Because sometimes you just have to laugh (with apologies to Sam Cooke)

By Richard K. Barry

A friend just sent me this. If you can pull yourself away from today's wall-to-wall Weiner coverage, it might brighten your day just a little.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Paul Ryan for president? Maybe not.

By Richard K. Barry

Late last week a lot of people were talking about Paul Ryan possibly deciding to run for the GOP presidential nomination. It's gotten a little quiet since then but I guess he's thinking about it. Apparently he hasn't ruled it out.

I must say that I don't see it. I think Ryan should focus on holding on to his congressional seat given how unpopular his budget is proving to be with its proposal to gut Medicare as I've written.

It was nice to see Jonathan Bernstein at The Washington Post make the case I was at least thinking about when I decided that Ryan's candidacy was a non-starter if he's smart and a real long-shot if he isn't.

Bernstein writes:

There's not a lot of polling on Ryan that I can find, but a recent Public Policy Polling survey in Wisconsin (you know, the state he's from) had him at 41/46 favorable/unfavorable, so in his home state he's fairly well known and not very well liked. Members of the House are almost unknown to the American people, and while pundits and political professionals have been fairly obsessed with Ryan for the last few months, most Americans don't pay close attention to politics, and probably know little about him.

Of course, the other obvious problem with a Ryan nomination is that he’s best known for a massively unpopular Medicare plan, and nominating him would be a fairly insane choice, as it would constitute a massive double down on the plan by the GOP. I’m sure there are plenty of Republicans who find that idea enticing, but presumably there are quite a few who aren’t completely meshugenah. Political scientists usually argue that issues and candidates are usually not all that important as fundamentals such as economic performance. But Ryancare is a different matter altogether: Nominating Ryan would make the election an argument over the GOP's least popular policy proposal, instead of a referendum on the economy, which would be the GOP’s best chance of winning.

It doesn't hurt Ryan to have these sorts of rumors floating around, but there's every chance that he'd peak the day he announced. He has a great position right now; I think he'd be very foolish to jeopardize it with a (very) longshot presidential run.

Yeah, I'm with Bernstein on this one. I particularly like his comment that Ryan would peak the day he announced, which is another way of saying that many people may fancy the idea but the reality is likely to fall far short.

For what it's worth, I'm also just not feelin' it with Ryan. A decided lack of royal jelly, but, then again, the whole field is pretty flat.

If he does get in I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say, but I would be surprised for all the reasons Mr. Bernstein offers.

On the other hand, if he did jump in, it wouldn't be the first time a prospective candidate's ego trumped all reason (pun intended).

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Yes, Weiner is a dick -- so what?

By Richard K. Barry 

I think the "what the fuck?" moment for me came when Representative Weiner said that he could not be sure the crotch shot was not of him. Maybe he meant that over time he had taken so many crotch shots of himself that he couldn't be sure that this particular picture was not of him. His answer certainly did not suggest that there was no way in hell the shot was him. That never seemed to be implied.

From that moment it occurred to me, and probably a lot of others, that the stupid bastard was doing something he shouldn't have been.

Along with many, because I really admire his politics, I wanted to believe that he was being set up, that he was not in any way responsible for sending these pictures far and wide. But again, as others have commented, his reaction was so obviously the worst example of damage control imaginable that he was either a really stupid man or a really bad liar. Sadly there is obviously truth in both.

Mostly I don't care that he has this weird hobby as long as we find out that this took place between consenting adults. Whether or not his marriage can survive this is, as far as I am concerned, between the Congressman and his wife. And, yes, the lying to the public is a problem.

But beside that, I see this as more of a personal tragedy by a man who did something incredibly stupid. God knows it's not a liberal vs. conservative thing. Men on both sides of the aisle have been doing stupid things when it comes to sex for a long time. That's not likely to change.

He wasn't publicly condemning behaviour he was personally engaged in either, another pathetic thing that some politicians have been known to do.

Look, I'm not defending him, I'm simply saying that politicians too often get away with lying to the country about things that are of huge political and moral consequence but when there's a penis involved or any hint of sexual indiscretion, by golly, stop the presses.

Call me crazy, but getting the country into a war based on a blatant lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction leading to the needless death of who knows how many is just a tad more immoral than some idiot who sends naughty pictures of himself to women over the internet or via twitter.

We just get so damned excited about sex. And if Weiner is actually telling the truth this time, there wasn't even any of that, just pictures and now we hear maybe a phone call or two. Okay. Not good.

Again, I'm not defending the man. It's icky. But let's keep things in perspective.

What a jackass.

Can we move on now? Probably not for a while, unfortunately.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

This day in history - June 6, 1944: The Allied invasion of Normandy

By Richard K. Barry

Having been born just over a decade after the end of WWII, I grew up hearing stories about the war and watching documentaries like The World at War and Victory at Sea. I suspect that few of my generation would be unable to identify June 6, 1944 as the day of the Allied invasion of Normandy, which began and essential part of the bloody process of defeating the Nazis on Continental Europe.

The declaration of war in Europe, the bombing of Pearl Harbour, VE-Day, and VJ-Day all occurred on dates many of us still recall.

As I've remarked before, WWII has been called the last good war and it does seem to have been the last war about which so many of us took any significant interest in learning the history.

I don't exactly know what it means that so few of us have taken the time to learn much about our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are there likely to be remembered dates and battles that will be significant to people in 10, 20, 50 years? (Aside, of course, from 9/11, which is different).

It's not my intention to glorify war, it's only that the costs are so high that if we paid more attention we'd be in a better position to judge if the sacrifices are worth it. It is surely not something we should take for granted.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The GOP's continuing angst over spinning Medicare reform

By Richard K. Barry

The Republican Party is continuing its bizarre approach of suggesting that it is being smeared when its opponents correctly represent its plans to gut Medicare -- this time in New Hampshire.

As Roll Call reports:

A day after launching an attack ad against New Hampshire Representative Charles Bass, two liberal groups have released new polling that suggests that the Republican is deeply unpopular just seven months after his election.

Just 29 percent of likely voters in New Hampshire's 2nd district approve of Bass' job performance, according to a survey conducted May 31 and June 1 by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling on behalf of Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Sixty percent of New Hampshire respondents said they oppose cutting Medicare. And 69 percent said they support raising federal taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 a year "to save programs like Social Security and Medicare."

The ad (see below) features a New Hampshire social worker who claims to have voted for Bass in the past but will not again as she calls GOP plans for Medicare reform "an attack on New Hampshire families like mine."

We note that while Bass did hold the seat from 1996 to 2006, his successful campaign to regain it was only accomplished by less than 2 points in 2010, an election that saw the GOP surging across the country. In other words, at the best of times this would be a hard "hold" for Bass and these, likely, are not going to be the best of times.

So freaked out is Bass that he asked the New Hampshire TV stations airing the ad to take it down because, in his view, it incorrectly asserts that Republicans will "end Medicare" The stations have refused, which has prompted the groups responsible for the piece to increase their ad buy.

In a letter obtained by Greg Sargent at The Washington Post, Bass makes his case to the TV stations. He writes:

The Budget Resolution as approved by the U.S. House of Representatives does not end Medicare. In fact, the Budget Resolution makes no changes at all to Medicare for current or near retirees, as none of the Medicare-related provisions in the Budget Resolution would even take effect until 2022. This fact makes the Advertisement especially misleading, as the woman featured in the Advertisement is a current Medicare beneficiary, and would not have her Medicare benefits ended, or even changed in any way, under the Budget proposal.

Additionally, the Budget Resolution ensures that Americans aged 54 and younger will still have Medicare when they retire by implementing a new, sustainable model of Medicare. This version of Medicare would actually require insurance companies to guarantee coverage for seniors.

The main argument is that the claim that Republicans would "end Medicare" is "blatantly and wholly false, and has been deliberately crafted to mislead and frighten voters."

To this, Sergeant replies that:

[T]here are plenty of people making the opposite case. That the GOP plan does, in fact, end Medicare. The argument is that the GOP plan would do away with the current, single payer, government-run system that guarantees payment for your major health care costs as you head into retirement. The GOP proposal would replace this with a system in which government gives premium support - that could over time fall short of health care costs - to seniors to purchase their own private plans. In other words, the new plan does away with a program called "Medicare" and replaces it with a different program - and, hence, "ends it."

Finally, as Paul Krugman writes:

The plan would replace our current system, in which the government pays major health costs, with a voucher system, in which seniors would, in effect, be handed a coupon and told to go find private coverage.

The bottom line is that stating that the Republican proposal would end Medicare as it currently works is a very defensible stance. The GOP can call their plan anything they like, a ham sandwich if they want to, but they can't and shouldn't be allowed to call it Medicare. It is not what people think of when they think of Medicare.

What is important about this discussion is that it begins to provide an outline of the GOP/Democratic Party positions on Medicare that are likely to feature so prominently in the 2012 election. It doesn't look like the GOP is going to want to or be able to walk away from this kind of thinking, and if the best they have to offer by way of explanation is contained in Bass' letter, I can see why they would be worried.

One of the older adages in politics and one of the best is "if you're explaining, you're losing."

Here's the ad that has Bass so exercised:

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

"Dick" Shelby

By Carl

 

You know, in the time of the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression...and one that is in danger of actually collapsing even further than that one...you'd think we'd want the best and the brightest minds overseeing our recovery.

 

Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama (Republican, natch) does not.

In April 2010, President Obama nominated me to be one of the seven governors of the Fed. He renominated me in September, and again in January, after Senate Republicans blocked a floor vote on my confirmation. When the Senate Banking Committee took up my nomination in July and again in November,  three Republican senators voted for me each time. But the third time around, the Republicans on the committee voted in lockstep against my appointment, making it extremely unlikely that the opposition to a full Senate vote can be overcome. It is time for me to withdraw, as I plan to inform the White House.

The leading opponent to my appointment, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, has questioned the relevance of my expertise. “Does Dr. Diamond have any experience in conducting monetary policy? No,” he said in March. “His academic work has been on pensions and labor market theory.”

But understanding the labor market — and the process by which workers and jobs come together and separate — is critical to devising an effective monetary policy. The financial crisis has led to continuing high unemployment. The Fed has to properly assess the nature of that unemployment to be able to lower it as much as possible while avoiding inflation. If much of the unemployment is related to the business cycle — caused by a lack of adequate demand — the Fed can act to reduce it without touching off inflation. If instead the unemployment is primarily structural — caused by mismatches between the skills that companies need and the skills that workers have — aggressive Fed action to reduce it could be misguided.

So I'm thinking, "Hmmmmmmmm, here's a guy who would bring a fresh perspective to the Federal Reserve Board. Someone who wasn't a bankster. Someone who had a grip on what it's like to actually be a tax-paying worker bee in the Great Transfer Of Wealth that is the American capitalist system.

But Dick thinks differently, you see. Dick believes that someone who can actually bring to the Board a fresh perspective might somehow damage his dry cleaning empire (not a joke). Or that somehow stopping a Fed nomination would force the White House to pony up for a couple of pork barrel projects for his district, like an unneeded refueling aircraft or an FBI counterterrorism center located in that bustling hive of terror targets, Alabama (except maybe Huntsville, which is military anyway, and not in need of much protection).

No, Dick believes in the antiBenthamian credo of the needs of the few override the needs of everyone. I'm not suggesting that Dr. Diamond is the nation's economic salvation, no, but he certainly could help the Fed break out of the morass of bureacratic concrete thinking that it's currently invested in, and let a little fresh air into the Board room.

Dick would rather game theory our lives.

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Historical revisionism, Palin-style

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Instead of acknowledging that she made an embarrassing mistake, Sarah Palin predictably went right into all-out double-down mode, claiming that actually she "didn't mess up" with her account of Paul Revere's "Midnight Ride." Here's what she told Fox News's Chris Wallace on Sunday:

Here's what Paul Revere did. He warned the Americans that "the British were coming, the British were coming." And they were going to try to take our arms so got to make sure that, uh, we were protecting ourselves and, uhm, shoring up all of our ammunitions and our firearms so that they couldn't take them.

But remember that the British had already been there — many soldiers — for seven years in that area. And part of Paul Revere's ride... And it wasnlt just one ride. He was a courier. He was a messenger. Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there that, "Hey. You're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms. You are not gonna beat our own well-armed, uh, persons, uh, individual private militia that we have. He did warn the British.

And in a shout-out, gotcha type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly. And I know my American history.

Uh, no, you don't. Think Progress:

If Palin knows her American history, this latest bit of jujitsu shows no evidence of it. The purpose of Revere's ride was to inform John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and other colonial American patriots that the British Army was marching from Boston to Lexington. As such, secrecy and stealth were essential. So contrary to Palin's claim that Revere warned the British they would not succeed, Revere attempted to avoid all contact with British troops or British loyalists already living in the colonies. The entire point of Revere's mission was to inform the patriots of the British movements without the British knowing they were being informed.

At one point in the night, Revere was temporarily detained and interrogated by British soldiers at a roadblock. He intentionally provided them a falsely inflated description of the colonial militia's strength, though only in the most strained metaphorical reading could this be considered a "warning."

Furthermore — again due to the need for secrecy and stealth — Revere used no bells or warning shots, and delivered his message in face-to-face contacts throughout the night. (Palin seems to simply forget her creative inclusion of the bells and warning shots in her initial recounting.) 

Even in her retelling, then, she still got it wrong. And did so idiotically: "Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there that, 'Hey. You're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms. You are not gonna beat our own well-armed, uh, persons, uh, individual private militia that we have. He did warn the British." Seriously? Who speaks like this? It's like she's auditioning for a supporting role in Clueless 2.

And it wasn't a "gotcha" question, she just got it wrong. End of story. 

But she doesn't get it. (And as usual defends herself by lashing out at the media. It's never her fault, always someone else's, and there's always blame to be hurled at her usual targets.)

And neither do her sycophants, some of whom have gone so far as to try to rewrite Paul Revere's Wikipedia page to match her account of what happened, her version of "history."

Because, of course, Palin can do no wrong nor say no wrong, and so everything must be revised to make it seem like she knows everything.

Just when you think she and her supporters can't sink any lower...

This day in history - June 5, 1963: John Profumo resigns

By Richard K. Barry

The Profumo Affair was a 1963 British political scandal named after John Profumo, Secretary or State for War. Profumo had an affair with Christine Keeler (pictured above), who was also reputed to have been involved with a Russian spy.

Not only was Profumo married but Keeler was a "London call girl" (a quaint term of the time). And an affair that close to a Russian spy was surely bad form in the middle of the Cold War.

Revelation of the whole sordid entanglement was, as one would imagine, devastating, as was the fact that Profumo lied about it in the House of Commons when questioned.

He was forced to resign, which badly damaged the reputation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillian's government. Macmillan himself resigned a few months later due to ill health.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

John Coltrane: "My Favorite Things"

Music on Sunday @ The Reaction

By Richard K. Barry

I like jazz. I even understand it after a fashion having played sax and guitar for a lot of years. On good days I even make a few bucks in a local band, though no one will ever confuse me for a talented jazz musician, in fact, it's blues and rock we play in our band. Still, I get some of the music theory behind jazz and know what I'm listening to when it's being played. Best of all, I know enough to be especially amazed and delighted when real geniuses pick up their axes and do the things they do.

Speaking of which, I've been listening to John Coltrane today. I can't get into everything the man did, particularly the spacier, atonal stuff, but there is so much in his repertoire that is incomparable.

Much as Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things" may by now be a musical cliche for some, maybe like Brubeck/Desmond on "Take Five," I still rank it among my favorite (both of them, really).

The thing about "My Favorite Things," the title track from a 1961 album, is that it is a modal rendition of the classic. Without getting into too much detail, modal music allows the jazz improviser to really forget about the changes the rhythm section is playing and just get into, as completely as possible, an improvisational head space.

In other words, in more typical jazz improvisation, the soloist has to be thinking a little bit more about what the accompanists are playing and play, more or less, within those chord changes -- with an emphasis on what is changing. In modal music, for reasons that have to do with the purity of the musical structure and the fact that it doesn't change, the soloist can climb inside his or her performance in a way that can be truly magical. Now, I am sure that every Berklee grad can give you ten reasons why what I just said is wrong or oversimplified, but I'm close enough.

This is what Coltrane is doing on "My Favorite Things," as are the other players when it comes their time to improvise.

The instrument Coltrane is playing in the clip is a soprano saxophone, or straight sax. It sounds higher than other saxes but it is played in exactly the same way. I once read that Coltrane liked it because it could be played faster than other larger saxes, like a tenor, which is the instrument with which a lot of people associate him.

Coltrane was known as someone who took very seriously the spirituality of music. The clip is about 10 minutes long, and, if you are anything like me, and have the time to listen all the way through, I think you will notice it is simply and purely a meditative experience. Very cool.

I should say that it's McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Steve Davis on bass.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Lessons from Florida; or, the dangers of ideological purity and forgetting the main thing

By Richard K. Barry

Two stories caught my eye in recent days that are, I think, related in a very interesting way. The first was about prospective Republican challengers to Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson as he seeks re-election in 2012. I wrote about this a few days ago.

It seems that GOP candidate State Senator Mike Haridopolos is in trouble with conservatives over mixed messages on his support for the Ryan budget plan, which has given his Republican rival, Adam Hasner, something with which to beat him up. Another Republican seeking the nomination, former U.S. Senator George LeMieux, has also been criticized by Hasner for his lack of ideological purity on the same issue.

Hasner's campaign manager, Rick Wilson, said the following:

It took Mike Haridopolos and Senator George LeMieux more than a week to give a straight answer about the only plan in Washington that would cut spending, reform entitlements and save Medicare.

That's not leadership; it's typical finger-in-the-wind politics that define Washington today. What's worse, after being pushed by the media, Senator Haridopolos chose to side with Bill Nelson and Barack Obama to undercut conservatives on the Ryan plan and defend the status quo in Washington.

For his part, LeMieux said later that he would have voted for the Ryan plan and Haridopolos, without specific mention of the plan itself, provided a rather defensive statement of his conservative bona fides in response to the charges. So, those contesting the Republican senate nomination in Florida are going at each other to prove who is a pure enough conservative using the Ryan plan as the litmus test.

Clearly we are going to see more of this sort of thing in congressional and senate races across the country.

The second story I came upon was about comments made by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour reported by Politico that any requirement for ideological purity in the presidential primaries will put the GOP at risk of losing the general election:

We're going to nominate someone for president who doesn't agree with you on everything and who you don't agree with on everything. But I'll tell you what. You're going to agree with them a whole lot more than you agree with Barack Obama.

Barbour went on to say the following:

Remember, in politics, purity is the enemy of victory. We cannot expect our candidate to be pure. Winning is about unity. Winning is about us sticking together to achieve the main thing.

Whatever Barbour's other failings, he has always been a smart political operative, as truer words about the ins an outs of elections were never spoken.

It is true that Barbour's comments were about the GOP presidential nomination process, but they also apply to senate and house races in an interesting way.

Historically, it is well-known that a Republican politician in Maine is not the same as one in Texas or that a Democratic politician in New York is not the same as one in Arkansas or West Virginia. If your goal is to have as many members of your party in the House or the Senate, then it is generally wise to understand that regional flexibility is important, that national ideological litmus tests do not provide that flexibility.

I don't think it's a stretch to guess that there might be a lot of older voters in Florida who might be rather attached to their Medicare program just as it is. Having one of the Republican senate candidates in the state parsing every statement of his party rivals to ensure that they are in lock step with every nuance of the Ryan plan is a gift to the Democratic incumbent, plain and simple.

Florida Republicans like Haridopolos know that in order to beat a sitting Democratic senator, it will be wise to attempt to square the circle, to indicate support for conservative budgetary principles without necessarily committing, holus bolus, to a plan that is currently and may be even more unpopular by election day.

I am not in the habit of giving advice to Republicans, but they might all want to think about adopting the Barbour mantra: "Purity is the enemy of victory." Say it together now.

Hell, for absolutely no extra charge, I'll offer the same advice to Democrats. Get behind your team with unqualified support no matter how much you may disagree on some particulars because, as Barbour says: "Winning is about sticking together to achieve the main thing."

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Howard Dean says Palin could beat Obama. Is he mad?

By Michael J.W. Stickings and Richard K. Barry

(Ed. note: Richard and I both wrote about this this evening. So let's just combine our thoughts into a single post.)

MJWS

Once upon a time, Howard Dean was a major voice in the Democratic Party, a leading figure on the left. And it was hard not to admire his energy and his appeal as an anti-establishment progressive running a strong grassroots campaign. And it was hard not to admire what he stood for, which for many of us was genuine change we could believe in.

I supported Kerry from early on in the '04 process, but Dean was the one who got people, and especially young people, excited, who engaged them in a way that Obama did four years later -- on a smaller scale, but still, it was genuine.

I've come to question his instincts and political sense since then, and now, it would seem, he has lost his marbles:

Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who helped Democrats capture the White House in 2008, warns that Sarah Palin could defeat President Obama in 2012.

Dean says his fellow Democrats should beware of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama would crush Palin in a general-election contest next year.

"I think she could win," Dean told The Hill in an interview Friday. "She wouldn't be my first choice if I were a Republican but I think she could win."

Dean warns the sluggish economy could have more of a political impact than many Washington strategists and pundits assume.

"Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover," Dean said. "Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don't care what people write about you inside the Beltway," Dean said.

Okay, fine. You never know. And with unemployment high and the economy still struggling, a situation that could worsen by next year, perhaps any Republican would have a chance of beating Obama.

And Democrats do need to be concerned. It's hardly a given that Obama will win. What happened in NY-26 was instructive but not necessarily how the rest of the country will go next November, and it would be foolish to think that the Republicans are simply too crazy to win.

Crazier things have happened, after all, and it wouldn't take much to push a deeply divided electorate to the GOP column.

But Sarah Palin? Please.

This isn't just about how she is viewed by the Washington press corps or the punditocracy, it's about how she is viewed across the country, and what's clear is that her numbers are poor -- and have gotten markedly worse since her peak during the '08 campaign. She's nowhere close to being presidential, she crapped out as Alaska governor, and she's a right-wing extremist, and people know it. Sure, things might change were she to win the nomination and were the party to rally around her enthusiastically, which itself is unlikely given how so much of the Republican Party is opposed to her, but it's really a stretch to think that she could then beat Obama. The economy would have to be a truly horrible state.

But I suspect Dean isn't providing detached analysis here. He is touting her, in a way, because he has a certain fondness for insurgent anti-establishment figures, that is, for himself. No, no, no, I'm not saying that Palin is the Dean of the right or that Dean is the Palin of the left, but there are similarities there that are undeniable -- not intellectual, for Dean is very smart and she, well, isn't, but situational. He ran against the Democratic establishment from the left, while she may run against the Republican establishment from the right.

Again, he makes a fair point. Nothing is certain. Anything could happen. Given the right circumstances (or wrong, from our perspective), any Republican who managed to win the GOP nomination could beat Obama. It's just hard to see how that applies to Palin, who has an extremely low ceiling of potential support.

**********

RKB 

I have to say that Howard Dean is a clever one, suggesting that Democrats should be careful not to dismiss Sarah Palin too lightly as someone who could potentially beat Barack Obama in a general election.

He warns that a bad economy would greatly enhance any Republicans chances and that if Palin could secure the nomination, which he agrees would be hard for her do to, she could become president.

I don't know. I think Howard is having us on, or, more to the point, having conservative voters on by trying to get them to believe that Sarah could be for real. Democrats know how polarizing a figure she would be in the GOP nomination battle and how embarrassing she would be for Republicans in the general election. Having her in the race is good for Democrats and Dean knows that.

Maybe he's trying to push Palin to stop dicking around and actually jump in.

To be fair, it would be unwise to dismiss anyone, even Palin, especially given the volatility of the economy. But if I were to dismiss anyone, if I felt compelled, Sarah P. would be first on my list.

Maybe Dean is just trying to give Karl Rove a heart attack as pay back.

The one thing that Dean said that does make sense is that Jon Huntsman would be an ideal Republican candidate and one the Democrats really should fear, though his chances of getting the nomination are slim to none.

Final thought is that Dean, like so many others, points out that Bill Clinton came out of no where to win the nomination and presidency in 1992, but let's be serious. Whatever faults the man has, he has been one of the brightest and most natural politicians the country has ever seen. No way the current crop of GOP losers comes close to that level of skill and certainly not Palin. Not a chance.

The Sesame Manifesto

By Capt. Fogg

(Ed. note: This is a follow-up to Fogg's post from yesterday. See the Fox News clip there or below. It's certainly enraging, but Hannity et al. are also massively stupid. It's hard to know whether to laugh or shudder. -- MJWS)

It's impossible for me to watch a Fox "panel" chew on a story without thinking of an alligator feeding frenzy or a bunch of mean dogs fighting for possession of a bit of rawhide. Actually, it's impossible for me to watch Fox News at all, but for those of a tougher breed, here's a prime example of that ruthless war on reality called Fox.

Listen carefully and you'll spot the message that Sesame Street aims at lower income, urban kids and you'll smell the racism and you'll hear the Republican anthem that the fraction of a cent per taxpayer that this show costs is "on principle" too much and especially because it tries to elevate the underclasses in direct contravention of Divine Law and Ayn Rand, whichever is the more powerful.

Does anyone really believe that Big Bird is a Communist or that Sesame Street is ruining America and the morals of its children? (Perhaps Doctor Spock fans can sigh with relief now that they've moved on to a new chew toy.)

Perhaps you do, perhaps you watch Fox anyway. Perhaps you're a malicious idiot with delusions of persecution, but here it is again:


(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Mitt Romney calls for action on global warming, further disqualifying himself from the Republican presidential nomination

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Why won't Mitt Romney win the Republican presidential nomination? Oh, where to begin?

A lot of it has to do with his lack of credibility with conservatives. They just don't think he's one of them, and he isn't. He's conservative, but in a 1990s sort of way, or at least in a pre-2008 sort of way.

And then there's his Obamacare-like health-care reform in Massachusetts. That alone disqualifies him, but in broader terms he's simply behind the Republican times. What was right-wing ideological orthodoxy just a few years ago is now heresy. His health-care reform in Massachusetts was once acceptable, and not so long ago, as a market-based alternative to, say, a single-payer system.

Now? Yeah, not so much.

While it's Romney who is accused of opportunistically flip-flopping in order to pander to the right -- and he certainly has done that, to some degree -- it's the Republican Party (and conservative orthodoxy more broadly) that has changed, moving further and further to the right and becoming more and more extreme, shedding what was once mainstream and acceptable.

And Romney, well, he just can't keep up.

But maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe he realizes that it just won't work. Maybe he now thinks that the only way he'll win the nomination, as remote as that seems, is to make a point of distinguishing himself as the only relatively sane candidate in a field of rampant insanity. He'll never be forgiven for supporting health-care reform, nor for supporting Obama's economic stimulus, nor for so much else that mars his record in the eyes of the right.

Or maybe he's just caught between his real views and the need to embrace the views of the far right if he is to get anywhere in today's GOP. Or maybe he's trying to say different things to different people, hoping no one will notice the inconsistencies.

Whatever the case, it's unclear how this helps his chances:

"I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change.

"It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

This would have been fine just a few years ago, when relatively sensible Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham were advocating action to combat climate change (and even supporting cap and trade, a market-based approach that was widely popular among conservatives as an alternative to, say, a carbon tax, but it's reached a point now where even acknowledging the reality of climate change is a no-go for Republicans. Recognizing the new orthodoxy, Tim Pawlenty has even apologized for making a "mistake" on climate change. He once thought it was real and that something needed to be done about it. Now he's a denialist, or so we are led to believe, because anything else is heresy.

There's a group of relatively sane (and relatively moderate) Republicans who are just too old-school to win in 2012 (which is no doubt partly why most of them are staying away), with the party where it is and where it will be for the forseeable future: Romney, Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, and Jeb Bush, to name some of the more prominent.

Romney is the leader of this group at the moment, the only one to put himself out there, the frontrunner in a terribly weak field. He could beat Pawlenty (if Pawlenty fails to catch on with the right), but if Sarah Palin gets in the race (however unlikely), or Michele Bachmann, or Paul Ryan, he's in trouble. He's got way too much baggage and is way too much of a heretic on any number of issues. 2012 will be a litmus-test election for Republicans, and Romney, in that regard (if to his credit), is an utter failure. He has his supporters, of course, particularly with the business class and the old-school establishment, but Republicans will do what they have to do to defeat him. As Jon Chait explains:

Romney is evidence that Obama's policies -- on economic stimulus, health care, the auto bailout, and pretty much everything -- are anything but the extreme socialism they now portray them as. His nomination would undercut their claims daily, and demonstrate it is the GOP, not Obama, that is proposing a radical new direction for the country. That's why they can't nominate him. Now, Republicans don't process the thought that way. In their minds, Obama's policies are truly radical, and their party somehow failed to grasp this radicalism until Obama took office. But that is the dynamic at work.

Which is yet another reason why he won't get the nomination. Whether he likes it or not, he exposes the Republican Party for what it is, or rather for what it has become. He's not just too "moderate" for conservatives, for the new conservative orthodoxy, he's everything the GOP used to be but has now rejected.

Actually, he's a lot like Obama, or at least used to be, and it would be awfully hard for Republicans to keep up their insane assault on Obama, their ridiculous claim that Obama is a dangerous anti-American radical, with Romney and his record proving that Obama is nothing of the kind.

Progressives are right to criticize the president for being a Republican-friendly centrist, but one of the consequences of Obama's embrace of the center is that Republicans have had to move ever further to the right to differentiate themselves from him. They were moving that way anyway, to be sure, but he has made it even more difficult for them to embrace anything of their old-school, pre-2008 past. And that includes Mitt Romney.

(photo)

Donald Trump plumbs the depths of the pathetic

By Michael J.W. Stickings

His rise and fall as a Republican non-candidate was stunning, if not surprising. Of course, he was never going to run. It was all about attracting the spotlight, about enhancing his stardom, about money, about himself. In that regard, he's a lot like Sarah Palin, his recent dining partner.

Trump's delusional megalomania apparently knows no bounds. And, yes, he's back:

So much for dropping out -- Donald Trump tells TPM he believes he can win the White House as an independent candidate, keeping his name in the presidential game despite declaring last month he would not run for the GOP nomination.

TPM caught up with Trump at the Faith & Freedom Conventionm after he left a closed door meeting with event organizer Ralph Reed and other social conservatives and asked how he figured he'd do as an independent.

"I think I'd do great," he said, telling TPM he believed he could win the White House. As for whether he'll run, he said it depended on the GOP nominee.

"Let's see what happens with the Republicans, who they put up," he said.

Asked if he was consulting with pollsters on a run, he said "I was leading in the polls when I decided to sign a very big contract -- I was actually leading."

Well, no, he wasn't. He was exposed as a national laughingstock at the White House Correspondents Dinner and his poll numbers were collapsing, just like the Birtherism he pushed (and is still pushing).

There's no way he'd "do great" as an independent, but there's no way we're getting to that point. He's not running. Ever.

He desperately needs the spotlight, the media attention, but only on his terms, only when he's the bully. He wants nothing of the all-out media glare that would come with a serious political campaign, and he'd self-destruct along the way, much as he did even as a non-candidate.

He is one of America's most ridiculous national jokes. And this latest stunt, suggesting that he's still in the race, that he still might run for president, is simply and utterly pathetic.

Anti-history: Paul Revere's "Midnight Ride," according to Sarah Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

To say that Sarah Palin is stupider than a 5th grader is to insult 5th graders...

**********

I had no idea that Paul Revere warned the British and did so with bells and gunshots and that the whole "Midnight Ride" thing was about the Second Amendment.

But that's what Sarah said, and she must know her history given how much she loves America and all, and how she knows so much about the Tea Party and talks about the Foundin' and everythin':

He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed.

And she said this in Boston.

Thanks for clearing this up for us, Sarah. I guess we'd all just gotten it wrong these many years.

Check out the hilarious deadpan reaction of CNN's Brooke Baldwin: 

For more, check out Booman and Benen, as well as MoJo's Tim Murphy, who notes that:

This is actually the opposite of everything Paul Revere did. He wasn't sending any messages to the British soldiers who were about to move on the patriots' weapons stockpiles and arrest key leaders. According to history, Revere was warning the Minutemen that the Brits were coming so these militia members could prepare. He did not ring any bells. He instructed a friend to put either one or two lights in the tower of the Old North Church ("one if by land, two if by sea"). He did not fire any warning shots. His ride at the time was no act of symbolism; it was a stealth operation in support of a local resistance movement whose goals at that point remained largely undefined.

Ah, but that's the real history, what really happened. Palin is living in a land of make-believe, the land of creationism and global warming denialism and a general disdain for science, for facts.

And in that world, that alternate "reality" that is nothing of the sort but that is extremely powerful on the right, Paul Revere, a Tea Party Republican way ahead of his time, did everything just the way Palin said he did.

Only on Fox

By Capt. Fogg 

Did you know that not only is Sesame Street "liberal," not only is Big Bird a bigot, watching it could lead to a totalitarian state and undermines morality and the destruction of the American family. It sets up an appetite for "governmental largesse" and prompts high schoolers to nominate homosexuals to host the junior prom. 

No, not only could you not make this up, you couldn't be paid millions to rave like a lunatic. It's getting to the point where you couldn't pay me to admit I'm American.