Shutdown showdown: The Republicans' "doomed spasms"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So here we are. On the verge of a government shutdown. Which is to say, a shutdown of the U.S. federal government.

Yes, the federal government of the most powerful country in the world, a country that prides itself, delusionally, on its grandiose historic exceptionalism, a country that rants and raves about how it's supposedly the greatest country in the world, a bastion of liberty and democracy, is about to be shut down because its federal legislative branch, Congress, is apparently incapable of contributing to the governing of the country, and essentially of fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities.

But let's be more precise. It's about to be shut down not just because the system reduces the country to governmental paralysis but specifically because the opposition party is allowing it to happen, and indeed wants it to happen, or at least enough of its members to matter do -- an opposition party with enough clout, given its majority status in the House of Representatives, to make it happen.

And right now it's all because of Obamacare. (I wrote about this the other day.) Yes, Republicans so hate the new health-care law that they're willing to do whatever it takes to block its implementation, whether it's shut down the government or force the country to default on its debts, in the latter case perhaps triggering global economic armageddon.

The rational calculation, given the popularity of the law (and of the president and party behind it) as well as the unpopularity of government shutdowns, is realize that they don't have any real leverage and to concede defeat. But these are Republicans we're talking about. Thinking rationally just isn't what they're about these days. (A separate rational calculation is that the new system will become so popular, and that Democrat will forever be credited for it at the polls, that it's best to try to stop it, or at least delay it, now. But it's still hard to see how they can win this standoff in any meaningful way. Ultimately, they'll be blamed for the shutdown and in any event Obamacare will be implemented.) And so they plow ahead with their far-right ideological agenda, Ted Cruz leading the way, doomed.

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We need a federal agent at every...

By Frank Moraes

(Ed. note: This post was written last night. Frum must be up to, like, 2,109 such tweets by now. He is, as they say, en fuego. -- MJWS)

In an update for a post earlier today, I noted that Jim Naureckas tweeted, "If only an armed guard could be placed next to every state trooper." Well, it has become a thing. David Frum has now similarly tweeted 14 times.

First, dental clinics:

We need a federal agent at every dental clinic abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?sec…
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 22, 2012

Later, strip clubs:

We need a federal agent at every strip club wdrb.com/story/20372337…
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 22, 2012

And most recently, muffler shops:

We need a federal agent at every muffler shop topix.com/forum/philly/T…
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 22, 2012

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Situational ally David Frum

By Frank Moraes

As regular readers know, I have problems with David Frum. A lot of problems. A whole lot of problems. But he's so right about gun regulation.

He's written a number of good articles in the past few days. "The Myths that Enable Gun Tragedies." "Every Day is the Day to Talk About Gun Control." And a number of other short articles.

But I've been most impressed with his Twitter feed. He's been very smart, very humane, and very funny. Here he is ridiculing conservatives for the canard that it is too early to talk about gun policy by talking about the reaction to the sinking of the Titanic:

"1502 people have DROWNED! This is no time to insult their memory by asking why there weren't enough lifeboats to save them."
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 16, 2012

Here he takes on the defense against tyranny argument:

And if the reason you want semi-automatics is because you imagine bearing arms against the govt, I ask: why do you hate America?
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) December 15, 2012

For the record, these people do hate America. They are in favor of some mythical America that never existed. I've been meaning to write about this in depth. I basically have one thing to say: paying taxes is patriotic, so pay your fucking taxes.


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Republican moderates not so moderate

By Frank Moraes

There was an amusing bit on Real Time last Friday. The panel was talking about Romney's recent conference call and how the adults in the Republican Party needed to take control. Maher said that one way they could do that was to stop all this nonsense about Benghazi. Given that Real Time is at base a comedy show, it is not surprising what happened next. The two "reasonable" Republicans, David Frum and Ana Navarro, got apoplectic. "But there is a cover-up!"

This is the problem with all of the talk about the Republican Party reforming itself. The Republican elite didn't get into power by accident. The difference between the extremists and the moderates is the way that they talk about issues, not where they actually stand on issues. Like the rank-and-file members of the party, moderates are authoritarian followers. As much as I look for reasons to explain the conservative worldview, nothing fits better than John Dean's authoritarian theory.

This gets to the heart of what is so frustrating about talking to Republicans. Most of the time they are incredibly reasonable. Yet in the heat of an election or on an issue that Fox News is pushing (e.g., Benghazi), they lose all perspective. This explains why they look back so fondly on Bill Clinton and how they will gush with praise over Obama in eight years. These people are easily led by demagoguery.

The reason the most vile Republicans rise to the top is that they best pose the issues in a way that the conservative authoritarian followers can accept. The question is never do you want to protect everyone from potential global warming; it is: do you want to destroy the economy or believe in a liberal conspiracy theory? It is never how do we best help the poor; it is: do you want your hard earned money going to a bunch of loafers? It is never what is the proper role of government surveillance; it is do you want another 9/11?

When I talk to conservatives their answers are normally nuanced. But they can't help jumping for the sloganeering of the party elites. And this is as true of the public "moderates" as it is for the rest. Both Frum and Navarro said reasonable things about non-partisan issues. But that doesn't make them any less dangerous. In fact, it makes them more dangerous. They clearly have the capacity to see the complexity of the world but they choose (following Stephen Colbert) to let their guts lead them.

And this is why the Republican Party will not reform itself anytime soon. For all the reasonable talk from the moderates, they are as easy to get worked up in a froth as the rest of their party. The froth production masters are the crazies. When David Frum manages not to get excited by things like the Benghazi scandal, then the party will change.

Afterword

Read John Dean's excellent Conservatives Without Conscience.

And look! Candy:


(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

David Frum: reward misbehavior

By Frank Moraes

"When President Obama took office in January 2009 the US was plunging downward into the worst recession since World War II. By summer 2009, the US had begun a weak but real recovery, which at last seems to be accelerating into an expansion that more and more Americans can feel.

"President Obama gave the order that killed Osama bin Laden. He ended the war in Iraq on acceptable terms. He is enforcing tightening sanctions against Iran, inspiring hopes of a peaceful end to that country's nuclear program.

"Meanwhile, his opponents in Congress have behaved about as badly and irresponsibly as any opposition group..."

That's how the liberal's favorite conservative David Frum starts his endorsement of... Mitt Romney! So why, after all of the good Obama has done and all the bad the Republicans have done is Frum voting for Mitt Romney? If we don't, his party members in Congress will destroy the United States:

The question over [Romney's] head is not a question about him at all. It's a question about his party—and that question is the same whether Romney wins or loses. The congressional Republicans have shown themselves a destructive and irrational force in American politics. But we won't reform the congressional GOP by re-electing President Obama. If anything, an Obama re-election will not only aggravate the extremism of the congressional GOP, but also empower them: an Obama re-election raises the odds in favor of big sixth-year sweep for the congressional GOP—and very possibly a seventh-year impeachment.

Jonathan Chait notes that David Frum joked about this earlier this year:

"Vote Republican. It's too dangerous to leave us in opposition."
— davidfrum (@davidfrum) May 12, 2012

Frum isn't alone in this. Pretty much every Romney endorsement from a "reasonable" source was the same. This is exactly what Paul Krugman wrote about on Friday. It is a very dangerous idea that we should elect a Republican president because that is the only way to make the Republicans in Congress behave. And this kind of logic is all the worse when it comes from supposedly reasonable conservatives like David Frum.

Update

Chait also talks about how the same thing was said when Bush Jr. was running. It turned out to be sort of the truth: Republicans did stop blocking legislation. But what was that legislation?

Romney is making promises to the center his base does not want or expect him to fulfill. And that is the downside of his true-but-outrageous argument about the crazy House Republicans. The way he will get them to stop launching kamikaze attacks on the economy and the system of government is to give them what they want, just as Bush did. 

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Andrew Breitbart is dead

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Conservative bully and agitator Andrew Breitbart, as you surely know by now, died earlier today "unexpectedly from natural causes."

He was 43.

However much I loathed the man, and I certainly loathed him a great deal, I do not wish here to speak ill of the dead. He was what he was, to the detriment of civil discourse, to the diminishing of conservatism, and to the worsening of American democracy.

And let us not forget that he himself did speak ill of the dead, just as he spoke ill generally. What goes around, comes around.

Still, there is sadness in death, including in Breitbart's, and one feels for his loved ones. They are not to blame for who and what he was.

**********

One may not wish to speak ill of the dead, but honesty demands it sometimes. This is so very true in this case. As David Frum wrote:

And this is where it becomes difficult to honor the Roman injunction to speak no ill of the dead. It's difficult for me to assess Breitbart's impact upon American media and American politics as anything other than poisonous. When one of the leading media figures of the day achieves his success by his giddy disdain for truth and fairness -- when one of our leading political figures offers to his admirers a politics inflamed by rage and devoid of ideas -- how to withhold a profoundly negative judgment on his life and career?

How indeed.

David Frum thinks it may be too late to stop Newt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Say what you will about David Frum, he's one of the few conservatives these days willing to tell it like it is. And he's not terribly happy about what he sees coming for the GOP:

Today's question is: will the Gingrich balloon deflate like all the previous Not Mitt balloons?

The answer is: yes of course – but given that these balloons take typically 6-8 weeks to shrivel, the impending Gingrich bust may not arrive soon enough to save Romney. No question though, it will arrive in time to freak out the Republican party.

The most important thing to remember about Gingrich is not the three marriages, not the dubious financial practices, not the abrupt reversals on healthcare mandates and climate change. It's not the grandiosity of language, not the habit of casting opponents as un-American, not the lack of self-awareness that allowed him to impeach a president for lying under oath about an extramarital affair while engaged in an extramarital affair of his own.

The most important thing to remember about Newt Gingrich is that his colleagues in the House of Representatives effectively fired him as their leader even before the impeachment crisis, shifting power instead into the more competent hands of Tom DeLay. It was Tom DeLay who ran the caucus while Newt Gingrich was traveling the country giving speeches about Total Quality Management and the Struggle for Western Civilization.

Gingrich was not pushed aside by his caucus for any of the offenses listed above. He was pushed aside because he plunged the caucus into chaos, because he lost fights that he himself had chosen, because he could not control his mouth, because he wanted to be a star more than he wanted to get things done. There's a reason Gingrich is fascinated by management gurus: he needs the help.

That weakness in Gingrich will not now abruptly change. The chaos that surrounded him as Speaker, the chaos that engulfed his presidential campaign earlier this year – that chaos will replicate itself again. But when? It's less than 5 weeks to the New Hampshire primary. Perhaps Gingrich can behave himself till then, in which case Mitt Romney has a big problem on his hands. But it's more than 8 full months to the Republican convention in Tampa.

Prediction: if Gingrich has emerged as the nominee by then, the mood of that convention will be full unconcealed panic.

That very faint sound you hear is a lot of us rubbing our hands in anticipatory glee.

**********

I would just add that Gingrich would appear to have quite a bit more staying power than the earlier not-Mitts: Bachmann, Perry, and Cain. He will likely behave himself until Iowa, particularly with the holidays coming, but a win there could unleash the megalomania that has been his undoing in the past. And then a good showing in New Hampshire... and a win in South Carolina... well, you get the point.

Still, he's a more known commodity than those other three and Republicans who pay attention generally know what they're getting with him. And it would appear that, right now, a solid plurality of them are willing to get behind him, massive flaws and all. That may not last, but he could stay in favour longer than Frum expects, particularly given his ability to channel the anti-Obama rage that is the major driver of Republican politics these days.

I can't believe they still let David Frum be a conservative

By Richard K. Barry

I don't know David Frum. I know people who know him (or used to know him). I even spent a number of my early years in Canada watching and listening to David's mother, Barbara Frum, a respected Canadian television and radio journalist, who died far too young. If you follow the Canadian scene at all, you would know that the Frums are considered to be serious people.

Some time ago David decided to take his career to the U.S. and even worked as a speechwriter for George W. Bush for a while. At some point it seems that he, while holding onto his conservative political beliefs, decided that he was having a hard time with the radicalism coming from so much of the right-wing. Not to speak for him, but it appeared to me that he was having difficulty with the lack of cogent argument coming from so many on the right, especially the Tea Party right.

They weren't arguing the facts, they were simply mouthing platitudes that they believed to be supported by an understanding of what it means to be an American. For conservatives like Frum, who lives to argue the facts, that was crazy making.

I don't support Frum's brand of politics, his conservatism. He says that he's all about free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation and limited government. Sounds okay in a sense but we all know that the devil is in the details so, no, he and I wouldn't agree about much once we started to get into the details.

But when he speaks, I believe that he is working hard to make a good case and that he would be open to other ideas if presented intelligently. As I said, I don't know the man, but that's the feeling I get. I think we also know that this kind of reasonableness on Frum's part has not always made him popular on the right and that strikes me, from my perspective, as a good thing.

I came across a piece that Frum wrote recently for CNN on the debt ceiling talks and I would like to recommend it to you. Not only does it makes sense, but it reminds me of the way I used to debate with conservatives about politics and economics. It used to be about positions and facts and arguments and maybe a good faith attempt to see things differently.

In the current context, here are three things that David Frum wants us to think about.

1. Unemployment is a more urgent problem than the debt.

2. The deficit is a symptom of America's economic problems not the cause.

3. The time to cut is after the economy recovers.

I don't intend to have this discussion here, only to say that America would be a better place if our political leaders, on both sides of the aisle, were able to have discussions on statements like these based on facts and not blind ideology.

Good on Mr. Frum for suggesting it.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Whither Birtherism?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Conservative renegade David Frum may describe Birtherism as a "disgrace" and a "phony controversy," as an issue that effectively ended with yesterday's release of President Obama's long-form birth certificate, and I credit Frum for asking how "this poisonous and not very subtly racist allegation [got] such a grip on our conservative movement and our Republican party" (that would be, his movement and his party) and for denouncing "these racialized attacks on Obama" (not just the Birther allegation but the new allegation, via Donald Trump, that Obama is basically a product of affirmative action, undeserving of his Ivy League education), but actually Birtherism and its various offshoots, however convincingly refuted, aren't going anywhere.

James Fallows explains why: "[Tuesday], about half of all Republicans thought Obama was foreign born, and therefore an illegal occupant of the White House. How many Republicans will think the same thing one week from now? My guess is: about half. We've reached that stage on just about everything. It's probably been true of human beings throughout time, but is more obviously significant in politics now, that generally people don't act like scientific investigators, or judges in moot-court competitions, when parsing the logic and evidence behind competing arguments to come up with political views. They go on loyalty, and tradition, and hope, and fear, and self-interest, and generosity, and all the rest."

Quite true, but I think Fallows is too generous, and too universal in applying his theory. While I acknowledge that ignorance, willful or otherwise, has been a facet of the human condition forever, or almost forever, this isn't so much about "human beings throughout time" as it is about the current state of one of America's two dominant political parties, a party that to a great extent has rejected science in favour of a far-right ideology, mixed with a similarly far-right theology, that wants nothing to do with "logic and evidence" and everything to do with trickle-down economics and "Intelligent Design." Yes, much of this has to do with loyalty, tradition, fear, self-interest, etc., but a lot of it has to do with sheer madness -- and, as I have remarked a number of times, what I find to be one of the defining aspects of our time, politically speaking, is the Republican Party's descent into madness, or rather its ongoing descent into ever deeper levels of madness.

Many Republicans, needless to say, still aren't convinced. Some of them are crazies like Leo Berman, but the issue, in one form or another, will be kept alive by more mainstream Republicans like Trump, Newt Gingrich, and everyone else who, sincerely or not, is trying to appeal to the grassroots base of the party. And of course it will be kept alive on Fox News, on talk radio, and throughout Frum's "conservative movement."

It's ignorance, it's racism, it's madness. And the facts don't matter one bit.

Bruce Bartlett, David Frum, and the closing of the conservative mind

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Bruce Bartlett has had a long career in Republican politics. He worked for Ron Paul and Jack Kemp. He was a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He was a senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House, working for Gary Bauer, later a Treasury official under Bush I. He worked at the Cato Institute.

Starting in 1993, he was with the right-wing National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas... until it fired him for being too critical of Bush II. As he puts it himself, he was fired "for writing a book critical of George W. Bush's policies, especially his support for Medicare Part D." And that, it seems, was it. The scarlet letter was applied. "In the years since," he laments, "I have lost a great many friends and been shunned by conservative society in Washington, DC."

All because he broke ranks and spoke out, putting principle before partisanship. No matter his long record, an entire career, of committed conservatism.

In related news, David Frum, the former Bush II speechwriter who has been deeply critical of the GOP over health-care reform and other issues, and the right-wing American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have parted ways. Was he fired? He claims not, and he very well may not have been, but Bartlett, responding to the news, and taking it for granted that Frum was fired, launched a sound criticism of the current state of American conservatism:

I have always hoped that my experience was unique. But now I see that I was just the first to suffer from a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn't already.

*****

I wanted to say that this is a black day for what passes for a conservative movement, scholarship, and the once-respected AEI.

Even if Frum wasn't fired, even if the parting of ways was mutual, or perhaps a cost-cutting measure (Frum claims that he was invited to stay at the AEI on a "non-salary basis"), Bartlett, I think, is right. Conservatism these days is about either a) blind loyalty to the Republican Party, b) anti-government teabagging extremism, or c) theocracy -- or d) some contorted combination of the above.

What's more, both the Republican Party and the conservative movement, to the extent there is one anymore, are about purging and purifying, with dissenters, even conservative ones like Bartlett, even the occasionally bipartisan likes of Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, ignored, alienated, or excommunicated. Simply put, in Dear Leader Rush's party, in a movement dominated by the Hannitys and the Malkins, all that is acceptable is the narrow ideological fringe of the increasingly extreme right.

**********

The title of this post refers back to the title of Bartlett's post at Capital Gains and Games, which, of course, refers back to the title of Allan Bloom's famous book, The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom, as you may know, was a Straussian, a follower of Leo Strauss, and I, who studied at the University of Toronto with two of Bloom's leading students, am also one.

Yes, I remain one now, despite my liberalism and objections to neoconservatism (which, through Bill Kristol and others, is linked to Straussianism), and I still think there is a great deal to like about Strauss, an amazing political philosopher in his own right, and his immediate followers, including Bloom (who taught at Chicago and Toronto), whose translation and textual analysis of Plato's Republic are simply magnificent, as is so much else of what he did academically.

There is also a lot to like about The Closing of the American Mind, which tells some difficult truth about the intellectual decline of America as a modern liberal state. Anyone who pays attention to contemporary popular culture with a critical mind, even a generally open-minded liberal who welcomes new things and finds Bloom's occasionally reactionary conservatism distasteful, should agree that all is not well with the American mind. The decline of standards not just of excellence but even of goodness is all too apparent. Liberals like me argue that the benefits of progressive politics and an opening society far outweigh this decline in terms of importance -- I hardly think that returning to the narrow, oppressive elitism of the past, a bigoted world ruled by privileged white men, is desirable -- but we should nonetheless be seriously concerned about what has happened, and is happening, not just in America but in liberal democracies everywhere.

For more on Strauss, and on the possibility of reconciling Strauss and liberalism, see a pair of posts I wrote at my place way back in April-May 2005:

-- Education and liberation: What it means to be a Straussian, Part I; and

-- Diversity and conformity: What it means to be a Straussian, Part II.

I would add here that Allan Bloom himself was a lifelong Democrat -- unlike most Straussians, who tend to be Republican and generally on the political right. I hope that he, of sound and acute mind, would have objected to what is happening in the Republican Party and in American conservatism generally.

The American mind may very well still be closing, in a cultural way, despite the incredible advances of recent years (such as the growing recognition of gay rights, a greater appreciation for human rights, despite the barbarism of the George W. Bush administration, and the election of a black man to the presidency), but the conservative mind, now decaying, seems to have been shut down altogether, the Great Purge, of which both Bartlett and Frum have been victims, showing no signs of abating anytime soon.

Quote of the Day: David Frum on "Republican fratricide"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Credit this Canadian conservative for speaking the harsh truth to his fellow Republicans:

From the point of view of most Republican commenters online and on the air, party loyalty is a highly variable principle. As they see it, third-party races by liberal Republicans who want to combine environmental protection with fiscal responsibility are selfish indulgences. But third-party races by conservative Republicans who want to combine pro-life appeals with their economic message? Those are completely different. Those are heroic acts of principle.

*****

But the risk is that the party will draw a very different conclusion. From the New York experience, Republicans will be tempted to draw the lesson: Always nominate the more conservative candidate. From New Jersey: We need to drive pro-environmental fiscal moderates out of our party and into the Democratic Party where they belong!

*****

[A] political formula that encourages Republicans to write off the suburbs, the Northeast, and California is not a formula for a national majority. It's a formula for a more coherent, better mobilized, but perpetually minority party.

It's always painful to lose. But defeats can be useful if they lead to wisdom. In this November's races, however, the risk is real that Republicans will lose much -- and learn nothing.

That's a fairly long QotD, but make sure to read Frum's post in full, as it delves into how Republicans are tearing each other apart in New York and New Jersey, two key races this fall.

I can't say I've ever cared much for Frum -- and I certainly don't want Republicans to listen to him, given that his very sensible outlook could actually rescue the party from the the brink of oblivion -- but in a party, and a movement, of increasing extremism (moderates out, teabaggers in), he's a voice of reason, relatively speaking, in the dark wilderness of American conservatism.

Conservative critique: David Frum on what a Republican victory over Obamacare would mean

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've never much cared for David Frum -- like me, a Canadian who focuses most of his attention on the U.S. (and one who has done so rather successfully) -- but, I admit, he's one of the smarter and more sensible conservatives around today.

Consider this post he put up yesterday at his website, New Majority: "What if We Win the Healthcare Fight?"

Well, what if...

Frum is right, to a point, that most right-wing opponents of so-called "Obamacare" would "trumpet the success as a great triumph for liberty and individualism." Specifically, they would celebrate their political victory over Obama and the Dems as an end in and of itself. Sure, many of them like the way the system works now, or think they do, and they would no doubt interpret any such victory as confirmation of ideological righteousness, but it is the sport that matters here, the winning and the losing, not what happens to health care in the long run.

Frum, distancing himself from his right-wing ilk, suggests that victory would not be "a great triumph for liberty and individualism" but rather "a triumph for inertia. To the extent that anybody in the conservative world still aspires to any kind of future reform and improvement of America's ossified government, that should be a very ashy victory indeed." Yes, but it would also be a victory for the entrenched special interests -- Big Insurance, Big Pharma, the tax-hating wealthy, etc. -- that sustain the Republican Party and that are so widely celebrated on the right (where there is a mutual relationship of massive profiteering off the current system). There would be no reform, perhaps, and Frum is to be applauded at least for recognizing that the current system is both unsustainable and undesirable, but it wouldn't be "inertia" as much as it would be the yet further entrenchment of those interests and the ongoing erosion of anything like a healthy democratic society.

Frum lists four deleterious elements of the current system that would remain in place in the event of a Republican victory over Obamacare, and the ordering of the list suggests that Frum's priorities are pretty much exactly what you would expect from a conservative: taxes (preferably low) and the free market (preferably as free as possible). Indeed, he notes that, in victory, "[w]e'll have entrenched and perpetuated some of the most irrational features of a hugely costly and under-performing system, at the expense of entrepreneurs and risk-takers, exactly the people the Republican party exists to champion."

Take a look at that last sentence again...

The Republican Party, according to Frum, "exists to champion" not the American people but a certain subset of them: "entrepreneurs and risk-takers," that is, the wealthy, or, more broadly, those who most benefit from -- or seek to benefit from -- the sort of radical free market that Frum and his ilk espouse. Indeed, while Frum at least bothers to mention that there are "a lot of uninsured or underinsured people," his concern is not so much with the fact that millions and millions of Americans lack appropriate care/coverage but that the uninsured are such a drag on "hospitals and local governments." (Still, I suppose that's what passes for "compassionate conservatism" these days.)

So, yes, Frum is, to his credit, open-minded and far-sighted enough to understand, unlike so many on the right, that reform is a must. But he is still a conservative, and, as such, his idea of reform is not what would ultimately benefit the American people, providing extensive coverage and choice (given that most have neither), but what would allow the market to operate more efficiently, and more profitably, for those who are already benefitting from, and abusing, what is a corrupt, unjust, and indecent system.

Quote of the Day: David Frum on McCain-Palin

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In tomorrow's WaPo (but posted today), former Bush speechwriter David Frum argues that the Palinization of the McCain presidential run, while igniting the base, has badly backfired:

There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him.

The race is basically over: "The very same campaign strategy that has belatedly mobilized the Republican core has alienated and offended the great national middle, which was the only place where the 2008 election could have been won." And as McCain is losing, so are Republicans down the ballot.

And so, Frum recommends, "[w]e need a message change that frankly acknowledges that the Democrats are probably going to win the White House," a strategy that shifts the focus:

In these last days before the vote, Republicans need to face some strategic realities. Our resources are limited, and our message is failing. We cannot fight on all fronts. We are cannibalizing races that we must win and probably can win in order to help a national campaign that is almost certainly lost. In these final 10 days, our goal should be: senators first.

Is that a good strategy? Maybe, but it may be too late regardless.

If the Republicans lose badly next month, up and down the ballot, it won't just be because of the Palinization of McCain, it will be because they are an extremist party that has been wrong about pretty much everything: Iraq, taxes, health care, social security, market (de)regulation, terrorism, etc. In embracing social conservative (on domestic policy), neoconservative (on foreign policy), and neo-liberal (on economic policy) positions, they have drifted further and further to the right while the rest of the country has, overall, been moving to the Democrats. The American people have had enough. The result could be a decisive Obama victory and significantly bigger majorities for the Democrats on both ends of Capitol Hill.

What Frum is doing is playing the blame game, and pointing a finger directly at the McCain campaign. But there is more than enough blame to go around, and Frum should look no further than his former boss. What he doesn't seem to understand, or doesn't want to admit, is that his entire party is about to reap what it has sown.