Thank you, Leon Panetta

For saying what everyone's been thinking.

Camille Paglia and Deficits

It is not that often that I agree with Camille Paglia, but I think she gets it mostly right on Sotomayor; if her record supports it, confirm her, but the "wise latina" statement is indefensible. Paglia describes the line as a "vestige of the bad old days of male-bashing feminism", but I think it's more a vestige of the ethnic identity politics of the 60's-80's, where some attributed special wisdom or spirituality to one group or another. The fact that Sotomayor said it to what seems like a predominately (and maybe) solely latino audience makes me even more comfortable, making it a little too self-congratulatory.

Also, the New York Times has an interesting piece on exactly what has created the looming deficits; Obama's stimulus plan makes up a tiny fraction of it, though author Leon Steinhardt doesn't let Obama off the hook for not doing enough to fix the deficit.

Debt

There's a good article at Fortune on the crushing debt we're headed for, and they correctly note that the big problem isn't the stimulus or even the war, but entitlements. It's nice to have an administration that actually has a plan to reduce the deficits, rather than just proclaim deficits don't matter, but there are going to have to be severe structural changes in how entitlements work. And we're going to have to raise taxes.

As bad a job that I think President Bush did handling the economy, it's quite possible that 50 years from now historians will see that the main villains were Grover Norquist and the rest of the anti-tax fanatics. There has got to be a way to make tax increases more palatable to most of the country, but I can't think of it right now.

Sotomayor and Thomas

I think the thing that bothered me the most about liberal groups in the past few decades is the liberal approach to Supreme Court nominees. Honestly, as ridiculous as the attacks on Judge Sotomayor have been lately, they don't seem especially different or even worse than the venom that was aimed at Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. When a right-wing president is in power, they are most likely going to nominate a right-wing candidate to the Supreme Court. If the left had accepted this and acted accordingly over the past two decades they would be on even stronger ground in defending Judge Sotomayor's nomination. Obviously that doesn't mean progressives should just roll over and rubber-stamp the choice, but just tone down the vitriol a little.

The vitriol against Clarence Thomas is back in vogue. In trying to defend Judge Sotomayor some liberals are renewing attacks on Justice Thomas' judicial fitness, his intellect, and his ideology. I'll be honest. I admire Clarence Thomas. I don't agree with him on most points, but he's had to fight his way up from almost unbelievable poverty, a poverty that I pointed out in a previous post, is probably a lot worse than what Judge Sotomayor had to face. He has put up with a ridiculous amount of criticism for his beliefs, his much-criticized silence on the bench, and his relative lack of written opinions of note.

But as much as I disagree with his judicial philosophy, it's still a coherent one, and it has its appeal as a way to approach the Constitution.

Slate had a pretty good critique of the latest round of anti-Thomas attacks. I agree with Dahlia Lathwick's suggestion: defend Judge Sotomayor on her record, and forget about attacking Clarence Thomas' qualifications as a way to do that.

Democracts will have to stop letting Cheney frame the debate

One of the problems with being a liberal democrat (well, being any democrat) over the past 10 years is having to watch the supreme incompetence they tend to show in the political debate arena. John Kerry could have won in 2000, and fairly easily at that, if he'd been willing to actually aggressively attack Bush. He reduced his campaign motto to "War bad." which may bring in the left but is too simplistic when approaching the issue.

Cheney now has assumed the role of chief spokesman against President Obama's anti-terrorism policies. Cheney seems to have this image of himself as the only American tough enough to run foreign policy, a soldier willing to confront terrorists . The fact that he was desperate to avoid putting himself in any sort of danger during the Vietnam War (applying for five draft deferments), and his response to 9/11 was to hide in a bunker has not seemed to shake this delusion. He has never been either a professional soldier or a professional intelligence officer, yet has no problem overruling the opinions of either group if it conflicts with his bizarre neoconservative worldview. Maybe it's insecurity over the fact that he skipped over the chance to prove his actual toughness or courage that has shaped his public persona. As fun as it is to psychoanalyze Cheney, it is besides the point. Cheney is seeking to bring back a destructive national security philosophy that failed miserably when put into practice.

The Obama political team seems to be falling back on their usual strategy. I am guessing they WANT Cheney to take this role, just like they seemed to relish Rush Limbaugh's move to the forefront of the anti-Obama debate, because they can then run against polarizing, extreme right-wing, and unpopular among the mainstream figures. Makes sense, then, for them not to go too hard after Cheney right now, and wait until the next election cycle to frame the debate not between the respective democrats and republicans involved, but between an Obama worldview and a Cheney worldview. They used it successfully against former President Bush, and have started to use it against Rush Limbaugh. The problem with this strategy is this; undefended attacks tend to gain traction. Kerry probably lost because of the Swift Boat attacks, which he failed to respond to for months.

Will this strategy work? Maybe. The problem, however, is that political popularity is lost easily--but gained back almost as easily. This is, after all, a country where Richard Nixon was able to find public redemption of a sort. Cheney is steadily gaining in popularity, and by letting him frame the debate as a matter of will to do what it takes to protect Americans, his attacks could eventually help the Republicans push back to power.

The Obama political team also seems to be pursuing a similar strategy against Karl Rove, though this makes a little more sense. Despite his many flaws, Cheney at least has some experience and political capital to draw on, and ultimately is working towards something that he believes in. Rove is a political hack, smart but small-minded, thoroughly unprincipled, and a narcissist. His smugness in the aftermath of John McCain's loss in the election was remarkable. You could almost see the thoughts expressed in his face and in every word he said--"-I- could have won this." But responding to Rove with quiet dignity isn't going to work. Someone needs to go publicly and call him out on his words. Rove had no problem calling the Vice President of the United States a liar; are you telling me there isn't one prominent Democratic politician or commentator who can't just go on television and say flat out "Karl Rove is a liar. Why would you believe his words on anything?"

It's symptomatic of a general failure on the part of Democrats to learn that you sometimes have to fight. Voters tell pollsters they don't like negative attack ads. The only problem is, whether they like them or not, they work. President Obama's presidential campaign succeeded, and David Plouffe and David Axelrod did a very good job running it. But they benefitted from a disorganized McCain campaign, and even then made plenty of missteps. If it weren't for the financial meltdown there is a very good chance that McCain would have pulled through.

The Democrats need to start going after their oppponents, not just their opponents' ideas. They don't have to sink to Rove or Cheney's level of viciousness, but they have to publicly start portraying them as what they are--incompetent, unprincipled, politicians who have proven time and time again they can't be trusted.

Sotomayor isn't a racist--but she is wrong

Predictably, Sonia Sotomayor's nomination has provoked a firestorm from the right, especially from the contingent of politicians, former politicians, and pundits who have decided that the Republican party's losses in the past few elections are a result of failure to adhere to a far-right and uncompromising ideology. Two of Sotomayor's comments have especially raised the ire of conservatives: her statement during a 2001 speech at Duke University that "policy is made" by appellate courts, and her belief expressed during a 2006 speech at Berkeley that "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Conservative outrage over the first comment is wrongheaded; anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the American legal system knows the appellate courts do should be fully aware that legal policy is, indeed, made by Appellate Courts, fulfilling a role that is as old as the country. I suspect a lot of conservative commentators do know this, and accusations of judicial activism are aimed mainly at their base.

But the second statement, regarding ethnicity, is harder to defend, though plenty of liberal pundits and politicians have tried. There has been little criticism from the left on the comments, and there should be; it is basically an attack on one of liberalism's core values. As of this moment, Judge Sotomayor has not publicly addressed her "better" comment. Some senators who have privately interviewed her have described her explaining her speech as a whole and have stated that she pledged not to use them again. However, neither her nor her supporters in the Senate have stated whether they were an actual mistake or not. And even more problematic is the fact that this may not have been a a one-time event. If she has repeated those lines before, she has a bigger uphill fight to disavow them.

Most of the defenders of Judge Sotomayor's comments accuse her critics of failing to take the comment in regards to the speech as a whole. However, I've read the full speech, and to be honest the comments don't get any more palatable. In the speech she makes a very reasonable argument on how her background informs her legal decision-making. But different doesn't imply better, and it's not until she comes to the statement that she would hope to come to a "better" decision because of her background that doesn't really fit into the speech. It is most of the left's refusal to address this single issue--in fact, this single word--that is alternately puzzling and irritating. Few are disputing that her speech rightly argues that a judge should aspire to neutrality, or that one of the central points of her argument is that a judge's background will influence their decision-making. In fact, in that very speech she presents statistical evidence on how judges' racial and ethnic identities correlate to differences in the decisions they arrive at. But in saying that she would hope her latina background would lead her to better decisions than a white, male colleague, she is saying something that goes beyond the rest of the speech.

In fact, it is difficult to really parse that line precisely because it doesn't fit the speech as a whole. What part of her experiences did she think would give her more judicial insight into the cases that came before her? Impoverished backgrounds are not limited to latinas; I am sure there have been plenty of white, male judges, especially children of the depression, who faced worse poverty than Judge Sotomayor, men whose parents couldn't even afford the encyclopedias Judge Sotomayor's mother scrimped and saved for. And poverty doesn't automatically breed wisdom, and adversity is not a guarantor of insight. Judge Sotomayor freely admits in the same speech that white, male judges

If those hypothetical better decisions as a result of "richness of her experience" extend beyond poverty to her ethnicity, is is even more problematic. Judge Sotomayor speaks fondly in her speech of a childhood in the South Bronx,and recounts vivid memories of the latina aspects of her childhood--the food, the games, the family. Is this the richness of experience she talks about in her speech? Platos de arroz, gandules, y pernil are no more or less rich than hamburgers or mashed potatoes, and the South Bronx is no more or less genuine than Maine or Idaho. There is a tendency among just about everyone, I think, to think there is something special about their upbringing, to think one's childhood memories, as strong as they are to the holder, must be unique--and the "right" way to be brought up.

Judge Sotomayor did come from a humble and impoverished background that should inform her judicial decision-making. But this background is neither superior nor inferior to the background of a white, male judge from a more privileged background. Neither is it a guarantee of a higher degree of empathy; Justice Clarence Thomas came from an even more disadvantaged background than Judge Sotomayor, but many who vehemently support Judge Sotomayor's nomination would balk at called Justice Thomas possessed of a higher degree of wisdom or empathy than his white, male colleagues on the bench. There is no correlation between ethnicity and "wisdom"; just like there is none between ethnicity and intelligence, or morality, or spirituality.

The best defense raised by Judge Sotomayor's defenders is to point out her record. Judge Sotomayor has a long and distinguished history as a trial and appellate judge. I have seen nothing in her record to indicate that a white man wouldn't be just as fairly treated as a member of a minority and/or woman in Judge Sotomayor's court; on the contrary, others have pointed out that she has routinely found against plaintiffs in racial discrimination cases. On her record she should be confirmed; but I think she has the moral responsibility to say just what she meant in that speech. This comment (or these comments, if she's made them before) are not something I want to hear from a Supreme Court justice. And the oftentimes angry and fanatical defense of her comments from the left is just wrong. Equality is one of the left's most cherished platforms, and Judge Sotomayor's comments are not consistent with this platform.

The only major liberal or democratic voice that has seen fit to actually find a flaw with those remarks, is ironically the same man who nominated her for the Supreme Court. President Obama has stated he believes Judge Sotomayor misspoke, a statement that has raised ire in some quarters by those who steadfastly refuse to see anything wrong in Judge Sotomayor's speech. President Obama seems to be one of the few progressive voices out there who understand that self-criticism, either on an individual or group level, is a sign of strength rather than weakness. After watching the Republican party self-destruct largely because of its "party discipline" and refusal to honestly look at itself, you would think that the rest of those on the left would have learned something.

starting the blog

I do not know if anyone will ever read this. I would like to think someone would, but right now it's basically an online journal about what's wrong with modern American liberalism; from the point of view of a liberal. A lot of the problems I have with the various progressive movements in this country have recently arisen; some have been around for years. Unfortunately the groupthink that is endemic to the followers of most ideologies has gotten worse with liberals as liberal thinking has started to swing back into the mainstream.