Brian Beutler

Networks

I learn from Think Progress something totally unsurprising:

Former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz — who resigned last month after being embroiled in a corruption scandal at the World Bank — announced that he has found a comfortable landing pad from which to continue to disseminate his right-wing ideology:

Paul Wolfowitz vowed to continue in political life after he steps down as president of the World Bank this weekend following an internal revolt. … He said he would be joining the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, as a visiting scholar, which would allow him to continue influencing public policy. [Emphasis in the original]

Like I said, unsurprising. But also infuriating.

In some ways it appeals to me that the left doesn't really have networks like this for its disgraced though still-powerful fallen soldiers. But I can't really tell if it's strategically wise. It seems to me that this sort of Mason-like loyalty was probably essential to the right's long ascent, but that it was also probably essential to their rapid decline. A wash, maybe?

Linked!

More shenanigans in the UK:

Two men rammed a flaming Jeep Cherokee into the main terminal of Glasgow airport Saturday, crashing into the glass doors at the entrance in what appeared to be the third attempted terror attack on Britain in two days, witnesses said.

Police wrestled the two men to the ground _ one of them engulfed in flames _ arresting both and taking one to the hospital.

There were no reports of injuries but the airport _ Scotland's largest _ was evacuated and all flights suspended, a day after British police thwarted a plot to bomb central London, discovering two cars abandoned with loads of gasoline, gas canisters and nails. Hundreds fled screaming from the terminal as one of the men poured gasoline over the Jeep and tried to force it further inside the terminal, one witness said.

"One has to conclude ... these are linked," Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain's joint intelligence committee, told Sky News.

Well one might suspect that these are linked, and they may well be. But while that's still being investigated, it seems premature and irresponsible to me to spread what might prove to be misinformation. As anybody familiar with Iraq's famous role in 9/11 knows, that sort of thing isn't terribly easy to undo.

Obama and gays

Alexander (can I call him Sasha on the Internets?) has a good breakdown of the Obama performance I didn't see up at his TNR stomping grounds. There's one thing I want to take issue with, though:

The exception, I think, was his line about overcoming the stigma of HIV/AIDS, which Jon cites:

One of the things that we've got to overcome is a stigma that still exists in our communities. We don't talk about this. We don't talk about in the schools. Sometimes we don't talk about it in the churches. It has been an aspect of sometimes a homophobia, that we don't address this issue as clearly as it needs to be.

But whatever points Obama gets for that line should be undone by the exchange that followed moments later. When Joe Biden talked about overcoming the stigma of being tested for AIDS ("I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. There's no shame in being tested for AIDS"), Obama interjected that he got tested with his wife:

Barack Obama: Tavis, I just got to make clear that I got tested with Michelle when we were in Kenya in Africa, so I don't want any confusion here about what's going on.

Joe Biden: Well, I got tested to save my life because I had a blood transfusion.

Barack Obama: I was tested with my wife.

Tavis Smiley: And I'm sure Michelle appreciates you clarifying that.

Barack Obama: In public.

So while he's all for combating homophobia within the African American community, it seems he also doesn't want anyone to get the impression that he's on the down-low.

Sounds to me like Obama wanted to make it clear to the audience that he wasn't being tested for AIDS because of an extra-marital affair (gay or straight) and not because he's in the closet. As far as playing politics goes, he didn't. Not on that question. He asserted his monogamy (points) but also asserted his tolerance for gay people (fewer points). The black community lines up, I think, more closely on this issue with John Edwards, who is both a devoted husband and also uncomfortable with homosexuals. Not, of course, that this is a good trait of his, or has anything to do with who Edwards can count on getting votes from. I just think Obama's getting a bad rap here.

Banal observation of the day

Yes, Mr. Washer Dryer. We are all very impressed with your "disappearing sock" trick. Frankly, you seem to have mastered it. But, seriously, isn't it time for a change? Couldn't you study up and impress me with the "new designer jeans" trick? Or the "sewn up holes in underthings" trick? I could use a few demonstrations of each of those. If not, then at the very least, could you just spend a few months doing the "reappearing sock" trick so that I can replenish that drawer of mine which you have so thoroughly decimated? If you do, then we can just let bygones be bygones. Until then, note, there is a special ditch in Rock Creek Park with your name on it.

A very serious, thoughtful Hegel scholar

The thing about Hegel is that his ideas were claimed as the basis for just about every radical political force on both the right and the left for years and years after he penned them. So, yes, Giovanni Gentile--the guy who actually first conceived of Fascism as a philosophy--considered himself a Hegelian, but so did most of his ideological enemies. When radicalism was no longer, shall we say, en vogue, it became easy to dismiss an argument--rather than contend with it--by deeming it "Hegelian". Which is to say it's confusing stuff. And you can be fairly certain that when somebody dismisses something as "Hegelian", they understand what they're talking about even less than the great hordes of reactionaries who for generations now have attacked "bad things" by screaming "Fascism". What's great about Jonah, is that he's done both! At the same time!

Anyhow, Fascism as a doctrine didn't exist until after Hegel died. Liberal Fascism didn't exist as a concept until Jonah Goldberg reverse engineered it in 2007. And totalitarianism has been a problem for civilization for millennia. These are the facts. Together they constitute a very serious, thoughtful, argument about Jonah Goldberg that has never been made in such detail or with such care.

Force a filibuster

E.J. Dionne has a seemingly sensible plan for Democrats who, after this week's disaster, will want to keep another Roberts or Alito off the bench:

If another conservative replaces a member of the court's moderate-to-liberal bloc, the country will be set on a conservative course for the next decade or more, locking in today's politics at the very moment when the electorate is running out of patience with the right.

That's why a majority of senators should warn Bush now that they will not take up his nominee unless he strictly construes the Constitution's provision that he appoint justices with "the Advice and Consent of the Senate." The rule should be: If the advice isn't taken, there will be no consent.

There is--I think--another, more radical option. Democrats have to bring a controversial piece of legislation (controversial to Republicans, anyhow) forward and get it filibustered. If Reid refuses to bring any further business to the floor of the Senate--puts nothing else on the agenda--he forces Republicans to keep the filibuster open indefinitely. Then they'll either drop their protest and agree to let the bill move forward, or they'll filibuster until session ends and a new president has been sworn into office. That's my understanding anyhow. Could be wrong. But if I'm right, it would be a fantastic way to get Republicans to both filibuster some unpopular piece of legislation--effectively restoring the partial birth abortion, maybe--and block their own Supreme Court nominee at the same time.

Too much?

(Michael Kinsley)

Read this. It's hilarious.

Murdoch and the Journal

Krugman thinks it's a shame:

In any case, do we want to see one of America’s two serious national newspapers in the hands of a man who has done so much to mislead so many?...

To be honest I don't much care. As I see it now, the Journal brings some excellent reporting to the table--reporting that it would be sad to lose--but it does so effectively as a cover for its insane editorial pages, which do about as much as any entity I can think of outside of actual politics to advance truly disastrous ideas. They don't speak to wingnuts. They speak to highly educated, powerful, white collar people--potential liberals who are inundated with the Journal's faux-intellectual right wing drivel every day, and are often susceptible to it.

If Murdoch buys the Journal and it in no way changes, well, then, that's a wash. But if Murdoch buys it and turns the reporting into a joke--to where it's wealthy base no longer trusts it as it does today--I can actually see how that might be a good thing. It certainly can't make the conservative media much worse.

That said, I agree wholeheartedly with Krugman here:

If there were any justice in the world, Mr. Murdoch, who did more than anyone in the news business to mislead this country into an unjustified, disastrous war, would be a discredited outcast. Instead, he’s expanding his empire.

Almost daily Corner bashing

This is either too clever by a half or under-clever by a whole lot. You decide:

If it is saying, as it should be, that these are political and not legal fights, that the public and congress already know everything they need to know to make a judgment about whether the NSA and US Attorneys policies were good ones, and that the advice the president gets from his advisers is no more Congress's business than the advice Senator Leahy gets from his, then that is the position they should stick to. 

I almost feel ridiculous pointing this out, but, see, the NSA and US Attorney policies aren't exactly the national security and judicial appointee equivalents of, say, Medicare Part D. The NSA policy was in and of itself a crime and the US Attorney policy was only able to move forward because a bunch of advisers broke the law. Yes, there is a political side to all of it, too. If the investigations hurt Democrats politically, I sort of doubt they'd pursue them so intently. But whenever a president (from whatever party) treats the Constitution like a piece of food stuck in his teeth, it should be incumbent upon the Congress (also from whatever party) to investigate him thoroughly.

Debate non-wrap up

Instead of watching the debate, I went and did something fun. I'm not at all sorry about this. Those of you who did watch it, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. According to the Daily Kos poll  shot below, Edwards was winning (barely) at 10 till midnight eastern time. But then again he always wins with the Kos progressives. I haven't decided if this is significant or not. My thinking is "not". Obviously Howard Dean was the netroots' candidate back in 2004 and he...lost terribly. But then again, the netroots are--I would think--better organized, better funded, stronger, and bigger today. So maybe things have changed.