Of course “political science” is nearly an oxymoron, but if I were to study the subject at a university, I’d want Michael Barone as my professor. No one is more illuminating on our polity and he has rarely been better than he is in his new essay “American Politics in The Networking Era” in the current National Journal. (via PoliPundit)
If I were a Democratic Party operative reading this article, I would be afraid, I would be very afraid. Barone makes an all-too- cogent argument for the emergence of a Republican majority in our new age of networking (you’re part of one now, I guess, reading this). Michael shows how Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman exploited these emerging networks in a more far-reaching manner even than Howard Dean and his vaunted Deaniacs who initially supported the Dean campaign. (They way out did Dean in email addresses, among other things. And did you know people with “caller ID” tend to vote Republican?) The detailed specificity and planning by Rove and Mehlman is quite amazing and, yes, in a certain sense scary.
In the midst of reading this essay, I was suddenly reminded of the weirdly paranoid Congressman Hinchey of Ithaca NY and his bizarre and repeated assertions that Karl Rove was behind the forged National Guard documents promulgated by Dan Rather. Congressman Hinchey should read this article if he really wants to know what Rove was and is about. Karl, quite obviously, wouldn’t waste his time on anything so pointless and risky as forged documents. He was too busy with the important business of actually winning an election (and future ones as well) while the Hinchey’s of the world were busy looking for someone to blame as an excuse for their own failure. Unfortunately, I’m not sure the Congressman has the intellectual horsepower… or is it the emotional balance… to understand that.
That is the one thing the ranters currently in charge of the Democratic Party cannot learn. And if they do learn it, I doubt they have to self-discipline to apply it.
Richard,
They still think Clinton was good for the party. Don’t worry about them learning anything.
Right now they think they got Bush on the ropes over Social Security.
Do they really know how long FDR has been dead?
Speaking of caller ID the other day some nut job that came up as out of area on my caller ID left an automated message about social security. All about how Bush is going to destroy it and leave folks to starve.
This is where Dems make their mistake. The point is not whether most people really feel comfortable with private accounts, it is that this is the only rational alternative they have because the Democrats are too busy acting like children to come up with one.
And the idea that Rove would do what Hinchey said is stupid. Just plain dumb.
“They still think Clinton was good for the party.”
I don’t know. I think if Kerry had followed Clinton’s example and had a Sista Soulja moment with the anti-war left he might have been able to pull it off. I could never see Clinton alienating the center to appease a faction that would have turned out to vote for a turnip just as long as its last name wasn’t Bush. Compare Hillary’s rhetoric on Iraq/WoT with Kerry’s; she hasn’t been nearly as deferential to the sensitivities of the Michael Moore crowd.
Trebek,
I think that probably would have been a waffle too far. Besides, without the moveon morons, Ohio wouldn’t have been as close. If Kerry had performed one more flip, they would have sat on their hands. Clinton would never have put himself in the position that Kerry did because he was a much better personal politician than Kerry could ever hope to be. He was just a really lousy party politician. He got himself elected twice (without a majority) but I’ll give you an hour or two to come up with five names of other elected Democrats whose careers he helped advance. I’ll spot you Hillary and Rahm Emanuel, so you just need three. By ’98 nobody but safe seaters wanted him anywhere near their campaigns and that will continue to be true in the future.
For real amusement, and contrast to Barone’s trenchant analysis check out http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/02/fascination-with-fascism.html (courtesy of John Cole) and the comments to Jeff Jarvis’ plea for inclusion of center Dems at http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2005_02_26.html#009146.
Not much listening from the true Deaniacs.
Whee! Earthquake in LA! Felt like about a 3, 3.5…
I live in South Carolina, spend a lot of time in Northern Virginia. I feel that I must argue that the moonbat Democrats like the congressman from Ithaca are the exception. I really want to. So here goesÖ. Nothing.
The traditional Dems down here used to exhibit a fair degree of maturity and judgment, but theyíve gone overboard. They rail about the racism, sexism, and whatever inherent to the Republican Party, reserving their vilest, cruelest remarks for the minorities and females in the administration.
Most of the true believers are on the mailing and email lists of every ìprogressiveî operation extant. A number of women ñ some are doing well, some are just getting by ñ have told me that they gave everything they could last October / November with each email appeal.
But each has only one vote. Moneyís important, and $500 is better than $50, but ten contributors who can afford only the latter but who will show up at the polling place are better than two that can afford the former. The smooth Rovian move to cement the next election would be to strengthen the credential requirements for voters. The Dems like to focus on Ohio and, to a lesser extent, Florida, but the shenanigans in Wisconsin and Minnesota probably cost Bush victories there.
Trebek ó Hillary didn’t need the moonbats yet. Let’s see what happens if she decides to go for the nomination…
Our problem with Hillary is that she has moved to the Center.
That means two different things.
To Centrist democrats (and a lot of Republicans) it means she has moved to the Center.
To moonbats it means she is just _pretending_ to move to the Center.
She will still get their votes.
On the surface, the 2004 election looked very much like the 2000 election. George W. Bush was again running against a liberal Democrat who had spent much of his career in the Senate and who had clinched his nomination by early victories in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Barone is wrong above and then right, in a mostly superficial way, for the remainder of the essay. Barone’s type of prognosticator made (makes?) an interesting contrast to the others in his profession who appear on television to discuss the “politics of the last five minutes.” Is The McLaughlin Group still on? I doubt he’d be a noteworthy college professor (in whatever department,) and it’d have nothing to do with his politics.
Syl ó But you gotta remember, to a lot of the moonbats, Kerry was just The Other Fascist.
Go visit Jeff Jarvis’ site to see how they treat people who put one foot off the ideological reservation…
Please don’t base your understanding of Barone on this one essay. First off, let’s look at his credentials from his site, http://www.michaelbarone.com:
“Michael Barone is Senior Writer, U.S. News & World Report. Barone grew up in Detroit and Birmingham, Michigan. He was graduated from Harvard College (1966) and Yale Law School (1969), and was an editor of the Harvard Crimson and the Yale Law Journal.
“Mr. Barone served as Law Clerk to Judge Wade H. McCree, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1969 to 1971. From 1974 to 1981 he was a Vice President of the polling firm of Peter D. Hart Research Associates. From 1981 to 1988 he was a member of the editorial page staff of the Washington Post. From 1989 to 1996 and again from 1998 to the present, he has been a Senior Writer with U.S. News & World Report. From 1996 to 1998 he was a Senior Staff Editor at Reader’s Digest.”
Now, I certainly don’t think that his credentials alone counter the observation that his essay was superficial, but they certainly show that he’s no idiot.
Moving on, all you had to do was watch his performance on Fox News (as their play-by-play analyst) on election night to see the depth of his knowledge. His stuff was not scripted, and he was talking about things in my state, at the county level (Florida) that was almost eerie in terms of his understanding of the voting patters of the state.
But, as the author of the Almanac of American Politics (which contains gobs of commentary and statistics) every two years, he’d have that kind of knowledge.
Finally, his mind evolves. He understands trends and has that rare gift of a strategic mind, something woefully deficient in today’s media or academia.
I’d also suspect he’d be a fabulous teacher, in the personal sense of the word. The guy comes across as real. I imagine he’d understand the gravity of his duty in the classroom, and focus on opening minds and challenging students. This last bit is a supposition, I grant, but after having seen the man for scores of hours over the last 5 years, that counts for something.
Don’t judge Barone by this one article. Take a look at his other stuff and then see what you think of the man.
KCTrio
My friend is convinced the next great Rove conspiracy is Condi 2008. Whether Condi or not it seems to this simple soul the African-American vote is the final piece of the puzzle Barone has so elegantly described. He argues what are the faith based initiatives but the transfer of money from Democratic social workers and their unions to Republican (becoming) churches and private organizations. That the latter get results, compared to the former, and in the process frees the people from Democratic clutches, is no small thing. School choice: ditto. From success in these private spheres candidates will emerge and take public positions. Tactical genius. Bye bye Jesse Jackson. I still remember seeing his caravan go by one Sunday morning in the South Side of Chicago. His limo with flags in the front flapping. The motorcade would do any third world tyrant justice and sent similar messages. Anyway, the RNC has made this priority number one. And Rice with her “granddaddy Rice” speeches will bring the African-Americans back to the party in droves. My friend is optimistic that at the same time Rice and Rove are talented enough to grow the heretofore base even more. I say, more Rovian conspiracies!!
Elsewhere Iíve perhaps overused the analogy of Bush as a poker player.
Chess is highly structured and predictable two-party game. (Yes, one player may play against multiple players simultaneously, but moves against one player in one match donít affect another match.). Poker involves multiple players and multiple, unpredictable hands; the outcome of one hand does not determine the options for the next hand. In fact, in poker one may lose, i.e., not win, several hands in succession, yet end up the winner. Oneís opponentsí tactics may change as play progresses in poker, requiring changes in oneís own tactics as the cards allow. Bush has proven to be a master at gaining the sense of the table and timing necessary to prevail. Bush has the patience to allow others to loose, the key to poker.
Barone is not the most insightful guy commenting on politics today, but he is the most honest. I always listen closely to anything he has to say.
OK, I gotta say it: even if Rove DID plant the memo, CBS and the Dems were dumb enough to fall for it. And they’ve got no one to blame for that but themselves.
Which brings us to Bush’s (and the GOP’s) intellect, or supposed lack thereof. Ha. Kid’s analogy to chess as well as poker is apt.
OK, Roberts:
I’ll confess I’m not a Michael Barone worshiper, but let me ask you a question: Who do you think are examples of more insightful people commenting on politics these days?
I don’t mind if you put Bloggers up there, but it’d be nice if you listed a few that have the audience reach that Barone has. I’d say Roger Simon is pretty insightful, and so are the Powerline men. Then there’s Hugh Hewitt, and probably a whole bunch of left-leaning insightful commentators.
But still, I’d like your opinion, if you be so kind to oblige.
KCTrio
Chaotic theoretical matrix (use to be called fate, pendulum swings) may be (in the big picture) ways of helping us get on with it.
Meaning – for what we are capable of (technologically) we are sure slow to change.
SO, If we respond to the scare tactics (repubs want to take social sec away, bla bla bla) the scare tactics will emerge as a constant to change. Reed and Pelosi believe that. Just keep saying it and hope will make it so.
Clearly, the WH could use a Clinton Monica defense force to sell SS reform, tax reform etc.
“These charges that we want to take your SS away are false, I need to get back to work for the American people. Yadi yadiada.
It worked for Bill, and all he wanted was to keep HIS numbers up.
Roberts:
Here’s Hugh Hewitt’s thoughts on Barone:
“Ruffini catches the Barone must read first. (The full Barone piece is here.) If I was a CEO of a Fortune 100, the guy I would hire to brief my staff and board on what was happening in America –every year, no matter the cost– would be Michael Barone. Does any single political analyst have more credibility?”
The above comment deals with the article discussed here.
At least Mr. Hewitt thinks pretty highly of the man’s insights. That counts a lot in my book (and if you read my earlier post, you’ll see that I base my opinion of Barone on personal experience; I’m merely adding Hewitt’s comment to make a point of reference).
KCTrio
“Syl ó But you gotta remember, to a lot of the moonbats, Kerry was just The Other Fascist.”
Richard, yeah, but they voted for him anyway. Whether some moonbats believe Hillary or not doesn’t matter. She’s got their votes.
“Go visit Jeff Jarvis’ site to see how they treat people who put one foot off the ideological reservation…”
Ugh. I did. Ugh.
On the other hand, appropos the solidarity in the voting booth, does it really matter?
Why is it necessary to question Barone’s fine credentials? His Almanac establishes his bona fides as an insightful commentator. For those of you who have read the whole article, you know that this long brillant article is excerpted from a larger article in the Almanac which regrettably we will have to await until the Almanac comes out in full in the summer. Sigh!!!
Barone’s point: the 2004 election rivalled the transformatory elections of 1896 (McKinley) and 1936 (FDR) in signalling a tectonic shift in the American electorate. Statistics back Barone. This should be the nub of our discussion.
ìAnd Rice with her “granddaddy Rice” speeches will bring the African-Americans back to the party in droves.î
Droves? Condoleezza Rice needs to capture a mere 20% of the black vote to doom the Democratic Party. The Republicans will probably have a lock on a minimum of 300 electoral votes. I personally suspect that Ms. Rice will carry at least 40% of the black vote—but this is not necessary.
KCtrio,
Thanks for reminding me of Barone’s analysis on election night. I kept wishing they’d shut down the rest of the tripe and let this guy ‘splain to me WTF was going on. All those stations with all their giant teams of experts and constant analysis and number crunching and the only one who really seemed to have a handle on the numbers was Barone. That doesn’t mean he was the only one who did or does have a handle on the numbers but he was the only one who made sense to me that night. I would have been downright bummed if he’d been telling me stuff I didn’t wanna hear
I remember Barone talking about Ohio on election night. He knew every county, how many people voted there, how they were registered etc. It was amazing.
Knuck,
The awesome part was the precinct level analysis of Ohio. The credulously cretinous newsreaders at the alphabets were still working from the AP ‘How to steal an election with misleading exit poll data’ playbook while Barone was laying the foundation for Fox’s correct call. One might wonder if Barone had helped Fox develop a ‘network’ of data sources that were, hmm, let’s say ‘reality based’, in lieu of AP’s fantasy league exit poll takers.
I would spend money on a seminar conducted by Barone in a heartbeat. Just on the chance that he would profer an opinion on how far inside the Dem OODA loop the Reps truly are and whether he considers the Rep strategy to be as sustainable as it is scaleable. I’d also like to hear his opinion of the Dem/AP theft by exit poll strategy.
David,
Absolutely. Twenty percent is more than enough. Even without Rice running, whomever the candidate is, I imagine that twenty percent is what the RNC is working towards. I think they can get it. Can they also increase the hispanic vote at the same time? Keep all the other gains Barone speaks about? Again, I think yes. I think the Dems are in much more trouble than even Barone is willing to admit. Of course I admit to being deluded, possibly, by wishful thinking. Moreover, with Rice running I’ll see your forty and raise ya fifteen, nah, twenty. I do wonder what the polling at the RNC is looking like. If after moderate gains in ’06 and we’re talking about winning 45, 46 states with coattails, doesn’t her candidacy become assured? Especially if it allows the Clintons to be finished off once and for all.
Evidently, I badly chose my words in my attempt to describe my admiration of Barone’s work. What I wanted to emphasize was that Barone does an extraordinary job of extensive solid understanding of election politics and honestly and competently reports what he finds. No one else does anything like it.
Rick Ballard,
Put aside, for a moment, whatever you or I might prefer for a ticket in ’08 (way too early for me to want anything more fuzzy than “Continued and Intensifying Pain and Suffering for Dems”), and ponder whassup wit Powell and the London Interview. Whattaya think of a Powell-Rice ticket?
The point is, as with the Fair Economic Model that was so widely touted prior to the election, such statistics as there are can be made to support all sorts of theories and conclusions (which would be covered in a comprehensive assessment) and the War in Iraq, which was the most significant factor in making the election close, is mentioned once, at most, in a paragraph about what—a dynamic and networked America?
The first two sentences (noted above) are just plain wrong and place the essay on a bad footing from the very beginning.
BTW, saying this essay is superficial doesn’t say that Barone isn’t one of the best among those who inform the public on these matters. He is. His style though would not have made him a professor I’d have enjoyed listening to for any sustained period of time. Pompous was not a quality I particularly liked in lecturers.
On election night I wasn’t watching or listening to television coverage. I was monitoring county results, primarily, in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan and doing other “fun” things.
Knuck,
Two people on the ticket who have never run for public office? I don’t think that has happened before and I’m not sure it would be a good idea. The potential for electoral success would be dependent upon their ability to articulate personal positions that were consonant with the current platform. I could see one of them taking a position on abortion that would cost them as many votes as they might gain from the black bloc. IMO the Rep primary in ’08 is going to be the toughest in living memory. If they’re able to get through it they might have a decent chance.
Rick,
“IMO the Rep primary in ’08 is going to be the toughest in living memory.”
What if Bush/Cheney aren’t neutral? I can see them wanting to protect gains, and further assure their legacy.
David, yama-arashi (Ohayo!) et al ó I expect Condoleeza Rice would be an enormousbelong!” a true progressive would sneer) and they’re going to do it again. Probably more so.
Remember, Democrats are incapable of shame, but they can be embarrassed, and associating with these people is only going to get more and more embarassing as time goes on…
Richard,
Ohayougozaimasu to you. In these parts it is oyasuminasai time so: Enormous what? I can’t go to sleep until I find out.
yama-arashi,
I expect that W will focus on strengthening the legislative side. His conduct in the ’06 cycle will give a decent read of probable future conduct. I really don’t see him interfering in the primary process. I expect that he will support whoever wins the primary and I’m sure that he has assured every potential candidate of that fact. Look at McCain’s behavior in supporting Bush for an example of putting party above personal preference. And look at the Clinton’s stuffing Terry ‘Rolodex’ McCauliffe into the DNC chair as an example of putting the personal above all else.
Rick,
Can’t much disagree with those points. I am sure you are right. But just for fun, what if one candidate in particular creates gains of such importance, the final nail in the coffin if you like, gains that would survive a few decades or more on, and in this case doesn’t putting party above personal preference take on a whole different meaning. The onus is then on Frist, McCain (poor guy, always having to do the decent thing), and all the others. Especially if Rice wouldn’t and they might lose to Hillary. Again, I realize this is all silly speculation on my part.
Rice/Cheney? Kind of takes care of the no incumbent problem.
Ballard:
You can find Barone’s opinion on the Dem/AP theft-by-exit-poll strategy in the “Limbaugh Letter,” December edition. I know, quoting from the Limbaugh Letter might seem a bit weak, but in this case, it’s the best source you’ll find, because the issue that I’m speaking of was actually a printed transcript between Rush and Barone. It really was a riveting interview.
If memory serves me, here was Barone’s take on the matter. He said that there are thousands of precincts in key states like Florida. And to stuff the exit poll (his words), you’d have to have prior knowledge of where the exit-pollsters would be prior to the election.
His theory was that someone within the NEP organization (I think that’s the National Exit Poll pool that replaced the VNS–voter’s news service–organization after the 2000 election) leaked the location of which precincts their pollsters would be. And the exit-pollsters were paid by completed interview, and it didn’t matter if they reached their quotas by gender, income, race, etc., they just got completed polls. So, if you had prior knowledge of the locations of those polling places, you could recruit a few hundred fanatics to stuff the exit poll.
You can drive from Tallahassee to Tampa in about 4-5 hours, so it’d be tough to do the kind of stuffing without prior knowledge, Barone reasons. He indicated in the Rush interview that if you had simply a couple of hundred extra candidates/respondents that you placed around a given state, when their results were rolled up on a state-level with the hundreds of other surveys, the impact would skew the results.
In the same interview, Barone goes even further. He suggests that he’s seen no political science research that shows how this behavior impacts voter behavior (if you think your guy’s toast, do you stay home, or do you get even more intent on voting?).
He states that the stuffing theory is simply an opinion he has, but he really does say it with such force that you must conclude that he believes it is veridical. As to the value of stuffing the polls, he doesn’t say in the interview one way or the other whether the stuffing strategy works, but he seems to be inclined that it backfired on the people that tried to pull it off.
Sorry for the massive missive.
KCTrio
Yama-Arashi ó Wow, that was one badly messed-up post. No idea how that happened.
Anyway, what I had written was, “Condi will be an enormous draw among African-American women voters, easily enough to pull 20% or more of the African-American vote if she runs. So look for the Democrats to start running a vicious defamation campaign against her.”
And I don’t share a lot of the optimisim I’m hearing about McCain here; this is not a man I think of when the phrase “do the right thing” comes to mind. His conduct in the Keating scandal, the disastrous McCain-Feingold Act, and his general weathervane behavior for his own personal political advancement warn me off him. Right now, he’s making nice with the Administration because he is thinking ahead to the primaries, but frankly, if Condi decides to run, McCain is the man in the Republican Party I expect to play the race card (“our base won’t stand for it…”), even if discreetly behind the scenes…
Richard:
I rather like your thoughts on McCain, but somehow I can’t help but feel torn between the feeling that he is a man of honor to the core. I just take a look at his own history (adopting Asian children, suffering for years in a North Vietnamese prison) and cannot bring myself to call him a man with no core beliefs. I come to the opposite conclusion; I see him as a man with core beliefs, that lathers them in a patina of partisanship.
This might seem self-contradictory on my part, but I think that he holds some pretty liberal beliefs (socially, economically) that make it impossible for him to be loved by conservatives. He’s loved by the media because of those beliefs.
But if you couple the fact that he’s adopted Asian children with the fact that he’s driven by core beliefs (my opinion), I see it impossible for him to play the race card, even in the white heat of the campaign. I could see him talking down to Rice, in the sense that he could say “I’ve served in the Senate for X number of years, you’ve never been voted to anything.” But imply or subtly play the race card? I find it unimaginable.
KCTrio
KCTrio ó I occasionally post things I’d like to be wrong on; let’s agree to hope that’s one of them. I suspect not, though.
Isn’t there a blogger from McCain’s state who spends a lot of tike on him? Does anyone have the link?
Richard:
I’d hope and pray that he’d never do such a thing.
I like your description of posting things that you’d like to wrong on. I’m even worse. I have a sunny optimism about everything in my life and those around me, but then I’m cynical to the core and constantly try to find the bad in people. Go figure. I’m a cynical optimist. If that’s not grounds for insanity, I don’t know what is.
But hey, my wife and kids seem to still love me, so maybe I’m not all that bad.
KCTrio
Richard,
I agree the Dems would make fools of themselves and show why Byrd is part of their party. With McCain I don’t know if anything can save him. The people he’d be playing the card to are the same people who don’t like him very much to begin with. I more than admit all of this is wishful thinking on my part. I was born and raised a Republican. Goldwater, Reagan, Bush. I also spent a lot of time when I was growing up in African American communities. I never meant so many conservative people in my life. Felt right at home. Except on voting day. I do want Condi to run and win, and in 2008. I can’t think of a better day for my party, and more importantly for my country, than her inauguration. I say wear the boots. I’d also like to see Cheney become the FDR of vice presidents. As an American living abroad and constantly having to swat down this and that absurdity about the U.S., her election would make my life much easier. But all this is not terribly appropriate and I apologize for advocacy of this sort, I pledge to stop. Or tone it down. Sorry about using up so much space. Now to sleep. Thanks Richard for giving me a lot to think about. Next time I’ll actually think and then respond, instead of responding and later thinking.
“meant”
It is past my futontime.
I think that the moonbats are right in the case of Hillary: She is pretending to move to the center. She learned from her husband’s races very well.
If I thought that centrist beliefs are her core beliefs, then she might persuade some. As for me, I’m not buying.
Here are some links to a few of the wanderings of John McCain…
Richard:
OK, so McCain vacillates all over the place, or so one might posit. And that’d be right. But let me ask you: Has he, during his wanderings, taken contradictory positions that fit the political winds? In other words, has he taken one stance, stood his ground, then reversed himself in a short enough time span to cast the curse of “opportunist” at his feet?
I don’t know. I didn’t take the time to review all of the CQ links, but I do follow McCain and have for a while. Not like I follow W or Kerry, but I have seen him speak out on a variety of things. I think that Greta van Sustern and he seem share a certain love for each other (he always seems to appear on her show just when Greta wants a voice of reason to clarify matters). I have seen many of these interviews, and Greta, to her credit, lets the man speak and doesn’t interrupt. So you get a pretty good fix on what McCain is saying from the start of the thought to the end. She lets him make his statement so it emanates, in its entirety, to the ears and mind of the viewer.
So, my theory is this: McCain is a man that takes a firm stand on an issue, and doesn’t vacillate. He just holds stands on a variety of issues that, in aggregate, seem to be all over the map. But that doesn’t make him an opportunist, it just makes him a bit hard to pin down. And it also makes him unpalatable to conservatives. And it also makes him unelectable. And that’s inevitable.
If Rice runs in the primary, she’ll mop the floor with him. He just won’t draw out the conservative voters. Rice is every conservative’s dream candidate, and McCain’s dream of one day manning the ship of state would scatter to the four corners of the earth, never to be retrieved again.
If I’m wrong on McCain, I’ll apologize immediately for being uninformed. Please, someone correct me if need be.
Thanks to all for the links and the discussion. It’s superb.
KCTrio
Oliver Willis explains why the Democrats don’t need us…
There is no way that I would ever consider voting for John McCain. This from someone who has voted for Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Dole and Bush. Why?
McCain Feingold. This is the single most tyrannical law that has been passed in my life time. When the government controls political speech all else is lost.
Anybody got a line on how blogs are going to be regulated next time around? Or who will try?
AlanC:
I couldn’t agree more. I never would vote for the guy, either. I just stated that I think he’s a man of integrity. That doesn’t imply that he’s a man of wisdom. I, like you, would sooner vote for Michael Moore than McCain (OK, that’s an exaggeration).
The McCain-Feingold bill was a travesty. And if anyone showed opportunism (or political savvy, depending on your perspective) it was W, not McCain. W didn’t veto the bill because he knew that it would destroy his political captial (you know, those bothersome 2002 mid-term elections that gave the GOP back to the Senate).
But McCain was genuinely for the reckless bill, to the core. So, I’ll recategorize my feelings on McCain: I think he’s a man of integrity who supports, honestly supports, some inane and reckless legislation. But I still say he’s less of an opportunist than some might aver.
Again, show me where he’s changed his position on policy in a short period of time just for political advantage. Show me some strong examples of that, and I’ll retract everything I’ve said about his integrity (except for his service to his country).
One more thing about the guy. Did any of you ever consider this: Why did McCain forgive Kerry and all of the disgusting things he did post-Vietnam? I’ve searched my heart on this, and I have come to only one conclusion: He had to. He couldn’t live in anger at his fellow man every day. I respect the Swifties for everything they did, especially the POWs that joined them (hell, I even gave them $1,000). But while they have a right for their anger towards Kerry, McCain did, in my opinion, show a certain grace by not harboring the same hatred of JFK. Of course he’s human, but I do think this little example, to me at least, shows a man of rare character. I may not vote for the man, but I have a deep-seated respect for him, because he has lived and done things that I can only imagine, and furthermore, don’t think I’d be capable of living through or doing myself.
Just my 30 cents.
KCTrio
AlanC ó I would host a blog on a Russian porn ISP before I will submit to government regulation of what I type in my own home,,,
KCTrio,
McCain graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis and earned his position. I will not deny his honesty and integrity but I do believe that it is linked both to his propensity for poor impulse control and an obstinacy that mere facts cannot overcome. McCain/Feingold is a fine example of good intentions applied with a shallowness of thought and foresight that is quite remarkable. Not particuarly appealing in a candidate for President.
Thanks for the synopsis of Barone’s thoughts concerning the AP shenanigans. I believe that the card was played in anticipation of the election being much closer than it actually was. It was all tied to the “ten thousand lawyers” standing guard over the electoral process in the hopes of fomenting another action to delegitimize the results. It’s a damn good thing that W had a 3 million vote victory.
Rick:
If you go through my posts, you’ll see that I agree with you on McCain supporting reckless legislation. And further, I stated that just becausse he has integrity doesn’t imply that he has wisdom. Sorry if I sound defensive here, but I am simply pointing out that I agree with you completely about the man’s support.
Where I would differ from you is that I’d avoid the armchair analysis as to the man’s motives. Whatever they are, he and we, are still, human, all too human.
Best regards,
KCTrio
KCTrio ó Actions of McCain’s, such as his joining a posse of US Senators who actually confronted federal banking regulators and demanded they stop investigating bank fraud and heavy donor Charles Keating, suggest his motives may be open to discussion…
Richard:
I stand corrected on that one. Good example; I’d forgotten the depths that he went to thwart the investigations. I also recall his work with Kerry on the Vietnam/POW issue, and that seemed less than honrable.
What were his motives? I don’t know. Are they pure and simple those of an opportunist; or, are they worse, one who willfully misguides others for his own agenda?
I am still inclined to believe that he’s motivated by his own convictions, whatever they may be, and those convictions are honest and not based on trickery or subversion of the public goodwill. Maybe I’m wrong on this.
As I said, I don’t think much of the man, politically speaking, though I do respect his ability to forgive Kerry, his pretty damn good speach at the convention, and the fact that he fought for and suffered for his country. On this last thing, his suffering in prison, I can’t seem to lose sight of. And it is because of this that I still hold the man in high regard for these particular reasons. Though I’d never vote for him.
BTW: If you’d like a partial copy of the Barone interview in the Limbaugh letter, let me know and maybe I can figure out a way to scan a few parts of it and send it your way. Of course, I’d want to stay in the fair use rules. Anyway, Rush probably wouldn’t mind if I sent them to you personally; it’d help build his subscription base if you liked the quotes. If you’re interested, send me an e-mail at NKCTrio@yahoo.com and I’ll be happy to oblige.
All my best,
KCTrio
Roger – as a long time Republican when you were doing the Marxist thing at Dartmouth and Yale, I was preaching the Goldwater/LeMay approach to Viet Nam at Harvard), I want to caution you on your Rightist Triumphalism. As a recovering Trotskyite you may be plus royaliste que le roi, but get serious: the Right is screwing up big time right now. We should be tying the Churchill/Sommers/Hoppe affairs into a big bow and crucifying the Left on Free Speech hypocracy and PC lack of standards; but we are against Free Speech for Churchill, and ignoring the attacks on Sommers and Hoppe!
Oscar ó First off, that bow is being tied, at Instapundit and elsewhere.
Churchill’s speech is to any reasonable mind, offensive, wrong, malicious … and protected by the first Amendment, just like yours or mine, and just as .
Where he can be and is being challenged is on trying to declare some kind of immunity based on tenure, since babbling about little Eichmanns in New York has precious little to do with ethnic studies.
Where he can be and is being challenged is on his own racist hypocrisy, falsifying his own ethnic heritage to steal a job from a real Native American.
Where he and CU can and are being challenged is on the inarguable fact of simple fraud. Churchill did not have the academic requirements for the courses he taught, let alone a department chairmanship. He never published in professional, peer-reviewed venues. He never fulfilled the requirements for tenure. This is all fraud on his part, and the part of CU. CU took money from its students for the courses they were required to take, representing them as being taught by a tenured, qualified professor, when they had full knowledge this was incorrect. This is probably grounds for a profitable class action suit against CU on behalf of those students.
Combining Churchill with Summers and Hoppe draws a moral equivalency between the conduct of the three that is patently offensive to the latter two.
Oscar and Richard:
Am I missing something here? Who’s Roger (a Zen question)? Are you referring to Roger L Simon? Anyway, I agree with Richard on this.
These are three distinct events that all represent three different problems:
1) Churchill: Tenure is the problem. Since when is free speech equivalent to the right to an audience? Thomas Sowell made this argument with devastating effect in his February 15, 2005 column entitled “Academic Freedom?,” which I’ll quote from here (link for this column is http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050215.shtml):
“Too many people — some of them judges — seem to think that freedom of speech means freedom from consequences for what you have said. If you believe that, try insulting your boss when you go to work tomorrow. Better yet, try insulting your spouse before going to bed tonight.
“While this column is protected by freedom of speech, that does not stop any editor from getting rid of it if he doesn’t like what I say. But, even if every editor across the length and breadth of the country refused to carry this column, that would be no violation of my freedom of speech.
“Freedom of speech does not imply a right to an audience. Otherwise the audience would have no right to its own freedom. Editors, movie producers, speakers’ bureaus and other intermediaries have every right to decide what they will and will not present to their audiences.”
Churchill may be a fraud and a charlatan, but his freedom of speech is not and should not be without consequences. One must wonder if tenure combined with insane vitriol makes for a fiery combination. He is free to say whatever he pleases, but if the University where he teaches finds him to be a stain on the University’s reputation, as well as if they feel heat from their alumni association, then they should be allowed to fire the SOB. But with tenure, that can’t happen.
Finally, look at how Churchill is reveling in this stuff. He’s fought back with even more vicious vitriol, and people are lapping it up. Attempting to silence him has the opposite effect one would hope for: It’s made him more popular.
2) Summers: He’s the president of a university, and has been attacked by the sword of feminism for weeks now. No amount of backtracking will satisfy his enemies that are out for his head. He apologizes, backtracks, makes new promises, tries to be more sensitive, and yet none his critics backs off.
3) Hoppe: This is student blackmail, pure and simple. A professor is held under the sword of a raging minority (and one without rights in terms of dictating the content in the classroom), and the University slapped Hoppe upside the head. This still is not enough for his student accuser. Here is an example of anarchy or despotism run amok in a university. Or, you might call it student mob rule.
These three events have common threads, but they are all different. The latter two have to do with minority activists that try to silence those they disagree with, and in turn they have weakened the target of their wrath, while the first (Churchill) is growing stronger because people have questioned his sanity (I know that there are other things he’s charged with…plagiarism, forgery, etc., but I’m referring to his 9/11 speeches and ranting).
What opportunity does this present to the right? I don’t see mountains, but there is some. These three incidences could be used as a powerful media/education campaign to get the public behind the idea of doing away with tenure and also shed light on the fact that people must bear the responsibility of their accusations that they make (Churchill, Summers’ critics and Hoppe’s student accuser). That’d deal with the Churchill situation but only get at the fringes of the latter two. The other two are a completely different beast. Summers is attacked and silenced by professors in his ranks (subordinates, but tenured), while Hoppe is criticized by a student.
Can you imagine a student getting away with this kind of blackmail even 100 years ago? They’d be sent home with a “don’t let the door hit you in the buttocks on your way out” sticker. And there’d be hell to pay when he got home when his parents got a hold of him.
These three situations do have many things in common, but I think that they are distinct (Churchill acts like a man when challenged by those that wish to silence him, and has made his critic’s job more difficult), Summers acts like a weakling when he’s threatened and still can’t appease his critics, and Hoppe is simply being blackmailed by a student (and a complicit administration).
But these are just my opinions.
Best regards,
KCTrio
KCTrio ó In what way does that lying, fraudulent, woman-beating, plagiaristic venom-merchant Ward Churchill act like a man?!
Sorry Richard,
I should have been more specific. I’m not positing that Churchill is a man of character. I’m saying that instead of cowering to his accusers, he’s hit back. Do I think he’s an honest man? Of course not. Do I think he’s disgusting? Yes. And I like all of the rest of your adjectives, also.
But imagine if Summers and Hoope had reacted like Churchill. When one is confronted by a bully, somtimes the only option is to threaten the bully at the tip of a spear (metaphorically speaking).
If I were Dean of Academic Affairs, I’d have Churchill turned into a eunich. But you must admit, he’s pretty effectively put some fear into his accusers.
I hope this clears things up.
I’m sorry if I implied that I looked up to Ward Churchill. Please forgive my opacity.
Best regards, and thanks for the request for clarity.
KCTrio
KCT re: McCain
Two points, the only way McCain makes sense to me is to view him as an ego-maniac who sees in himself Plato’s Benevolent Dictator, kinda like a Pope passing out benefices and punishing sins.
Vis a vis W signing that bill….agree that he blew it big time. But, I think that there was a compound reason. Given election 2000 he didn’t feel he had the clout to veto this and still get the things that mattered to him more, BECAUSE I bet that he thought that the SC would shoot it down. He probably thought that he didn’t have to spend a large part of his political capital when someone else would clean up the mess.
AlanC:
OK, now you’re getting a bit overboard here. McCain a Philosopher King from The Republic? My Lord, that’s a bit of a stretch. Again, as I said before, I just don’t get into the armchair analyst routine. I’m not saying you are wrong, I’d just say that there may be simpler explanations for his behavior, such as vanity. Take a strong man with bold ideas, mix in a lot of vanity, toss in some mighty long years of suffering and you might just get a character like McCain. But do I think he’s got dreams of a benevolent dictator? Not nearly.
One piece of evidence nullifies this observation of yours, or at least provides a counterargument to it. If you read Newsweek’s post-mortem on the election, you would have read that Kerry offered McCain a sort of strange VP/Secretary of Defense job. I seem to recall that McCain told Kerry the idea was unconstitutional and insane. At least he showed some temperance on that one.
Secondly, Bush hoping the Supremes would do his dirty work for him after signing that garbage makes him a fool in my mind (and remember, I strongly support the man and wear, proudly, my W button and wristband every day). If W had Reagan’s powers of persuasion, or rather, had confidence in his rhetorical skills (I think he’s pretty good at public speaking, in a down-to-earth sort of way), he’d have the balls to get on TV every month and give Americans a sort of “State of the Economy,” and “State of the War on Terror” lecture. That’d go a long way toward educating Americans on the virtues of his ideas. And he could have done the same thing with that stupid political reform bill. Give the people the truth and they’ll always choose the right path (or at least most will). But he didn’t. If Bush did what Reagan did, and what Arnold seems to be quite good at doing (to lethal effect), he’d get a lot more people buying into the soundness of his ideas.
I’m just not ready to accept your view of McCain. Though I must say that he is a rather complicated man. Perhaps even a bit insane. But I just can’t go as far as you when contemplating the man’s motives.
Best regards,
KCTrio