.

We build monuments and libraries for ours.

What an absolute abomination today is.

Alterman's contract on Sullivan (which I somehow missed)

Whoa! I thought I could be unduly vicious. Hell I'm a babe in arms, a sweet lad of innocence, a Christ-like lover of enemies, a goddamn shrinking poisonous ivy compared to Eric Alterman. To wit: his "'Sully'-ing of American Journalism," published online by the Nation in January, in print in February, and just noticed by me, thanks to Alterman's reposting of it on Facebook today.

As you may have noticed, I have no problem with polemics. This is an age that calls for it. I once tried my damnedest to adhere to certain standards of "sophisticated" civility and strenuous thoughtfulness, but fuck 'em; when the barbarians are at the gates, one ceases reserve.

I appreciate, however, that readers will weigh their own judgment against whomever I rage and whatever I savage. That's not only how things are, that's how they should be. It's called robust debate.

And that, I think, is what Alterman forgets in his hit job on Andrew Sullivan. Alterman does distinguish between blogging journalism and blogging commentary, noting that as a manifestation of the latter, Sullivan's "judgments [which Alterman finds consistently wanting] ... are really the only criterion by which his work can be assessed." But that assessment alone excises the role of engaged readership.

If, for example, I had early assessed the magnificent intellectual blunders of, say, a G.K. Chesterton or H.L. Mencken as unworthy of my future political antennae, I would today be much, much poorer for it. Yes they were profoundly wrong on many profound subjects, but I have profited from these gentlemen as one could profit only from them.  

I don't read with a hook in my mouth. Neither, I trust, do you. Alterman, however, seems a little afraid that a lot of readers do.  

How many warnings do we need?

The Summer of '13, in which we have a rendezvous with fatuity, will be historic. Each day brings fresh evidence of the right's percolating madness--some of it already upon us and rapidly escalating; other, in the works, rather quietly brewing. 

Every mad, delusional movement requires a stormtrooping vanguard, and yesterday's was manned unforgettably by Arkansas' Rep. Tom Cotton:

In barely four years in office, five jihadists have reached their targets in the United States under Barack Obama.... In the over seven years after 9/11 under George W. Bush, how many terrorists reached their target in the United States? Zero!

ABC's The Note reminds us, however, that GOP congressmen "McCaul of Texas and King of New York" already "point[ed] to five separate terrorists tied to terror attempts in the United States since 9/11/2001," and:

House Speaker John Boehner [yesterday] added his concern to a growing population in Congress questioning whether the federal government has been plagued by intelligence failures.

There exists, of course, no such "concern." Only opportunity. In this case, it is that of political revanchism; Republicans correctly understand that now (or never) is the time to recapture their national security bona fides, which means unleashing the hounds of fear on a distraught public. It's their specialty, and they've been cruelly denied it too long. 

Yet coincidental to the GOP's thermal bugabooing about our commander in chief's classic Democratic indifference to America's existential threats (such as one confused teenage and his fanatically tormented older brother) is an item that remains, inexplicably, on the media's backburner. However briefly, Dana Milbank brings it forward, noting that at yesterday's House conclave--"Conversations with Conservatives"--Kansas' Tim Huelskamp said:

We can talk about messaging.... But in August, we’re going to hit the debt ceiling and we can’t avoid that. We’re running out of money, and as Republicans, we have to get ready now and talk about the vision of what we have to do to get our country on a 10-year plan to balance the budget.

This--the coming debt-ceiling showdown; and this time they're rehearsed, they really mean it--is the mother of all cataclysms, sitting right on the horizon. And yet the political media will spend the day covering yesterday's mother of all cataclysms: George W. Bush. 

Tomorrow, the media will be back chasing Tom Cotton down--quotable quotes, you know. And we'll be one day closer to the nation's greatest calamity since the FDR administration--another day closer that'll pass mostly unreported, even though Republicans are telegraphing precisely the attack they're up to. 

Why I dread 2016

Ed Kilgore:

There’s a new 46-page report to which five different House committees contributed, about the House GOP’s very favorite subject in the whole wide world: Benghazi! Benghazi!... [It] goes after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with hammer and tongs. 

Because ...

Republicans are looking down the barrel of a Clinton political operation that could crush the GOP’s supposedly brilliant field of 2016 presidential possibilities pretty easily.

That field principally includes Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Jon Huntsman, or, respectively, somnambulation, meerkat nervousness, crackerism, thumperism, implosion, explosion, and toast.

Meanwhile, the electoral map remains fixed at bright blue--in the neighborhood of 330, 340--as it exsanguinates at around 200, and there's no reason to expect much change.

Hillary is the undisputed Caesar; there's just no question. Intoxicated House reports and the like will provide some fun, but mostly the next will be one hellishly dull presidential campaign.

Ain't what it used to mean

This (italics mine) is so weird it's creepy:

For years, I’ve warned about the GOP's Grover Norquist problem. Just last week, he was front and center at the Gang of 8′s amnesty press conference--despite longtime concerns expressed on this blog and by national security advocates and activists about his dangerous Islamist alliances and progressive proclivities.

--Michelle Malkin

No real revolt--yet?

Oh my, Chait is slipping into the wistful land of the lost:

There's something ritualistic about the conservative objections Rubio is getting. It's not a real revolt. They're going through the motions to prove to their audience that they have kept their purity, but conservative talk-show hosts and other activist types are not, for the most part, actually doing what it would take to kill the [immigration] bill.

It's still squishy early. But when--or rather if, given the perfectly irrational excuse of two crazy Chechens throwing all reform into the pyre of eternal delay--the going ever gets tough, Senate Republicans will rise to the ritualistic occasion of the filibuster. And if that doesn't kill reform, House Republicans will.

And not for bad reason, I might add. The GOP has already lost a generation of the Latino vote. Abetting reform today won't buy them back tomorrow. And since tomorrow is all that GOP's pols care about--as opposed to cultivating yonder generations--they'll consider themselves safer with the cranky, aging white base they have, and leave it at that.

Dems plead, Republicans reject, voters roll eyes

In only seven of its 476 words on Harry Reid's embryonic attempt to curb sequestration's insanity, the Hill captures the entirety of the GOP's essence:

Republicans were already lining up to reject ...

The sentence ends with, "the Reid war savings approach." But no matter. Could be anything. You can substitute whatever you like--revenue, healthcare, a debt-limit lift, extended unemployment benefits, perhaps the occasional job program, gun control, immigration reform--and the sentence remains good to go.

Republicans lining up to reject ...

During Obama's first two years Republicans lined up to reject, and then for the next two years they lined up to reject, and now, after being rejected themselves, they're again lining up to reject ... anything, everything. 

Their strategy possesses the merit of brusque simplicity, I'll give it that much. But there's something more, something insidiously hidden, which could work to Republicans' advantage: Voters in the muddled middle might not tend in the longer run to ponder the GOP's partisan nihilism; they instead might simply, generically conclude that Washington pols are to blame for all this nothingness.

Democrats could well be left with nothing but a pathetic trail of failed attempts and successful rejections. To reduce the latter, they need to radically curtail the former--and compensate with a consistent, epochal message of precisely who's to blame for these years upon years of utter nothingness. 

Sen. Paul drones on and strikes himself--again

Foreign Policy travels to the distant phantasm of modern libertarianism and visits the eighth dimension of Sen. Paul's mind:

Ron Paul's vibrant fan base is in open rebellion today over Rand Paul's perceived reversal on domestic drone strikes. The Kentucky senator ... told Fox Business Network on Tuesday he's OK with drone strikes on American citizens who, for instance, rob a liquor store....

While it's true that Paul has always made an exception for "imminent threats"--a 9/11-like moment--the liquor store scenario struck many libertarians as a very low threshold for domestic drone strikes.

Naturally, even more policy improvisation followed in a released, clarifying statement, which means outright contradiction was piled atop internal confusion. It reads in part:

My comments last night left the mistaken impression that my position on drones had changed.

Let me be clear: it has not.

This is distressing.

In view of Paul's presidential aspirations, sooner or later some sober consultant is going to strap a muzzle on our boy and thereby terminate his publicly blathered sophomoric musings and subsequent deeper-hole-diggings.

Paul will go Palin on us as he's flanked by body guards and censorial, joy-kill wordsmiths.

The thrill will be gone, the dream will end.   

Tragic.

 

My own Henry Fonda, "Wrong Man" story

How in this country of vaunted freedoms could a man be charged with such a serious crime as mailing lethal poison to a U.S. senator and the president of the United States, when, it turns out, there was no real evidence that the man actually sent any such letters? 

You'd be amazed.

I, for example, was once roused by police at 4 in the morning and arrested (though never Mirandized) on an unspecified felony charge (meaning that I had no idea at the time why I was being arrested), and then informed at the police station that my bail was set at $25,000--which, while watching local news a few days later, I learned was higher than that of a man in another county just charged with second-degree murder. Permit me to assure you: that's a bit rattling.

Anyway, I soon learned--while free on a non-refundable! bond of $2,500--what all this silliness was about. So I pieced together the various proofs of my innocence (regarding someone else's $147 accounting error) and hauled it to the recently installed prosecutor, who promptly dropped the charge. What most astonished this prosecutor was the stunning lack of evidence as to my guilt; the previous prosecutor was just a hotdogging martinet who really liked leveling steep, tough-on-crime bails, but couldn't be bothered with actually investigating a suspected crime before ordering the arrest of some poor schmuck for not committing it.

You'd be amazed.