Hacktacular!
Well, if Mittens wins figuring out who his first Supreme Court nomination will be should be easy.
Author Page for Scott Lemieux
Poor Bobo
It’s always fun to see Krugman bring actual facts and logic to discussions with certain unnamed “conservatives.”
K.C. Johnson Makes the Case Against the Elimination of Black Studies Departments
I’d like to add a couple more points about the K.C. Johnson post SEK linked below. First, it’s worth noting Johnson makes no attempt to address the central point made about Riley’s post — namely, that listing dissertation titles isn’t an argument (let alone a good argument) and that making arguments about the content of research you haven’t read is remarkably foolish.
Of course, Johnson has good reason not to get into this, since as you can see from the post he’s a big fan of sneering at titles in lieu of making arguments himself. (Needless to say, we also get that favorite non-argument of the right, using the phrase “political correctness.” I wouldn’t want to defend anything Riley actually wrote either.) Johnson does, however, make an attempt to engage with the work of one of the scholars being smeared by Riley. This critique involves…a couple short encyclopedia entries, but hey, it’s something. Alas, the meager substantive content contains a major howler:
In a fantastic interpretation of California’s Proposition 209, Levy maintained that “the controversy continued when some voters”–people who, it would seem, were living under a rock during the campaign–”claimed that they did not realize the measure ended affirmative action.”
First of all, far from being “fantastical,” for a substantial number of initiative voters to not fully understand the implications of what they’re voting for would be utterly banal, as anyone with the most passing familiarity with the vote behavior literature would know. But in the specific case of Prop 209, the framers of the initiative strategically chose language that would attract a crucial bloc of voters who did not necessarily favor ending all affirmative action programs. Let me turm things over to Richard Frankel (Yale L. & Pol’y Rev., 2000: 444-5):
The circumstances surrounding the passage of Proposition 209 demonstrate the dangers of strategic drafting. The drafters and the campaign in favor of the initiative were generally farther to the right than most voters on the issue of affirmative action. They wanted the initiative to have broader authority to eliminate affirmative action programs than most voters. As a result, supporters sought to narrow the scope of the initiative during the campaign so that voters would think it was less controversial than it really was. The backers tried to make it sound as if the proposal would do less than it would really do so that they would not offend voter sensibilities and so they could win swing votes from the political center.
The California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), the campaign in favor of 209, used strategic drafting and campaigning to convince the voters that the scope of the initiative was narrow. Although the drafters wanted to stop affirmative action programs in higher education and government employment, they feared that using the phrase affirmative action would doom the initiative. CCRI’s internal polls showed that the initiative would likely lose if the phrase “affirmative action” was used, and so CCRI chose a more appealing phrase they felt would mean the same thing. In a memorandum early in the campaign, CCRI’s own political consultant stated that “what is at issue is how the debate is framed.” Realizing the importance of the proposal’s language, the authors used strategic drafting rather than substantive changes to sway public opinion. Most polls of voters show that a majority support affirmative action programs. Therefore, the authors replaced “affirmative action” with “preferences,” a word which carried much less support in polls. Because people think of preferences as giving a person something that person did not earn, people opposed preferences in much higher percentages than they opposed affirmative action. Even though CCRI may have been seeking to end affirmative action, it couched the initiative’s language in terms of preferences to increase voter support.
The plan succeeded, as the language of the initiative may have been the main reason for its passage. Polls conducted by the Los Angeles Times in the summer of 1996 show that when pollsters used the language of the initiative, fifty-four percent of voters supported it and thirty-one percent opposed it. However, when the next question asked if people realized the initiative would substantially reduce or eliminate affirmative action programs, support dropped from fifty-four percent to forty-three percent and opposition grew from thirty-one percent to forty percent. These statistics suggest that not only did the voters not understand the meaning of the initiative, but also that the drafters exploited the voters’ confusion in order to persuade them to vote for a proposal they otherwise might not have supported. [cites omitted]
So, in attempting to defend a hack who dismissed an entire academic field based on nothing, Johnson singles out for smug ridicule an argument about which 1)his would-be smear target is completely right, and 2)Johnson hasn’t the slightest idea what the hell he’s talking about. Give Riley this: at least she made no pretense of knowing what she was talking about.
The French Electorate Is Shrill!
It’s like the ultimate Fred Hiatt op-ed. Any hack can scold voters for not supporting Pain Caucus policies that are as senseless in theory as they’ve been devastating in practice. But to call the result of an election “shrill” is pretty special.
Jesse Helms Lives
North Carolina constitutionally entrenches its ban on same-sex marriage and bans domestic partnerships. As Allison Kilkenny notes, all 11 former Confederate states have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.
Countermobilization Contrarianism Never Dies
Jon Rauch has the latest argument that a Supreme Court decision striking down the PPACA would be Great News For Liberals. Alas, it’s wrong on multiple levels. Alas, it’s wrong on multiple levels.
I remember more than a decade ago that in his (excellent) critique of Bush v. Gore, a too-optimistic Jeffrey Rosen argued that “[c]onservatives have lectured us for more than 30 years about the activism of the Warren and Burger Courts. Those tinny and hypocritical lectures are now, thankfully, over.” If the intervening decade makes anything clear, it’s that these tinny and hyporcitical lectures are never over.
Why Obama’s Secret Feelings About Same-Sex Marriage Don’t Matter
To approach the question of principle in political leadership from yet another angle, in light of Biden’s quasi-endorsement of same-sex marriage there’s been a lot of speculation of what Obama “really” thinks about same-sex marriage. I suppose if I had to guess I would say the most likely possibility is that he “really” supports same-sex marriage and isn’t saying so for political reasons, if only because as a northern, generally socially liberal, affluent person with an advanced degree this would be the most common position. (One could also cite his explicit support for it when it was much more cutting-edge in 1996, but again it’s possible that since he wasn’t seeking national office at the time this position-taking was also done for political reasons.)
At any rate, nobody knows what Obama “really” thinks, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is what he’s done policy-wise. Directly on same-sex marriage, where he could affect policy — deciding whether to defend DOMA, making Supreme Court appointments — he’s done what could have reasonably been done. On the related issues of gay and lesbian rights he’s been good but not great; he deserves credit for supporting and contributing to the repeal of DADT, but he deserves criticism (and the resulting denial of funds) for refusing to issue an executive order banning workplace discrimination by federal contractors. I don’t care a great deal about whether Obama explicitly supports same-sex marriage or not because I don’t see any reason to believe that the BULLY PULPIT matters more with respect to same-sex marriage than it does for anything else, but either way he doesn’t get credit for secret feelings; what matters is whether he comes out in favor of SSM (whether motivated by sincere feelings, politics, or both.)
So, again, I don’t see much point in speculating about what Obama “really thinks.” It’s unknowable, presidential goals and preferences can never be divorced from political considerations, and on the issue for better or worse he is what his record says he is.
…see also Hilton.
World-Class Civility Trolling
A commenter notes this gem from Mark Bauerlein, last seen whining that Naomi Schaefer Riley’s knowledge-free race-baiting was not being addressed with the appropriate civility. Obama, says Bauerlein, is undermining America’s “civic virtue” because “he has shown a thin-skinned attitude toward his adversaries, an inability to sit down comfortably with the other side.” Yes, Obama is simply unwilling to sit down with the other side. Wait, stop laughing! Bauerlein has some compelling examples of Obama’s murder of civility and civic virtue. Make sure to get your smelling salts ready:
“When people talk about repealing health care reform, they’re not just saying we should stop protecting women with preexisting conditions; they’re also saying we should kick about a million young women off their parent’s health care plans.” (April 6)
“So we are going to have a big, important debate in this country and I cannot wait because we have tried what they are selling. It’s not like we didn’t try it. We have tried what they’re peddling and it did not work. And we have been spending the last three years cleaning after some of that mess. And I don’t want to have to do it again.”
Let’s see. So Obama made a statement about the effects of stated Republican policy — to repeal the PPACA — that is unassailably true. Repealing — or striking down — the PPACA would mean that women (and men) with pre-existing conditions could be denied coverage, and a significant number of people would lose the coverage of their parent’s health plans. The second statement involves a statement of fact — we have tried the Republican model of upper-class tax cuts — and an easily defensible judgment stated in a perfectly civil manner.
Bauerlein, in other words, seems a true believer in the “Mediscare” school of fake civility, which holds that stating facts about the effects of Republican policies is the height on incivility. It also fits within the “Borking” tradition in which it’s the height of incivility to describe a Republican’s stated positions. I dunno, I think I prefer Riley’s straightforward wingnuttery to this “how dare the president take the unprecedented step of mildly making the case for his own policy preferences” nonsense.
Buh-Bye
Looks like Naomi Schaefer Riley will have more time to spend on the wingnut welfare circuit, martyr division.
…Shorter Rod Dreher: “how could Riley have been fired for her attack on Black Studies when she had examples? Granted, she hadn’t actually even read the “abstracts” any of the “examples” in question, but…they’re still examples, and the fact that they were in Black Studies means that they must be ‘pseudoscholarship.’ This is not at all racist.”
Coke Stevenson and Political Principle
Last week, somebody asked me about Robert Caro’s response to the extensive criticism the second volume of his LBJ biography received for taking a Manichean view of the 1948 Texas Democratic Senate primary between LBJ and the ultra-reactionary Coke Stevenson in which Stevenson was the good guy. Since doing so is another way of making my point about political action and principle, I thought I would. I should reiterate again at the outset that my problems with Means of Ascent should not dissuade anyone from reading the rest of Caro’s masterly LBJ series (and the first section of the new one is encouragingly brilliant.)
On the Stevenson issue, I would have a couple rejoinders. First, Caro is largely unresponsive to the primary thrust of Blumenthal’s critique, which involves errors of omission rather than commission. He spends scarcely more time discussing Stevenson’s reactionary record in the 600 pages of Means of Ascent than he does in this New York Times response. And what little attention he gave it, as Blumenthal pointed out, was presented in weaselly, exculpatory language particularly jarring giving Caro’s more typical straightforward moralism. (According to Caro, Stevenson purged liberals from UT Austin because he “didn’t understand” academic freedom, not because he opposed it.) He also omits crucial context between the pro-FDR faction LBJ was aligned with versus the neoconfederate Texas Regulars (who tried to steal Texas’s electoral college votes for the Republicans) Stevenson was allied with. And with all due respect, when Caro explains this by saying that he “dealt only in a summary fashion with aspects of Stevenson’s life that had little to do with the campaign” he’s insulting the intelligence of his readers. Caro is — to put it mildly — not known for his laser focus, and that’s not an insult; the rich historical background Caro supplies is a large part of what makes his great books great. If Stevenson had ever done anything good in his political life I’m certain we would have heard about it at great length.
More relevant to the current discussion, I’ll concede that Caro is probably right that Blumenthal overreached when he described Stevenson as corrupt based on false or unsubstantiated rumors. I’ll concede arguendo that Stevenson was an atypical Texas reactionary rather than a typical one. Where I disagree with Caro is in his thinking this is very important. Caro sees a lot of value in Stevenson’s patrician posture versus LBJ’s transparent lust for office; I put no value on that. Caro greatly admires the integrity with which Stevenson advanced his reactionary views. My reaction is more along the lines of “why should reactionary interests in Texas buy what they already had for free?” What matters is Stevenson’s record; to me, whether his awful performance a as governor was the result of principle or corruption is beside the point. George Wallace’s racism may have been tactical rather than principled but the effects on African Americans in Alabama were exactly the same either way.
The Euro Problem
One of the important points made by Krugman in his analysis of the French election and its potential effects:
One answer — an answer that makes more sense than almost anyone in Europe is willing to admit — would be to break up the euro, Europe’s common currency. Europe wouldn’t be in this fix if Greece still had its drachma, Spain its peseta, Ireland its punt, and so on, because Greece and Spain would have what they now lack: a quick way to restore cost-competitiveness and boost exports, namely devaluation.
[...]
Yet breaking up the euro would be highly disruptive, and would also represent a huge defeat for the “European project,” the long-run effort to promote peace and democracy through closer integration. Is there another way? Yes, there is — and the Germans have shown how that way can work. Unfortunately, they don’t understand the lessons of their own experience.
Currency union without comparable political integration was a terrible idea in theory that has worked out really badly in practice. But whether this means that getting rid of the euro now would be a good idea is a different question. I’m not too worried about the effects of dismantling the euro in terms of peace and democracy promotion — but the potentially disruptive effects seem real and important. It’s a difficult question.
“He Saw No Value in Glorious Defeats”
Motivated by a good student question and Paul Waldman’s post about the fundamental irrelevance of motives in evaluating politicians, I have a post at the Prospect arguing that for great politicians you can’t meaningfully separate principle and practicality. Lincoln and slavery is a classic example, and so is LBJ. While Caro is right in some respects to argue that there is a light and a dark Johnson, on civil rights I think this misses the boat; it was always the same Johnson:
And one can say the same thing about Johnson. Johnson—as Robert Caro’s often brilliant ongoing biography makes clear—always believed that it was never a politician’s job to stand on principle as an end in itself. But Caro’s schematic of a “light” and “dark” LBJ fails him when it comes to evaluating LBJ’s civil rights record. The “dark” LBJ, Caro reminds us many times, had a perfect record of voting against civil rights legislation before 1957. But the apparent paradox vanishes if we more usefully amend this to say that LBJ had “a perfect record of casting (politically beneficial) votes against civil rights legislation (that had a 0 percent chance of passing because LBJ wasn’t yet a powerful Senate majority leader.)” The LBJ who voted against no-hope anti-lynching legislation was the same LBJ as the one who signed the Voting Rights Act—the Johnson who was never a white supremacist despite growing up in Texas Hill Country in the 1920s. He was a politician who had no use for noble losses, but when he had actual power in the Senate he passed the best civil rights bill that was possible, and as president he did far more for civil rights than could have been expected when he took office (and far more than his martyred predecessor.)
Does this mean that the civil rights record of the “good” LBJ had pure motives? Of course not.
Early in the new book, Caro quotes LBJ’s adviser Bobby Baker as saying that “Pyrrhic victories were not Lyndon Johnson’s cup of tea…he saw no value in glorious defeats.” Essentially, when it comes to public officials (as opposed to other political actors) I’m with him.
