Asher Smith2013-06-19T00:17:24-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=asher-smithCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Asher SmithGood old fashioned elbow grease.Opposition to Robert Bork Was Not 'Shameful'tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23319072012-12-19T15:38:46-05:002013-02-18T05:12:01-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/wrote Jay Nordlinger on Dec. 19. As he tells the story, "Even some on the left came to have some guilt about the 'borking.'" Even the New York Times has given voice to the view that Bork's opponents were guilty of spreading "scurrilous lies."
Today, when partisanship has become synonymous with obstructionism, this criticism sounds justified. But the Bork nomination cannot be understood in isolation from its political background. The Bork nomination was correctly understood at the time as having the potential to "remake the Constitution," in the words of Laurence Tribe. The closing remarks of Sen. Kennedy's opening salvo against the Bork nomination, in which he declared that '[Reagan] should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans," are informative. Democrats opposing Bork's nomination would have seen their votes as not just a stand against a particular judicial nominee but as a vote against the social agenda of an administration they felt was attempting to turn the page on the progress of previous decades.
Kate Michelman, the longtime president of NARAL and a leader in interest group-led opposition to Bork, was not posturing when she told television reporters that "we have researched [Bork's] background, and we know what he stands for." Bork's resume included a high-profile New Republic article that referred to federal enforcement of civil rights laws representing a "principle of unsurpassed ugliness." A short while later, Bork provided a memo attacking the Public Accommodations Act to Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign. In the years immediately preceding his nomination Bork was very much a public figure, traveling across the country and railing against liberalism both on the courts and in academia. And Bork did not limit his focus to judicial issues and politics. For example, in a 1985 speech Bork critiqued what he saw as the prevailing "secularist doctrine." By the time he was nominated, Bork could correctly be identified, in the words of then-Boston Globe correspondent Ethan Bronner, as "the strong, lawyerly voice for the Reagan social program."
And this was how the Judiciary Committee explained its vote. In the Committee's report, Bork is portrayed as an opponent of civil rights legislation, a critic of decisions banning racially restrictive covenants and of bans on segregation, a critic of one person/one vote, a critic of decisions upholding bans on poll taxes and literacy tests, and as a judge who took a limited view of the Equal Protection Clause.
Senate Democrats may have been playing to a lay audience when they used Bork's hearings to highlight "freedom in the bedroom" as opposed to the more mundane legal issues judges spend most of their time dealing with. But this was a battle that Bork had joined long before Sen. Kennedy delivered his first harangue against the Judge on the Senate floor. Bork was a proud culture warrior, and his work after his nomination was defeated -- including a book, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, that provides an anthology of anti-gay screeds -- would seem to affirm this view. It hardly reflects poorly on Biden and his former colleagues that they recognized this at the time.]]>How Arlen Specter Almost Changed History -- and the Supreme Courttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19653202012-10-15T19:38:25-04:002012-12-15T05:12:01-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/Associated Press report on the death of longtime Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter remembers the former Senate Judiciary Committee chair as playing "a pivotal role in several Supreme Court nominations." But the AP, which mentions Specter's vote against Robert Bork and his harsh questioning of Anita Hill, fails to mention an episode that almost changed the course of American history.
The day after George W. Bush won re-election in 2004, Specter was riding high. He had just defeated a nominal Democratic challenger to win his fifth term in office. His seat was secured when Pennsylvania's junior Republican Sen., Rick Santorum, and other high profile conservatives closed ranks and protected Specter's right flank against a strong challenge from conservative Congressman (and current Pennsylvania Sen.) Pat Toomey. And, since his party retained control of the Senate, it was his turn to take the reins as Chairman of the Senate Judicary Committee.
It was that day, contemplating his good fortune, that Specter offered the following reflection on how he would use his perch as Chair of the Judiciary Committee: "The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibusters. And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."
Given Specter's record in support of abortion rights, his unstated threat to block anti-choice judicial nominees was clear. Jan LaRue, president of Concerned Women for America, a conservative women's group that promotes biblical principles, interpreted Sepecter's remarks to mean that "he will block appointments of federal judges who do not pass his pro-abortion litmus test," And, as chair of the Judiciary Committee, the damage he could potentially inflict on President Bush's agenda was vast.
The problem was, Specter was not yet the Committee chair. A formal vote on Senate leadership positions would not take place until January 2005, when the 109th Congress would be seated. And conservatives freaked out. Activists opposed Specter's ascension, and groups such as the Christian Defense Coalition planned nationwide protests. Concerned Women for America sent a letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist that read in part: "Sen. Specter has dismissed as 'unlikely' the notion that he would allow a nominee who does not support the manifestly unconstitutional Roe v. Wade decision to be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Sen. Specter has signaled in advance that he does not intend to conduct the Judiciary Committee in a fair and impartial manner. Therefore, he has disqualified himself from consideration for that position."
Inevitably, Specter caved. Unlike the Democratic caucus, Republicans in the Senate do not -- and did not, in 2004 -- assign chairmanships based primarily on seniority. Republican Senate leadership would have to approve Specter's ascension. Specter had long coveted the Judiciary Committee chairmanship, and in order to achieve that ambition he signed an actual pledge stipulating that he would not oppose anti-abortion nominees.
In hindsight, it is impossible to say how the judiciary would have been altered had Specter kept his mouth shut until after chairmanships were divvied out. While both of President Bush's Supreme Court appointees are orthodox judicial conservatives, at the time of their nominations they evaded questions on abortion and sang hosannas to stare decisis. Faced with concerted pressure from the White House, Senate Republican leadership and the same activists that challenged him in 2004, it's very possible that Specter would have lost any battle he may have chosen to wage in 2005 when John Roberts and Samuel Alito were nominated.
But it is also possible that Specter may have stood by his pro-choice convictions and provided bipartisan cover to a filibuster effort against one or both of Bush's Supreme Court nominees. Specter was never all that attached to the Republican establishment; he did, in fact, switch sides and begin caucusing as a Democrat in 2009. If he had, the composition of the Supreme Court, which is currently considering key cases on affirmative action and voting rights, may have been very different today -- as would be the political legacy Specter left behind.]]>The "Evolution" of Totalitarian Regimes Is Really a Throwbacktag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18507232012-09-04T12:12:15-04:002012-11-04T05:12:01-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/Fareed Zakaria GPS, the host highlighted a new book, William Dobson's "The Dictator's Learning Curve," and explained the work's conclusions:
Old school oppressors like Mao, Pol Pot or Idi Amin, could keep their atrocities relatively secret. That's not possible today. If a dictator tried to orchestrate a mass killing and keep it secret, it would fail. It would end up on YouTube. (...)
So, today's cleverest dictators have evolved. They allow a certain amount of dissent as an escape valve. Consider China. There's a study out by three political scientists at Harvard. They've devised a way to analyze millions of social media posts in China. What's special is that they claim to do this before the Chinese government gets to censor them. So, it provides a unique insight not just into what the Chinese people think, but also what the government deems necessary to censor. What did they find? Contrary to what you think, it turns out criticisms of the government are not more likely to get censored. Even vitriolic criticism is allowed. The focus is on stopping mass mobilization. Last year, Beijing blocked Internet searches for Tunisia's Jasmine revolution to prevent discussions about the Arab Spring. Similarly, searches for the number 4/6 were censored. The numbers representing June 4th, the anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square.
(...)
We're witnessing a trend in China, Russia, Venezuela, and many other countries, even Myanmar. Gone are the days when dictators could completely ignore the demands of their people. As citizens become more exposed to events around the world, more connected to each other on the Internet and social media, dictators will have to make greater concessions. It's a situation that is far better than how things were ten, 20, or 50 years ago. Regimes like those in Syria and North Korea can still act with all-out brutality. But they are outliers. They represent a fading order. The new model is to allow a controlled space for free commerce, for open education, even for dissent. Perhaps people in these countries can use that space to slowly expand the realm of freedom and liberty. We'll be right back.
But while the observation Dobson makes may be true, it is incorrect to frame it as modern phenomena. Take, as a representative example, the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus (r. 27 B.C. - A.D. 14). The "Pax Romana" presided over by Augustus -- the flourishing of the arts that occurred after the conclusion of the cycle of civil wars that marked the prior century -- was a hotbed of conspicuous political dissent that was carefully channeled by the princeps.
Literature of that time was full of praise for the killers of Julius Caesars -- men whom Augustus, during his rise to political power, branded as criminal, had legally prosecuted, and pursued to death. Tacitus tells us in his Annals that the out-and-proud Republican leanings of Livy were "no obstacle" to his friendship with the ruler. Tacitus says the same about historians Asinius Pollio and Messalla Corvinus, men whose works have not survived but who were widely read in their own time.
Similarly, the writings of the regime's vanquished enemies -- Mark Antony's harsh letters to his chief rival; Marcus Brutus's public addresses containing heavy (and often defamatory) abuse against Augustus; and the poems of Furius and Catullus, which were "packed with insults of the Caesars" -- were read and celebrated throughout the emperor's reign.
This was not, obviously, the state line. At the same time Livy was praising the killers of Augustus's adopted father, that same ruler presided over a temple and cult dedicated to the deified Julius Caesar. But by allowing criticism of his regime's origins and his own past, Augustus was able to use dissent to make profound political statements. Allowing dissent, Georgetown classics professor Josiah Osgood tells us, permitted the emperor to "demonstrate he was making overtures to a more responsible government." For Augustus, permitting limited -- albeit closely monitored -- uncensored political commentary became a means of guarding against political upheaval.
The point here is not merely academic. To ascribe the trends Dobson observes in his new work to technological advances both aggrandizes the role of technology in altering relationships between governments and the governed and obscures historical constants. Yotube, Twitter and other social media outlets are best understood as mediums, not motivators, for allowing such concessions. The need for totalitarian regimes to allow "escape valves" to function is inherent in that form of government, and is not a new idea. The savviest dictators have always understood this, and it is part of what makes them so formidable.]]>Did Economic Populism Win South Carolina for Newt Gingrich?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12213792012-01-22T19:00:55-05:002012-03-23T05:12:01-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/behind even Fred Thompson. Out of the four early-voting GOP states, South Carolina always represented Romney's greatest challenge.
But why, if Romney was not to prevail, was it Newt Gingrich -- and not Rick Santorum -- who benefited?
Out of all of the non-Mitt Romney candidates to escape from New Hampshire, Santorum may have been in the most logical position to consolidate opposition support. A week before South Carolinians voted, a group of more than 100 prominent evangelical leaders announced their decision to back Santorum. Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, raised the ire of a host of conservative opinion leaders after launching vehement attacks focusing on Romney's career at private equity firm Bain Capital.
Despite these criticisms, Gingrich's standing in South Carolina polls rose as his attacks on Bain Capital grew stronger. On Jan. 17, Talking Points Memo's Poll Average pegged Gingrich at 24.6 percent, with Romney at 33.2 percent. On Jan. 19, Gingrich was at 33.9 percent and Romney was at 28.8 percent. On primary day, Gingrich was at 35.7 percent and Romney was at 26.4 percent.
And Rick Santorum? On Jan. 15, Santorum was ahead of Gingrich in TPM's polling average, with 22.4 percent to Gingrich's 21.1 percent. Santorum, however, did not join Gingrich's criticisms of Romney. "I don't want to stand here and be a defender of Mitt Romney," Santorum told a Republican town hall audience in West Columbia, South Carolina. "But unfortunately even some in our party now, even some running for president will engage in with respect to capitalism. It is bad enough for Barack Obama to blame folks in business for causing problems in this country. It's one other thing for Republicans to join him."
It is important to note that Gingrich's attacks on Romney's "vulture capitalism" were not incidental to his overall South Carolina campaign. They were his South Carolina campaign. Winning Our Future, a super PAC supporting Gingrich and operated by Sheldon Adelson, spent at least $3.4 million on advertising portraying Romney as a Gordon Gekko-like figure. The same super PAC also put out a 30 minute documentary titled "When Mitt Romney Came to Town," highlighting takeovers by Bain Capital that led to plant closures and layoffs.
Even after the Republican establishment came out against Gingrich's assaults on Bain Capital, Gingrich was undeterred. On Jan. 17, Gingrich told a business audience that criticisms of his campaign tactics were "baloney." "The Bain model," he Gingrich explained, "is to go in at a very low price, borrow an immense amount of money, pay Bain an immense amount of money and leave. I'll let you decide if that's really good capitalism. I think that's exploitation." Gingrich would repeat this same line almost verbatim during Thursday's Republican debate.
It is likely too early to separate correlation from causation. It is possible that Gingrich's attacks on Romney's business record had little to do with his ultimate victory in South Carolina (although an ABC News exit poll does suggest that Romney's career at Bain Capital did at least hurt him with low-income voters). The same applies to Santorum's decision to hold his fire, and his campaign's decline. But even the fact of mere correlation has important and fascinating implications for the type of general election campaign Democrats may run -- and the sorts of policy stands political candidates should feel confident taking in the near future.
]]>Why Does the Media Persist in Calling Ron Paul a Libertarian?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.11796632012-01-02T16:00:52-05:002012-03-03T05:12:01-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/New York Times, is "Ron Paul, a libertarian-leaning congressman from Texas."
But what exactly about Ron Paul merits the oft-repeated libertarian label? The answer certainly does not lie in his personal views, or his campaign's policy positions.
The Ron Paul phenomenon -- in some pre-Caucus polls, Paul still maintains a slim lead -- represents nothing new under the sun of American politics. Paul represents not a new libertarian age, but old-fashioned American federalism -- the belief that sovereign state governments should have free rein within their borders, free from pesky federal intervention and regulation. It hardly takes a Ph.D. in American history to realize that this has been tried before.
Paul supporters seem to be yearning for a return to a pre-Civil Rights Era federal system. Prominent Iowa Republican and Paul supporter Rev. Phillip Kayser explained to Talking Points Memo last week that Paul's vote in Congress in favor of repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" did not staunch his enthusiasm for Paul. Rather, Kayser believes Paul's view of the Constitution would allow states more latitude in legislating issues of social policy. "Under a Ron Paul presidency," Kayser told TPM, "states would be freed up to not have political correctness imposed on them, but obviously some state would follow what's politically correct. What he's trying to do whether he agrees with the Constitution's position or not is restrict himself to the Constitution. That is something I very much appreciate."
Not imposing "political correctness" on the states, of course, is not new policy. It was standard practice for the first 188 years of American history. It did not work.
Yet on other social issues Paul's positions are not libertarian, but federalist. Paul does not want government out of individuals' private lives -- he merely wants the federal government out. For example, Paul twice opposed the George W. Bush-sponsored Federal Marriage Amendment, but he has supported legislation ensuring federal courts will not undermine any state laws regulating marriage.
From a libertarian perspective, Paul's logic is strained. In 2004, Paul dissented from celebrations of the 40-year anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. "The federal government," explained Paul, "has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society."
But why, if Paul is opposed to federal regulations necessary to curb "actions decent people find abhorrent," is he comfortable with permitting states to infringe on fundamental rights? There is no inherent reason why actions by state governments should occupy a more sacred plane than do actions by the federal government.
There is no reason, that is, if one applies a libertarian lens. Seen through the old fashioned prism of states rights, Paul's positions are entirely coherent. But while "states rights" has become a suspect rationale for current day political preferences, proclaiming oneself a "libertarian" is laden with none of the odium of previous centuries of failed policies. So the fiction continues. One wonders, however, why journalists covering the Republican campaign feel obligated to go along with it.]]>Wishful Thinking for a Hillary Clinton Presidency Is Based On Faulty Premisestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11063262011-11-23T15:02:55-05:002012-01-23T05:12:01-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/this year's annual Doug Schoen and Patrick Caddell op-ed calling for President Obama to step aside in favor of Hillary Clinton is upon us. Write Schoen and Caddell in, this time around, the Wall Street Journal:
Not only is Mrs. Clinton better positioned to win in 2012 than Mr. Obama, but she is better positioned to govern if she does. Given her strong public support, she has the ability to step above partisan politics, reach out to Republicans, change the dialogue, and break the gridlock in Washington.
[...]
If President Obama is not willing to seize the moral high ground and step aside, then the two Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, must urge the president not to seek re-election -- for the good of the party and most of all for the good of the country. And they must present the only clear alternative -- Hillary Clinton.
Schoen and Caddell are easily dismissed. The two pollsters, who write as self-described "patriots and Democrats," can more frequently be seen concern-trolling on Fox News than anywhere else. But the idea that Hillary Clinton represents some sort of liberal, Democratic savior is one that has currency. In late October, Time magazine touched off cries of "buyer's remorse" by including the Secretary of State's name in a poll of potential 2012 matchups. During last summer's debt-ceiling negotiations, complaints that Clinton would have been a "more effective negotiator" or was "tougher" than the President frequently cropped up in left-wing media.
The combination of nostalgia and wishful thinking that elevates Hillary Clinton to the status of would-be liberal lion is perplexing. For all of Clinton's success at the State Department, the chaos and lack of discipline surrounding her failed 2008 campaign suggest a leader who would not have been without her own faults.
There is no reason, for example, to assume that Mark Penn, Clinton's pre-eminent 2008 strategist, would not have had a role in a Clinton administration. Liberals who "want to see a blood on the floor" and pine for a president who will stand up to his critics would have been horrified by a White House major domo urging total capitulation on tax policy. "[T]he people who vote on taxes are the people who pay them," Penn reminded the National Journal's Ronald Brownstein earlier this month, registering his fear that the sort of harsh economic talk liberals crave might turn the upper middle class against the Democratic brand.
Indeed, it is worth keeping in mind that the most frequent targets of progressive fury within the Obama administration have been the holdovers from Bill Clinton's White House. Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President," published in September, detailed the role Robert Rubin, a former Clinton treasury secretary, Larry Summers, recently the chairman of the National Economic Council and Bill Clinton's last treasury secretary, and Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff and a former Clinton staffer, played in frustrating major financial reforms in 2009. In a poignant moment, the book details North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan's December 2008 complaint to Obama that "[y]ou've picked the wrong people!" Does anyone doubt that Summers, Emanuel and Rubin would have been prominent actors in a Hillary Clinton administration?
Much of the pining for Hillary Clinton seems to be premised on mis-targeted liberal nostalgia for a version of Bill Clinton's presidency that never happened. Writing for New York Magazine, Jon Chait points out that President Clinton responded to the same general challenge Obama has faced -- an intransigent Republican Congress -- by pursuing right-of-center goals such as welfare reform, a crime bill and NAFTA and giving up the fight on health-care reform and inclusion of gays in the military.
This is not to say that Hillary Clinton could not have been an excellent president. The State Department has been a relative model of achievement and efficiency under her leadership, and her success during her tenure as a senator from New York suggests a genuine ability to negotiate the tricky halls of Congress. There is no reason to believe, however, that the challenges that have plagued and at times overwhelmed the Obama administration would not have deviled a Hillary Clinton presidency. And there is certainly no reason to think that President Hillary Clinton would have shed herself of the same advisers she has relied on for years, and who are responsible for so much of the incoherence of Obama's first-term financial policy. ]]>What Distinguishes Occupy Wall Street From the Tea Party? Follow the Moneytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10277482011-10-24T18:46:45-04:002011-12-24T05:12:01-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/Washington Post's Marc Fisher excitedly reported in an essay published on Sunday:
Although many organizers of the two populist efforts view their counterparts from the other end of the spectrum as misguided or even evil, attitudes among the rank and file of the tea party and Occupy Wall Street are often much more accepting and flexible. They start out with different views about the role of government, but in interviews and online discussions they repeatedly share many of the same frustrations, as well as a classically American passion for fixing the system.
In another report filed on Sunday, NPR staff writers reached the same conclusion: "At both Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party protests," NPR wrote, "you might hear similar opinions on the 2008 bank bailout, the federal deficit and government spending, and the influence of corporations and money on Congress."
NPR went on to seek an explanation of the sudden outburst of populist rage from Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, author of a new book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It. "Anyone who knows anything about campaigns," Lessig told NPR, "knows it's the people who contribute the maximum in a campaign that have the real power in Washington."
Conflation of the two movements, however, obscures vital distinctions, without which the history of post-Great Recession America becomes unintelligible. Despite recent benefactors, occupy Wall Street remains a bottom-up movement. Their accumulation of $300,000, as well as storage space loaded with donated supplies in lower Manhattan, constituted major news a week ago.
For the Tea Party, on the other hand, the horse followed the cart. Two organizations, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, forged an infrastructure that was ready-made by the time the Tea Party emerged in the media a mass movement. Think Progress reported in April of 2009 that FreedomWorks employees were coordinating conference calls among protesters. The same reports also revealed that FreedomWorks purchased domain addresses and even designed signs, talking points and sample press releases for use by protesters and local organizations. Americans For Prosperity, meanwhile, took over the planning of early Tea Party events in New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri and Kansas, as well as several other states.
If one were to search out the folks who, according to Lessig's criteria, "have real power in Washington," FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity would be a fruitful place to start. FreedomWorks was founded by Jack Kemp, the 1996 Republican vice-presidential nominee, and Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader-turned-lobbyist. Obviously, neither are new to insider-politics; neither is their organization, which played a significant public relations role in George W. Bush's 2005 push to privatize social security. Americans for Prosperity is funded heavily by the Koch Family Foundations; Tax records unearthed in a 2010 New Yorker profile of the Koch brothers revealed that in 2008 the three main Koch family foundations donated to 34 political and policy organizations.
Similarities between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street certainly exist on a micro level -- but they are hardly big-picture. The Occupy Wall Street movement has been criticized for a dearth of substantive proposals, but it hardly takes a political scientist (or a Harvard law professor) to figure out that, without major financial leverage, navigating a broken legislative system would prove borderline-impossible for a mass of outsiders whose commitment to disorganization is a matter of design. Koch Industries and the other major funders of the Tea Party led the charge in donating to Republican candidates in 2010. In 2012, any "Occupy Wall Street candidates" will need to self-identify. Both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street may declaim against those whom they view as the powers-that-be, but only one of the two movements was birthed by those self-same power brokers.]]>Offensive Line Woes, Not Tailbacks, Deserve Blame for Poor Run Gamestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9889632011-09-30T13:21:00-04:002011-11-30T05:12:03-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/the best sportswriter in America, has a running feature in his sarcastic weekly roundup of NFL games titled "Fantasy Player That Deserves To Die A Slow, Painful Death." This week's winner was Tennessee Titans RB Chris Johnson:
Chris Johnson [has] been outscored this year by the likes of Cadillac Williams, Michael Bush, Darren Sproles, and Daniel Thomas. What the f[---], Cop Speed? Your holdout was supposed to be OVER. You weren't supposed to stage some kind of bizarre, post-contract sit-in! And now the Kenny Britt Show is done for the year and defense will crowd the box and it's just gonna be one long slog watching you get stuffed week after week. You were supposed to be EXPLOSIVE, dammit! You were supposed to BLOW UP REAL GOOD.
Two weeks ago, the honor went to New York Jets RB Shonn Greene:
Shonn Greene. Oh, Shonn Greene, they promised us things would be different this year. and then you went out in Week 1 and once again took five seconds to be upstaged by LaToeInjury, who is eighty-six years old. YOU F[---].
These complaints are not unique to Magary. Johnson, who went first overall in many fantasy football leagues, has posted only 98 yards rushing through this week and has yet to score. Greene, expected to finally be the featured player in a run-oriented Jets offense, has only one touchdown and 134 yards for the season thus far, good for 3.3 yards per carry. Similar, albeit less profane, criticisms have been leveled at other running backs, including Pittsburgh Steelers RB Rashard Mendenhall. Through three weeks of NFL games, Mendenhall also has only one score and only 14 rushing yards more than Greene.
This anger, however, is almost definitely misplaced. As pretty much everyone who has ever played fantasy football realizes, running back success in any given season is highly variable; a back that rushes for 1,000 yards one year can be riding the bench the next. Football is the least individual of North America's major sports, and scheme, play calling and surrounding talent account for a great deal of any individual player's success or failure. (This is where, if I were an NFL commentator, I would insert the phrase "in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.")
It is no coincidence that Johnson, Mendenhall and Greene, the three most conspicuous fantasy disappointments thus far, all play on teams with significant offensive line woes. The Titans run-blocking has been historically poor through three weeks; K.C. Joyner of ESPN.com notes that "[t]he Titans' run-blockers have given their ball carriers a favorable blocking situation on 29 percent of their rushing attempts this season (a favorable blocking situation being loosely defined as when the blockers don't allow the defenders to do anything to disrupt the rush attempt). To get an idea of how bad that total is, consider that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ranked dead last in the league in that metric in 2010 and they managed to post a 33.6 percent rate in this category."
Greene's Jets and Mendenhall's Steelers, meanwhile, play behind offensive lines that have been ravaged by injuries. Last week saw rookie right tackle Marcus Gilbert injure his shoulder in the second half; he would have to return prematurely after the team's other tackle, Jonathan Scott, left with a sprained ankle. Guard Doug Legursky is also suffering from a shoulder injury.
In New York, the offensive line has been a question mark since Damien Woody decided to retire during the offseason to pursue a broadcast career. His replacement, career journeyman and backup Wayne Hunter, has been exposed through the first three weeks. (In Week One, he gave up two sacks to Cowboys pass rusher DeMarcus Ware.) And behind the starters, depth is thin. Second-year lineman Vladimir Ducasse has yet to earn significant playing time, while backup swing-lineman Robert Turner was placed on injured reserve after a preseason injury and a Nick Mangold high-ankle sprain left undrafted rookie Colin Baxter the only center on the roster.
All three backs will likely post better numbers as the season progresses. Opposing defenses can't stack the box against Mendenhall, who plays in a pass-heavy Pittsburgh offense. The same may soon apply to the Jets, whose offense has become more dependent on the passing game as quarterback Mark Sanchez matures. Chris Johnson, one assumes, is too dynamic to be held in check all year. When and if these backs do bust out, however, it will owe a great deal to improved offensive line play and stability -- the same culprits of their early-season troubles.]]>Present-Day Republican Rage Pre-Dates the Tea Partytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9844002011-09-28T11:32:43-04:002011-11-28T05:12:01-05:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/
At a fundraiser in San Jose last Sunday, President Obama drew applause by highlighting Republican debate-goers: "Has anybody been watching the debates lately? You've got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It's true. You've got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don't have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they're gay."
On Monday, the DNC followed suit, releasing a video of GOP crowds cheering for capital punishment, screaming that a hypothetical uninsured man should die and booing a gay soldier serving in Iraq. The minute-long video closed by pointing out that "not one Republican candidate... spoke up to admonish the crowd and call for civility."
But as the media picks up on this narrative, they largely overlook the fact that these are not isolated incidents of extemporaneous spleen-venting. True, it may have been during a Tea Party-sponsored debate that audience members stole the spotlight by chiming in on society's responsibility to the uninsured. But this outpouring of conservative rage should not exclusively be read, in the words of Harvard professor Theda Skocpol, as "characteristic of many tea party Republicans." Though it contradicts the Tea Party-focused narrative that has dominated interpretations of the present state of the GOP, this phenomenon pre-dates Rick Santelli's trading floor rant, health-care reform and Glenn Beck.
The raw fury of Republican crowds broke into the national consciousness during the 2008 presidential campaign, as well. Various press reports from October 2008 noted a number of outbursts similar in their venom to this month's incidents. Shouts of "Terrorist!" or "Obama Osama!" were not out of place. Neither was the label of "traitor!" (used in reference to Obama) or cries of "off with his head!" On one noteworthy occasion, John McCain had to pause to explain to a crowd of supporters that his opponent was not "an Arab" but "a person that you do not have to be scared of as President of the United States."
It would be hard to argue that unvarnished anger is not uniquely central to modern Republican messaging. For further evidence, consider the keynote addresses of the 2004 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. A then-unknown Barack Obama reminded voters that "[t]here's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America." Former Georgia Governor Zell Miller, on the other hand, characterized Democrats as "warped" and based his appeal on his extreme emotional state ("nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators").
Taken collectively, these incidents should raise questions that are broader in scope than the present campaign. It seems safe to assume that history will not particularly care how Rick Santorum dealt with an awkward debate moment. Yet one party has become a clearinghouse for a set of impulses and emotions that should frighten or, at the very least, disconcert. Why? It should not be treated as coincidental that the party cheering for capital punishment and leaving the uninsured to die is the same party that, in 2009, stood united in dismissing "empathy" as a political and judicial virtue. Instead of focusing on whether these outbursts will come back to haunt the eventual Republican presidential nominee, reporters should spend more time asking what they say about modern-day movement conservatism.
]]>Ron Paul Has Not Been 'Shafted' by the Mediatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9285922011-08-16T17:31:01-04:002011-10-16T05:12:01-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/Politico columnist Roger Simon certainly thinks so. Noting that "Paul lost [last weekend's Ames Straw Poll] to Bachmann by nine-tenths of one percentage point, or 152 votes out of 16,892 cast," Simon thinks that Paul has not received enough attention from the chattering class. And it is true that Paul's chances have been summarily dismissed; Paul has did not appear on any of the Sunday talk shows following Ames, is never included among lists of top tier contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, and was described by a Monday Wall Street Journal editorial in a parenthetical aside as a candidate "who has no chance to win the nomination."
Roger Simon is not alone in this view. Jon Stewart weighed in on the question during his Monday night show, calling out a variety of FOX News and other pundits for pretending Paul doesn't exist. "How did libertarian Ron Paul," Stewart asked his audience, "become the thirteenth floor in a hotel?"
Yet while the grievance aired by Simon and Stewart is understandable, it is misapplied in this case. The exclusion of Ron Paul from discussions of Republican front-runners is not a sign of the mainstream media's blindness, but rather of their competence in serving, finally, as an adequate filtering mechanism.
If anything, political commentators tend to suffer from the opposite problem, failing to distinguish between campaign noise and nonsense. The emergence of Michele Bachmann as the front-runner in Iowa is a prime example. Bachmann, during her two terms in Congress, has been a clearinghouse for views and positions that under most circumstances would disqualify her as a mainstream presidential candidate. Among the most notorious was her spring 2009 observation that flu outbreaks during Democratic presidential administrations represent an "interesting coincidence." She also has a record of statements about homosexuality that most Americans would find abhorrent, and has questioned the patriotism of Democratic adversaries on multiple occasions. This, combined with a sparse record of actual legislative achievement, should have ensured that she was provided the same coverage due to most vanity candidates. Instead, she was treated as a legitimate contender from the get-go -- and that attention, combined with the self-immolation of Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty, have branded her as a conservative champion.
The media should be applauded for the collective observation that success in the Ames Straw Poll is not an indicator of broad-based support. The Straw Poll is a small enough event to be held inside the Iowa State University basketball arena; The results are far from scientific, and every four years plenty of top-tier candidates (including, this year, Mitt Romney) decline to compete. The event's importance to individual campaigns directly correlates with the expectations set by that candidates. Tim Pawlenty invested heavily and was forced out of the race due to his third place finish, while Romney's seventh place finish elicited only shrugs.
This is to say, the Ames Straw Poll is an event specifically tailored to Paul's strengths. Once the parameters of this year's Staw Poll were established Paul quickly ponied up $31,000 to get the prime location beside the entrance to the polling place, and his campaign funded $20 of the $30 price of tickets for all Ron Paul voters. Most prognostications offered before the event assumed that Paul would finish either first or second.
Though Paul has proven his ability to pack the house, his tally represents a significant bulk of his support and not a small sampling. While Jon Stewart is certainly right in pointing out that Ron Paul laid much of the ideological groundwork the Tea Party currently rests on, Paul himself has never established himself as a viable contender. Speculation about how Ron Paul may impact the presidential race more frequently centers on whether he will run as a third party candidate, rather than on the possibility that he may eventually claim the nomination. The newest Rasmussen poll of the Republican field pegs Paul at nine percent, within one percentage point of where he stood in the last Rasmussen poll and 20 points below the current leader, Rick Perry.
The opportunity cost of devoting more attention to Paul is time not spent attempting to force Mitt Romney to settle on explicit positions, and missed opportunities to interrogate Rick Perry on what, exactly, about the Federal Reserve's current policy amounts to "treason." A sophisticated triage is required in prioritizing coverage of presidential candidates, and reporters and commentators are not incorrect in their evaluation of Ron Paul's chances. In reality, a media that is able to distinguish between Ron Paul and candidates who actually have a chance at becoming the next President of the United States is far preferable to a mainstream press that chases every shiny object that glints their way.]]>How Obama and the Democrats Are Reclaiming the Debt Issuetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8943152011-07-12T17:00:35-04:002011-09-11T05:12:02-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/Talking Points Memo had a clever meme going this weekend, in which they counted the number of days since the House Republican caucus took office and began holding the White House hostage over debt ceiling negotiations. (Sunday, for example, was Day 188.)
Though convenient, the "Republicans-as-hostage-takers" lens obscures the extent to which Obama and congressional Democrats have succeeded in co-opting the debt limit narrative. Back when Treasury Department officials requested Congress raise the debt ceiling in early April, Republicans were the ones scoring political points. When Josh Marshall summed up the situation on July 1, the conversation had devolved into "a series of tactical retreats [by the President and his Congressional allies] with no clear stated limit on how much they'll concede." Republicans kept demanding more, as Democrats searched for ever more novel ways to compromise.
For the Washington press corps, the worm began to turn last Tuesday. That was the day David Brooks suggested, in his New York Times column, that refusing "trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases" meant that Republicans may now be "more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative."
Though Brooks writes for a predominantly progressive audience, this message reverberated through the GOP caucuses. Reporters were now empowered to ask Republicans, citing Brooks, whether or not their party was acting rationally. House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and NRSC Head Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Tx.) were both confronted with questions about Brooks's column during their press briefing on Tuesday. Elsewhere, CNN's Christine Romans pressed Sen. Jim DeMint about the potential consequences of Republican "fanaticism."
Even without Brooks's help, however, Democrats had begun to seize the initiative. It was President Obama, not Speaker of the House John Boehner, who was able to look courageous by offering to dice his party's sacred cows. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are already offering a program of cuts that may be more palatable to voters. On Friday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (R-ND) briefed the White House on a plan being drafted by senators that would still trim $4 trillion from the deficit while leaving Social Security alone and making only slight cuts to health programs.
If the Senate plan -- which would raise tax rates for individuals earning more than $500,000 and families earning more than $1 million; would lop $900 million off the Pentagon budget; and would produce interest savings of nearly $600 billion through reduced borrowing -- proves to have legs, it could very well dominate the national conversation going forward. Polling routinely shows voters are broadly opposed to entitlement cuts. The most recent evidence, a Pew Research Center poll released last Thursday, found that about three of every five respondents said they wanted to maintain Social Security and Medicare benefits. Only 32 percent of those polled considered reducing the budget deficit a greater priority.
Speaker Boehner conceded on Friday that not raising the debt limit would place the economy in jeopardy and risk jobs. But it was his announcement late Saturday night that he was pulling out of talks for a "grand bargain" that would cut the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade that may have completed the transfer of leverage to the Democrats. Now that Boehner has declared a debt limit hike necessary, it is members of his own party who are scrambling to agree to a deal -- any deal -- so long as it doesn't raise taxes. While Boehner began to squirm, the White House continued on offense, telling the New York Times they still plan to pursue "the boldest package possible." In his Monday press conference, Obama advanced the ball further, telling reporters: "I have been hearing from our Republican friends that it's a moral imperative for us to tackle our debates and deficits in a serious way. So what I've said to them is let's go. It is possible for us to construct a package to involve both parties to take on their sacred cows."
There is still more than enough time, of course, for Democrats to muck things up. It would certainly not be the first time they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. But even if they can't reach that magic $4 trillion number, Obama and the Democrats may have already claimed the moral high ground and defused the deficit as a major 2012 campaign issue. Because of the events of the past week, it may be the eventual GOP candidate who will have to answer for the party's inflexible stand on taxes. Suddenly, Democrats are the ones ready to talk publicly about how to reduce the national debt -- and Republicans who might be forced to begin ducking the issue.
]]>Despite Expectations, NFL Players Have Used the Lockout Welltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8899152011-07-05T11:28:58-04:002011-09-04T05:12:01-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/
"The lockout means that players who may require ongoing attention from their teams in order to keep them out of trouble won't have that support. Which means that those players could be more likely to get into trouble," wrote Pro Football Talk editor Mike Florio in late March, following the arrest of Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Aqib Talib.
He added later: "At the risk of crossing into the melodramatic, this lockout needs to end before a player with real needs for counseling and/or oversight and/or a direct line of communication to his head coach gets into real trouble, or even worse gets killed."
Below Florio's column, the highest rated comments were those referring to the NFL as the "National Felon League" and the players as "common criminals." The prevalence of this mindset is part of what led Roger Goodell, upon taking office as NFL Commissioner in 2007, to impose a new personal conduct policy. "People in America can't relate to overindulged athletes not acting responsibly," explained New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, now a key participant in negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, in praise of Goodell's policy.
Actually, it turns out that one of the most common activities for locked out NFL players -- along with working out and other preparations for an eventual season -- has not been committing crimes (sorry, PFT commenters) but completing their college degrees.
Anticipating the lockout, many players returned to school for the spring semester. Minnesota Vikings middle linebacker Jasper Brinkley, who left the University of South Carolina one credit short of his degree, was one of the first to take advantage of the forced vacation. "I wanted to take advantage of the extra time that I had," Brinkley told Minnesota's Star Tribune. "It was always something that I felt like was hanging over my head and I wanted to get it done. The lockout gave me the opportunity."
Carolina Panthers quarterback Jimmy Clausen -- who, with Cam Newton now in the Panthers fold, may need that degree now more than ever -- graduated from Note Dame with the Class of 2011. Veterans have also taken advantage of the opportunity offered by the lockout. New England Patriots defensive end Ty Warren and future Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu are two accomplished players who have used the lockout to complete their college educations, from Texas A&M and USC respectively.
Academics have not provided the only worthwhile projects for players who suddenly found themselves with an excess of free time. Tennessee Titans safety Myron Rolle -- who, as a Rhodes Scholar, can already boast degrees from Florida State and Oxford -- has traveled to the Congo with Bill Clinton. He has also spoken at colleges such as Notre Dame, Georgia and South Carolina and hosted an annual camp for foster children in Florida. In late May, New York Jets wide receiver Braylon Edwards made good on a promise to provide college tuition for a group of 100 students in Cleveland, Ohio.
To be sure, other players have surely devoted their free time to less productive endeavors. Talib, who has a trial date set for 2012, is a prominent reminder of that fact. But it is a mistake to allow a few malcontents to gain headlines and color perceptions. For a population that lives under a microscope, NFL players have risen to and exceeded expectations more often than not. Given the prevalence of player-organized team workouts and players going back to school, it seems safe to say that smart, well-intentioned players are the rule, not the exception.
]]>Eliot Spitzer Deserves Some Credit for New York's Gay Marriage Victorytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8847802011-06-26T15:39:08-04:002011-08-26T05:12:01-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/basking in the lion's share of the credit following passage of same-sex marriage legislation by New York's state legislature. Though it can be tempting to attribute this victory to evolution -- an inevitable consequence of the greater cultural acceptance of gay Americans' claims for equal dignity -- it happened now primarily because of Cuomo's masterful handling of the legislature, a task that often bedeviled his predecessors. "Unlike the detached George Pataki, the boorish Eliot Spitzer and the feeble David Paterson," wroteNew York Daily News Albany Bureau Chief Kenneth Lovett, "Cuomo found a way to work with a scandal-scarred and credibility-challenged Legislature."
This is not, however, anywhere close to a complete political history of gay marriage legislation in New York. Despite Lovett's analysis, some credit should rightfully be reserved for a former intra-party rival of Cuomo: Eliot Spitzer, the black sheep of recent New York governors.
Spitzer first pledged to fight for same-sex marriage legislation during his 2006 gubernatorial campaign, before polls routinely showed in-state support for equal marriage rights hovering around 60 percent. At the time, most prominent New York Democrats -- including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer -- were unwilling to offer explicit endorsements of marriage equality. For Spitzer, a figure who was talked about as a strong contender for national office, this was not the opportunistic choice. "There was no tremendous imperative for him to come and be as forceful as he was, which is a very good sign," longtime gay rights advocate State Sen. Thomas Duane observed in 2006. "He could have come and equivocated."
Spitzer began making good on this pledge in the first months of his term. In April 2007, he outlined his proposed legislation. In June 2007, the New York State Assembly passed the bill. With these first steps, tangible progress had been made. Because of this bold first attempt, the parameters behind working same-sex marriage through the legislature were established.
So what happened to Spitzer's bill? Two words: Joseph Bruno. Spitzer and Bruno, the scandal-plagued former Republican Senate Majority Leader, found themselves at cross-purposes from the very beginning of Spitzer's term. With accusations of corruption and improper surveillance, their relationship may have been the most contentious New York has seen since the days of Roscoe Conkling; before Spitzer's premature leave-taking, the governor's ability to act had already been largely obstructed by Bruno. Although Bruno himself would eventually become an advocate for same-sex marriage, he refused to bring the bill up for a vote in 2007 and let it die in January 2008, two months before Spitzer's resignation.
The legislative history of marriage equality in 2011 could not have been more different. Bruno was long gone, retiring in 2008 before being indicted and convicted on multiple corruption charges. Instead, Cuomo had as a negotiating counterpart current Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a leader as different in technique from Bruno as Mike Mansfield was to Lyndon Johnson. Though Skelos was a "no" vote on passage, he did nothing to obstruct the bill from coming to a vote. "My management style," Skelos told his caucus, "is that I let my members lead." The result of this approach was that four Republican state senators cast affirmative votes for same-sex marriage. That was enough to allow the legislation to pass by a 33-29 margin late last Friday.
Where Spitzer failed, Cuomo succeeded. Even if Cuomo never fulfills the national potential commentators are quick to ascribe him, he has already cemented a permanent place in history. Hopefully, though, there will be room left aside to mention Spitzer's important contributions to what has been a long -- and, still, largely unfinished -- battle for equal rights. ]]>Robert Gates: America's Best Defense Secretary?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8818992011-06-22T10:08:08-04:002011-08-22T05:12:02-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/Fox News Sunday was provoked largely by Jon Stewart's angry, show-closing exchange with Chris Wallace. Yet it was another guest, outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who merits greater consideration as he prepares to leave office as perhaps the most successful defense secretary in United States history.
If it applies, the distinction can admittedly be attributed mostly by default. The office has only existed since 1947 -- and its first inhabitant, James Forrestal, quickly came into conflict with both President Truman and the influential Washington journalists of the time over budget issues and the recognition of Israel. Forrestal's fondness for tragic allusion -- as Secretary of the Navy, Forrestal once slipped excerpts from Homer into a particularly dreary wartime memo -- culminated in his suicide only months after leaving the position. His body was discovered on May 22, 1949 outside a 16th-story kitchen window he presumably launched himself from; his implied parting note was a poem from Sophocles' Ajax.
Though George Marshall held the post in a cameo role during the Korean War, influential defense secretaries have been few and far between since the Truman era. Melvin Laird, the secretary from January 1969 through January 1973, was respected by the military hierarchy and members of Congress but never trusted by Richard Nixon and often kept out of the loop on sensitive matters, including initial bombings in Cambodia. His successor, James Schlesinger, clashed frequently with Nixon and Gerald Ford and was held at arm's length before his 1975 dismissal.
Of those who did matter, benign legacies are depressingly rare. Robert McNamara, a brilliant administrator held in high esteem by both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, is inexorably linked to body counts and protests. Caspar Weinberger, who held the office under Ronald Reagan, began the trend of skyrocketing defense budgets and retired amid questions of the Iran-Contra scandal.
And then there is Donald Rumsfeld, the youngest and the oldest man to serve as Pentagon chief. During the presidency of George W. Bush, Rumsfeld took part in the questionable public relations campaign to sell the Iraq war, presided over prisoner abuse scandals and faced unprecedented calls for his resignation from retired generals, who cited his sub-par stewardship of the nation's wars. Rumsfeld made few allies during his second go-around as secretary, coming across as unresponsive to troop concerns -- "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want" -- and hostile to should-be allies such as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom Rumsfeld has relentlessly criticized since leaving office after the 2006 midterm elections.
In stark contrast to Rumsfeld, Gates's humility earned him early plaudits. So did the accountability and sense of fairness he restored to the office. Increased Pentagon cooperation with the State Department has manifested itself most recently regarding operations in Libya, while in 2007 Gates reacted forcefully to concerns regarding shameful conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Whereas Rumsfeld presided over the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government while declaring that "we don't do nation-building," Gates's technique included heavy amounts of civilian contact. Probably not coincidentally, Iraq's baby-steps toward reclamation occurred during his tenure. A speech Gates delivered at the National Defense University in 2008, in which Gates implored the country to "be modest about what military force can accomplish and what technology can accomplish," amounted to an articulate and effective repudiation of the loud, inevitably awkward bombast of the president he then served.
In some respects, Gates has probably been more comfortably positioned in the administration of a president who once told the New York Times' David Brooks that he has "enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush." Under Obama, Gates maintained his collaborative approach, working closely with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Crucially, his continued tenure has provided a Democratic administration with the credibility needed to push funding away from obsolete programs and toward the creation of a 21st century military.
It is not a grand legacy Gates leaves, but a dignified one. In some respects, Gates's record is most analogous to McNamara successor Clark Clifford -- had Clifford, post-1968, also gone on to serve ably in the Nixon administration. (Instead, Clifford would eventually find himself on the 37th president's enemies list.) While the greatest initial challenge Gates faced was rebuilding the bridges Rumsfeld burned, the unanimously confirmed Leon Panetta has a far cleaner slate to work with. By providing a model for effective Pentagon administration, Gates has accomplished far more, under more challenging circumstances, than virtually all of his predecessors.]]>What Republicans Talk About When They Want to Talk About the Economytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8768992011-06-14T22:43:41-04:002011-08-14T05:12:02-04:00Asher Smithhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-smith/June 13 Republican presidential debate by CNN's John King about gays serving in the military, Romney answered with chagrin. "We ought to be talking about the economy and jobs," he replied, only condescending to answer "given the fact you're insistent."
Yet when asked what would happen if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, Romney dodged with a question of his own, this one rhetorical: "Well, what happens if we continue to spend time and time again, year and year again more money than we take in?" Presuming that the correct answer is that the country may eventually default, we have all witnessed a stroke of debating genius: an infinite feedback loop of obfuscation and evasion capable of sustaining itself for an eternity.
Any substantive discussion of economic concerns during the debate at Saint Anselm College was most conspicuous through its absence. Though the first question of the night focused on private sector job growth, few answers delved beyond the need for tax cuts. Asked for proof that lowering tax rates will boost employment, Tim Pawlenty shot back by labeling President Obama a "declinist." Newt Gingrich, when presented with the results of a recent Boston Globe survey showing that a majority of New Hampshire Republicans support tax increases on the wealthy, cited the "Reagan Recovery" as a counterpoint. As Slate's Dave Weigel points out, this recovery occurred "after a tax cut followed by years of tax increases, including FICA tax increases."
The most audacious financial policy duck of the night clearly belonged to Michele Bachmann. Asked about legislation she sponsored to repeal Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform, the congresswoman instead announced her filing of paperwork making her candidacy official. Distracted, King shifted the conversation to Ron Paul, a predictable prelude to bringing the discussion to a close. As for Bachmann, she never did get back to the topic of how she would regulate the financial industry.
With Pawlenty refusing to take the opportunity offered to raise his recent criticisms of Romney, the first major debate of the election cycle was more an exercise in wheel-spinning than anything else. King's "This or That" questions to candidates -- concerning whether they favored Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien, spicy or mild hot wings, Elvis or Johnny Cash, or American Idol or Dancing With the Stars -- did nothing to combat the perception that everyone on stage was seeking little more than to run down the clock.
There is no requirement, however, that presidential debates -- even the early contests -- conform to such a shallow model. It is possible to conduct forums that produce substantial discussions. Dedicating entire or extended segments of debates on particular topics, as occurred in 2008, has proven a useful tool for forcing more pointed discussions. Debates sponsored by single-issue interest groups -- in 2008, Democratic candidates sparred in forums provided by the AFL-CIO and LGBT advocates -- can yield similarly focused contests.
Unfortunately -- consequently? -- almost all scheduled GOP debates are fully sponsored by media organizations. Of those that have other sponsors, only one debate, a July 10 meeting in Las Vegas co-sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform, seems likely to focus on a particular topic, albeit one that would not seem to force any candidates out of their comfort zones. As circumstances stand now, the time and placed of the extended conversation on the economy and jobs all candidates claim to crave is still to be decided. No need to worry, though. Mitt Romney is sure to have loads to say about how much he wishes to eventually have that discussion.]]>