Kassim Ouma

In one of the odder twists of my life, attending to Carleton has made me into a pro boxing fan. Not because Carleton is some hotspot of boxing activity (not even close!). Rather it is for the far more mundane reasons that the old boxing matches on ESPN Classic were often the only thing on late at night, and with my hours I found myself watching. And I became hooked.

This weekend, a fighter by the name of Kassim Ouma (25-2-1, 15 KOs) will fight Super Middleweight Champion Jermain Taylor (25-0-1, 17 KOs) for the world title. Taylor I last saw in a bout against Winky Wright (one of my favorite fighters), where Taylor escaped (in the most literal sense--I thought Wright won the fight) with a draw. Ouma I knew little about other than his recent victory over the highly regarded Sechew Powell.

In boxing, there are a lot of hard stories. But Ouma's stands out as particularly heart-rending. Forced to fight as a child soldier in Uganda's brutal civil war, Ouma was endured atrocities most of us can scarecely imagine:

"The thing is Kassim has to learn to realize that he was a victim then and he's a victim now. He has to learn to let go of the guilt for the decisions he had to make in order to survive. I really believe he has massive issues of post-traumatic stress that he's dealt with as best he could. But the memories are never far from the surface, and almost anything can dredge those memories up" [says manager/translator Tom Moran].

In Ouma's case, those memories are like scars upon his psyche. He was just 6 years old when rebels stormed into his grade school in Busia, Uganda, in 1984 and abducted all the boys. Ouma and his frightened classmates were herded into the back of a garbage truck and driven into the bush, where they were forced to fight with the guerrillas.

Handed an AK-47 that was larger than he was, Ouma suddenly found himself a kadogo in Yoweri Museveni's rebel army.

The first day, Moran relates, the adult soldiers told the children that "there's no more mommies and daddies now" and that "if you cry something's going to happen to you."

Some of the kids cried and, true to their word, they did not live long enough to fathom the high cost of their tears. Ouma was even ordered to shoot one of his friends, or run the risk of suffering the same grisly fate. Simultaneously terrified and repulsed, he complied.

"Can you imagine?" Moran said, aghast that such atrocities can exist and be forced upon the youngest and most vulnerable members of even a violent society. "This is what Kassim has locked up inside him.

"When he finally is ready to agree to it, I hope to get him some professional help so that he can learn to forgive himself. He made a conscious decision as a child to do things, terrible things, which no one should ever have to do. He feels responsibility and guilt for, well, still being alive. That's what torments him and he can't let go of."

Ouma escaped from combat by joining the Ugandan national boxing team, and defected to the United States in 1998, leaving behind his wife and children. His father was beaten to death by the Ugandan army as a result. He was homeless. And this weekend, he's fighting one the best boxers in the sport for the Super Middleweight crown.

I'll be rooting for him.

Teshuvah of Rabbis Nevins, Dorff, and Reisner

I'm still working my way through the 55 page opinion, but if you want to take a look, it's available online. There's is the liberal teshuvah of the three passed, which allows for same-sex commitment ceremonies, rabbinic ordinations, and lifts the prohibition on all homosexual sex but male-male anal sex (oral sex and lesbian sex is still okay).

Rabbi Nevins also released a journal of remarks after the vote which sheds significant light on the other (as yet unreleased) opinions. I was particularly interested in his description of Rabbi Levy's opinion that has been described as recommending reparative therapy for homosexuals:

It has been reported that Rabbi Leonard Levy called for "reparative therapy" for gay and lesbian Jews to function as heterosexuals. This is, as Len likes to say, a "sweeping generalization." In fact, his point was that while most people who experience same-sex attraction may never be able to change that, even if highly motivated, a small percentage nevertheless may, and they should be offered that opportunity. I don't think anyone disagrees that people should be able to understand their sexual orientation with the assitance of open minded counselors. Where we disagree with Len is in his claim that you can maintain an exclusive public policy that bans all homosexual intimacy and the recognition of homosexual families while also creating a welcoming and respectful environment for people who identify as gay or lesbian. I voted against Len's paper, but I don't think it should be distorted.

I think this may be too kind to the reparative therapy position, but I am curious to read Rabbi Levy's opinion in full to get the complete picture. Unlike the other two passed opinions, which both garnered a majority of 13 out of 25 (one Rabbi voted yes for both positions), Rabbi Levy's teshuvah only received 6 votes--the bare minimum necessary to be considered legitimate.

Rabbi Nevins also talks about the two opinions which were labeled "legislation" (thus requiring 20 votes instead of 6 to pass) and thus were not passed. In this category I am particularly interested in the opinion of Rabbi Tucker:

Rabbi Gordon Tucker, submitted a general essay about theories of Jewish law, citing many modern legal theorists, especially the late Robert Cover, to argue that the law must not be immoral, and that the narrative ethical values of Judaism should direct the law in this case, rather than the reverse.

Robert Cover was a brilliant legal and Jewish theorist, and I expect Rabbi Tucker's opinion to be quite intriguing and hopefully lay the groundwork for developments in Jewish law to come.

Obviously, if anyone knows where to find the other opinions, I'd love to read them over.

Will of the People

As some of you may recall, the recent November elections were quite good for the Democratic Party. Which makes this bulletin from the American Conservative Union all the more amusing (all emphasis original):

Republicans in the U.S. Senate could have -- SHOULD HAVE -- confirmed John Bolton! They had the majority in the Senate and a majority of Senators supported John Bolton.

Majority Leader Bill Frist and Senate Republicans could have played hard-ball. They had the power to bring the nomination out of committee and to the Senate floor, where Bolton would have been easily confirmed.

Yet they did NOTHING. They cringed behind their desks, determined to sneak out of Washington this week, tails between their legs!

Last month, the American people went to the polls, turned about two dozen RINOs OUT OF office and DEMANDED conservative government! And unfortunately in the process, the GOP lost its majority and a few good men like Rick Santorum, Jim Talent and George Allen.

But apparently our leaders did not get the message!

A landslide Democratic year shows that Americans DEMANDED conservative government? Coming up in 2008: Pat Buchanan cruises to the Presidency amidst a Democratic tidal wave.

You heard it here first.

Two Jews, Three Opinions

So the old saying goes. Anyway, a Conservative Jewish panel on the issue of same-sex sex, ordination, and commitment ceremonies has approved 3 teshuvot (legal opinions) on the subject--two of which uphold the traditional view, and a third which allows for gay commitment ceremonies and ordinations, but still forbids anal sex.

This strikes me as a bit of an odd compromise--like getting Goodridge without Lawrence, but I'll take what I can get. As I noted in my previous post, Jewish teshuvot do not have to mutually compatible, or apparently even mutually intelligible. So, like with Hillel and Shammai, both "these and these are the words of the living God." The Post's article also says that three members of the 25-person panel resigned in protest of the decision, although they did not say which teshuvot they were protesting.

If anyone has links to the Teshuvot, I'd be quite interested in reading them.

UPDATE: Still no links to the Teshuvot. However, according to one site, one of the traditionalist Teshuvot "upholds the ban on gay sexual relationships in Jewish law and mentions the option for gays to undergo therapy aimed at changing their sexual orientation." If so, that is extraordinarily disappointing. I think that there are solid textualist reasons to maintain the ban on homosexual activity as a (not the, but a) teshuvot, but I think that stepping further than that into reparative therapy has no religious or normative justification, and clashes severely with the predominant scientific literature on the issue. It is a perversion of principles of Halakhah, and Rabbis should not be permitted to press for it.

Jeremy Blumenthal also has more.

Best of Luck

Mary Cheney, Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, is pregnant.

Mary Cheney, the vice president's openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are "ecstatic" about the baby, due in late spring, said a source close to the couple.[...]
Cheney has described her relationship with Poe -- whom she took to last year's White House dinner honoring Prince Charles and Camilla -- as a marriage. The two met in 1988 while playing ice hockey and began dating four years later. They moved from Colorado to Virginia a year ago to be closer to Cheney's family. In an interview with the Post six months ago, when asked if she and Poe wanted children, Cheney said that was a "conversation I think I should have with Heather first."

In November, Virginia voters passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions; state law is unclear on whether Poe could have full legal rights as a parent of Cheney's child. The circumstances of the pregnancy will remain private, said the source close to the couple. This is the first child for both.

Best wishes to both parents and the child. Hopefully, their new baby will be born into a world where her or his parents will possess all the rights and be afforded all the dignity that every other American has under law.

UPDATE: In reference to Virginia's draconian anti-gay legislation, Andrew Sullivan coins the term (?) homorein.

It's The Final Countdown

I am proud to inform my many, many readers that I have been named a finalist for a 2006 weblog award, in the category of best blog from 3500 - 5000 in the TTLB ecosystem. This is the first such nomination this blog has received, and I am pretty excited about it.

I've actually been spending this winter break filling out scholarship and fellowship applications, and I keep trying to work my blog in because it is something I'm very proud of and something that (I hope) showcases my skills as a writer and thinker. But I feel like outside the community, it's very difficult to make blogging sound impressive. After all, anyone can create one--what makes mine so special? So this is very much a validation for me, and regardless of whether I win or lose, hopefully I can point to this to show that my blog is not just an idle flight of ego-fantasy, but something that people do read and respect.

I won't ask you to vote for me. I will ask you to look at all the blogs in the category and, if you find mine to be the best, then vote for me.

Here are all the blogs in the category:

EagleSpeak
Another Rovian Conspiracy
The Debate Link
InsoluBlog
Martin Andrade Blogs
Right From Left
Better Living Thru Blogging
CDR Salamander
Geeky Mom
Blue Gal

Update: I've looked through all the blogs, and there is some stiff competition! For awhile though, it looked like I was the only liberal! It wasn't until the bottom of the list, with Blue Gal and Geeky Mom that there was some fellow liberal love. Meh. I'm just thrilled to be here, and to have an excuse to find some new blogs to read.

Best of luck to everyone!

Brown's Last Stand: The Roundup

On Sunday, I gave my thoughts on the two school desegregation cases before the Supreme Court. Oral argument occurred Monday, and there is a wealth of commentary on the cases lurking out there. Without further ado, let's get to it.

In my comments, I noted the absurdity of Solicitor General Paul Clement's assertion that governments have a compelling interest in ending racial segregation, so long as they don't think about race. The good news is that, according to Court-watcher Lyle Denniston, Justice Kennedy thought it was a bit silly too. The bad news is Denniston thinks that by and large Kennedy was hostile to the Seattle and Louisville plans, and predicts a 5-4 decision against their constitutionality.

BlackProf's Christopher Bracey has a set of potent quotables from the oral arguments.

Scott Lemiuex and Publius both have excellent posts up dealing with the way originalism gets selectively applied in law. There is little to no evidence that the 14th amendment envisioned a "color-blind constitution", so, as Publius states, orignalists have to move to ever greater levels of abstraction to justify the amazing synergy between their policy preferences and "the law." But when abstracting outwards would lead to policies orignalists disfavor, they move back down into the specific and interpret in that manner. It's all very arbitrary and very partisan, which wouldn't be notable except that originalists obsessively trumpet how objective and grounded their interpretation is, which is simply untrue.

Several people asked me to cite the studies showcasing benefits of a diverse education. The brief on behalf of the American Educational Research Association has it. The specific arguments are too long to excerpt, but the summary of their conclusions is roughly as follows:

Research studies have shown that racial diversity in elementary and secondary education leads to important short-term and long-term benefits for students of all racial backgrounds. Among these benefits are improved cross-racial understanding; the reduction of stereotyping and prejudice; gains in student achievement; a strong sense of civic engagement and willingness to live and work in diverse settings; and better preparation for higher education, work, and participation in a diverse society. Not only do diverse schools benefit students as individuals, they also promote social cohesion and reinforce democratic values that this Court has long recognized as foundations for good citizenship. (3-4)

The brief also specifically attacks several other briefs (most notably the brief of Armor et al as presenting incomplete, outdated, or misleading research. I admittedly did not do a close read, but my understanding of Armor's argument is that the relationship between school desegregation and performance is largely inconclusive, while the AERA maintains that these studies are outliers many more recent studies have found the relationship to be viable. It is also worth noting that the Armor brief, which was on behalf of three social scientists, was the only brief for the petitioners (the anti-integration side) I saw that specifically dealt with the issue of the social science research. By contrast, in addition to the AERA brief, several other major briefs supported the respondents' conception of the research, including the American Psychological Organization, the The National Education Association, and an umbrella brief filed by 553 Social Scientists. There were too many briefs to read through in entirity (see the whole list here)--I looked for briefs that appeared to be from either national non-partisan non-ideological organizations (e.g., the APA) or from specific social scientists (e.g., Armor et al). The weight of scholarly opinion seems to be overwhelmingly of the belief that diverse schooling provides important, tangible, and beneficial educational and social impacts. As the AERA puts it:

Unanimity is rare in any body of scientific research, but there is substantial agreement that the best available research evidence, which is composed of studies employing sound and reliable methodologies, solidly supports the Respondent school districts in these cases.

The only two briefs the AERA cites for the opposing position are the Armor brief and a brief that I could not find from Drs. Murphy, Rossell, and Walberg, whose arguments they address in their own brief.

Less "hot" than the issue of social science research, but still interesting, was that the Anti-Defamation League intervened for the first time in 60 years on the side of a race-conscious program (that is, in favor of the respondents). Also worthy of note is this brief, also in favor of the respondents, by several former high-ranking military and defense department officials.

Apparently a rather interesting lawyer argued the case for the petitioners out of Louisville. Even still, Will Baude thinks that he did fine at Oral, and that at least he didn't hurt his side too much.

WaPo coverage, and WaPo editorial.

I was pleased to see that many local students--high school and college--came out to protest and show their support for integrated schooling. Alas, in the through-the-looking-glass world we now live in, support for integration now makes one a racist. Dr. King would be appalled, indeed.

Existential Threats

After 9/11, a political cartoon was published that featured a rat which had plucked a single feather from an eagle. The rat was celebrating deliriously, blissfully unaware of the now-aroused eagle glaring down on him from above. The lesson, of course, was that 9/11 was, in the grand scheme, not a crushing blow to the United States or a mortal wound. Our ability to fight against terrorism was not in any way weakened. All that happened was they awakened a sleeping giant. And now they'd pay the price.

I bring up this cartoon for two reasons. First, because we need to resist all the comparisons that make the War on Terror akin to World War II or the Civil War or other existential threats to American security. It isn't. That isn't to say we shouldn't fight it. But in terms of what powers we grant our government, what information we give to the press, etc., there is a qualitative difference between those past wars and the current conflict. We didn't grant the government special powers because the Confederacy or Nazis were evil (although they were). We gave them because the very existence of the country was threatened. Terrorism can pose such a threat (in Iraq or Israel, perhaps), but it simply does not here and now. The al-Qaeda navy will not be blockading Charleston harbor. Islamist troops are not marching on Minneapolis. There is a limit to the military damage al-Qaeda can do to us, and it's not very high. So everyone who compares the NYT's disclosure of Bush's wiretapping program to code-disclosure in WWII, stop it. You're embarrassing yourselves.

The second point is that while al-Qaeda cannot truly hurt us directly, there are lots of ways it can hurt us indirectly. For example, as Tom Friedman noted, they can destroy the networks of trust and freedom that keep our country great. And that's the other thing: it seems some people's strategy for fighting terror is for America to systematically pluck out our own feathers and use them to suffocate the rat. It could work, but it's win-win in all the wrong ways: We succeed in defeating al-Qaeda, and they succeed in obliterating the rights and values that make our nation great. Frankly, I'd rather just stomp on the rat, or work with other eagles to kill the rat, or isolate and starve the rat to death, since none of those options involve metaphorical self-mutilation. Does not being able to torture detainees make our nation less safe from terrorism? Maybe yes, maybe no, but even if it does it's only in the same sense that not locking up every American male makes us less safe from crime. I know that we can win this conflict without giving up our soul, so I see very little point in sacrificing it simply to show how tough and manly we are.

Again, this isn't to say we should not fight the war on terror vigorously and with a will to win. It's merely saying that we should not give up our precious rights and privileges under false notions that we're in a do-or-die scenario. Somebody has to say it: al-Qaeda isn't worth these sacrifices, and too many people are far too eager to demolish the foundations of the nation for no reason at all.

These and These

Thru Ezra Klein, the interesting story about the forthcoming decision by the Conservative Judaism movement (my denomination) on same-sex sex, marriage and rabbinic ordination.

Rabbi Avis D. Miller of Washington's Congregation Adas Israel said the "rabbinical scuttlebutt" is that the panel -- the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards -- will approve two conflicting answers, one upholding the status quo and one calling for change.

That is possible because it takes the votes of just six of the panel's 25 members to declare an answer to be valid -- meaning that it is a well-founded interpretation of Jewish law, not that it is the only legitimate interpretation. It would be possible to approve all the answers, or none of them.

If two or more contradictory answers are accepted, "that will be the strongest statement for America, because everything in America spiritually and religiously seems to have become political, and the way you know it's political is that it's either 'yes' or 'no,' " said Irwin Kula, a Conservative rabbi who heads the New York-based National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.

A long-standing Jewish practice (dating back to Hillel and Shammei) known as the "these and these" principle allows for more than one interpretation (including mutually exclusive interpretations) to be considering equally valid and legitimate in the Jewish community. I agree with Rabbi Kula: there is beauty in this type of humility and refusal to declare only one interpretation to be ultimate or dogmatic. Klein notes how this stance--so rare in modern religious thought--seems to be in closer alignment with the view of imperfect and fallible humanity:

Organized religion's attempts to profess certainty about the will of the divine based on majority votes conducted by mortal arbiters has always been a discomfiting element: A belief system based on human fallibility and transcendent Truth allowing fallible humans to decide, deterministically, what that Truth is, or at least how it manifests? Yikes. This method seems much more aligned with the view of humanity put forth by the religion itself: That people are error-prone and unsure, that they can do their best to interpret the source documents and relevations they have, but claims to spiritual certainty or infallible guidance face avery, very high burden of proof.

The willignness of Judaism to entertain a variety of differing positions, rather than immediately asserting the primacy of orthodoxy, is one of the reasons I'm proud to be a Jew. And by sanctioning the equal dignity of gay and lesbians as a legitimate point of Jewish law, they will make a great stride toward establishing their equal dignity as a point of American morals.

Brown is Dead! Long Live Brown!

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear two school integration cases that may well be the most important decision they release on the topic since Brown v. Board of Education. The Court will consider two voluntary plans adopted by Seattle (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District) and Louisville (Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education)to try and diversify their school district by spreading the White and non-White students across the various local elementary, middle, and high schools. Louisville is a particularly interesting case, as it has just emerged from being under court-supervised desegregation, and could be put in the peculiar position of being ordered to stop voluntary desegregation just a few years past when was still under order to desegregate. So we're on the verge of coming a full circle--from the courts refusing to interfere with local government segregation in Plessy, to the courts refusing to allow local governments to interfere with segregation in Meredith.

How we've gotten to this point is a strange odyssey that is a rather telling indictment of the fetishization of color-blindness. Consider the argument made by Solicitor-General Paul Clement, arguing on behalf of the Bush administration against (did you have any doubt?) the desegregation plans:

School districts have an unquestioned interest in reducing minority isolation through race-neutral means," Solicitor General Paul D. Clement said in his brief to the court. "But the solution to addressing racial imbalance in communities or student bodies is not to adopt race-conscious measures."

This is an evasive and roundabout way of saying that school districts can and should work to reduce racial segregation ("isolation"), so long as they don't use race. How one simultaneously notices race to identify a problem and ignores it when crafting a remedy (or at least a remedy that would be remotely effective) completely escapes me. To be clear, the practical upshot of Clement's formulation would be that any plan to desegregate the races, by virtue of the fact that it noticed race, is unconstitutional. Or put another way: desegregation is unconstitutional.

I'm a general advocate for using a complex vocabulary when talking about race and racism, but here is a case where the various rhetoric is mudding the waters. This case has alternatively been tagged as about affirmative action, race-consciousness, race preferences, diversity, integration, and desegregation. It is, to be clear, about the last. Sixty-two years after Brown v. Board required that schools desegregate, Meredith and Community Schools would--quite literally--forbid them from doing it.

People who engage in this color-blind fetishization try and invoke the specter of Brown by saying that Brown was about schools using race as a principle for sorting students. That's funny, because I thought the problem in Brown was that schools were segregated. If schools remain segregated, it doesn't really matter from the student's perspective why they are or how they are, just that they are. A student in a segregated school is harmed regardless of what circumstances place him there--a law saying "Blacks must attend this school," or a social reality in which all the Whites have moved to the other side of town. Rewriting Brown's history in this manner demeans the reality of segregation and its inherent ugliness regardless of whether it is imposed de facto or de jure. People can prioritize the color-blindness principle so far as to sanction the re-segregation of our schools, but it's a perversion to do that and claim the noble mantle of our nation's greatest case.

Some are wondering if these two cases might become known as Brown III. I don't know if that will come into being, and I don't know how the Court will rule. Tragically, defenders of racial justice are on the defense here--a victory will do little to move school integration along (after all, cities must voluntarily adapt these plans and it does nothing about interdistrict segregation), but a defeat would cripple the integrationist agenda. What I do know is that both sides, in their opinions, will insert the requisite paeans to Brown. We will never hear the fateful words uttered: "Brown v. Board of Education, overruled." But if the Seattle and Louisville plans are struck down, then the Court will be left to praise Brown in the very act of killing it.

Nostalgia

Looking through a collection on old New Yorker comics, Quaker of Crescat Sententia concludes that the 50s weren't all that fabulous:

I was amazed at how many of the cartoons were about marital discord and loveless marriages, etc (generally based around the trope of shrewish wife and henpecked husband, natch). If advocates of eliminating no-fault divorce and so on to return us to the halcyon days of traditional marriage, I find myself wondering if they've really thought the whole thing through.

I had an argument once with a conservative friend once, in which she contended that rates of sexual assault would have been lower before feminism (implicitly the 1950s), because back then men were taught to properly respect, cherish, and protect women. After seeing the number of cartoons in which women were explicitly treated as sex objects -- never mind the cartoon about the humor inherent in workplace sexual harassment -- I continue to be unconvinced.

Sexual harassment! Oh God, my sides are splitting.

Seriously, it's high past time we recognize that the belief that the pre-feminist era was some halycon time of respect and chivalry between the sexes is nothing but a nostalgic illusion. It never happened. As Justice William J. Brennan once wrote in Frontiero v. Richardson:

There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of "romantic paternalism" which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

That was 1973. I sincerely doubt that he was talking about the era between 1964 and 1972.

Wahoo!

Say a congrats to my little brother, who just was admitted (early decision) to the engineering school at the University of Virginia!

It's no Carleton (people have heard of UVA), but I'm proud of him anyway :-P. And certainly ACC sports can beat up on the MIAC.

Legal History into the Blogosphere

I've been meaning to welcome Southern California Law Professor Mary Dudziak to the blogosphere, as she has started the new Legal History blog. You might recall my mentioning Professor Dudziak in reference to Derrick Bell's work on interest-convergence theory.

Welcome, Professor!

The Passion

A Time Magazine article argues that the backlash against Barack Obama appearing at an AIDS conference hosted by mega-church pastor Rick Warren will hurt the conservative right more than it helps, by exposing them as extremists who have no interest in dialogue with the broader community. Here's hoping--and kudos to Pastor Warren for resisting would must be enormous pressure to withdraw his invitation, by the way.

All For One...

BlackProf's Spencer Overton excerpts and asks for comments on the followig passage from Barack Obama's new book, "The Audacity of Hope":

Rightly or wrongly, white guilt has largely exhausted itself in America; even the most fair-minded of whites . . . tend to push back against suggestions of racial victimization--or race-specific claims based on the history of race discrimination in this country. . . . Most white Americans figure that they haven't engaged in discrimination themselves and have plenty of their own problems to worry about. . . . .

As a result, proposals that solely benefit minorities and dissect Americans into "us" and "them" may generate a few short-term concessions when the costs to whites aren't too high, but they can't serve as the basis for the kinds of sustained, broad-based political coalitions needed to transform America. On the other hand, universal appeals around strategies that help all Americans (schools that teach, jobs that pay, health care for everyone who needs it, a government that helps out after a flood), along with measures that ensure our laws apply equally to everyone and hence uphold broadly held American ideals (like better enforcement of exiting civil rights laws), can serve as the basis for such coalitions--even if such strategies disproportionately help minorities.

Good strategy, or no?

I think there is a lot to say for this sort of approach. But I consider it to be more of a rhetorical approach and less of a substantive one. Professor Overton phrases the issue as whether Black leaders should abandon the press for race-specific policies (e.g., Affirmative Action). I think that much of that positive agenda can be preserved within Obama's framework, so long as we talk about it in a different way.

"[P]roposals that solely benefit minorities and dissect Americans into "us" and "them" may generate a few short-term concessions when the costs to whites aren't too high, but they can't serve as the basis for the kinds of sustained, broad-based political coalitions needed to transform America." That sentence, which has interesting echoes of Derrick Bell, is the crucial one for me. Policies like Affirmative Action have been relentless cast in this "us" versus "them" framework, with Black Americans seen as getting a special advantage over Whites. Some people might argue they deserve such an advantage due to the effects of discrimination, but few have challenged the popular norm that affirmative action is a racially zero-sum game.

Yet there is no objective reason Affirmative Action needs to be framed this way. Increased Black representation in the halls of business and academia do not just benefit Black people. There is ample proof that it helps society as a whole as well as White people specifically. I, a White student, proactively benefit because Carleton hosts a diverse array of students who do not all hail from one city, or study one major, or share one belief. Diversity is a fearure, not a bug. Calls for affirmative action should be phrased less as "you owe us" and more as "let us make this company/college/country a better place." In other words, the press for racial justice should be tied specifically into how it benefits the group as a whole. Which, coincidentally enough, it does.

This sort of rhetorical shift, advocated by Obama as well as academics such as Kenji Yoshino, offers a way out of combative racial discourse in which Whites feel they are under attack and hunker down. Forget about policies in which "the costs to whites aren't too high"--there are many policies which are and should be presented as paying veritable dividends to the White population, to the Black population, and to the American population.

Snapback

I am pleased to see that two prominent conservative voices, Eugene Volokh and Stephen Bainbridge, have spoken out against Dennis Prager's uncommonly stupid (even for him) column arguing that newly elected Muslim congressman Keith Ellison should not be allowed to swear his oath of office on a Koran. Not "because of any American hostility to the Koran," he argues, "but because the act undermines American civilization" (amazing how someone might view the latter as being indicative of the former).

Obviously, several liberal commentators (such as Steve Benen) were quick to pounce on Mr. Prager's appalling ignorance of the US constitution. But it's still nice to hear conservative voices being added to the choir--especially Bainbridge's timely reminder that Prager's proposal echoes eerily of anti-Catholic bigotry at the time of the founding.

The true danger in Prager's argument is not so much that it's wrong (that is quite easy to show). It's that--under the guise of defending "American civilization"--it proposes a political norm that would obliterate American democracy as we know it. As I've written before, America cannot be both a Christian nation and a democratic nation at the same time. Nor can it be "Judeo-Christian" or Muslim or Hindi or what have you, but Christianity ("Judeo-Chrisianity" is but Christianity's twin brother in drag) is the only religion that is actually trying to press itself as supreme inside our domestic political arena, so that's the one we must focus on. People who try and enforce Christian supremacy aren't just making a bad policy decision, they are, perhaps unwittingly, warring with the very fundamental ideals of American freedom and democracy.

Since I do believe the stakes are that high, it is quite heartening to see that some of the intellectual heavyweights of the right are pushing back. Of course, there are less sane voices that still aren't onboard with the idea that America does not just grudgingly tolerate but in fact celebrates its religious and cultural diversity. But thankfully, in this case at least, the big names appear to be onboard.

Oh, and can you imagine the uproar if anyone compared the Christian Bible to toliet paper or (as did Prager) Mein Kampf?

Three Views of the Torrent

Heidi Kitrosser points to three editorials which have deal with the Michael Richards controversy in a particularly intriguing or erudite fashion. From the Baltimore Sun, Leonard Pitts Jr.; from The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson; and from Blackprof, Spencer Overton. Mr. Pitts, in particular, raises a good point when he questions why people are so quick to assume the best case scenario in Mr. Richards' outburst?

If so many of my white countrymen refuse to recognize racism when it is this blatant and unmistakable, what expectation can we have that they will do so when it is subtle and covert? In other words, when it is what it usually is.

After all, modern bigotry usually isn't some nitwit screaming the N-word. It is jobs you don't get and loans you don't get and apartments you don't get and health care you don't get and justice you don't get - for reasons you get all too clearly, though no one ever quite speaks them. It is smiles in your face and knives in your back. And it is, yes, a sitcom - like Seinfeld - that presents New York City, of all places, as a black-free zone.

These are complaints blacks have sought for years to drive home to their fellow Americans, only to be met largely by indifference, the defensive apathy of those who are free to ignore or diminish any claim on conscience that makes them uncomfortable. At the risk of metaphor abuse, the response to this debacle makes clear that you can't explain Advanced Racism to those who haven't passed Racism 101.

And, with all due respect to my correspondent, that need to make excuses gets old. The man spent 2 1/2 minutes screaming racial insults. You say that's not racism?

Then, pray tell, what is?

In most cases today, racism appears in cases of ambivalency rather than in easily demarcated explicit violations. It comes pre-equipped with plausible deniability. Often it is operating unconsciously. Richards is the anomaly here, in that it presents an "easy" case. And while Pitts is right that too many of us are failing even this elementary exam, even those who are not still have only reached stage one. Stopping here, only seeing (and condemning) racism in the "easy cases" means most racism slip through the cracks. So with all due respect to Richard Cohen, it's still just a bit too early to celebrate.

The Richards Effect

Black leaders including Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters are seizing the opportunity posed by the Michael Richards scandal to try and press for a general ban on using the n-word in comedy routines. I presume that the ban would not be a legal prohibition but rather a general agreement amongst comedians. For example, the club that hosted Richards announced a policy of fining any acts which used the term on a per use basis, taking it out of their paycheck (apparently to some people with a weak concept of contracts this is extortion).

I won't say I'm not for this press (and I think this might be the only time this sort of momentum might be available), but I think that this issue remains more complex than people give it credit for. For example, I think the view that Black versus White uses of the word are equally harmful is simplistic and naive. Certainly, the spectacular work Jody Armour has done elucidating the distinction in the African-American psyche between Black people and "niggas" is not the equivalent of a Klan rally, and it's deeply wrong to treat it as such. However, I'm not convinced that Black usage is sufficiently divorced from the negative impacts to make it worth preserving (although I think there is a general carve-out for academic work in these sorts of things anyway). Paul Mooney, a prominent Black comedian and a former user of the word in his routines, has sworn off it in response to Richards. So even though Black persons who try and reclaim the term are not the moral equals of a Richards or a Klansman (and it's foolish to treat them as such), but their efforts may be doing more harm than they intend.

Even still, it is clearly obvious that Richards case--an over the top tirade designed to show some Black patrons "what happens when you interrupt a white man"--is more hurtful, more dangerous, and more worthy of a response than reclamations--however misguided--within the Black community. After all, while such an explicit portrayal may not hit the public eye very often anymore, the underlying sentiments have more potency than we'd like to admit (witness this classically racist rant that argues why "maybe [Richards] was more accurate than everyone thought"). And I think that the comedy club's private decision to make that rule is far, far better than anything else that could be done--the idea that racism will no longer be tolerated socially will get us further than any number of abstract legal or moral maxims preaching color-blindness.

This is a bit murky, and I apologize for it. I guess the upshot is that a) obviously, I hope that this makes inroads against similar racist tirades by White persons in and out of public; b) I hope this also reduces the usage of the n-word in Black communities as well; but c) anyone who thinks that the latter is a higher priority than the former does not understand the mechanics or the harms of racism in modern society.

Monday Reviews

Featuring Stranger than Fiction and my first impressions of Final Fantasy XII.

First, Stranger than Fiction, the story of a man who finds his life being narrated by a voice inside his head. I'll admit I was skeptical of Will Ferrell being able to play this role, and that was without realizing how indie the movie really was. Yet he pulled it off in an impressive fashion, and I enjoyed the movie immensely. Obviously, the post-modernist in me loved the blurring of story and reality, and the romantic in me loved the idea that even dull, boring guys such as myself can catch beautiful Harvard Law-attending bakers who will make us delicious cookies. The author in the movie reminded me just enough (in terms of appearance) of one of my professors at Carleton to be unnerving, but she might have been my favorite character in the whole show. My mother complained it was too long (perhaps, but I didn't notice), and my father couldn't take the story at face value. I say that you have to suspend your imagination or accept it as a literary metaphor. But it's not like I have room to talk: I figured out a great way to resolve the great climatic conflict in a pain-free manner (write the happy ending page, then tear it up!). The only other complaint I have is that said climatic ending really was obnoxious in its way, both because I just didn't buy the idea that he "had to die" for the sake of literature, and because the proposed ending would not have constituted great literature at all, but a cliche. Please. But all in all, a stellar movie that hit the same bundle of happy nerves as, say, I <3 Huckabees (if you liked that sort of thing).

Final Fantasy XII. First, my background on this is having played parts of VI, VII, IX, and X. I have never actually finished any of the games: VII I came the closest, getting about half-way into the final dungeon, IX quitting right before I traveled to that dungeon, and VI and X not even coming close. That notwithstanding, I am a big fan of the series and XII does not disappoint. In terms of structure and artistic stylings, it reminds me a lot of IX (which I think is one of the more underrated games in the series). The voice acting is quite good (the Scottish accents can be a bit jarring, though), and the characters are solid (though there is not any one that stands out from the pack). The plot starts a little slow but picks up nicely, and at this point in the game (around 12 hours in--for those of you who have played, I just got the first Esper after beating Gigas) I am thoroughly hooked. As always, Final Fantasy is the type of game that anyone with even the remotest interest in RPG style games can enjoy.

XII's big innovation that has folks talking is the "gambit" system, which allows a significant part of combat to proceed automatically. I'm ambivalently positive towards it. To make that statement clear, I should comment on another major shift from previous games in the series: the lack of random encounter battles. Now, you can see all the monsters on the main map as you wander around, choosing to engage (or not) as you will. That I think is a major innovation, and the gambit system works really well with it. On the one hand, I think that the non-lead characters don't react as quickly given their gambits as I would expect them to. That's a minor quibble, though, and I think overall it's a successful and reasonably intuitive system.

Beautiful Day

Computer is fixed!

The computer guy came today with bad news: he was "not optimistic" about getting the data off my hard drive. Things looked grim. But then, a ray of hope! As it happens, rather than my hard drive simply having melted down, it had merely been knocked ajar from its connection to the motherboard during my travels from Northfield to Bethesda. It turns out that, much like myself, the hard drive had a few screws loose on the bracket that kept it steady. It must have taken a bit of a whack on the flight home, and thus was knocked off. The guy reattached it, and all is well.

As a result of this ordeal, I just backed up all my files to an external hard drive. This was the best of all possible worlds then: A problem large enough to give me a bona fide scare (and thus motivate me to do a long overdue backup), but one that did not do any actual permanent damage.

Life is good.

Isn't There A Commandment About This?

Over in New Jersey, a high school student accused his social studies teacher of preaching in class. The teacher denied it, and the department and principal were prepared to take his word for it. Except the boy had it all on tape.

Junior Matthew LaClair, 16, said history teacher David Paszkiewicz, who is also a Baptist preacher in town, spent the first week of class lecturing students more about heaven and hell than the colonies and the Constitution.

LaClair said Paszkiewicz told students that if they didn't accept Jesus, "you belong in hell." He also dismissed as unscientific the theories of evolution and the "Big Bang."

LaClair, who described his own religious views as "non-Christian," said he wanted to complain about Paszkiewicz to school administrators, but feared his teacher would deny the charges and that no one would take a student's word against a teacher's. So, he said, he started taping Paszkiewicz.

Nice. There are those who say that localities should control whether and to what degree religion should be inserted into the schools. It isn't coercive, they argue, and in any event schools should be taught in accordance to prevailing local norms (which in many cases are Christian). The problem is that in the places where such sentiment is likely to be most intense and thus acted upon (i.e., those places where teachers disregard the current law which says education and religious instruction should not mix), the evidence shows much the reverse: minority religious opinions are marginalized and dissenters are singled out. Consider how LaClair's fellow students reacted to his exposure of the teacher:

As LaClair spoke outside the Devon Street school, some students yelled taunts at him while others glared.

"Mr. Paszkiewicz is an outstanding man," said 16-year-old Stephanie Formoso, a member of the crew team coached by Paszkiewicz and one of his history students.

"Matt set him up," Formoso added. "Mr. Paszkiewicz would always say (when he spoke about religion) 'In my opinion.' He never pushed his beliefs on anyone."

Ah, the Marian Barry defense. This is sadly typical of these sorts of cases. When a member of minority religion comes forward and says that a certain action makes him or her feel like an outsider, a) the claim is mocked and dismissed and b) the marginalization is stepped up a notch. Taunts and glares are actually quite mundane here--threats and acts of violence are quite common in similar cases I've read about.

PZ Myers says that Paszkiewicz is about to become a "right-wing martyr" who will be invited by church groups all over the place to come and lecture about the evils of our secular school system. I suppose this is a test then: how many supposedly Christian groups will be tempted to do that? How many will bend over backwards to defend a man who openly lied about using his teaching position to degrade and marginalize members of religious minorities?

Originally via Steve Benen.

Take Your Mouth Off That Whistle

As anyone who has read my discussion on certain 4th Circuit precedents knows, retaliation cases are a major pet peeve of mine. While I've focused primarily on reprisals in cases of racial discrimination complaints, the principle against it holds true generally. Retaliation against parties who complain about something that would be, if substantiated, a bona fide wrong (e.g., racial discrimination, corruption, graft) is almost never justified. Retaliation chills workers from pursuing necessary reforms or correcting wrongs against them, virtually insures that bad policies will continue, and deprives the public of important information about practices by the government or corporation that they might not tolerate were they made public.

That's why I was so upset to read (thru Steve Benen) this article on the growing number of whistleblower and whistleblower retaliation claims being filed in our intelligence agencies--and how they're being dealt with. Whistleblowing complaints have risen by 43% since 9/11, and reprisal complaints have grown along with, jumping 21%. Whistleblowers often face harassment at best and career destruction at worst, and the law seems unable to help them. The Whistleblower Protection Act does not apply to intelligence officers (why?), and even if an internal investigation substantiates a retaliation charge, the investigators don't have the power to enforce any remedy (why?). Perhaps most amazingly, the federal circuit court that hears retaliation cases has ruled against intelligence whistleblowers 98.425% of the time (125/127).

It goes without saying that an agency whose members are afraid to call out mistakes is an ineffective agency, and when that agency is America's intelligence services (whose street cred at the moment is already a bit off), that makes our nation less safe. Giving these brave public servants the protections they deserve should immediately move to the top of the Democratic Party agenda. It's not just Congress that needs reform, and helping our intelligence agencies clean up house would be one of the fastest ways to make our nation stronger and safer at the same time.

Copycats Part II

Continuing the saga of the Georgetown students who tried to claim their house was a religious organization to evade zoning laws, the local zoning board has rejected their claim. Good for them. I suspect it's right as a matter of law, and I want to preserve Carleton's niche position in terms of college-founded religious bodies anyway.

Mmm...Turkey

Flying out to Rhode Island tommorrow, flying back to Maryland Friday, getting my computer fixed Saturday (hopefully!). Also bought Final Fantasy XII. So I'm going to be a busy beaver over the next few days. I doubt I'll have computer access while in Rhode Island, so if I don't post over the next few days, I wish every one a happy Turkey day, and an excellent weekend seeing college football, college basketball, and maybe the odd college student who in your family during the commercial break.

The Obama File

Obama apologizes to lovelorn reporter for "messing up your game." Read this, and then listen here (MP3). And yes, "messing up your game" is a direct quote.

Meanwhile, Rahm Emmanuel will "hide under [a] desk" if both Obama and Hillary Clinton run for President. Rahm-bo has close ties to both camps and does not relish choosing between them in a primary fight.

Finally, the conservative attack machine is started to take shots at Obama. They're not very good at it yet, but give them time. My friend Paul Mirengoff tries to downplay Obama's "first in his class" pedigree (what the rest of us would call "drop dead brilliant") by trying to argue that it is merely mimicry of experts (heaven forbid we start listening to them!). After all, who could possibly comprehend the following prescription for Iraq?

[Obama] envisioned a flexible timetable for withdrawal linked to conditions on the ground in Iraq and based on the advice of U.S. commanders. He also called for intensified efforts to train Iraqi security forces, U.S. aid packages tied to Iraqi progress in reducing sectarian violence and new diplomacy with Syria and Iran.

Mirengoff promises an "A" to anyone who can figure out what it would mean practically on the ground. I refuse to do work for a grade over Winter Break, but it strikes me as a fine IR final exam question...for Northfield Community College (or perhaps the academically advanced St. Olaf's student). Any Dartmouth graduate who can't parse that, however, should report back to Hanover and turn his diploma back in.

Kevin McCullough wonders why "Obama's evil" is on Rick Warren's pulpit, with the laundry list of conservative complaints: Obama is pro-choice. Obama is pro-gay equality. Obama wants to punish hate crimes as hate crimes. It was such a well-constructed rant that it was effectively plagerized by Marshall Will Kane (a word to the wise--when undertaking hatchet jobs, creativity is more important than repetition. How do you know what mud will stick when you're all flinging the same stuff?)!

Ben Shapiro says that he's a "radical masquerading as a moderate", but his examples of Obama's radicalism merely show how difficult it will be to make the tag stick. This is "hatred" of President Reagan:

[I was] disturbed ... by Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 ... unconvinced ... by his John Wayne, 'Father Knows Best' pose, his policy by anecdote, and his gratuitous assaults on the poor.

Here's "sliming" Rush Limbaugh:

[I]f Rush Limbaugh's listeners enjoy hearing him call me 'Osama Obama,' my attitude is, let them have their fun.

Listen to him "insult" evangelicals:

Their fervor has gone mainstream. There are various explanations for this success, from the skill of evangelicals in marketing religion to the charisma of their leaders.

Zing! Or how about some classic "Marxist trash"?

I simply believe that those of us who have benefited most from this new economy can best afford to shoulder the obligation of ensuring every American child has a chance for that same success.

I can see him losing the middle already.

Keep trying, ladies and gentlemen.

Why Not North Korea?

Ann Applebaum has a column up asking why the existence of mass concentration camps in North Korea does not evoke the same outrage in the West as does the genocide in Darfur. Isaac Chotiner distills her argument down to this position:

Applebaum is right to argue that American and European activists are probably much more willing, because of their politics, to be moved by cases of genocide where putting an end to such violence does not directly benefit American security or economic interests.

I don't think that's right at all, and I think it displays a sort of paranoia about the American left that is more befitting of the far right than Applebaum and TNR.

First, obviously, there is the fact that what is going on Darfur is qualitatively worse than the activities in North Korea. This isn't to minimize them, only to say that while brutal concentration camps are bad, a systematic policy of ethnic extermination is worse. However, I think the big issue is one of perceived capabilities. When I was asked by some of my more liberal cohorts why I supported a war in Iraq but not North Korea (that's right, it was far more likely to be my liberal friends than my conservative ones who brought it up), I would invariably respond that "ought implies can," and while an intervention in Iraq (and Darfur) was very much plausible from a military perspective, an intervention in North Korea would be a full-scale war of the type we haven't fought since Vietnam. Now, it may well be that I underestimated the degree of "can" available in Iraq. But insofar as Darfur versus North Korea goes, I think the point still applies: liberal activists see a solution to Darfur that would not commit ourselves to the type of activity that the Iraq catastrophe has discredited, whereas in North Korea there seems to be precious little we can do to stop the concentration camps that would not imply unacceptable loss of life and treasure on our end.

Moreover, I think the descriptive argument about how Sudan is not a country we have "interests" in and is not tagged with any of the buzzwords (communism, radical Islam) that provoke controversy in the modern political sphere is wrong as well. We do have interests in Sudan, both in terms of oil wealth and because we have an interest in checking China's influence in the region. The existence of these interests may not be as widely known as comparable ones in Iran or North Korea, but it is just wrong to say that a Darfur intervention would not objectively aid the US or step on the toes of another great power. Furthermore, it is unclear why these issues would not be presented more frequently in the public eye as Darfur rose in prominence. A similar claim can be made as to the "buzzwords" argument: Sudan, after all, is a Muslim state, and has tried very hard to link Western or international intervention in Darfur with charges of anti-Islamic bias and neo-colonialism. Why haven't these allegations had more of an impact, given the left's continued ambivalence towards charges of imperialism and anti-Islamic sentiment?

I think, then, that the focus on Darfur is not a manifestation of relief that it does nothing for the West, but is rather rooted in an honest and genuine recognition of how uniquely appalling the activities there are, and a firm belief that the US and the world could be doing much more to stop them. Now, history will judge us based on whether we act on those beliefs, or simply lay them aside as we have so many times before.

Comeback Kids

So Roy Blunt (R-MO) is elected House Minority Whip over reformer John Shadegg (R-AZ). Ditto with establishment candidate John Boehner (R-OH) over grassroots darling Mike Pence (R-IN). And Adam Putnam (R-FL) is the conference chair. What message to we get?

Well, Blunt is one of the 13 most corrupt members of congress.

Putnam was furious that "rednecks" didn't come out to vote for the GOP.

We've still got Trent "segregation forever" Lott returning from exile.

Pence got annhilated in his race, 168-27, showing perhaps the relative weakness of the GOP base (compared to the K Street Crew).

Redstate is sad. "So, the GOP gets blown out of the water and everyone gets promoted!" Apparently. There's also something highly indicative of the fact that the Democrats rejected Murtha's promotion, while the GOP is keeping Roy Blunt in the leadership. Anyone want to guess what it is?

Dead and Buried

Texas law guru Sanford Levinson raises a controversial but compelling point: Where does George W. Bush get off even pretending to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., given that Dr. King undoubtedly would feel nothing but massive contempt for the current state of the GOP generally and for many of Bush's policies (Iraq, economic justice, torture) specifically? We as a society collectively get off on this paeon to racial justice and Dr. King's legacy while utterly ignoring the actual policy prescriptions and social values that Dr. King fought his entire life to uphold.

For my part, I'm just curious if Dr. King would be the beloved figure he is had he not been shot. Everyone loves a martyr, but it has turned Dr. King into a symbol rather than a person. That's not in itself a bad thing, except that as a society we don't seem interested in linking the pursuit of Dr. King's actual beliefs to honoring the symbolic Dr. King. If we had a real live Dr. King still urging us to fight racism and resist torture and oppose the Iraq war, I have to think a significant portion of the country would view him the same way they view Jesse Jackson: a race-baiting liberal rabble rouser.

Being dead, though, Dr. King cannot demand accountability from the American people who profess to believe in his dream. Which makes it far easier for us to pay homage to him while utterly ignoring the fact that we are far, far away from his promised land--and don't seem particularly interested in getting there anymore.

Finals Round-Up

It's final exam season here at Carleton, so instead of a substantive post, you get a round-up.

"Politically incorrect" has become a mantra of pride in today's culture. But even still, being "politically incorrect" should not be a defense when one suggests the first Muslim Congressman of being a traitor because he opposes your preferred Iraq policy (because he's a Muslim, no less).

How IP law encourages annoying, fleeting, and wasteful fashion trends.

Neal Katyal's Harvard Law Review article explains how theory assisted practice in the Hamdan case. As a budding legal theorist who would like to pretend like my life's ambition has practical value, it was a nice validation.

Hoyer beat Murtha soundly in the leadership race...thank God.

The New Republic admits it made a mistake in supporting the Iraq war. Maybe we can finally let die the ugly vendetta being waged against it by certain elements on the left end of the Democratic Party. We're all in this together, after all. On the other hand, maybe not. To be clear, I don't think these particular people are necessarily part of that "ugly vendetta." But I do think that--even if you think TNR still hasn't "got it" on Foreign Policy--they are in line with the liberal consensus on such a large array of issues that its friendly fire to try and push them into the grave. And as a broader response, even if TNR has to do more soul-searching than it has thus far, I don't think it has to come in the form of "most of our deep-seated ideological commitments about America's obligations to the world are utterly wrong. We repent." I feel like that's the message many critics want out of the magazine, and I don't think the Iraq war mandates that particula response.

Anonymous Liberal says that Deval Patrick's crushing victory in the Massachusetts' gubernatorial election offers a template for a Barack Obama Presidential run. Do I owe Jules Crittenden an apology? (No, because how a campaign will play out is different from how an administration will, and because I still believe that Massachusetts politics and American politics are sufficiently different to make direct comparisons inapt).

Scott Johnson of the arch-conservative Powerline blog is sad because 90,000 poor children in Minnesota will receive health insurance. *Tear*

Nancy Pelosi laments that "White rednecks" don't vote Democrat, sparking off a furious round of criticism for demonstrating liberal elitist disrespect of middle America. Haha, just kidding. It was Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL), leading candidate for Republican Conference Chairman. I was kidding about the "furious round of criticism" too.

Al Gore's '08 advantages.

Gail Hines subjects the new Borat movie to a feminist critique. I haven't seen the movie, so I won't comment, except to say that a) the fact that violence against Jews isn't a major "public health" problem doesn't mean that it isn't a problem, or that it isn't a threat, or that anti-Semitism does not remain rampant, or that violence against Jews isn't legitimized in many quarters; and b) I'm curious whether there is any room for satire when the satirized are perfectly willing to accept even the parody as legitimate behavior on their part?

Victor Davis Hanson says history will vindicate W, in part because he "won" two wars after 9/11. "Won"? Won. Patrick Porter gently disagrees.

Dumb-Off

Oy gevolt. So in addition to the outburst of pro-Jeff Sessions sentiment, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), once banished for proclaiming that "we wouldn't have all these problems" had we maintained a segregationist agenda, is now the Number 2 Republican in the Senate (As Robert George says: There is something painfully ironic with Trent Lott gaining the title of "minority whip"). This from the party trying to engage in "outreach" towards African-Americans? It'd be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

But don't think the Democrats aren't holding their own on the idiocy front. Pelosi has managed to royally piss me off on both the Hoyer/Murtha race for Majority Leader, and the Harman/Hastings decision for chair of the Intelligence Committee. If the Democrats have a mandate to do anything, it's to fight corruption in the halls of Washington. Murtha has consistently been on the watchlist of corruption observers, and just recently called the Democrats' reform bill "total crap". He's effectively beholden to defense contractors, and loves earmarks to death. Oh, and aside from Iraq, he's as conservative as you can get in the Democratic caucus and largely incoherent as a speaker. Hoyer is not my favorite Democrat in the world, but he was instrumental in getting Democrats elected this cycle, his positions--though not exactly liberal--are more in line with the general views of the caucus, and he knows how to play ball in Washington. Plus, given the fact that I'm starting to really dislike Pelosi, I'm not sure I want to set her up as a DeLay-style tyrant of the House. As for Harman/Hastings, it's no question: you don't take off one of our party's top experts on Intelligence and replace him with a former judge impeached for taking bribes! This should be a no-brainer. And the kicker is that in both these cases, Pelosi's decisions seem less about what's good for the country or the party, and more about waging personal vendettas against two people she detests (her feuds with Hoyer and Harman are long-runnng). This is not an auspicious start.

So, like John Cole, I have to agree with Dean Barnett: Republicans and Democrats are [apparently] determined to engage in a two year dumb-off. Ugh.

Therapy Sessions

Apparently, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is being floated as the char of the Republican Policy Committee. RedState lauds his "intellectual fire power." K-Lo supports him because Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) is too "mod". A-Bama blog jumps even further ahead, pitching him for a Supreme Court seat (recall that Sessions already was rejected for one nomination to the federal judiciary--a U.S. District Court seat).

So, who is Jeff Sessions? Well, as noted above, he fell upwards to his U.S. Senate seat after being rejected for a federal District Court nomination. He was one of nine Senators to boldly vote for torture. He has distinguished himself in Washington by being a complete and utter intellectual lightweight, so much so that even little ol' elitist me, with my disdain for Washington politicians generally, have him particularly associated in my mind as a dunce. Indeed, as Ezra Klein noted, "Every time I've noticed Sessions, it's been for a dazzling display of dimness." By and large, he's been a loyal party hack with no propensity for innovation or public capacity for independent thought.

But most importantly, he has a long and unambigious record of hostility towards Black people. I'm not talking little things; I'm talking stuff that would make Trent Lott (banished to the lowly position of committee chair!) blush. Sessions launched clearly politically motivated investigations of Black civil rights workers because majority Black counties actually started voting for Black candidates. He red-baited the NAACP. And he said the Klan wasn't all that bad...until he realized they were "pot-smokers." (But remember: Robert Byrd was in the Klan in the Roosevelt administration. So both parties are equally to blame.)

Sessions is an idiot and a racist who loves torture. If that's the image the GOP wants to present, all power to them. But it is rather startling to watch the outpouring of support he's receiving, given that I thought it was rather universally acknowledged on both sides of the aisle that Sessions isn't the brightest bulb in the ceiling.

UPDATE: Hey Immigrant Voice visitors! Glad to have you. Please peruse the rest of my lovely site (just click the masthead to get to the main page). And while you're here, wouldn't you vote for this site for a blogging award?



Thanks, and hope you'll continue to visit The Debate Link.

A Query

So the prevailing meme on the right is that the Democratic party doesn't have a mandate to do anything. People didn't vote for the Dems, but against the GOP--and moreover, that vote was not a repudiation of conservative governing philosophy, but an expression of revulsion at (take your pick) corruption/Iraq/deficit spending. Democrats, they say, have no plan or proposals on any issue, so we can't interpret the public as supporting a liberal policy agenda. I think that it's kind of ridiculous, but whatever. What I want to know is this: Republicans spent most of the election cycle telling voters that Democrats would "cut and run" from Iraq. If there was one thing the GOP was quite clear that the Democrats were proposing, it was that. And apparently two-thirds of Democratic voters and 55% of all voters in this cycle support some form of troop withdrawal in the near future.

So my question is--does the Democratic party have a mandate to begin withdrawing from Iraq? It was an a) publicly taken position that b) Republicans themselves said was key to the Democratic party agenda that c) most voters support on d) one of the most important issues in this cycle.

I take no personal position on whether it is wise to withdraw, but it seems that the GOP has to concede that there is a mandate to begin the policy.

From Beirut to West Europe

I previously noted the spike in British anti-Semitism in the wake of the Israel/Lebanon war. Now, new data suggests that the same trend occured throughout Western Europe. The report also says that Greece and Turkey experienced an uptick, while most of Eastern Europe (as well as Denmark) were relatively unaffected. Turkey is specficially noteworthy, not because it is Muslim, but because the Jewish population there has been notably free from anti-Semitism for a significant period of time.

Very unfortunate.

Copycats

A couple of Georgetown students have tried to form their own religious organization in order to get around local zoning laws (being a religious group would allow them to have more people living in their house). Feh. Carleton students created their own religion well before these Georgetown imposters. And better yet, The Reformed Druids of North America actually has outlasted its original purpose (evading religion requirements our school had in the 60s), still going strong over 40 years later.

As to the legal issues, my understanding is that the law sidesteps questions of "what is a religion" by merely querying whether or not the beliefs are "sincerely held" (United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944)). This isn't a particularly satisfying answer, as it doesn't distinguish between a sincerely held religious belief and a sincerely held secular one. Presumably, the Court analyzes whether the religious belief is sincerely held to be a religious one, rather than a secular belief masquerading as a religious one to gain some benefit. In contrast to the Reformed Druids, which, as mentioned before, have outlasted the tangible benefit they were claiming by a good 40 years, the Washington Post article gives no indication that these Georgetown students have any sincere belief in their "religion" outside of the extra privileges it grants them under zoning law.

Carleton 1, Georgetown, 0!

Via VC

1960-68

I'm kind of agnostic towards the issue of divided government (I can see it's advantages, but I don't it's always the best policy). However, I was struck by this statement by David Post extolling the virtues of split-party government:

It's more common than one might suppose; in 34 of the 54 years since Eisenhower was elected for his first term ('52), at least one branch of Congress was in hands different than the executive branch, and for my money the years in which that has not been the case (60-68, 76-80, 93-94, and 2001-06) have not been distinguished by great statesmanship or great policy-making.

I can't speak for the whole era, but encompassed in 1960-68 are both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, both of which rank well towards the top of my list of "distinguished...great statsmanship [and] policy-making." Maybe those are outliers, but I suspect that neither bill would have made it through a divided government, given the depths of Southern opposition and the propensity of a divided government to favor the status quo and disapprove of bold, sweeping changes.

Just a thought.

"City of Christ"?

Whatever sympathy I might have had for Christianist opposition to a gay pride parade in Jerusalem (and admittedly, it was pretty small to begin with), evaporated when the FRC characterized it as an "abomination in the city of Christ."

Oh, please. Israel is the Jewish state, and while completely respect the rights of the Christian minority there to worship as they please, don't pretend like Israel as an obligation to accede to Christian dogma. Ironically, virtually all the "pressure" the FRC cites against the march comes from external sources--the Vatican and foreign ministries. The local Jewish population, by and large, is okay with it--and the Israeli Attorney General ruled the parade can go through. So really, this is just Christians demanding that Jews subsume their own beliefs on what constitutes acceptable practice in our holiest city under their intolerance. Oh, and if Christians seriously do want to persuade us to act in their interests, don't refer to our holiest city as "the city of Christ."

Whither GOP?

After what can only be described as a devastating GOP loss in the 2006 midterms, the question is where the party goes from here. There's a good case to be made that the GOP needs to move to the middle, and I know that some of the main-street Republicans are thinking of that direction. On the flip side, there are those who say the GOP lost because it became "Democratic-lite". So, will the party shift to the center or tack right?

But I don't really think that's the right question. Paradoxically, I think the GOP needs to do both, and that's going to be a big problem. I've been blogging for quite some time on the schism forthcoming in the Republican Party. The problem isn't that the party is too conservative or too moderate. The problem is the coalition it built over the past few years (decades, perhaps) is falling apart at the seams. If they turn to the middle, the GOP will lose some of its base and will not meaningfully be able to distinguish themselves from Democrats. If they run hard to their base, they'll drive any remaining centrists out of their camp and become a purely regional (and, let's face it, sectarian) party. The set of ideological commitments the GOP currently holds cannot support a majority coalition anymore.

That notwithstanding, the party is going to pick the "turn right" option, for no other reason than that the number of elected GOP moderates left to present a case is virtually non-existant (the tally I've heard is that there are 8 remaining bona fide moderate Republicans in the House, out of caucus numbering close to 200). Most of the last of them were swept out in this Democratic wave, and I don't think the GOP is optimistic about regaining seats in Connecticut or suburban Pennsylvania. The biggest GOP names still in office are conservative die-hards, so of course they're going to push the party in that direction.

Over the long term, this is more dangerous for the GOP, because it again will relegate them to a predominantly regional party status. It also will prove ill-suited to stop the emerging Democratic machine in the Mountain West, which is starting to reassert its long dormant libertarian streak (beating back the abortion ban in South Dakota, gay marriage ban winning by only 4 points in the same). There is a feedback loop--it is the marginal Republicans who will get defeated, concentrating power in the conservative strongholds, who will continue to push the party to the right. This will make it very hard for the GOP to regain power, because it won't have a presence or credibility in the states it needs to get back.

Two Party Government?

Not in Maryland! Check out the lede of this Washington Post article:

Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Republican Senate candidate Michael S. Steele conceded defeat in quick succession yesterday, putting an end, at least for now, to the state's four-year experiment with two-party government.

Moreover, in the close in Washington suburbs (Montgomery and Prince George's Counties), there is not a single elected Republican at any level of government--federal, state, or local.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is back!

Committee Shift

Publius shows the shift in Committee Chairmanships:

Ag Cmte: Tom Harkin (IA). Outgoing Chair: Saxby Chambliss (GA).

Approps Cmte: Robert Byrd (WV). Outgoing Chair: Thad Cochran (MS).

Armed Services Cmte: Carl Levin (MI). Outgoing Chair: John Warner (VA).

Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Cmte: Chris Dodd (CT). Outgoing Chair: Richard Shelby (AL).

Budget Cmte: Kent Conrad (D). Outgoing Chair: Judd Gregg (NH).

Commerce, Science, and Transpo Cmte: Co-Chair Daniel Inouye (HI). Outgoing Co-Chair: Ted Stevens (AK).

Energy and Natural Resources Cmte: Jeff Bingaman (NM). Outgoing Chair: Pete Domenici (NM).

Enviro and Public Works Cmte: Barbara Boxer (CA). Outgoing Chair: James Inhofe (OK).

Finance Cmte: Max Baucus. Outgoing Chair: Charles Grassley (IA).

Foreign Relations Cmte: Joe Biden (D). Outgoing Chair: Richard Lugar (IN).

Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Cmte: Ted Kennedy. Outgoing Chair: Mike Enzi (WY).

Homeland Security and Govt'l Affairs Cmte: Joe Lieberman (CT). Outgoing Chair: Susan Collins (ME).

Jud Cmte: Patrick Leahy (VT). Outgoing Chair: Arlen Specter (PA).

Rules and Admin Cmte: Chris Dodd (CT). Outgoing Chair: Trent Lott (MS).

Small Business Cmte: John Kerry (MA). Outgoing Chair: Olympia Snowe (ME).

Veterans Affairs Cmte: Daniel Akaka (D). Outgoing Chair: Larry Craig (ID).

Switching Barbara Boxer for James "Global Warming = Nazi Propoganda" Inhofe on the key environmental committee is huge. The other really important ones are Judiciary (Leahy for Specter), Armed Services (Levin for Warner), and Foreign Relations (Biden for Lugar). Putting Byrd in charge of the appropriations committee is a sick joke, and while I like Joe Lieberman on Homeland Security generally, it remains to be seen how he'll perform (he lost alot of credibility with me this cycle).

Election '06 Superlatives

Now that the election is over, it's time to give some awards! Without further ado, the Decision '06 candidate superlatives.

Best campaign by a losing Republican Senate candidate: Michael Steele in Maryland. Actually, he got trounced by a surprisingly large (10 point margin). But it's hard to imagine him doing better in Maryland in this climate without actually being a Democrat (and he tried hard to call himself that too!). Certainly, his "puppies" ad was one of the most effective of the cycle.

Best campaign by a losing Democratic Senate candidate: Harold Ford, Tennessee. Let's be clear: A three point loss by a Black Democrat in a Southern red state is nothing short of amazing. That Ford was considered a threat the entire cycle is testament to his incredible political skill. He also seemed to negate the Bradley effect, as he actually out performed late polling in his race.

Best campaign by a losing Republican House candidate: Joe Negron, FL-16. Not only was Negron running for Mark Foley's seat, but to win it he had to convince voters to mark their ballot for Foley to have it counted for him. With the spectacular slogan "Punch Foley to vote Negron," the Republican came within one point of pulling it off, too.

Best campaign by a losing Democratic House candidate: Assuming that the Gary Trauner/Barbara Cubin race in the Wyoming at-large is still too close to call, the award goes to Scott Kleeb in the rural Nebraska 3rd. His ten point loss to Adrien Smith doesn't look that impressive until you realize that's a 20 point cut in the GOP candidate's support compared to 2004.

Best campaign by a losing Democratic gubernatorial candidate: Tony Knowles, Alaska. Knowles ran the best race he could, but he was doomed the moment "Murkowski" wasn't on the ballot.

Best campaign by a losing Republican gubernatorial candidate: Robert Ehrlich, Maryland. What do you do when you're an incumbent liked by a majority of voters who still can't get them to vote for you? I'm stumped too.

Best campaign by a winning Republican Senate candidate: Bob Corker, Tennessee. His campaign was flailing for awhile after the primary, and was under constant pressure from a smooth as silk Harold Ford. Corker righted his ship to move this race even below Arizona in some pundits eyes as a Democratic pickup opportunity. He also scores points for condemning the vile and racist NSCC ads that ran in his district.

Best campaign by a winning Democratic Senate candidate: James Webb's upset victory was great, but caused more by Allen's missteps than any strengths as a candidate. And Amy Klobuchar gets major points for obliterating Mark Kennedy in a race many Republicans thought (at the start of the cycle) they would win. But Jon Tester turning Montana deep blue while not shying away from his progressive background is nothing short of amazing. Democrats now have both Senate seats and the governor's mansion in Montana, and Tester is a rising Democratic star.

Best campaign by a winning Republican House candidate: Heather Wilson, NM-1. This race might still be too close to call, but it looks like Wilson will escape with another squeaker in her Democratic leaning district. Since it doesn't stop us from hearing Speaker Pelosi, I'm okay with that. Congress deserves more members with Oxford Philosophy doctorates.

Best campaign by a winning Democratic House candidate: Jim Marshall, GA-08. Republicans tried to pull a Texas on Marshall and mid-decade redistrict him to get his seat. Marshall was game and beat back a tough opponent in former Representative Mac Collins to keep his red-leaning seat.

Best campaign by a winning Republican gubernatorial candidate: Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota. Pawlenty dodges the Democratic wave and wins a tight race against Attorney General Mike Hatch, who was no cream-puff candidate.

Best campaign by a winning Democratic gubernatorial candidate: Bill Ritter, Colorado. This race was supposed to be close. Bob Beauprez was supposed to be a tough candidate. Neither turned out to be true, and that's kudos to Ritter.

Worst campaign by a losing Republican House candidate: John Hostettler, IN-08. Did he even try? The 6-term incumbent couldn't even break 40% in getting annihilated by Brad Ellsworth.

Worst campaign by a losing Democratic House candidate: Coleen Rowley, MN-02. Democrats were really excited when they recruited the 9/11 whistleblower to run against John Kline. Whoops. Rowley barely mustered 40% and underperformed compared to the 2004 candidate.

Worst campaign by a losing Republican Senate candidate: Mark Kennedy, Minnesota. Good lord, this was supposed to be a GOP rising star? He lost by 20 points Amy Klobuchar and never even made the Democrats sweat. (Katherine Harris is ineligible for this award, to make it fair for the other nominees).

Worst campaign by a losing Democratic Senate candidate: Jim Pederson, Arizona. The fact that Pederson actually finished tighter than expected only reinforces that he could have made this a race had done more than an air-wave attack prior to the last few weeks of the campaign. Moral of the story: retail politics still counts.

Worst campaign by a losing Republican gubernatorial candidate: Asa Hutchinson, Arkansas. I know that Arkansas has two Democratic senators and an 80% Democratic house delegation. But there is no way this race should have been the blow-out it is. No excuse. None.

Worst campaign by a losing Democratic gubernatorial candidate: Phil Angelides, California. The Terminator has approval ratings down in the 20s, and he still comes back to win? Had Angelides been able to focus half of the energy in the general election as he did in his uncommonly vicious primary fight, this blue state might actually have a Democratic governor again.

Worst campaign by a winning Democratic Senate candidate: Bob Menendez, New Jersey. He actually ended up winning comfortably in the end, but for giving me a slow heart attack throughout November and actually posing a credible threat to the Democrats taking back the Senate, he takes it.

Worst campaign by a winning Republican Senate candidate: Jon Kyl, Arizona. He's lucky his opponent ran such a lackluster campaign, because he wasn't much better. Incumbency carried Kyl through in a race he didn't take anywhere near as serious as he should have.

Worst campaign by a winning Republican House candidate: Bill Sali, ID-01. Your district is one of the reddest in the nation. But because you managed to piss off your entire party, you only win by 3 points over Larry Grant in Idaho. Idaho!

Worst campaign by a winning Democratic House candidate: No Democratic House member ran a particularly bad campaign in the general, so the award goes to Albert Wynn (MD-04) for nearly blowing his primary election to Donna Edwards, a total unknown who started campaigning late, in a district he is essentially a machine boss of. Personally, I hope Edwards takes him out in 2008. She'd be far more effective in Congress than a glorified local kingmaker.

Worst campaign by a winning Republican gubernatorial candidate: Jim Gibbons, Nevada. Assaulting cocktail waitresses that you were flirting with (when you're married) is not a good way to win votes, even in Las Vegas. A race he was dominating became a four-point dogfight as a result.

Worst campaign by a winning Democratic gubernatorial candidate: Elliot Spitzer can't crack 70% of the vote? What's up with that?

Biggest upset in the House: Three-way tie. Carol Shea-Porter in the NH-01 and Dave Loebsack in the IA-02 weren't on anyone's radar screen when they knocked off Republican incumbents (a 30 year veteran, in Loebsack's case). Nancy Boyda in the KS-02 did get some attention when the DNCC gave her a late ad buy, but most folks thought it was a headfake. Guess they were wrong, and now all three are going to congress.

Biggest upset in the Senate: Obviously, Jim Webb in Virginia. George Allen goes from lead '08 contender to '06 Senate pretender. Webb overcomes some of the nastiest campaigning seen this cycle to eke out a victory and avenge Chuck Robb.

What's the holdup?: Washington 8th, whose tight race between Darcy Burner (D) and Dave Reichert is still up in the air because less than half of the votes have been counted. Right now, it's 51-49 for Reichert.

Won't be missed in the Senate!: Rick "man-on-dog" Santorum, Pennsylvania. Good riddance. And take your 2008 ambitions with you.

Won't be missed in the House!: Curt Weldon, PA-07. He's got plenty of time to look for WMDs and support oppressive regimes now that he's no longer in office.

The one that got away: I really, really wanted to take out the virulently anti-gay Marilyn Musgrave in the CO-04. But she escaped with a 3 point victory (and only 46% of the vote).

Most likely to succeed: A Democratic congress in 2007, baby! Also, my Congressman, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD-08). He was in charge of House candidate recruitment this year. Talk about a spectacular job! Chris is without a doubt the front-runner for the next open Maryland Senate seat (which may be only a few years out if Barbara Mikulski retires at the end of this term).