Category Archives: Random Blogging

Plotzing

Yesterday, Dana Milbank’s column in the Washington Post began as follows:

The Israeli tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth came out on Wednesday with a shocking report: Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann would join Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) at Glenn Beck’s rally in Israel in August.

It turned out that much of the report was wrong. The three candidates quickly said they had no such plans – a sensible decision. Beck’s hateful shtick encouraged even Fox News to end his show later this month. But, incredibly, another piece of the report was true. “I’d love to participate,” Lieberman confirmed when The Post’s Felicia Sonmez found him in a Capitol hallway. “It’s just going to be a rally to support Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Never mind that Beck, a Christian Zionist, supports Israel because the return of Jews to that ancient land is a necessary condition of the Rapture, during which Jews who refuse to accept Jesus and convert will be consumed by fire–a biblical prophecy with which Lieberman might be presumed to differ.

Milbank noted that Lieberman’s willingness to make common cause with Beck made him “plotz” (a word that very roughly translates into “‘become agitated.” The full meaning of “plotz” is probably appreciated only by those of us with Jewish mothers and grandmothers).

Milbank was astonished that Lieberman, who wears his religion on his sleeve,  would embrace Beck, one of the country’s most prominent anti-Semites. He failed to understand that what Lieberman and Beck share is far more than unwavering, uncritical political support for Israel. Both men lack any hint of self-awareness. Both are supremely confident that they own the Truth and have a duty to lecture everyone else about that Truth. Both engage in smarmy self-righteousness. Both are narcissists.  Both, in a word, are zealots–blinded to any worldview beyond their own and utterly convinced of their own moral superiority.

As the character of Yenta in Fiddler on the Roof might have put it, “It’s a perfect match!”

Mike Pence–running on retrograde

The IBJ reports that Mike Pence is coming back to Indiana  “to fight Washington, D.C.”  The paper noted that Pence was light on specifics, but did promise to fight health care reform and federal climate change legislation.

In what alternate universe do candidates who’ve spent  a major part of the past decades as part of the Washington, D.C. establishment run on a platform to fight Washington? On what planet do candidates ask for votes on the basis that they’re against healthcare and the environment?  (Vote for me! I’m in the pocket of the insurance lobby and I’m a climate-change denier!)

You have to give him credit for consistency, though–he’s AGAINST abortion, AGAINST same-sex marriage, AGAINST providing healthcare to those who can’t afford it or who’ve been denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, AGAINST stem-cell research, and AGAINST efforts to stop environmental degradation.  Perhaps his slogan should be “Mike Pence: against progress and the people of Indiana.”

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The Urban Archipelago

When I was doing research for my book “Distrust, American Style,” I came across an article written just after George W. Bush defeated John Kerry. The author rejected the “red state/blue state” divide, in favor of a more fine-grained analysis comparing voters in urban and rural areas. Cities tend to be blue, rural areas tend to be red; most states are thus “purple.” He called the blue islands in seas of red “Urban Archipelagos,” and attributed urban voting patterns to the lessons and attitudes one learns living in close proximity to other people. Urban life is diverse; it requires progressive attitudes and a degree of tolerance largely missing from more bucolic settings.

A recent survey by Pew on attitudes toward abortion tends to support that thesis–although what Pew was measuring were religious and denominational differences on the issue. As religious scholar Martin Marty summarizes the findings,

“Almost sixty percent “say that at least some health care professionals in their communities should provide abortion.” This time white evangelical Protestants are anti-abortion and joined by Latino Catholics. “White mainline” and “unaffiliated” are most “pro” (at 72% and 71%). “White Catholic” and (here’s one surprise for me) black Protestants, line up next (58% and 56%) as pro-abortion. Least enthusiastic is the third duo, “Latino Catholic” and “white evangelical” (at 38% and 37%). One large gap is between the pro-abortion among metropolitan areas (67%) and rural dwellers (39%). ” (emphasis supplied)

When you think about it, the urban/rural differences make a lot of sense. In a city, you soon learn the folly of insisting that everyone adhere to your personal religious and moral beliefs. You learn to live and let live. If you are truly open to the society of people with different backgrounds, ideas and customs, you may even come to question some of your own beliefs and prejudices, and to appreciate that–as an old friend of mine used to put it–it’s a very thin pancake that has only one side.

I think that’s the original definition of a “liberal.”


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Losing Facts

I came to my computer keyboard this morning prepared to rant about the ever-growing dismissal of facts in favor of more useful spin–and increasingly, out-and-out lies. I was still annoyed by an email forwarded by a friend of mine, who sent it not because he agreed with it, but in order to demonstrate “what’s out there.” This particular message was full of anti-immigrant sentiment, and “facts” about how much undocumented immigrants supposedly cost the American taxpayers.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on the economics of immigration, but I do know enough to recognize inaccurate propaganda, and the email was filled with it.

Before I began my post, however, I read this one at Daily Kos, and it made my point better than I could have. It’s a bit on the long side, but I hope you’ll read it to the end, because no matter what your politics, the extent to which we are ignoring reality and rewriting history in service of ideologies, left and right, is far and away the most dangerous threat we face.

The Peculiar Worldview of Evan Bayh

The news yesterday that former Indiana Senator Evan Bayh would be working for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce–along with former Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card–reminded me that Bayh is a man without any evident political philosophy other than self-interest.

A number of years ago, when Andy Jacobs retired from Congress, I participated in a “Retirement Roast,” sponsored by the Marion County Democratic Party. (Bill Hudnut and I were the two Republicans among the roasters.) I used my five minutes to apologize to Andy for having called him a name during my unsuccessful campaign to unseat him–I had called him a Democrat. As I explained then, “I was young and naive. I didn’t understand that Indiana doesn’t HAVE Democrats–we just have our Republicans and your Republicans. Like Evan Bayh.”

I don’t think any line I have ever delivered has gotten a bigger laugh. The Democrats in the room clearly agreed with my assessment of Evan Bayh (who was sitting near the front of the room).

There’s nothing wrong, of course, with being a more conservative Democrat–a Blue Dog. But even then, it was apparent to many that Bayh carefully constructed his political persona to meet the preferences of Indiana voters. During his terms in the Governor’s office, politics–defined as what would be good for Evan Bayh–regularly trumped policy. I remember a story told by a friend of mine who ran the HIV division of the State Health Department: the federal government offered to pay the salaries and overhead for two additional employees working on AIDS issues. My friend desperately needed the extra help, and was delighted, because the addition of these two positions would impose zero cost on the state. Bayh refused to allow him to accept the offer, because he was preparing to run for the Senate, and didn’t want anyone to be able to accuse him of adding public employees–even employees who would help Hoosiers and wouldn’t cost the state a cent.

Bayh’s retirement from the Senate was accompanied by lots of sanctimony, and his typical disregard for other Democrats–his timing made it virtually impossible for the party that had supported him to retain the seat, and he subsequently did very little to help Brad Ellsworth.  He joined a law firm (to lobby), and became a contributor to Fox “News,” lending that propaganda mill a veneer of bipartisanship.

Now, he’s signed on with the U.S. Chamber, which (unlike our local chamber) has been controlled by the extreme right for the past several years. He will be helping the Chamber maintain the fiction that its vendetta against even the most reasonable regulations is somehow a “bipartisan” effort.

This morning, the Star quoted Bayh’s denial that his Chamber job involves lobbying, because he won’t be personally calling his former Democratic Senate colleagues–a curiously narrow definition of lobbying.

My guess is that most Democratic Senators would be unlikely to take calls from Mr. It’s All About Me, Me, Me in any event.