The Liberal Walrus

David Ignatius has written an interesting column, “A Party Waiting to Pounce,” over at the Washington Post. It is hard to follow the argument; at times, Ignatius approves of the current Democratic strategy:

If you’re a Democrat, life is good right now. The Republicans are mired in Iraq and domestic political difficulties. The White House is rearranging the deck chairs. For now, Democrats can sit back and watch the GOP self-destruct: “They’re on fire,” says one party strategist. “Don’t say anything. Let them destroy themselves.”

Yet at other times, he takes issue with this approach:

They think more about winning than about governing. Some strategists even see a virtue in the party’s lack of a clear agenda or leader — since it denies the Republicans easy targets. This strategy may not serve the country in the long run, but for angry Democrats this year, there is only the short run — taking back control of Congress in the midterms and the White House in 2008.

The question, though, must be asked: does this strategy serve the country in the long run, or doesn’t it? Ignatius identifies one piece of the puzzle:

Meanwhile, America is struggling with big problems, from Iraq to immigration. Will Democrats help the Bush administration find solutions? In the age of Karl Rove, are you kidding?

He fails, however, to place that piece in a larger context. The Democrats have no power to govern under the current Congress. The Republican majority has redesigned committee and procedural rules to diminish minority power. They are prepared to use, in the words of Trent Lott, the nuclear option to ram their initiatives through. I suspect that it is this state of affairs, coupled with a thoroughly negative atmosphere, to which Ignatius refers when he mentions Rove.

But in such an age, I would argue that it is not bad for the country in the long term for Democrats to wait and allow the GOP to self destruct. What is the alternative? To present ideas, be attacked and criticized violently, and lessen the chances of an electoral victory in November? Why would that help? Instead, the Democrats are doing the right thing: allowing the country to experience what we asked for. Popular majorities elected Bush, and the Republican majorities in both houses, and now they are living with the consequences. The consequences are dire, and the Democrats have ideas that can help, but the GOP is not interested. Thus we must bide our time, and let the people vote in November on whether they like what they’ve gotten, or they’d prefer something new.

I usually take everything Howard Kurtz says with a grain of salt, but in today’s Media Notes he seems to get it right with regard to Ben Domenech:

A second major issue was whether hiring a conservative activist as a blogger was a reasonable stab at “balance” when there was no self-proclaimed liberal blogging away, as opposed to left-leaning journalists. I think that’s a fair point, but I don’t want to see washingtonpost.com or any other MSM outfit abandon efforts to include voices from the right.

He is right that it is a fair point, and, while I don’t think the Post should close its doors to anyone on the basis of their political perspective, that perspective should also not give them an advantage in getting through those doors. This point, interestingly, forms the basis of a line of argument Kurtz quotes at length:

At RealClear Politics, David Mastio chews on that one:

“You’d think from all the fury that this was the first time big media had opened up the door for somebody with thin journalism credentials and a strong political point of view. Of course, you’d be wrong. They do it all the time . . . The difference is that the beneficiaries are usually on the left

. . .

“Can anyone name for me a current New York Times or Washington Post reporter who was previously on the staff of National Review, The Weekly Standard or The American Spectator? No? Maybe that’s because there are none.”

While this at first seems like a devastating argument, Kurtz shows that it is actually hogwash:

But I would raise this counter-question: How many people from National Review, Weekly Standard or American Spectator have applied for reporting jobs at the NYT or WP?

. . .

do people at NR and the Standard want to become “straight” reporters, or do they go to those magazines because they want to practice opinion journalism? I doubt that Rich Lowry or Tucker Carlson . . . aspired to cover Prince George’s County for The Post.

I have the same sense. If young liberals dream of writing for the New York Times, and young conservatives dream of being the next Rush Limbaugh, then it’s going to be hard to recruit conservative reporters (or liberal pundits). I could delve into possible reasons, such as liberals’ abiding interest in factual evidence, or conservatives’ electoral need to inspire powerful emotions to distract people from said evidence, but it isn’t necessary for Kurtz’s point.

The only thing I take issue with is Kurtz’s acceptance of the idea that the Washington Post lacks conservative voices. How can one accept this claim about a paper that regularly features George Will and Charles Krauthammer? Other than that, a good column from Kurtz.

How to deal with illegal immigration appears to be the question of the day. The Washington Post has an article about it, wherein the political tactics of both parties are analyzed, but the actual underlying issues are, in my opinion, given short shrift, like so:

As the Senate begins debate on revamping the nation’s immigration laws, the issue poses multiple challenges for both political parties, while offering no clearly expedient solution. Two huge electoral prizes, the Southwest and Florida, are potentially up for grabs, as are millions of Hispanic votes elsewhere. But also in play are the votes of angry residents in border states and beyond who feel overwhelmed by the rising tide of illegal immigration.

All of that is true, but I think the political prize will ultimately go to the party that articulates a clear statement of principle that leads to a workable solution, in this case, that anyone who wants to come to the US and play by the rules deserves a fair shot.

This principle would lead to expanding the number of legal immigrants we accept every year. By making it easier to immigrate legally, we would cut down tremendously on illegal immigration and its concomitant enforcement costs. Our border patrol could turn its attention to people who were actually up to no good without being distracted by many who just want a better job.

While the widening of legal immigration might draw criticism at first, it is a much more practical solution than creating second class citizens through a guest worker program, trying to deport every illegal we can find. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Open the doors, tell everyone they are welcome if they work hard and do right, and then enforce the laws zealously. It’s the best way I can see to fix this problem.

For those of us in the reality-based community who have been paying attention, the increasing problem of global warming is not a surprise. The scientific community has been in agreement for more than a decade, with only a very few dissenters whose work seemed to be supported by fossil fuel interests. The problem has always been that the majority of Americans seemed not to care, even as science predicted that global warming would make weather disasters more frequent, and would disrupt many elements of our daily lives. How, we wondered, do you convince someone to care?

Well, Time magazine is certainly on the right track. This week’s issue features a cover story on global warming, with the headline:

Be Worried. Be Very Worried.

The CNN summary includes gems such as:

From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us.

. . .

And with sea ice vanishing, polar bears are starting to turn up drowned. “There will be no polar ice by 2060,” says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. “Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out.”

. . .

So much environmental collapse has at last awakened much of the world, particularly the 141 nations that have ratified the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions. The Bush administration, however, has shown no willingness to address the warming crisis in a serious way and Congress has not been much more encouraging.

My initial reaction to this story is anger, because for so long scientists, environmentalists, and everyday people like me have been trying to get people’s attention, and only now, when it may be too late, is the public awakening to the danger. When I think of the time lost because of the arrogant laziness of our leaders (current and former), or of the delays caused by transparently deceitful “research” produced by fossil fuel companies, it makes me furious. Our planet, after all, is our home. We have no other. And we have been treating it very badly.

Yet at the same time I realize that perhaps the time is coming when we in the United States might finally begin to address global warming. From this perspective, the Time cover story will help to arouse people’s interest. The sooner we start fixing the problem, the better.

Fred W over at The Mad Prophet draws our attention to the pathetic silliness of Tom Tancredo. You remember when Hillary Clinton said that the new immigration bill was un-Christian? Well, Here’s what Tom thinks of that:

TANCREDO: I’m not really surprised that Hillary Clinton doesn’t know the first thing about the Bible. Her impression, her analysis, her interpretation of both the law and the Bible are certainly wrong to say the least. This has nothing to do, the bill we passed out of the House has nothing to do with criminalizing Good Samaritans.

But, as Fred W points out, Tancredo is simply wrong:

According to Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney, the proposed provision ‘is so broad that it would criminalize even minor acts of mercy like offering a meal or administering first aid.’ Mahoney has instructed the priests of his archdiocese to disobey the law if it is enacted.

It sure is inconvenient when your version of a religion, which you use to convince voters to elect you, conflicts with the actual religion as described in its founding document. Having read the bible, I can say clearly that the message of the new testament involved a great deal of ministering to others despite their background, country of origin, or religious beliefs. The recent immigration bill criminalizes knowing someone who is in the country illegally, much less offering them any help if they are in need. And that, my friends, is totally un-Christian, if not anti-Christian.

There is something eerie about this article on the Washington Post website. The article describes Iran’s recent, and intense, shift toward the political right. Reading through it, I sensed some similarities between the Iranian shift, and the political shift in this country in the last six to eight years. From the article:

a senior cleric close to the new president suggested in January that Iranian voters were largely irrelevant because the government requires only the approval of God.

This cleric’s comments initiated a great deal of public debate in Iran, but they helped me to realize, first, how many things are not wrong in our country . . . yet. While we do not claim that voters are irrelevant, the Republicans do leverage religious belief into political support through wedge issues and the use of churches as political support groups. Faith based initiatives are also on the rise. The problem with letting government and religious fundamentalism become intertwined is addressed in the article:

said one Iranian official close to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei . . . “They can damage Iran. They can damage Islam. They are like the Taliban. They are like al-Qaeda. They say they know what Allah expects from us — that we should do what he wants from us without paying attention to the consequences. And it’s a very dangerous belief.”

When we have the FDA withholding a vaccine for HPV, which can lead to cervical cancer, because it might promote promiscuity among young women, we see shadows of this danger. Fundamentalists believe they know the correct way of doing things, and they are not shy about trying to enforce it.

Another disturbing mirror:

Other conservatives, who proudly call themselves fundamentalists, argue that reformists were hollowing out the Islamic Republic from within. Equating dissent with treason, they demanded a hard-line defense of the revolution’s tenets, including strident opposition to the United States and Israel.

Conflating dissent with treason is par for the course among right wing pundits. See, for example, Ann Coulter’s book Treason. This is another technique used to compel belief and enforce adherence to fundamentalist ideas.

Lest I be called shrill, I would like to state clearly that I believe Iran to be in a much worse situation than the United States. They have institutional religious control of government, and their people suffer for it, and for the concomitant discouragement of free thought and individual initiative. My concern, however, being primarily for the well being of the United States, I think it is worth pointing out these disturbing similarities so that they can guide our future decisions. Our nation is dedicated to a process of deciding actions–Democracy–rather than any particular actions in and of themselves. We trust in the citizens, whatever their religious beliefs, to make the right decisions for the country. It is worthwhile to remember that, and to do our best to protect our system against degradation.

I often wonder, during discussions about tax policy, why some people don’t understand the logic behind progressive taxation. There are really, to my mind, three statements:

1. The government requires some revenue to perform the functions that its citizens require of it.
2. There exist certain necessities a person requires to live, and these necessities cost a certain amount of money to acquire.
3. A citizen’s success or failure to accumulate money takes place in the context of the government, and so the successful, who benefit disproportionately from that context, are justly charged a disproportionate share of their personal income to support that government

I don’t plan to expand on these points here. If they are true, and I believe they are, then progressive taxation is perfectly fair and appropriate. We can debate the truth of each in the comments if you like.

All of the above follows on my reading this intriguing article on the Washington Post website, wherein the author writes:

According to Forbes magazine, the world is enjoying a boom in billionaires. Twenty years ago there were 140 billionaires. Three years ago there were 476. This year there are 793.

We all know the wealth gap is growing. The author of this piece, after some comical tangents, concludes with this pretty insightful paragraph:

Okay, fine. But if it’s all about winning, wouldn’t (say) half as much money be just as much winning, as long as everybody else in the game had half as much money as well? If Icahn is right, a stiff tax on billionaires ought to have no effect on the fragile incentive structures of billionaires, as long as it is applied to all billionaires equally. I’m not advocating such a tax. I am, though, suggesting that the exquisite sensitivity to the incentives of rich people that dominates our tax policy may be overwrought.

He refers to the general idea that wealthy people have become so by providing excellent goods and services that many people like, and they deserve their compensation, nay, the compensation is required to motivate young entrepeneurs to create great things. I agree with those ideas in principle, but it is a question of scale. From the Economist:

Recent higher profits are part of the explanation for higher pay. But there is a longer-term trend at work. In 2004 the ratio of chief executives’ compensation to the pay of the average production worker jumped to 431 to one from 301 to one in 2003, according to “Executive Excess”, a recent study of 367 big American firms by the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies. That is not quite a record: in 2000 the ratio reached 525 to one (see chart). In 1990 the ratio was 107 to one and in 1982 a mere 42 to one. This year’s numbers seem certain to show the gap widening still further.

Clearly, top earners aren’t hurting that much. Were the big ideas in 1982 really only one-tenth or so as good as today’s big ideas? I don’t think so.

The problem is that absolute modes of thinking have replaced situational ones. It is, we are told, always good to cut taxes, and always bad to raise them. High executive pay is always good, while cutting costs by lowering worker pay is also always good. The truth is that our economy is very complicated, and not at all suited to these analyses. Any economist will tell you that there are times when raising taxes is called for, just as there are times to cut taxes.

Of course, the President really isn’t helping anyone understand the finer points:

the economy appears to be strong and getting stronger. And the fundamental question that those of us in Washington have to answer is, what do we do to keep it that way. How do we make sure, one, we don’t put bad policies in place that will hurt economic growth? A bad policy is to raise taxes, which some want to do. There are people in the United States Congress, primarily on the Democrat side, that would be anxious to let some of the tax relief expire. Some of them actually want to raise taxes now. I think raising taxes would be wrong. As a matter of fact, that’s why I think it’s important for us to have certainty in the tax code. That’s why I’d like to see the tax relief made permanent.

No evidence is presented as to why raising taxes would be bad policy, or why making the tax cuts permanent would be good. Given that we are in debt, and that our debt is increasing, it seems like a good time to start trying to at least talk about getting some more revenue for the government. Apparently the President could care less about such a conversation.

Robert Scheer has pointed out, in this piece at The Nation, that people are beginning to get tired of Bush’s repetitive rhetoric on the War in Iraq. For example, take this episode from a Bush speech in Cleveland:

Perhaps most on target was an elderly gentleman who cited what he said were the three main reasons for going to war in Iraq–WMD, Iraq’s ties to the September 11, 2001, terrorists and the alleged purchase of nuclear material from Niger–and then noted dryly that all three of these rationales turned out to be false.

Unfortunately for the President, the American people remember each of the reasons he gave for the war, and we are beginning to realize that some of those reasons were untrue. The curious thing, though, is not so much that the President was wrong, as that he refuses to admit it, thereby opening the way toward learning, and better government. Instead, he makes ridiculous claims like this:

“That’s a great question,” began Bush by way of dissembling. “First, just if I may correct a misperception. I don’t think we ever said–at least I know I didn’t say–that there was a direct connection between September 11 and Saddam Hussein.”

Really? So when he said in his May 1, 2003, “Mission Accomplished” speech on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln that “we have removed an ally of al Qaeda,” he meant a different gang with the same name as the one blamed for the attack on the World Trade Center twin towers and Pentagon?

This President’s use of language bears watching. He is always careful to imply things, or to let his lieutenants say them, rather than being caught in a lie. Take, for example, his explanation of his domestic wiretapping program (from the State of the Union Address):

I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous Presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have, and federal courts have approved the use of that authority.

The deception here is artful. Those previous Presidents, for example, were operating before FISA existed, and so their actions were not illegal. By this argument, I might note, Bush could just as well claim the right to own slaves (like George Washington). So, while he is not lying, he is certainly not telling the truth.

This is a common occurrence. Compare this cowardly behavior with Clinton’s outright admission that he made a mistake in his personal life, his apology for not being forthright with the American people, and his promise to try to do better. This was met with impeachment. Meanwhile, W continues to claim a weird mix of ignorance, bureaucratic inefficiency, and technical non-lying as cover for the fact that he either made a mistake or else purposefully deceived his people. Either should be shameful.

I know I link to him a lot, but that’s only because E.J. Dionne is a genius, as proven again in his most recent Washington Post column:

Is President Bush the leader of our government, or is he just a right-wing talk-show host?

The question comes to mind after Bush’s news conference this week in which he sounded like someone who has no control over the government he is in charge of. His words were those of a pundit inveighing against the evils of bureaucrats.

That’s just what I was thinking. Expanding this thought, we can gain a new perspective on the conservative movement, and how it has led to this point. You see, the conservative movement began from the outside, angry, dissatisfied with the government. They criticized and decried the big spending, the welfare state programs. This message resonated with some voters, and over time the alliances formed that have brought the GOP to power. These alliances were based on agreement, agreement over not what was right, but over what was wrong: Democrats.

Now the GOP has won electoral victories in the Congress and the Presidency, their wish has been granted. They can do anything they want. Except, it turns out that their unity came from being outsiders. It is finally starting to hit them: they have struck a devil’s bargain. They promised so much to so many, and now they can’t blame Democrats for their failure to make good.

“Obviously,” said the critic in chief, “there are some times when government bureaucracies haven’t responded the way we wanted them to, and like citizens, you know, I don’t like that at all.” Yes, and if you can’t do something about it, who can?

I admire Dionne’s restraint. I don’t know how to respond to a Republican President who governs with a Congress Republican in both houses, and a Republican majority of national governorships, when he blames the government’s failures on bureaucracy. You’ve been running the country for five years. If it doesn’t work, change it for heaven’s sake!

Dionne hits the nail on the head, referring to Bush’s whining about FEMA failing to get trailers to people who need them:

This episode is important because it is representative of a corrosive style of politics. Bush and many of his fellow Republicans have done a good business over the years running against the ills of Big Government. They are so much in the habit of trashing government that even when they are in charge of things — remember, Republicans have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for all but 18 months since 2001 — they pretend they are not.

The Republicans run the government. The government has made mistakes over the last few years. Instead of finding a solution, and taking some responsibility, the President complains that things aren’t working right. Note to the President: it’s your job to make the government work.

Since I’ve been critical of George Will in the past, I think it is only fair that I should highlight his recent column, which contains some points with which I agree. He writes about a Florida court’s decision to suspend a school voucher program, and this decision’s impact on students. While his language is peppered with predictable jabs at Democrats, his basic point, that it seems crazy to force students to stay in failing schools when other options are available, deserves further consideration.

He writes:

Florida’s Supreme Court fulfilled the desires of the teachers unions, and disrupted the lives of the 733 children and their parents, by declaring, in a 5 to 2 ruling, that the voucher program is incompatible with the state constitution. Specifically, and incredibly, the court held that the OSP violates the stipulation, which voters put into the constitution in 1998, that the state shall provide a “uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education.”

The usual Liberal argument against school vouchers is that they erode support for Public schools and inundate functioning schools with too many students. While this may be true, it is not necessarily a good argument for the alternative, which is forcing those students to stay in failing schools. And of course, teacher’s unions hate vouchers because, if fewer students come to their schools, there will be fewer jobs for them.

We ought to be able to provide excellent education to all our students, and we aren’t. I propose making it illegal for k-12 schools to charge tuition. Yes, you heard me. Every school would be given the same amount of public funding by the government, and any student could go to any school. Teachers would be paid the same salary anywhere, including, possibly, performance incentives or any other salary adjustment. Socialized education, essentially, and probably totally antithetical to what George means, but a solution to the problem that bothers him.