Wednesday, September 9, 2009

RW Intellectuals vs the Fever Swamp - and Emily Latella

In which RW blogger Jonathan Henke tells Rachel that the republican party has abandoned intellect for the fever swamp.

Republican advisor McKinnon says something very important at about 7 minutes in. When asked if - to paraphrase - republicans believe that the school speech was a cynical plot to indoctrinate children, or if it was precisely what it appeared to be - he said too many believe it is part of a cynical plot by Chairman Obama. Heaven help us.
Schoolhouse crock Sept. 8: Rachel Maddow is joined by Daily Beast contributor Mark McKinnon for a discussion of the conservative overreaction to President Obama's speech to American students.

Friedman (NYT): Our One-Party Democracy

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Our one-party democracy is worse. The fact is, on both the energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste. Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist. But if he’s forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation, he will be whipsawed by its different factions.

Look at the climate/energy bill that came out of the House. Its sponsors had to work twice as hard to produce this breakthrough cap-and-trade legislation. Why? Because with basically no G.O.P. representatives willing to vote for any price on carbon that would stimulate investments in clean energy and energy efficiency, the sponsors had to rely entirely on Democrats — and that meant paying off coal-state and agriculture Democrats with pork. Thank goodness, it is still a bill worth passing. But it could have been much better — and can be in the Senate. Just give me 8 to 10 Republicans ready to impose some price on carbon, and they can be leveraged against Democrats who want to water down the bill.

“China is going to eat our lunch and take our jobs on clean energy — an industry that we largely invented — and they are going to do it with a managed economy we don’t have and don’t want,” said Joe Romm, who writes the blog, climateprogress.org.

The only way for us to match them is by legislating a rising carbon price along with efficiency and renewable standards that will stimulate massive private investment in clean-tech. Hard to do with a one-party democracy.

The same is true on health care. “The central mechanism through which Obama seeks to extend coverage and restrain costs is via new ‘exchanges,’ insurance clearinghouses, modeled on the plan Mitt Romney enacted when he was governor of Massachusetts,” noted Matt Miller, a former Clinton budget official and author of “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.” “The idea is to let individuals access group coverage from private insurers, with subsidies for low earners.”

And it is possible the president will seek to fund those subsidies, at least in part, with the idea John McCain ran on — by reducing the tax exemption for employer-provided health care. Can the Republicans even say yes to their own ideas, if they are absorbed by Obama? Without Obama being able to leverage some Republican votes, it is going to be very hard to get a good plan to cover all Americans with health care.

“Just because Obama is on a path to give America the Romney health plan with McCain-style financing, does not mean the Republicans will embrace it — if it seems politically more attractive to scream ‘socialist,’ ” said Miller.

The G.O.P. used to be the party of business. Well, to compete and win in a globalized world, no one needs the burden of health insurance shifted from business to government more than American business. No one needs immigration reform — so the world’s best brainpower can come here without restrictions — more than American business. No one needs a push for clean-tech — the world’s next great global manufacturing industry — more than American business. Yet the G.O.P. today resists national health care, immigration reform and wants to just drill, baby, drill.

“Globalization has neutered the Republican Party, leaving it to represent not the have-nots of the recession but the have-nots of globalized America, the people who have been left behind either in reality or in their fears,” said Edward Goldberg, a global trade consultant who teaches at Baruch College. “The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”
Fighting off the fringe Sept. 8: Rachel Maddow is joined by Jonathan Henke, co-creator of "The Next Right" blog, who is taking on far right news site "World Net Daily."
Speaking of the fever swamp . . .
Czar struck Sept. 8: Rachel Re: Rachel Maddow takes on conservatives who are criticizing President Obama for employing so many "czars."
Benen: BORED NOW....
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has a ghost-written op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, arguing against health care reform. It's filled with predictable palaver -- "death panels," government = bad, tort reform, privatize Medicare, etc.

I guess I'm supposed to feel a sense of outrage about the latest in a long line of ridiculous Palin arguments, but I'm finding it difficult to get worked up about this. Palin doesn't know anything about health care policy, and has probably never given the subject more than 30 seconds of thought. Her op-ed -- the writer made no effort to craft the piece in a way that sounds anything like the former governor -- doesn't say anything remotely new or interesting. Palin has just become rather ... what's the word ... boring.

Instead of disgust, I read the Palin piece with Barney Frank's adage in mind: "Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."

The point of the op-ed, in all likelihood, is to position Palin as a leading right-wing voice challenging the president, hoping the media will run with an "Obama v. Palin" frame today. Marc Ambinder encourages news outlets to resist the temptation.

...Palin's existence in this debate does not (a) lend her voice any credibility and, beyond that, even if you believe that her experience as a state governor does give her at least a modicum of credibility, it does not follow that, because her voice is credible, it ought to be influential. Newt Gingrich is influential by rights; he's done the work, come up with original ideas, and been in the trenches. (Replacing Medicare with vouchers...not new or remotely plausible, even if GOPers do well in the next two elections. Quoting Ronald Reagan talking about that type of proposal...not new. Etc.)

The media -- by which I mean the cable news networks, primarily, will determine whether Palin's view on health care becomes influential. There are many Republican, conservative health care spokespeople who have earned the right to speak for their party's principals, and, truth be told, can recite the talking points (complete with Ronald Reagan quote) better than Palin and her writer can. They're the ones who should be offended if Palin's op-ed becomes the voice of the opposition tomorrow, because Palin isn't seen by most Americans as a particularly trenchent analyst of policy. Indeed, the reason why Palin's team wants to get her pieces in publications like the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal is that, in this next phase of her political career, Mrs. Palin has to burnish her policy skills. And the Journal is all too willing to lend some space to this project, because plenty of people will see the piece.

So here's a challenge to the media: if you want to do justice to conservative ideas and find some balance in your coverage tomorrow, book serious Republicans with original ideas on your programs. If you don't, Palin is giving herself a voice at your expense and through little effort of her own.

I'd take issue with some of this -- Gingrich is not the policy thinker he thinks he is -- but in general, Ambinder's right about the media and Palin's credibility.

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