A jaundiced look at the world we live in.
I’m at a conference in San Francisco until late Sunday, sans computer–only have my trusty IPad, and didn’t bring my keyboard. So don’t expect much blogging until I get home!
On the plus side, I’ll have some interesting stuff to report on. Just today, there was a thought-provoking paper on Citizens United, and a couple on Originalism…
Over at Political Animal, Steve Benen joined the discussion over Tim Pawlenty’s recent remark that “Any doofus can go to Washington.” (There has been a good deal of mirth in the wake of that remark, actually–since one interpretation is that Pawlenty himself is something of a “doofus.” ) But viewed in context, Pawlenty seemed to be complaining about the lack of bold action from both Congress and the Administration.
Benen noted the disconnect between Pawlenty’s complaint and the Tea Party’s dark view of President Obama.
“But what I found especially interesting about this line was Pawlenty trying to label President Obama as someone who wants to “maintain the status quo.” For a while now, it was a given in Republican circles that Obama was a wild-eyed radical trying to undo the entire American experiment, turning everything we hold dear upside down. The president, we were told, was responsible for pursuing too much change, too quickly. It led conservatives to stand athwart history, yelling, “Stop.”
And yet, Pawlenty apparently doesn’t see it that way. Obama, we’re told, isn’t radical enough when it comes to change.”
I usually agree with Benen’s analyses, but on this one, he misses the obvious. A substantial percentage of Americans–mostly Republicans–have a blind, irrational hatred of Barack Obama–and unlike the well-documented detestation of George W. Bush, that hatred is not a product of anything the President has or hasn’t done. Those who see an equivalency are quite simply wrong–Bush had sky-high favorability ratings the first couple of years of his first term and didn’t really hit bottom until after he was re-elected. In other words, as we got to know him, many of us came to loathe him. But it wasn’t immediate, and it wasn’t rooted in who he was. It was a reaction to what he did.
The animosity to Obama was immediate–even before he assumed office. And it is hard to believe that most of the animus–the accusations of “otherness,” the reluctance to believe he wrote his own books and excelled at Harvard and the like–aren’t a product of his skin color.
If Barack Obama suddenly walked on water, cured lepers with a touch, and had a halo, these people would accuse him of being an extraterrestrial invader.
CommentsAnd no, not THAT kind of quickie. A very short post.
Daily Kos today: “Michelle Bachmann is announcing her run for president. God help us.” To which I would only add, a country in which anyone takes crazy Michelle Bachmann seriously as a candidate for any office, let alone the Presidency, may be beyond redemption.
Happy Memorial Day.
CommentsThe Cato Institute has recently published an analysis of proposed Immigration Reform, and concluded that comprehensive reform is overdue. The entire report is worth reading (I don’t have it in electronic form, unfortunately), as it methodically disposes of a number of charges that are routinely leveled at undocumented workers.
One of the interesting studies cited in the report comes from Texas, of all places–a state rarely known for progressive policies, or for policies based on evidence of any kind, for that matter.
One of the arguments routinely made by those demanding that undocumented persons be deported is that they are an economic drain on the American economy. In December 2006, the Texas comptroller of public accounts looked at economic activity by illegal immigrants, and issued a report concluding that such individuals had “produced a positive effect on the Texas economy and state budget.” The Comptroller estimated that the loss of the approximately 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in the state would have translated into a loss of 17.7 billion dollars to the state in 2005. The Comptroller further estimated that state revenues collected from undocumented immigrants exceeded what the state spent on services to that population by 424.7 million dollars.
This research seems consistent with estimates that undocumented workers leave something on the order of two billion dollars in Social Security each year–money withheld from paychecks under phony Social Security numbers that cannot ever be claimed by those from whom it was withheld.
CommentsIf there was ever a visual reminder that the world is changing–that even landlocked Indianapolis is part of a new, global economic order–this website is it.
We aren’t going to solve tomorrow’s problems if we spend all of our time and energy retreating into yesterday’s prejudices and fighting to maintain the status quo.
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