Willed to Shrillnes

Close enough to shrill:

Popular Will, by Jonathan Chait: Barack Obama's comments about the white working class have thrown the political campaign into a particularly comic spasm of pretense and hypocrisy, but I was planning to let it go, I really was, until George F. Will decided to leap to the defense of the proletariat. Yes, that George F. Will. The fabulously wealthy, bow tie-wearing, pretentious reference-mongering, Anglophilic fop who grew up in a university town as a professor's son, earned two advanced degrees, has a designated table at a French restaurant in Georgetown, and, had he dwelt for any extended time among the working class, would be lucky to escape without his underwear being yanked up over his ears. …

TBogg Is Shrill!

He has a Shorter Ross Douthat:

: A horrifyingly mutilated, yet living, body might still crawl out of the flaming wreckage that is the Bush years and then he and I shall both be vindicated.

---

Here is Ross:

Ross Douthat (April 07, 2008) - The Worst President Ever? (Politics): An unscientific survey of 109 professional historians, conducted by the doubtless-unbiased author of Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion In America, reports that sixty-one percent of its sample considers George W. Bush's Presidency the "worst ever." Remarking on this, er, finding, Matt takes the contrarian view that "Bush is probably correct to think that history will remember him kindly." I wouldn't go nearly that far (and nor would Matt, I suspect, if you really pressed him), but I will say, as someone who judges the Bush Administration more or less a failure, that it's very easy for me to imagine a possible future in which Bush's policies are widely judged to have been vindicated by events. (I have a piece on just this possibility forthcoming in the June issue of the Atlantic.) It's also easy to imagine a future in which Bush ends up more or less forgotten - along the lines of William McKinley, say, whose Presidency Karl Rove famously set out to emulate, with the Iraq War swallowed up by the same amnesia that's claimed our bloody and misguided adventures in the Phillipines. And yes, it's also easy to imagine a future in which Bush ends up judged not only a failure, but a worse chief executive than James Buchanan and Herbert Hoover - though for this to happen, I would submit, the worst Bush-created disasters would have to still be ahead of us, since neither the occupation of Iraq nor anything else our current POTUS has been involved in rivals the Civil War or the Great Depression for sheer destructive impact.

All of which is to say that sixty-one percent of the historians' sample are ax-grinding fools whose nitwittery dishonors their profession. Judge Bush a failure by all means, but the fact that his legacy is only beginning its long unspooling ought to give anyone with even a glancing knowledge of history's cunning passages - let alone a so-called "professional" - pause before pronouncing his administration the worst in American history.

Wow!

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Him Now

Matthew Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias (March 31, 2008) - The Horror (Foreign Policy): There was a time when I never could have imagined I'd be reading stuff like this about my own country:

At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America's shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one...

Read the whole thing; I don't really have the heart to make a witty remark.

Only those people who embrace the idea of being evil and think that evil is cool have any business voting for the Republican Party ever again. Ever. Again.

Paul Berman Is a Deeply Broken Person

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Duncan Black writes:

Eschaton: Stars Of Their Own Heroic Epic: Years later, it's hard to comprehend the depths of the narcissism of people like [Paul] Berman who obviously see events in the world as nothing more than referendums on their own awesomeness. He and his fellow travelers spent years berating dirty fucking hippies like me for daring to suggest that maybe war in Iraq was not some awesome idea, but instead, you know, bad. And now he wants to claim he opposed it?

This a deeply broken person.

He is reacting to Spencer Ackerman, who drops his jaw in amazement:

toohotfortnr: public witness ain't seeing too much: Paul Berman did a BloggingHeads with Heather Hulburt in which the arch liberal-Iraq-hawk strongly suggests that he didn't support the war. You be the judge. Relevant section is about 2:30 in.

On the Iraq war, I myself wrote a piece in The New Republic on March -- which came out in the March 3, 2003 issue saying George Bush was leading us over a cliff. And that his notion of how to deploy power was lacking in liberal principle and that his use of power was going to turn out to be no power at all. In short it was going to be a disaster. I published this before the war. I made that prediction before the war. It's true that afterward I haven't made a career of running around saying I told you so, but if you look it up, the major article ... yeah, I was in favor of getting rid of Saddam but Bush's way of going about it was quite bad, and I pronounced myself, I used the word 'terrified,' of what would come of it.

TNR's messed-up web archives have erased Paul's article.... But it doesn't say what Paul says it says.... Leave aside his odious arrogance. (He told me so?) Paul says his piece recognized Bush's strategic foolishness and illiberalism. He's right. The trouble is he recognized it as a caveat to his enthusiasm to the war, not as an impediment. In other words, Berman wanted a war for liberalism, recognized that it wouldn't be one, and backed it anyway. That -- to say the least -- implicates his judgment.

In order to whitewash this, he pretends his caveat was his argument. He did this before, in the New York Review of Books, where he quoted his caveat and said it rose "rising to what I like to picture as a crescendo." Well, it wasn't a crescendo. It would only have been a crescendo if it stopped him from backing the war. Instead he took the opposite approach. Fine. But own up to it, don't pretend that wasn't your judgment.

Update: Oh God. Toward the end of the clip, Paul says:

Then there's the intellectual debate. The intellectual debate should always tell the truth. It should never be modest. It should always be grandiose.

Please, please, please, step back from the cliff...

And to Matthew Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias (November 12, 2007) - Did Paul Berman Tell Us So? (Foreign Policy): In the midst of an argument with Ian Buruma, liberal hawk extraordinaire Paul Berman tries to convince us that he actually called Iraq correctly, and has merely been magnanimous in not pointing that out:

I approved on principle the overthrow of Saddam. I never did approve of Bush's way of going about it. In the run-up to the war, I became, on practical grounds, ever more fearful that, in his blindness to liberal principles, Bush was leading us over a cliff. [...] It is true and it is a matter of satisfaction to me that, in the years since then, I have not made a career of saying "I told you so."

Here's what Berman was actually writing in February 2003:

In my own judgment, Fischer and his fellow thinkers in Europe and even in the United States are making a mistake in failing to press for a harder line against Iraq--a harder line that might bring about Saddam's collapse more or less peacefully or, if need be, not peacefully. It should be obvious that, in the Arab world, fascist and Nazi-like movements--political tendencies that call for random mass murder in the name of paranoid and apocalyptic ideas--have gotten completely out of hand. In the last 20 years, Baathist and Islamist movements--the two branches of what ought to be regarded as Muslim fascism--have killed millions of people and might well kill many more, and not just in the Muslim countries, as we have reason to know. A war against Muslim fascism ought to be seen as a continuation of the long struggle against Nazism and fascism in Europe--a continuation of the same decent and necessary cause that people like Fischer have always wanted to support, even if they have not always known how to do so in a sensible way.

He was worried about Bush's failure to embrace liberalism, but it wasn't a worry that this meant the war would go badly, it was a worry that Bush wasn't being as rhetorically persuasive as he should have been:

Maybe Fischer is not convinced because the Bush administration has presented a series of side arguments about weapons, U.N. resolutions, and dark terrorist conspiracies and has failed to present the main argument, which is the single huge argument that has always sustained the Western alliance. This argument is the one about totalitarianism. It is the argument that says: The totalitarians are dangerous to themselves and to us, and we had better fight them. Fight wisely, of course, which the New Left notoriously managed not to do long ago, but fight. Why can't Bush make that argument? I won't speculate. But he could change. He gave up drinking long ago. Let him give up his arrogance, small-mindedness, and aversion to large and idealistic ideas today. It might help.

And here he was in January 2004 when many people still thought the war was going well:

What was the reason for the war in Iraq? Sept. 11 was the reason. At least to my mind it was. Sept. 11 showed that totalitarianism in its modern Muslim version was not going to stop at slaughtering millions of Muslims, and hundreds of Israelis, and attacking the Indian government, and blowing up American embassies. The totalitarian manias were rising, and the United States itself was now in danger. A lot of people wanted to respond, as any mayor would do, by rounding up a single Bad Guy, Osama.

But Sept. 11 did not come from a single Bad Guy--it was a product of the larger totalitarian wave, and the only proper response was to comprehend the size and depth of that larger wave, and find ways to begin rolling it back, militarily and otherwise%u2014mostly otherwise. To roll it back for our own sake, and everyone else's sake, Muslims' especially. Iraq, with its somewhat antique variation of the Muslim totalitarian idea, was merely a place to begin, after Afghanistan, with its more modern variation.

In short, Berman was wrong. The reason he hasn't made a career of telling us "I told you so" is that, in this instance at least, he didn't tell us so. But now he's trying to tell us that he did tell us so. But all he told us was that had Bush employed more Berman-style rhetoric then maybe more of Berman's friends would, like Berman, have wrongly deciding that an invasion of Iraq was a good idea.

Paul Berman may or may not be the stupidest man alive^TM. But he surely is the most mendacious man alive.

For the record, I was in favor of the war on Iraq in the winter of 2003. I reasoned:

• Condi Rice is not-stupid and not-malevolent, and is for the war.
• Colin Powell is not-stupd and not-malevolent, and is for the war.
• This means that even though the public intelligence is bs, that there must be solid evidence of an advanced nuclear program in Iraq and of a willingness to give serious weapons to terrorist groups--otherwise attacking Iraq while we have real enemies like Osama bin Laden running loose would be really stupid.
• And although Bush is really stupid, not everyone in the administration is.

Wrong on all counts. I am very sorry.

I may be the stupidest man alive.

Glenn Greenwald Is Super-Shrill!

Glenn Reynolds links to Instapunk a whole lot:

This drives Glenn Greenwald into hypershrillness:

One of Instapundit's favorite blogs speaks on race - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com: Just two weeks ago, Instapundit (which is, revealingly enough, one of Karl Rove's favorite blogs) promoted and praised a separate post on race by Instapunk, which proclaimed that (h/t Zack):

• Barack Obama "is none of us";

• "in his heart of hearts Obama understands nothing and no one, because he has never belonged anywhere or truly participated in anything";

• "It's Michelle Obama who hates America";

• it's feminists who have "done more to destroy the black family and promote the epidemic of children born out of wedlock than any conspiracy Jeremiah Wright could ever dream up"; and,

• "Even though Obama is not and never was an African-American, he has always been black enough to benefit from the superannuated slave culture that forgives every corruption and hypocrisy in those who have any claim on being black."

Reynolds is promoting ugly bile of this sort for one simple reason -- because, as always, exploiting racial resentments is one of the principal tribalistic weapons on which the Right intends to rely in order to win the election. As one blogger just wrote via email:

What I don't understand is why Glenn R. continues to visit and link to a blog where such racist sentiments are permitted to be posted. He must be aware that InstaPunk is a blog that permits contributors to spout venomous racial hatred. Why doesn't he find another blog to visit? I mean, if it were me, I would not keep up an association with a blog that thinks it's okay to let a contributor be so hateful. Why doesn't he disavow this guy?

As Reynolds himself wrote the other day about Obama: "Obama is giving us a 'national conversation on race,' but mostly by letting a lot of white people realize just what circulates, unremarked, in the black community." I believe that's similar to the way that the blogs and posts Instapundit promotes "let a lot of people realize just what circulates, unremarked, in the right-wing sewers."

Hilzoy Is Shrill!

Hilzoy: The fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton can't tell the difference between having an eight year old read her a poem on a tarmac and fleeing through a hail of bullets doesn't give me a lot of confidence in her grasp of military affairs...

Obsidian Wings: "We Just Ran With Our Heads Down": A few days ago, Hillary Clinton described her 1996 trip to Bosnia:

"I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Even before Sinbad challenged Clinton's account, I was skeptical: as I read somewhere (sorry, don't remember where), does it really make sense to suppose that if the trip was that dangerous, the President would have sent not just his wife but his only child on it?

Now, however, there is video of Clinton running with her head down through the hail of bullets. Except for, um, the running part, and the bullets part, and the part about the greeting ceremony being cancelled. It's worth watching to see the perils Senator Clinton endured. And it does support her story in one respect: as you can see in this picture, she did bend her head down on the tarmac, to hug an eight year old girl who had just read her a poem.

Harrowing stuff. No doubt all the nonexistent bullets flying around account for the fact that none of the reporters who were present mentioned any danger at the time. Obviously, they were so terrified that they repressed it all.

Honestly: there was no need for Clinton to do any of this. She did play a serious policy role in her husband's administration (even if she didn't help pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, as she claims.) The only reason for her to inflate a trip with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow into a serious diplomatic mission, and a trip to Northern Ireland involving "a visit to a women's drop-in centre and two business parks" into helping bring peace to Northern Ireland, is that by pretending to have been more involved in foreign policy than she really was, she can pretend that while Barack Obama isn't ready to be commander in chief, she is.

Frankly, though, the fact that she can't tell the difference between having an eight year old read her a poem on a tarmac and fleeing through a hail of bullets doesn't give me a lot of confidence in her grasp of military affairs. Who knows? If she were President, she might decide that she was under attack by helicopter gunships when she was actually standing in a perfectly peaceful receiving line at a state funeral, and declare war. If she thinks the video I linked to shows her running for safety in a hail of bullets, anything is possible.

McCain: Clueless as... as... Saying that Some Neo-Confederate Group Is Secretly Funneling Money to Louis Farrakhan

Hilzoy is the shrillest woman in the Boswash Megalopolis:

Obsidian Wings: Clueless: I didn't want to let this gem from John McCain pass unremarked:

Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.

He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

It's important to be clear about exactly how clueless this is. It's like saying that some neo-confederate group is secretly funneling money to Louis Farrakhan, and then having an aide have to whisper: no, no, it's the Aryan Nation; wrong extremists! It's like suggesting that McCain is making a play for Kucinich voters, and having to be told that, no, you really meant Ron Paul: wrong losing candidate! No one who had any understanding at all of Iraq, or for that matter about the Shi'a/Sunni split and which side Iran was on, would get confused about this....

McCain gets to say silly things like this without being challenged. His reputation as a serious thinker on national security can only survive so long as people don't notice things like this....

Today we saw exactly how intelligent and nuanced Obama is. In this series of remarks by McCain (and others; it's not unique), we can see exactly how unprepared he is to win an argument against Obama.

In terms of intellect, grasp of policy details, nuance, and depth of knowledge, McCain is just not in Obama's league -- or, for that matter, Clinton's. When we have a chance to see McCain debate a Democratic nominee, I have every confidence that this fact will become painfully obvious.

Thoreau Is Shrill. Really Shrill

It is CNN's fault:

Thoreau: Suddenly I Am More Outraged than Ever: Last night, on CNN, during one of the segments the background on the screen said "Iraq: Success or Failure?" And I just exploded. Of course it's a failure. When a marketplace is so dangerous that a Senator can't even go there with 100+ heavily armed men (recall that McCain could no longer visit the same market that he visited last year and proclaimed "safe" while surrounded by heavy security), thats one hell of a goddamn failure.

And it hit me: The media doesn't invite the Flat Earth Society to "discuss the controversy" every time they show a picture of the globe. They don't invite a North Korean official to argue that his country isn't a shithole when they want to do a story on North Korea. They don't invite NAMBLA to offer an opposing perspective when somebody is accused of child molestation. And they don't give a guest column in leading publications to a cheerleader for the Libyan regime. Yet when somebody wants to show up and argue that Iraq is a success story, that torture (fricking torture!) is OK, that unchecked executive power is just peachy, they invite that person onto the show and thank him. Instead of reporting the abuses of power they treat the apologists as honored guests.

No, I don't want a partisan media. But I do want a media with a better bullshit detector, one that doesn't feel the need to bend over backwards to be "fair" whenever somebody wants to say that torture and unchecked power are necessary to defend freedom. I want a media that won't let somebody show up and defend torture, treat him as a Serious Person, and then thank him for appearing on the show. Some shit is just plain wrong, but if you don't say that, if you treat the advocates for it as another perspective deserving equal time, then the crimes that are going on are perceived as "controversies" rather than blatant crimes. And that makes it impossible to be taken "seriously" when you argue in favor of treating this stuff as crimes, and impeaching those responsible.

Well I'm done with that. No more courtesy. Yes, there are genuinely hard questions in life, and we need open and respectful debate on those issues. But just as I wouldn't waste my time holding a debate with a Klansman every time he wants to insist that non-whites really are inferior, I'm not going to waste my time treating the hawks as Serious People. They aren't serious people. They're just plain wrong. And we need to say that, instead of giving them equal time and thanking them for spewing their BS.

Mind you, I of course favor the right of anybody to say what he wants. The First Amendment says that you can say anything you like. It doesn't say that you are entitled to guest appearances in high profile forums. If somebody tried to force a hawk off the stage I'd defend his right to speak. But I'd also say that the owner of the stage is an idiot for inviting him. (And I'd insert the libertarian disclaimer that the owner of the stage naturally has a right to invite anybody to speak on his private property, but I would reiterate that the owner of the stage is an idiot for treating the hawk like a Serious Person.)

I realize that this can go in a dangerous direction. I don't want to close all minds on all things and say that everything is black and white. But, you know, some shades of gray do in fact come awfully close to one or the other end of the spectrum. If the Flat Earth folks don't get invites to Serious Forums, if our media would never think of giving equal time to the commander of an Iranian torture chamber, why would they give equal time to the defenders of American torture?

I fear where this is taking me, but at the same time I know that some lines really do have to be drawn. At some point you have to say that an idea has been sufficiently discredited that it's time to move on and stop treating its proponents like the Serious People that they insist they are. As long as the worst ideas in circulation are treated as Serious, it's impossible to hold their proponents accountable because what they do is not a crime but merely a controversial decision.

Brendan Nyhan: Chris Matthews: Ignorant about policy

Brendan Nyhan is shrill!:

Brendan Nyhan: Chris Matthews: Ignorant about policy: Despite my extremely low opinion of Matthews, this is still staggering. He's on TV every day and he has no idea what the Democrats are proposing on the most important domestic policy issue in this election. None!

To paraphrase Brad DeLong's saying about Bush, Matthews is worse than I imagined possible, even after taking into account the fact that he is worse than I imagined possible. But as Somerby (obsessively) points out, most pundits won't say anything about him because they want to go on "Hardball" and raise their profile.

Cactus: We Don't Live in a Meritocracy, Exhibit A

Cactus is shrill:

Angry Bear: We Don't Live in a Meritocracy, Exhibit A: Kudlow this morning:

I%u2019ll be sitting down for an exclusive one-on-one interview with President Bush later this morning in midtown Manhattan. The interview will air tonight on Kudlow & Company

....

We'll discuss the economy, oil prices, housing, the credit crunch, Hill-Bama and McCain, the Spitzer scandal, the war on terror and more.

It wasn't that long ago that Kudlow was prattling incessantly about how the Bush economy was "the greatest story never told", or at least a "goldilocks economy". He used both terms in the same paragraph in January. And we've had enough posts here at Angry Bear questioning GW's awareness of how the economy works.

In effect, Kudlow interviewing the President is reminiscent of a high school cheerleader interviewing the school's quarterback (who she happens to be dating) for the high school newspaper after he's been sacked five times in a game, all of which follows months of bragging by the two of them about how his footwork makes him unstoppable. I'll confess a certain morbid curiosity, but not enough to watch it.

Hilzoy Is Shrill!

Hillary Rodham Clinton has done it to her:

Obsidian Wings: Crossing The Threshold: However, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that [Hillary Rodham Clinton] actually believes that Barack Obama cannot "cross the commander-in-chief threshold." One of the most important jobs a President has is to defend the country. If she thinks that Barack Obama is not qualified to do that job, then she should not support him over anyone who can. Specifically, she should support McCain over Obama.

That's why I think some enterprising reporter should ask her whether she would support Barack Obama if he were nominated. If she would, then she should be asked why she would be willing to support someone she does not believe is qualified to be commander in chief.

Whatever her answer, it would tell us something we need to know: either that her doubts about Obama are so serious that she would not be willing to support the nominee of her own party, or that she would support someone she thinks is unfit to serve, or that she does not believe a word she said about Obama, and is willing to impugn a fellow Democrat's fitness to serve as President because her own interests matter more to her than her party's or the nation's.

Sadly, the Shrillness Begins

Obama begins his additions to the legions at Shrillblog. From Brad at Sadly No:

Gulp, by Brad, Sadly No: Is it too late for me to take back my Obama vote?

Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee.

I’ll be so depressed if he takes this “bipartisanship” nonsense seriously. Personally speaking, I’d like any Democratic candidate to spend their whole first day in office standing atop the White House roof dressed in pirate garb shouting “NOOOOOOOO PRISONERS!!!!!” at the top of their lungs. I want someone who will appoint Rudy Ray Moore as a Supreme Court justice, who will punish the Keyboard Kommandos by passing a Constitutional amendment banning Cheetos and Funyuns, and who will look into every Republican’s eyes and tell them that he drank their milkshake. HE DRANK IT UP!!!

As I’ve said before, there are more important issues facing this country than my bloody-minded quest for revenge. But even if Obama doesn’t plan on systematically destroy every Republican by using the Justice Department to slap them with bogus corruption charges, he could at the very least not appoint any to his cabinet. And while it’s true that Hagel and Lugar are some of the least objectionable Republicans out there, they are still Republicans. They bear the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored.

No prisoners, Hussein X. Please don’t disappoint me.

Roy Edroso Is Shrill!

He writes, apropos of slut-shaming crunchy-cons: >alicublog: BIG-TIME NEGOTIATORS, FALSE HEALERS AND WOMAN-HATERS. A bride wants her wedding dress to reveal the tattoo on her back, and does not feel the need to appear virginal on her wedding day. So Rod Dreher calls her a slut. >It takes hours, and a visit from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to make Dreher retract the slur, though he still accuses the bride of "cheap morals" and "bad manners," and calls her behavior "slutty." Big difference. >Dreher frequently reminds us that Christians don't riot, as some Muslims do, when they perceive their values to be mocked. But he never recalls that for many, many centuries, Christians backed by the power of states harassed, exiled, and burned men and women who didn't conform to their prejudices in comportment or anything else. >When we mock Dreher here, we are not always thinking solely of the little fellow in Dallas who shakes his impotent fist at our times and manners. Often we also have in mind the loathsome traditions he wants to bring back to the civilized world, even praising the "order," "unity," and "purpose" of barbarous Islamic societies as a means of attracting us to a Western version with Jesus on top. Imagine a country where men like Dreher have the power to order a stoning. >It took us nearly two millenia and oceans of blood to reduce these savages to a noisome rump. We can spare a little attention to remember why we did it.

Helicopter Spin

Why do I even bother to go to the NRO website? This article on the "truth about airborne dollar-drops and Federal Reserve policy" by Thomas Nugent is pretty confused:

Who’s Flying This Helicopter Anyway?, by Thomas E. Nugent, NRO Online: Wall Street pundits are quick to criticize the Federal Reserve for being either too “tight” or too “easy.” These terms refer to a Fed system that attempts to increase or decrease the money supply — by manipulating the federal funds interest rate — in order to influence the economy and inflation.

It's actually the other way around - the monetary base is manipulated to attain the target federal funds rate. But maybe that's being picky. Moving on:

In terms of the economy, the Fed believes it can sway the growth of consumer purchasing power — due to borrowing — in order to spend. Lower interest rates are thought to encourage both borrowing and credit expansion.

Not quite. Lower interest rates increase quantity of loans demanded, but credit expansion? Lower interest rates don't encourage more supply.

Next, the helicopter:

Now that the Fed has cut the target funds rate from 5.25 to 3 percent ... the critics are out in force. ... They ... say current Fed policy is inflationary, and to make their point they dust-off a decades-old analogy: Rather than merely tinkering with his various policy levers, they say the Fed chairman is out flying his helicopter, dumping bales of dollars on the economy.

Those who say that are using the wrong terminology unless they are referring to purchases of, say, mortgage backed securities at greater than market value. But that's not what they mean - they are referring to ordinary open market operations. That's not helicopter money.

Skipping forward, this next part mixes up consumption and saving, or something, but it is mixed up:

For every dollar borrowed in a lower-interest-rate environment, one dollar is saved. Thus, while lower interest rates may help borrowers spend, they reduce the spending of savers. Only to the extent that the propensity of these two groups to spend is different are interest rates expected to change demand.

How does lowering the interest rate reduce the spending of savers? If anything, lower interest rates discourage saving and promote consumption. In addition, unlike the claim in the paragraph, when a bank loans a dollar of someone's saving it doesn't reduce their consumption. And the part about the differing propensities to consume is referring to what happens when you take a tax dollar from someone with a relatively low propensity to consume and give it back to someone with a higher propensity. But that's not what's going on when interest rates are lowered so it doesn't apply here. This makes no sense at all.

Anyway, moving on:

All this is not to say that a dollar-dropping helicopter doesn’t exist. In certainly does, and standing at the ready are its pilot and co-pilot: the president and Congress.

When the U.S. gets in trouble, the government writes the checks. And when those checks are circulated the proverbial helicopter goes airborne and opens its dollar-dumping doors. Sometimes this is a good thing. Our pilot and co-pilot are to be commended for the several hundred billion they have thus far dropped on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the $50 billion they marked for a targeted drop on the Gulf Coast regions devastated by Katrina and Rita.

There is, of course, the swing from a $200 billion surplus under Bill Clinton to a $500 billion deficit under George W. Bush. Either the government helicopter has been extra busy in recent years or Bush traded in for a bigger one.

Sorry, but that's just wrong and misleading terminology. Deficit spending is not a helicopter drop.

He makes the same mistake here (a money financed tax cut is just like helicopter money, but the statement about a larger deficit in the next paragraph reveals that he isn't thinking about this case): 

You may agree or disagree with the purpose of much of the Bush administration spending, and that’s fine. One pending helicopter dollar-drop that has drawn my rebuke is the Keynesian demand-side tax-rebate plan agreed upon by the president and Congress. It is designed to put “money in people’s pockets,” and that it will. But it will also produce larger deficits for no good reason.

Interestingly, when he is advocating a supply-side policy, the “mistake” is avoided:

If you really want to stimulate greater economic activity, the supply-side is the best way to go: Lower tax rates across the board. Bush and Congress got this right in 2003. They blew it in 2008.

By the definition he uses above, lowering taxes is a helicopter drop, but for the tax cuts he likes the helicopter only flies over wealthy neighborhoods. That explains why he suddenly drops the incorrect helicopter drop label in describing the policy. The incorrect label is only used when he wants to try to undermine policies at odds with his political ideology.

The article ends with:

While your rebate checks are being written, however, at least you now have the answer to the ubiquitous helicopter mystery: Fiscal policy is the “culprit,” and the Fed is just along for the ride.

The only people being taken for a ride or those who believe this nonsense.

Kevin Drum is Shrill

It's Bill Keller of the New York Times, who has no business being a journalist anymore.

Kevin writes:

The Washington Monthly: THE TIMES SPEAKS....Really, this is unbelievable. Here is New York Times executive editor Bill Keller in an online Q&A declaring himself surprised by both the volume and the lopsidedness of the reaction to Wednesday's John McCain non-affair story:

And, frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story. Perhaps here, at the outset of this conversation, is a good point to state as clearly as possible our purpose in publishing. [Blah blah blah] The point of this "Long Run" installment was that, according to people who know him well, this man who prizes his honor above all things and who appreciates the importance of appearances also has a history of being sometimes careless about the appearance of impropriety, about his reputation. The story cites several examples, and quotes friends and admirers talking of this apparent contradiction in his character. That is why some members of his staff were so alarmed by the appearance of his relationship with Ms. Iseman. And that, it seemed (and still seems) to us, was something our readers would want to know about a man who aspires to be president.

The "larger point." Right. This is just embarrassing. Everybody with a pulse knows that no one is criticizing the Times for reporting that McCain was doing the bidding of a lobbyist and campaign contributor. Rather, this story has gotten saturation coverage because the Times has been careful to refer to Vicki Iseman as a "female lobbyist" on practically every occasion it can %u2014 including the introduction to the very Q&A Keller is taking part in. Times reader aren't children. We all know what this means, and we all know perfectly well that the Times piece loudly insinuated some kind of inappropriate romantic involvement between McCain and Iseman. So far, though, the Q&A has addressed only the peripheral subjects of what "Long Run" pieces are like, what the Times' policy on anonymous sources is, and the Chinese wall between the newsroom and the editorial page staff. Riveting stuff.

And the elephant in the room? Missing in action so far. Do you think they'll ever get to it?

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

No, National Review Is Not Better than It Used to Be

For some reason, John Holbo does not deploy his Filmerian patriarchal powers to prohibit his wife Belle Waring from reading National Review. I hope she has not done permanent damage to her mighty Krell-like brain:

John & Belle Have A Blog: Nasty: Sometimes I read old articles from the National Review and I think, where did that spirit of frank, open racism go? Why must John Derbyshire be restrained by political correctness when he "wraps his silk dressing gown tightly about his withered frame and totters onto the balcony to address the Negro Question"? But along comes sweet, sweet Lisa "Clinton really was running drugs through Mena AK" Schffrin....

Barack Obama is the new man, of course. His mixed race is a symbol of that. Just like Tiger Woods — as we have read, endlessly. What's to wonder about? But maybe it's not so simple.... [A]ll of my mixed race, black/white classmates... were always the offspring of a white mother... and usually a highly educated black father... [met in] the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics....

[T]he Kincaid article... makes a very convincing case that Obama's family... had close relations with a known black Communist... Frank Marshall Davis — appears to have been Barack's own mentor, and even a father figure.....

Political correctness was invented precisely to prevent the mainstream liberal media from persuing the questions which might arise.... It was, of course, an explicit tactic of the Communist party to stir up discontent among American blacks.... To their credit, of course, most black Americans didn't buy the commie line — and showed more faith in the possibilities of democratic change than in radical politics, and the results on display in Moscow. Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family's background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much.

The truly beautiful thing about this is that it incoherently wavers between two poles of repulsive slander: is it Communist Negroes having sex with our white women? Or are Communist Jewesses subverting black Americans who, patriotic though modestly ill-treated, would have been able to resist had the party not offered them the tempting fruits of miscegenation? Whatever it is I imagine it's music to WFB's ears. His trembling hand hoists a generous 7:30am brandy and milk to you, Lisa!

Eric Boehlert: Poetic justice: Limbaugh tries to tear GOP apart

Media Matters - Poetic justice: Limbaugh tries to tear GOP apart: Rush Limbaugh, the marauding Frankenstein's monster of the Republican Party, is on the loose again, causing all kinds of political damage with his signature off-balance swings. But as has become his custom recently, the pain from Limbaugh's rampage is being felt by his creators -- his enablers -- inside the GOP.

Limbaugh and the rest of his get-John McCain brain trust -- Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, and campus instigator Ann Coulter -- have been tripping over themselves to get in front of a microphone (preferably a television one) to denounce the Republican Party's presumptive nominee and to suggest that perhaps conservatives should even vote Democratic come November.

After years of watching Limbaugh and his various band of midnight riders within the Republican Noise Machine launch countless, hateful crusades against liberals and Democrats, it's extraordinarily satisfying to watch the Republican Party leadership discover what it feels like when Limbaugh sets his venomous, factually challenged sights on their own front-runner.

For progressives, the sprawling GOP brawl is what blogger TRex would call a schadenfreude sundae. What could be more enjoyable than watching McCain get bogged down in the far-right swamp? Answer: Watching a handful of right-wing pundits come to the belated conclusion that Limbaugh is a dunce. Or, as one Weekly Standard blogger put it last week, the Limbaugh-led response to McCain was "unhinged -- and at times spectacularly disgraceful." And Dinesh D'Souza concluded, that, yes, Limbaugh is an "egomaniac" who "has grown accustomed to conservative bigwigs worshiping at the Shrine of Rush." (Truth is, Limbaugh's not that well liked among Republicans.)

Really? Limbaugh is spreading misinformation? He's wallowing in demagoguery while bordering on megalomania? He and his pals appear to be far more interested in the number of media mentions they rack up than they do in advancing the conservative movement? Ah, what a tangled web the GOP weaves. Wonder how McCain and the Republican Party minions enjoy following behind Limbaugh's broadcast each weekday with a bucket and shovel, cleaning up the mess spread all over the floor. Enjoy!

But this is what Republicans created. They wanted Limbaugh to be an attack dog and to chew up and spit out his/the party's opponents. They wanted him to label Democrats as traitors ("What's good for Al Qaeda is good for the Democratic Party in this country today"), to label them abhorrent and mentally deranged. They wanted Limbaugh to ignore any semblance of decency when demonizing the other side. Indeed, there has been virtually no offensive line that Limbaugh has crossed that Republicans have not dutifully justified or explained away.

Even last year when Limbaugh denigrated members of the U.S. armed forces, calling military men and women who criticized the war in Iraq and advocated withdrawal "phony soldiers," what did the GOP do? It rushed to Limbaugh's defense.

The pats on the back came from presidential contender Fred Thompson and Senate Republican Conference chairman Jon Kyl (AZ), and House Minority Leader John Boehner (OH) as well as his No. 2, Roy Blunt (MO), along with fellow Reps. Mike Pence (IN), Scott Garrett (NJ). Mean Rep. Marsha Blackburn (TN) supported legislation that commended Limbaugh following his "phony soldiers" crack. Rep. Eric Cantor (VA) even unveiled a Stand With Rush e-petition, urging "conservatives around the country" to fight for Limbaugh.

Oh, and let's not forget Mitt Romney's reaction to the "phony soldiers" controversy, which was priceless. (Romney was the candidate Limbaugh championed as the one true conservative in this year's Republican race.) Romney flip-flopped! Here he is momentarily chastising Limbaugh's comments. And here Romney is, just days later, as he "rushes to the defense of Rush Limbaugh." (And Republicans used to claim that candidate Al Gore had no moral compass?)

Meanwhile, it really was rather sad to watch former Sen. Bob Dole last week write a letter to Limbaugh trying to reason with the talk-show host about whether candidate McCain was sufficiently conservative. Or when McCain himself suggested that the talk show hosts simply "calm down." Or when Bud McFarlane, former national security adviser to President Reagan, took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal over the weekend to urge Rush and his angry pack to "be rational."

Rational? Where have these Republicans been for the last decade? The Noise Machine doesn't do rational. Was Limbaugh being "rational" when he toasted photos of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib as "good old American pornography"? Was Malkin being rational last year when she attempted to Swift Boat a traumatically injured 12-year-old boy? Was Coulter being rational ... well, ever?

Sorry, GOP grown-ups. If there's one thing the Republican Noise Machine is allergic to, it's reason. And decency, and respect, and rational behavior.

And besides, why is it left to retired Republican graybeards like Dole and McFarlane to try to broker peace with the Limbaugh crowd? McCain, the party's presumptive nominee, is being savaged by a corral of radio talk-show hosts every day, and yet the silence among Republican elected officials has been deafening. Why? Because they're too afraid to stick up for their own candidate, too afraid Limbaugh and his wannabes will try burn somebody else at the stake.

I don't think progressives could have choreographed a better media meltdown if we tried.

Fact is, every time Limbaugh causes a controversy these days, the Democratic Party's political fortunes rise just a little bit -- like when he's treating McCain like a bum, or degrading phony soldiers, or mocking actor Michael J. Fox for allegedly faking the symptoms of his crippling Parkinson's disease while appearing in a Democratic-sponsored campaign ad.

What's so spectacular for the home team is that Limbaugh's crusade to demolish McCain stems from the radical right's fervent desire to cleanse the Republican Party of those who are deemed to be insufficiently pure in their conservative beliefs. And it's not just the candidates. Limbaugh has been clear that his deep disdain for McCain is driven by the fact that he might attract voters in the fall -- the wrong voters -- who do not adhere to the radical right's litmus test of right and wrong.

What Limbaugh and company are doing with their diatribes is launching political correctness into the stratosphere, and in the process herding voters toward the Democratic camp.

The best part? The whole crusade has been a colossal flop. On the eve of the Super Tuesday primary, lots of cogs in the Republican Noise Machine demanded that their readers and listeners embrace Mitt Romney.

Instead, McCain and Mike Huckabee -- the other GOP candidate deemed totally unworthy by the mighty Limbaugh -- pretty much ran the table and shoved the anointed one, Romney, right out of the race. I'd suggest the stunning failure to move the needle even an inch among self-identified Republican voters represented a nice punctuation point on the Republican Noise Machine's collapse, which, naturally, has closely mirrored President Bush's downward spiral. (The same post-Bush tremors are being felt at Fox News; read about their ratings woes here.)

Why did the get-McCain gambit fail so miserably? Maybe Republican voters saw through the transparent attacks. After all, Limbaugh himself wrote a column for The Wall Street Journal during the 2004 presidential campaign in which he commended McCain for being among the "unabashed and unashamed advocates of conservative principles and policies" in his speech at the Republican convention.

And if Limbaugh's uncontrollable disdain for McCain is based on that candidate's allegedly leftward drift on the issues, then why didn't Limbaugh try to run Rudy Giuliani out of the race? (Not that Rudy needed any help.) Giuliani's history of supporting abortion rights, embryonic stem-cell research, and gay rights makes McCain look like Ronald Reagan's long-lost brother.

And I'm sorry, but Romney as the conservative true believer? Baystaters must have spit up their Summer Shack clam chowder when they heard that line. In a manic attempt to veer right for his White House run, Romney flip-flopped on a buffet of supposedly core Republican issues, such as immigration reform, abortion, gun control, tax cuts, and gay rights. (Go here to watch Romney perform one of the purest flip-flops ever captured on tape.)

More likely, Limbaugh is just wildly out of touch with the Republican Party. During President Bush's radical pro-war tenure, the right-wing talkers and bloggers convinced themselves they represented the mainstream -- the majority -- of the GOP. But they don't. They represent the radical CPAC wing of the GOP. And it's a shrinking minority.

I just hope the McCain Crazies keep it up. Their unhinged efforts perfectly capture the state of today's conservative movement. For instance, at one point when Limbaugh was ranting against the Arizona senator on his radio show, a caller asked whether he thought McCain would pick Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) as his running mate. Limbaugh sniffed that "Lindsey Graham is certainly close enough to [McCain] to die of anal poisoning."

A Limbaugh pal told the New York Daily News that the host was simply "using a time-honored synonym for 'brown-nosing.' " But as the paper reported, "[I]f you Google the term, the only people who seem to be using it are proprietors of porn sites. "

And then there was Laura Ingraham, the oxymoronic thinking person's right-wing radio host, who became so unnerved at the prospect of a McCain nomination that she suggested that some despondent conservatives would turn themselves into "suicide voters" and cast a ballot for a Democrat in November rather than vote for McCain. (Charles Hurt, the D.C. bureau chief for the New York Post, made the same unhinged analogy.)

Suicide voters and anal poisonings, all in the name of destroying the Republican nominee from within. Hey, GOP, that's quite a Noise Machine you've constructed. Now good luck trying to dismantle it.

Marty Lederman: Lowering the Bar: Well, At Least We're Not as Barbaric as the Spanish Inquisition

Balkinization: Lowering the Bar: Well, At Least We're Not as Barbaric as the Spanish Inquisition

Has it really come to this?

In my previous post I did not adequately convey just how chilling Steve Bradbury's testimony was today. It began early on: Rep. Nadler asked Bradbury how OLC could possibly have concluded that waterboarding is not torture -- After all, isn't the whole point of the technique to induce severe physical pain and/or suffering so as to compel recalcitrant detainees to talk? Doesn't its reported effectiveness -- most victims cannot withstand more than 30 seconds of it -- speak for itself? Of course it's designed to inflict severe physical suffering. And if it does so, as Bradbury concedes, it's prohibited torture, no matter what the justification might be.

Bradbury did not respond directly to Nadler's question (although later he tipped his hand as to why he has concluded that the CIA waterboarding is not torture -- see below). Instead, Bradbury tried to reassure Nadler, and later Representative Franks, that the CIA's waterboarding was not as bad as press reports would have it -- that our variant of the technique is materially distinct from the sort of water torture used by (i) the Spanish Inquisition; (ii) U.S. forces in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th Century; and (iii) the Japanese in World War II. In those earlier historical examples, there was a "forced consumption of a mass amount of water," and occasionally the interrogators would stand or jump on the stomach of the victim, sometimes leading to "blood coming of the victim's mouth." Which apparently crosses the line. Thankfully, we do not do such terrible things.

Some of you will recognize that the technique Bradbury is disclaiming is the one often called the "water cure." The CIA doesn't use that. Instead, the agency apparently is using the less dangerous version of "waterboarding" -- the sort popularized by the French in Algeria, and by the Khmer Rouge. This technique involves placing a cloth or plastic wrap over or in the person's mouth, and pouring or dripping water onto the person's head. The CIA technique is likely a variant of what Darius Rajali, in his encyclopedic and indispensable new book, calls "Dutch choking" (see pages 281-283) -- either that or, in the cellophane variation, perhaps the "dry submarine" (see 284-285). A couple of years ago, Rejali summarized the various water tortures in an e-mail:

[T]he "water cure" admits of several variants:

(a) pumping: filling a stomach with water causes the organs to distend, a sensation compared often with having your organs set on fire from the inside. This was the Tormenta de Toca favored by the Inquisition and featured on your website photo. The French in Algeria called in the tube or tuyau after the hose they forced into the mouth to fill the organs.

(b) choking - as in sticking a head in a barrel. It is a form of near asphyxiation but it also produces the same burning sensation through all the water a prisoner involuntarily ingests. This is the example illustrated in the Battle of Algiers movie, a technique called the sauccisson or the submarine in Latin America. Prisoners describe their chests swelling to the size of barrels at which point a guard would stomp on the stomach forcing the water to move in the opposite direction.

(c) choking - as in attaching a person to a board and dipping the board into water. This was my understanding of what waterboarding was from the initial reports. The use of a board was stylistically most closely associated with the work of a Nazi political interrogator by the name of Ludwig Ramdor who worked at Ravensbruck camp. Ramdor was tried before the British Military Court Martial at Hamburg (May 1946 to March 1947) on charges for subjecting women to this torture, subjecting another woman to drugs for interrogation, and subjecting a third to starvation and high pressure showers. He was found guilty and executed by the Allies in 1947.

(d) choking - as in forcing someone to lie down, tying them down, then putting a cloth over the mouth, and then choking the prisoner by soaking the cloth. This also forces ingestion of water. It was invented by the Dutch in the East Indies in the 16th century, as a form of torture for English traders. More recently it was common in the American south, especially in police stations, in the 1920s, as documented in the famous Wickersham Report of the American Bar Association (The Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement, 1931), compiling instances of police torture throughout the United States.

CIA officers who have subjected themselves to the CIA version of the technique -- probably (c) or (d), if Bradbury is to believed -- reportedly have lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. Yet no severe physical pain or suffering?! How can that be?

Bradbury later confirmed (see the video at 36:20-37:00) what I've often speculated here: OLC's view is that a technique is not torture if, "subject to strict safeguards, limitations and conditions, [it] does not involve sever physical pain or severe physical suffering -- and severe physical suffering, we said on our December 2004 Opinion, has to take account of both the intensity of the discomfort or distress involved, and the duration, and something can be quite distressing or comfortable, even frightening, [but] if it doesn't involve severe physical pain, and it doesn't last very long, it may not constitute severe physical suffering. That would be the analysis."

Let's be very clear: This so-called "analysis" is at the very core of the OLC justification for waterboarding, and possibly several other components of the CIA program, as well. And it is flatly, 100% wrong, and indefensible, for reasons I have discussed at length. The fact that Judge Mukasey continues to abide by it is a scandal. And the fact that Congress has not said a word about this legal linchpin of the OLC/CIA regime is even worse.

Waterboarding, even the CIA version, entails excruciating and intense physical suffering. That's why they use it. The account by "Scylla", set out below, describes the effects quite well. His conclusion?: "I'll put it this way. If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I'd take the fingers, no question. It's horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I'd prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I'd give up anything, say anything, do anything."

And yet OLC concludes that this unimaginable physical suffering is not "severe." Why? Because it is so effective at inflicting intense, unparalleled suffering that it does not last very long.

To say that this is not severe physical suffering -- is not torture -- is absurd. And to invoke the defense that what the Spanish Inquisition did was worse, that we use a more benign, non-torture form of waterboarding -- after all, we don't stomp on the victim's chest! -- is obscene. And yet here we have a United States official invoking that justification today, in sworn testimony to Congress, without betraying the slightest hint of self-awareness of how grotesque it is . . . and no one so much as blinked, so inured are we to this discourse by now.

---

Scylla's description of self-inflicted waterboarding that sounds as if it might be similar to that approved as lawful for use by the CIA:

[T]hose of you who know me will know that I am both enamored of my own toughness and prone to hyperbole. The former, I feel that I am justifiably proud of. The latter may be a truth in many cases, but this is the simple fact:

It took me ten minutes to recover my senses once I tried this. I was shuddering in a corner, convinced I narrowly escaped killing myself.

Here's what happened:

The water fills the hole in the saran wrap so that there is either water or vaccum in your mouth. The water pours into your sinuses and throat. You struggle to expel water periodically by building enough pressure in your lungs. With the saran wrap though each time I expelled water, I was able to draw in less air. Finally the lungs can no longer expel water and you begin to draw it up into your respiratory tract.

It seems that there is a point that is hardwired in us. When we draw water into our respiratory tract to this point we are no longer in control. All hell breaks loose. Instinct tells us we are dying.

I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You [b]know[b] you are dead and it's too late. Involuntary and total panic.

There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It would be like telling you not to blink while I stuck a hot needle in your eye.

At the time my lungs emptied and I began to draw water, I would have sold my children to escape. There was no choice, or chance, and willpower was not involved.

I never felt anything like it, and this was self-inflicted with a watering can, where I was in total control and never in any danger.

And I understood.

Waterboarding gets you to the point where you draw water up your respiratory tract triggering the drowning reflex. Once that happens, it's all over. No question.

Some may go easy without a rag, some may need a rag, some may need saran wrap.

Once you are there it's all over.

I didn't allow anybody else to try it on me. Inconceivable. I know I only got the barest taste of what it's about since I was in control, and not restrained and controlling the flow of water.

But there's no chance. No chance at all.

So, is it torture?

I'll put it this way. If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I'd take the fingers, no question.

It's horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I'd prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I'd give up anything, say anything, do anything.

The Spanish Inquisition knew this. It was one of their favorite methods.

It's torture. No question. Terrible terrible torture. To experience it and understand it and then do it to another human being is to leave the realm of sanity and humanity forever. No question in my mind.

David Weman Is Shrill!

He says that Jonathan Rauch is a horrible human being:

Jonathan Rauch is a horrible human being | afoe | A Fistful of Euros | European Opinion: I'll do a rare US-centric post, because this kind of stunned me. Rauch argues that republicans will call a democratic withdrawal from Iraq a stab in the back, and to avoid that Democrats should stretch out withdrawal over several years.

Why that would stop the wingnuts from shouting treason he doesn't bother to explain, but more importantly: The lives or Iraqis or US troops goes unmentioned. The US national interest goes unmentioned. Just avoid contentiousness at all cost. Oh, and if there is any contentiousness it'll be the dirty hippies fault.

Matthew Yglesias Is Shrill!

It's the idiocy of Mark Penn:

Penn's Bad Spin (Media): Mark Penn's latest memo:

Change Begins March 4th. Hillary leads in the three largest, delegate rich states remaining: Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These three states have 492 delegates - 64 percent of the remaining delegates Hillary Clinton needs to win the nomination.

Chris Orr notes that this only works "If Clinton wins all three states by margins of 100-0." Penn doesn't seem to really understand spin. The point of spin is to make the person on whose behalf the spinning is happening look better, not worse. There's no point in just saying any old thing. What's more, it's not really surprising that he's bad at spin -- he's a pollster. Spinning is a distinct skill-set. But for some reason he seems to be doing an awful lot of it, and not very well.