Month: January 2008

I Can Has Reading Skillz?

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by hilzoy Via Sadly No and Atrios, a sad illustration of the costs of social promotion: one Jake Tapper. Tapper ought to be failing his second grade Language Arts class for the thirty-fourth consecutive year, but thanks to the soft bigotry of low expectations, he ended up as ABC’s Senior National Correspondent instead. If he … Read more

The Undead

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by publius Being a Mitt Man, I’m still too depressed to write about Florida. And though I don’t really like quoting Steve Sailer, this seems spot on (via Corner): So, are all the neocons who got jobs in the Giuliani campaign, like N. Podhoretz, Frum, Rubin, going to jump ship and join the McCain campaign? … Read more

John Edwards Is Out

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by hilzoy What most of you already know: “John Edwards will end his presidential bid today, a source close to his campaign confirmed, effectively narrowing the Democratic field to two contenders less than a week before the Super Tuesday round of primaries. The former North Carolina senator is scheduled to speak in New Orleans this … Read more

The good news

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I’ve haven’t been a big fan of McCain since his atrocious anti-First Amendment campaign finance law.  But the good news about his win in Florida, and the almost certainty of his nomination for Republican candidate, is that the Republican candidate is decidedly anti-torture.  Yikes, I wish that had never even been a question.  Otherwise, open … Read more

Data Point: Habeas Corpus

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by hilzoy In comments to an earlier thread, Katherine posted a link to a statement by a group called Habeas Lawyers for Obama. Excerpt: “We are at a critical point in the Presidential campaign, and as lawyers who have been deeply involved in the Guantanamo litigation to preserve the important right to habeas corpus, we … Read more

Give Me A Break

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by hilzoy When I first saw this press release from NOW-NY, I was sufficiently worried that it might be a joke that I called NOW-NY to ask. It was after 4:30, though, and I haven’t heard back. Ben Smith from Politico claims to have confirmed its authenticity, though. Here it is, in all its glory: … Read more

We Live To Fight Another Day

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by hilzoy Today, the Republicans failed to sustain a cloture motion on the bill to amend FISA while providing retroactive immunity to telecoms. Four Democrats voted in favor of cloture, and one Republican (Arlen Specter) voted against. This means that debate has to continue, and the bill cannot yet come to a vote. Immediately afterwards, … Read more

And Speaking Of Lies…

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by hilzoy From the NYT: ““If we surrender and wave a white flag like Senator Clinton wants to do and withdraw as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos,” Mr. McCain said to reporters in Fort Myers on Saturday morning. At a town-hall-style meeting later in Sun City Center, a retirement community, … Read more

“No Legal Process”

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by Katherine Oh, this isn’t cool: A vow to give the boot to criminal aliens has become an almost daily part of the New York senator’s presidential campaign spiel on overhauling the immigration system. "Anybody who committed a crime in this country or in the country they came from has to be deported immediately, with … Read more

Random Links, Open Thread

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by hilzoy (1) As has already been noted in comments, Ted Kennedy will endorse Obama on Monday. Backstory here. Marc Ambinder is reporting that Kathleen Sebelius will endorse him on Tuesday. [UPDATE: Missed this, earlier: “The disclosure also comes the same weekend that the House’s highest-ranking Latino, California Rep. Xavier Becerra, also announced that he … Read more

Meanwhile, On Another Planet…

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by hilzoy There’s a peculiar post up at Bizarro World, cleverly called: Democrats: The Party Of The Klan?, which pretty conclusively demonstrates that Erick, who wrote it, actually does live in an alternate universe: “They are always claiming that Republicans are racist, but it is looking more and more like the Democratic Party, to its … Read more

The Enemy of Their Enemy

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by publius From a purely rational perspective, it’s odd that so many conservative pundits (commenters, etc.) find Obama so much preferable to Clinton. On everything from national security to trade to domestic economics, I suspect a Clinton administration would be far more to their liking than an Obama one. Clinton contempt, however, is not exactly … Read more

I’ll Take a Stab

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by publius Josh Marshall poses a challenge: “try to explain this”: Seems pretty clear to me — Clinton is implying that Obama won because he’s black, just like Jackson did. And, his larger implication is that this victory doesn’t matter for that reason. Now, he seems to catch himself halfway through, but the implication seems … Read more

South Carolina Open Thread

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by hilzoy The major networks have called the South Carolina primary for Obama. I don’t know what the final margins are, though I just heard it described as a “rout” on MSNBC. Given the exit polls and a bit of quick math, Obama has to have gotten over 50% of the vote, while Clinton and … Read more

Changing The Rules

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by hilzoy I’m with Josh Marshall on Hillary Clinton’s attempt to get the Michigan and Florida delegates seated: “The Clinton camp really needs to be shut down on this new gambit of theirs to muscle the party and the other candidates into seating the Michigan and Florida delegate slates. And let me be very clear … Read more

No Soup for Dulles

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by publius Though non-DC people may not care about this, I noticed in the Post that the FTA has abruptly reversed course on running the Metro (subway) line out to Dulles. This extension would, of course, help on a number of fronts. Not only would it make traveling to Dulles easier (which is miserable via … Read more

Somebody Please Ask Hillary Clinton This Question

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by Katherine "What is your view of the first Clinton administration’s practice of "extraordinary rendition"? Anyone reading the comments knows I support Obama in the primaries. But this isn’t a cheap "gotcha" question. I honestly don’t know the answer. As far as I can tell, Clinton has been asked about rendition exactly once during this … Read more

Are There No Prisons?

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by hilzoy “1) The poor don’t need more food. Obesity is a problem for the poor in America; except for people who are too screwed up to get food stamps (because they don’t have an address), food insufficiency is not.” — Megan McArdle, from a post called “Why Not Food Stamps?“ *** “How Many People … Read more

Lies And Democracy

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by hilzoy

I think it’s more or less beyond question that Hillary Clinton, and her husband, have told a series of lies about Barack Obama. (I’ve put some familiar examples at the end of this post: anyone who wants to consider the evidence can do so, but it won’t be as distracting to those who have already seen it.) I basically agree with what publius said about it:

“What’s so infuriating is that, in doing so, they assume their audience is too ignorant to learn the truth. It’s not so much that they’re attacking Obama – after all, that’s politics. It’s that Clinton’s attacks illustrate a deep contempt for voters. Call it “the rube strategy” – we’ll say what we want and most people will be too ignorant to ever figure out the difference.”

However, I don’t think the problem is exactly that they are assuming that most people won’t follow the news closely enough to know who is telling the truth and who is lying. As far as I can tell, that assumption is accurate. The problem is that they are playing on that ignorance in a way that displays a different sort of contempt for voters: not the assumption that most people do not follow the news closely enough to be able to say what’s wrong with criticizing Obama’s ‘present’ votes on anti-abortion bills, which is probably true, but the idea that it is OK to manipulate them into casting votes they might not cast if people were not telling them lies.

Consider, for instance …

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Prognosis Negative

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by publius As a sidebar to the imminent Democratic surrender on telecom immunity, note that five of the twelve pro-immunity Dems are on the Senate Commerce Committee. These include: (1) Inouye (Chairman); (2) Rockefeller; (3) McCaskill; (4) Nelson (FL); and (5) Pryor. This matters because the Commerce Committee is where all things telecom start. So, … Read more

Fighting Fire With Fire

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by hilzoy Writing about Paul Waldman’s latest column in TAP, Ezra Klein writes: “The overarching theme of Waldman’s column — that Clinton is “running like a Republican” — almost pushes me to her side on the issue. The winner of the Democratic primary, after all, will have to run against a Republican.” I think it’s … Read more

Ground Game

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by hilzoy This is interesting. I’ve been reading around on various topics related to the Democratic primaries, and found two stories about the Obama campaign that made quite similar points about two different states. First, of all places, the WSJ on South Carolina: “In early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, campaigns use … Read more

Scott Lemieux: Man …or Machine?

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by publius Let me join the chorus and heartily recommend Scott Lemieux’s Roe series (one, two, three). It brings back old memories because he mentions an old Legal Fiction post where I laid out my own thinking on Roe. (I actually used to write about law sometimes). I’m tied up for the moment, but I … Read more

The Fine Art of Misrepresentation

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by publius

I caught most of tonight’s schizophrenic Mortal Kombat/Kumbaya debate. I know you’ll be shocked, but I came away irritated with the Clinton campaign – more precisely, with certain tactics that I dare call Bush-esque. Hear me out.

To back up, and to echo Josh Marshall, HRC had actually been growing on me lately. The new wave of sympathy hit me one day as I listened to her talk confidently – and with such clear mastery – of some random policy point. I thought, “God, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone that smart and that wonky in the White House.” Her policy mastery didn’t so much win me to her side, as it cooled my opposition. It made me step back, get some perspective, and realize that an HRC administration would be a welcome relief – and would actually be cool in some wonkerrific respects.

But then I listened to the debate. And, ugh. What bothered me was not any of the silly things you usually hear about her personally. What bothered me was her tactics – and in particular, her misrepresentations. They were a particular type of misrepresentation that rang disturbingly familiar.

Josh Marshall got me thinking about all this when I read his scattered reactions to the debate:

I still think Hillary is just intentionally misrepresenting what Obama said about Reagan. It makes me cringe. As much I like her, it makes me cringe.
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Just when I’m seeing Hillary’s side of things, she comes back with crap like this ‘present’ stuff. Anybody who’s looked into this knows the whole ‘present’ thing is garbage. It’s a standard thing in the Illinois legislature.

Both of these attacks – i.e., Reagan and the “present” voting – are clearly factually false. And everyone who pays attention to the news knows it. And Clinton knows it too. Obama’s invocation of Reagan had nothing to do with praising Republican ideas, and the “present” thing has already been debunked too.

But still, she and her campaign keep harping on this — dishonestly. What’s so infuriating is that, in doing so, they assume their audience is too ignorant to learn the truth. It’s not so much that they’re attacking Obama – after all, that’s politics. It’s that Clinton’s attacks illustrate a deep contempt for voters. Call it “the rube strategy” – we’ll say what we want and most people will be too ignorant to ever figure out the difference.

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My Last Word On Electability

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by hilzoy Jonathan Chait makes a point I’ve been wanting to make, and he makes it clearly enough that I’m just going to quote him: “In the Washington Post yesterday, Paul Starr argued that it’s really difficult to determine whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would fare better in a general election. Ezra Klein made … Read more

Bling Bling? Bling Bling???!!!

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by hilzoy Via Andrew Sullivan, Mitt Romney makes a play for the African-American vote: “Governor Romney paid tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. when speaking to a group of employees at Gate Petroleum today and then shook hands and posed for photos with African-American families at a parade. The presidential hopeful met a friendly crowd … Read more

Playing To Win, Take 2

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by hilzoy A few days ago I wrote a post in which I made the following argument: (1) I believe that there is a real chance that significant numbers of people might see through Republican attack politics this year. (2) If they do, that might help to bring about a real realignment in favor of … Read more

Say What?

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by hilzoy In a sane world, John McCain would just have knocked himself out of the race for the Presidency, or any other office that requires at least a vague knowledge of economics. In this world, only a few bloggers seem to have noticed: “”As a Republican, I stand before you embarrassed. Embarrassed that we … Read more

Whither Edwards?

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by publius As predicted, it appears HRC has won Nevada. Perhaps the biggest story though is Edwards’ miserable showing, coming in right now at an anemic 5%. It’s clear that his window has closed. There’s no point in him staying in. That said, there’s not much point in him getting out either. Being retired so … Read more

How To Help

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by hilzoy

A member of Andy Olmsted’s family has just written me to say that if people want to do something in honor of him, they can send donations to a fund that has been set up for the four children of CPT Thomas Casey, who served under Andy and was killed while trying to help him. The address is here:

Capt. Thomas Casey Children’™s fund
P.O. Box 1306
Chester, CA 96020

Thanks so much.

Also, below the fold I am going to try to compile a list of the blogs that linked to Andy’s final post, so that his friends and family can see some of them without having to go to the trouble of tracking them all down. I’m going to do this gradually — it will take a while. I’ve been bookmarking them since Friday, and I think there are nearly 500. However, if anyone notices a blog post that I haven’t found by, say, noon tomorrow, just leave it in comments, or email the kitty or me.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated everyone’s willingness to put politics aside on the threads about Andy, and the way this entire community has responded. Special thanks to everyone who has emailed me about comments that need to be taken down — there were too many comments in the various threads for any one human to keep track of, and it helped a lot. It meant a lot to me, and I think it would have meant a lot to Andy. Thanks to you all.

[Update: Do not click “Continue Reading…” unless you want to see the long and growing list of links to Andy’s final post. If you don’t, just click “comments”.]

[Update 2: Someone had asked me to bump this, but having the software eat most of the post and redate it was not exactly what I had in mind…]

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Community

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by hilzoy I first clicked through to Janet Maslin’s NYT review of Lee Siegel’s new book because I read this delightful quote, and wanted to see whether it could possibly be real: “Who is it that “rewrote history, made anonymous accusations, hired and elevated hacks and phonies, ruined reputations at will, and airbrushed suddenly unwanted … Read more