The Commentariat -- January 22, 2012
My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Tom Friedman's advice to Obama & Romney. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.
Maureen Dowd, writing her book report on Jody Jodi Kantor's The Obamas, writes that President and Mrs. Obama feel victimized by the press and unappreciated by the public.
Glenn Greenwald: "... just as the celebrations began over the saving of Internet Freedom, something else happened: the U.S. Justice Department not only indicted the owners of one of the world’s largest websites, the file-sharing site Megaupload, but also seized and shut down that site, and also seized or froze millions of dollars of its assets — all based on the unproved accusations, set forth in an indictment, that the site deliberately aided copyright infringement.... Many SOPA opponents were confused and even shocked when they learned that the very power they feared the most in that bill ... is a power the U.S. Government already possesses and, obviously, is willing and able to exercise even against the world’s largest sites (they have this power thanks to the the 2008 PRO-IP Act pushed by the same industry servants in Congress behind SOPA as well as by forfeiture laws used to seize the property of accused-but-not-convicted drug dealers).... It’s wildly under-appreciated how unrestrained is the Government’s power to do what it wants, and how little effect these debates over various proposed laws have on that power.... The U.S. really is a society that simply no longer believes in due process...."
Right Wing World
I think grandiose thoughts. -- Newt Gingrich, during last night's victory speech
Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "The rebirth of Newt Gingrich, a notion that seemed far-fetched only weeks ago, has upended a litany of assumptions about this turbulent race. It wounds [Mitt] Romney ... and raises the likelihood that the Republican contest could stretch into the springtime.... Mr. Gingrich’s showing [in South Carolina] suggests that Mr. Romney may no longer be able to count on his rivals splitting the opposing vote into harmless parcels, or on the support he is getting from the party establishment to carry him past a volatile conservative grass-roots movement." ...
Steve Kornacki of Salon on what's next for the GOP presidential nominating process; Kornacki posits four plausible outcomes.
** New York Times Editors: "On Saturday, [South Carolina] veered in an extreme direction, and the outcome spoke poorly for a party that allowed itself to be manipulated by the lowest form of campaigning. Newt Gingrich won the primary by a decisive margin of 12.5 percentage points, and there is no mystery about how he did it. Two-thirds of voters interviewed in exit polls said they made their decision on the basis of the two South Carolina debates, where Mr. Gingrich exploited racial resentment and hatred of the news media to connect with furious voters." ...
... Or, as Driftglass puts it, the Great Klansman prevailed once again in South Carolinam "flying though the night to dance on the bones of Abraham Lincoln and promise to restore the rage-drunk, inbred remnants of the Confederate South to their former glory, but only if they are sufficiently sincere in their hatred of the usual suspects -- gays, Negroes, uppity women and, of course, the Liberal media which spreads their terrible lies."
... It's not that I'm a good debater. It's that I articulate the deepest felt values of the American people. -- Newt Gingrich, in his victory speech last night ...
... Dave Weigel of Slate: "This was hilarious, and it was true. Gingrich had gained ground by punishing the media in Monday’s and Thursday’s debates.... The 'elite media' isn’t running stories about the personal scandals of those other guys, because those scandals don’t exist. That wasn’t the point: Gingrich was saying that all criticism of Republicans from the media should be suspect.... In his victory speech..., he warned [that the elite media] 'have been trying for half century to force us to quit being American and become some other kind of system.'" See this related story which I linked a few days ago; conservatives trust only right-wing news because people like Gingrich have been extremely successful in their campaign to discredit honest reporting. There really is a Right Wing World, and it really is a parallel meta-world where the fact-based world is feared and loathed. This is extraordinary, and extraordinarily bad for our democracy. ...
... "I Think Grandiose Thoughts." Charles Pierce credits this Romney campaign release as the "best press release of the night." Read it. You might treasure it as an "historical" document. If you're not sure of the meaning of "grandiose," here it is: "characterized by affectation of grandeur ... or by absurd exaggeration." ...
... Jonathan Bernstein in the Washington Post: "Newt Gingrich remains almost as implausible a nominee as he’s been from the beginning of the campaign."
Charles Pierce: "If he is to be nominated — and I still think he probably will be — Willard Romney will be nominated by a party that would move en masse to the other end of a subway car rather than listen to him talk any more." ...
... Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post: the best way to understand Mitt Romney may be to see him as a corporatist whose bottom-line mindset is designed to improve corporate efficiency -- but at a human cost to which the consultant in Romney gives little consideration. Yang wonders if Romney can overcome his efficiency-expert self. The evidence she presents suggests he hasn't even tried.
Josh Israel of Think Progress on how the three Republicans on the Federal Election Commission have made Citizens United even worse.
News Ledes
New York Times: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) has announced she will step down from her Congressional seat next week to concentrate on her recovery from a debilitating gunshot wound. "The remainder of Ms. Giffords’s term will be filled by the winner of a special election, to be held on a date determined by Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican. In November, the district will be redrawn in a way that further favors Democrats, which may scare away some Republicans." Ms. Giffords' husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, says he will not run for the seat.
New York Times: "Croats voted by a two-to-one margin on Sunday to join the European Union, signaling that the bloc retains its allure despite the debt crisis engulfing the euro currency that many of its members use."
Los Angeles Times: "Satirist Stephen Colbert’s push for protest votes in the South Carolina primary fell flat Saturday as former candidate Herman Cain took just over 1% of the vote in the GOP presidential primary." CW: I noticed in reviewing the county-by-county totals that you could tell where the college towns were: those counties had an unusually high count for "other."
New York Times: "Mitt Romney said Sunday morning that he would release his 2010 tax returns on Tuesday, bowing to that mounting pressure that might have helped lead to his defeat in the South Carolina primary on Saturday."
AP: "Joe Paterno's doctors said that the former Penn State coach's condition had become 'serious,' following complications from lung cancer in recent days. The winningest major college football coach, Paterno was diagnosed shortly after Penn State's Board of Trustees ousted him Nov. 9 in the aftermath of the child sex abuse charges against former assistant Jerry Sandusky. While undergoing treatment, his health problems worsened when he broke his pelvis — the same injury he sustained during preseason practice last year." ...
... ** Washington Post Update: "Joe Paterno, the former Penn State football coach who was among the most admired figures in the annals of collegiate sports but whose reputation was shattered in the wake of a child abuse scandal involving one of his longtime assistants, died Sunday morning. He was 85. The death was announced by his family." ...
... Update: the New York Times obituary is here.
New York Times: "Egyptian authorities confirmed Saturday that a political coalition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the 84-year-old group that virtually invented political Islam, had won about 47 percent of the seats in the first Parliament elected since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. An alliance of ultraconservative Islamists won the next largest share of seats, about 25 percent."
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From yesterday’s “The Commentariat.” the article by Ilyse Hogue offers hope that Liberals and Conservatives can find common ground on important issues:
“Take the Internet censorship bills: the smug overreach of these industry-backed bills united both poles of the political spectrum and new media companies in an unprecedented wave of online activism that turned the tide and left both bills gasping for life on the eve of their vote.”--Ilyse Hogue, The Nation (Emphasis added.)
“...most Americans crave more limits on election spending. A new CBS poll out yesterday showed majority of Republicans, Democrats and Independents favor limits on how much both how much individuals can give to candidates and how much outside groups can spend on ads. A total of 67 percent of respondents said outside spending should be limited, while less than a third favored the current system.” --Ilyse Hogue, The Nation
Perhaps there is hope that Americans could actually unite long enough throw out our current, utterly corrupt crop of politicians, too.
@Zee. It depends on what you call a 'conservative'. It is one thing to disagree over economic methodology and interpretation of the second amendment and another to be the 'conservatives' like much the Republican primary voters. These people have a different agenda. They are determined to get the black bastard out of the White House, ensure that their religion replaces the Constitution, mandate that their children not receive a decent education and live a life of blame on the 'elite media', 'librales', and anyone that does not live their lives.
The one good thing that has come out of these primary contests is an exposure of two things: the large number of racist scum still hiding in America coming out and the fact that the Republican candidates will play to their hate.
So Zee, I have no problem debating with you because you are actually willing to discuss the issues. I am afraid that a significant proportion of our fellow citizens who claim to be conservative will never discuss anything. They already know it all and live in their fantasy world of religion and politics, hiding from reality.
P.S. And some of them are running for POTUS.
@Marvin Schwalb--
I agree with you completely. No one could be more ashamed than I am about what today's Republican Party calls "conservatism," and about our current choice of so-called "conservative" candidates.
I too "Think Grandiose Thoughts":
Single Payer Health Care
Renewable Energy
Small Scale Local Agriculture
Broad Access to Higher Education that doesn't have entire departments bought by meddlesome billionaires to teach their crafted curriculum
A Supreme Court that hasn't been bought by meddlesome billionaires to decree their crafted legal decisions
A Congress that hasn't been bought by meddlesome billionaires that pass their crafted legislation
Power to the People!