Academic Freedom versus Academic Legitimacy: The UNC Case

At the tail end of 2013, I published a very short essay in the Florida International University Law Review entitled Academic Freedom versus Academic Legitimacy. The goal of the essay was to disentangle two oft-conflated concepts, both of which are intuitively important and both of which express exceptionally important academic values.

The first of these is "academic freedom": the right of persons within the academic community to forward any idea -- no matter how outlandish, offensive, or controversial -- without facing formal sanction or punishment. The second is "academic legitimacy": the belief that ideas presented in academic concepts should generally be good, interesting, well-reasoned, or thought-provoking, and that correspondingly where the academic community forwards poorly-reasoned or outlandish ideas, something has malfunctioned. "Academic legitimacy" does not entail agreement; there are many ideas which are perfectly "legitimate" -- in the sense of being thoughts that usefully forward an intellectual discussion -- that many people disagree with.

If, for example, a geology professor brought in a flat-earther to speak, we would presumably think that they had failed in an important scholarly aspect by acting as if flat-earthism was even "in-bounds" as something worth presenting in an academic context. This isn't (just) because we think flat-earthism is "wrong", it's because it is not a useful contributor to a reasonable conversation about geology. And this belief would hold even as academic freedom constrained the remedy -- we could not fire or otherwise discipline the professor. Holding this distinction is critical on both sides of the equation: Saying something is academically illegitimate (even if correct) does not justify abridging their academic freedom, but alleging that something is academically illegitimate does not constitute a violation of academic freedom (even if incorrect).

In my article, I note that what is and isn't "academically legitimate" will be contested, and offer several examples of potential speakers whom we might debate over. These ranged from BDS activists and the Black Panthers to David Horowitz and Gilad Atzmon. On this blog, I've applied this idea to two recent controversies: the hiring and unhiring of Steven Salaita by the University of Illinois, and the hosting of a talk at NYU law school by anti-vaccination activist Robert Kennedy Jr..

In Professor Salaita's case, I argued that while academic freedom principles may demand that we object to his "unhiring", this in no way should entail sanctioning some of the horrific anti-Semitic comments he made on Twitter. Too many people were combining these cases, saying that he should be reinstated and that his comments were perfectly innocuous, and grouping both under the mantle of "academic freedom". But only the former part is -- the question about whether his comments were benign "criticism of Israel" or repulsive anti-Semitism is an academic legitimacy question -- it has no bearing on the academic freedom issue. Likewise, with NYU "academic freedom" means that whichever member(s) of the NYU community invited Kennedy ought not be punished or disciplined, and should not have been prospectively barred from issuing the invitation. Nonetheless, I think most of us feel that something went wrong when the invitation was extended. A member of a university the caliber of NYU should not think that anti-vaccination conspiracies are a legitimate topic of debate. Put simply, NYU community members should do better than that in picking their speakers.

All of this leads up to a recent editorial in the Daily Tarheel, the University of North Carolina's student newspaper, which has been getting far more negative attention than I think it deserves, primarily based on the same conflation I observed in my article. The editorial takes note of two recent speeches given at UNC and Duke by David Horowitz and Mitt Romney, respectively, who were invited by the local College Republican chapters. The editorial makes it absolutely clear that it does not support a ban on their speeches. Rather, it suggests that both speakers had "little intellectual heft to back up their cultural prominence," and did little "to promote serious discussions about controversial issues." In Horowitz's case, this was due to their appraisal of Horowitz as basically a racist hatemonger. In Romney's case, the criticism was more specific -- he was speaking on foreign policy, an arena in which he has no special background or expertise, and his talk was allegedly just a litany of partisan talking points rather than anything of significant substance. The editors suggested that the host of the event, Duke Professor and former Bush administration national security official Peter Feaver, would have actually provided an interesting and intellectually sophisticated (and, I'd add given his background, conservative) foreign policy address.

Since the editorial explicitly did not call for any ban, oversight, disciplinary action, or any other restriction on the groups which invited Horowitz and Romney (and in fact affirmed their right to speak on campus), theirs was an academic legitimacy critique, not an academic freedom one. Like the criticisms of NYU following the anti-vaccination presentation, the editorial urges that College Republicans do a better job picking speakers that will significantly advance scholarly debate. I'll tip my hand here and say that I agree with them in the case of Horowitz and disagree with respect to Romney, and I'll go into more detail on that in a moment (specifically, on why the case of a prominent politician's political speeches is in fact a debatable case).

But there were many, many people -- my friend Yair Rosenberg, Popehat, a Texas Supreme Court Justice, among others -- who contended that the editorial pressed for a "ban" on conservative speakers, or "pre-approval", or was an "Orwellian" attack on free speech. And they're wrong. And they're badly misreading the argument. The column does not endorse, and in fact specifically rejects, any abridgment of anybody's free speech rights in the course of its critique of the speaker-selection.

One response I got from some quarters upon making this observation was quite straightforward: the UNC editors are lying. They say they respect the free speech rights of the speakers, but they don't mean it -- if given the chance, they'd support prohibiting them outright. For starters, this is no way to have a discussion -- assuming that one's interlocutor is lying so as to avoid the awful possibility that they actually don't disagree with you. There's also nothing in their argument that suggests an internal inconsistency -- the position they're forwarding, that groups are free to select whatever speakers they want at their discretion but they should in the exercise of that discretion select intellectually serious people, is theoretically perfectly intelligible (even if we disagree over who is or isn't intellectually serious). Finally, the fact that they specifically recommend a different Republican (Feaver) as an example of someone who would be intellectually serious is evidence that their position is not simply a fig-leaf for banning speech they disagree with.

A few people tried to buttress this inference of insincerity by referencing other malign movements on college campuses that do explicitly call for censorship of "hate speech" or "triggering" ideas. But the presence of such forces makes it more imperative that we disaggregate those students who respond to disagreeable speech in the right way -- by arguing that it is bad speech and urging that it be replaced with better speech, while forswearing illegitimate instruments like formal speech restrictions.

Another argument I heard a lot was that even urging a group like the College Republicans to "voluntarily" recalibrate their assessment of what sorts of speakers are worthwhile is a form of censorship. Some people tied this argument to the aforementioned presumption that the "voluntary" part was a fiction, but many seemed to honestly believe that arguing in opposition to the College Republicans appraisals, and asking them appraise differently (better), was in of itself a form of censorship. This argument is nothing short of bizarre. Unless one offers an open-mic night or selects speakers by lot, the decision to invite a particular speaker obviously entails an appraisal of their quality. That's presumably why Mitt Romney the politician was invited instead of Mitt the audiovisual specialist -- the former is the sort of person who would give an interesting, informative, and intellectually stimulating talk. The latter would be unlikely to. The editorial is a claim that the group's appraisal was flawed, and they should try to improve it. Now, maybe that's wrong -- in fact I think it is, at least with respect to Romney -- but it's not a form of censorship.

Indeed, this position might the most dangerous from the standpoint of encouraging people to dissent by disagreeing, rather than by resort to actual censorship. When some folks try to promote censorship and say we should ban the speech we don't like, the common (and correct) response is to tell them that's the wrong remedy. The right remedy is to argue that the speech is wrong and try and persuade their fellows to adopt a different, better position. We might, of course, disagree on which positions are right, but that's the terrain in which the debate should be hashed out. But if people do exactly that and are told it is in fact tantamount to censorship, that's suggestive that the objection actually isn't to formal efforts to "ban" disagreeable speech, but to the speech being challenged at all.

Finally, some folks argued that the real problem was that the editorial was one-sided -- that it viewed only conservative speakers, and even a very mainstream conservative like Mitt Romney, as academically illegitimate. The allegation is that the student editors, in appraising what sorts of speakers say intellectually serious things, are biased. They mistake "conservative" for "unserious". Under this view, we might say that it's not the College Republicans who need to reassess what they consider to be academically legitimate, but the editors of the Daily Tarheel.

Importantly, while this argument may have force, it's not a censorship argument. It is a line-drawing argument. If the invited speaker had been, say, a Klan Wizard, nobody would be saying "they're biased -- they only criticized inviting Klansmen!" That we all agree that it would be perfectly proper to criticize a group that invited a Klansman, and to suggest that (notwithstanding their right to extend such invitations) they should exercise their discretion in a more thoughtful fashion the next time around, is evidence that we don't actually believe in the second objection ("persuasion efforts = censorship") and our problem here is a substantive one -- we think that (at least) Mitt Romney is not the sort of speaker who should be objected to as academically illegitimate, and we think the best explanation for why someone would think he is so objectionable is a mind clouded by political bias.

Now, even though this is not a "censorship" problem, this sort of behavior would still be worrisome. We should worry about ideological self-segregation and biased appraisals of discomforting evidence. Everything we know about motivated cognition suggests this is a real phenomenon. It is a different sort of problem than one centered on "free speech" or "censorship", and so framing the debate in those terms is misleading at best. But that does not mean this hypothesis isn't worth considering, just that even if proven it would not demonstrate any free speech failing on the part of the students (which, of course, is the core of the critique -- political bias is a much more mundane sort of failure than brute censorship justified by an Orwellian invocation of free speech).

Before we go running off with this sweeping conclusion of unchecked political bias, though, it's worth taking stock of the evidence. The opinion piece cites a grand total of three cases. One of them (Horowitz) I think some of the column's critics (e.g., Yair) agree could be validly indicted as academically illegitimate. Moreover, we know that the newspaper does not actually object to having any conservative speak -- it specifically said it believed that Professor Feaver would have been excellent. Basically, what we know is that the editors found two conservative speakers unserious, one (potential) conservative speaker serious, and zero liberal speakers either serious or unserious. I'm not exactly a crack social scientist, but even I know better than to draw a robust conclusion from an n of 3. Given such a small sample size, breaking down what it would mean to demonstrate a lack of bias only illuminates the absurdity. Instead of a 1-0 scoreboard, would writing a single column critiquing two liberal speakers (thus tying the game at 1-1) count? One tweeter claimed that the alleged failure of the paper to condemn Bill Bradley's 2000 commencement address was evidence of the double-standard. A compelling argument ... except that the current editors of the Tarheel were all of 5 years old when that happened.

By far the most compelling argument supporting the "political bias" position is that their critique incorporated Mitt Romney -- not a David Duke, not even a David Horowitz, not an extremist or fringe figure of any sort, but a perfectly mainstream member of the Republican Party. As I mentioned, this is the point where I get off the Tarheel's train, but even here I don't think their position is transparently ludicrous nor solely attributable to ideological blinders. To explain why, indulge me in one more story.

When I was an undergraduate, I almost never attended talks delivered by politicians. This was not because I was politically incurious (I started this blog even before I entered Carleton). And it wasn't because I was averse to hearing competing viewpoints -- the first publication I wrote for was Carleton's conservative outlet (the Carleton Observer), and for quite some time I was a co-panelist on KRLX's political debate talkshow (a 2v2 conservative versus liberal format). Rather, I didn't attend because I found such talks to be breathtakingly boring. The claims and arguments presented were not intellectually rigorous, they were sophists, purveyors of partisan drivel designed to rev up a crowd or score cheap points. I never felt like I was learning anything useful from them about the best policies on the topic d'jour. They were, in short, intellectually unserious. And so I thought it was a waste of time to listen to them. I'd have rather we brought in real thinkers -- conservative or liberal. And whether they showed up or not, I certainly read them on my own time (my senior thesis was predominantly inspired by a major conservative legal theorist, Michael McConnell).

Now some of this is tempermental to me -- there is a reason why, despite my keen interest in political issues, I chose an academic route while elected office has never held the slightest appeal. I never joined and had no affiliation with the Carleton Democrats for precisely this reason -- party speech, organization, and activism was to me a paradigmatic example of doing political debate poorly, and I wanted no part of it. I know I'm not the only person who thinks like this -- whose first instinct upon seeing that a politician (of whichever party) is speaking is to roll their eyes. This is often true for people I nominally agree with as well as those I don't.

The Daily Tarheel did not argue that Mitt Romney was inherently incredible or that someone with his politics is obviously unserious. Its argument was twofold: first, that Romney has no particular foreign policy expertise, and two, that the speech he actually gave was pure political pageantry that contributed nothing to any serious foreign policy understanding. The latter part, no doubt, is not unique to Mr. Romney or persons of his party -- most politicians speak like that most of the time. It's their job. But in academic environments maybe we should expect more of ourselves, and look to people who can provide more than a grandstand.

The counterargument to this -- and what I ultimately find persuasive -- is that someone with Mr. Romney's background is "interesting" no matter what substantive views he presents, simply because it is useful to know what major politicians or world leaders think (even if, depressingly, the answer is "they think in terms of cute soundbites and platitudes"). Mitt Romney is meaningfully distinct from other persons who talk in terms of cute soundbites and platitudes, because he's Mitt Romney -- former presidential candidate and influential Republican. That, for me, is sufficient to render his talk academically legitimate -- it is a useful part of an interesting intellectual discussion simply because there are important intellectual discussions to be had about what major world leaders and politicians are saying about important issues. But the opposing position outlined above is one that I would have had a lot of sympathy for as an undergraduate, and not for any partisan reason. I don't think we do ourselves a favor when we pretend that political talking points packaged for a 30 second TV clip represent the best we can do in terms of policy reasoning.

I phrased this last issue as a motivated cognition story, and I should add that I think that's still very likely to be in play here. For example, motivated cognition may make liberals more likely to think that a Romney speech is pure useless talking point, while a Obama speech is perhaps a mix of interesting information and partisan drivel. That's obviously worth watching out for, and it's important. It reflects a serious problem across all of public deliberation that extends way beyond the editorial staff of one college newspaper.

But this debate has been framed in terms of censorship, in terms of free speech, in terms of banning thoughts that we don't like. And that is a misreading of the editorial and grossly unfair to its authors. These persons were quite clear that they had no quarrel with the academic freedom rights of the College Republicans or the persons they chose to invite. They criticized their intellectual contributions and suggested that other speakers would be more beneficial participants in the debate. They may be wrong on the merits. But they framed the debate along the right dimensions, and conflating a substantive line-drawing disagreement with the fight against censorship is a dangerous mistake to make.

Probably Just a Massive Welfare Operation

LGM has some stories from the failed Romney campaign:

Rich Beeson, the Romney political director who co­authored the now-discredited Ohio memo, said that only after the election did he realize what Obama was doing with so much manpower on the ground. Obama had more than 3,000 paid workers nationwide, compared with 500 for Romney, and hundreds of thousands of volunteers.

“Now I know what they were doing with all the staffs and ­offices,” Beeson said. “They were literally creating a one-to-one contact with voters,” something that Romney did not have the staff to match.

Like the LGM guys, I too am curious what Beeson thought the Obama campaign was doing with all those workers. Did they think it was just a handout to layabouts -- "walking around money", as I believe the conservative conspiracy goes?

Anyway, the good news is that the corporate-style campaign Romney run is both (a) a terrible model and (b) culturally ingrained within the modern Republican Party. So I look forward to many more electoral spankings coming their way.

Four More Years! The Post-Election Recap

Nowadays, virtually nobody gets to read this. But I still like writing it. So here goes.

* Obviously, congratulations to newly re-elected President Barack Obama, who ended up winning by a decently comfortable electoral vote margin. I'm pretty confident he will win Florida, thus giving a final electoral tally of 332 to 206 for Romney. Not half bad (and a perfect call by Nate Silver, incidentally). After all this rigmarole, only two states changed sides (both blue-to-red): Indiana and North Carolina. Coming down from a pretty high tide in 2008, that's impressive work.

* Laura Ingraham thinks the problem here was that the GOP didn't nominate "a conservative". Interesting theory! Let's compare Mitt Romney's performance in Minnesota to that of no-questions-asked conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann. Bachmann represents Minnesota's reddest seat, but barely squeaked out a victory over Jim Graves. In suburban Anoka County -- Bachmann's base -- she ran 2 points behind Romney. Benton County, 10 points behind. Carver County, 8 points back. Sherbourne county, 12 points back. In Wright County, Bachmann was 14 points behind Romney's base. Romney won Stearns County by 12 and Bachmann lost by 12 -- a 24 point swing. By all means, run a Bachmann in a swing state and see what happens.

* The real impressive story for me tonight was superb Democratic defense in the Senate. Democrats were defending more than twice as many seats as Republicans, many won during the 2006 Democratic wave year. And yet, big blue is going to come out in the Senate ahead of where they started: picking up Indiana, Massachusetts, and Maine (assuming, as I believe very likely, that King will caucus with Democrats) while only losing Nebraska. Some of this comes down to Republicans shooting themselves in the foot with awful candidates (Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, Florida), but not all. Scott Brown ran a very good campaign in Massachusetts, but Elizabeth Warren is no Martha Coakley, and that state's blue roots shone through. Rick Berg was a fine candidate in North Dakota, but Heidi Heitkamp was absolutely stellar and scored a huge upset. Montana was an even-odds fight between two candidates with state-wide recognition, in which incumbent Democrat Jon Tester prevailed.

* Both Nevada and Arizona ended up being tantalizing close, but I have different views on them. In Nevada, the Democratic candidate (Shelley Berkley) underperformed -- this is a state where Democrats can and should be competing in right now, so that was a disappointment. In Arizona, though, Richard Carmona wildly overperformed expectations for a novice candidate. I think Arizona has only a cycle, maybe two, before it is a true swing state. The Latino charge there is going to overwhelm Republicans.

* Speaking of Latinos, man, that is really going to be a problem for Republicans in coming years. Give Bush and Rove credit -- they saw this coming and really tried to neutralize the demographic threat by trying to make their party the one of immigration reform and thus a viable choice for Latino voters. But they couldn't get it through Congress, and now they're reaping the rewards. Each year, it becomes harder and harder for Republicans to win with a virtually all-White base -- they need to make inroads with non-White voters to even have a prayer. And each year, the Republican base contracts into a more and more pure angry White core which will flip out and any non-trivial gesture in that direction. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out.

* Speaking of Latinos, part II: Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood yesterday! This has been a long controversy on the island, as residents have been divided as to whether they want independence, statehood, the status quo, or "sovereign free association" (basically, more autonomy). Statehood had never gotten more than 50% of the vote until today. I don't know the precise procedures that come next, but assuming they go and formally apply for statehood, this has the potential to be a massive headache for the GOP. My understanding is that the island of Puerto Rico isn't as "blue" as mainland Puerto Ricans are (from 2005-2009 their non-voting resident commissioner in Congress was a Republican, for example), but it still definitely would lean left. If I'm the Democratic Party, I immediately welcome them with open arms, and then watch as the GOP commits fratricide between the section that screams "brown brown Spanish-speaking brown!" and the section that understands exactly what message that sends to Latinos nationwide.

* House-wise, the story here is excellent redistricting work by Republicans that basically made this election a wash -- pretty amazing, given the big GOP gains last time around. For all the great recruiting they did Senate-side, Democrats often were a little more scattershot with their House work, and it showed.

* Still, there were some excellent scalps taken last night. By far my favorite was the throttling of (soon-to-be-ex-!) Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) at the hands of Tammy Duckworth. Among his many, many sins, Walsh's support for a one-state solution makes him, in my view, the automatic most anti-Israel member of Congress. So I'm thrilled. Also, war criminal Allen West is down in the FL-18, though that looks to be headed to recount land.

* Gubernatorial races were basically a wash -- Republicans netted one in North Carolina, and that was it. I have to say, statewide Democratic candidates in the upper plains (Dakotas and Montana) are showing impressive resiliency.

* The state legislative picture also sounds good for Democrats, though things are a bit spottier there. The DFL has taken over both chambers in Minnesota, giving them the trifecta. They also took over both houses in Maine, and, in a pretty sizable upset given the ferocious gerrymander they were up against, the New York State Senate. Democrats also made some critical holds onto razor-thin margins in the Iowa Senate and the Nevada Senate, among others. I'll want to look into the full lay of the land a bit more, but it seems downballot this was a very, very good day.

* In 2008, I noted that there was something especially wounding about the losses we incurred on the gay marriage front that year, given that voters were primed to see it as a "historic" election and yet still made a conscious decision to exclude gay and lesbian citizens from that promise. Today, at least some of the demons have been exorcised. Gay marriage votes ran the table nationwide, with it earning legalization in Maine, Maryland, and Washington, and defeating an anti-gay marriage amendment in Minnesota. And, to be blunt, every year more of their voters die, and more of ours come of age. This is a battle where the tide might have finally turned for good.

* Beyond the gay marriage front, it was a pretty good ballot measure day too. Maryland also passed a state level DREAM act giving in-state tuition to resident illegal alien children. That's the first time one of those laws has passed through a popular ballot. Meanwhile, Minnesota somewhat surprisingly rejected the voter ID amendment -- I'd basically resigned myself to the idea that voter ID was a terrible policy idea that was too intuitively appealing to ever be defeated, so truly stellar work by the "no" campaign there to knock it down.

* And that's a wrap, everyone! Still a few outstanding races to decide, probably some recounts to manage, but we're done for another two years. Best of luck to the President on his second term!

Body Swappers, Part II

Former Obama supporter ex-Rep. Artur Davis' (D-AL, though he's since switched parties) turn to Mitt Romney is well known. I noted at the time he seemed to be crossing the opposite path of former Florida Governor Charlie Crist (R, now I). And wouldn't you know it if Crist has just come out and endorsed Obama for re-election.

The switch is pretty much complete at this point, I'd say.

The Ryan Effect

There are different schools of thought when it comes to choosing a Vice President. One can pick to reinforce a narrative ("this election is all about the economy"), or to balance the ticket (the nominee is strong on domestic issues but has little foreign policy experience, so pick a VP who is know to be an IR maven). One can pick based on electoral calculation or based on who is ready to take the reins of the presidency if disaster strikes. One can go for geographic diversity, or break barriers by selecting a woman or sexual minority.

But the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as Mitt Romney's VP nominee has raised a new criteria -- effectively shifting blame for a loss. Already I'm seeing a bunch of different reports arguing over whether and how Ryan reallocates blame for a Republican defeat in November. Some say Ryan's presence on the ticket pins the loss on the far-right slash-and-burners that Ryan represents. Others vehemently disagree, saying this is still the "moderate" Mitt Romney's baby.

I'm not really sure what I believe. But I do know that if the first reaction to the VP pick by one's base is "how does this impact our upcoming November defeat", well, that's not exactly the sign of a healthy and confident campaign.

J Street Takes on the One-State Caucus

When J Street attacked Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) for his one-stateism, I said that the ad was exactly what I wanted to see in theory, but noted a few problems in the execution. Basically, I didn't think it was aggressive enough in hammering home that one-state = anti-Israel.

This is more like it.



The ad still isn't perfect on execution. At a full minute it runs a little long, and takes some time to get its wheels spinning. I think the beginning can be trimmed considerably, and I think the Adelson reference can be cut (not because Adelson isn't being a putz about this, but I'm not sure why his involvement makes things worse). I also think adding quotes from other Jewish organizations saying "one state = anti-Israel" would pack some punch.

But nitpicking aside, the message is loud and clear: The one-state solution stands in opposition to Israel's Jewish, democratic character. It is an obstacle to a true peace that respects the rights and security of Israelis and Palestinians alike. Ergo, anything less than support of a two-state solution isn't pro-Israel. J Street is saying nothing more than what every other mainstream Jewish organization has been saying for years but now seems too cowardly to stand up for. So I'm glad that at least one pro-Israel group has the balls to take on the rising one-state tide head on.

Boobirds

Mitt Romney delivers a speech before the NAACP. Mitt Romney promises to repeal "Obamacare". Mitt Romney is met with a chorus of boos.



My favorite part is how the video cuts just as Mitt Romney starts to mention "a survey of the Chamber of Commerce." That'll win 'em back, Mitt!

In any event, I'm curious what the impact of this booing will be. The odds are nothing -- it's no news that Black people disagree with Republican policies. But assuming we do care what Black people think, there is something notable about this. Sometimes a politician can go into a group's backyard, elicit boos, and come out ahead -- spin it as telling "tough truths" or "tough love". But that doesn't quite work here -- the GOP's attack on the ACA hasn't been that it is good for some but ultimately unaffordable. It is that it is a moral catastrophe loathed and despised by everyone. That narrative can't really countenance people booing at eliminating it -- it's predicated off of pretty universal disdain for the program.

Bobby Newport Gets Ambitious

The current Parks & Recreation storyline features protagonist Leslie Knope running for city council against Bobby Newport. Newport is the son of the wealthiest man in town (owner of a candy company), and he is basically an utterly unaware moron. He's not a "bad guy", per se -- in fact, his main flaw is he seems utterly oblivious to how anything matters to anyone. As far as he's concerned, everyone should be happy all the time -- not realizing that not everyone has a trust fund they can dip into when times get rough.

I'm starting to view Mitt Romney as similar. He's not as obviously dumb as Bobby Newport is. But he just seems completely unaware that not everyone has a free pile of familial wealth to dip into when things aren't going well. Responding to the issue of student debt, Romney recommends ... having mommy and daddy give you a $20,000 loan. Of course, I'd imagine a substantial majority or recent college grads don't have parents with a spare 20 grand they can just lend at will. But for Romney, it just seems clear as crystal.

Reality-Based Voting Bloc

In anticipation of their upcoming primaries, PPP polls Alabama and Mississippi. They're finding that both states are essentially knotted up between Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum. But there are some interesting breakdowns once you consider the, er, unique views of many Dixie Republicans.

For example, in Mississippi only 12% of voters think Obama's a Christian to 52% who think he's a Muslim and 36% who are not sure. In Alabama just 14% think Obama's a Christian to 45% who think he's a Muslim and 41% who aren't sure. Among voters who answer this question correctly, Romney dominates, but among the Obama's-a-Muslim crowd Gingrich starts to pull back into favor (holding an 11 point lead in Mississippi and tying the race in Alabama).

Barely half of Mississippi Republicans belief interracial marriage should be legal, and Newt crushes amongst those who think it should not. Romney leads amongst the quarter of Alabamans and Mississippians who believe in evolution, while Gingrich tops amongst the majority that does not.

Basically, one thing you can say about Romney is that he does do better among the bloc of Republicans who still have at least a foot planted in reality. The problem, of course, is that this is a relatively small segment of the GOP primary electorate.

Tip Off

Last week, I noted the most amazing thing about the Rush Limbaugh "slut" saga is that the GOP could barely manage a peep against him. Now TPM is advertising a "tipping point", as "GOPers Start To Turn On Rush Limbaugh." Forgive me, but I just don't see it.

The only two politicians they cite who really can be said to have "condemned" Limbaugh are Carly Fiorina (who I already mentioned) and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) (locked in a tight battle with Elizabeth Warren). Beyond that? It's basically nothing. John Boehner murmers that Limbaugh's comments were "inappropriate" -- roughly as offensive as a Democratic fundraising letter. Rick Santorum called the statement "absurd" but observed that "an entertainer can be absurd". Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) (who in a sense is responsible for this whole mess) barely managed to sneak in a word against Limbaugh as he tried desperately to play the victim. And Mitt Romney? "It's not the language I would have used." Feel the outrage!

No, there's no tipping going on amongst the GOP. They're still as much in thrall of Rush as ever.

Election 2012: Mexico vs. Kenya

It's like the World Cup over here! The birthers turn their eyes to Mitt Romney, whose father was born in Mexico and thus, based on a chain of logic too disconnected from the text and historical interpretation of the 14th Amendment for me, as a budding constitutional law professor, to lay out without wanting to shoot myself, may not be a "natural-born citizen" under the 14th Amendment.

But don't worry -- though they do entertain the argument for a little bit, WND ultimately concludes that "even under the strictest interpretation of Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, Romney is a natural-born citizen." Given that WND is still pumping the Obama-birther conspiracy theory, that's no small concession!

Econ on the Up and Up

The clownish character of the Republican primary field obviously can only help Obama's chances in 2012. But ultimately, the key factor in any re-election campaign boils down to one thing. The economy. In a bad economy, all sins by the challenging party will be forgiven. And that means that the best way for Obama to win reelection is for the economy to start improving.

And on that front, there is some very strong news flowing out of the December jobs report. 243,000 jobs added last month, with unemployment dropping down to 8.3%. Is 8.3% the most exciting figure ever? Nope. But it is a sign that the last few months improvements are no fluke, and dropping below 9% is a milestone.

Again, with 11 months before election day and each month being better than the last, the trend lines are looking good. It may be that Mitt Romney (or whoever the GOP nominates) will have to win on the strength of his policy and personality. Good luck with that.

Huntsman Ends His Presidential Campaign

Former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, an otherwise intelligent man who thought that a man who held relatively reality-based policy positions and served in the Obama administration could win the Republican nomination for President, has dropped out of the race and endorsed Mitt Romney.

By my lights, it amazing just how little noise this tree is going to make as it falls. Start with the effect on Romney -- does Huntsman's endorsement matter? Nope. Romney already has the nomination all but locked up, and in any event where else are Huntsman voters going to go? At least with Romney one of the innumerable answers on the Multiple Choice Mitt scantron is going to be a sane one, which is more than you can say about Gingrich, or Santorum, or Perry.

Does it help Huntsman get an appointment? Maybe, though he can't possibly be Romney's VP -- Romney needs someone to help soothe a base that widely detests him, and Huntsman is the antithesis of red meat to the far-right. Maybe he could be Ambassador to the UN or even, possibly, Secretary of State, but the latter is a long-shot and the former is barely an upgrade over what Obama gave him, ironically enough.

Does it help Huntsman in 2016? I always said that was a much clearer shot for him, but I don't think this helps either. Given that he's spent most of the past few months savagely attacking Romney it reeks of cynicism, and Huntsman just can't seem to refrain from attacking the Republican base (I sympathize). And it's not clear why endorsing Romney helps cure any of Huntsman's shortfalls -- he's barely seen as a real Republican, and neither is Romney. If Romney loses in 2012, the cry will go up yet again that it's because a RINO was nominated, and that's an environment where Huntsman is dead in the water.

Iowa Reveals the GOP's Anti-Israel Slant

For the past few years, Republicans have incessantly attempted to argue that Barack Obama -- one of the most authentically Zionist politicians America has ever seen -- is "anti-Israel". It was always a laughable claim. But it's more so given the three Republican candidates who finished in an essential dead-heat for first place amongst Iowa Caucus voters: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul. None of them can lay a strong claim to being "pro-Israel", and two of them I think have to be considered actively antagonistic to Israel's perpetuation as a Jewish, democratic state.

Start with Mitt Romney. Romney famously declared that Obama "threw Israel under the bus" because he said a peace agreement should be based on 1967 borders. I remain baffled by what other basis there might be for a two-state solution (The partition plan? Drawing straws?), and I doubt Romney has any better idea, because I doubt Romney actually knows or cares that much about Israel's longevity.

But you know what? Spot them Romney. Let's just look at Paul and Santorum. Paul is an easy case -- his own aides admit he's been anti-Israel, and belated efforts to describe his isolationist foreign policy as the most pro-Israel act of all notwithstanding, few in the Jewish community see him as a friend.

That leaves Santorum, who is filling the niche of this year's Mike Huckabee. And like Huckabee, Santorum has come out as a one-stater, proclaiming that everyone currently residing between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean is an "Israeli" and thus the West Bank should be part of Israel, permanently. Since all Israelis must presumably be given equal rights of suffrage (among other things), this will render Israel's Jewish majority precarious at best and likely lead to its demise as a Jewish state.

He joins folks like Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) as part of the Hamas wing of the Republican Party, as the radical one-state policies they espouse bear far more in common with the ambitions of the Islamist terrorist movement than they do those of any Israeli government or serious political party. And what we've seen is that, amongst Republican voters, this sort of outlook -- one that is fundamentally apathetic, at best, towards Israel's long-term survival as a Jewish, democratic state -- is overwhelmingly popular.

Mega Travel Roundup

I'm going to Maryland, and then to Illinois, and then to Minnesota, then back to Illinois, then to Nevada, then back to Illinois, then to New York! Yeaargh. (This is over the next month and a half, starting tomorrow).

* * *

Do teachers dislike creativity?

Poor Mitt Romney. Every time he has to converse with actual human beings, the threat of disaster looms.

Fascinating article about the Black QB at a private Virginia school that was founded as part of massive Southern resistance to school integration.

Jeffrey Goldberg explains why the support of Christian "Zionists" won't sustain an US-Israeli alliance in the event American Jews are permanently alienated from the Jewish state.

Israelis look on nervously as GOP candidates race to be further right-wing than the Israeli right.

Russell Simmons urges Americans of all stripes to protest Lowes' decision to give in to anti-Muslim bigotry and pull their advertising from "All-American Muslim". Also, Adam Serwer points out that the attack on shows like "All-American Muslim" demonstrates that -- shock of shock -- Islamophobes have a problem with Muslims, not "radical Muslims".

I hate having to link to Commentary, but there is a point that "Israel-firster" (used by some CAP folk as well as M.J. Rosenberg) has uncomfortable anti-Semitic overtones. Of course, this from the magazine that posted Jennifer Rubin's anti-Semitic article on why Jews dislike Palin, so, you know, pot and kettle (it only adds to the irony that Rubin herself has been at the forefront of attacking CAP).

Good post on False Dichotomies regarding how the nature of anti-Zionist rhetoric poisons any possibility of a one-state solution where Jewish citizens are viewed as equal. Simply put, if you view essentially all of Israel's Jews as colonialist Nazi interlopers, the odds that you're going to tolerate them wielding any sort of substantial political power or autonomy is relatively small. Which, come to think of it, characterizes a lot of anti-Zionist rhetoric towards Jews worldwide now.

Alabama discovers some foreigners aren't Latino -- indeed, some are executives at factories employing countless Alabamans -- panics about its anti-immigrant law.

The Resistable Force vs. The Moveable Object

That was the joke moniker given to the 2010 Junior Welterweight clash between Amir Khan and Paulie Malignaggi. The title played off the fact that Khan had a notoriously weak chin, while Malignaggi is one of the most feather-fisted fighters to make it to boxing's elite echelons. As it happened, Khan completely overpowered Malignaggi offensively, stopping him in the 11th round (later, Khan even managed to rehabilitate his chin by winning a brawl with Argentine slugger Marcos Maidana).

But this title also may apply to the 2012 presidential election, argues Jon Chait. We have an unpopular incumbent presiding over a weak economy. On the other hand, he'll be facing off against a Republican who will likely be reviled by much of the electorate. It's hard to know how that will shake out -- reelection is often just a referendum on the incumbent, but Obama -- as much as his popularity has taken a hit -- still starts at a noted advantage over Romney and a gaping one over anyone else the GOP might put up.

Vicente Fox News

I think Mitt Romney has to be the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination. And when he does, this ad will guarantee that he'll be throttled amongst Latino voters.

It's the Traditional Jewish Pronunciation

Mitt Romney thinks the reason Michele Bachmann is outpacing him amongst GOP Jewish donors is that they believe Bachmann is Jewish. Right. Because while many would be fooled by her constant invocations of evangelical Christianity, true Jews know that the "ch" in "chutzpah" is pronounced as in "chutney".

Notes After Not Watching the GOP Debate

I didn't watch the GOP debate, so I'm mostly forming these thoughts from reading the conventional wisdom that is floating around the blogosphere. The consensus seems to be that the big winners last night were Romney and Bachmann, and the loser was Tim Pawlenty. To me, that means there is one winner: Mitt Romney. And, much to my surprise, he seems to be committing to the "one sane man" strategy, hoping that the rest of the GOP field shreds itself apart appealing to the Tea Party and Romney ends up shooting up the middle on the strength of the remaining moderates plus folks who still understand that electability is a thing.

Folks keep saying that Bachmann is like Sarah Palin, but with actual campaign skills and the ability to not constantly shoot herself in the foot on television. My comparison, of course, was that Bachmann was like Palin if you injected a metric ton of LSD straight into her eyeballs. The word is that Bachmann managed to acquit herself quite well on stage, sounding professional and well-briefed. And if so, hey, good for her. But I still am dubious she can maintain a gaffe-free campaign, particularly in the general. There's no way she'll win her own state (Minnesota) -- she currently trails President Obama by a landslide 56/35 margin, and her favorables in that state are 33/59. She's not just unproven at winning beyond her conservative suburban Minnesota district, she is proven to be massively alienating to the broader center -- in fact, last year 56% of Minnesotans said they were "embarrassed" by her.

Ultimately, then, while I do think Bachmann could be a primary player, I can't see her actually taking the prize. And that gets us back to where we started -- who else but Romney? If T-Paw can't gain any traction -- and it looks like he can't -- there just doesn't seem to be any other remotely viable candidate in the Republican primary who could bring him down.

Obama's Mideast Speech -- a Followup

Ron Kampeas has a roundup of various Jewish groups' reactions to Obama's speech, which, as one might expect, range quite broadly. I do think it's important to push back against the notion that Obama outraged the Jewish or pro-Israel community -- as Kampeas notes, stalwarts like the ADL and the AJC were quite effusive in their praise of President Obama, and Abe Foxman came out hard against the claim by Mitt Romney and other Republicans that President Obama somehow "threw Israel under the bus."

Meanwhile, the dust being kicked up over 1967 frankly baffles me. I guess I'm not surprised at Netanyahu's intransigence, as Bibi lacks any coherent normative commitments beyond his short-term political interests -- exactly the sort of leadership trait Israel needs right now. Having Bibi Netanyahu as Prime Minister during a crisis for Israel offers historians a wonderful glimpse into how the United States would have managed the Civil War if James Buchanan had remained President. But basically anyone with a pulse already knew that 1967 borders, with swaps, would serve as the basis for any future agreement.

I'm not entirely sure what other basis for borders there could be -- I'm assuming whatever extra territory Bibi thinks he'll get by not "basing" a Palestinian state on 1967 lines he's not planning to compensate by ceding Israeli territory elsewhere, but the acreage of the land in question isn't large enough substantially deviate from 1967 and create an economically viable Palestinian state. In particular, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's statement calling 1967 lines "Auschwitz borders" is horrifically insensitive and trivializing to Holocaust victims, and they deserve to be raked over the coals for it. Meanwhile, as Jon Chait observes, the main existential threat to Israel for the foreseeable future isn't Jordanian tank columns rolling in, but rather not being able to extract themselves from an occupation that threatens to eviscerate their civil society and render the Zionist dream of a Jewish, democratic homeland a distant memory.

And that leads me to my final point. Jeffrey Goldberg sardonically asks why Republicans are misreading Obama's speech, a speech which, by any objective metric, should have been seen as "pro-Israel in a red-meat I-heart-Israel, damn-Hamas, Iran-can-go-to-hell, Israel is the eternal Jewish state sort of way." Goldberg, of course, recognizes that the question answers itself -- Republicans are mischaracterizing the speech because Obama was the one who gave it, and because they see a political advantage in trying to cast the hitherto centrist consensus that existed with respect to the resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict as an attack on Western Civilization.

For years, there has been a tacit agreement with respect to the pro-Israel community -- that while we might disagree about what policies are best for ensuring Israel's long-term viability, security, and liberalism, everyone coming from a genuine position of respect for the state of Israel and its legitimacy as homeland of the Jewish people would be accepted as part of the community. That doesn't include everyone, or every Jew -- there are those who oppose Israel's existence as a Jewish state, and they've always been ostracized (which I don't really mind). But the Zionist, pro-Israel community has always been a big tent, including groups like the modern ZOA, that don't even support a two-state solution, as well as more leftward, Peace Now types.

The conservative response to J Street's emergence has broken that agreement -- they haven't just disagreed with it with respect to policy, but they have engaged in a systematic campaign to declare it intrinsically "anti-Israel", anti-Zionist, and hostile to Israel's very existence. But if those are the new rules -- that a group or person shouldn't be pro-Israel if one honestly believes their policy prescriptions are bad for Israel's future survival -- then I see no reason to concede that folks like Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty or Allen West are pro-Israel in any meaningful sense. The policies they lay out place Israel in mortal peril -- possible the gravest danger Israel has faced since 1973. And what's more, I don't think they care all that much about Israel. Yes, obviously, Mitt Romney would think it a bad thing if Israel disappeared tomorrow. But he'd view it as bad because it would represent some sort of lost Western fortress -- an instrumental failure, not something that effects him personally. It doesn't make his life any worse if Israel ceases to be the fulfillment of the Zionist liberal democratic dream. It makes my life worse, and it obviously makes the Israelis' lives worse. But for Mitt? Israel's little more than a symbol, and an expendable one at that.

Again, if the litmus test is a subjective self-assessment of thinking that one's acting in Israel's best interests, then Mitt Romney is precisely as pro-Israel as Barack Obama is. But if we're going to make this a substantive test -- what policies are best for ensuring Israel's continued survival as a Jewish democratic nation -- he fails utterly. And if he wants to start playing on that field, I'm happy to meet him there.