The Commentariat -- March 12, 2012
By popular request, here's my column on Brother Douthat's Sunday sermon in praise of -- wise Republican voters. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. ...
... Jonathan Chait of New York magazine: "For Douthat’s argument to work, though, you have to assume that Romney won because ... he is intelligent and well-accomplished.... I see little evidence that this is the case."
** Adam Liptak's analysis in the New York Times of the Roberts Court, and the critical decision the Court will make on the Affordable Care Act, is something of a must-read.
Thomas Edsall in the New York Times: "Instead of serving as a springboard to social mobility as it did for the first decades after World War II, college education today is reinforcing class stratification, with a huge majority of the 24 percent of Americans aged 25 to 29 currently holding a bachelor’s degree coming from families with earnings above the median income." CW: read Edsall's post, with its shocking statistics that make his point; then remind yourself that Mitt Romney does not want to help poor & lower-middle class students get college degrees. He really is one mean prick.
** Ezra Klein in the New Yorker: the bully pulpit doesn't bully anybody; in fact, it's pretty ineffectual.
Colin Moynihan of the New York Times: In New York City, "For the last few months, [Occupy] protest organizers say, police officers or detectives have been posted outside buildings where private meetings were taking place, have visited the homes of organizers and have questioned protesters arrested on minor charges. 'The N.Y.P.D. surveillance does not appear to be limited to unlawful activity,' said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.... A police spokesman did not respond to a request for comment."
Gary Langer of ABC News: "More than half of Americans for the first time expect Barack Obama to be re-elected -- but that won't make it easy: Even as expectations have moved his way, rising gas prices have dented the president's rating on handling the economy, his overall job approval has slipped back under 50 percent and he's reverted to a dead heat in public preferences against Mitt Romney."
Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker: "All the signs are that the United States military and its NATO allies have not only outlived their welcome in Afghanistan but also passed the point at which their presence is anything other than toxic." ...
... Michael Hirsh of the National Journal: "Recent events in Afghanistan, including Sunday’s horrific shooting of Afghan civilians by a U.S. soldier, are not just going to alter U.S. strategy there. They are very likely to upend it. Even before the latest tragedy, President Obama was trying to expedite his way out of that quagmire, which is already the longest war in American history, as he faced a tough fight at home for re-election. Now Obama is likely to only speed things up further." ...
... Gary Langer: "Sixty percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been not worth fighting and just 30 percent believe the Afghan public supports the U.S. mission there.... A majority in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 54 percent, say the United States should withdraw its forces from Afghanistan without completing its current effort to train Afghan forces to become self-sufficient."
What Global Warming? MSNBC: "Great Lakes ice coverage declined an average of 71 percent over the past 40 years, according to a report from the American Meteorological Society." CW: No doubt part of God's plan to hold down home-heating bills in the Midwest.
Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker on the many ways attacking contraception coverage is a political loser.
E. J. Dionne: "The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops will make an important decision this week: Do they want to defend the church’s legitimate interest in religious autonomy, or do they want to wage an election-year war against President Obama?"
David Dunlap of the New York Times: more than 100 years after expelling her, the Park Avenue Christian Church restores the membership of feminist reformer Elizabeth Bartlett Grannis.
Right Wing World
Quote of the Day. I told them they have ocular rectitis. That's when your eyes get confused with your butt, and it develops into a shitty outlook on life. -- John Boehner (R-Ohio), Speaker of the House, to the Republican caucus (CW: Peggy Noonan bleeped the word I have translated as shitty; the bowdlerization she used was "unnecessarily fecal"? Am I missing an adverb? Please advise.)
Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "With two key Southern primaries on the horizon this week, Rick Santorum and sharpened their attacks against Mitt Romney on Sunday, as Mr. Santorum bluntly declared that his leading rival 'can’t close the deal,' and Newt Gingrich called Mr. Romney the party’s weakest front-runner since 1920."
Molly Ball of The Atlantic: actually, Mitt Romney is pretty funny. People misunderstand his dry, self-deprecating humor. Here's Mitt in 2007, explaining his hunting prowess to a group of Texans:
... Ned Martel of the Washington Post: "Dressage demands agility and finesse — and money. Ann Romney’s involvement in the sport has allowed her access to the heady world of high-level competition, but it has also exposed her to horse dealing. Two years ago, it resulted in a lawsuit against her alleging fraud in the sale of one of her horses. And that lawsuit provided testimony in which she spoke in unusual detail about the benefits — and the costs — of riding." CW: there's an exponential factor of people who can't afford to field a stable of warmbloods but can afford to go windsurfing. See John Kerry, 2004.
Digby comments on the Ken Griffin interview, which is here. (Griffin is that billionaire Chicago hedge-fund operator & Romney supporter who thinks the mega-rich don't have enough influence over politics.) "He sounds as if his political views were shaped by reading a couple of chapters of Atlas Shrugged in high school and multiple viewings of Red Dawn. In that respect I suppose he does personify the idea that absolutely anyone can become a billionaire no matter how little they know."
Local News
CW: especially if you live in Florida, you will want to read Tim Padgett's excellent summary in Time of the state government's pivot toward culture wars and away from superfluous stuff like higher education. I am ashamed to live here on Knuckledragger Drive at Neanderthal Palms Villas.
Jackie Borchardt of the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News: "Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way. The Cleveland Democrat introduced Senate Bill 307 this week.... Turner said if state policymakers want to legislate women’s health choices through measures such as House Bill 125, known as the 'Heartbeat bill,' they should also be able to legislate men’s reproductive health." Via Jud Legum of Think Progress.
News Ledes
New York Times: "The outrage from the back-to-back episodes of the Koran burning and the killing on Sunday of at least 16 Afghan civilians imperils what the Obama administration once saw as an orderly plan for 2012: to speed the training of Afghan forces so that they can take the lead in combat missions, all while drawing the Taliban into negotiations to end more than a decade of constant war." ...
... Washington Post: "The Taliban vowed Monday to take revenge for the killing of at least 16 Afghan civilians by a rogue American soldier, and the nation’s parliament said people 'have run out of patience' with foreign forces. In protesting the killings, some Afghan lawmakers demanded that the U.S. soldier in custody be tried in an Afghan court, the latest sign that the incident could mark an adverse turning point in the deteriorating relationship between Kabul and Washington."
New York Times: "In another milestone in the banking industry’s recovery from the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve this week will release the results of its latest stress tests, which are expected to show broadly improved balance sheets at most institutions."
Washington Post: "A Gaithersburg, [Maryland,] Catholic priest who triggered national debate late last month when he denied Communion to a lesbian at her mother’s funeral Mass has been placed on administrative leave from ministry in the Washington archdiocese."
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Reader Comments (6)
When the police need to intimidate 20 something year olds for holding signs, I'm thinking they reveal the concerns of the power elite. I think mayor-for-life billionaire Bloomberg is concerned that there may be nuggets of wisdom in the Occupy movement that need to be exterminated before they grow.
When the right to peacefully assemble is revoked, we are no longer a free society. And by the way, whatever happened to the cops who assaulted protesters without provocation? Are they like their brothers on Wall street, the one percenters, who damage and pillage without consequence?
@ citizen625: "And by the way, whatever happened to the cops who assaulted protesters without provocation?"
Thanks for writing. Sgt. Anthony "Bologna was docked 10 vacation days for 'using pepper spray outside of department guidelines,' police said in October." Two young women whom he peppersprayed at close range sued the city in February.
"The New York Police Department reprimanded an officer and a sergeant who obstructed journalists covering Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, according to Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne."
These are the only two outcomes I found quickly; I did not make an exhaustive search. This is the type of question I prefer to have readers answer rather than ask. I just do not have time to be the Answer Lady. If this was meant as a rhetorical question, sorry. I missed the implication.
Furthermore why is it that occupy is infiltrated, spied on, and generally held with contempt by the establishment while Tea Party demonstrations, during which members threaten secession, violent revolution (anyone remember Sharon Engle?), an openly display firearms were/are tolerated? I never recall reading or hearing anything about infiltration or spying, although I'm sure some of the more well known radical elements have been under surveillance for some time. But to the point: Why is Occupy considered subversive and the Tea Party are just good concerned citizens exercising their constitutional prerogatives?
^^rhetorical :)
Rhetorical: Why does Stanley Fish still have a job commenting anyplace? Pease read today's column and cringe. His temporary insanity occurs quite often causing wonder at his employment at the NYTimes.
Sometimes we forget that the people we are killing in Afghanistan are Afghans and we are not. We have spent ten years and a lot of lives and treasure there and a lot of American families have suffered.
Since we have a paid army, most Americans only glance at the headlines and have no connection to this war.
The American military from General to private has the understanding that these are an inferior people that need guidance and discipline. Troops resent multiple tours with no progress. Ten years are a long time to fight a thankless war.
The unofficial position of many American troops is that these are "camel jockeys" and there are too many of them anyway.
We are occupiers of "untermenschen."
There is no good outcome on the horizon.
For Christ's sake run!