Archive for August, 2006
The McCain-Lieberman Party
(UPDATE: It looks like the Wiki editors think this term is a neologism, so they are trying to delete it. They feel that the concept has not yet been solidified as anything that will remain in the political lingo. I’m busy letting them know how fervently I disagree.)
After making up humorous Wikipedia entries about my friends, which were all rejected, I have finally written my first official entry. It is on one of my favorite subjects: The McCain-Lieberman Party. With full Napoleonic pomp, style and grace, I’d like to declare myself the unofficial leader of the McCain-Lieberman Party and this blog as its home.
The article is still rough and needs editing. I have pasted the contents below, but you can also find it directly on Wikipedia.
McCain-Lieberman Party
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The McCain-Lieberman Party is a fictional representation of the moderate majority in America created by New York Times columnist David Brooks. Brooks mentioned the idea of the Party in speeches he had given across the country, especially at various universities. But the idea was solidified in a column published August 10th, 2006 entitled, “Party No. 3″. Brooks claims that the vast majority in this country has moderate morals and values. The column inspired a flurry of activity in the blogosphere. Using the August 2006 Democratic primary loss of Joe Lieberman as an example, Brooks states that the American primary election system produces candidates that are either significantly more liberal or more conservatives than the average voter.
He describes loyalties to the two major American policies as “a form of tribalism.” The article suggests that these loyalties override the better logic of voters and replace it with emotional attachment.
In the article Brooks describes an interesting political process. He claims that politicians run campaigns with a Machiavellian, ends justify the means, mentality. But he argues that politicians allow their means to ultimately corrupt their ends:
“They rationalize their behavior by insisting that circumstances have forced them to shelve their integrity for the good of the country. They imagine that once they have achieved victory through pulverizing rhetoric they will return to the moderate and nuanced sensibilities they think they still possess Hyper-partisans may have started with subtle beliefs, but their beliefs led them to partisanship and their partisanship led to malice and malice made them extremist, and pretty soon they were no longer the same people.”
Brooks describes the developing political landscape as like a fissure and the moderate middle emerging from between the Left and the Right separating on either side of it. Signs of this phenomenon are present. Senator Lieberman’s Connecticut primary loss to the anti-war liberal Ned Lamont has given Lieberman the opportunity to win as an independent. This could release Lieberman from his obligations to vote along Democratic Party lines 90% or more of the time. Meanwhile, a new party named Unity08 emphasizing the existence of a moderate majority has been created by established members of the political class, including Hamilton Jordan, Angus King, and Doug Bailey.
Supporters for the future existence, possibly as soon as 2008 if John McCain loses the Republican primary, of a moderate third party point to substantial survey data. This data tends to show the majority of the country as being politically moderate, centrist, or not far from it. The Pew Research Center reports:
“In 1977, when the CBS/NYT poll asked a nationally representative sample to label its political views, 22% chose liberal, 32% chose conservative and 46% said moderate/not sure. Eighteen years later, after the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions the CBS/NYT poll repeated the question and achieved essentially the same results: 19% liberal, 35% conservative and 45% moderate/not sure. Surveys taken between these two points in time found little variation in replies.
The Los Angeles Times…nationwide polls show very little change in long term trend, a plurality of moderates, and a somewhat greater percentage self-identifying as conservative than as liberal. In addition, the Los Angeles Times question allows respondents to declare whether they are very or somewhat liberal or conservative. The small percentage who rate themselves either very liberal (8%) or very conservative (9%) is another indication of the centrist character of the American public.
The Center for the People & the Press also finds that the public takes a centrist position on the basic issue of size of government.”
Pew has found that the majority of Americans favor a centrist Supreme Court nominee. Pew surveys have revealed that about two-thirds of Americans want to find a “middle ground” on abortion policy. The same survey found that 56% of Americans favor stem cell research.
Theoretical Party Platform
Brooks provides a snapshot of the fictional McCain-Lieberman Party platform:
Believes, as George Washington did, “that country comes before party”
Islamic extremism was not created by American policies since the September 11, 2001 attacks, but it will be augmented if America withdraws from the Middle East
Would recognize that fiscal realities necessitate raising taxes and cutting spending
Would reject xenophobia by increasing free trade and introducing “comprehensive immigration reform”
Would confront teacher’s unions as harmful toward the education system, particularly in big cities
Would not allow abortion to destroy elections and progress
Would prevent corporations from writing or significantly influencing environmental laws
Does poverty cause terrorism? No.
Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova recently did an interesting, but disturbing study entitled, “Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” Many have hoped and argued that the best way to stop terrorism is through growth in the median per capita GDP, or more simply, people gettin’ rich. This study, along with others that it cites, essentially dismisses that theory. Their conclusion says things well:
The evidence we have presented, tentative though it is, suggests little direct connection between poverty or education and participation in terrorism. Indeed, the available evidence indicates that, compared with the relevant population, members of Hezbollah’s militant wing or Palestinian suicide bombers are at least as likely to come from economically advantaged families and have a relatively high level of education as to come from the ranks of the economically disadvantaged and uneducated. Similarly, members of the Israeli Jewish Underground who terrorized Palestinian civilians in the late 1970s and early 1980s were overwhelmingly well educated and in highly regarded occupations.Qualitative studies of participants in terrorism in several different settings have reached conclusions similar to ours…Russell and Miller found that “approximately two-thirds of those identified terrorists are persons with some university training, university graduates or postgraduate students.” They also report that more than two-thirds of arrested terrorists came from the middle or upper classes in their respective nations or areas. Taylor (1988) likewise concludes from his survey of the literature: “Neither social background, educational opportunity or attainment seem to be particularly associated with terrorism.”
The cross-country evidence that we have assembled suggests that, once civil liberties are taken into account, a country’s income level is unrelated to the number of terrorists who originate from that country, although we consider the connection between poverty at the national level and terrorism a fertile area for future research.
Enough evidence has accumulated that it is fruitful to conjecture why participation in terrorism and political violence is apparently unrelated, or even positively related, to individuals income and education. In terms of the supply of terrorists, we hypothesize that terrorism resembles a violent form of political engagement. More educated people from privileged backgrounds are more likely to participate in politics, probably in part because political involvement requires some minimum level of interest, expertise, commitment to issues and effort, all of which are more likely if people have enough education and income to concern themselves with more than minimum economic subsistence. Our finding that terrorists are more likely to spring from countries that lack civil rights, if it holds up, is further support for the view that terrorism is a political, not economic, phenomenon.
On the demand side, terrorist organizations may prefer educated, committed individuals. In addition, well-educated, middle- or upper-class individuals are better suited to carry out acts of international terrorism than are impoverished illiterates because the terrorists must fit into a foreign environment to be successful.
On the whole, there is little reason for optimism that a reduction in poverty or increase in educational attainment will lead to a meaningful reduction in the amount of international terrorism, without other changes. Stern (2000) observes that many madrasahs, or religious schools, in Pakistan are funded by wealthy industrialists, and that many of these schools deliberately educate students to become foot soldiers and elite operatives in extremist movements around the world. She further reports: “Most madrasahs offer only religious instruction, ignoring math, science, and other secular subjects important for functioning in modern society.” These observations suggest that if the international community attempts to use education as part of a strategy to reduce terrorism, it should not limit itself to increasing years of schooling, but must also consider the content of education.
Thanks to Greg Mankiw, former Chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, for bringing this study to my attention through his blog.
The Respect Rankings: ‘Distinguished Backgrounds, Indistinguishable Character’
The country’s best columnist, David Brooks (who I once had the good fortune of having lunch with), has often written about the lack of emphasis on teaching character and integrity at America’s universities. That criticism extends to our politicians, who are products of that educational system, and most often the elite institutions within it. To quote myself from an old Daily Illini article, “Most have distinguished educations and backgrounds, but indistinguishable courage and character.” (I quote myself either because I am incredibly pompous or incredibly ignorant of words spoken by more eloquent and qualified observers.)
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I believe this firmly, but with a few notable exceptions, which I will list in order of respect, integrity, character, and honesty (currently active politicians only):
1) John McCain – McCain is my boy and our next President. If he is no good, if he is rotten, then they are all rotten. He is derided by some as an opportunist. This is a fair criticism; however, it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the necessities of politics. It reflects McCain’s understanding of pragmatism, a core conservative value. Yes, I do consider pragmatism to be a value, without it great ideas are never applied to the real world, they instead lie dormant in an absolutist, unmalleable mind. McCain does not fall into this trap, which is common for people of principle. If principles are Kantian and absolute, then they remain just that, principles. They never evolve into real change. This allows other ideas, opposing ideas, to flourish.
He is also a moderate conservative who is not afraid, like Mr. Lieberman, to break from his Party, which often results in leading his party in a different direction. His views are not motivated or founded on religion, but on logic.
When McCain was a POW at the Hanoi Hilton the Vietnamese offered to let him go after they discovered that he was the son of the Navy’s Pacific Commander. He refused to go home without the release of the rest of the U.S. POWS stationed at Hanoi, which resulted in a couple more years of beatings and solitary confinement. He refused the offer even while being beaten. If I can’t trust McCain, then I don’t want to trust any politician. If I can’t revere McCain as someone I should try to be like, then I don’t want to be like any politician.
Along with Russ Feingold, he won the JFK Profiles in Courage Award. He was also featured in the modern version of Profiles in Courage.
Instances of being a maverick, aka, Bad Samuel L. Jackson Mofo (Source: Wikipedia):
• One of four Republicans in whole U.S. Congress to vote against the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
• Only Republican senator to vote against Telecommunications Act of 1996
• Only Republican senator to vote against the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996, which gave huge farming subsidies
• Has been vocal in his opposition to permanently eliminating the inheritance tax.
• Crusaded against pork barrel spending
• Sided with Democrats on global warming
• Voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment
• Bi-partisan, along with Teddy Bear Kennedy, bill on guest worker visas
• McCain Detainee Amendment – Prohibits inhumane treatment of POW’s
• Has at least tried to reform things, especially soft-money
with the McCain-Feingold Act.
• He’s also hilarious, at a 1998 Republican fundraiser he joked, “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.” McCain later apologized to President Clinton and his apology was accepted.”
2) Russ Feingold – Nearly all of his political stances are naïve, stubborn liberalism. But, I don’t care. When I’m looking for Senators, for Statesmen, I look for people who lead, no matter their political leanings. I’d rather have 100 JFK’s, Feingold’s, and Truman’s in the Senate than 100 Tom Delay’s or Santorum’s (Google “Santorum” ).
Wikipedia’s entry says it all:
During his 1998 re-election campaign, Feingold once again eschewed big-money campaigning, despite the fact that the National Republican Senatorial Committee had targeted him for defeat. [15] [16]. Feingold placed a cap on his own fundraising, refusing to raise or spend more than $3.8 million (one dollar for every citizen of Wisconsin) during the campaign. [17] In addition, he placed the same limits on his fundraising that he would have faced under the McCain-Feingold bill. He refused to allow his party to raise any soft money to air ads favoring him and he requested that several special interest groups, including the AFL-CIO and the League of Conservation Voters, refrain from airing pro-Feingold “issue ads.” … On election day, an extraordinarily strong showing in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison allowed Feingold to win by less than one percent of the vote.
Link to his JFK Profiles in Courage Award page, which includes more info and speeches.
3) Arlen Specter – He’s one of the few Republicans who will stand up to Bush. Also, he’s in favor of stem cell research, pro-environment, and pro-choice. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee he held to his conscience and ignored Republican intimidation. He said this about possible punishments for Bush after the warrantless wiretapping news surfaced:
Impeachment is a remedy. After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution, but the principal remedy, George [STEPHANOPOULOS], under our society is to pay a political price.
Somewhere in my top 10:
Arnold “The Governator” – He has consistently stood for reasonable, moderate policies, regardless of whether their intellectual origins are left or right. Plus he’s hilarious, fun soundboard.
Continuing Senator Joe Lieberman – I respect anyone who has the courage to draw the ire of his own party by standing for moderate or opposition policies. He’s tough and I enjoy the fact that he angers my liberal friends on an intimate, visceral level.
PREDICTION: McCain-Lieberman Party 2008? Only if McCain loses the primary.
Condoleeza Rice – It is very possible that she will continue to move up this list. She seems to be a genuine person and I hope to vote for her someday.
PREDICTION: Condi, not Clinton, will be the first female president of the United States of America. That will also make her just the second person ever to hold the office of President while also holding a PhD, Woodrow Wilson was the other.
I’d love for everyone to share their lists, please post them.
James Carville’s third offspring
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James Carville & Gollum
The Billy Joe Mills Institute for the International Dissemination of the Glorious Triumph of Democracy and Capitalism – ©Copyright 2006
James Carville’s third offspring
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James Carville & Gollum
The Billy Joe Mills Institute for the International Dissemination of the Glorious Triumph of Democracy and Capitalism – ©Copyright 2006
James Carville’s third offspring
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James Carville & Gollum
The Billy Joe Mills Institute for the International Dissemination of the Glorious Triumph of Democracy and Capitalism – ©Copyright 2006
Hillaryous
I read the Boston Herald as soon as I wake up each morning. That’s how I came across the story, “Hatin’ on Hillary: N.H. Dems lambaste Clinton.” I don’t trust Hillary at all. My Midwestern instincts tell me she’s a stone cold b!tc# who is disingenuous and fake. Both her face and her morals are made to look pretty by plastic surgery. That’s why I was pleased to learn from the Herald article that New Hampshire voters feel the same. But these aren’t ordinary NH voters. No, they are Democrats. A few juicy quotes:
Lying b**** …shrew…Machiavellian…evil, power-mad witch…the ultimate self-serving politician…criminal…megalomaniac…fraud…dangerous…devil incarnate…satanic…power freak. Satanic. And: Political wh***.
(Those rants kind of sound like Rick James hating on Charlie Murphy.)
Because of the evidence cited in the Herald article and early polling, I sincerely hope she wins the Democratic Primary. According to the collection of polls at the PollingReport, McCain has a consistent 10 percentage point advantage on Hillary. The nearby chart shows the average of the six most recent polls from that page. You can view the specific polls and data from my spreadsheet.
You can watch the full Clinton-Rummy duel here, but only if you promise to remember that YouTube was founded by two UIUC alums, better recognize. The best part is right after her little diatribe, his initial response is simply, “My goodness.”
In offbeat news, it looks like my other boy Bill might have a new girlfriend. Or at least that’s what The First Post suggests. I sincerely hope it’s true, Belinda’s hot.
In even more offbeat news, my blogmate Brian Pierce will be absent on vacation for the next week. But I promise that his boring, desert-like commentary will resume with full anti-vigor once he returns.
Who is the real Lord of War?
If you read this blog more than once you’ll learn that I love random data sets in Excel. This time I’ve cooked up a little thing on the international arms business. You might recall the killing that Nick Cage made as the Lord of War.
Topics such as this are often discussed, but I find it preferable to go straight to the data. You can download the full spreadsheet that I worked off of, but I have created a few graphs that summarize the more significant points.
One of the more interesting findings is that our Eurofriends, who constantly recommend pacifism, account for nearly 20% of 2004 world arms exports. The U.S. is certainly not innocent in this realm. Russia maintains its rich KGB heritage as the world’s leading exporter with a 32.4% market share.
The other story is that the Low Income countries account for 21% of imports, which is significantly higher than their share of world GDP.
None of this data is exactly groundbreaking, but I found it interesting, nonetheless.
Humorous Response to Pierce: Lieberman the Liberal?
I read the Connecticut Post as soon as I wake up each morning. That’s how I found the insightful article, “Truth on Lieberman’s voting record.” After analyzing senate voting records the Post discovered that:
When Democrats and Republicans disagreed, Lieberman voted 90.5 percent of the time with his colleagues in roll call votes cast during his third term.
This record stabs Lamont’s claims that Lieberman “too often is willing to undermine the Democrats, be it on issues of war and peace like the war in Iraq, or be it on a variety of other issues.”
You can check out Lieberman’s complete voting record yourself at the Washington Post.
According to ProgressivePunch, a database that ranks how “progressive” congressmen are, Lieberman ranks as the 39th most progressive senator. Further, he ranks as the most progressive senator on “Housing” and “Education, Humanities, & the Arts” votes. The Connecticut Post article claims that if it weren’t for Lieberman missing multiple votes during the 2000 Presidential election season he would be ranked as even more progressive.
Martin Peretz, EIC of The New Republic, makes a good argument in the WSJ for why Lamont will be a horrible, Deanesque move for Connecticut Democrats:
The Lamont ascendancy, if that is what it is, means nothing other than that the left is trying, and in places succeeding, to take back the Democratic Party. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters have stumped for Mr. Lamont. As I say, we have been here before. Ned Lamont is Karl Rove’s dream come true. If he, and others of his stripe, carry the day, the Democratic party will lose the future, and deservedly.
In yet another great WSJ op-ed, Lanny Davis argues that assaults on Lieberman are just as pathetic, callow, and unsubstantiated as attacks made by folks on the right like McCarthy, Coulter, or Savage:
Mr. Lamont and all other liberal Democrats should remember the McCarthy era and not fall into the trap of the hypocrisy of the double standard — that it’s not OK when Ann Coulter dispenses her venomous hatred, but it is OK when our side’s versions of Ann Coulter do.
Davis even makes a strong case that latent anti-Semitic or anti-Israel views motivate many Lieberman haters.
Mr. Pierce’s argument appears nuanced, in many ways it is. However, he falls into the same trap that Ned Lamont has set for primary voters. Lamont has convinced people that this election is about one issue: The Iraq War. The Senate might not cast any major vote on the Iraq War again, yet Lamont’s entire campaign resides on it. By judging him on one issue, Lieberman-haters are about to deprive themselves of a consistent liberal in favor of a guy who finished third in a 1990 race for state Senate. He might sound conservative on the war, but not on almost anything else.
While Brian’s analysis is excellent, he fails to see that no matter how “liberal” sounding Lieberman is about his support for the war it will not matter. Lamont is attacking his support for the war, not his nuanced reasons for doing so. Rabid and starved primary voters don’t have time for nuance.
Loony Al Gore chose him as his 2000 Presidential running mate, how conservative could he be?
PREDICTION: Lieberman will lose today’s primary by 6%. He will then file as an independent. Both Lamont and the Republican, Alan Schlesinger, will be incredibly weak general election candidates. Lieberman will proceed to pummel and trounce Lamont and Schlesinger, respectively (but I hope not respectfully). According to a July 20th Quinnipiac University poll:
Running as an independent, Lieberman gets 51 percent, to 27 percent for Lamont and 9 percent for Schlesinger.
Sorry Lieberman haters, he’s here to stay.
Serious Response to Pierce
Droopy Dog is Senator Joe Lieberman’s father.
©Copyright – The Billy Joe Mills Institute for the International Dissemination of the Glorious Triumph of Democracy and Capitalism