FG(M/E/C/S)?

Plain(s) Feminist has a large post on how best to respond to Female Genital....well, a big part of the post is on what we should call it. Mutilation? Excision? Cutting? Circumcision? Surgery?

Thus far, I have not been hesitant to call it Female Genital Mutilation. The term seems to capture the brutality and barbarism of the procedure (and I want to here register my disagreement with the author that such terms can't be employed when the subject is African practices without being "imperialist". For that matter, there is a lot of things in the post I think are a bit off). Stepping back the rhetoric seems often like it is an excuse.

But Plains Feminist makes one very compelling counterargument: the women who undergo this procedure -- including many who oppose it -- don't use the term "mutilation." More importantly, they don't like it when we say they're "mutilated." They don't see themselves as mutilated. That doesn't mean they don't oppose the violation. They just don't want their experience named for them in terms they don't themselves, recognize. And that seems like a legitimate grievance.

Now, I don't have any empirical backing as to whether PF's claim here is true. I suspect some women whom have experienced it would claim that it is mutilation. And furthermore (despite what conservative politicians would have you believe) nobody likes to cast themselves in the role of the victim, so people are always going to be resistant to language that fully expresses the degree of violation foisted upon them. So this "name your own oppression" thing, while tempting, may not ultimately be the way to go. And provisionally, I'm sticking with FGM.

But it was a intriguing argument, and I wanted to throw it out there for comment.

Via Alas, a Blog.

Contempt Citations Issued

After petulant obstruction by House Republicans (where they, among other thins, deliberately disrupted Rep. Tom Lantos' memorial service), the House of Representatives has voted to issue contempt citations against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton for the refusal to testify in front of the committee.

And now for a statement that fills me with optimism and hope: The ball's in Mukasey's court now.

Unfortunately, there's no drama here, because Mukasey has already said he won't enforce the citations. Federal court, here we come!

UPDATE: On the Lantos thing, it appears there is some blame to be cast on both sides. I don't know why House leaders called the chamber back in session during the middle of the service. But there were no votes scheduled at the time, so its simply wrong that Republicans "had" to immediately get back to obstructing the debate. They could have waited 20 minutes, and then been as childish as they wanted. But instead they made a choice to get back on the horse right then and there, and they deserve to take all the flack for that free decision.

Getting Specific

Back in the day, I noted the absurdity of anyone railing on Obama's "lack of experience" while giving anything but scorn to Rudy Giuliani. Alas, Hizzoner's brilliant campaign strategy ("1.Lose state after state by resounding margins. 2. ? 3. Victory!") somehow foundered, so that rule is now moot. However, we have a replacement: neither John McCain nor his supporters get to complain about Obama's supposed lack of specificity, or his supposed lack of policy knowledge, or his supposed appeal that is based solely on his personal attributes.

McCain takes a strong interest in foreign policy, to be sure, but his main public appeal has been to endless remind voters of his history as a POW. On economics, he's repeatedly admitted that he knows very little. And on social issues, he doesn't even know what his own positions are. (See this hilarious report from last year.)

McCain is like Obama in that he's appealed to voters largely on the basis of broad themes and his personal charisma and history. The difference is that Obama is a former law professor who's actually done his homework on the policy, and McCain is still winging it.

Of course, this is St. McCain we're talking about, so rest assured he'll never be called on it.

Creeper of the Day

Tennessee State Senator Doug Henry, arguing that (sigh) rape just isn't what it used to be:

“Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse. Today it’s simply, ‘Let’s don’t go forward with this act.’ ”

Via Feministing, who got it from Ema.

Shall we debate whether his implicit claim that marital rape is impossible is more or less appalling than his implicit claim that raping a woman who isn't "chaste" is impossible? No, let's not.

UPDATE: Here's the YouTube of the speech. Right after the quoted part, Sen. Henry says something unintelligible that has variously been interpreted as "that isn't rape" or "that is rape." I can't make heads or tails of it myself.

We Can't Win. We Can't Leave.

Most shrewd military observers, writes William Arkin, now believe we cannot win in Iraq. Unfortunately, as David Brooks writes, a Democrat who actually tried to withdraw from Iraq would immediately sink his or her Presidency into a partisan mosh pit from which it might never emerged. But if that President decides to delay withdrawal, the left flank of the party will go ballistic.

While 2009 will be a welcome relief from the current presidency, lets not forget just how doomed we are.

Via Kevin Drum

Che Hillary

The Feministe gals have pictures of some of the shirts being sold at CPAC. For the most part, they're standard, uncreative affairs: Roe v. Wade equals the Holocaust, stop illegal immigration, people are poor because they're stupid and lazy. But one in particular caught my eye: the one comparing Hillary Clinton to Che Guevara.

Over the past few years, I've seen a concerted effort by American conservatives to push back against the image of Che as some hip, cool hero. Che, they argue, was a brutal thug, a wanna-be totalitarian who caused countless deaths [Interesting digression: my roommate, a Republican-turned-Marxist, has a big poster of Che in our room -- complete with a time line of his life. A friend of mine and I spent about 20 minutes looking it over, trying to find "oversaw the deaths of untold Cuban peasants in show trials." "Maybe it's under 'Minister of Labor'?"]. And of course, they're right.

But now they say Hillary = Che. Isn't this unbelievably demeaning to all the victims of Che's barbarism that they say they care oh-so-much about? These are the folks who have a seizure every time some jerk on a comment thread writes "Bushitler". But they're playing the same game, and at one of their largest and most prestigious conferences. It's disgusting.

RIP Tom Lantos

California Congressman, staunch protector of human rights, and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos has died.

Political Prognostication

Maybe I'm not the best at it (Louisiana is Hillary Country!), but you know whose thoughts I really don't care about? George W. Bush's!:

The president weighed in on the Democratic race, saying it "seems far from over to me." And he rejected criticism of former President Clinton's work on the campaign trail for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

"I can understand why President Clinton wants to campaign hard for his wife. And those accusations that Bill Clinton's a racist, I think is just wrong. I just don't agree with it."

As for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Bush said, "I certainly don't know what he believes in."

It ranges from inane (the race is far from over!) to meaningless (I didn't realize anybody said Bill Clinton's a racist. I do recall them saying he made a cheap-shot attack, which is not the same thing.) to smear (maybe Obama's thoughts are just on a higher plane than yours, chimpanzee boy).

Also, on McCain's travails with conservatives:

Asked about some leading conservative pundits who oppose McCain's nomination, Bush said, "I think that if John's the nominee, he's got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative. And I'd be glad to help him if he's the nominee."

I'm sure McCain can't wait for 26% to start stumping for him.

Why I Want To Go To Grad School

I want to be this TA.

Boxing Blogging: 2/08/08

The Ding-a-Ling Man was back in action on ESPN2 tonight against undefeated B.J. Flores, along with two journeyman schmoes nobody has heard of. We'll start with them.

Dhafir Smith (20-16-6, 4 KOs) UD8 Rayco Saunders 15-9-2 (7 KOs)

Not exactly the fight ESPN2 match-makers wanted to put up, no? Saunders was coming off a 14 month layoff and hadn't won a match since 2005. Dhafir Smith is the epitome of a journeyman, but he's someone I had heard of. Why? Because his name always seems to pop up when looking at the records of solid guys. Look at some of his losses: Andre Ward, Curtis Stevens, Max Alexander, Wayne Johnson, Henry Buchanan. Not elite guys, necessarily, but solid opposition. And it prepared him to do just a little bit more to beat Saunders. I won't belabor this one, because it's a meaningless fight. But Smith can win against fellow journeymen, and his record is slightly underinflated from all the fights he's taken against folks well above his level.

B.J. Flores (21-0-1, 13 KOs) UD12 Darnell Wilson (22-6-3, 19 KOs)

118-112? 118-112!?! What cocaine is that judge on? I will admit that my scoring (116-112 for Wilson) was possibly giving too much credit for Wilson's aggression, and there is one round, at least, which I gave to Wilson which I felt uncomfortable about (round seven). So really, I saw it 115-113 for the Takoma Park based Wilson. Teddy Atlas, too, had it 115-114 for Wilson, and I for one simply can't reward a fighter for simply running away. Boxing I can handle. If Flores had been throwing out the jab, and simply frustrating Wilson by utilizing range, that'd be one thing. But he didn't throw at all. He just backpedaled. Wilson landed more shots, and harder shots, and deserved to win, period. A 118 scorecard for Flores means that judge had him winning or even in all but two rounds. Given that Flores was being battered around the ring in at least two rounds (eight and twelve), that means that judge literally gave nothing else to Wilson, and that's absurd.

The thing is, Wilson, who was being totally ducked by all the top cruiserweights, shouldn't have had to take this fight to get a title shot in the first place. Four straight knockout wins over Daniel Judah, Dale Brown, Kelvin Davis, and Emmanuel Nwodo should have been more than enough. Wilson admitted that Flores had precisely the style to give him trouble. But because nobody was willing to give him the shot he deserved (and I'm not saying he would win a title fight, just that he deserved one), he had to take a fight that he really shouldn't have.

And let's be clear, this wasn't a sterling performance by Wilson. He did have trouble landing effective offense. Flores was much bigger, quicker, and longer than he was. Flores did make him miss -- often wildly -- and a top cruiserweight could make him pay for that. Wilson is in many ways one dimensional, and if he doesn't catch you, he's actually rather ordinary. All of this would have mattered if Flores was actually throwing punches. He wasn't. You can't win fights without throwing punches. Except apparently a USBA title.

This was an IBF Title Eliminator. That's Steve "U.S.S." Cunningham's belt, who was watching in studio. Cunningham will take Flores apart, and frankly, I hope he does. Flores may have won the fight, but he set himself way back in my eyes by fighting scared, by fighting ineffectively, and by coming away with a gift decision.

Oh, and what a sucky night for ESPN! One of their most watchable stars takes a loss, on a card where one fight was utterly meaningless and the other was a stinker. Network executives have nightmares over evenings like this.

Yuck.

Pre-Birthday Roundup

Again, I deeply apologize for the lack of substantive blogging. My birthday is on Monday, and I've decided that I will undoubtedly be rejected from some school that day for the simple reason that the universe can't resist that sort of irony. It's just too cute. But in the meantime, I plan to celebrate over the weekend as I prepare to turn 22 (21, incidentally, is my lucky number -- does this mean my luck's run out?).

Anyway, here's what's been attracting my browsing eye of late:

ZOMG, Sharia law! Conservative law professor Eugene Volokh dispels the panic.

Also at Volokh, Dave Kopel draws attention to a split amongst civil rights groups on the Heller case (constitutionality of D.C.'s handgun prohibition) before the Supreme Court. The NAACP defends the law and notes the rates of Black victimization in handgun death cases. But the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE, which I didn't even know still operated) instead takes note of the long tradition in America where gun control laws have been discriminatingly enforced in order to render Blacks vulnerable to political and social violence. The NAACP responds by saying that's a 14th amendment issue, not a second amendment issue, and should be resolved accordingly.

Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum talk about the mis-match between what the lefty blogosphere imagines the authentic Democratic view on foreign interventionism and what it actually is. Contra the assumption that any inclination towards interventionism is merely political cowardice, and not the expression of a genuine view, both Yglesias and Drum observe that Democrats occupy a whole spectrum of space on this issue, and many are genuinely conflicted. Drum is correct that the left-blogosphere has caused some genuine movement on this issue (which you can observe in yours truly), but I, too, still am not quite on-board with how far I "should" be on the issue.

Commenting on the liberal vs. progressive debate, Robert Farley notes that the latter makes life much easier for IR profs trying to convince their students that Foreign Policy "liberalism" has nothing to do with American-political "liberalism."

One of the all-time immigrant crazies is running for Congress in the PA-11.

One of my arch-conservative friends (he supported Thompson, then Romney) ruefully remarked on his switch to McCain, "you don't have to fall in love, you just have to fall in line." Republican Senators whose relationships with McCain have been iffy, at best, are taking the same advice. My friend, incidentally, is thinking of supporting Clinton over McCain in the general (this is the sort of guy who in years past referred to her as "the Hildebeast").

The latest Senate line is up at The Fix.

Phoebe Maltz critiques the latest "why aren't Jews bestest friends with Evangelicals?" article.

Stay classy, Coulter (and who on earth is fooled that she wasn't "officially" invited to CPAC? She's speaking there, they're responsible).

Bookstores are doomed. It's sad.

The Philippines has created an all-female police unit focusing on domestic abuse and violence against children. Probably a good idea, albeit some of the rhetoric floating around it is eyebrow raising.

Joss Whedon is a BAMF.

Finally, I'd like to welcome The Faculty Lounge to the blogosphere.

Obama's Unity

At the VC, Ilya Somin critiques Obama's reliance on "unity" rhetoric. But I think he misunderstands. Somin is correct that calls for unity can suppress the legitimate political differences that constitute democracy. But Obama's rhetoric, as I've heard it, is a reaction not against the existence of disunity but against the creation of it -- the Rovian politics that actively tries to divide the nation so that it's easier to mobilize your side to a victory against the "enemy."

Juxtaposed against this, I think Obama is right that we should remember our unity as fellow citizens, fellow Americans, neighbors, friends, and countrymen. As he put it in his famous DNC speech:

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

The line about "slice-and-dice" is indicative -- it's the creation of division that he objects to. Indeed, later on in the same passage he actively concedes political division and affirms the patriotism of both those who supported and those who opposed the Iraq war. So I think it's better to read Obama's unity rhetoric not as a political agenda, but as a critique of a particular political strategy that has been dominant in American politics for quite some time now.

No Waterboarding Investigation

Surprising nobody, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has announced that he will not open a probe into CIA waterboarding, despite conceding it was probably illegal. The stated reason is the Nuremberg Defense that it would "send a message that Justice Department opinions are subject to change.":

"Essentially it would tell people, 'You rely on a Justice Department opinion as part of a program, then you will be subject to criminal investigations ... if the tenure of the person who wrote the opinion changes or indeed the political winds change,'" he said. "And that's not something that I think would be appropriate and it's not something I will do."

Or it would, you know, send the message that just because President Bush says it's okay to torture, it's still not okay to torture. But whatever.

It infuriates me to no end that everyone is going to get away with this.

The Travails of Tommy Lasorda

"When we win, I'm so happy I eat a lot. When we lose, I'm so depressed, I eat a lot. When we're rained out, I'm so disappointed I eat a lot." -- Tommy Lasorda, former Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It also applies to blogging, in times of extreme bipolarity (as when admissions and scholarship decisions come flooding back).

If This Is a Crime, Then We're All Guilty

Out of Hagerstown, MD: Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks.

Ouch!

Libertarian Party sends funeral wreath to the GOP national headquarters, mourning the death of their small government principles with the upcoming nomination of John McCain.

Floridians are Morons

The Orlando Sentinel: "Confused Florida voters try to cast ballots in Super Tuesday primaries."

Florida, of course, voted last week in a primary that (for Democrats, at least) didn't actually count for anything.

Progress!

I've become more enamored of late of using "progressive" as a stand-in for "liberal", which has become quite the muddy name of late. But Matt Yglesias authors a dissenting opinion to that trend.

I have to say that, while the term "progressive" is meant at some level to evoke the 1920s political movement, I think the term transcends that, and it's a bit silly to try and link contemporary self-identified progressives, Jonah Goldberg-style, to their turn of the last century peers.

What's Left

A couple of thoughts as I continue to observe the results from the (Republican) Alaska caucus and the (Democratic) New Mexico primary.

1) The Republicans really are fragmented aren't they? Huckabee dominated the south. Romney owned the upper-midwest and rockies. And McCain took the border and blue states. McCain has claimed the front-runner mantle, and deservedly so, but there is a lot of fissure in the party, and it ain't going away soon.

2) Throughout the race, pundits have been way too quick to dismiss Mike Huckabee. They did it after his great display in the Iowa Straw Poll, they did it after he won Iowa outright. And he's again showing the pundits up with a good display tonight. Huckabee's wins in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia are hardly anything to sniff at. Moreover, he came within one percent of toppling John McCain in the treasure trove of Missouri. You have to think that, had there not been a steady drumbeat of "he's a nobody, he can't win", he could have pushed himself over the top in the Show Me state, and arguably have been the real winner of Super Tuesday.

3) Meanwhile, where Republicans are beset by regional divisions, Democrats are showing the breadth of their appeal. This isn't to say the neither has a base: Clinton runs very strong in the North East, and Obama rules the plains and rocky mountains. But Obama squeaked out a win in Connecticut, and Clinton took Tennessee and Oklahoma in what would apparently be Obama territory. Right now, they're dueling very close in Missouri and New Mexico. Both have strong appeal nation-wide, and that's good to see.

4) Matt Yglesias notes something in the California exit polls that's at least a little strange: Obama is going to lose that state while winning both Black and White voters. The problem is that Clinton is winning handily amongst Latinos and Asians. Only in California, perhaps, but as Matt says, "Time was winning whites and winning blacks was by definition the same thing as winning."

5) And finally, for those of you still paying attention, Mitt Romney is handily ahead in Alaska with 44% of the vote (75% caucus). Huckabee is second with 22%, followed closely by Ron Paul and then John McCain. Meanwhile, in New Mexico, less than 1,000 votes separates Obama and Clinton with 38% counted. Obama is carrying a narrow lead.

The Upshot

I don't think anyone could have foreseen that the Democratic race would remain this close after Super Tuesday. Even with MSNBC calling California for Clinton (with only 15% counted -- did we not learn something from Missouri?), it's difficult to say that anyone truly "won" the day.

Clinton, to be sure, won some big-ticket blue states tonight: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and probably California, plus Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. But even though it looks like he'll fall short of the grand prize of the Golden State, Obama appears likely to win the majority of states today: Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Utah, and probably Missouri and Alaska as well. Hardly a shabby haul.

For most the race, I argued that no movement was good movement for the front-runner Clinton. So long as the race dynamics didn't change, she comes out ahead. But tonight, that's been reversed, and my instinct is that Obama merely needed to keep steady in order to be well positioned down the line. After all, everyone agreed that the winds were changing in Obama's favor -- the only question was whether it was happening fast enough. If the race ended on Super Tuesday, it would end for Clinton. But it didn't end today, and now we need to look at what's next on the Democratic schedule these coming days.

Democrats have seven more primaries and caucuses in the immediate future (from February 9th - 12th), in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. From what we've seen today, I would strongly favor Obama in two: Nebraska and D.C.. Obama has thus far been dominant in the upper plains states, and D.C.'s overwhelmingly Black electorate should carry Obama there.

But what should be more disconcerting for Clinton is that none of the upcoming states match the profile of areas where she's run strongest. Her bread-and-butter tonight was old-school, Northeastern liberal locales (NY, NJ, MA). None of the states coming up meet that profile. Maryland might be the closest, and superficially shares a lot in common with Massachusetts, where Clinton did quite well. But analysts are saying that Clinton won Massachusetts due to a mix of old-fashion machine politics and the support of blue collar factory workers. Neither is a major player in Maryland, which both has a far more influential Black vote and whose White populace tends to be more along the lines of Obama favoring "Latte liberals" than gruff union men. Clinton does have the backing of many of the state's high profile Democrats -- but ask Obama how well that turned out for him in (you guessed it) Massachusetts.

Louisiana I'd favor Clinton in, although Obama's overall strength in the south gives me pause. But with Katrina still dispersing the state's African-American population to the four corners of the nation, and the fact that Louisiana seems to have kept more than the usual amount of conservative "bubba" Democrats inside the fold (who would likely favor Clinton), I think she stands a very good chance to win there.

I think Maine favors Obama, though I admit my only grounds for this are that a) it's a caucus, which Obama seems to do better in, and b) in terms of political outlook, the state seems most akin to Minnesota of the Super Tuesday states (it also bears an obvious resemblance to New Hampshire -- but they don't caucus). That wouldn't normally be enough for me to render a prediction, except that I think Obama blew everyone in this state away with his crushing victory in Paul Wellstone's old state. The flip-side of this is Washington state, where I favor Clinton for no stronger reason than Washington seems to be a nothing-special, comfortably blue state, and Clinton seems to do well in those environments where there isn't some sort of latent movement politics going on.

Which leaves Virginia. Even a few years ago, I'd have put Virginia as Clinton territory in the primaries, no question. A significant chunk of Virginia Democrats seem to be precisely her cup of tea. But Virginia Democrats are energized right now. And they are energized because they can feel their state changing. They've won the governor's mansion, twice in a row. They're about to take control of both U.S. Senate seats. They've done precisely through the type of progressive but cross-over friendly campaign tactics that have exemplified the Obama campaign. In short, Obama reminds Virginians of what they've been doing already in their own state. Popular governor Tim Kaine is firmly behind Obama, and he to many is a symbol of the new Democratic energy in Virginia. That could give him the edge.

So, if we are to take my predictions as anything more than what you paid for them (which you shouldn't), that would give Obama a five to two state edge in the next set of primaries (D.C., Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, and Virginia versus Louisiana and Washington). That would definitely shift the momentum firmly in his favor. And with the wind at his back, Obama may just sail to the nomination.

Minnesota Caucus

I just got back from my first time caucusing. The site for Democrats was at the local Middle School. A few random thoughts:

1) Caucuses are dumb. They're inconvenient, they're chaotic, and they're confusing. Real states just vote.

2) The place was swamped. The line for Carleton's precinct alone was of Soviet breadline proportions, but even overall turnout was incredible. Obama seemed to be the main beneficiary.

3) Minnesota has this weird thing where you can vote for President without staying for the actual "caucus" part (which you need to do to select candidates for any other race). Since I dislike both major Senate candidates and don't really care about the local races, I skipped out. But I'm not sure how, if at all, my vote (hand-written on a blue slip of paper put into a box) counts. My girlfriend thinks maybe it goes towards superdelegates? Or perhaps its just moral suasion because the "winner" in announced. Anyway, apparently the delegates selected at the caucus hold the real power.

4) Traffic jam meant a 3 minute ride to the caucus site took 40 minutes. Great news for democracy, less so for my blood pressure. Also, how to pass time in line at the site? Professor spotting! I bagged three (not including the one who was coordinating at the front of the line).

5) There were many "Obama '08" signs. I read them in my head as "Obamanate", which I think makes a great verb ("We're going to Obamanate this caucus!"). My girlfriend extended it to "Obamanation", until we decided it's too close to abomination.

Everybody Hates Romney

A quick follow up on my prior post on Huckabee's WV primary. My friend Jim thinks that Huckabee supporters flock to McCain because they draw from Reagan Democrats who are socially conservative and fiscal liberals. I think that's plausible, though I also thought they'd be more inclined to support Romney because of McCain's perceived apostasy on social conservatism.

But the other alternative that's been bubbling up is that Mitt Romney is really, really loathed by a big chunk of Republican voters. He just rubs folks the wrong way. And even if they don't trust McCain, their hatred of Romney burns hot and true.

It Could Be!

Eugene Volokh makes two points off of this picture. First, if you look at the interior of the venue, it looks like the couple got married in Hell. True. Second, he says that he likes the "non-traditional" wedding dress of the bride, but notes that they're generally worn by folks on their second or subsequent marriage.

Inexplicably, he doesn't connect these two points. Who arrives at your wedding when you engage in sinful behavior like divorce? Could it be....Satan? Apparently!

Super Tuesday Begins!

Sorry for the lack of posting. Carleton's mid-winter break (and mid-winter ball!) was this weekend, so as far as I'm concerned Monday was an extension of the weekend. Meanwhile, some exciting (but distracting) news kept me occupied. Long story short, I was gone, but now I'm back (at least until I leave to caucus in Minnesota for Obama).

In the first results of the day, Mike Huckabee pulled out a win in West Virginia as John McCain supporters broke away to vote for the Arkansas governor. It's possible they were voting strategically to deprive their biggest rival a primary win, but this USA Today article (via friend of the blogger Jim Kiner) notes that there actually is a surprising amount of overlap between McCain and Huckabee voters already.

Slurring Words

I really shouldn't be surprised or upset by this, but I am. In the wake of my last post pointing out that in no way, shape, or form is Samantha Power a disciple of the Walt/Mearshimer thesis, Paul Mirengoff at Powerline has decided instead to double-down on the argument -- claiming that she "actually goes even further than Walt and Mearsheimer" and taking portions of this interview wildly out of context to assert she's making "some sort of modern blood libel." We already had an email conversation in which I explained why the spin he's putting on this interview is completely bogus, but Mr. Mirengoff apparently prefers to play shock jock.

This was a slimy, disgusting political hit job that showed reckless disregard for truth or decency. I had hoped that he'd show me a bit more respect than this, but the desire to smear Obama and his advisers trumps all.

I'll be keeping that in mind.

Dueling Assholes

The Berkeley City Council versus Senator Jim DeMint. Maybe if they distract each other sufficiently, they won't do anything else that requires my attention.

Svalbard Prepares to Strike

Via Duck of Minerva, it appears that Svalbard's plans for world annihilation are continuing unabated. Duck has been monitoring the Svalbard threat for some time now, but thus far it has fallen on deaf ears.

Hurray!

Mike Huckabee after being heckled by Code Pink protesters:

"The beauty of America is that a person can come and even make a disruption, and you know what, that person is not going to be taken out and shot."

Yes, I suppose that's a good thing (but how will the base react to him going soft on Code Pink?).

MN-Senate Poll

My dad will be thrilled to see these numbers:

Democratic Primary (MoE 4.5%)

Franken 42
Ciresi 18

General Election Matchups

Coleman (R) 40
Franken (D) 43.2

Coleman (R) 43
Ciresi (D) 38

Full results here.

My dad hates Norm Coleman. But, being a former attorney at his law firm, he loathes Mike Ciresi.

And as for me (I'm voting in the MN caucus)? Well, familial loyalty prevents me voting Ciresi (as do his pro-life attitudes). I wouldn't have a problem with Franken, except he was a complete and utter asshole to a friend of mine while at a Carleton rally earlier this year, for no good reason (this has turned many folks at Carleton -- who should be firmly in Franken's camp -- hardcore against him). Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is an option, except I like for my vote to count.

Tough call.

California Dreaming

Where is Obama in California? Well, he just picked up the endorsement of the LA Times. And also that of the California SEIU, which previously had been backing John Edwards. Plus a lot the structural aspects of the primary cut in his favor. Except that a good chunk of California's electorate has already voted absentee, before Obama's surge began. But then, those voters -- demographically speaking -- are solidly Clinton people no matter what Obama does.

It'll be exciting, no doubt about that.

The Spaniard

Matt Yglesias reports that the new hip insult amongst conservatives for John McCain is "Juan McCain." Because apparently McCain isn't sufficiently committed to hating on Latinos or something.

Can we please stop the fiction that there isn't a significant anti-Hispanic sentiment motivating the broad anti-immigration coalition?*

* I'll accept that there are some folks who are anti-immigrant who really have no objection to Hispanics, in the same way that I'll accept that Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act was motivated by federalism. True, but it's hardly descriptive of the controlling element of the debate.

The Spaniard

Matt Yglesias reports that the new hip insult amongst conservatives for John McCain is "Juan McCain." Because apparently McCain isn't sufficiently committed to hating on Latinos or something.

Can we please stop the fiction that there isn't a significant anti-Hispanic sentiment motivating the broad anti-immigration coalition?*

* I'll accept that there are some folks who are anti-immigrant who really have no objection to Hispanics, in the same way that I'll accept that Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act was motivated by federalism. True, but it's hardly descriptive of the controlling element of the debate.

Variety is Nice

I just got admitted to my first Ph.D program (in political science). No details for you (email me if you want them), but it is a school which has also admitted me to its law program.

Philosophical Quote of the Day: Internal and External Goods

It's from Drucilla Cornell, but she's discussing the work of Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue. I'm copying it because I find interesting the discussion of "internal" and "external goods" as delineations between a particular action and the social context outside of it:

He [MacIntyre] explains the concept of "goods internal to" a practice by the example of teaching a child to play chess. Initially, he suggests, the child might learn to play only if given, say, money or a piece of candy, which would represent for MacIntyre goods external to the practice of playing this game. In time, however, the child may learn to play for the goods internal to the game -- for example, the achievement of a particular "analytical skill, strategic imagination and competitive intensity." It is only when the child plays the game with these internal goods in mind that she can be truly said to be engaging in a practice. Unlike the money or candy, these internal goods are not particular to the individual; they are for the good of the entire community of practitioners. By having them as a goal the individual practitioner can indeed benefit the others: the child in MacIntyre's example may discover a new chess move that will enhance the game's practice.

As MacIntyre's definition of a practice indicates, there are rules and standards of excellence for a practice that constitute the practice itself. When an initiate enters a particular practice, she must learn the rules and accept the authority of the definitive standards lest she be said not to be engaged in the practice at all. Here MacIntyre stresses the social aspect of the practice: the child cannot obey certain rules and pay attention to a few standards and still be said to play the "complex form of socially established cooperative activity" called chess. Like [*317] the practice's goods, however, its standards and rules are not immutable; they have changed in the history of the practice and are subject to the practitioners' criticism. MacIntyre suggests -- and this seems to be the final point in his definition -- that by pursuing the practice's present goods according to its authoritative standards of excellence and rules, the practitioner might arrive at new conceptions of these goods, standards, and rules.

Drucilla Cornell, Toward a Modern/Postmodern Reconstruction of Ethics, 133 U. PA. L. REV. 291, 316-17 (1985).

I'm not sure I agree with MacIntyre entirely on this (MacIntyre's next step is to say this reunites fact and value by defining virtue through the internal goods of a practice, but Cornell points out several serious problems with this formulation), but it's certainly interesting.

The Clintons as Mosiac Figures

Matt Yglesias links to a Harold Meyerson editorial arguing that, while Bill Clinton was an extraordinarily important figure for the resurrection of the Democratic Party, in order to take that next step we need to leave him and his family behind. He uses the Biblical metaphor of the Exodus -- Jews had to wander in the desert for forty years so those with the slave mentality would die out, and a new generation -- born in freedom -- could take command. Ultimately, Moses himself, the leader responsible for Jewish liberation, dies just short of reaching the Promised Land.

Yglesias comments:

It's hard to imagine more thankless tasks than organizing for George McGovern in Texas or bearing the torch of progressive politics in late-1970s and early-1980s Arkansas. And of course Bill Clinton really did take the lessons learned from winning in that inhospitable territory and put the Democratic Party back in the White House. From that vantage point, he governed well and proved to a country that had come to doubt it that Democrats could be trusted to run the federal government. But is 2008 the hour of Mark Penn? I don't see it.

Even as an Obama supporter, this makes me very sad. Moses, of course, is a tragic figure. And, given the debt we owe Bill Clinton, it seems churlish to toss him aside as we finally reap the benefits he did so much to sow. It's hard to remember now (especially for folks of my generation, who grew up in the Clinton era), but prior to his election the Democratic Party was seen as dead in the water. Even as late as 1992, cartoonists were making jokes about how it'd be easier to run as a Communist and win than as a Democrat. Clinton got us out of the wilderness and resurrected the party brand.

No matter who wins the Democratic nomination, he is owed a great debt of gratitude for that. And no matter who wins the Democratic nomination, both he and his wife deserve a place of honor in the Democratic pantheon -- historically and in the future.

It's Got To Be The Test

Neat historical tidbit from the G-Bitch, citing "The Gendered Society" by Michael S. Kimmel:

Test scores were no better as indicators. At the turn of the century, women were found to be scoring higher on comprehensive examinations at New York University. Since scientists “knew” that women were not as smart as men, some other explanation had to be sought. “After all, men are more intelligent than women, examination papers or no examination papers,” commented the dean of the college, R. Turner. “Women have better memories and study harder, that’s all. In tasks requiring patience and industry, women win out. But when a man is both patient and industrious, he beats a woman any day.” (It is interesting to see that women’s drive, ambition, and industriousness are used against them, rather than labeling the problem as men’s impulsiveness, impatience, and laziness). In the 1920s, when IQ tests were first invented, women scored higher on those tests as well. So the experimenters changed the questions. (31)

And the footnote to that:

Turner is cited in “South Side Observer, 29 April 1896; C.A. Dwyer, “The Role of Tests and Their Construction in Producing Apparently Sex-Related Differences,” in “Sex-Related Differences in Cognitive Functioning,” M. Wittig and A. Peterson, eds. (New York: Academic Press, 1979), p. 342.

Via Feminist Law Profs, who write that "Just Because You Are A Paranoid Feminist Doesn’t Mean The Sexists Aren’t Out To Get You." Heh.

That being said, my LSAT scores, of course, are unimpeachably accurate indicators of my legal intelligence.

UPDATE: G-Bitch wants you to know that the true props should go to Ceejay, who was the original source for the quote.

"Almost Certainly"

From the end of an overall weak Forward editorial on Barack Obama:

Is Barack Obama a Muslim? Almost certainly not. Was he ever a Muslim? Almost certainly yes.

Barack Obama is "almost certainly" not a Muslim? No, he's not a Muslim, period. This isn't controversial.

Was he ever a Muslim? Again, no, he wasn't, unless we define it by birthright, in which case it switches from being utterly false to meaningless. Almost certainly, at no point did Barack Obama consciously identify as being Muslim (and if showing up in temple a few times is enough to make you part of a religion, anyone who ever grew up in Bethesda is Jewish through Bar Mitzvah ceremonies alone).

Guess Who's Back?

With John Edwards' withdrawal today, progressives today ran a serious risk of having to vote for a non-White male. Fortunately, Ralph Nader appears ready to step in and save us from that eventuality. Nader specifically cited the absence of two other White men formerly in the race -- Edwards and pixie-stick Dennis Kucinich -- as motivating his exploration of yet another bid.

Quote of the Evening: Rights Talk

From the ever-brilliant Martha Minow:

"Rights" can give rise to "rights consciousness" so that individuals and groups may imagine and act in light of rights that have not been formally recognized or enforced. Rights, in this sense, are neither limited to nor-coextensive with precisely those rules formally announced and enforced by public authorities. Instead, rights represent articulations -- public or private, formal or informal -- of claims that people use to persuade others (and themselves) about how they should be treated and about what they should be granted. I mean, then, to include within the ambit of rights discourse all efforts to claim new rights, to resist and alter official state action that fails to acknowledge such rights, and to construct communities apart from the state to nurture new conceptions of rights. Rights here encompass even those claims that lose, or have lost in the past, if they continue to represent claims that muster people's hopes and articulate their continuing efforts to persuade.

Martha Minow, Interpreting Rights: An Essay for Robert Cover, Yale Law Journal 96 (1987): 1860-1915, 1867.

UPDATE: I should clarify that this is not the rights conception "from the left" -- it is part of the conception by Minow, and presumably some fellow travelers (which, in turn, includes me to some extent) -- most of whom, I admit, are "from the left" to greater or lesser degrees. We are, alas, not all that powerful people -- certainly, we are not the shadowy cabal that controls "the left" and dictates its opinions.

Is Samantha Power a Closet Walt & Mearsheimer Disciple?

It doesn't make sense to me, but at the end of this post Paul Mirengoff asserts that Obama adviser and foreign policy guru Samantha Power "subscribe[s] to the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis that that the U.S.-Israel relationship is the product of Jewish power politics, rather than strategic interest."

He's not the only one saying this. Here's The American Thinker making a similar claim, as well as Anti-Liberal Zone.

Noah Pollak appears to be the source, linking to this May 2007 interview with Professor Power. I've bolded the part they think is important, but I include the entire question for context:

Q. Though some analysts see U.S. foreign policy woes as a recent phenomenon, you argue that recent foreign policy missteps by current U.S. leaders have exposed and exacerbated long-standing structural and conceptual problems in U.S. foreign policy. Please explain.

Power: It is tempting to see Iraq as the source of all our woes now, whereas I see Iraq as the symptom, in some measure, of a number of longstanding trends and defects in American foreign policy.

One example is the US historic predisposition to go it alone. Because we have long undervalued what international institutions have to offer, we believed that we could go into Iraq, and as soon as we declared the mission accomplished, we expected to be able to turn the problem over to others, regardless of how they had been treated in the run up to the invasion. This thinking is very flawed, but not all that new. In a uni-polar world, the Clinton Administration was able to get away with an instrumental relationship with international institutions, but that is harder with the rise of new powers who are willing to challenge the United States in international bodies. It is also harder now that the Iraq war itself has exposed so many US weaknesses.

In addition, we long saw international authorization as a luxury, something good for global public opinion, but not very relevant to US national security. But what we have seen, by revealing our indifference to international legitimacy both in the Iraq war and in the practices carried out in our counter-terrorism efforts – the disavowal of the Geneva conventions, prisoner abuse, extraordinary rendition, etc. – is that being seen to thumb our nose at international law actually has profound security ramifications, as more and more people seek to take up arms against U.S. citizens and interests.

Another longstanding foreign policy flaw is the degree to which special interests dictate the way in which the “national interest” as a whole is defined and pursued. Look at the degree to which Halliburton and several of the private security and contracting firms invested in the 2004 political campaigns and received very lucrative contracts in the aftermath of the U.S. takeover of Iraq. Also, America’s important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive.

So greater regard for international institutions along with less automatic deference to special interests – especially when it comes to matters of life and death and war and peace – seem to be two take-aways from the war in Iraq.

This is not the W&M hypothesis. At worst, it's a very diluted form of their thesis, in that it argues that sometimes the US listens to pro-Israel special interests, and that sometimes leads to bad results. This, she says, is emblematic of a broader, systemic flaw in how the US conducts foreign policy -- we let special interests construct what the "national interest" is and it leads us away from where we ought to go (Contra Pollak, it is not arguing in any way that Israel was responsible for America's war in Iraq).

W&M, of course, argue that US foreign policy in the area is controlled by the "Israel Lobby", and more importantly, that this is a unique exception to the way foreign policy decision-making operates. Far from being emblematic of anything, the Israel Lobby, from W&M's Realist stance, represents a dangerous exception to the Laws of the International System, which dictate that nation's have fixed and concrete security interests and always pursue them. This exceptional quality is the key reason why W&M's thesis is so offensive -- it's essentially an argument about Jewish hyperpower. But that makes it qualitatively different from persons (like Power) who believe that many factors beyond bare security interests influence how foreign policy operates, and observes that special interests advocating for Israel are one of them.

It is, of course, possible that Power has written something more directly on point that affirms W&M's hypothesis. But I highly doubt it, seeing as they come from drastically different schools of thought on international relations. W&M's thesis operates from a premise that Power doesn't share -- namely, that domestic, moral, or transnational forces never exert meaningful influence on foreign policy. Power appears to believe the opposite -- that these factors are extremely important influences on foreign policy decision-making (for good and for ill).

UPDATE: I sent Paul an email and asked for clarification. He responded with another Power quote, that her version of a sound mid-east policy would require "'alienating a domestic constituency.' That's close enough to the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis for me."

Not only is that not even close to the W&M thesis, it borders on being a truism. Americans (including Jewish Americans) have differences on what we want our mid-east policy to be. For example, I suspect Paul and I differ significantly. One of us is going to be alienated by whatever proposal ends up being adopted. If it's now controversial to point that out, we've got a serious problem on our hands.

Of course, to reiterate again, Walt & Mearsheimer's thesis is not about who opposes their ideal vision of mid-east policy. It's about their perception that the Israel Lobby possesses extreme control over US foreign policy that leads us to do things their predictive model says shouldn't happen. When we collapse every policy that deviates from the Commentary Magazine line as "subscribing to the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis", we're exploding their argument way beyond its actual scope.

Sebelius' Big Moment

Everyone who saw her seems to agree:

1) The speech was pretty weak,

2) It's really hard to deliver an effective SOTU rebuttal,

3) We should give her a chance in other, less stacked contexts.

I particularly agree with Kevin Drum: She was trying to sound like Barack Obama, and failing miserably at it.

Maryland Push

A blogger at Pam's House Blend has the scoop on the recently introduced bill in my home state to legalize same sex marriage. Counting the number of sponsors, The Baltimore Sun calls its prospects for passage "uncertain." One problem is that, despite Maryland's liberal tint, the leadership is lukewarm to the bill at best. "Gov. Martin O'Malley and House Speaker Michael E. Busch have said that they prefer civil unions. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions." Moreover, especially up in Baltimore, the Catholic church is very influential among liberal legislators, which complicates efforts significantly.

But that doesn't mean the bill is doomed. For one, any state that has the type of legislative skew Maryland has towards Democrats is reasonably favorable terrain. For two, Maryland voters are far more open to gay marriage than those of most states. 44% favor changing the law to allow gay marriage, while 51% oppose a change. Importantly, 59% of White Marylanders are in favor of the change. This matters because Black Democrats in the legislature are probably at least somewhat to the left of their constituents on this issue. That doesn't mean they're guaranteed allies, but it does mean they're probably persuadable. Finally, even though he opposes both gay marriage and civil unions, Senator Miller at least has apparently promised not to whip his caucus on this issue, making it far easier for pro-equality forces than if the leadership was proactively working against them.

Ultimately, this is a tough fight, but a fight we can win. Maryland stands on the cusp of becoming the first state to legalize gay marriage without any judicial prompting whatsoever. It would be a proud day for my state, and I hope that we see it soon.

The Pieces Fall into Place

After delivering the State of the Union response, Kansas Governor and Democratic rising star Kathleen Sebelius will endorse Barack Obama for President.

It's part of an overall good swing of endorsements for Obama, including Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), the highest ranking Latino House member. The latter is particularly significant because Obama has shown some weakness among the Latino vote.

But Sebelius is not just a particularly talented Democratic governor, or even another notch in a flurry of recent Obama endorsements. She's a red-state governor, and more importantly, a red-state governor with a knack for flipping Republicans to the Democratic Party. She fits exceptionally well with Obama's post-partisan campaign style, and would make a stellar Vice Presidential pick. With this endorsement, that chatter will only get louder.

Two Random Thoughts About Obama

I have two thoughts to share after Barack Obama's historic win in South Carolina.

1) One of my Republican friends here at Carleton (I write that as if there are more than a half-dozen active Republicans on this campus) has admitted he is "terrified" of Obama, who he describes as the "Democratic Reagan." Someone who can articulate the Democratic agenda clearly and eloquently and bring people over from all sides. Dave Kopel said his victory speech "sounded like a President," and even the National Review's K-Lo was so mesmerized by it that she momentarily forgot that there were actual issues in this election and that she disagreed with Obama on every one of them.

2) Though I absolutely, positively adore Obama, and think he's a wonderful speaker, there is a nit I really need to pick during his oratory. He has this facial expression that he falls back on all the time. I call it his "stare of destiny." After a bit of soaring oratory, during the roaring applause, he looks a bit upwards and off to the side, staring intently with vision out into the distance. It's the Barack Obama equivalent of Magnum. He does it compulsively, and it's actually beginning to scare me. If he could find some new expressions to mix in with that one, I'd be very happy.

Quote of the Evening

No immediate link to anything currently in the news, though it does remind me of my Dartmouth L.J. paper. I just wanted to save it for later:

The question of how Jews would fit in when cultural and linguistic identity became the basis of citizenship, and the Volksgeist was embodied in a Volksstaat, could be answered in only one of two ways. Either the Jews had to surrender their Jewishness and become good Germans or there would be no place for them. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, a liberal assimilationist perspective was ascendant in German thought, but beneath it lurked a deep intolerance of the Jew who remained distinctive. In 1793, the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who professed to be advocating that Jews be given "human rights," put the choice before them in starkly brutal terms: "As for giving them [the Jews] civil rights, I see no remedy [*72] but that their heads should be cut off in one night and replaced with others not containing a single Jewish idea."

George M. Fredrickson, Racism: An Introduction (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002), 71-72.

Similar sentiments were expressed in France during this time period. And, of course, this theory of enlightenment universalism is the guiding force behind much of modern Western philosophy in America and Europe -- including the "color-blind" theory of race relations and the doctrine of strict separation between Church and State.

Notice how obliterating Jewish distinctiveness was cast as being in accordance with securing human rights -- Jews literally had to be destroyed in order to be saved. The evident Christian overtones accentuate the fact that this "liberal" revolution was hardly the break from the past that it used to be -- it merely found new language to express its fear of Jewish difference and its desire for Jews to disappear. Given that the "universal" personhood Jews were expected to assimilate into was based on a Christian norm, even the desire for conversion is barely affected. All that changed was the removal of the few protections Jews had when their oppression was strictly theological: at least some Christians theologians had some need for some living Jews -- the model expressed here explicitly wanted all Jews to disappear and pointedly chose a very violent metaphor to bring across its point.

It's no wonder that many post-Holocaust theorists consider the Shoah to be the bastard child of the Enlightenment.

Weekend Roundup

Dana Goldstein: Andrew Sullivan does not determine what constitutes feminist.

Though I'm sure some of my fellow progressives might consider me part of the problem here, I too have wondered why right-wing views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are automatically labeled "pro-Israel".

Reading conservative blogs, I can never tell if, as someone who strives to hold "responsible" foreign policy views, I'm supposed to support democracy abroad or not. Here Powerline attacks Barack Obama for being too close to Kenya's opposition during the recent election dispute in the East African nation. There's a lot of talk about how the current government is an "ally on the war on terror." There is very little about whether it, you know, actually won the election under dispute.

Here's a phrase I hate to see in print: "U.S.-style torture". It's from the Asia Times, and its describing American complicity in Thai torture techniques.

TPM has a good post on Hillary Clinton's mid-game push to allow delegates from Michigan and Florida into the Democratic National Convention (after they were excluded for hosting their primary too early), but Matt Yglesias wins for titling his post "Calvinball."

With the drop out of Fred Thompson from the GOP race, Orin Kerr announces he's now backing John McCain. Fellow VCer Dale Carpenter follows suit.

PG has far more patience dealing with folks who try to minimize the wrongfulness of Japanese internment than I do.

Michael J. Klarman, author of From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, is moving from UVA to Harvard Law School. As someone who is considering UVA law school, who else working on race relations is currently there? I know Alex Johnson just returned from Minnesota -- anyone else?

Today, the FRC cheers California for giving cancer patients the choice between losing their job or agonizing pain. Because not giving an inch in the war on marijuana is worth sacrificing our humanity for. On the other hand, they give updates on gay marriage maneuvers in four states, and only in Maryland are the anti-marriage equality forces firmly on the defensive. Go Maryland! I cannot express how proud I will be if my state is the first to ratify gay marriage solely through democratic procedures.

Finally, be sure to congratulate Rachel, who is pregnant with twins!

It's All So Clear Now

Hugo Chavez cops to drug use. Bwahaha.

Brownback Come Back

In the form of a McCain administration:

On the issue of appointments to the Supreme Court, McCain mentioned that Sam Brownback would play an advisory role in helping decide who he should nominate for the Supreme Court. As models of who he would select, John McCain pointed to Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia. Pro-life advocates see the choice of Supreme Court Justices as key to overturning the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.

Via Bean. More right flank protection from the media darling -- but will anybody call him out on naked pandering?

Look, I'm not as hostile to Brownback as many folks are. I once described him as "Genuinely Crazy" -- yes, he's crazy, but he's also quite genuine, and sometimes it leads to good things, like human rights work in North Korea, or supporting a resolution apologizing for slavery. But if there is one area he should be kept far, far way from, it's the judiciary.

And Another One Down....

Rep. Jim Walsh (R-NY) is out, challenger Dan Maffei is likely in, and as Matt Yglesias notes, the NY-25 is not only a district we can win, it's a district we can hold with a progressive Democratic.

Another moderate Republican retirement. The GOP is on the verge of being reduced to a rump party with a hyper-conservative base that can only win in a quarter of the country. And though this is really just part of the overall realignment that's putting Democrats in control of the Northeast, we're the party that's expanding elsewhere -- making inroads in the south (Virginia, Kentucky) and mountain west (Colorado, Montana).

The Obama Future

Ross Douthat takes a look in the crystal ball and lays out the scenarios if Obama loses the Democratic Primary. Short story: he's still got a very bright future -- so long as he doesn't accept a VP slot in the Clinton administration (I'm not sure I agree with that, actually, but it's good to know that this isn't a one-and-done scenario for such a bright star).

Stone Cold Misogyny

Early this month, I remarked on how the blind, seething hatred held by the right against Hillary Clinton was one of the main forces pushing me into her camp. I don't want people to think that they can engage in this cesspool of toxicity and still win elections. And the best thing that could be done to accomplish that goal would be to stuff a Hillary Clinton presidency straight down their misogynist, Neanderthal throats.

When I first saw this, I just assumed it was another juvenile, hateful antic from some random mid-twenties Hillary-basher trying to prove his masculinity and failing dramatically:



Charming, isn't it?

But it turns out that this not the work of some random dude. Rather, it's a project of Roger Stone, a top Republican operative and one of the doyens of modern smear campaigning. In addition to being a Watergate conspirator, Stone has plenty of links to the modern party: he worked on Reagan's presidential campaigns, Dole's presidential campaign, even Arlen Specter's aborted presidential campaign, and was enlisted by James Baker to start street riots to shutdown the Florida recount in 2000.

Stone isn't connected to any campaign (or if he is, they've got some 'splainin to do real fast). But he is a critical component of the Republican Party apparatus. The hatred of Hillary Clinton is not just the work of some Limbaugh-listening hicks in trailers. It is institutionalized by the modern GOP. They buy into it as a party.

But this year, finally, folks are starting to push back. Folks are saying they're tired of this sort of treatment, and they're rising up it against it. So keep it up, Stone. you'll demean her right into the White House.

Tax Cut Druggies

Commenting on the upcoming stimulus package, the keen economic minds at Powerline inquire:

Along with election-year cash, the plan will include some tax breaks for businesses that are intended to stimulate investment. These are probably a good idea. I wonder, though: if more money in the hands of taxpayers and lighter tax burdens on businesses are now urgently needed to rally a slumping economy, why wouldn't it be a good idea to have lower tax burdens all the time?

I know just how they feel. When I urgently need painkillers because my body's in trouble, my doctor prescribes morphine. But then I wonder, why wouldn't it be a good idea to be strung-out on opiates all the time?

Seriously, they've got to be joking with this logic. The point of a stimulus package is to provide a temporary boost to the economy. It's not designed to increase economic growth permanently, and if it's built into the system, the economy would adjust around it (with unpredictable results) and the next time it slumped, which it will, we'd need to lower taxes again (at which point Powerline would wonder why not make it permanent again, until our tax rate was a flat 1% and the government was so weak we could be overrun by a squad of Haitian bellhops). Drug addicts know that you can rather quickly adapt to any level of stimulant -- for it to have any effect, you need to keep increasing the dosage.

On the other hand, even if Powerline's correct, a permanent working stimulus would not be a good thing either. Again, the point of a stimulus package is to provide a temporary boost in economic activity to get folks through tough times. You don't want that supercharger running when thing are good, else the economy get, well, over-stimulated (and we all know what happens then). Controlled growth is the key -- ask the Hoover administration what happens when things go too fast.

Al Gore Comes Out in Favor of Gay Marriage

TNR's Dayo Olopade says he agrees with the position, but asks "Why would such an eminent Democratic voice--and potential tiebreaker--spend his time plowing a wedge issue into the race?"

Possibly because it's the right position to take? One of the perks about being a non-politician is that you don't have to refract all your opinions based on how they play in Michigan.

PS: Also, Al Gore has a really goofy voice.

Two Models of Diversity

The comments in this post have inspired me to flesh out my thoughts on diversity more fully. In that post and elsewhere, I've been called out by Mark Olson for only supporting particular kinds of "diversity", and choosing those kinds due particular political commitments I hold. This post concedes both points. However, it argues why that is not only not a bad thing, but likely unavoidable, and in doing so expands on the concept of "salient diversity" I alluded to in the comments.

I. Pure Diversity

Even as an abstract matter, diversity is beneficial, if only from the generic observation of a liberal education that it is good to be exposed to a wide variety of things. It is good that I have at least some background in music, biology, and economics (among other disciplines), even though I don't plan on directly utilizing any of them in my career, because they broaden my mental horizons, enable me to more fully communicate with people for whom these areas are important, and expose me to new manners of manipulating and expressing myself in the world that I may (unexpectedly, perhaps) find useful or fruitful. The same thing can be said about meeting different types of people, who also can broaden my horizons, improve my ability to relate with other people unlike myself, and give me new and useful perspectives on important issues.

I associate these benefits with "pure" diversity because they accrue regardless of how, exactly, the two parties are different from each other or from their normal experiences. That is to say, interacting with someone who seems genuinely and materially different from myself helps my ability to relate and communicate with all of those who seem significantly unlike myself, regardless of whether that someone's difference is that of race, nationality, occupation, class, or anything else. The only operating factor is the fact of difference, not the specificity of what that difference is.

This matters because it establishes that at least some of the benefits of diversity still occur even though it is obviously impossible for anyone to encounter every sort of person or all types of difference. Even though I can't take every class here and there are whole departments which I have never set foot in, I've benefited from Carleton's liberal education in the aforementioned ways, because I've taken some different courses and some areas of study beyond that which I'd normally be inclined. So long as diversity is pursued in some form, the people will reap the benefits, even though necessarily only some types of diversity will be represented in anyone's experience. However, this does not mean that particular kinds of diversity don't bring their own, unique benefits. They do, and this is something I will explore in the next section.

II. Two Models of Diversity

The act of pursuing diversity necessarily requires the pursuing actor to make decisions over what type of diversity they want. Since it is impossible to represent every sort of difference, these decisions always contain a normative component -- some differences will be privileged, others, subordinated. There are, I think, two broad models one could use as guidelines for diversity pursuit: The "distance" model, and the "relational" model.

A. The Distance Model

The distance model of diversity takes as its starting point the idea that our differences are measurable, and hence some people are fundamentally more different (more diverse) than others. Since we're viewing diversity as a positive good, then, the goal should be to incorporate into the system or institution the most different people possible, and the model looks for those whose experiences or life position are most "distant" from our own.

The distance model first requires is to construct a measuring point -- a norm from which we measure difference and distance. So, a college might start with who it imagines to be its paradigmatic student, Jane: White (Caucasian), American, female, upper-middle class, Christian, able-bodied, moderately-liberal heterosexual. It would then actively pursue students who were as distant from this image as possible. A White American upper-middle class heterosexual male moderate conservative would be a little different. A poor lesbian Latina Marxist would be far more different. A poor disabled gay nationalist Rwandan who has traditional "pagan" beliefs, of course, trumps all.

There is obviously some appeal to this. In terms of the benefits of pure diversity, it is likely that Jane would benefit more from the Rwandan prospective student than either the Latina Marxist or the male moderate conservative. Moreover, the distance model seems to carry with it the benefit of objectivity. We're looking for diversity. The Rwandan is clearly the most diverse. Hence, he should be admitted.

But as it turns out, the model is deeply flawed. For starters, there is a big problem is with creating the "paradigmatic student" at all. The establishment of certain students as "normal" (with the concurrent implication that others are, to varying degrees, "deviant") is inherently problematic, with unavoidable messages of privilege and subordination. If Jane is the norm, does that mean the college should structure its educational mission around her? The distance model's answer is clearly yes: we're looking for the "most distant" person as it relates to Jane, a yardstick which might not hold true for other students. If the college admitted the Latina Marxist, neither Jane nor the Rwandan would be "most different" for her -- that position would seem more likely to be occupied by, perhaps, a wealthy libertarian straight Asian male. By establishing one type of student as the norm, the college ends up objectifying all the others, who are perceived solely as tools for the educational benefit of a few.

Furthermore, upon closer examination, the supposed objectivity of the model is questionable as well. Obviously, the college has to choose certain attributes to be calculated as part of what makes one "diverse." But not every attribute can be chosen -- favorite color, height, body type, and non-academic interests, for example, were not directly included on my original list. The choice to include certain characteristics but exclude others is both subjective and political. And even if one could settle upon an agreed upon list of salient characteristics, that would represent only marginal progress, for two reasons:

(1) It doesn't account for what Stentor aptly calls non-Pareto cases. In the above example, each person listed was indisputably more "different" than the one before -- I held the other variables constant. But outside perhaps the absolute poles, most of the time people mix-and-match along categories: we're White and liberal, but Jewish, French and disabled, versus Black and poor, but American, able-bodied, and straight. These differences aren't in themselves fungible, and so they provide no basis for comparison in all but the most extreme cases.

(2) It doesn't account for the fact that people weigh these differences differently. This came into play already in the original decision of which categories to include (excluding, say, favorite color is implicitly saying one doesn't find that it has any meaningful weight at all). But even if we have a set of characteristics we agree are all somewhat important, we might not agree that they are all worth the same amount or which ones are worth more than the others. Jane might relate to her own nationality, sexual orientation, and class more than her religion, political ideology, or able-bodied status. Hence, she'd view a poor gay Frenchman (who is also an able-bodied, moderately liberal Christian) as significantly more different than a disabled atheist conservative (who is also an American, heterosexual, and middle-class). If she weighs any of them highly enough, it might even cause her to see someone with just one salient difference (nationality, say) as more distant than someone with many differences she is less concerned about (religion and political ideology and able-bodied status). And of course, someone who has the exact same characteristics as Jane could have a precisely inverted weighing scheme. So unless we are to expand the "paradigmatic student" so that it also includes a "paradigmatic weighing mechanism" (which would be impossible to do objectively), its objectivity becomes mythological.

B. The Relational Model

The relational model, by contrast, does not take as its position that there are objective distances in the differences between people. Nor, for that matter, does it assume that certain differences are objectively more salient than others. The relational model takes as its starting point that different differences can matter in various circumstances, and pursues specific types of difference insofar as those differences can contribute to the ascertainment of particular political or social goals.

A good example for this model is a basketball team, which wants on its roster a diverse number of positions represented (i.e., it wants to have some guards, some forwards, and some centers). It is not creating a "paradigmatic player" (Shaquille O'Neal, say) and then trying to find qualified players who are as different from him as possible. Rather, the quest for diversity here stems from the observation that, as good as Shaq is, a starting lineup of five Shaq clones likely would not create a good basketball team. We need players who can shoot the three, who can create off the dribble, who can shoot free throws(!), who can make fast breaks, and who can defend the perimeter. What we're looking for is a group of players who as a team (student body, corporation, legislature, etc.) are best able to fulfill the goals we want them to fulfill. I call it the relational model because it looks at diversity not in terms of objective distance between people, but rather based on the idea of a network of individuals, none of whom are considered the center, whose relationships to each other are defined by the particular roles they can play specific systems.

In a relational model, selecting "players" (admitees, hires) is what the late Harvard Law Professor Lon Fuller called a "polycentric problem." Polycentrism occurs when the selection of one person changes the "ranking" of all the other potential candidates. The Los Angeles Lakers have Shaquille O'Neal. Their next priority in player choice is likely not to be a center, even a really good one, because they already have the center role filled (back-ups excluded) and what they need now is a guard. If their first two players were Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade, by contrast, then their next choice might well be a center.

But it's even more complicated. Some people can fill a given "role" in certain networks but not others. For example, Kobe Bryant can normally fill the role of guard rather well. But, as the Lakers can tell you, if your center is Shaquille O'Neal, then Kobe Bryant maybe isn't your best choice at guard. The players, in other words, can't just fill their role abstractly. They have to be good in relation to one another. This lends the relational model considerable dynamism compared to the more static distance model.

So the relational model asks "what set of people would most effectively allow us to do the things we want to do", noting that in any complex system people will likely have to fill different roles, that different people are best suited for different roles, and that different people are best suited for different rules depending on who else is filling the other roles. The basketball team is a simplified example, however, because by and large "things we want to do" is simple and agreed-upon: we want to win our games. That isn't always the only consideration -- a team might want to have high attendance, and thus plays a home-town hero to build fan loyalty -- but it generally has primacy.

In other environments, however, "what we want to do" is contested and variable. An institution has to decide what its goals are before it can pursue the type of personnel set necessary to do it. Since these goals are contested, it is a normative decision to adopt one set over another. What goals you adopt is premised on what you think is important. So in that sense, it's perfectly fair to say that institutions constructing diversity programs are pursuing an agenda -- and a specific one at that. But it's clearly necessary to adopt such an agenda, and doing so channels decision-making procedure towards particularly types of diversity.

For example, I think inter-racial dialogue is important, and I think colleges are a key institution that constructs people's ability and inclination to engage in public dialogue once they enter society. Hence, I will specifically support the types of collegiate diversity that foster such dialogue and create people who can communicate with persons of different racial backgrounds in the public sphere (something which requires a critical mass of people filling the "role" of each major racial cleavage in American society). If you do not think inter-racial dialogue is important (or is less important than other, competing goals), then you will not support this type of diversification (or won't support it for that reason). And on the other hand, in institutions that I do not believe play primary roles in constructing society's discursive horizons (say, a graduate program in eastern European studies, or for that matter a basketball team), I won't support that same type of diversification (or at least, not for that reason).

The last example indicates that different differences matter in different places. As I noted in my discussion of the difference model, we can legitimately put different weight on various differences depending on whether we feel they are more or less salient. This is not an objective procedure in either the distance or relational model, but it is at least mitigated in the relational model because its localized -- we're only asking for relative weights in a particular situation, not as some sort of metaphysical truth that exists across all cases. Just as it is likely that all major differences will be valued by some people, some of the time, it is also likely that these differences will be seen as salient by at least some institutions, some of the time. This has the effect of expanding diversity conceptually beyond the strictures of the American affirmative action debate and places it instead as a consideration for all types of decision-making.

III. Conclusion

The first section establishes that diversity confers at least some benefits no matter how the diversity is constructed. The mere fact of being exposed to different people, different disciplines, different ideas, and different experiences is inherently salutary. The second section, noting that we have to pursue diversity in some fashion, identifies and analyzes two competing frameworks of diversification. If it isn't obvious already, I find the relational model greatly superior to the distance model as a framework for how we ought to construct social relationships. The latter not only avoids the creation of a particular norm and the exclusionary implications that would follow from it, but it also displays more flexibility to adopt itself to differing situations. A corporation might not care how many tall guys it employs, a basketball team definitely does. A chemistry department might not care how many Ukrainian immigrants it has among its affiliates, an eastern European studies department could find that very relevant. What matters about diversity is not any objective measurement of difference, but the manner in which difference is operationalized to enable different functions and achieve social goals.

Padilla Gets 17 Years

Jose Padilla was sentenced to 17 years and 4 months in prison today after being convicted of terrorism related charges. A "terrorist enhancement" which increased the sentencing guidelines to between 30 years and life, but Judge Marcia Cooke then used her discretion to downwardly depart from the guidelines, citing explicitly his treatment while in US military detention for three years.

"I do find that the conditions [for Padilla as an enemy combatant] were so harsh that they warrant consideration," Cooke told a crowded courtroom of attorneys, family members and media.

Padilla was expected to receive life in prison, and the government plans to appeal his sentence. Though the crimes Padilla was convicted of were serious, serious as well was his brutal treatment while in American custody. Judge Cooke was absolutely right to take that under consideration, and those apathetic to human rights standards should be made to deal with the consequences of that sort of abuse.

Drive In

Saudi Arabia is set to drop its ban on women driving in the Kingdom, in response to increasingly strident protests by women's rights activists. The effort is seen as an attempt to forestall growing unrest among the female population -- and as far as that hope goes, I hope the government fails dramatically. Still, this a big step forward, and I hope that the local Arab activists who took the lead in getting this reform enacted keep up the pressure.

Via Feministing

Toodles Fred

Fred Thompson pulls out of the Republican Presidential race.

My one serious Republican friend at Carleton will be devastated.

Open Letter from American Feminists

Katha Pollitt has an "Open Letter from American Feminists", documenting the strong and consistent interest American feminists have had regarding issues of women's rights world wide (including the Islamic world) and demanding that media sources stop the ridiculous falsehood that American feminists stay silent on the subject.

She's collecting signatures at kpollitt@thenation.com . Just give her your name and how you wished to be identified (e.g., "David Schraub, Student, Carleton College"), and she'll add you to the list.

Feminism ought to and does care about women's rights the world over. The louder we proclaim that basic truth, the better.

Obama's Best Speech of the Season?

On the eve of Martin Luther King day, Barack Obama spoke on King's old pulpit at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. His speech was bold, progressive, and necessary:

“For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

“And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.

“We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

As Steve Benen put it, if anybody still thought after the Donnie McClurkin incident that Obama was going to throw gay Americans under the bus, they can lay those fears to bed.

Pam Spaulding describes Obama's words as "so necessary", but adds:

This topic has always been a perceived as a third rail topic for the other leading Dem candidates, Clinton or Edwards -- they are, like many whites, particularly if they see themselves as allies, dread being seen as pointing out the evils and hypocrisy of such bigotry in the black faith community, even as wrong and tragic as it is on its face.
[...]
That we cannot discuss the matter of homophobia or anti-Semitism in the black community bluntly is everyone's problem. This burden and legacy of fomenting bigotry out of fear and ignorance is borne by all of us. If no one takes responsibility, we all fail. And we're failing -- look at how easily gender bias and racial overtones have surfaced over and over in the campaign so far. It's almost reflexive to "go there," the toxicity and effectiveness of stirring those sentiments has been part of the political process by both parties for so long that they are addicted to it.

The "third rail" analysis is, I think, solid (although it's easy to under-state the degree of political courage it takes for a Black man to deliver this speech on MLK day. Whites aren't the only people at risk from the rail). It's a difficult issue. Specks and logs and all that. But open, honest dialogue is the only way forward. And Obama deserves massive amount of credit for opening the doors and demanding that everybody take stock of their own participation in injustice.

***

A brief perusal of blogger reaction seems to buttress my instinct that this speech hit a sweet spot:

The Vig: "If you don’t think the man who spoke those words is worthy of being the next president, I can’t help you."

Daniel Hernandez: "Barack Obama crystallized his message so powerfully yesterday, a political rhetoric of true reconciliation, the type I don't believe we have seen in generations."

Buffalo Pundit: "After 12 years of Reagan and/or Bush, after 8 years of Clinton, and after another 7 years of another Bush, this speech speaks to me, and rings true."

And finally, one of the ways you know my quoted section is good is that in this unbelievably hackish dissection of it ("Obama says he wants unity, but he's upset by greed-motivated lending policies causing people to lose their homes. Guess he doesn't want to unify mortgage brokers!") by "The editors of the American Federalist Journal", the above excerpt doesn't even make an appearance. When even the snipers can't snipe, you know you've nailed it.