Author Page for Scott Lemieux

What’s True Isn’t Relevant, and What’s Relevant Isn’t True

Like Neil, I think Matt is being far too charitable to Dan Gerstein’s silly attempt to defend Lieberman’s pro-Alito vote. Or, to be more precise, I think Matt’s half-defense is an “other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play” argument–given that all of Gerstein’s non-trivial arguments boil down to a defense of the Sacred Gang of 14, I don’t know what there could be left to agree with:

• It is indeed literally wrong to say that “Joe Lieberman put Sam Alito on the Supreme Court,” but since nobody actually argues this it’s also irrelevant. By the same standard, none of Lieberman pro-reproductive freedom votes should be counted in his favor unless they passed by one vote. Votes do not have to be decisive to be part of the record one uses to evaluate a legislator, and the fact remains that on the most important vote on reproductive freedom since 1987, Lieberman voted the wrong way.
• So, the defense comes down to the value of the Gang of 14 agreement to Democrats, and this value is “zero.” Preserving the filibuster means nothing if the judges who are acceptable under the standard include people like Alito and Priscilla Owen. Who exactly is Lieberman waiting for? Roy Moore? A tanned and rested Robert Bork (defeated by the Senate although his voting record would be essentially indistinguishable from Alito’s)? The mummified corpse of James McReynolds? Preserving an entirely meaningless procedural agreement ahead of substantive outcomes is precisely the kind of inside-Beltway wankery that has Lieberman in trouble, and was also in evidence in his appallingly two-faced vote on the bankruptcy bill.
• On a historical note, with respect to the idea that ideology had nothing to do with conservative Senators filibustering quintessential Warren Court liberal Abe Fortas–if you believe that, I have a valuable collection of Harold Carswell’s Supreme Court opinions to sell you. And even if it were true, why on earth should the most important factor in evaluating a Supreme Court justice be off the table? Particularly when the politicians selling Alito were notably lacking in candor about his constitutional philosophy?
• And, of course, had an Alito filibuster caused the Republicans to detonate the nuclear option, this would be a feature, not a bug. As one of Neil’s commenters notes, “How would the nuclear option have been worse than what actually happened? What’s the point of having the theoretical option of a filibuster if you can’t use it? Furthermore, if the Republicans actually did use the nuclear option, not only would the immediate situation have been no worse than what actually happened, but a long-term precedent might have worked in our favor. When we get a majority back and the Republicans try to filibuster, say, universal health care, we then have the ability to steamroll them on that.” Exactly right.

So, in other words, his pro-Alito vote should absolutely count against his record on reproductive rights and civil liberties, just like his disgraceful behavior during the Schiavo affair. The critique is 100% fair. [Schiavo link via Jane.]

And Now To Salt The Earth So It Can Never Grow Again

Well, I think the Braves dynasty can now be declared dead.

It’s been quiet since he played so poorly last year, but Carlos Beltran has been having a hell of a year. 282/385/628? For a good center fielder? At Shea? (Check out those road splits.) I believe the other word for that is “MVP.”

On the other hand, if there was still a pennant race in the NL East I would be marginally less angry that the Phillies did this…

The Key Point

Marshall:

But it’s hard to find the signs promising at this moment. And for Israel, one number tells the irreducible story. 140 rockets fell on northern Israel today. That’s the highest count since July 12th when the whole thing started. And in terms of how Israel understands its own security, that’s the most damning thing: even using main force, they can’t stop the rocket attacks on their civilian areas

.

Again, before we even start thinking about abstract questions of justice and morality it needs to be acknowledged that the policy isn’t working.

…more from Edelstein.

"An Ill-Advised Temper Tantrum"

Somebody needs to coin a catchy name for an addendum to Goodwin’s Godwin’s Law, which holds that whenever anybody argues against a particular military action, some idiot will mention Neville Chamberlain, irrespective of how howlingly inapt the analology is. (In the meantime, I propose the “Fox News Democrat” law: All columns that begin with the phrase “As a liberal Democrat” are ipso facto bad.)

To state the obvious, invoking Chamberlain isn’t an argument; it remains true that in most circumstances offensive military action is a bad idea. Countries have the right to defend themselves, but what matters is whether the action is prudent. And in this case, it’s pretty clear that the answer is “no”:

Yep. This ‘accidental’ war (as The Economist recently put it) will end up having proved something of a disaster for all parties involved save, perhaps, Hezbollah. Israel will not have eradicated Hezbollah (a totally unrealistic war aim, regardless, Krauthammer and Co’s reckless imbecility aside), the United States has complicated its regional position immensely, and, as Cohen points out, the Cedar Revolution lies in ashes. Was the IDF action worth hundreds dead, thousands wounded, massive flows of internally displaced and refugees numbering in the hundreds of thousands, an environmental disaster unprecedented in Lebanon’s modern history, and the scuttling of Lebanon’s tenuous movements towards emergence from an oppressive Syrian yoke? All for, at the end of the day, a deal on Shaba Farms, the return of the two soldiers (probably in the context of a prisoner exchange anyway), French and other troops on the Lebanese-Israeli and Lebanese-Syrian borders (gee, wonder how porous that latter one will be?), and some (likely mostly chimerical) ‘disarming’ of Hezbollah?

Well no, of course not, this was more by way of an ill-advised temper tantrum than a serious military operation, as Arik Sharon would himself admit, if only he were aware of the disaster underway. Sharon would have recalled previous Lebanese quagmires and would have well understood (aided by the wisdom of years and the lack of any need to prove himself) that resort to airpower, in the main, cannot succeed in this context, with the specter of hundreds and hundreds of civilian deaths earning Israel international opprobrium in every world capital (save Washington), and that there is no real, sustained post-’82 appetite in Israel for a massive land incursion regardless, not least given the ultimate futility of same. No, Sharon would likely have chastised Ehud Olmert for his impestuous over-reaction, one so helpfully fanned on by myopic strategic blunderers and amateurs in Washington, both in policy and journalistic circles.

The idea that a few weeks of air strikes were going to crush Hezbollah when more than a decade of occupation didn’t do the job is self-evidently stupid, and given this Olmert’s actions are not just bad morally but bad strategically. It won’t make Israel more secure, and the great strengthening of illberal forces in Lebanon is bad for both countries. Nothing good comes from this.

The Bingo Ball Essay

Via Roy, Kerry Howley has a response that can now be applied to every essay submitted by a Ladies Against Women member:

This piece, while being utterly devoid of substantive content, really does have it all: a reference to “gangsta rappers,” awkward use of the word ho, a sorrowful nod to the slutty poor (they “suffer most,” let’s please not forget), mention of a “media-saturated culture,” a reference to that peerless chronicler of the cutting edge, The New York Times Style Section, and my personal favorite, a lengthy quote from the expert on the nuances of sexuality among adolescent girls, septuagenerian Tom Wolfe.

As I took some time off from a long string of rainbow parties to read this column, I could think only of the South Park episode where we learn the show King of the Hill Family Guy is written by manatees rearranging “idea balls,” each of which are stamped with words to be used in the script. Is there a tank somewhere with balls labeled “Vagina Monologues,” “college hook-ups,” and “Girls Gone Wild”? Are these columns composed with magnetic poetry?

Oh sure, there are variations–if it’s Christina Hoff Summers, for example, it is legally required that there be a reference to the fact that Judith Butler once one an award for the Worst Paragraph Evah In The History Of Prose!!!!ONE!!!!–but, really, these are distinctions without a difference. Meanwhile, speaking of columns composed with magnetic poetry, if you examine the far-worse-prose-than-Butler Cathy Siepp column Roy links to, you’ll see that Mickey Kaus has time to weigh in on the pressing issue of area codes and how this somehow makes liberals bad. You can see that he has plenty of time on his hands, because in an example of his very favorite technique he several times raises the question of whether Bill Cinton is sleeping with Belinda Stronach. Of course, he has absolutely no evidence of this, and neither do the linked stories. But they might raise the suggestion to ignorant readers, and this is not bad journalism–Bill Clinton asked for it! And, of course, Kaus is not part of this irresponsibility–he’s just asking random questions about journalism, not trying to passively-aggressively spread a rumor! And even if he is, well, as with the Kerry intern–whether or not it’s true, it’s out there, as Cokie Roberts would say.

[Bonus Kaus: today he gallantly defends his recent date Ann Coulter from charges that she is a "deranged bigot." After all, all she did was call Bill Clinton a latent homosexual based on nothing but his supposed bad traits! And call Al Gore a "big fag"! But, of course, Sullivan's comments had to have been directed against an isolated phrase rather than her entire body of work. And...oh, why go on.]

And in other news from the wild world of wingnuttery, according to the FRC’s aptly named Tony Perkins Major League Baseball are now pornographers…because they have accepted money to show their games on the teevee, and apparently the naked breasticle is also featured on some of newtworks on the very same cable system. I, for one, am horrified! Well, as long as the first show isn’t “Don Zimmer After Hours…”

"Why Is It Written In Crayon?"

Teh funny is finally found.

The Johnson Rule: An Application

Apparently Glenn Reynolds (alongside a typically dishonest characterization of a past post from Josh Marshall) thinks it’s reasonable to ask if “if Israel is too nice to win.” Fortunately for such situations, Jim Henley has developed the Jimmy Johnson rule: “People who say their problem is that they are too nice are never, never right. (It’s not that people are never too nice, but the ones who are will never make the claim and the ones who will make the claim are never nice, let alone too nice.)” Indeed.

Coming Next: The Stamping Out Driving Other Kids To Soccer Practice Act

James Joyner on the latest round of federal abortion regulation:

Indeed, it’s hard to fathom a reason to oppose this legislation. Whatever one’s views on abortion, surely kidnapping to accomplish it is a bad thing.

The thing is, kidnapping generally refers to taking someone without their consent. In this ever-changing world, it’s good to know there are things we can count on, and pro-lifers assuming that women who obtain abortions are entirely devoid of agency is certainly one of them. As for the larger question, it’s actually very easy to oppose this legislation, given that parental consent laws don’t actually accomplish anything (at least if one charitably assumes that the point it to encourage communication within stable families as oppose to putting as many arbitrary obstacles in the path of poor women trying to get abortions as possible.)

Ah, but don’t these laws contain bypass options for young women in the worst family situations? As Helena Silverstein (with Wayne Fishman) again remind us in a must-read article, being generally designed and implemented by people who are hostile to reproductive freedom, they frequently don’t work:

The palatability of involvement mandates rests on the supposed effectiveness of the judicial bypass process. But the actual functioning of this process does not come close to resembling what is imagined. For example, research we conducted in Alabama and Tennessee shows that nearly half of the courts charged with implementing the bypass mechanism were unprepared to do so. In an even worse showing, more than two thirds of Pennsylvania courts were unprepared.

The reasons for these implementation failures vary. Courts often are ignorant of their responsibility. Sometimes judges refuse to hear bypass petitions on ideological grounds. Other times, court personnel are unavailable. Courts occasionally seek to convince minors that abortion is morally wrong. Whatever the reason, there is in fact an enormous disconnect between what parental involvement laws promise and what implementers of such laws deliver.

Thus, the CCPA bolsters laws that don’t work and, in doing so, potentially endangers minors who have legitimate reasons to avoid parental involvement and who are poorly served by states’ false promises. If the CCPA becomes law, some teens will continue to go out of state for abortions, either subjecting a trusted relative or friend to the risk of a jail term or making the trip alone. Others will face the prospect of being forced by a parent to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

If the federal government really cared about protecting vulnerable teens, it would pursue prosecutions under the CCPA only after states have proven the reliability of their bypass processes. But, of course, this isn’t going to happen — the primary impetus behind the CCPA and state involvement mandates has little actually to do with protecting minors’ interests, pious rhetoric notwithstanding.

Opposing these laws isn’t just possible; it’s necessary.

Third Parties and the Left in the U.S.

To make this somewhat more useful than merely attacking Ralph Nader’s reactionary vanity candidacy in particular by moving it to the question of the value of American third parties in general, in comments MSS (of Fruits and Votes) says: “Democrats always need a push (as one of your own posts the other day noted, albeit from a social-movement perspective).” [my emphasis] I emphasize this because the distinction is everything, and crystallizes precisely why the Nader campaign was such a colossal blunder. Most of us can agree that the current Democratic Party is suboptimal in many respects; the question is about how to change it. Social movements that alter public opinion, mobilize voters, and create different incentives for parties are a good strategy. Third parties (at least those that don’t cross-cut existing, or represent dying, coalitions a la Perot or Wallace) are not, because 1)the incentives they provide are trivial, and 2)they carry massive disadvantages (most notably ending up in the worst option being elected.) As I wrote back in the first days of this blog:

Farrell, like Ehrenreich, assumes that building alternative social movements requires also building a third party. I’m absolutely baffled by this argument. In the context of the American constitutional structure, third party politics is a terrible strategy for building alternative social movements. It consumes enormous amounts of resources but provides few benefits, fractures coalitions, and has unfortunate side effects (like, say, leading to the election of the most reactionary President in many decades.) It should be noted as well Nader and Green affiliated groups have not been the ones that have benefited from anti-Bush countermobilization–their funding is down. (And I’m one reason why; after the election I pulled my monthly WASHPRIG contribution and donated it elsewhere. If Nader and his supporters want to elect Republican Presidents, they can do it with their own dime.) The rise in the mobilization of movement conservatives didn’t require a third party. It’s true that the left needs to build more of a base outside of the Democratic structure, and conflict will be inevitable. Democratic politics extends far beyond electoral politics. But, especially at the national level, third party politics is actively counterproductive to movement building.

Like Dave, I’m not inclined to think much about whether the party system in the US is optimal, for the same reason I don’t spend much time complaining about how much I hate the Senate–because it’s not going away. The combination of a first-past-the-post legislative system and winner-take-all system for electing the President make a two-party system as inevitable as any institutional structure can be, and changing it is virtually impossible. The two-party system isn’t going to go away if only people really wish that it will go away, and to pretend otherwise obstructs the potential for progressive social change. The left needs to be better mobilized, but third party politics is a bad way to accomplish it (which is why tying together left mobilization and a left third party is generally assumed rather than argued.)

Or as Mike Tomasky put it in the article I cited earlier in the week:

First, if it was the intention of Nader voters in New York or Massachusetts (or any state Al Gore was certain to win in 2000) to send a message to the Democrats, that’s an understandable and respectable intention. But as the Christian Coalition model shows, such messages are far more effectively sent inside the party than outside it — the Greens really influence almost nothing in this country, whereas the Christian Coalition, with its power in the GOP, influences almost everything. I’d have actual respect for the Greens if they were working within the Democratic Party to take it over. You can say that’s impossible, but it seemed impossible in 1958 that archconservatives could take over a Republican Party that was very accommodating to both New Deal and internationalist priorities. Within six years, though, they’d gained control of the party to the point that their guy, Barry Goldwater, became its presidential nominee. Real success took another 16 years, but to good dialecticians, there should be no hurry.

Making the Democrats better is a good thing. To invoke this in the context of defending national third parties who seek merely to slice off a part of one existing coalition–let alone Nader’s intentional throwing the election to Bush–is simply a non-sequitur.

When He’s Right, He’s Right

Like Matt, I think that Jacob Weisberg is 100% right on this one.

I think it’s worth noting as well that what seems to be the most common position among states–legal state-sponsored lotteries and machines (and perhaps horse racing), but other forms of gambling illegal–is the most transparently indefensible. I can see the libertarian argument, and I can also see a paternalistic argument that gambling should be banned entirely. But state lotteries have much, much worse odds than casino gambling, and also prey on the poor even more disproportionately. Wealthy people will sometimes go to casinos, or put some money on the Super Bowl, but how often will they go down to the bodega and buy 70%-vig scratch tickets? And then you have all of the negative externalities that come from black-market gambling. To permit narrow, state-sponsored gambling with horrible odds that functions as an exceptionally regressive tax while banning other forms of gambling for pleasure makes absolutely no sense at all.

…Matt makes a good point in comments: casinos also generate some jobs with decent incomes for relatively unskilled workers. Vegas, in particular, has generated a large number of unionized, middle-class jobs (which, incidentally, is likely to push Nevada Democratic sooner rather than later.)

Just To Be Clear

As with the dead-on-its-feet Giuliani candidacy, I would like to think this is obvious, but apparently not. In comments, the otherwise astute Redbeard gives the Naive Nader Apologist Account of his strategy in 2000: “Yeah, while the most likely consequence of a Nader campaign might be a Bush victory, that doesn’t mean it was really Nader’s goal. Why not take Nader at face value? He wanted to achieve 5% of the popular vote and get the Green Party public funding. The best place for him to get those votes is from dissatisfied Democratic voters, so he tries to convince them the Dem candidate’s no different from Bush.”

Er, no.

1)Actually, I am taking him at his word: “If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win.” “Which, Nader confided to Outside in June, wouldn’t be so bad. When asked if someone put a gun to his head and told him to vote for either Gore or Bush, which he would choose, Nader answered without hesitation: “Bush.”"

2)Moreover, his actions in the last month were actually consistent with the goal of electing Bush to punish the Democrats and heighten the contradictions, whereas they are radically inconsistent with the idea that his goal was to get matching funds for a party he quite evidently didn’t give a rat’s ass about (although it’s embarrassing if any Greens still don’t see, even after 2004, that he didn’t care at all about party building.) The states for him to mine votes in the last month were where Gore was a lock, not highly contested swing states.

Electing Bush was not a random byproduct of the 2000 Nader campaign; it was its raison d’etre. I can sort of understand people not getting this in 2000, particularly before the last weeks of the campaign, but at this late date? Give it up. He announced he wanted to elect Bush, he campaigned in a manner entirely consistent with that goal, and he succeeded. There’s no second verse here.

In the Same Way that Baghdad is Safer Than L.A.

Via B.A.B. (who, alas, is not going to see an end to “women’s bodies being the playing field for election-year politicking” anytime soon), I see that George Bush has offered a peculiar justification for the awful new legislation that passed the Senate yesterday:

In a statement, Mr. Bush said that “transporting minors across state lines to bypass parental consent laws regarding abortion undermines state law and jeopardizes the lives of young women.

Er, sadly, no:

The risk of abortion complications is minimal when the procedure is performed by a trained professional in a hygienic setting: Fewer than 1% of all U.S. abortion patients experience a major complication. The risk of death associated with abortion in the U.S. is less than 0.6 per 100,000 procedures, which is less than one-tenth as large as the risk associated with childbirth.

But, in fairness, if Bush and the forced pregnancy lobby get their way, the gap will be narrower:

However, 68,000 women in countries where abortion is illegal die each year of abortion complications, and many times this number are injured by unsafe procedures.

Even by the high standards of illogic observed by anti-choicers, trying to sell these kinds of abortion restrictions as public health regulations are profoundly embarrassing lies.