Category Archives: conservatism

Yeah, I Gotta Problem With That

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I can’t help myself; sometimes I just have to take a peek at what the righties are up to. Part of my fascination with social pathology, I suppose. Anyway, after checking some rightie blogs for commentary on the Senate Judiciary Committee NSA hearings, I can report that the most compelling arguments put forth on the Right in defense of the programs are:

1. Democrats are helping the terrorists.
2. The President is right.
3. You gotta problem with that?

Truly, this controversy is less about security than it is about faith. I offer this example from Right Wing Nut House [emphasis added]:

AG Gonzalez acquitted himself well but was at a huge disadvantage. Because of the secrecy of the program, he was unable to reveal details that could have buttressed his case that the Administration’s warrantless interception of American citizen’s communications was inherently legal based on both exceptions to the FISA statute and the authority granted by the President by Congress when that body authorized the use of military force after 9/11.

Such a beautifully pure faith makes one want to weep. If only it weren’t so misplaced.

Not everyone on the Right is a true believer. Via Daou Report, there’s at least one rightie Doubting Thomas, The Lonewacko. See also “Conservative Scholars Argue Bush’s Wiretapping Is An Impeachable Offense” at Think Progress.

Chalres Babington of the Washington Post reports that “activists” of the right and the GOP are splintering on the NSA issue.

GOP lawmakers and political activists were nearly unanimous in backing Bush on his Supreme Court nominations

Um, are we forgetting the Harriet Miers flap?

and Iraq war policy, but they are divided on how to resolve the tension between two principles they hold dear: avoiding government intrusion into private lives, and combating terrorism. The rift became evident at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into the surveillance program, and it may reemerge at Thursday’s intelligence committee hearing.

Babington mentions Arlen Specter , Lindsey Graham, and the Cato Institute as among those breaking ranks with the Bush Administration. On the other hand …

Democrats making similar arguments [against the NSA program] have fallen under scathing attacks from some GOP lawmakers. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, put himself at odds with Specter last week after his panel questioned the director of national intelligence and the CIA director about the NSA program.

“I am concerned that some of my Democrat colleagues used this unique public forum to make clear that they believe the gravest threat we face is not Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, but rather the president of the United States,” Roberts said.

The argument could be made. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda can knock down buildings and kill people, but they can’t destroy the United States itself. The Bush Administration, on the other hand, is destroying our democratic institutions from the inside.

And the White House must be worried. Moonie Times auxiliary publication Insight says that Karl himself is making offers GOP politicians can’t refuse:

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration’s unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

Makes you wonder what they’re afraid of, huh?

Mr. Rove is leading the White House campaign to help the GOP in November’s congressional elections. The sources said the White House has offered to help loyalists with money and free publicity, such as appearances and photo-ops with the president.

Those deemed disloyal to Mr. Rove would appear on his blacklist. The sources said dozens of GOP members in the House and Senate are on that list.

So far, only a handful of GOP senators have questioned Mr. Rove’s tactics.

How much political capital does Bush really have, though? Some congresspersons facing re-election this year might think it smarter to establish some distance between themselves and the White House.

See also — Today at 2:10 EST Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory will be debating John Hinderaker of Power Tool on NPR’s “To the Point.”Should be good. Also recommended, Audio clip: Comments by Michael Isikoff at Newsweek.

Update: See “What We Heard from the Attorney General” by Senator Russ Feingold at TPM Cafe.

Taking the Bait

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Via Buzzflash — what they’re not telling us about the Mohammed cartoon controversy and why the violence is erupting now and not when the cartoons were first published in September 2005.

According to this blogger, the cartoon controversy erupted because of a classic rightie-style misdirection campaign perpetrated by the Saudis. The plan was to get people worked up about the cartoons to take public attention away from the deaths of 350 pilgrims at the Hajj.

These were not unavoidable accidents, they were the results of poor planning by the Saudi government.

And while the deaths of these pilgrims was a mere blip on the traditional western media’s radar, it was a huge story in the Muslim world. Most of the pilgrims who were killed came from poorer countries such as Pakistan, where the Hajj is a very big story. Even the most objective news stories were suddenly casting Saudi Arabia in a very bad light and they decided to do something about it.

Their plan was to go on a major offensive against the Danish cartoons. The 350 pilgrims were killed on January 12 and soon after, Saudi newspapers (which are all controlled by the state) began running up to 4 articles per day condemning the Danish cartoons. The Saudi government asked for a formal apology from Denmark. When that was not forthcoming, they began calling for world-wide protests. After two weeks of this, the Libyans decided to close their embassy in Denmark. Then there was an attack on the Danish embassy in Indonesia. And that was followed by attacks on the embassies in Syria and then Lebanon.

Many European papers, including the right-wing German Springer media group, fanned the flames by reprinting the cartoons. And now you have the situation we are in today, with lots of video footage of angry crowds and the storming of embassies and calls for boycotts of Danish and European products. [emphasis added]

What did I say about not taking bait?

Meanwhile the Right Blogosphere has gone foaming-at-the-mouth, hair-on-fire crazy over the cartoon controversy. They’ve worked themselves up to a screaming pitch about the mad dog Muslims who are fixing to massacre Europe. They have gone off the insufferable self-righteousness scale because most American newspapers will not republish the cartoons, and those newspapers and the State Department and, of course, liberals are all wussie sell-outs of democratic principles.

Can we say they’ve come unhinged? I think we can.

Michelle Malkin, who must have steam coming out of her ears by now, wants to know what the Left has to say. In the past couple of days a few leftie bloggers have offered opinions, including me. Here’s a sampler.

Via Roxie, Josh Marshall says,

… there is a hint of the absurd in this story, the way continents of people get swept up in reaction to some simple pictures. But this episode seems like a model for what I imagine we’ll be living with for the rest of our lives. There’s something peculiarly 21st century about this conflict — both in the way that it’s rooted in the world of media and also in the way that it shows these two societies or cultures … well, all I can think of to use is the clunky 21st centuryism — they can’t interface. The gap is too large. The language is too different. One’s coming in at 30 degree angle, the other at 90.

He’s not letting rioting Muslims off the hook:

An open society, a secular society can’t exist if mob violence is the cost of giving offense. And that does seem like what’s on offer here. That’s the crux of this issue — that the response is threatened violence and more practical demands that such outrages must end. … So liberal mores versus theocratic mores. Where’s the possible compromise? There isn’t any. On the face of it this gets portrayed as an issue of press freedom. But this is much more fundamental. ‘Press freedom’ is just one cog in the machinery of a society that doesn’t believe in or accept the idea of ‘blasphemy’. Now, an important cog? Yes. But I think we’re fooling ourselves to reduce this to something so juridical and rights based.

And it’s not just Muslims:

I don’t want to imply this is only a Muslims versus modernity issue. I know not all Muslims embrace these views. More to the point, it’s not only Muslims who do. You see it among the haredim in Israel. And I see it with an increasing frequency here in the US. Is it just me or does it seem that more and more often there are public controversies in which ‘blasphemy’ is considered some sort of legitimate cause of action — as if ‘blasphemy’ can actually have any civic meaning in a society like ours. Anyway, you get the idea.

The idea I get is that this entire clash appears to be happening on the Right end of the political scale. Muslim extremists and western wingnuts are whipping each other into a mutual hate frenzy. Liberals, for the most part, aren’t getting caught up in it. We’re not taking the bait.

This next paragraph of Josh Marshall’s is brilliant, so I’m going to quote it even though it stretches the scope of this post a tad.

Much, probably most of what gets talked about as the ‘war on terror’ in politics today is a crock — a stalking horse for political power grabs, a masquerade of rage and revanchism, a running excuse for why we’ve made so many stupid decisions over the last five years. In some cases, on a more refined plain, it’s rooted in intellectual or existential boredom. But beyond all the mumbojumbo about how we’re helping ourselves by permanently occupying Iraq and running the country’s finances into the ground, there is a conflict. There is a basic rupture in the world.

Wow, that’s good.

Anyway, elsewhere on the Left Blogosphere, Dr. Atrios says,

I’m not too sympathetic with the notion that anything under the cover of religion is automatically entitled to deference. On the other hand, “don’t be an asshole” about peoples’ religious beliefs when they aren’t trying to impose them on you seems to be reasonably good etiquette. The cartoons weren’t funny and the visual portrayal of Mohammed was done just to “be an asshole” without any larger point to it. It’s like parading around in blackface just for the hell of it. There’s no point other than “I’m doing this to see who I can piss off.” I certainly defend the right to piss people off, though not always the decision to do so.

Sensible. Shakespeare’s Sister takes note of Atrios, and adds,

I’m not totally sure I would classify radical Islamists as not trying to impose their religious beliefs. I believe that is, in fact, one of their primary goals, both religious and political, which makes me inclined to feel that commentary on those goals, even in the form of cartoons likely to offend, is fair game, and therefore defensible. (The flipside of that is that I find this response of radical Muslims, including calls to kidnap Danes and “cut them into as many pieces as the number of newspapers that printed the cartoons,” and assertions that this conflagration never would never had erupted “if a 17-year-old death edict against writer Salman Rushdie been carried out” because “then those lowlifers would not have dared discredit the Prophet,” indefensible.) I’m a bit concerned that in our attempts to rebuke the rightwing onslaught to denigrate all of Islam as fundamentally violent, we have begun to minimize the reality that there is indeed a segment of Islam that actively seeks to convert infidels and slaughter those who refuse. It strikes me as dangerously naïve to ignore the ambitions of an extremist Islamic element who, given the first opportunity, would happily impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us, and just because a jihadist hasn’t knocked on one’s door peddling their wares doesn’t make it any less true.

Steve Gilliard has a long post that I urge you to read. It includes an interlude by Steve’s blogging partner, Jen, who is more sympathetic to the Danes than is Steve.

Jazz at Running Scared links to and explicates a rightie blog post, and observes:

The bottom line is this: Shackleford is at least coming very close to admitting what many on the far Right clearly seem to believe, but are not willing to openly state. That is, we are not simply fighting terrorists and radical extremists, but are in fact engaged in a holy war against Islam.

This, IMO, gets to the heart of why the Right Blogosphere is obsessed with this story, the way they were obsessed with the recent French riots. They want a holy war against Islam. They are itching for it. Not that any of them would volunteer to fight, of course … See also Jazz’s post “The Bloodlust of the Unhinged Right Wing.”

The Green Knight sums it up:

There’s still the fact that the rioters are being idiots. Sometimes, there’s no good guy. A newspaper prints cartoons that are meant to “test the limits of political correctness” (i.e. to offend people on purpose, i.e. to be an asshole); the completely over-the-top result is riots around the world.

Nope. No good guy here.

Not that Malkin will ever link any of this.

See also a Muslim’s opinion.

Update: See also Amanda at Pandagon: “We’re All Batshit Crazy Crusaders Now.” Georgia10 asks, “Where the hell is Karen Hughes?” And Steve M writes to Michelle Malkin.

Update update: Malkin is still claiming the Left is “silent” on the cartoon issue. If you want to click on Malkin’s links to other rightie comments on the so-called “silence” of the Left, you see a whole lotta straw man arguments — e.g., “I’m hearing this argument – that only Muslims are fair game for criticism, and that editorial cartoonists never, ever savage Christianity or Judaism” — followed by examples of anti-Bush cartoons that skewer Bush’s religiosity. And one crude cartoon savaging Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Likud party is provided as an example of something “anti-Semitic.” The examples are all from the British press, btw; apparently the blogger couldn’t find examples from American media that were nasty enough to suit him.

Then the fellow goes on to say (in effect; I am, of course, paraphrasing) that because these British cartoons offended him, then American newspapers had better publish the Mohammed cartoons to defend freedom of expression. Yes, once again we see the foundation of all American conservative moral principles — they do it too.

A Free Speech Question

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I’m doing some “thinking out loud” today, or more accurately, “thinking on blog.” Forgive me if I wander a bit.

Righties are up in arms about cartoons lately. On the one hand, some righties are angry that the Washington Post published this cartoon by Tom Toles that ridicules Don Rumsfeld. On the other hand, other righties are angry that a major American newspaper won’t publish these cartoons, which ridicule the Prophet Mohammad.

Michelle Malkin argues that righties are not, in fact, being inconsistent. Those opposed to the Tom Toles cartoon (including the Joint Chiefs of Staff) are not issuing death threats or rioting in the streets the way some Muslims are about the Mohammad cartoons. The Toles objectors are just speaking out, writing letters to the editor, and otherwise exercising free speech. John at AMERICAblog reveals that the people objecting to the cartoon aren’t making any sense, but Malkin has a point — so far I haven’t seen any of them threatening violence. Anger at the publication of the Mohammad cartoons, however, has set off violence throughout the Muslim world.

(On the other hand, as a commenter to AMERICAblog points out, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff send a formal objection on official letterhead objecting to the political content of a newspaper, the newspaper editors might feel a bit intimidated. See also comments from Editor & Publisher.)

The Mohammad cartoon crisis began on September 30, when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published the 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. When angered Muslims threatened the newspaper and Denmark with various reprisals, including a boycott of Danish products, several European newspapers reprinted the cartoons as an act of solidarity with the right to free speech. Since then violence has escalated — Palestinian gunmen shut down a European Union office in Gaza City. Protesters besieged the Danish embassy in Indonesia. And so on.

Malkin and others on the Right are unhinged over the fact that American news outlets are refraining from publishing the cartoons, which are all over the web (link above).

I understand the urge to express solidarity for free speech. I remember when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — a really disgusting guy in my book — condemned Salman Rusdie to death after publication of The Satanic Verses. Americans flocked to bookstores to buy the book just to show the Ayatollah he can’t tell us what to read. That was noble. So why aren’t American newspapers showing Muslims they can’t tell us what to publish? Is this not giving in to the terrorists?

I’ll come back to that question in a minute. The other argument righties present for publishing the cartoons is based that old, bedrock conservative moral principle — they do it too. Specifically, other people make fun of Jesus, so why can’t we make fun of Mohammed? Malkin has more “they do it too” examples here.

Seems to me Jesus already explained that the “they do it too” defense doesn’t hold water.

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. … Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

I interpret that to mean “just because somebody does something that pisses you off doesn’t make it OK for you to do the same thing.” I’m dismissing the “they do it too” argument as typical rightie hypocritical whining.

So let’s go back to the “free speech” argument. Are U.S. news outlets refusing to publish the cartoons because they are spineless cowards, or could there be another principle involved?

Earlier today, the U.S. State Department took sides with the Muslims:

While recognizing the importance of freedom of the press and expression, State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus said these rights must be coupled with press responsibility.

“Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable,” Hironimus said. “We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.”

Malkin argues that the State Department is betraying the principle of free speech. On the other hand, as I recall we’ve got this little “ending tyranny in our world” project going on in Iraq, and it seems to me that if we are serious about that program (a debatable point, I know) we need to be careful that our words and actions regarding the Muslim world support the program. Encouraging newspapers to publish the cartoons might feel gratifying, but in the long run it could make anything resembling “success” in Iraq more difficult to achieve. And if we’re trying to persuade Muslims that the western way of doing things is superior, showing them that we are free to ridicule the Prophet may not be the best argument. I’m just sayin’.

I have one other argument against publishing the cartoons — they’re stupid cartoons. They’re crude. You may disagree, but IMO their only point is that Mohammad (and Muslims) are bad. They remind me of old war cartoons depicting “the enemy” in a way that makes us a tad squeamish when we look at them now.

This set me to thinking about what makes a good political cartoon. I’ve heard it said that a good political cartoon exaggerates to reveal an underlying truth. If the “truth” is a common bias or prejudice, where’s the revelation? IMO a good cartoon should have an eye-opening quality, like a mini-kensho; they should make you slap your head and say, wow, that’s right. I see it now. On the other hand, cartoons that serve only to reinforce bigotry are propaganda.

For that reason, I can’t get worked up into a pitch of free-speech righteousness about publishing these cartoons. I can imagine a cartoon I might support — say, something that reveals an ugly truth about bin Laden or Zarqawi, for example. No problem with that. But these particular cartoons are not worth going to the mattresses over, I say.

What do you think?

Update: More about what distinguishes a good political cartoon from the master, Herblock.

Update update: Andrew Sullivan writes, “The cartoons were not designed to “incite religious or ethnic hatreds.” They were designed to protest such incitement – and we have the corpses of Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn as useful proof.” Oh good; protest religious and ethnic hatred with more religious and ethnic hatred. Yes, children, another variation of “they do it too!”

Occasions of hatred are certainly never settled by hatred. They are settled by freedom from hatred. This is the eternal law.

Others may not understand that we must practice self-control, but quarrelling dies away in those who understand this fact. — The Buddha (the Dhammapada, Pairs 3-6)


Update update update: I think this editorial in The Guardian gets it right.

Rightie Hypocrisy Watch

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Tristero at Hullabaloo waxes nostalgic about those dear, long-ago days when the Christian Right was in a frenzy because some art gallery in North Carolina displayed a photograph of a crucifix in a jar of urine. To this day the Right believes this opus was “funded” (how much funding do you need to pee in a jar?) by the National Endowment of the Arts. It wasn’t, but when has the Right let facts get in the way of self-righteousness?

The nostalgia was triggered by this rightie post on Muslims outraged by Danish caricatures of Prophet Mohammed. “You know, the art community is always congratulating itself for being ‘daring,’ by mocking Christ,” says the rightie, “but this is territory that’s apparently a bit too scary for them, as art mocking Muslims is exceedingly rare.”

First, if the rightie had to go back nearly 20 years for an example of how the “art community” is “always” mocking Christ, maybe it’s not as common as he/she thinks. And Tristero has some examples of western art that mocks Muslims, although art mocking religious/ethnic groups generally isn’t as common as it used to be. Badmouthing of the Prophet by Christians possibly occurs as often, if not more often, than the “art community” mocks Christ, however.

Meanwhile, John Hinderaker is quaking with indignation over Democratic congressional candidate Coleen Rowley’s web site.

(If the name Coleen Rowley sounds familiar — yes, it’s that Coleen Rowley. Notice that Hinderaker doesn’t mention Rowley’s heroic past.)

The screen capture on PowerLine depicts Rowley’s opponent, John Kline, as the Colonel Klink character from the old television series Hogan’s Heroes. (Young people: Hogan’s Heroes was a comedy. Klink was an idiot and the foil of most of the jokes.) Kline complained that it depicted him as a Nazi, which Hinderacker calls a “despicable slander.”

I’m sure Hinkeraker was just as outraged when Saxby Chambliss ran campaign ads placing Max Cleland side by side with Osama bin Laden. Or, maybe not. But Glenn Greenwald documents some other situations in which righties hurled the “N” word at lefties, yet somehow that was all right. “Maybe Rowley should have spread rumors that Kline has a black baby and then it would have been OK,” says Glenn.

(Full disclosure: I called Michelle Malkin a goose-stepping, fascist toady in my previous post, but that’s because she is one.)

Anyway, this cutting-edge controversy alerted me to a blog post on Coleen Rowley’s campaign site that tells us Kline wants to replace Ulysses Grant’s picture with Ronald Reagan’s on $50 bills.

Kline’s is the most recent in a wild spree of proposals and bills that congressional Republicans proposed in the wake of President Reagan’s passing. Other various proposals seek to memorialize Reagan on the:

– Dime (replacing Franklin Roosevelt)
– Half-dollar (replacing John Kennedy)
– $10 bill (replacing Alexander Hamilton)
– $20 bill (replacing Andrew Jackson)
– $1, $2, and $5 coins

Kline’s particular legislation has been praised by ultra-rightwing-insider Grover Norquist’s feverish Reagan Legacy Project — which takes an ironically Leninist approach in attempting to memorialize the former President whom the project credits for virtually single-handedly ‘crushing the Communists’.

Washington on the $1 bill and Lincoln on the $5 bill are still safe, it seems.

Many appreciate the symbolism of FDR on the dime, recalling the Depression hit “Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?” and the March of Dimes that raised money to end polio. Alexander Hamilton was the first secretary of the treasury and did a brilliant job of it, and he deserves to be on money somewhere. Andrew Jackson, who campaigned relentlessly against the national bank, is probably spinning in his grave about being pictured on a federal reserve note; let him spin, say I. And I enjoy seeing Grant’s picture on the $50. Well, I enjoy seeing $50, period, especially when somebody is handing it to me. But Grant’s life story was one financial disaster after another, and I’m sure he’d be pleased to to see himself looking fat and prosperous on $50 bills.

Ms. Rowley goes on to say some kind words about the General, which makes her good people in my book. So I sent her campaign a donation.

Freedom Is Slavery, and Other Republicanisms

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Here are the rules: Republicans own the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and all issues touched by the attacks. Therefore, when a Republican waves the bloody WTC tower, so to speak, to stir up emotional support for a GOP policy, that is not politicizing 9/11. Because they own 9/11, see. However, whenever a Democrat mentions 9/11 in any context, that is politicizing 9/11.

Further, wherever the GOP has used 9/11 as part of an emotional appeal for a GOP policy (which is not politicizing), Democrats may not criticize that policy. Because to do so “politicizes” the policy and is an insult to the memory of those who died on 9/11.

Further, whenever the Republicans stir up fear of terrorism to justify curbing civil liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, that is “resolve.” As in, we must be resolved to compromise our constitutional heritage and the freedoms our forefathers fought and died for, because of 9/11. To do otherwise is an example of “pre-9/11” thinking, as well as an insult to the memory of those who died on 9/11.

Whenever someone (such as a Democrat) expresses reluctance to jettison long-established civil liberties for the sake of security, that is an example of “paralyzing self-doubt.”

In the post-9/11 world we must be resolute and decisive. We must not hesitate to destroy the Bill of Rights in order to save it.

Phrases like “Article II authority,” “separation of powers” and “right to privacy” are code words for paralyzing self-doubt. We no long stand on constitutional principles in the face of events; rather, we allow events to dictate our constitutional principles. Anyone with any resolve at all knows this.

Because our President is a man of action and resolve, he doesn’t have to bother with following laws passed by Congress regarding surveillance, nor should he be expected to ask Congress to revise regulations to make them easier to follow. He can just ignore them. Anyone who wants to make the President accountable to the law is risking the lives of American citizens.

Whenever a Republican, such as Vice President Richard Cheney, claims that a controversial Bush Administration policy would have prevented the 9/11 attacks if only we’d had it sooner, that is an example of reasoned political discussion.

Whenever anyone else brings up the myriad clues we had before 9/11 that a terrorist attack involving al Qaeda cells and hijacked airplanes crashing into major landmarks like the World Trade Center, which the Bush Administration ignored, that is not reasoned political discussion. It is irresponsible discussion; nothing but ‘connect-the-dots’ reporting.”

Real Americans don’t connect dots. Connecting dots lets the terrorists win.

I must admit that before today I didn’t understand these rules. But then I read “Our Right to Security” by Debra Burlingame.

It’s all clear to me now.

Bush and the Cultivation of Fear

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An editorial in today’s Washington Post:

THE BUSH administration’s distortion, for political purposes, of the Democratic position on warrantless surveillance is loathsome. Despite the best efforts of Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff, and Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, to make it seem otherwise, Democrats are not opposed to vigorous, effective surveillance that could uncover terrorist activity. Nor are the concerns that they are expressing unique to their party. Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Arlen Specter (Pa.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.) have expressed legal doubts about the surveillance program. Do they, too, have a “pre-9/11 worldview,” as Mr. Rove said of the Democrats?

Believing there should be constraints on unchecked executive power is not the same as being weak-kneed about the war against terrorism. Critics are suggesting that President Bush should have gone through normal procedures for conducting such surveillance or asked Congress to provide clear legal authority for the National Security Agency activity. They are not contending that such surveillance shouldn’t be conducted at all. No leading Democrat has argued for barring this kind of potentially useful technique.

But you wouldn’t know that to listen to the GOP spin. “Let me be as clear as I can be — President Bush believes if al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they’re calling and why,” Mr. Rove said at the Republican National Committee winter meeting last week. “Some important Democrats clearly disagree.” Mr. Mehlman named names. “Do Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean really think that when the NSA is listening in on terrorists planning attacks on America, they need to hang up when those terrorists dial their sleeper cells inside the United States?” he asked.

This editorial isn’t as bold as might seem at first glance. I realized it doesn’t blame President Bush himself for any of this fear mongering, even though he’s been playing the same games. On the other hand, for once, WaPo doesn’t claim Dems are just as guilty. It’s a start.

Also in Wapo, Eugene Robinson — who deserves more attention from us liberals, btw — writes,

Once upon a time we had a great wartime president who told Americans they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Now we have George W. Bush, who uses fear as a tool of executive power and as a political weapon against his opponents.

Franklin D. Roosevelt tried his best to allay his nation’s fears in the midst of an epic struggle against fascism. Bush, as he leads the country in a war whose nature he is constantly redefining, keeps fear alive because it has been so useful. His political grand vizier, Karl Rove, was perfectly transparent the other day when he emerged from wherever he’s been hiding the past few months — consulting omens, reading entrails — and gave the Republican National Committee its positioning statement for the fall elections: Vote for us or die.

[Update: Several people have noted that FDR spoke the “nothing we have to fear” line in 1933, about the Great Depression. But FDR spoke about fear and freedom from fear in many other speeches, such as in the “four freedoms” speech from 1941. Since he didn’t use quotation marks I don’t believe Robinson was claiming FDR delivered that exact line about facism, but was just recalling it as a theme FDR used in speeches throughout his presidency.]

Recently a kind person forwarded to me a social psychology paper called “American Roulette: The Effect of Reminders of Death on Support for George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election.” The authors are Florette Cohen and Daniel M. Ogilvie of Rutgers University; Sheldon Solomon of Skidmore College; Jeff Greenberg of the University of Arizona; and Tom Pyszczynski of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. This paper is not online, but if you want a copy call Blackwell Publishing at (781) 388-8448.

The authors argue that in the 2004 election, the late October taped appearance of Osama bin Laden had the effect of swinging votes to Bush.

… a week before the election Senator John Kerry was reported to have a slight edge. On Friday, October 29, Osama Bin Laden’s videotaped threat reminded Americans of the death and destruction of 9/11. Americans once again became anxious as the Terror Alert was raised and the Bush administration relentlessly raised the specter of death should John Kerry be elected President. On November 3 Bush was declared the winner of the election by a margin of 3.5 million popular votes. From a terror management perspective, the United States’ electorate was exposed to a wide-ranging multidimensional mortality salience induction. Bush’s rise in popularity after September 11, 2001 and eventual victory in the 2004 presidential election seems highly likely to have been influenced by the appeal of his leadership style (i.e., proclaiming himself divinely ordained to rid the world of evil) to an electorate that was continually reminded of the trauma of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

(I love the part about how “the United States’ electorate was exposed to a wide-ranging multidimensional mortality salience induction.” There’s something about soc-psych jargon that just makes my heart go pitty-pat.)

The study involves lots of chi-squares and p values, and N = diverse numbers. But to explain very plainly and crudely, Cohen et al. found that test subjects were more likely to support Bush after being reminded they might die in a terrorist attack. The authors also cited other studies that showed people gravitate to charismatic leaders when they are afraid. And they wrote,

Allegiance to charismatic leaders may be one particularly effective mode of terror management. In Escape from Freedom, Eric Fromm (1941) proposed that loyalty to charismatic leaders results from a defensive need to feel a part of a larger whole, and surrendering one’s freedom to a larger-than-life leader can serve as a source of self-worth and meaning in life. Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death, 1973) posited that when mainstream worldviews are not serving people’s need for psychological security, concerns about mortality impel people to devote their psychological resources to following charismatic leaders who bolster their selfworth by making them feel that they are valued participants in a great mission to heroically triumph over evil.

Sound familiar?

This paragraph inspired me to google for Fromm. I dimly remember Fromm from college required reading lists, but I’m sorry to say I don’t retain a lot from those days. I remember going to college, but exactly what I did there is a bit hazy. It’s been a lot of years.

In any event, the googling brought me to this. To condense, Fromm argued that freedom causes anxiety and a sense of aloneness in some people. Coping mechanisms for this condition include automaton conformity, authoritarianism, destructiveness, and individuation. Taking these one at a time —

Automaton conformity: Fearful people can gain a sense of power by acting like everyone else, holding the same beliefs and values, purchasing the same products, and believing in the same morals. They give up much of their individuality, but they feel more secure.

Along these lines, have you ever noticed how righties believe with an absolute, pure faith that their beliefs and values are the beliefs and values of the majority, even when polls say otherwise? I noticed a long time ago that being one of the herd is terribly important to righties. If you argue them into a corner, they nearly always fall back on “most people agree with me, not you looney lefties.”

Authoritarianism contains a paradox — by giving up power to the powerful, the powerless feel more powerful. Put another way, we submit to a leader by submerging our individual identity with the identity of the leader, and thus become powerful like the leader. The more slavishly devoted to the leader we are, the more powerful we think we become. Or at least that’s what it feels like.

Destructiveness refers to destroying people we think keep power away from us. Thus the Right’s obsession with a powerful “liberal elite” that controls society in spite of the fact that it doesn’t exist.

This is the pathology that is contemporary American “conservatism” — great masses of Americans are afraid — of the world, of modernity, of diversity — and to cope with their fears they have submerged themselves in a cult of personality organized around George W. Bush. Righties want to see themselves as part of a powerful army of righteousness that stands united against perceived enemies, such as Islamic terrorists or liberals. And the more fearful they become, the deeper they submerge themselves into the cult. Until, at last, anything approximating “objective reality” is a distant memory.

Oh, that last thing Fromm talked about, individuation, is the ability to be yourself and enjoy true freedom. People at this stage don’t need a personality cult.

Let’s go back to Eugene Robinson. “While Bush gives off none of Rove’s Sith-lord menace,” Robinson writes, “he has made the cultivation of fear a hallmark of his governance.”

You got that right, Eugene. And fear is what rallies the faithful. How else to explain so many people blind to such staggering incompetence?

When the most recent Osama bin Laden tape emerged, I watched some cable TV bobbleheads schmooze about how this would help Bush’s popularity ratings. And why would that be? Why wouldn’t the appearance of the guy Bush vowed to get “dead or alive” more than four years ago remind us of what a flopping incompetent Bush is? Could it be that we are a nation of sheep? Is rallying to Bush some kind of conditioned fear response? Must be, because it sure as hell isn’t rational.

“A great wartime leader rallies his citizens by informing them and inspiring them,” writes Robinson. “He certainly doesn’t use threats to our national security for political gain. He doesn’t just point at a map and say ‘Boo.'”

That’s right. But a great wartime leader ain’t what we got. What we got, is Bush. And what we need, to be freed from his incompetence and his culties, is the mother of all interventions.

Lessons of History

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Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, attorney general during the LBJ administration, writes in today’s Los Angeles Times about the perils of unchecked power. Specifically, he writes about J. Edgar Hoover’s crusade to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King.

These days Hoover has become almost a comic figure; the tough guy in ladies’ underdrawers. But for a time he was so powerful even presidents were afraid to go after him. “Some of that support was based on admiration,” writes Katzenbach, “some on fear that he had damaging personal information in his files.” Although on paper he reported to the attorney general, in fact he operated outside anyone’s control. In the eyes of the nation Hoover was a hero who had fought organized crime and Communists. But by the 1960s, Katzenbach writes, Hoover was getting old.

He believed the world was questioning and rejecting the values he held out as fundamental — patriotism, respect for law and order, sexual mores grounded in marriage and family, the work ethic. He detested what he saw as a growing culture of permissiveness, and, as a conservative Southerner, he seriously questioned the idea of racial equality.

Hoover convinced himself that MLK was working for Communists. Lack of evidence thereof would not dissuade him. In 1963, Hoover went to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy for approval for a wiretap on Dr. King’s phones. Bobby Kennedy feared that Hoover’s accusations would destroy the Civil Rights movement.

When Hoover asked for the wiretaps, Bobby consulted me (I was then his deputy) and Burke Marshall, head of the Civil Rights Division. Both of us agreed to the tap because we believed a refusal would lend credence to the allegation of communist influence, while permitting the tap, we hoped, would demonstrate the contrary. I think the decision was the right one, under the circumstances. But that doesn’t mean that the tap was right. King was suspected of no crime, but the government invaded his privacy until I removed the tap two years later when I became attorney general. It also invaded the privacy of every person he talked to on that phone, not just Levinson.

But what we didn’t know during this period was that Hoover was doing a lot more than tapping King’s phones. As King’s criticism of the FBI continued, and as Hoover became more and more convinced there must be communist influence even though no evidence ever materialized, he determined to discredit and destroy King. He went further, putting bugs in King’s hotel bedrooms across the country. (He claimed that Atty. Gen. Herbert Brownell had authorized him to use such listening devices in cases involving “national security” back in the 1950s, and that he did not require further permission from the current attorney general, who in any case had no idea that the FBI was doing it.)

The FBI recorded MLK having extramarital affairs, which it used to try to destroy him. The FBI played the tapes for journalists and other influential people. At one point tapes were mailed to MLK with the suggestion he commit suicide.

This is appalling, to be sure, but Katzenbach makes an essential point — Hoover believed he was doing the right thing . He believed his acts were justified to protect the United States. “Perhaps because of age accompanied by virtually unchecked power, he lost any sense of proportion in law enforcement, using his authority in what he thought was a righteous cause.”

And here’s the conclusion:

Today we are again engaged in a debate over wiretapping for reasons of national security — the same kind of justification Hoover offered when he wanted to spy on King. The problem, then as now, is not the invasion of privacy, although that can be a difficulty. But it fades in significance to the claim of unfettered authority in the name of “national security.” There may be good and sufficient reasons for invasions of privacy. But those reasons cannot and should not be kept secret by those charged with enforcing the law. No one should have such power, and in our constitutional system of checks and balances, no one legitimately does.

Forcing the executive to explain its reasons for intrusive law enforcement is essential to maintaining not just privacy but freedom itself. A congressional committee must exercise oversight. So too must an independent court because Congress is also subject to possible political pressure.

Our freedom is too precious, and too much blood has been shed to preserve it, to entrust it to a single person, however sincere and however well intentioned.

At Newsweek, Jonathan Alter describes the peril we face now:

Any rational person wants the president to be able to hunt for Qaeda suspects wherever they lurk. The “momentous” issue (Alito’s words) is whether this president, or any other, has the right to tell Congress to shove it. And even if one concedes that wartime offers the president extra powers to limit liberty, what happens if the terrorist threat looks permanent? We may be scrapping our checks and balances not just for a few years (as during the Civil War), but for good.

And, once again, in the Civil War Lincoln made emergency use of a power given to Congress (to suspend habeas corpus) to deal with riots and unchecked lawlessness in some of the border states while Congress was not in session. When Congress came back into session, Lincoln went to Congress, acknowledged this power rightfully belonged to Congress, and asked for their retroactive approval even while the Civil War was still heating up. He didn’t just declare he could do whatever he thought necessary because there was a war on.

Alter continues,

The NSA story is an acid test of whether one is a traditional Barry Goldwater conservative, who believes in limited government, or a modern Richard Nixon conservative, who believes in authority. Alito is in the latter category. His judicial opinions suggest a deference to executive power, and he once pioneered presidential “signing statements” that are meant to help judges come down on the president’s side. Just recently, Bush attached such a statement to John McCain’s bill banning torture in which the president reserved the right to ignore the law if he wants to.

Alito embodies the inherent contradiction of the conservative movement. The nominee is an “originalist,” which means, as he said last week, that “we should look to the meaning that someone would have taken from the text of the Constitution at the time of its adoption.” But at that time, the 18th century, the Founders could not have been clearer about the role of Congress in wartime. As James Madison put it, “In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislative and not to the executive branch.”

No honest reading of the writings of the Founding Fathers, in or out of the Constitution, justifies Bush’s wartime ‘inherent authority” theory. The fact that so many “conservatives” accept this theory even as they babble about “strict construction” of the Constitution is proof that they’ve gone off the deep end, the charts, the scale, and any other measure of rational thought. The Right has become a virtual mob.

As John McGowan wrote here, “To pay the law heed is to accept that one’s own virtue is doubtful.” The ideologue who has no doubts he is right also has no qualms about setting the law aside when it gets in his way. But the person who would do such a thing is the same one whose judgment is too skewed to be trusted to do it — like J. Edgar Hoover.

Update: See Glenn Greenwald, “Bush followers are not conservatives.”

What We’re Up Against

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I found this paragraph in an Eleanor Clift column crushingly depressing:

A pro-choice Republican who spoke with NEWSWEEK but didn’t want her name used said she is more worried about Alito after hearing him testify, and wishes the Democrats would spend their time finding a candidate to beat Hillary Clinton in the primaries “or we’re going to get four more years of judges like this.” She thinks that to win the White House the Democrats need a more centrist candidate than Clinton. “The math is against her.” (That debate is raging within Democratic circles, but no candidate has yet surfaced who could plausibly overtake Clinton, given her rock-star hold on party activists and the esteem in which she and her husband are held by African-American voters, a core Democratic constituency.)

Go ahead and read the whole column — it’s interesting — but let’s look at these “party activists.” There are activists, and there are other activists.

Compare/contrast Clift’s paragraph with this MyDD post by Chris Bowers — “Why The Blogosphere and the Netroots Do Not Like Hillary Clinton.”

… Hillary Clinton is, um, not exactly the most popular Democrat within the blogosphere and the netroots. I can offer loads of anecdotal information to support this, but perhaps the most striking evidence is that despite her large lead in national telephone surveys, she polls around fifth or sixth in our presidential preference polls. The real question we face is to figure out why she is not very popular among this large segment of the progressive activist class.

People will offer lots of reasons for this. In the past, I have done so myself. However, when one understands who actually makes up the blogosphere, a rarely, if ever, discussed reason comes to the fore. Within the progressive activist class, there is also a very real class stratification. While the blogosphere and the netroots may not be “the people” within America or the Democratic party as a whole, within the world of progressive activists, they are definitely “the people,” “the masses,” “the rank and file,” and any other populist term you want to throw out there. I believe the main mark against Hillary Clinton within the blogs and the netroots is the degree to which she is perceived as the uber-representative of the upper, aristocratic classes of the progressive activist world.

I think that’s part of it. See also these December posts by Avedon and Leah at Corrente. It’s not just that she’s unelectable; it’s that we don’t trust her.

Stirling Newberry wrote last November,

Hillary Clinton as a disaster for progressives and ultimately for the Democratic Party.

You want hard reasons? Let me list why I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever support Hillary Clinton, because she cannot ever, ever, ever, ever be trusted not to stab progressives in the back on key issues. She isn’t with us, except long enough to get the checks.

Let me start by way of explanation, when Bill Clinton first ran in 1992, I liked Hillary more than Bill, and even joked that we might be voting for the wrong Clinton. I felt she was smarter and sharper than Bill. She is, but, tin plated candidate that she is, she has no heart.

And she doesn’t like liberals or progressives. That’s a statement reported from several sources. She looks at us the same way that DeLay’s team looks at religious right voters – as stupid cash cows.

Stirling goes on to list concrete reasons why Hillary Clinton is unacceptable to the netroots; the first is “Hillary still supports the war.” He concludes,

Hillary is not politically reliable: she is busy selling progressives out now for her presidential bid. Which means that when she doesn’t need us at all, say the moment she has taken the oath of office and need only get re-elected with no primaries the second time around, we will be worse off than against a Republican, because we will have to sit through at least one Republican president before getting a progressive in the White House. If you don’t want to see a progressive President in your life time, then, by all means, support pro-war, soft on choice, anti-progressive, old top down media politics Hillary Clinton.

I think both Stirling and Chris are right, in different ways. Bottom line, Hillary Clinton is not one of us. She doesn’t represent us. She doesn’t know what we think and has lost the capacity to learn. She’s worked so hard at marketing herself to a mythical “center” that whoever she used to be has been consumed by her packaging. She’s an empty pants suit. As an active netcitizen of the Left, I believe I speak for an enormous majority of us when I say we are just as enthusiastic about a Hillary candidacy as we are about turnips.

Yet here is Eleanor Clift, who’s not a bad sort, writing about Hillary’s “rock-star hold on party activists.” Maybe Clift needs to stop shrieking at Tony Blankley on the McLaughlin Group and get out more.

Chris Bowers continues,

Within the world of progressive activists, from the viewpoint of the working and middle class progressive activists, Hillary Clinton is seen as hopelessly aligned with the establishment activists, with the insider activists, with the wealthy activists, with the well-connected activists, and with every possible progressive activist “elite” you can possibly imagine. Is it thus in any way surprising that the activist base, which is largely on the outside looking in, generally does not harbor much positive feeling toward her? The progressive activist base considers the progressive activist elite to be the main culprit in progressives losing power around the country. We keep losing, and we blame them. Thus, why should it be a surprise to anyone that we dislike the person who is viewed as their primary representative? We literally hold her, and what she represents within the world of progressive activism, to be responsible for the massive progressive backslide that has taken place over the past twelve years.

My cruder evaluation is that the Clintons represent a strategy that won some elections in the 1980s and 1990s but which has exacted a terrible cost on the Democratic Party. Their strategy was to toss enough progressive policy overboard to stay afloat in the Republican-controlled media sea. Bill Clinton made it work for him partly through force of personality — the man can charm the scales off a snake — and partly through co-opting Brand Republican positions; for example, on welfare and the death penalty. In the wake of the Reagan Era, perhaps that was a smart strategy.

But the Clintons, and the Democrats through the 1980s and 1990s, mounted no serious challenge to the GOP’s control of the sea — the VRWC and the Republican Noise Machine. Today the top of the Democratic Party and their “expert” consultants stick to the Clinton strategy, but now the VRWC has learned how to nullify it. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has tossed away so much of itself it’s hard to know what it stands for any more. They don’t call ’em “Republican Lite” for nothing.

Yet time and time again we see that the Republicans have moved far to the right of the American public on many critical issues. The attempt to “reform” Social Security, the Terri Schiavo episode, and, increasingly, Iraq reveal the Republicans to be way out of touch with mainstream Americans (which makes the notion that the Dems need to find a “centrist” candidate rather amusing). I truly believe many not-politcally-active people are growing heartily sick of right-wing extremism. But when they turn on the television or the radio, they don’t see or hear much in the way of an alternative. And so the Republicans win elections, for reasons that have little to do with their accomplishments (which are … ?) or their policy positions.

Chris Bowers argues that the blogosphere is not “the people,” in the sense that bloggers and their readers tend to be more affluent and educated than the population as a whole. But we represent the heart and soul of progressive activism far more faithfully than does the Democratic Party. And I think we represent the Party’s only viable future. The path they are on now leads to irrelevancy — some will argue they’ve already arrived — and to dissolution.