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By Mark Green
Lowry and Lamarche debate issues during a week of more Trumpania: while Rich disparages Obama's EPA regulation as trivial, Gara sees it as part of an urgent program that'll make Obama THE Climate President. Is #BlackLivesMatter a natural child of the '60s Civil Rights Movement? Then: Bush redefines chutzpah as he blames Obama/Clinton for W's Iraq.
Climate Carbon contributes to pollution and global warming so isn't it reasonable to reduce this "externality"? Rich scoffs because a) regulations have costs and this one will only infinitesimally reduce temperature in 80 years and b) the U.S. alone without China and India can't reduce warming in any event. Gara in turn scoffs at Rich for: a) Ignoring overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming in occurring now, and b) Omitting how Obama is indeed "leading" the world with initial agreements with China and India. Rich doubts those developing countries "would be so stupid to hurt their economies" for so little gain.
Host: we'll see if Rich's pessimism or Gara's optimism prevails when the major "warming" countries meet at a Climate Summit in Paris in December. But I've been living this movie since the 1970s (see Murray Weidenbaum's cost estimates) when conservatives invoke cost-benefit analysis and then conveniently exaggerate costs and ignore benefits.
#BlackLivesMatter De jure slavery and segregation are of course over but #blacklivesmatter and others have been protesting de facto housing and school segregation, police violence, racial injustice, environmental racism, race-base joblessness...largely fueled by videos of police killings of unarmed African Americans. Rich emphasizes that this movement began with Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, "which was based on a lie because the DoJ investigation shows that he was grabbing for the gun and then charging the police officer." In any event, "Massive institutional racism doesn't really exist."
Gara and Host wonder about the rest of the DoJ report that found the Ferguson Police Department guilty of institutional racism and all the other racially related deaths, really starting with Tryvone Martin. While a first amendment/ACLU lawyer, Gara sees #blacklivesmatter "more as more civil disobedience than speech suppression since they've concluded it's the only way to be heard"... and it seems to be working to pressure, so far, Sanders and O'Malley, not Clinton who began her campaign with a major address on criminal justice. "Why only Democrats so far?", Gara asks. "Because the protestors don't like it when how Democrats -- that is, white progressives -- seem to have taken them for granted" and are underwhelmed that Sanders decades ago supported civil rights.
There is a broad consensus around the benefit of police body cameras. As for by-passing grand juries (which California is doing) and local prosecutors (which NY is doing now that the Governor has appointed the AG to take over such cases), both agree that moving local prosecutors aside is probably a good idea but Lowry objects on grand juries because he likes the role that communities play in that process.
Hillary Slipping/Sanders Surging? We agree that Hillary's resources, name and resilience mean that she's not panicking as the FBI looks at her email problem and Bernie Sanders pulls ahead in neighboring New Hampshire (with Biden included). But Rich emphasizes two points: since this is now somewhat out of her control, she should be anxious at what FBI director Comey might do and b) her real problem is that people won't trust her 1% elitism, which this controversy doesn't help.
So we don't buy the usually penetrating analysis of MSNBC's Stve Kornacki who speculated that IF -- IF -- she loses Iowa and NH, she's cooked. Hillary Clinton? Nah.
O'Malley amusingly told his supporters this week that he's certainly "not surging too early," but does that small joke hint that he's calm being in the low single digits because Hillary's lock is less certain, and Sanders shows there's space for an electable liberal. Rich laughs: "If he's happy about anything, that's probably it... but it's hard to see him catching fire."
Jeb Doubles Down on Iraq. After she chided him on several fronts earlier this month, "Bush45" struck back at "Clinton45" on Iraq, blaming Obama and her for throwing away the gains of the surge by exiting prematurely. Rich defends Jeb since his analysis is right and, well, "he has to have some Iraq policy over the course of the campaign." Gara sees Jeb's thrust on Iraq as more self-immolating since it was Bush-Cheney, not state senator Barack Obama, who invaded Iraq, and who indeed did agree to withdraw all forces by the end of 2011.
Host: Two modern political rules here collide -- while you usually don't keep talking about your Achilles Heel, Lee Atwater said that either you're on defense or offense, and offense is better. Who wins this exchange? Maybe anyone not named Bush or Clinton.
Mark Green is the creator and host of Both Sides Now.
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