Are American conservatives to blame for the Oslo massacre?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't yet commented on the Oslo massacre, mainly because I think it's pretty clear what it was all about -- why it happened -- once you strip away the despicable knee-jerk efforts of conservatives to pin the blame on Islamic jihadism (placing it squarely in their anti-Muslim narrative).

Events like this don't happen in a vacuum. This was not some random outburst but rather an act of right-wing Christian terrorism directed at "the left" and based largely on anti-Muslim bigotry and hate generally. And we must turn our attention not just to the accused but to that which created him. As Scott Shane writes at The New York Times:

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

In the United States, critics have asserted that the intense spotlight on the threat from Islamic militants has unfairly vilified Muslim Americans while dangerously playing down the threat of attacks from other domestic radicals. 

Yes, we need to turn our attention to anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States as a major contributor to the "culture" that created this killer. But we're not just talking about a "subculture" of "bloggers" and "activists," we're talking about elected officials and major media figures, specifically about the Republican Party and the conservatism that sustains it.

The subculture is there, yes, but it's not really that "sub." It's pretty much in the mainstream these days. Expressions of anti-Muslim bigotry can be heard all over Fox News and right-wing talk radio. They can be heard from the likes of Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Peter King, and Allen West, among many others. Muslims, including Muslim-Americans are being treated as the new Other, as a threat to the very fabric of American life. Fearmongering in full swing, they are being vilified and scapegoated, lumped together as fundamentally anti-American. We are told that they wish to impose Sharia law on America, that their mosques and community centers are training grounds for terrorism, that they want to take our freedom away, that if we're not vigilant, that if we don't fight back, our whole way of life is doomed.

Is it really any wonder there is violence? Is it any wonder the Oslo massacre happened?

Yes, it takes someone unhinged to do such a thing, but that's exactly the problem. No one expects, say, Newt Gingrich to go on a shooting spree, to act out his anti-Muslim bigotry in violent ways. But what happens when someone unhinged gets hold of what Gingrich says, of what others say, when their message gets through? And when the "culture" basically tells this person that violence not just okay but, given the threat, even makes sense and may even be the only way to preserve our freedom?

All it takes is one Anders Behring Breivik.

So are American conservatives to blame? Not entirely, of course, but yes. Many of them, those who feed the culture of hate, those who target Muslims. And it's not always with explicit rhetoric either. You don't have to say you hate Muslims, or that Muslims are evil, just that they shouldn't be able to worship in your community, that they're "foreign" and not like you, that they're "different" and "alien," that they're trying to take over. That's the sort of thing that is all-too-common among American conservatives these days, including from high-profile figures in the media and the Republican Party.

Oh, they'll try to deflect attention and say they deserve no blame, lashing out at their critics, just as they did with the Oklahoma City bombing and more recently with the Tucson shooting and just as they do whenever there's an act of right-wing terrorism, which is more frequent than you might think from the way it's not at all covered in the media.

We just mustn't let them get away with it.

Box office bomb: Sarah Palin and the failure of The Undefeated

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sarah Palin's admirers and various other delusional conservatives are doing their utmost to try to convince us that The Undefeated, the hagiographic documentary about Palin, has been a rousing success thus far.

In the process, they're also attacking anyone who suggests otherwise. Take The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf, for example, a conservative civil libertarian (and hardly one of Palin's fiercer critics) who on opening night last week went to a midnight screening of the movie out in Orange County, California, and found the theater empty (save for two young women who didn't know what it was about and left after just 20 minutes, as well as a couple who came in near the end, made out in the back row, and quickly left). (The rest of the multiplex was jam-packed for Harry Potter.) Friedersdorf's anecdotal point was simply that the midnight first screening of the Palin documentary didn't attract an audience even in a conservative place like Orange Country. (Big deal. That's hardly much of a surprise. Surely Palin's fans would show up at a normal time.) Friedersdorf was just reporting the facts as he witnessed them.

Ah, but that was enough to put him in the crosshairs, and he has since been viciously attacked by Andrew Breitbart, conservative bloggers, and conspiracy theorists (who insanely claim he set the whole thing up), as well as by various right-wing trolls on the Internet. You know, the usual suspects, wallowing in dishonesty, hatred, and outright craziness.

What happened to Friedersdorf is instructive (and deeply troubling), if predictable, but the question remains, how has The Undefeated done so far?

Critically, it has been panned. As I write this, it has a 32 at Metacritic (which seems to be a tad high given the overwhelmingly negative reviews it has received) and a 0 (yes, zero) at Rotten Tomatoes.

To Palin's defenders, this hardly matters. They, like conservatives generally, write off film critics as liberal partisans who couldn't possibly review a film independently of their supposedly left-wing political views. (This is how they dismiss negative reviews of any "conservative" movie, like Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. If you didn't like that sadomasochistic turd, you had to be politically and/or theologically predisposed against it. There's no possible way you could just have disliked it, or thought it a terrible movie.)

So what they do is turn to box office figures. Critics may not like a "conservative" movie, but the public is another story. That's the real America, the "heartland" pushing back against the leftie elites. Surely the box office can prove that The Undefeated is an exceptionally popular, and hence exceptional, movie. This is the case that John Nolte (who also attacked Friedersdorf) makes at Breitbart's Big Hollywood: "Numbers Don't Lie: "The Undefeated" Had a Remarkable Box Office Debut.

Well, not so much. If there's anything remarkable about the movie's first-weekend haul it's how remarkably mediocre it was, well short of what some might have been expecting given the ongoing fascination with all things Palin.

The Undefeated grossed $65,132, or $6,513 per screen on its first weekend of release (as it played on ten screen total across the country). This put it in 40th place in terms of weekend gross but 5th in terms of screen average. Not too bad, though it's hard to compare a movie that played on ten screens (and for which people who wanted to see it had to search out those few screens) and a movie that played on thousands of screens, like Horrible Bosses, which averaged $5,672 on 3,134 screens. If a movie is playing on that many screens, attendance can be spread out more, reducing the per-screen average.

But, still, yes, $6,513 isn't bad. But it was the first weekend for The Undefeated, not for Horrible Bosses (which has a total gross of over $60 million to date), and one would expect the numbers to have been higher.

Not to worry, says Nolte. If you compare The Undefeated's numbers to the numbers of other political documentaries, it did very well. Its weekend gross puts it well back on the list, but its per-screen avergage makes it look much stronger. No, it wasn't Fahrenheit 9/11 ($27,558 average on 868 screens), Bowling for Columbine ($26,143 average on eight screens), or Roger and Me ($20,063 average on four screens), and certainly not An Inconvenient Truth ($70,332 average on four screens), but it stacks up fairly well against most of the other major political docs of the past 20 years.

Nolte takes this to mean that the movie was an unqualified success -- and then goes on, predictably, to slam Palin's critics.

Here's the thing, though: As Joshua Green notes at The Atlantic, The Undefeated's numbers really weren't that good, or at least aren't worth bragging about. Now, the movie could have some life as it opens elsewhere around the country, and perhaps the ongoing infatuation with Palin will attract solid audiences, but shouldn't it have done better? Maybe not at Michael Moore or Al Gore levels, but Palin is a major political celebrity with a huge following. Where was the excitement for this piece of hagiographic crapola? Maybe elsewhere, maybe in the Heartland (as opposed to right-wing Orange County?), maybe if somehow some buzz can be generated, maybe if people go merely out of curiosity, but it certainly wasn't there opening weekend.

Now, I would suggest that Palin's popularity, while certainly real given her devoted following, is a product of the media as much as anything else. Which is to say, she would have some popularity anyway, but it's all the attention she gets in the media that turns her into a cultural phenomenon. Which is further to say, much of her popularity is a mirage -- it isn't really there. Just think how poorly she polls even among Republicans. Yes, I'll include myself and this blog in here -- we overdo it, covering her with excessive attention, treating everything she does, every word she utters, as far more significant, far more interesting, than it really is. And so we build up these expectations around her, including that any movie about her must do extremely well simply because it's about her -- and of course we, and supposedly the public generally, just can't get enough of her. If this is all wrong, or at least grossly exaggerated, then it should actually come as no surprise at all that people haven't been flocking en masse to see The Undefeated. Why should they? She's not nearly as popular as we say she is.

Don't get me wrong... this isn't all the media's fault. Palin plays the media and makes it seem herself as if she's far more significant and far more interesting than she really is, worthy of all the attention she gets, worthy of her stardom.

But while she rakes in massive amounts of money, often by duping her gullible supporters, she hasn't actually been all that successful, has she, at least in entertainment terms?

Sure, many still love her, including a core (if small) GOP constituency, and she has her Facebook followers and her commentator gig on Fox News, but her TV show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, mostly a massive ego trip but also possibly part of a campaign to boost her political fortunes (as it was a kind of campaigning, if not actually preliminary campaigning for a possible 2012 run), saw a huge drop in viewership after the first episode and was not renewed for a second season. And, again, her poll numbers are incredibly weak, even among Republicans. So should we really have expected a shamelessly and gratuitously hagiographic documentary about her, a documentary with an obviously self-aggrandizing agenda, to be a hit?

The right-wing obsession with President Obama's "obsession" with raising taxes

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We're hearing it all the time from Republicans these days: Obama's "obsessed" with raising taxes. It's the same old tired partisan bullshit, of course, and a blatant lie, but the uninitiated, those unaware of how Republicans do their thing, might be excused for thinking, upon hearing this over and over again, that the president is maniacally trying to transform America into some sort of retro-Scandinavian dystopia, Scandinavia before right-wing neo-liberalism arrived on the scene.

Take James Pethokoukis, for example. In his latest smearfest of a post at Reuters, Pethokoukis opens, as usual, by stacking the deck against reasonable debate and an appreciation of the facts:

It's the great mystery of the debt ceiling debate: Why is President Barack Obama so darn adamant about raising taxes?

Really, that's "the great mystery"? Well, I suppose it's no mystery why Republicans, even those who should know better (and probably do) have caved in to the Tea Party and are pulling the country towards financial, fiscal, and economic catastrophe.

But how exactly is Obama "so darn adamant"? Dismissing progressives altogether, not to mention his party's base, the president has responded to the debt ceiling crisis by playing aggressively to the center. He has put Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on the table, much to our chagrin. He continues to negotiate with a Republican Party that refuses to compromise and that is essentially holding the process -- and the country -- hostage. Indeed, he appears to have positioned himself not as some sort of Big Government leftist (not that such leftists even exist anymore in the Democratic Party, or on the American left at all, they're just straw men created by the Republicans to scare people) but rather as a moderate Republican, as the sort of Republican who used to run the GOP. If this were the '90s, Obama, at least on economic policy, would be very much at home there.

Even now, even with Republicans doing poorly in the polls over the debt ceiling crisis, even with Republicans divided and on the run, even after he turned the tables and backed them into a corner, gaining the upper hand, Obama continues to push for a Grand Bargain that includes massive spending cuts and only relatively small revenue increases (mostly by closing tax loopholes, not by actually raising taxes). The so-called Gang of Six re-emerges yesterday with a $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction package, a package that while bipartisan is Republican in terms of its priorities, a package that if passed may not actually benefit him politically, and Obama showers it with praise.

Now, maybe Obama is being so kind to it because he knows it will never pass the GOP-led House of Representatives, and so maybe he's still just trying to appeal to independents by presenting himself as open to compromise and serious about getting something meaningful done -- and so when the package goes nowhere he can let Republicans take the fall for sinking it. But he's been pretty consistent on the policy and at no point has he even come close to appearing obsessed with raising taxes. Not now, not before, not ever.

If anything, Obama is just being responsible. He knows full well, even if Republicans do not (and Pethokoukis does not), that the only way to solve America's deficit/debt problem over the long term is to increase revenue. And that can be done in part by closing loopholes and letting the Bush tax cuts, and particularly the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, expire. Though of course it was Obama who agreed with Republicans last fall to extend the tax cuts.

Pethokoukis also accuses Obama of violating Keynesianism by calling for tax increases. Well, I agree that the focus should be on economic stimulation (deficit spending) instead of deficit-cutting, but, again, Obama hasn't called for anti-stimulative tax increases. If anything, Obama wants more stimulus.

Obama's tax obsession becomes understandable when you realize the long game he's playing: Big Taxes to fund Big Government. Decade after decade. See, it's an almost universal belief among left-of-center journalists, economists, policymakers and politicians that Americans must pay higher taxes in coming years to cover the medical expenses of its aging population – not to mention all sorts of brand new social spending and green "investment." Dramatically higher taxes. On everybody. And if we have a debt crisis, maybe those tax increases come sooner rather than later.

This makes no sense at all. Across the board, taxes are at an extremely low level. Raising them slightly -- for example, by letting the Bush tax cuts expire -- would only mean a return to Clinton-era levels. And that was hardly an era of Big Government Socialism. In fact, it was a rather successful era for the economy. And if Obama's agenda is really all about "Big Government," what are we to make of his willingness to cut core entitlement programs? Is it all about health care? About, say, funding a government-controlled single-payer system? How could it be, given that the Affordable Care Act, while extending coverage to tens of millions, proposes only a reformed market-based approach to health insurance? Green investment? Please. Obama isn't even talking cap and trade anymore, and that, too, is a market-based approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, one that Republicans used to support (just as they used to support what's in the Affordable Care Act).

Okay, enough. I think you get the point. (If you don't, you need help.) Pethokoukis is just regurgitating the same old lies, the Obama-as-tax-loving-Socialist meme that has no basis whatsoever in reality.

If you really want to talk about obsession, look no further than these anti-Obama smearmongers on the right. They just keep repeating themselves, and looking increasingly desperate and stupid in the process.

Whither the conservative blogosphere? Or, do you have to be "big" to make a difference?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

If you're looking for something interesting to read today -- and for whatever reason you care about bloggers, blogging, and the state of the political blogosphere -- check out this post by John Hawkins at RightWingNews: "The Slow, Painful Coming Death Of The Independent, Conservative Blogosphere." Key passage:

Bloggers have asked me: So what's the strategy to deal with this?

Really, it's simple: Get big or go home.

Find a way to dramatically increase the size of your blog, expand into multiple websites that together are big, hook up with someone who's already big, or accept that there isn't much of a future in a small, niche market for you. Maybe that sounds a little grim, but unless something changes, independent conservative bloggers who haven't already made it big don't have a bright future.

This is purely anecdotal, but in my early days as a blogger, several years ago now, I actually made quite a few friends in the conservative blogosphere. No, we may not have agreed on anything, but there was mutual respect, I think, some of them were willing to link to me as a thoughtful liberal, as I often made a point of linking to a handful of conservative bloggers I thought were worth reading, like Ed Morrissey (now at Hot Air, then at his own place, Captain's Quarters) and a few others you can find in my blogroll over on the right sidebar.

Indeed, I sometimes found these conservatives more willing to link to a smaller blogger like me than the liberals/progressives with whom I had a lot more in common politically. This is something I and many others have been critical of for years -- the reluctance, or perhaps refusal, of some liberal/progressive A-listers to link to smaller liberal/progressive blogs. It's why many of us get involved with the annual Blogroll Amnesty Day, when we encourage blogs to link to smaller blogs. If only the A-listers would get involved and do that more frequently than they do. (Though, to be fair, I have been fortunate to have received kind and generous support, in terms of links but also in terms of friendship, from a number of liberal/progressive A-listers, like Steve Benen, Kevin Drum, Glenn Greenwald, and the good people at Crooks and Liars, where I'm now in the rotation doing the daily round-up that focuses on links to smaller blogs.)

But now, I wonder. Maybe the conservative blogosphere really isn't what it used to be. Maybe it's all about the A-listers now, with little regard for the small, independent blogs that really make what we love so much, a blogosphere full of diverse, interesting voices, so dynamic.

If you really have to be "big" to get noticed, or to make a difference, or just to be anything anyone cares about, the shark may well have been jumped. Which would be a real shame. Because without denying the importance of many of the A-listers all across the spectrum, we don't want blogging -- or shouldn't want it, if we care about its democratic ethos -- to turn completely into a haven for an exclusive new media elite that shuts everyone else out, establishes its parameters, and becomes its own self-regarding establishment.

I'm not saying that what is apparently happening on the right is also happening on the left. Sure, it helps to be "big," but there's still room for the rest of us, and I think it's essential that we, from the A-listers on down, do everything we can to make sure we don't lose what made blogging so great in the first place.

Pity the poor Koch Brothers, just a couple of regular guys trying to do the right thing

By Richard K. Barry

Big joke. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) says that it inadvertently sent a letter to the Koch Brothers asking for a political contribution. Given the Koch Brothers' long history of financing fake "grassroots movements" and throwing money at every conceivable roadblock to creating a fairer society for more Americans, it does, at first blush, appear to be an obvious mistake.

Having said that, like most corporations in America, the Koch Brothers have probably, over time, financed both Democrats and Republicans if the candidate in question happened to be either on side with a particular corporate interest or deemed "swayable."

It seems too obvious to say, but, because corporations have so much cash to distribute, they throw their money in all directions on the chance that it might somehow have an impact consistent with whatever public policy goal they find useful.

That the Koch Brothers would have ended up on a list of those who had previously donated to individual Democratic candidates, and therefore be a potential target for a DSCC fundraising pitch, seems not only possible, but likely. It's the nature of list management in the world of high volume political fundraising. Lists are the real currency of politics: donors, supporters, opinions leaders, volunteers, sign locations, etc.

In fact, Politico reports that the Kochs did donate almost $200,000 to Democratic organizations in 2010 and $30,000 to the DSCC in the same cycle.

So, the "how dare you" response by the Koch Brothers seems a little strained to me, but predictable.

Clearly, though, if the DSCC had been paying more attention they would have pulled the letter, knowing that it would be a minor public relations bonanza for those on the right with too little else to do with their time. In that sense, it was a mistake.

Blah, blah, blah.

More interesting for me, though, was the final paragraph in the letter sent by a Koch Companies public affairs hack to the DSCC complaining about the request for financial support. It read:

It is troubling that private citizens taking part in the discourse have become the targets of White House and DSCC fundraising missives, and we would certainly encourage you to rethink that approach.

Give me a break. Holding aside that whole bizarre thing about corporate personhood, an entity as large, influential and powerful as the Koch Companies is a behemoth able to act in the public sphere in a way so dramatically different from what a "private citizen" could do as to make the Koch claim ridiculous.

In 2008, Forbes called Koch the 2nd largest privately held company in the United States, stating that it had an annual revenue at that time of $98 billion. Say it to yourself slowly, "an annual revenue of $98 billion."

I guess Koch's political activities would sort of be just like the guy down the street with a photocopier and a pet political issue to flog, except that it would be totally different from that.

It seems that we are supposed to feel sorry for the Koch Brothers because some would want to shine a light on their political activities to get a firmer grasp on how they spend some of that money to makes friends and influence people.

Oh, cut the crap.

Koch Industries is a monster corporation that has and will continue to grease whatever palms it thinks might be useful on whichever side of the aisle.

Nice try at indignation. Not buying.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

I'd almost forgotten Ann Coulter existed -- lucky me

By Richard K. Barry

I stumbled upon an interview on television the other night with conservative author, commentator, loudmouth, and all-around vile creature Ann Coulter.

I had not seen her around in a while and surely would not have gone looking for her unless compelled by some reason I could not imagine. But there she was being interviewed, and I had to stop and watch, if only for a moment.

I have no interest in dredging up the compendium of obnoxious things she has said over the years, though it would be easy to do. Do it yourself, if you have the stomach for it. And I am not the least bit interested in having a discussion about the value of her arguments, because they have none.

I only know that Ann Coulter and a handful of other right-wingers who crop up now and again to spew undisguised hatred depress the hell out of me. And, make no mistake, this mode of presentation is a speciality of the right.

There is nothing clever in what she has to say. There is no nuance or argument worth parsing. It's bile plain and simple, it is hate speech, and she exists simply because a certain subset of the population will always be receptive to arguments based on hatred. She has figured that out and is, apparently, making a good living from it.

I don't know if it's an act or if she really is, deep down, this horrid. Either way, she deserves no attention and I would suggest that any media outlet, any organization, that continues to provide a way for her to be heard ought to be ashamed.

Coulter should remind us that there are limits to the opinions that deserve to be entertained.

Lines of that sort can and should be drawn.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The Sesame Manifesto

By Capt. Fogg

(Ed. note: This is a follow-up to Fogg's post from yesterday. See the Fox News clip there or below. It's certainly enraging, but Hannity et al. are also massively stupid. It's hard to know whether to laugh or shudder. -- MJWS)

It's impossible for me to watch a Fox "panel" chew on a story without thinking of an alligator feeding frenzy or a bunch of mean dogs fighting for possession of a bit of rawhide. Actually, it's impossible for me to watch Fox News at all, but for those of a tougher breed, here's a prime example of that ruthless war on reality called Fox.

Listen carefully and you'll spot the message that Sesame Street aims at lower income, urban kids and you'll smell the racism and you'll hear the Republican anthem that the fraction of a cent per taxpayer that this show costs is "on principle" too much and especially because it tries to elevate the underclasses in direct contravention of Divine Law and Ayn Rand, whichever is the more powerful.

Does anyone really believe that Big Bird is a Communist or that Sesame Street is ruining America and the morals of its children? (Perhaps Doctor Spock fans can sigh with relief now that they've moved on to a new chew toy.)

Perhaps you do, perhaps you watch Fox anyway. Perhaps you're a malicious idiot with delusions of persecution, but here it is again:


(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Only on Fox

By Capt. Fogg 

Did you know that not only is Sesame Street "liberal," not only is Big Bird a bigot, watching it could lead to a totalitarian state and undermines morality and the destruction of the American family. It sets up an appetite for "governmental largesse" and prompts high schoolers to nominate homosexuals to host the junior prom. 

No, not only could you not make this up, you couldn't be paid millions to rave like a lunatic. It's getting to the point where you couldn't pay me to admit I'm American.

Fox News damage control of the Ailes-Palin conflict, translated

By Nicholas Wilbur

Until Fox News flipped the damage control switch, the American public had a brief window of time to ponder the potential ramifications of the cable news giant's CEO, Roger Ailes, describing Sarah "Mama Grizzly" Palin as a "stupid" "idiot" who hasn't contributed a single wink that "elevated the conservative movement."

Thankfully, the Fox News executive vice president for programming, Bill Shine, cleared everything up for those who thought Fox News might actually take a stab at providing the public with credible, fact-based news reporting.

In Shine's own shining words, with paraphrased translations of what he meant:

"I know for a fact that Roger Ailes admires and respects Sarah Palin and thinks she is smart."

Translation: Ailes admires Hitler for his eloquent and inspiring speeches and his undeniable skill in employing bigoted propaganda to cajole the brainless masses into joining a revolution aimed at shedding the earth of filth. Palin doesn't come close, but Ailes gives her an A for effort.

"He also believes many members of the left-wing media are extremely terrified and threatened by her."

Translation: A millionaire with a penchant for sniping wolves from helicopters and blaming her failures as a vice presidential nominee on the “gotcha” media tactics of a certain (lucky-to-be-alive) CBS news host who asked such tricky questions as, “What newspapers and magazines do you read?” – that doesn’t merely instill fear in “many of the left-wing media.” It instills fear in “all wings of the media,” including Ailes, hence the damage control.


"Despite a massive effort to destroy Sarah Palin, she is still on her feet and making a difference in the political world."

Translation: With a limited arsenal of comebacks for such an articulacy-challenged demagogue, we must all acknowledge that standing is an accomplishment in and of itself, particularly for a serially pregnant former Wasilla beauty queen with a talent for blowing flutes and rolling around on her back on the well-manicured campus grounds of the five colleges she attended over a six-year period during her youth. As for the “massive effort” to destroy Palin, that was me exercising irony – a word Ailes and I both know is safe against the North Star blowback of Palinocalypse (because she thinks it has something to do with straightening wrinkled clothes); the only “massive effort” to destroy Palin, of course, was Palin. As for “making a difference,” that is an inarguable understatement whose lack of a modifier (positive, negative...) to the word “difference” ought not be overlooked.

"As for the 'Republican close to Ailes' for which the incorrect Palin quote is attributed, when Roger figures out who that is, I guarantee you he or she will no longer be 'close to Ailes.'"

Translation: The quote is incorrect because anybody who knows Ailes knows that his vocabulary is limited to the word “Nazi” whenever he’s referring to someone who annoys him. Furthermore, it’s not nice to tell the media about a close friend’s personal secrets, and Ailes is going to be really, really upset about his non-public thoughts being aired to the general public – especially when it is so terribly shocking how eerily in tune with the general public his personal feelings happen to be. That is not the Fox News philosophy.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

An update and a question about New York's 23rd congressional district

By Richard K. Barry 

I wrote a few day ago about where things stand in New York's 23rd congressional district. This is where a split on the right helped a Democrat take the seat in a 2009 special election and hold it in the 2010 general.

Specifically, in 2010, running as a Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman appears to have allowed a split that gave the race to Democrat Bill Owens. Despite the fact that Hoffman dropped out late, he still got 6%, which was enough to lose the seat for the GOP.

On the basis of this, I suggested that Hoffman might now disappear into political oblivion. A helpful reader indicated that I could be wrong about that, suggesting that Hoffman is raising money and continues to maintain some degree of election readiness.

What I see is that Hoffman is continuing to solicit funds to pay down his campaign debt, and that he has a live website with all the bells and whistles calling for volunteers and other kinds of help, which could be for a renewed effort in 2012. I do note very little post-2010 news on the site, but the text of the fundraising letter says, and I quote, "we need our influence to prevail in 2012," whatever that means.

We could assume that this is to again seek the Republican nomination for NY-23, which he lost in 2010 before running as a third party candidate. That could be true.

This does beg the question, though, as to whether or not Mr. Hoffman would run on the Conservative Party line should he again fail to get the GOP nod.

It would be interesting for some enterprising reporter from a local media outlet, should he or she run into Mr. Hoffman on the street, to ask not only if he is running for the GOP nomination but if another third party run is possible should he not get that nomination. (The standard answer for a question like this is, "I am not going to deal in hypotheticals." I've always loved that one.)

So, I know it's unlikely that a straightforward answer would be forthcoming, but sometimes a non-answer can say a lot.

On a personal note, it's been a long time since I lived in the NY-23rd, having gone to school at Oswego State, even working for a time at WRVO radio in the news department, so I can't claim to have my ear to the ground. I'd be happy to hear from anyone who might be in that position. Has Hoffman already been more explicit than this?

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Defending ARPA

Guest post by Christopher Miller

Chris Miller, a Truman National Security Project fellow, was a sergeant in the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division through two tours in Iraq, during which he earned a Purple Heart, and an adviser to the Iraqi Army. After returning to the U.S., he was involved with VoteVets.org and Operation Free, travelling the country as part of the Veterans for American Power Tour. He is currently studying British and European law. This is his first guest post at The Reaction.

**********

When it comes to the budget and debt, the knives have come out in Washington. And the key phrase seems to be, "everything is on the table." Conservatives want to put our energy security and independence on the table, as well. And it seems they want to do it for reasons more political than fiscal. The debt must be trimmed, but it cannot come at the expense of our national or future energy security.

Recently The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a report supporting greatly scaling back funding for the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), calling much of what it does "wasteful and unnecessary." They claim that the DoE must stick to its role of promoting national and economic energy security from "traditional" sources. They also cling to the conservative article of faith that the private sector can innovate better without government support.

With the national gas price average hovering around $4 a gallon following two years of steady price increases, the DoE's efforts to research new fuel technologies seem to be very necessary and no waste. DoE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is working on non-oil liquid fuels from abundantly available domestic sources that would eventually produce significantly cheaper prices at the pump.

ARPA-E is based upon the model of a more famous agency: DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Though others claim it, the truth is that DARPA invented the internet, as well as GPS technology, advanced microchips, and even Velcro. Additionally, they developed stealth technology, guided missiles, and unmanned aerial drones, all of which have greatly contributed to the success of our military.

ARPA-E and DARPA have been praised as models of "lean" bureaucracy and focus on high-risk, high-reward ideas within a relatively small budget. They also highlight the fact that the government can drive innovation. This pays dividends not only for our energy needs and national security, but for our economy as a whole, since the private sector tends to build on these innovations. The private sector application of the internet, GPS, and nuclear energy are examples. We wouldn't have nuclear power if it weren't for the government's Manhattan Project, and imagine business without the internet or transport without GPS. 

The Heritage Foundation report claims that the private sector can do the job better. The facts tend to disagree with them. Many of the research projects cited in the report as private sector examples of new energy research and development are in fact public-private partnerships, receiving vital funding from federal agencies such as the DoE, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the military.

Recent business trends, especially since the economic downturn, show that private companies are not willing to invest large amounts of money in new research and development. The energy sector invests only 0.3% of its revenue in new R&D projects. Another inconsistency is that the report claims to support a continuing role for ARPA-E but wants to cut out virtually all of its funding. ARPA-E was only recently fully funded as part of the 2008 stimulus plan, and conservatives essentially want to pull the plug already, while claiming to support it.

Why would anyone be against these agencies? Cutting the DoE budget would only save a very small amount of money and would come at great expense as oil prices continue to rise and America falls behind in the energy race. Clearly, part of it is ideological. Conservatives believe, falsely, that energy research should stay with the private sector, despite government research and funding being responsible for its development. The other part is political. President Obama has unveiled the development of new energy technologies as a vital part of his Energy Security Blueprint. GOP conservatives have shown themselves ready to stand in the way of anything the White House wants.

Again, conservatives are playing political games with national security. Our energy future requires an investment now and shouldn't fall victim to ideological or political gamesmanship. The benefits of continuing energy research are clear for our national security and independent energy future. It will benefit American families by cutting our dependence on volatile and expensive petroleum; eliminate our dependence on importing foreign oil; keep our troops from having to secure our energy sources overseas; cut business' energy costs; create new jobs and private-sector industries; and lead to clean, American sources of energy and technology we can market elsewhere. We can afford to pay a small price now for these dividends in the future.

Elephant Dung #28: Is NY-26 the new NY-23?

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Earlier today, R.K. Barry posted on the goings on in NY-23, the district that in 2009 saw one of the very first Tea Party uprisings.

As you may recall, Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman emerged to challenge moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava in a special election to replace John McHugh, who resigned to become secretary of the Army. With lackluster backing from the party that nominated her and some high-profile Republicans switching their support to Hoffman, Scozzafava pulled out of the race, endorsing Democrat Bill Owens, who ended up winning the seat narrowly over Hoffman. Owens won again in 2012, even more narrowly over Republican Matthew Doheney. But it was Hoffman who made the difference. He took just enough support away from Doheney to allow Owens to pull it out.

Well, what happened in NY-23 may also be happening in NY-26, where a rich Teabagger, Jack Davis, is dividing Republican/conservative support just the way Hoffman did. The seat is currently vacant, following the resignation of Republican Chris Lee (of Craigslist scandal fame) earlier this year, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo called a special election for May 24.

There's little doubt that it's a Republican seat to lose. Republican Jane Corwin is ahead in the polls, but not by much. Democrat Kathy Hochul is just a few points behind. But Davis is running a strong third, and he's clearly draining support from Corwin. If his support holds up, Hochul could squeak through. Indeed, what should be a slam dunk for the Republicans has been turned into a toss-up by Davis, and the only way the Democrat can win is if the Republican/conservative vote is split, if Davis, like Hoffman, makes just enough of a difference.

What's interesting, though, is that Davis is an ex-Democrat. He even ran for the seat as a Democrat in 2006 and 2008, losing both times. And his views are hardly mainstream (conservative) Republican. He's opposed to the Republicans' budget proposals and is generally isolationist/protectionist. In that latter regard, he's more Buchananite paleo-conservative than business-oriented Republican. He appears to be a right-wing populist, and is certainly trying to appeal to the Tea Party, but he's certainly less of a Teabagger than Hoffman. And, indeed, the Tea Party itself is split between Corwin, something of a Scozzafava-like moderate, and Davis.

It looks to be a brutal campaign, with the right bitterly divided. The district may be Republican enough that Corwin can pull it out, but it's certainly going to be a lot closer than it otherwise should have been. And, once again, we see conservatives turning a safe Republican seat into an opportunity for the Democrats, and all because the Tea Party and its allies on the right are waging a campaign to control the Republican Party by narrowing its ideological scope and purging it of insufficiently conservative (in Tea Party terms) elements. So determined are they, so convinced of their righteousness, that they're apparently willing to commit political suicide in the process.

We'll have to see if NY-26 is indeed the new NY-23. I suspect that Davis has peaked and that Corwin, who has some Tea Party support, will pull it out. But what's going on there is instructive, and what we're seeing is a preview of much more to come in 2012.

Whither Birtherism?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Conservative renegade David Frum may describe Birtherism as a "disgrace" and a "phony controversy," as an issue that effectively ended with yesterday's release of President Obama's long-form birth certificate, and I credit Frum for asking how "this poisonous and not very subtly racist allegation [got] such a grip on our conservative movement and our Republican party" (that would be, his movement and his party) and for denouncing "these racialized attacks on Obama" (not just the Birther allegation but the new allegation, via Donald Trump, that Obama is basically a product of affirmative action, undeserving of his Ivy League education), but actually Birtherism and its various offshoots, however convincingly refuted, aren't going anywhere.

James Fallows explains why: "[Tuesday], about half of all Republicans thought Obama was foreign born, and therefore an illegal occupant of the White House. How many Republicans will think the same thing one week from now? My guess is: about half. We've reached that stage on just about everything. It's probably been true of human beings throughout time, but is more obviously significant in politics now, that generally people don't act like scientific investigators, or judges in moot-court competitions, when parsing the logic and evidence behind competing arguments to come up with political views. They go on loyalty, and tradition, and hope, and fear, and self-interest, and generosity, and all the rest."

Quite true, but I think Fallows is too generous, and too universal in applying his theory. While I acknowledge that ignorance, willful or otherwise, has been a facet of the human condition forever, or almost forever, this isn't so much about "human beings throughout time" as it is about the current state of one of America's two dominant political parties, a party that to a great extent has rejected science in favour of a far-right ideology, mixed with a similarly far-right theology, that wants nothing to do with "logic and evidence" and everything to do with trickle-down economics and "Intelligent Design." Yes, much of this has to do with loyalty, tradition, fear, self-interest, etc., but a lot of it has to do with sheer madness -- and, as I have remarked a number of times, what I find to be one of the defining aspects of our time, politically speaking, is the Republican Party's descent into madness, or rather its ongoing descent into ever deeper levels of madness.

Many Republicans, needless to say, still aren't convinced. Some of them are crazies like Leo Berman, but the issue, in one form or another, will be kept alive by more mainstream Republicans like Trump, Newt Gingrich, and everyone else who, sincerely or not, is trying to appeal to the grassroots base of the party. And of course it will be kept alive on Fox News, on talk radio, and throughout Frum's "conservative movement."

It's ignorance, it's racism, it's madness. And the facts don't matter one bit.

Hardwired

By Capt. Fogg

As I've suspected, there's an increasing amount of evidence that one is born on one side of the fence or another, predestined to be what they call these days conservative or liberal. Yes, I'm very wary of these terms, since they mean what their enemies say they mean and have little to do with conserving anything real, or with the concept of reform, but still, there seem to be two kinds of minds and it's hard to account for it as merely the product of experience or study or intelligence.

Yes, I've joked about the far right not having a sense of humor that differs from meanness and I can think of all kinds of nominally liberal reformers who would crumble if they ever smiled, but that impression isn't unique to me and I find it compelling. Some people find their view of reality far too serious, too dangerous, and threatening to find much to laugh about, unless it's to laugh about the discomfiture and humiliation of an enemy.

That there are indeed two kinds of minds, two predispositions toward political, religious, and sociological poles, is compelling, not that I would suggest using any evidence for it to dismiss arguments from either side. Sometimes, conservative is actually conservative and liberal is just liberal and the truth may be neutral.

There may be important evidence for physical differences between those who feel threatened, respond to perceived threats with more aggression, more disgust and less tolerance for uncertainty. A taste for strongly held credos about morality and politics almost defines such people and we usually call them conservatives. A distaste for absolute moral judgments, for saying something is "just wrong" without considering the results, defines those we want to call liberals.

"Liberal Brains" seem more tolerant of uncertainty than conservatives according to a study of brain scans of 90 volunteers at University College London. Brain scans revealed, or so it's claimed, physical differences: 

Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation... Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure,

says researcher Ryota Kanai. 

People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do liberals and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions," the study said.

Liberals are linked to larger anterior cingulate cortexes, a region that "monitor(s) uncertainty and conflicts," it said.

So is this cause or effect? Are these findings real? Maybe it's too soon to tell and I can certainly identify some traits that would make me more conservative than the stereotypical liberal. What I am is for others to say, but I certainly find fault in many standard liberal shibboleths, even if I'm intolerant of certainty, and that includes being certain that the study means anything. 

Our findings are consistent with the proposal that political orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty,

says the report, and that feels right, even if many wrong things feel right. I'm just not afraid of the conservative bogeymen like net neutrality, graduated income tax, single-payer health programs or Social Security. I am, however, concerned about the danger of inflexible creeds that seem to need a great deal of misplaced faith to follow and a government that follows such things without regard to the will of the electorate, the lessons of history, or even the demands of common decency. I believe in uncertainty.

So is my anterior cingulate cortex bigger or smaller and does size matter? It's not as though I'm free of fear, I just fear the fearful and the things they do.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)