Wooooo!
Well, actually, nothing so dramatic. But it is my birthday, and I am in Chicago celebrating with some friends.
Back in Champaign tomorrow night, but for now, it's the bright lights of the big city.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
The Opinion Biz
The Free Beacon, as best I can tell, is seeking to become to Think Progress what The 1/2 Hour News Hour was to the Daily Show. But one of its more high-profile pick-ups was former Washington Jewish Week journalist Adam Kredo. Kredo had an excellent reputation as a neutral, non-biased writer, and certainly gave the fledgling right-wing site a shot of desperately needed credibility.
Unfortunately, what we've seen is an impressively dedicated effort by Kredo to dynamite his prior reputation -- going from "respected journalist" to "third string Jennifer Rubin" with impressive speed. His recent articles include Center for American Prejudice: Leftist Anti-Semitic Propaganda Handicaps National Security (notably, excepting a few six-month-old instances of writers using the term "Israel-firster" -- which they apologized for -- Kredo does not in fact cite any instance of CAP doing anything even arguably anti-Semitic) and Former TNR Editor Flaks for anti-Israel Group: Apartheid, Jim Crow, yadda yadda yadda (lest you think it's all just about Israel, check out this bit on Obama's "secret" meeting with Carlos Slim).
Now, in a sense, this is all pretty above board. Kredo was a journalist. Now he's not -- he's a purveyor of a particular perspective, and freed from the shackles of such anachronisms like "objectivity" and "neutrality", he's taken on his new role with gusto. If he wants to flush his reputation down the toilet while on this little bender, hey, it's his career.
No, the tragedy here is that Kredo gamely insists that nothing's changed. When criticized about the hit he took out on Peter Beinart (that would be the "Former TNR Editor [who] flaks for Anti-Israel Group"), Kredo had the gall to reply that "I just report what people say. I'm not in the opinion biz. We here FreeBeacon report -- you decide." Uncritical parroting of the Fox News motto as a defense against biased journalism notwithstanding -- for serious? Your piece is titled "Former TNR Editor Flaks for anti-Israel Group: Apartheid, Jim Crow, yadda yadda yadda" and you say there's no opinion there? Or describing "J Street’s controversial credo" as calling "on the Jewish state to make peace with the Palestinians at any cost, even at the expense of Israel’s longstanding security needs"? Yeah, that's classic, traditional, "just-the-facts, ma'am" journalism that we can all be proud of.
I really can't even think Kredo actually believes it when he writes that. Frankly, he was too good of a journalist to not know the difference between what he was doing at WJW and what he's doing here. And frankly, he's tied enough into the journalism game that he knows the all loopholes -- specifically, that if one says earnestly enough that one is being "objective", then other media actors will have to act as if its true -- or at least, plausible. He's in the opinion biz, and his time outside of said business means he has the potential to be a particularly dangerous player in the opinion biz at that.
But to my eye, a site like Free Beacon may just be too over the top for Kredo to be believed. Adam Kredo was once a strong journalist. Now he's just another conservative hack, toiling on a C-string site. It's an unfortunate fall, but it is what it is.
Unfortunately, what we've seen is an impressively dedicated effort by Kredo to dynamite his prior reputation -- going from "respected journalist" to "third string Jennifer Rubin" with impressive speed. His recent articles include Center for American Prejudice: Leftist Anti-Semitic Propaganda Handicaps National Security (notably, excepting a few six-month-old instances of writers using the term "Israel-firster" -- which they apologized for -- Kredo does not in fact cite any instance of CAP doing anything even arguably anti-Semitic) and Former TNR Editor Flaks for anti-Israel Group: Apartheid, Jim Crow, yadda yadda yadda (lest you think it's all just about Israel, check out this bit on Obama's "secret" meeting with Carlos Slim).
Now, in a sense, this is all pretty above board. Kredo was a journalist. Now he's not -- he's a purveyor of a particular perspective, and freed from the shackles of such anachronisms like "objectivity" and "neutrality", he's taken on his new role with gusto. If he wants to flush his reputation down the toilet while on this little bender, hey, it's his career.
No, the tragedy here is that Kredo gamely insists that nothing's changed. When criticized about the hit he took out on Peter Beinart (that would be the "Former TNR Editor [who] flaks for Anti-Israel Group"), Kredo had the gall to reply that "I just report what people say. I'm not in the opinion biz. We here FreeBeacon report -- you decide." Uncritical parroting of the Fox News motto as a defense against biased journalism notwithstanding -- for serious? Your piece is titled "Former TNR Editor Flaks for anti-Israel Group: Apartheid, Jim Crow, yadda yadda yadda" and you say there's no opinion there? Or describing "J Street’s controversial credo" as calling "on the Jewish state to make peace with the Palestinians at any cost, even at the expense of Israel’s longstanding security needs"? Yeah, that's classic, traditional, "just-the-facts, ma'am" journalism that we can all be proud of.
I really can't even think Kredo actually believes it when he writes that. Frankly, he was too good of a journalist to not know the difference between what he was doing at WJW and what he's doing here. And frankly, he's tied enough into the journalism game that he knows the all loopholes -- specifically, that if one says earnestly enough that one is being "objective", then other media actors will have to act as if its true -- or at least, plausible. He's in the opinion biz, and his time outside of said business means he has the potential to be a particularly dangerous player in the opinion biz at that.
But to my eye, a site like Free Beacon may just be too over the top for Kredo to be believed. Adam Kredo was once a strong journalist. Now he's just another conservative hack, toiling on a C-string site. It's an unfortunate fall, but it is what it is.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
The Message of Conscience and Faith
Members of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association have released a statement opposing a state ballot initiative which would bar gay marriage (it's unclear whether the Rabbis were speaking only for themselves or for the Association). The letter concludes by urging "all Minnesotans of conscience and faith" to vote against the initiative -- a nice touch, given the degree to which opponents of gay equality have loved to cast themselves as the sole guardians of "conscience" and "faith" in this dispute. At least in the Jewish community -- which I'd like to think is also recognized as possessing a conscience and a faith -- they are in the distinct minority.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
And Washington Makes Seven
Congratulations to Washington state, which is about to become the 7th state in America to legalize gay marriage! The State Senate, seen as the final hurdle, passed the bill 28-21 (wider than expected, as sponsors had been trying to scrounge up every last vote), and Governor Christine Gregoire has already promised to sign it.
A Light Unto Candidates
Obviously this is out of season, but still interesting: Rick Santorum's Channukah message to Jews:
Interesting choice of Bible verse there, don't you think? Very demonstrative of Santorum's sensitivity to the Jewish community. But you can't really blame Santorum. I mean, it's not like there is any parts of the Jewish religious tradition which Christians also consider to be there own, and that he might be familiar with. Because if there were, why, the decision to choose a verse like this might be considered gratuitously insulting.
UPDATE: And speaking of things that aggrieve me as a Jew, celebrating a famous historical killing spree by Christian soldiers slaughtering Jews en masse also seems more than a little ill-advised.
Interesting choice of Bible verse there, don't you think? Very demonstrative of Santorum's sensitivity to the Jewish community. But you can't really blame Santorum. I mean, it's not like there is any parts of the Jewish religious tradition which Christians also consider to be there own, and that he might be familiar with. Because if there were, why, the decision to choose a verse like this might be considered gratuitously insulting.
UPDATE: And speaking of things that aggrieve me as a Jew, celebrating a famous historical killing spree by Christian soldiers slaughtering Jews en masse also seems more than a little ill-advised.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
The Weirdness of the Prop. 8 Decision
The 9th Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, has struck down California's Proposition 8, which had eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry. This is, of course, a great day for equal rights and liberty in the United States. But the particular way the court went about its ruling is a little strange -- intellectually speaking, if not legally or politically.
The first thing that needs to be emphasized about this opinion is that it did not hold that all laws barring same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. Rather, it held specifically that the decision of California voters to take away the previously vested right for same-sex couples (and only same-sex couples) to marry is unconstitutional. That California briefly legalized same-sex marriage, only to later have it stripped by referendum, distinguishes it from most states (where gay marriage has never been legal at any point in time).
This leads to weirdness part one: California spent many years prohibiting gay marriage, then briefly (through judicial decision) legalized it, then outlawed it again. But how can it be that what was legal for most of the past two decades becomes illegal based on a brief, half-year interlude?
As a matter of law, this actually isn't that difficult: the holding of the California Supreme Court established that the ban on gay marriage violated the state's constitutional guarantees -- in other words, establishing a right to gay marriage. As a matter of formal law, Proposition 8 acted to strip a particular class of citizens -- and only that class -- of rights it had previously possessed under the Constitution. That this move might be considered an expression of particularly malevolent animus, in a way qualitatively different from simply refraining from establishing gay marriage in the first place, is not hard to grasp.
The problem is that this seems to misapprehend the meaning of Prop. 8 as it reflects upon constitutional interpretation. The California Supreme Court's decision in Marriage Cases was that gay marriage was protected under various provisions of the state constitution (equal protection, fundamental rights, etc.). They held, in essence, that equal protection requires recognition of gay marriage; fundamental rights requires recognition of gay marriage. But when Californians went to the polls in 2008, they did not conceive of themselves as deciding whether or not to craft exceptions to these constitutional guarantees (equal protection, except that gay marriage can be prohibited). They thought of themselves as answering whether they believed the California courts original interpretation of these clauses was correct (does equal protection require gay marriage?). It was meant to be a signal as to their belief, not that the constitution was wrong to protect gay marriage, but that the California Supreme Court was wrong to believe that it ever did in the first place.
Now, it may be that as a matter of law this has no bearing -- judicial pronouncements of "what the law is" are authoritative, and any subsequent democratic revision or modification proceeds from there. So in that sense, the 9th Circuit got it right -- the California constitution gave gays and lesbians the right to marry, and then the people of California took it away. But it is notable what this outlook says about popular constitutionalism: it gives so little credence to popular understandings of constitutional meaning that even when they immediately reverse a judicial decision via an amendment that constitutionalized a prior doctrinal understanding of the original clause, that is coded as "changing the constitution" rather than "counterinterpretation of the constitution".
Anyway, the 9th Circuit proceeds to argue that the fact that this was California taking away a right, rather than declining to extend one, makes this case indistinguishable from Romer v. Evans. Romer was perhaps the Supreme Court's first high-profile gay rights opinion, striking down a Colorado constitutional amendment which forbade the state or localities from enacting anti-discrimination laws on basis of sexual orientation (and only that category). The law had been passed in reaction to the passage of such laws in a few more liberal Colorado cities (e.g., Boulder), and the Court found that it was effectively motivated by bare animus against gays.
There are few things that make Romer notable. First, the case does not stand for the proposition that states must have anti-discrimination protections on basis of sexual orientation. Rather, the Court's holding was that the state cannot arbitrarily pluck out a particular class of citizens and make it more difficult for them to garner the protections that others enjoyed. Second, Romer applied rational basis review, which is traditionally quite easy to meet. But Romer implies that the decision to take away a previously vested right is more suspicious (even under rational basis review) than simply not extending a right. It keys the analysis to the stripping of the right, and it is often harder to articulate a rational (non-prejudiced -- Romer and other cases establish that "animus" is not a rational basis) reason for taking the affirmative step of removing a right than it is to explain why one never bothered to grant it all. Third, Romer was a Kennedy-authored opinion, and the 9th Circuit decision is aimed like a laser at Justice Kennedy in an effort to hold his vote (or even avoid a cert grant -- I might have to dissent from Orin Kerr in calling Supreme Court review inevitable given the narrowness of this particular ruling).
In keeping with the Kennedy-focus, the 9th Circuit styled its opinion as a clean extension of Romer. But it did so through oddity #2 -- the narrowness of what Proposition 8 did. All Prop. 8 did was prevent gay couples from calling their relationships "marriage", which the court accurately described as a (quite significant) dignitary harm on gays and lesbians. By contrast, the rational bases typically offered for heterosexist marriage restrictions usually are some chatter about the state's interests in procreation and child-rearing. I think those arguments tend to be irrational gibberish anyway, but for the purposes of this case, the court simply observed that Proposition 8 had precisely no bearing on these topics. California already has well-established procedures for how gays and lesbians can conceive and raise their kids, and Proposition 8 effected those not at all. So since the only thing Prop. 8 did do was foist upon gay couples this dignitary harm, and since simply denigrating the legitimacy of gay people is not a legitimate state interest (falling under the ambit of animus), the law falls under Romer. The implication is that if California voters had done more -- for example, hinging certain childcare rights on marriage in tandem with restricting marriage to heterosexual couples -- it would have been more likely to survive rational basis review (or at the very least, force the Court to make the affirmative constitutional case for gay marriage nationwide).
Again, the court's analysis isn't necessarily wrong here, so much as illuminates an oddity in how broader constitutional doctrines manifest. Judicial supremacy means that we can't even conceive of a constitutional amendment that is meant to correct a "wrong" constitutional interpretation -- there is, in this view, no such thing as a "wrong" constitutional interpretation except when the courts themselves say so. Rational basis means that legislatures need to more aggressively target the rights of unpopular minorities, because if they don't, it is easier to say they acted out of animus.
I should stress that I think that the constitutional case for gay marriage is more or less a slam dunk, and in that sense the 9th Circuit opinion definitely reaches the right outcome. But in its (tactically quite wise) efforts to fit itself within the narrowest box possible, it helps illuminate certain strange elements of our constitutional order which I felt compelled to point out.
The first thing that needs to be emphasized about this opinion is that it did not hold that all laws barring same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. Rather, it held specifically that the decision of California voters to take away the previously vested right for same-sex couples (and only same-sex couples) to marry is unconstitutional. That California briefly legalized same-sex marriage, only to later have it stripped by referendum, distinguishes it from most states (where gay marriage has never been legal at any point in time).
This leads to weirdness part one: California spent many years prohibiting gay marriage, then briefly (through judicial decision) legalized it, then outlawed it again. But how can it be that what was legal for most of the past two decades becomes illegal based on a brief, half-year interlude?
As a matter of law, this actually isn't that difficult: the holding of the California Supreme Court established that the ban on gay marriage violated the state's constitutional guarantees -- in other words, establishing a right to gay marriage. As a matter of formal law, Proposition 8 acted to strip a particular class of citizens -- and only that class -- of rights it had previously possessed under the Constitution. That this move might be considered an expression of particularly malevolent animus, in a way qualitatively different from simply refraining from establishing gay marriage in the first place, is not hard to grasp.
The problem is that this seems to misapprehend the meaning of Prop. 8 as it reflects upon constitutional interpretation. The California Supreme Court's decision in Marriage Cases was that gay marriage was protected under various provisions of the state constitution (equal protection, fundamental rights, etc.). They held, in essence, that equal protection requires recognition of gay marriage; fundamental rights requires recognition of gay marriage. But when Californians went to the polls in 2008, they did not conceive of themselves as deciding whether or not to craft exceptions to these constitutional guarantees (equal protection, except that gay marriage can be prohibited). They thought of themselves as answering whether they believed the California courts original interpretation of these clauses was correct (does equal protection require gay marriage?). It was meant to be a signal as to their belief, not that the constitution was wrong to protect gay marriage, but that the California Supreme Court was wrong to believe that it ever did in the first place.
Now, it may be that as a matter of law this has no bearing -- judicial pronouncements of "what the law is" are authoritative, and any subsequent democratic revision or modification proceeds from there. So in that sense, the 9th Circuit got it right -- the California constitution gave gays and lesbians the right to marry, and then the people of California took it away. But it is notable what this outlook says about popular constitutionalism: it gives so little credence to popular understandings of constitutional meaning that even when they immediately reverse a judicial decision via an amendment that constitutionalized a prior doctrinal understanding of the original clause, that is coded as "changing the constitution" rather than "counterinterpretation of the constitution".
Anyway, the 9th Circuit proceeds to argue that the fact that this was California taking away a right, rather than declining to extend one, makes this case indistinguishable from Romer v. Evans. Romer was perhaps the Supreme Court's first high-profile gay rights opinion, striking down a Colorado constitutional amendment which forbade the state or localities from enacting anti-discrimination laws on basis of sexual orientation (and only that category). The law had been passed in reaction to the passage of such laws in a few more liberal Colorado cities (e.g., Boulder), and the Court found that it was effectively motivated by bare animus against gays.
There are few things that make Romer notable. First, the case does not stand for the proposition that states must have anti-discrimination protections on basis of sexual orientation. Rather, the Court's holding was that the state cannot arbitrarily pluck out a particular class of citizens and make it more difficult for them to garner the protections that others enjoyed. Second, Romer applied rational basis review, which is traditionally quite easy to meet. But Romer implies that the decision to take away a previously vested right is more suspicious (even under rational basis review) than simply not extending a right. It keys the analysis to the stripping of the right, and it is often harder to articulate a rational (non-prejudiced -- Romer and other cases establish that "animus" is not a rational basis) reason for taking the affirmative step of removing a right than it is to explain why one never bothered to grant it all. Third, Romer was a Kennedy-authored opinion, and the 9th Circuit decision is aimed like a laser at Justice Kennedy in an effort to hold his vote (or even avoid a cert grant -- I might have to dissent from Orin Kerr in calling Supreme Court review inevitable given the narrowness of this particular ruling).
In keeping with the Kennedy-focus, the 9th Circuit styled its opinion as a clean extension of Romer. But it did so through oddity #2 -- the narrowness of what Proposition 8 did. All Prop. 8 did was prevent gay couples from calling their relationships "marriage", which the court accurately described as a (quite significant) dignitary harm on gays and lesbians. By contrast, the rational bases typically offered for heterosexist marriage restrictions usually are some chatter about the state's interests in procreation and child-rearing. I think those arguments tend to be irrational gibberish anyway, but for the purposes of this case, the court simply observed that Proposition 8 had precisely no bearing on these topics. California already has well-established procedures for how gays and lesbians can conceive and raise their kids, and Proposition 8 effected those not at all. So since the only thing Prop. 8 did do was foist upon gay couples this dignitary harm, and since simply denigrating the legitimacy of gay people is not a legitimate state interest (falling under the ambit of animus), the law falls under Romer. The implication is that if California voters had done more -- for example, hinging certain childcare rights on marriage in tandem with restricting marriage to heterosexual couples -- it would have been more likely to survive rational basis review (or at the very least, force the Court to make the affirmative constitutional case for gay marriage nationwide).
Again, the court's analysis isn't necessarily wrong here, so much as illuminates an oddity in how broader constitutional doctrines manifest. Judicial supremacy means that we can't even conceive of a constitutional amendment that is meant to correct a "wrong" constitutional interpretation -- there is, in this view, no such thing as a "wrong" constitutional interpretation except when the courts themselves say so. Rational basis means that legislatures need to more aggressively target the rights of unpopular minorities, because if they don't, it is easier to say they acted out of animus.
I should stress that I think that the constitutional case for gay marriage is more or less a slam dunk, and in that sense the 9th Circuit opinion definitely reaches the right outcome. But in its (tactically quite wise) efforts to fit itself within the narrowest box possible, it helps illuminate certain strange elements of our constitutional order which I felt compelled to point out.
Monday, February 06, 2012
Practically Perfect in Every Way
Quite the little ego we have, don't we, Rep. Bachmann?
That is so delightfully petty and petulant that I can't help but smile. Oh, Michele -- we didn't know what we had until it was gone.
Asked by Bloomberg TV’s Al Hunt to name the most conservative candidate remaining in the 2012 race, Bachmann responded by plugging herself.
"I was. I was the perfect candidate," Bachmann said. "America had their chance with the perfect candidate."
That is so delightfully petty and petulant that I can't help but smile. Oh, Michele -- we didn't know what we had until it was gone.
Your Mouth Says No But Your Name Says Yes
In the course of discussing how it is that tensions between Iran and Israel have escalated so much, Jeffrey Goldberg remarks off hand that "I'm opposed to an Israeli strike on Iran; I'm also opposed to an American strike on Iran." Who wants to bet this will have precisely zero impact on the constant stream of articles insisting that Goldberg actually desires the exact opposite? I mean, come on, he's Jeffrey Goldberg. Who could possibly be so naive as to presume his policy preferences bear a relationship to what he publicly states them to be? Come on.
In other news, about six people were protesting near my apartment in favor of world peace and against war with Iran. One poster said "Not to war with Iraq/n", with the "q" turning over to an "n" like an odometer, which I thought was clever. Another said "no war for Israel", which was decidedly less so. It just made me wonder who we should go to war for? The U.S.? Well that just raises the question of what our "interests" are, and whether protecting a friend can count as one. Actually, I imagine the protesters just think we shouldn't go to war at all, but then why is it particularly distressing if we go to war "for Israel" as opposed to "for Kurds" or "for oil" or "for America" or "for freedom"?
In any event, I am in agreement with Goldberg that I'm not particularly keen on American or Israeli military action towards Iran (though I'd note that the odds either party would launch any sort of Iraq-style ground invasion, as opposed to airstrikes akin to what NATO did in Libya, are virtually non-existent, and that the latter has a very different calculus -- moral, strategic, diplomatic, logistical -- attached to it from the former).
In other news, about six people were protesting near my apartment in favor of world peace and against war with Iran. One poster said "Not to war with Iraq/n", with the "q" turning over to an "n" like an odometer, which I thought was clever. Another said "no war for Israel", which was decidedly less so. It just made me wonder who we should go to war for? The U.S.? Well that just raises the question of what our "interests" are, and whether protecting a friend can count as one. Actually, I imagine the protesters just think we shouldn't go to war at all, but then why is it particularly distressing if we go to war "for Israel" as opposed to "for Kurds" or "for oil" or "for America" or "for freedom"?
In any event, I am in agreement with Goldberg that I'm not particularly keen on American or Israeli military action towards Iran (though I'd note that the odds either party would launch any sort of Iraq-style ground invasion, as opposed to airstrikes akin to what NATO did in Libya, are virtually non-existent, and that the latter has a very different calculus -- moral, strategic, diplomatic, logistical -- attached to it from the former).
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Election 2012: Mexico vs. Kenya
It's like the World Cup over here! The birthers turn their eyes to Mitt Romney, whose father was born in Mexico and thus, based on a chain of logic too disconnected from the text and historical interpretation of the 14th Amendment for me, as a budding constitutional law professor, to lay out without wanting to shoot myself, may not be a "natural-born citizen" under the 14th Amendment.
But don't worry -- though they do entertain the argument for a little bit, WND ultimately concludes that "even under the strictest interpretation of Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, Romney is a natural-born citizen." Given that WND is still pumping the Obama-birther conspiracy theory, that's no small concession!
But don't worry -- though they do entertain the argument for a little bit, WND ultimately concludes that "even under the strictest interpretation of Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, Romney is a natural-born citizen." Given that WND is still pumping the Obama-birther conspiracy theory, that's no small concession!
Friday, February 03, 2012
Econ on the Up and Up
The clownish character of the Republican primary field obviously can only help Obama's chances in 2012. But ultimately, the key factor in any re-election campaign boils down to one thing. The economy. In a bad economy, all sins by the challenging party will be forgiven. And that means that the best way for Obama to win reelection is for the economy to start improving.
And on that front, there is some very strong news flowing out of the December jobs report. 243,000 jobs added last month, with unemployment dropping down to 8.3%. Is 8.3% the most exciting figure ever? Nope. But it is a sign that the last few months improvements are no fluke, and dropping below 9% is a milestone.
Again, with 11 months before election day and each month being better than the last, the trend lines are looking good. It may be that Mitt Romney (or whoever the GOP nominates) will have to win on the strength of his policy and personality. Good luck with that.
And on that front, there is some very strong news flowing out of the December jobs report. 243,000 jobs added last month, with unemployment dropping down to 8.3%. Is 8.3% the most exciting figure ever? Nope. But it is a sign that the last few months improvements are no fluke, and dropping below 9% is a milestone.
Again, with 11 months before election day and each month being better than the last, the trend lines are looking good. It may be that Mitt Romney (or whoever the GOP nominates) will have to win on the strength of his policy and personality. Good luck with that.
Komen's Reversal
The Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood (which provided essential breast cancer services to low-income women) has to rank pretty highly on any list of PR disasters for non-profits. Previously, Komen had managed to stake out a leading position in the field of women's health without having politicized itself. That's no mean feat, but it's completely ruined now. Moreover, they apparently thought they could sneak this decision under the radar and thus were caught completely off-guard by the explosion. And the rationale they relied on -- that this was a "non-political" decision prompted by PP being under (politically-motivated) federal investigation -- was transparent non-sense that insulted everyone's intelligence.
Anyway, Komen has now seemingly reversed its decision. Note that this does not undo all the damage -- having stepped into this maelstrom, any decision they take from here on out will be seen as political. And it is notable that Komen's press release is just ambiguous enough that its unclear just how much renewed cooperation between Komen and PP we'll see -- the release simply affirms that current PP grants will be funded and PP can continue to apply for future grants (but obviously, there's no guarantee they'll be accepted). Under normal circumstances the vagueness wouldn't be enough to worry me, but when you shatter your organization's integrity over the space of a week, suddenly you don't get the benefit of the doubt.
One thing that this controversy did demonstrate is that pro-choice forces still can shake the earth when they need to, and they can do so even when they're taking on a (formerly) venerable organization like Susan G. Komen. It's a paradoxical sort of optimism -- being forced to demonstrate that yes, your movement still has bite -- but it is worth noting.
Anyway, Komen has now seemingly reversed its decision. Note that this does not undo all the damage -- having stepped into this maelstrom, any decision they take from here on out will be seen as political. And it is notable that Komen's press release is just ambiguous enough that its unclear just how much renewed cooperation between Komen and PP we'll see -- the release simply affirms that current PP grants will be funded and PP can continue to apply for future grants (but obviously, there's no guarantee they'll be accepted). Under normal circumstances the vagueness wouldn't be enough to worry me, but when you shatter your organization's integrity over the space of a week, suddenly you don't get the benefit of the doubt.
One thing that this controversy did demonstrate is that pro-choice forces still can shake the earth when they need to, and they can do so even when they're taking on a (formerly) venerable organization like Susan G. Komen. It's a paradoxical sort of optimism -- being forced to demonstrate that yes, your movement still has bite -- but it is worth noting.
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Occupational Therapy
I'm obviously sympathetic to Occupy Wall Street's general ambitions, such as they are. I think income inequality is a very important thing. I think we have to have a serious conversation about insuring a true participatory democracy and a serious conversation about corporate influence over politics. I think we have a political and economic system that is overly concerned with the needs of the well-off and nowhere near enough with those of ordinary Americans (much less poor Americans).
But Occupy Wall Street also can be infuriating. I gestured at it in this post, when I talked about how OWS seemed afraid to flex its own muscle because that implied the chance of true failure. Instead, they portentously declared that things like "making demands" would be just giving into the very system they were trying to challenge, that it would be in essence selling out to the man, and then launched into some sanctimonious sermons about changing paradigms and shifting mindsets and other rejected high school debate counter-plans.
And so, about half a year later, where is OWS? Effectively nowhere. And what has it accomplished? Effectively nothing. It managed the impressive feet of mobilizing a massive number of progressive-minded citizens, and then managed the even more impressive feet of walking away without having gained anything. Okay, yes, it put income inequality "on the table". But does anyone see any concrete changes going anywhere? I don't. And so, I suspect, pretty soon we'll see it slide right back off the table.
But Occupy Wall Street also can be infuriating. I gestured at it in this post, when I talked about how OWS seemed afraid to flex its own muscle because that implied the chance of true failure. Instead, they portentously declared that things like "making demands" would be just giving into the very system they were trying to challenge, that it would be in essence selling out to the man, and then launched into some sanctimonious sermons about changing paradigms and shifting mindsets and other rejected high school debate counter-plans.
And so, about half a year later, where is OWS? Effectively nowhere. And what has it accomplished? Effectively nothing. It managed the impressive feet of mobilizing a massive number of progressive-minded citizens, and then managed the even more impressive feet of walking away without having gained anything. Okay, yes, it put income inequality "on the table". But does anyone see any concrete changes going anywhere? I don't. And so, I suspect, pretty soon we'll see it slide right back off the table.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Call on Me
Sometimes when Jill and I are talking about education policy and politics, she mentions how one of the most problematic mythologies around education is the idea of the super-teacher -- that if teachers just want it enough and are committed enough, that will be the silver bullet that ensures every child gets a solid education. The problem being two-fold -- first, it's unreasonable to expect teachers to be superhuman, and second, that teachers are limited in what they can do absent fundamental, structural reform. Moreover, the super-teacher claim also is often used as a way of concern trolling against improvements in teacher working conditions -- the idea being that because "good" teachers are these altruistic Lifetime TV stars who are in it because they are "called" to the profession, they don't (or shouldn't) care how much money they make, how many hours they have to work, or what condition their classrooms are in.
This last argument was the one put forward by Alabama state Sen. Shadrack McGill (R):
One notes, of course, that this appears to make teaching different from nearly every other profession and, indeed, the basics of capitalist economics. For most professions, we assume that people are not altruists who do what they do "for love of the game". We don't assume they're purely mercenary, but we do think that performance is tied to pay and compensation. And the corollary is that if you want better people, you shell out more dough. If I'm repairing my roof, I can hire a cheap contractor who will likely do a shoddy job, or I can hire a more expensive one who will do the job right. You get what you pay for. This idea that the way to increase performance is to reduce pay so you only get the most "passionate" applicants is not, shall we say, a universally accepted principle, and certainly one Sen. McGill applies in his own life (he just voted to give himself a 67% pay raise. Apparently he's not "called" to legislate?). But teachers, for some reason, are a special case.
This last argument was the one put forward by Alabama state Sen. Shadrack McGill (R):
“If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach.
“To go in and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK?
“And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn’t matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.
“If you don’t keep that in balance, you’re going to attract people who are not called, who don’t need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance.”
One notes, of course, that this appears to make teaching different from nearly every other profession and, indeed, the basics of capitalist economics. For most professions, we assume that people are not altruists who do what they do "for love of the game". We don't assume they're purely mercenary, but we do think that performance is tied to pay and compensation. And the corollary is that if you want better people, you shell out more dough. If I'm repairing my roof, I can hire a cheap contractor who will likely do a shoddy job, or I can hire a more expensive one who will do the job right. You get what you pay for. This idea that the way to increase performance is to reduce pay so you only get the most "passionate" applicants is not, shall we say, a universally accepted principle, and certainly one Sen. McGill applies in his own life (he just voted to give himself a 67% pay raise. Apparently he's not "called" to legislate?). But teachers, for some reason, are a special case.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The Message is Lost in All That Tinfoil
Shorter Walter Myers: Black people are so blinded by race-loyalty that they won't even listen to my sober and well-reasoned arguments that Barack Obama is turning us into socialist Cuba!
Now, we can't actually evaluate this argument on its "merits", for a variety of reasons, the most salient of which is that Mr. Myers doesn't actually make it. He just takes it as axiomatic that Obama is a socialist and that he is behaving with reckless disregard for the Constitution. As they say on wikipedia, "citation needed". One could presumably also quibble with whether free market capitalism really is the most Christian of all economic systems, but since one of my pet peeves is Christians explaining to me what Judaism means, I'll refrain from doing the same back at them. I could also query how we know that the U.S. new "socialist" slant will turn is into Cuba, as opposed to, say, Sweden (where does Sweden lie on this continuum anyway -- and how did they manage to arrest their descent into totalitarianism? Maybe we can ask them for tips!).
Okay, no. I need to focus. Is there any "there" there at all? That is, is there anything about the Obama presidency in particular that makes Blacks particularly resistant to contemporary conservative alternatives?
Well, the first thing we need to do is check the numbers. In 2004, John Kerry got 88% of the Black vote. That number jumped to 96% for Obama in 2008. So basically, Black voters went from overwhelmingly supporting the Democratic nominee to slightly-more-overwhelmingly supporting the Democratic nominee. That suggest that Black voting patterns have less to do with the race of the candidate and more a general, substantive, political ideology that is more in accord with Democrats than Republicans.
That being said, I do think that the Obama presidency is solidifying the ties between the Democratic Party and the Black electorate (well, as much as those ties can be said to have been at all pliable in the first place). Why is that? Well, one answer is the immediate resort of the Republican Party to crude racist dog-whistles. But I think the deeper issue is that Obama reveals how a significant swath of the country will respond to a talented and successful Black man. Specifically, they'll deny it: they'll deny that he is in fact talented, that he succeeded on his own merits. Everything about him, from his place of birth to his supposed personal strengths (like oratorical skills), will be dismissed as a fraud. All his successes will be considered just a manifestation of affirmative action; the stealing of a spot rightfully reserved for "one of us".
The message, in other words, is that even if you do everything right and follow the dotted lines, you'll still be counted as a liar, a cheat, and ultimately, an enemy. And that's arguably the most disheartening message of all, because it breaks the implied promise that post-Jim Crow American made as the covenant of its reform, to wit: that from here on out, if you work hard and play by the rules, your race won't be held against you in public or private life. To many Blacks, that promise is simply unsustainable given the manner in which Republican opposition to Obama has manifested.
New research has demonstrated that Whites seem to view racial progress as zero-sum [link fixed -- DS], that is, as Blacks start to do better in America, they interpret that as indicating a worsening of their own position (and an unjust one at that). The very fact of Black success is interpreted as evidence of "reverse racism" against White. This sort of mentality is of no recent vintage, and it fundamentally can't allow for Black progress. It's not even restricted to Black liberals: look at Michael Steele.
The upshot is that for the Black electorate, there really is only one effective option. The primary conservative alternative -- do-it-yourself, don't make demands out of White America -- is a dead letter, because the very fact of Black success automatically breeds resentment and envy, no matter how it is generated. It's the old double-bind between Du Bois and Washington:
No matter which way the turn or which tactic they try, some people are going to be angry that somewhere, sometime, a Black person is getting away with something. There's no way to simple duck that problem, so they have to meet it head-on. And while Democrats aren't exactly crusaders for overcoming racism, they at least have space in their coalition for it. That's more than one can say about the GOP.
I can certainly see why my black Christian friends would be protective of Obama as the first black President, but what has alarmed me is the unusually high percentage of these well-educated and successful people who simply won’t listen when you try to make them understand that they have fallen for a socialist-leaning President with little respect for the Constitution.....
Where the Democrats have succeeded is to use Obama as a Trojan horse to import class envy, government dependence, and the notion of an all-encompassing federal government into the psyche of the American people, and especially so in the psyche of black America. Instead of accepting the conservative ideals of limited government, self-reliance, and economic opportunity, which best accord with the Christian worldview, blacks have been convinced that more government control, government entitlements, and redistribution of wealth are the keys to a better tomorrow. And they accept this view of America with virtually no objection, to everyone’s peril. What they don’t understand is that the socialist philosophy they have accepted is like a steely hand in a velvet glove. Until it’s too late, you won’t know what it is made of. Just ask the people of Cuba and Venezuela. The dire warnings of Italy, Greece, and Spain hold little influence over them as to what America will become if it continues in this direction. As long as they have Obama, their charismatic leader, they will continue in their faith in him, come what may.
Now, we can't actually evaluate this argument on its "merits", for a variety of reasons, the most salient of which is that Mr. Myers doesn't actually make it. He just takes it as axiomatic that Obama is a socialist and that he is behaving with reckless disregard for the Constitution. As they say on wikipedia, "citation needed". One could presumably also quibble with whether free market capitalism really is the most Christian of all economic systems, but since one of my pet peeves is Christians explaining to me what Judaism means, I'll refrain from doing the same back at them. I could also query how we know that the U.S. new "socialist" slant will turn is into Cuba, as opposed to, say, Sweden (where does Sweden lie on this continuum anyway -- and how did they manage to arrest their descent into totalitarianism? Maybe we can ask them for tips!).
Okay, no. I need to focus. Is there any "there" there at all? That is, is there anything about the Obama presidency in particular that makes Blacks particularly resistant to contemporary conservative alternatives?
Well, the first thing we need to do is check the numbers. In 2004, John Kerry got 88% of the Black vote. That number jumped to 96% for Obama in 2008. So basically, Black voters went from overwhelmingly supporting the Democratic nominee to slightly-more-overwhelmingly supporting the Democratic nominee. That suggest that Black voting patterns have less to do with the race of the candidate and more a general, substantive, political ideology that is more in accord with Democrats than Republicans.
That being said, I do think that the Obama presidency is solidifying the ties between the Democratic Party and the Black electorate (well, as much as those ties can be said to have been at all pliable in the first place). Why is that? Well, one answer is the immediate resort of the Republican Party to crude racist dog-whistles. But I think the deeper issue is that Obama reveals how a significant swath of the country will respond to a talented and successful Black man. Specifically, they'll deny it: they'll deny that he is in fact talented, that he succeeded on his own merits. Everything about him, from his place of birth to his supposed personal strengths (like oratorical skills), will be dismissed as a fraud. All his successes will be considered just a manifestation of affirmative action; the stealing of a spot rightfully reserved for "one of us".
The message, in other words, is that even if you do everything right and follow the dotted lines, you'll still be counted as a liar, a cheat, and ultimately, an enemy. And that's arguably the most disheartening message of all, because it breaks the implied promise that post-Jim Crow American made as the covenant of its reform, to wit: that from here on out, if you work hard and play by the rules, your race won't be held against you in public or private life. To many Blacks, that promise is simply unsustainable given the manner in which Republican opposition to Obama has manifested.
New research has demonstrated that Whites seem to view racial progress as zero-sum [link fixed -- DS], that is, as Blacks start to do better in America, they interpret that as indicating a worsening of their own position (and an unjust one at that). The very fact of Black success is interpreted as evidence of "reverse racism" against White. This sort of mentality is of no recent vintage, and it fundamentally can't allow for Black progress. It's not even restricted to Black liberals: look at Michael Steele.
The upshot is that for the Black electorate, there really is only one effective option. The primary conservative alternative -- do-it-yourself, don't make demands out of White America -- is a dead letter, because the very fact of Black success automatically breeds resentment and envy, no matter how it is generated. It's the old double-bind between Du Bois and Washington:
[W]hen [Du Bois] is the primary voice of the Black community, people criticize them for being insufficiently Washingtonian (why are you always demanding stuff out of the White community? Why don't you get your own house in order first -- try doing something for yourself rather than getting stuck in this dependency loop!). What we see now is a classic double bind: if Blacks are Du Boisian (trumpeting the moral case for equality), they need to be Washingtonian (solve your own problems -- stop asking so much out of Whites!); when they're Washingtonian (fine -- we'll stop looking to Whites and concentrate on self-improvement), they need to be more Du Boisian (what, you won't talk to White people anymore? Racists!).
No matter which way the turn or which tactic they try, some people are going to be angry that somewhere, sometime, a Black person is getting away with something. There's no way to simple duck that problem, so they have to meet it head-on. And while Democrats aren't exactly crusaders for overcoming racism, they at least have space in their coalition for it. That's more than one can say about the GOP.
Rectal Dysfunction
Not actually symmetrical, but still, LOL:
As far as I know, rectal health has little to do with sexual dysfunction except for geographic proximity (well, and I suppose depending on what sort of sex you're into). But the stress test certainly does, and in any event, it's funny, and these ultrasound laws are obnoxious and patronizing, so, you know, goose and gander.
Over in the [Virginia] state senate, Sen. Jill Vogel (R) has introduced a bill that would require all women seeking an abortion “to have an ultrasound image taken to determine the gestational age of the fetus.” Piqued by the unnecessary intrusion into a woman’s doctor-patient relationship, state Sen. Janet Howell (D) sought to level the playing field.
“If pregnant women should have to get an ultrasound before having an abortion, men should have to undergo additional medical procedures before getting a prescription for erectile dysfunction,” she noted, and introduced an amendment to Vogel’s bill requiring that men “undergo a digital rectal exam” for pills like Viagra:On Monday Howell expressed her disdain for legislation requiring the ultrasound by proposing an amendment she described as a simple matter of fairness. Her amendment said that before being treated for erectile dysfunction, a man would have to undergo a digital rectal exam and a cardiac stress test.
As far as I know, rectal health has little to do with sexual dysfunction except for geographic proximity (well, and I suppose depending on what sort of sex you're into). But the stress test certainly does, and in any event, it's funny, and these ultrasound laws are obnoxious and patronizing, so, you know, goose and gander.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Converting the Nonbeliever
Credit where it's due: I would not have expected Balloon Juice's Doug to agree to drop the term "Israel-firster". And the reasoning is sound too: Plenty of progressives who are doing legwork in trying to change American and Israeli policy for the better find it offensive and alienating, so why be a schmuck. Moreover, as Doug points out, it concedes ground that doesn't need to be conceded: namely, that the problem with the GOP's Israel policy is that it cares too much about Israel, that it is too concerned with Israel's well-being.
Of course, this is precisely what is under contestation, and Ackerman is quite right when he says its a debate we can win on the merits. The fact is that the GOP has evinced nothing that demonstrates a true commitment to Israel's continuation as a Jewish democracy, providing a lot of lip service but no nuance or understanding (and more importantly, no inclination to listen to the mainstream of Jewish voices who, for example, find one-stateism to be an anathema).
In any event, given that the American electorate as a whole remains overwhelmingly favorable towards Israel and wishes to see it survive and thrive, trying to attack Republicans by calling them too pro-Israel is like attacking them for loving puppies too much. For whatever reason, Republicans think they've got an uncontested lay-up on the Israel issue, and it's past time it got swatted back in their face.
Of course, this is precisely what is under contestation, and Ackerman is quite right when he says its a debate we can win on the merits. The fact is that the GOP has evinced nothing that demonstrates a true commitment to Israel's continuation as a Jewish democracy, providing a lot of lip service but no nuance or understanding (and more importantly, no inclination to listen to the mainstream of Jewish voices who, for example, find one-stateism to be an anathema).
In any event, given that the American electorate as a whole remains overwhelmingly favorable towards Israel and wishes to see it survive and thrive, trying to attack Republicans by calling them too pro-Israel is like attacking them for loving puppies too much. For whatever reason, Republicans think they've got an uncontested lay-up on the Israel issue, and it's past time it got swatted back in their face.
A Waste of Democracy
Alejandrina Cabrera, s city council candidate in heavily-Spanish-speaking San Luis, Arizona has been removed from the ballot after a judge ruled her English ability wasn't good enough to qualify. This was in accordance with Arizona's state law establishing English as the official language.
I have to think that, particularly as applied to this case, the law has to be unconstitutional. The hook would be the Equal Protection Clause (though it is times like this when my hostility to Luther v. Borden shines brightest), but in general it is fundamentally undemocratic for the state to impose substantive barriers to keep certain types of candidates off the ballot. The whole principle of a democracy is that the people get to decide what sort of person represents them, and if the people want to elect someone whose primary language is Spanish but whose English fluency is (in the candidate's own words), about a 5 out of 10, that's their prerogative.
When you compare that to the view of the City Attorney, who said that the decision was correct because a vote for Cabrera "would have been wasted, because [voters]c could have voted for someone better prepared to be an elected official," and the fundamentally authoritarian nature of the law becomes clear. The state is preventing a candidate from running for office because -- regardless of what the voters might think -- the state thinks that other people would be a better elected official. This is, more or less, how Iran conducts its "democracy", and it remains a sham even when it makes its way to one of the fifty states.
Now, to be sure, some set of neutrally-applied procedural hurdles -- such as attaining a set number of signatures, may be okay. But notably, such laws only effect persons who by virtue of their failure have already demonstrated themselves unlikely to obtain substantial, much less majority, support. Here, by contrast, the target of the law seems to be someone who could plausibly be elected -- and the insistence on trying to force Cabrera off the ballot seems to imply that she poses a real threat to her political opponents in San Luis. Well, that's democracy -- sometimes the voters vote for someone other than you. The solution is to be more appealing to the electorate, not rig the system so your opponents can't get on the ballot.
(And we won't even get into the nauseating nature of the comments on CNN's piece. I have to remind myself that internet commenters are not a representative cross-sample of America lest I despair of this whole national project altogether).
I have to think that, particularly as applied to this case, the law has to be unconstitutional. The hook would be the Equal Protection Clause (though it is times like this when my hostility to Luther v. Borden shines brightest), but in general it is fundamentally undemocratic for the state to impose substantive barriers to keep certain types of candidates off the ballot. The whole principle of a democracy is that the people get to decide what sort of person represents them, and if the people want to elect someone whose primary language is Spanish but whose English fluency is (in the candidate's own words), about a 5 out of 10, that's their prerogative.
When you compare that to the view of the City Attorney, who said that the decision was correct because a vote for Cabrera "would have been wasted, because [voters]c could have voted for someone better prepared to be an elected official," and the fundamentally authoritarian nature of the law becomes clear. The state is preventing a candidate from running for office because -- regardless of what the voters might think -- the state thinks that other people would be a better elected official. This is, more or less, how Iran conducts its "democracy", and it remains a sham even when it makes its way to one of the fifty states.
Now, to be sure, some set of neutrally-applied procedural hurdles -- such as attaining a set number of signatures, may be okay. But notably, such laws only effect persons who by virtue of their failure have already demonstrated themselves unlikely to obtain substantial, much less majority, support. Here, by contrast, the target of the law seems to be someone who could plausibly be elected -- and the insistence on trying to force Cabrera off the ballot seems to imply that she poses a real threat to her political opponents in San Luis. Well, that's democracy -- sometimes the voters vote for someone other than you. The solution is to be more appealing to the electorate, not rig the system so your opponents can't get on the ballot.
(And we won't even get into the nauseating nature of the comments on CNN's piece. I have to remind myself that internet commenters are not a representative cross-sample of America lest I despair of this whole national project altogether).
Primary Errors
State Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's County) is launching a primary challenge to incumbent Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD). Now, challenging an incumbent is always difficult, and all the more so when the incumbent is a mainstream liberal (as Cardin is) in a liberal state (as Maryland is). One would presume that Muse would have to find some way to run to Cardin's left, to attract Democratic primary voters who might find Cardin too white-bread for their tastes.
So what's Muse's gambit? Speak at an anti-gay marriage rally in Baltimore, that's what! While it is true that African-American Democrats remain leery of gay marriage, overall overall about half of all Marylanders, and nearly 70% of all Maryland Democrats, favor the change. In a Democratic primary, running against two-thirds of your own electorate on a high-profile issue is not the way to unseat a perfectly popular, respected incumbent.
So what's Muse's gambit? Speak at an anti-gay marriage rally in Baltimore, that's what! While it is true that African-American Democrats remain leery of gay marriage, overall overall about half of all Marylanders, and nearly 70% of all Maryland Democrats, favor the change. In a Democratic primary, running against two-thirds of your own electorate on a high-profile issue is not the way to unseat a perfectly popular, respected incumbent.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
The Zionist Space Conspiracy Continues
At trivia last week, one of the categories was "Conspiracy Theories". We debated just putting down "Jews" for every answer. I mean, what are the odds it'd be wrong?
Of course that being said, everyone knows that the lunar landing -- if not the moon itself -- is just one large Zionist conspiracy. The team of Israeli scientists seeking to make Israel the third country to land a probe on the moon by the end of 2012 is clearly just trying to cover their tracks.
(Title references this post).
Of course that being said, everyone knows that the lunar landing -- if not the moon itself -- is just one large Zionist conspiracy. The team of Israeli scientists seeking to make Israel the third country to land a probe on the moon by the end of 2012 is clearly just trying to cover their tracks.
(Title references this post).
Friday, January 27, 2012
Go Strong or Don't Go At All
An interesting letter from Zionist Organization of America hit the mailboxes of various Jewish media outlets. In it, one Robert I. Lappin declares that "Western Civilization is at war with Islam", which is "not a religion of peace". "Saying that we are at war with terror, or radical Islam, or Islamic extremists, provides American Muslims with a rationale to do nothing."
Now, it isn't exactly surprising to see ZOA descend into Islamophobia (hell, it's no longer surprising to see them endorse anti-Semites willing to sign onto their destructive, anti-Israel agenda). But contacted by the media, Mort Klein -- well, distanced himself doesn't seem quite right. He says that the email was not intended to be "from" ZOA, but that he had allowed a prominent donor (Lappin) access to it "as a favor". ZOA, he said, was neither "endorsing" nor "condemning" the letter's contents.
Oh come on, that's just weak sauce. If you're going to allow someone to send a bigoted email through to your mailing list, either stand behind it or disavow it. This whole, "it was a favor, it doesn't mean anything" nonsense isn't persuading anyone.
Now, it isn't exactly surprising to see ZOA descend into Islamophobia (hell, it's no longer surprising to see them endorse anti-Semites willing to sign onto their destructive, anti-Israel agenda). But contacted by the media, Mort Klein -- well, distanced himself doesn't seem quite right. He says that the email was not intended to be "from" ZOA, but that he had allowed a prominent donor (Lappin) access to it "as a favor". ZOA, he said, was neither "endorsing" nor "condemning" the letter's contents.
Oh come on, that's just weak sauce. If you're going to allow someone to send a bigoted email through to your mailing list, either stand behind it or disavow it. This whole, "it was a favor, it doesn't mean anything" nonsense isn't persuading anyone.
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