Just Another Day on a Republican Staff

There's a minor brouhaha over somebody from the office of Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss sending some hate mail to a pro-gay rights blog.

As TPM previously reported, soon after a Senate vote to block debate on the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' someone wrote "All faggots must die" on the blog of gay rights advocate Joe Jervis. Other commenters traced the origin of the comment to a senate.gov IP address located in Atlanta, Georgia, near the offices of both of the state's senators. Chambliss' office then said it was investigating the matter.

Chambliss' office did determine that the hate message came from their office. But I don't think that's the point. From everything I've ever read about Republican politician, this kind of discourse about gay people is pretty much standard operating procedure. The only difference is that the GOP's successful filibustering of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" led some anonymous guy to let down his guard and go public with his homophobia.

Maybe the media should report that as well.

Excellent Delusions from Dinesh D'Souza

It appears more and more that conservative activists just live in an alternate universe. Dinesh D'Souza, a right-wing think tanker who might as well be a brand name for stunning mediocrity, has an article in Forbes on how Obama's ideas on things like health care derive from the "anti-colonial" ideology he inherited from his Kenyan father.

Back in the real world, Obama's health care ideas were quite a bit like Hillary Clinton's whose ideas were quite a bit like Joe Bidens in 2008 and pretty much the same as Joe Lieberman's in 2004.

That's pretty much the same with all of Obama's ideas. They're a lot like Democratic ideas that have been floating around for a long time.

But for conservatives, being a Democrat is not enough to explain Obama. For the right, everything Obama has to be traced back to A-f-r-i-c-a.

Not that it bothers conservatives that Obama is black.

Not that the right-wing is engaged in race-baiting.

Not that they're racists.

Well, maybe a little.

Gay Rights Victory Creates Moral Opportunity for Conservatives

A federal judge overturned the gay marriage ban adapted by California as a result of Proposition 8. Judge Vaughn Walker was both comprehensive and direct.

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

That's the bottom line. California and every other state has a "constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis" and can only discriminate against any group if it has a very powerful "state interest" in doing so. The question then becomes whether California has some kind of over-riding interest in preventing gay people from getting married.

At which point, Judge Vaughn disposes of most of the arguments against gay marriage.

In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of proponents' case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. FF 78-80. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate.

And:

The arguments surrounding Proposition 8 raise a question similar to that addressed in Lawrence, when the Court asked whether a majority of citizens could use the power of the state to enforce "profound and deep convictions accepted as ethical and moral principles" through the criminal code. ... The question here is whether California voters can enforce those same principles through regulation of marriage licenses. They cannot. California's obligation is to treat its citizens equally, not to "mandate [its] own moral code."

"Lawrence" refers to Lawrence v Texas, the Supreme Court decision that overturned sodomy laws across the nation. Gay rights activism has been one of the most inspiring developments in American society during the last forty years and is like the civil rights movement and feminism in being a shining example of what the United States at its best has to offer the world. When I was growing up in the sixties and early seventies, gay people were subject to a relentless series of abuses. I remember how one of my college friends from Syracuse talked about going around and beating up gay guys while he was in high school. There were relentless rumors about the sexuality of various male teachers who didn't fit the standard mode of educational macho (such as it was). It was especially painful for me to learn that my second grade teacher Miss Taylor had been forced to live a closeted existence her entire adult life because she was a lesbian. She was a tremendously nice lady and an excellent teacher who shouldn't have had to live like that. Nobody should have to live like that. In fact, gay life was so constricted in the places where I lived that I didn't meet a single openly gay person until I started graduate school in 1976.

In my opinion, the ultimate end point of the gay rights movement is the equal embrace of heterosexuality and homosexuality as modes of sexual living. One of the things I've learned as a heterosexual over the years is the extent to which heterosexuality is promoted by schooling, the news media, movies, and popular music. Given that heterosexuals are over 90% of the population, that will probably always be the case. But I'd like to see homosexuality embraced with the same kind of enthusiasm by the general public. That's probably over-optimistic, but I don't see why gay people shouldn't have their enthusiasms, questions, problems, issues, and failings given the same kind of sympathetic public representation as mine.

Conservatives have a variety of objections to open homosexuality. There's biblical passages in Leviticus and one of Paul's letters, arguments about the traditional character of the exclusion of homosexuals from marriage, and other more ridiculous claims about the slippery slope to bestiality and conservatives being subject to penalties for not believing in gay marriage.

Judge Vaughn very appropriately dismisses these kinds of claims as not having sufficient merit to outweigh the rights of gay people to equal treatment concerning issues of marriage. It's guaranteed that this decision is going to be played up as a right v left by all types of media. I've already posted something teasing conservatives on facebook myself.

Nevertheless, I also believe that American conservatives should take Judge Vaugh's decision as an opportunity to rethink their position on gay marriage and all other issues concerning sexual orientation. The key to conservative rethinking about gay marriage should be their on-going rethinking about civil rights and gender. Conservatives used to be just as attached to racial segregation as they're now attached to the exclusion of gay people from marriage. But it now seems that most prominent conservatives reject the legacy of segregation and that many conservatives are genuinedly pained by the association of the right with racism. Likewise, conservatives have reconciled themselves enough to feminism that conservative women like Sarah Palin have emerged as powerful forces in the Republican Party. If conservatives have rethought their positions on racial integration and gender equality, they can rethink their moral stance on gay people as well.

And they should.

A Pre-Written Headline on Obama

The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper in a minor soccer playing island on the edge of the European continent, has a headline saying that Obama's firing of Gen. McChrystal "shows weakness." Of course, they would have had the same headline if Obama had kept McChrystal.

More Mistress Troubles on the Right

Mel Gibson has joined the long list of prominent conservatives with mistress troubles.

Legal representatives for Oksana Grigorieva - the mother of the actor's eight-month-old daughter Lucia - attended an emergency hearing at a Los Angeles court, where the judge was told the Braveheart star had been "extremely violent" towards his former partner.

At least I think it's Mel Gibson. Gibson, Mark Sanford, Jon Ensign, David Vitter, Mark Souder--the names all tend to blur together. And it's not like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh won't start collecting new mistresses now that they've both remarried for the 5,000th time.

The main difference between Gibson and the other philandering conservatives is that Oksana Grigorieva is complaining about physical and emotional abuse rather than the run-of-the-mill mistress stuff of not getting enough attention.

Well, what to say. I'm not going to call Gibson a hypocrite. That's as obvious as calling him an Australian or saying that the Pope doesn't like women and gay people.

Besides, conservatives have a decent response when they say that their moral standards are valid despite the fact that so many conservative guys have mistresses.

In exchange for my generosity on this issue, I would like conservatives to agree that feminists and other liberals have been absolutely right in their uncompromising condemnations of domestic violence.

In this case, political correctness has been an absolute benefit to society.

Who says we can't all come together?

Sarah Palin as Stop Sign

The best thing about Gabriel Sherman's article on Sarah Palin in the New York magazine is the throw away line that Palin is the "president" or "CEO" of right-wing America.

But I see Palin more as a the right-wing's stop sign, the leading symbol of their refusal to accept the America in which they already live, the post-civil rights, post-feminism, post-gay marriage, macroeconomic America in which government acts on a large scale, a liberal black guy can be president, Mexican immigrants run the Italian restaurant down the street, and lesbian newlyweds are out gardening on weekends.

-

It's really too bad.

Digby Doesn't Like Teabaggers

The liberal blogger Digby REALLY doesn't like Teabaggers. But then again, most conservatives I know don't like them early. I hear a lot of "Republicans won't vote for Sarah Palin."

Me? I'm pretty sure that my mother, one of my brothers, and one of my sisters have Teabag sympathies. Maybe my dad too.

So, I'm compelled to cut them a little slack.

On the Nuclear Front: The Threat of a Rogue America

In today's statement commemorating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Obama discounted the threat of nuclear war:

Today, the threat of global nuclear war has passed, but the danger of nuclear proliferation endures, making the basic bargain of the NPT more important than ever: nations with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, nations without
nuclear weapons will forsake them, and all nations have an "inalienable right" to peaceful nuclear energy.

Sure, there isn't much danger of the U. S., Russia, and China will exchange nuclear attacks. So, Obama's right. The main threat on the nuclear front has changed.

But the danger doesn't lie in nuclear proliferation either.

What's really dangerous is the possibility of a rogue government gaining control in a country that already has nuclear arms and then using its nuclear weapons to threaten or attack its enemies.

And what government is most at risk of such a takeover--Pakistan, India, France?

No! It has to be the United States.

Pakistan may be unstable because "elements" of the Pakistani military and intelligence services are sympathetic to al-Qaeda.

However, the situation is worse in the United States because neo-conservatives have enormous disdain for the United Nations, international law, and anything else that might inhibit its ability to wage total war. Neo-conservatives also speculate openly about nuclear attacks on Iran and the speculation should be taken seriously because neo-cons seem to be aching to break the taboo on nuclear weapons just as they were aching to break the taboo on torture.

Conservative America--the world's most dangerous and unstable political force.

The Sarah Party Split

One of the things I've picked up from talking with conservatives is that many conservatives activists have just as much contempt for Sarah Palin and the tea party types as any liberal. If Palin gets the nomination, there's going to be a simultaneous inflation and deflation of the Republican Party.

That "Jesus Left Christianity" Post

On TPM, there's a post on Jesus leaving Christianity that was written by William K. Wolfrum during the 2008 election campaign.

. . . [I]n an announcement that has left his followers shaken, the Christ himself has come forward to announce that he is leaving Christianity, effective immediately. The reasoning: The 2008 Republican Platform. Reached for comment at a West Hollywood coffee shop, Christ said that he couldn't deal with a world that so misinterpreted his words and actions.

I should emphasize that I'm not myself a Christian, a follower of Jesus, or someone who's very enthusiastic about Jesus in any way, shape, or form. Many of the ideas in the New Testament are worthy of respect and the texts have a great deal of moral depth. But the doctrine is so bizarrely self-abnegating that it can't really be taken seriously. People can complain about "actually existing" Christians not really following Jesus, but seeing salvation in such enormities of suffering as the story of Lazarus or the invocation to "turn the other cheek" is too much for any society like our own that does not have a primary commitment to inflicting and suffering pain. Nobody with half their sanity could believe in the Jesus of the New Testament. So, "Christians" have softened his edges, forgotten his crazed disgust for most of what's human, and made Jesus seem more "normal" according to our visions of normality. The only way anybody could be a Christian is to follow "our" version of Jesus and that's just as true on the left as the right.

With these things in mind, it should be clear that Jesus wouldn't be caught in a West Hollywood coffeeshop any more than he would have taken in a corporate junket to Barbados or run for president as a Democrat. Who would Jesus have preferred in this world? The same people he preferred in the ancient Jewish territories--the absolute bottom of society. Jesus would have identified with dying Aids patients covered with lesions, the gay kids being kicked out of their families and beaten by their peers, psychotic homeless people shuffling from grate to grate, the inmates at all our super-max prisons, and all the desperate crack, heroin, and OxyContin addicts. These are the people Jesus viewed as blessed. These are the people Jesus viewed as models for his own suffering and self-sacrifice. These are the people Jesus wanted his disciples to emulate. Everyone else was damned.

It's not Jesus wouldn't have come to America, but he would have found his home in all of the "Other Americas" that dot our landscape. The people in the West Hollywood coffee shops are just as much strangers to those Other Americas as Rush Limbaugh. Jesus would have damned them just as much as he would damn Dick Cheney. The only difference is that Dick Cheney knows he would have been damned and is probably glad there's no god to hold him accountable.

Conservative Gulags: A Response to the Crisis

I've been thinking about all the poor conservatives who think that Barack Obama is a Stalinist, that Obama's going to set up "re-education" camps, or that he's taking "away" American freedoms by talking about "doing the right-thing" on health care.

According to Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner:

History - and the words of progressives themselves - suggest not long. Consider New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's telling admiration for the communist thugs who run the Chinese government:

"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonabley enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century."

That in a nutshell is the totalitarian temptation that plagues all who would use the power of the state to impose their vision of the good society on the rest of us.

It's the ever-present Stalin whispering in the progressive ear: "Ignore those reactionary, loud-mouthed, ignorant Tea Party protesters and decree Obamacare, Waxman-Markey, and all the rest of it. Do it now while you have the power!"

There are certain problems with Tapscott's argument--for instance, the idea that Thomas Friedman is a "progressive." Most of the big-name progressive bloggers like Glenn Greenwald and Digby have more respect for Rush Limbaugh than they have for Friedman. They might limit themselves to slapping Friedman around for a little light work before they move on to something important, but they essentially view Friedman as a punching bag. The way that Friedman constantly urged the American people to give the Bush administration six more months in Iraq became such a joke that progressives derisively refer to six-month time periods as "Friedman units." And then there was the "suck on this" episode in which Friedman tried to sound "Dick Cheney tough" but came off as super-pathetic instead of super-macho.

It's also hard to understand what Tapscott sees as Stalinist in "ignore those reactionary, loud-mouthed, ignorant Tea Party protesters and decree Obamacare, Waxman-Markey, and all the rest of it." Is Tapscott saying that "voting" on these bills in democratically-elected representative bodies is an exercise in "Stalinism?" I didn't know that Uncle Joe was that excited about representative bodies like the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Still, I feel the pain of people like Tapscott, Michael Ledeen, Mark Levin, and all the other conservatives who view Barack Obama as a "clear and present" danger to the freedoms of Americans. Political life has been so unfair to conservatives. George Bush was a boob, the Iraq War was a dud, all those blow-dried Republican politicians had scandals and now the "crisis" of conservatism has arrived. Obama is president and the Democrats have big majorities in the House and the Senate. They're proposing a lot of far-reaching legislation. What's a serious conservative to do to meet the seriousness of the moment? How can they symbolize the imminent danger they feel for the Republic? Of course, the tea-parties have been effective and Chuck Norris' idea for "Tea-Party" American flags is pure genius. But the crisis is upon us. So conservatives need to do something more.

And I think I've hit on it.

Conservatives should create their own "gulags" to symbolize the future they believe that Obama and the Democrats are moving us toward. There's plenty of places where this could be done. There's still a lot of wide open space in the interior of Alaska. Wealthy patrons on the right (you know who you are) could create a camp with primitive barracks, armed guards, barbed wire, forced labor factories, and the rest of the paraphernalia of a concentration camp. So what if it gets to 80 or 90 below with the wind chill in interior Alaska, conservatives are tough. They also could get tips from Lena Wertmuller's Seven Beauties on how to set up a proper camp.

Then prominent conservatives could move to the camp in a dramatic representation of what's going to happen to them under the Obama administration. Given that the camp would have no internet, no laptops, no Blackberry's, and no personal electonic devices in general, conservative writers wouldn't be able to write anything. But what "real conservative" wouldn't sacrifice their writing careers for the sake of manifesting the "real truth" about Obama administration tyranny? Likewise, what conservative wouldn't be willing to give up their high-paid, cushy lives in liberal bastions like New York or Washington for a more authentic stint as a political prisoner? Conservatives want something more authentic anyway. They're tired of living the sham life of democracy in Obama's America. Setting up an elaborate prison system for themselves would be the best way for prominent figures on the right to "keep it real."

Ok! There are some conservatives who would not be into the "roughing it" part of a concentration camp. Given the racial purity of Rush Limbaugh's white heritage, he has very sensitive skin. So Limbaugh wouldn't want to do this kind of thing. But I'm sure Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Michael Ledeen would be all for it. Maybe Chuck Norris could serve as commanding officer for their barracks.

It would be like Hogan's Heroes.

Of course, Alaska isn't the only place where conservatives could confine themselves to concentration camps. Idaho and Montana are excellent locations. Likewise, there's no reason why conservatives couldn't suffer political persecution out in the Mojave Desert. Maybe conservatives could increase their sense of authenticity by imprisoning themselves on one of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River during the winter and then "summer" in a desert facility. The right could even set up a chain of prison camps where Tea Party activists could spend some hard time preparing for the hard times to come.

I think Henry David Thoreau (almost a Founding Father!) wrote someplace that jail was the only place for a free man. Conservatives can bring that fundamental truth to life by creating conservative political prisons and volunteering to serve some hard time behind the walls.

Dan Riehl: Racist Weenie Boy

I haven't done a weenie boy post on right-wing masculinity for awhile. But I couldn't resist posting this statement from Dan Riehl, a conservative blogger and teabagger who attended the Washington protest on Sept. 12.

Michelle has a disturbing video posted. It's of several black students beating a white student on a school bus in St. Louis. Here's the deal. I haven't mentioned it before.

Riding out of DC on the Metro, 9/12, there were some folks from South Dakota and also another Mid-West state I can't recall in the same Metro car. We were talking, nothing special, really - politics, of course.

In the back were maybe ten or so black kids taking up that section of the car. There was no confrontation, just one or two of them talking loudly enough to make sure they'd be heard.

Without resorting to the poor diction it was along the lines of, these are the people who think Obama is the anti-Christ. That McCain he wasn't chit. Obama's going to be president as long as he wants, so these people better get used to it, etc. It went on but not really to a level that was so loud, or so confrontational that it needed to be addressed.

We just ignored them without much trouble at all.

Yeah, they were technically thugs. But the reality was they were still wannabes really, pretty young, not that big, or many. And if the several adults there for 9/12 actually needed to do something about it, the kids wouldn't have lasted very long. Maybe if they were bigger, or more numerous, it might have been worse. Or it may not have happened at all. Who knows?

But what's unfortunately becoming increasingly clear is that, for the people who thought Obama's election would make America post-racial? I'm afraid you're wrong. Some of the potential racial narratives that may still play out during his presidency
might not be that pretty at all.

I can't say as I'm not concerned that America might not end up more racially divided than we've been in 30 years. And that burden is as much, if not more Obama's to carry as it is anyone else's. Whether he's up to that along with everything else, we'll have to wait and see.

I can't think of any better way to exemplify weeniness than stereotyping some little African-American guys as "thugs" and then fantasizing about beating the snot out of them. A "small man" in every sense of the word, Riehl dreams the racist dream making himself into a big man by beating up some black kids.

We should probably thank Riehl for being so honest in his blog. Too bad it's likely that that kind of weenie racist dreaming is so prevalent among the tea-baggers.

Glenn Greenwald Wrong on Dynamics of Freak Show

Glenn Greenwald's position is that the right-wing hasn't changed much over the last twenty years and is doing pretty much the same stuff to Obama that it did to Clinton:

But when was it different? Rush Limbaugh didn't just magically appear in the last twelve months. He -- along with people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Bill Kristol and Jesse Helms -- have been leaders of that party for decades. Republicans spent the 1990s wallowing in Ken Starr's sex report, "Angry White Male" militias, black U.N. helicopters, Vince Foster's murder, Clinton's Mena drug runway, Monica's
semen-stained dress, Hillary's lesbianism, "wag the dog" theories, and all sorts of efforts to personally humiliate Clinton and destroy the legitimacy of his presidency using the most paranoid, reality-detached, and scurrilous attacks.

I see things differently. Things are worse with the right. It wasn't until the George W. Bush years that the Republican elite coalesced arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and endless war, that establishment figures like Frank Gaffney were calling for the imprisonment of members of Congress, and prominent conservative intellectuals and Harvey Mansfield were calling for military coups or one-man rule. Where Rush Limbaugh used to represent the "right" of the Republican Party without advocating a lot of survivalist, conspiratorial, neo-Nazi junk, the "right" is now best represented by people like Glenn Beck who are eager to see the country descend into chaos. During the Clinton years, mainstream conservatives were looking to George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" as a way for the Republicans to appeal to people who were fed up with Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, and the confrontationalism of the Republican Revolutionaries of 1994. Now, mainstream conservatives view the "Revolutionaries" of 1994 as wimps and sell-outs. In 2000, the "radical right" was mostly a collection of single-issue movements like the "Right to Life" movement and the NRA. In 2009, all of those single issue movements seem to have coalesced around the cause of opposing Obama.

The Big Health Reform/Civil War Analogy

There's a good chance that I'm engaged in wishful thinking here, but my gut feeling is that health reform is going to pass with a public option. What makes this extraordinary is that Obama has been fighting the health care battle the same way Shelby Foote said the Union fought the Civil War--with one hand tied behind his back.

Obama could be doing rallies with 70,000 plus people. He could also be taking the fight to the Republicans and the teabaggers in a highly partisan manner. But Obama hasn't taken those weapons out of his holster yet.

And it doesn't look like he's going to either.

To me, it looks like Obama and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are grimly determined to win the health care fight on Obama's terms of reasonable discussion and reaching out to the other side.

And I think they're going to win it on their terms.

Tea Bagging the Townhalls--The Near Fringe Emerges as a Force

Conservative activists have been disrupting townhall meetings held by Democratic politicians like Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Carl Levin of Michigan, and others.

At the Austin event Aug. 1 with Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett (pictured
here, see video), the usual suspects showed up shouting "Just Say No" and waving signs that included the usual symbols of communism and fascism worked into statements against "socialized" health care, in addition to an image of Doggett as Satan. The protestors' continued shouting throughout the event was clearly an effort to disrupt it and to prevent any other voices being heard. The same was the case at an Aug. 2 event in Philadelphia with Republican-turned-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (see video). Here, wingnuts with bumber stickers on their heads shouted down speakers to the clear annoyance of others around them trying to listen. One woman held up a copy of the New American Bible and said, "This is the only truth," as though that were somehow an argument against health care reform.

My own initial opinion is that the disruptions will rebound somewhat against conservatives and work to the advantage of President Obama in his efforts to pass health care reform.

However, the full significance of the disruptions goes beyond health care. What's happened is that the "near fringe" of teabaggers, Ayn Randers, libertarians, neo-secessionists, and racists has figured out a way to be a real force in national politics.

Ultimately, that makes the disruptions more important than the townhalls.

Is Palin Looking To Destroy GOP?

I've been warning about the collapse of the Republican Party for several months now. But now there is a scenario for GOP collapse that's out in the media.

CNN has a story about Mike Huckabee warning Sarah Palin not to leave the Republican Party for an independent presidential campaign.

"I hope she remains — let me be real clear — a part of the Republican Party," Huckabee told FOX News. "I'm a little concerned when I hear her say that she may
sort of branch out and go third party or go independent. That would be a big mistake because we need to rebuild the Republican Party, not abandon it."

The Republican Party would be fools if they didn't consider Palin a threat to mount an independent candidacy. She's just not that Republican identified. Palin has never been part of the Alaska Republican establishment and her husband Tod was a member of an Alaskan separatist party until Palin ran for governor. Likewise, Palin recently mentioned that her son was not a Republican.

In this context, Palin's reference to campaigning for non-Republicans might be taken as meaning that she'll be willing to help candidates to the right of the Republican Party.

Anyway, if Sarah Palin left the Republican Party for an independent or third-party candidacy, she'd take about 20% of the Republican vote with her, about 9% of the total.

That vote would increase if activist conservatives generally saw her as a more attractive candidate than a Republican nominee like Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee.

And let's not kid ourselves.

There's a real chance that Bill Kristol, Ann Coulter, Limbaugh and other conservatives might do that. They could easily see an independent Palin candidacy as an opportunity to free "the conservative movement" from what they see as the death grip of the Republican Party.

I could live with it too.

With an independent Palin candidacy, the Republican candidate and Palin would be splitting about 40% of the vote. I imagine that one or the other would win eight or nine states between Utah, Idaho, and the core Confederate states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

That wouldn't even be 100 electoral votes and the conservative movement will have succeeded in it's apparent mission of destroying conservativism in the United States.

The Republican Dilemna: Being Pat Buchanan Without Appearing to Be

Pat Buchanan has a race-baiting article out on Sonia Sotomayor today. Here's the money quote:

Why did McCain fail to win the white conservative Democrats Hillary Clinton swept in the primaries? He never addressed or cared about their issues.

These are the folks whose jobs have been outsourced to China and Asia, who pay the price of affirmative action when their sons and daughters are pushed aside to make room for the Sonia Sotomayors. These are the folks who want the borders secured and the illegals sent back.

Had McCain been willing to drape Jeremiah Wright around the neck of Barack Obama, as Lee Atwater draped Willie Horton around the neck of Michael Dukakis, the mainstream media might have howled.

Buchanan race-baits Sonia Sotomayor when he says that the children of Hillary Democrats have been "pushed aside to make room for the Sonia Sotomayors." In criticizing John McCain for not draping "Jeremiah Wright around the neck of Barack Obama," Buchanan calls for more GOP race-baiting in the future.

Buchanan's premise for his call for a return to the ways of Lee Atwater is that the GOP would gain from a return to race-baiting by increasing its white vote:

In 2008, Hispanics, according to the latest figures, were 7.4 percent of the total vote. White folks were 74 percent, 10 times as large. Adding just 1 percent to the white vote is thus the same as adding 10 percent to the candidate's Hispanic vote.

If John McCain, instead of getting 55 percent of the white vote, got the 58 percent George W. Bush got in 2004, that would have had the same impact as lifting his share of the Hispanic vote from 32 percent to 62 percent.

And Pat Buchanan believes that could make John McCain president.

I don't think so. The Republicans also lost the majority white college-educated vote and youth vote. A growing percentage of the white population is offended by race-baiting and McCain would have risked losing that part of the white vote if he had gone into race-baiting overdrive.

This is the political judgment that Senate Republicans are making as well. I don't think they're particularly worried about retrieving any minority votes. African-Americans (95%), Hispanics, Asian Americans, and the Jewish population (all at about 67%) look like they're going to be locked in for the Democrats throughout the Obama era. What Senate Republicans worry about is losing even more of the white vote as whites from 18-25 and college educated whites become less and less tolerant of racism.

That's why Senators like Jeff Sessions of Alabama are trying to engage in as refined a version of race-baiting as they can imagine.

You voted not to reconsider the prior case. You voted to stay with the decision of the circuit. And in fact, your vote was the key vote. Had you voted with Judge [Jose] Cabranes, himself of Puerto Rican ancestry, had you voted with him, you could've changed that case.

The racism here is real in the sense that Sessions identifies Sotomayor almost exclusively with her ancestry, but it's also concealed by making the racial reference to the extremely conservative jurist Jose Cabranes.

This is also what's involved in the GOP emphasis on the "Wise Latina" comments in Sotomayor's speeches. By accusing Sotomayor of racism, they're trying to mask the racism of their own contempt for Sotomayor's benefitting from affirmative action, involvement in Latino organizations, and her general multi-cultural, "Obama-esque" profile.

By college educated and young whites aren't fooled by the ultra-refined racism of GOP Senators any more than they're attracted to Pat Buchanan.

What's happening with the attacks on Sotomayor is that the Republicans are basically involved in a "cutting" exercise in self-wounding.

Sooner or later, they'll just finish themselves off.

Limbaugh Gives Hope To Us All

Did you ever hope the American right would just give up and go back to their caves. Did you ever hope Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter would decide that conservativism has lost and that they would just move to the Keys, stoke up their blenders, and lose themselves in their personal margueritavilles.

Did you ever imagine an America in which we could address public policy issues without having to be distracted by the hatred of liberals, African-Americans, gays, and Hispanics spewing forth from the conservative media?

Did you ever think there would be a time when war isn't the first, second, and third option of American foreign policy?

Well, Rush Limbaugh is beginning to imagine that time.

In his own particular way

In response to Mark Sanford's news conference last Wednesday, Limbaugh speculated that Sanford wasn't so much in love but that he was just giving up the fight for the conservative cause.

And Limbaugh warned that "there are a lot of people," a lot of conservative people, who are looking at the political landscape and becoming so dispirited that they're thinking of just giving up and "enjoying life."

There are a lot of people whose spirit is just. They’re fed up . . . say the hell with it. I don’t even want to fight this anymore. I want to get away from it. Rush, are you kidding, this theory of yours about Sanford?" No, I'm not. My first thought was he said: "To hell with this. The Democrats are destroying the country. We can't do anything to stop it. I gave everything I had to stop it here in South Carolina. My wife's left me, the hell with it. I'm going to enjoy life what little time I've got left." Folks, there are a lot of people that are looking at life, they're saying screw it. They're saying screw it. Before Obama takes away all their money, before Obama takes away their house or the economy takes away their house, there are people who are simply saying the hell with this. They've tuned out. The hell with it. I'm just going to try to enjoy it as much as I can. . .

Jason Links of HuffPost thinks that Limbaugh is just blaming Obama for Sanford's affair. But it sounds to me like Limbaugh thinks a lot of conservatives are ready to run up the white flag.

And that's reason to hope . . . and maybe celebrate.

Keep fighting team.

Joe the Plumber Likes A Little Lynching

Contrary to the Warholian predictions that Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher would be gone in 15 minutes, he appears to be developing a career as a conservative celebrity. Joe's not as famous as Limbaugh or Coulter but he's still very much an attraction for right-wing audiences.

What's the secret of Joe's success? Like other conservative celebrities, Joe is staying relevant by bidding up the violence and name calling. Here's Joe speaking at a meeting of the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing group that was heavily involved in the Tea Party protests.

Wurzelbacher has a reputation for being a blunt, politically incorrect speaker. Referring to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., more than once, Wurzelbacher asked, "Why
hasn't he been strung up?"

Joe the Plumber is far from being "blunt" or "politically incorrect." What he's doing is appealing to the "near fringe" of the conservative movement. That's the people who like to talk about things like secession, Going Galt, or survivalist dystopias but are far from the open warfare on American society that characterizes the neo-Nazis. By making the reference to lynching Chris Dodd, Joe the Plumber is satisfying the appetite for extreme rhetoric among his activist audience without "going too far over the line."

This is also what Glenn Beck's doing and I'm sure that Fox News management has had internal discussion about giving Joe the Plumber his own television show, what the format, what limitations (if any) would be placed on him, and the like.

It looks like Joe the Plumber's going to be with us for longer than originally anticipated.

The Shorter Mark Sanford

State Sen. Joel Lourie (D-Richland) nails Mark Sanford, South Carolina's right-wing zealot of a governor, after Sanford's veto of legislation regulating payday loan-sharking.

[Sanford's] vision for South Carolina is for ineffective, underfunded schools, for kids buying cheap cigarettes and for unprotected consumers."

As always, the key to understanding conservatives is that they frankly don't give a damn about the welfare of their villages, towns, states . . . or country.