Posted 3:28 PM by Robert

Unsurprisingly, The Inevitable Now Happens

Following the 2004 election, the ManWithout Qualities asked:

How long will it be before the Democrats decide that the real problem was in the primary schedule, convention date and rules, and other minor procedural matters - as they have after every disaster since 1968 - and again start spending way too much time and energy running down those dead ends?

Now we have a partial answer:

Democratic presidential candidates will face a revised calendar of primaries and caucuses in 2008, including new contests between the traditional opening states of Iowa and New Hampshire, based on new recommendations that will be considered by a Democratic National Committee panel tomorrow.... A staff draft of the final report ... will be forwarded to DNC Chairman Howard Dean... It appeared to be a compromise between proposals pushed by Southern and Western states for two to four contests between Iowa and New Hampshire and a proposal from protesting New Hampshire Democrats for additional contests immediately after the Granite State's primary. The draft contains four principal recommendations ... but the most significant calls for the addition of one or two caucuses during the eight-day gap between the Iowa and New Hampshire events and one or two primaries in the period after the New Hampshire primary and the date that formally opens the nominating process to other states. ... The draft also calls on the national committee to select states for these early contests based on criteria that would guarantee greater diversity at the front of the nominating process. Finally, the draft urges the national party to consider new incentives, including bonus delegates to the national convention, to discourage states from pushing their events up to early February.

So Howard Dean will soon receive the report and turn his fine judgment and balanced approach to this most delicate subject. This is an effort rooted in the Democratic Party's adamant determination to fight the previous campaign - and this time, get it right.

In a sense, the Democrats may be the new Bourbons: They seem to learn nothing and forget nothing ... and of their own volition pace the road to extinction.

Posted 7:24 AM by Robert

The Hypocrisy Tsunami

Reports from the Supreme Court hearing strongly suggest that the Court will unanimously uphold federal laws (the Solomon Amendment) that require universities accepting federal grant money to allow military recruiters to interview on their campuses in equal dignity with other recruiters. The Solomon Amendment had been challenged by some universities (especially their law schools) as imposing an "unconstitutional condition" constituting violation of free speech and other rights under the First Amendment. The law schools' theory is essentially that recruiters' on campus statements constitute speech of the schools - and that requiring the schools to admit the recruiters therefore amounts to forcing the schools to speak in favor of the recruiters policies (including discrimination against gays). The law schools actually go so far as to analogize themselves to the Boy Scouts (!), with the Solomon Amendment's requirement that the schools allow recruiters as a condition for receipt of federal grant money being analogized to the New Jersey law that unconditionally required the Scouts to admit gays. (The irony of this gaggle of liberal the law schools, which mostly deplored the Supreme Court's vindication of the Boy Scouts' First Amendment rights, now seeking to invoke that decision though tenuous and far-fetched analogies, is obvious.)

The schools' argument is preposterous and bizarre - all the more so because a decision in the schools' favor would ultimately be a disaster for the schools. That the New Jersey law overturned by the Supreme Court imposed a mandate, not a condition, is only the beginning of the weirdness - but it's enough to indicate that the Boy Scout precedent is not very close. Statements made by recruiters have never been imputed by sensible people to the school on whose grounds the statements are made. Do the law schools maintain that their students are too stupid to figure that out? Most Boy Scouts I have known could figure that out right away.

The real issue here is not "forced speech." The law schools want to express their views by the action of barring recruiters and thereby deliberately infuse their action with expressive content. But merely designating an action as having expressive content doesn't alone make the action pure speech. All human action has some expressive content, but that doesn't mean all human action receives meaningful or equal First Amendment protection. The expressive content of the schools' action in this case may be enough to prevent the government from mandating that the schools not discriminate against military recruiters when hiring faculty or admitting students (although the schools would stand on weaker grounds with respect to a former recruiter), but the Boy Scout analogy obviously goes no further than that.

The schools' position is at least as absurd and disingenuous in practice as it is in legal theory. Different recruiting employers have many mutually inconsistent policies, and different recruiters make many mutually inconsistent statements to interviewees. Do the complaining law schools endorse all of those mutually inconsistent policies and statements? The schools certainly don't expressly disavow many such statements, policies and practices. Some law firm recruiters lean heavily and actively Democratic (with all the political views and policies that entails) and some lean Republican. Some law firms electronically monitor and record their associates' telephone calls and some consider such monitoring to be outrageous. Some law firms routinely misrepresent such things as advancement and partnership prospects to their associates, and some do not. A member of the Goldman Sachs executive committee once told me that he regarded all major New York law firms as essentially Ponzi schemes based on systematic lying by the firms to their associates. Does Harvard Law School post signs at the recruiting desk along the lines of: "Warning, Harvard Law School has determined that most law firm summer internship programs - as well as statements made by partners and other firm representatives to summer interns - are deliberately designed to give a much rosier view of associate life and prospects than is in fact the case." I've never heard of one, but there really does seem to be evidence that law students are misled in this respect.

The schools' position would lead to a complete disruption of federal funding of universities. If the law schools won, fundamentalist universities would be able to obtain federal scientific research grants without engaging in scientific research simply by arguing that the university is an "expressive association" (as the law schools do here) and the requirement that the federal money be spent on traditional science and not creation science is an "unconstitutional condition?" How long would the feds stay in the scientific grant business if that holding came down? Moreover, the law schools' assertion that a recruiter's policy and statements are somehow "endorsed" or "adopted" by the school would naturally lead to the conclusion that the schools should be legally liable for frauds and other infractions contained in recruiters' comments and policies. Is that what the schools desire? Maybe they should have run this one by their lawyers. Fortunately, the schools seem to have a hostile Supreme Court to save them from themselves.

Absurd as the law schools' argument is, it was bought by two judges sitting on a panel of the Third Circuit, which enjoined enforcement of the Solomon Amendment. The majority opinion is virtually a tour of First Amendment intellectual dishonesty. But there may be something else at work here. It goes without saying that the left despises the Supreme Court's Boy Scout decision in the same visceral and contemptuous manner in which it despises Bush v. Gore. A rogue panel of the Ninth Circuit seized on a deliberate and willful misreading of Bush v. Gore as grounds for enjoining the California recall of then Governor Gray Davis, a decision later overturned by the en banc Ninth Circuit. The decision of the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel leaves one with an the impression of an author (and a court) eager to "stick" the Supreme Court and conservatives with what the panel completely understands to be a misreading of the odious Bush v. Gore. Similarly, the Third Circuit majority opinion leaves one with the impression of an author (and a court) eager to "stick" the Court and conservatives with the Court's decision upholding the Boy Scouts' rights. The rapid and unanimous en banc rejection by the Ninth Circuit of its three-judge panel decision, and the likely unanimous Supreme Court rejection of the Third Circuit decision enjoining the Solomon Amendment, provide some insight into how unpersuasive and ridiculous lower courts make themselves appear when thye descend to such contemptuous "stick-it-to-them" misreadings of Supreme Court precedent.

My guess is that the Supreme Court opinion overturning the Third Circuit decision will not be at all kind to that decision or its authors. The Supreme Court has its own genteel ways of expressing its contempt for such lower court frolics.

And when that reversal comes down, just how many universities will choose to "express" themselves on what they have told the Court they consider a most important issue by actually refusing the federal money? My guess is that we will see exactly none take that route. Already, as noted by an item linked abouve, Harvard - by far the wealthiest school in the nation and perfectly able to give up federal funding - has grudgingly admitted military recruiters. The schools with straight faces tell the Supreme Court that the issue is centrally important to them as a matter of high principle - but only so long as it doesn't cost them anything. The Hypocrisy Tsunami.

Posted 5:30 PM by Robert

Earth To Howard Fineman: Another Collect Call For You

Senator Clinton's core constituencies are certainly getting restless, as reported by the New York Daily News:

Anti-war activists furious with Sen. Hillary Clinton are vowing to bird-dog her everywhere she goes, starting with a swanky Manhattan fund-raiser tonight. Clinton's letter last week clarifying her position on Iraq--which included rejecting a timetable for withdrawal--fanned the anger of some war opponents, who decided to launch a campaign against New York's junior senator. "We're calling it Bird-Dog Hillary," said Medea Benjamin of the peace group Codepink.

Unfortuneately for Senator Clinton, this particular bird dog won't hunt in national election.

Posted 10:22 AM by Robert

Earth To Howard Fineman: Collect Call For You

Howard Fineman, writes in Newsweek about the infatuation of the left with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan as an example of how the Democratic Beltway has parted ways with the Democratic Blogosphere:

Beltway Democrats avoided her like the plague; the Blogosphere embraced her as a heroine of the grass roots. It wasn’t so much the content of what she said; she was, after all, claiming mostly to be asking questions. It was the WAY she came to prominence—quickly, virally, seemingly from out of nowhere—and her stubbornly confrontational tone.

Cindy Sheehan "was, after all, claiming mostly to be asking questions?" Does Howard Fineman actually live on Earth? How could he? As fulsomely reported by the media, Ms. Sheehan gained national attention in early August 2005 when she camped out down the road from President Bush's Crawford Ranch, demanding a second meeting with the President and an "explanation" of the "unjust" Iraq war. She came to Texas claiming to do anything but "ask questions." On August 20, 2005 Ms. Sheehan published an article, "Hypocrites and Liars," describing what in her mind "Camp Casey is all about:"

I just read an article posted today on LewRockwell.com by artist Robert Shetterly who painted my portrait. The article reminded me of something I said at the Veteran's for Peace Convention the night before I set out to Bush's ranch in my probable futile quest for the truth. This is what I said:

"I got an e-mail the other day and it said, 'Cindy if you didn't use so much profanity '. There's people on the fence that get offended.'

And you know what I said? 'You know what? You know what, god damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence?'

"If you fall on the side that is pro-George and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out."

This is what the Camp Casey miracle is all about.

Cindy Sheehan had obviously stopped "asking questions" and started "giving orders" many months before she rose to prominence at Crawford. For example (and there are hundreds of such examples), on July 4, 2005 she told a paper in Fort Lewis, Washington, that her meeting with President Bush was "one of the most disgusting experiences I ever had and it took me almost a year to even talk about it" and described President Bush as "detached from humanity." On October 4, 2004 she stated that her son's death had compelled her to speak out against the "unjust" war in Iraq, to "bring the troops home" and "hold politicians accountable." Her trips ever further into the political ozone layer have been well documented.

The liberal and left-Blogosphere infatuation with Ms. Sheehan is (and from the very beginning of her rise to prominence, has always been), based exactly on "the content of what she said." Of course, the content of what she said has proved to be highly embarrassing - especially to anyone actually trying to win an election in this country. She's almost always nutty. Sometimes antisemitic. Increasingly extreme. It is easy to see why anyone would want some distance from that "content of what she said." But the fact is that the left embraced the "content of what she said," contrary to what Mr. Fineman says. That's a fact obvious to anyone actually of this Earth.

Mr. Fineman's entire analysis of the growing rift between the "Beltway" and "Blogosphere" factions of the Democratic Party is as unsound and shallow as his understanding of the Cindy Sheehan phenomenon he deploys as an example. Mr. Fineman presents the theories of the apparently gormless Simon Rosenberg (with minimal distancing ticks such as "if Mr. Rosenberg is right" and the like) that the rift is one of "tone" and differing "narratives." But what Mr. Rosenberg (and Mr. Fineman) says is simply wrong. For example, Hillary Clinton's eccentric support of the Iraq invasion is not a matter of "tone," "narrative" or "vocabulary." She voted more than once for a war that her core constituencies detest and consider a central issue. Senator Clinton's strategy has relied heavily on her core constituencies understanding that her faux-moderate positions were just political dodges on tangential and non-essential issues designed to put her in the White House. But the Iraq War has become too big an issue for those constituencies to see her position as an acceptable faux-moderate political expediency. Put another way: By bearing down on the Iraq War as a (or the) central issue, Democrats are causing Senator Clinton's former strategy to come unglued. After all, if (as the Democratic establishment has been intoning) Iraq is the important issue, a politician who treats it as a minor point to be finessed is not smart and realistic, she's a traitor. So Hillary Clinton's left-wing core constituencies are acting up. And she's scared because if she openly accommodates them very much, she probably cannot win the general election. That's not political "narrative." That's standard political "content."

Senator Clinton is hardly the first would-be candidate to face the problem of having to appease restless activists in her own party at the cost of damaging her national electability. For example, in 1992 George H.W. Bush, who had neglected the conservative activists in his own party, found himself obligated to give them great play at the Republican Convention. The result was a set of high profile appearances by people without general political appeal - including the notorious Pat Buchanan speech - that seriously damaged Mr. Bush's efforts in the general election. That Senator Clinton is now facing the same problem as a result of her faux "moderate" positioning only demonstrates that irony is cheap and plentiful in politics.

Here's how Mr. Fineman gussies up what is, in fact, a very common (but difficult) problem:

The consensus, among the insiders and in the early national polls, is that the 2008 nomination is hers to lose. .... I am waiting to see which, if any, of the crop of likely Democratic challengers tries to make himself the avatar of the “emerging activist class.” Dean did it without even knowing he was doing it. I don’t think Cindy Sheehan is running. Who will it be? Unless somehow it turns out to be Hillary—who voted for the prewar resolution on Iraq and in other ways has tried to burnish her “moderate” credentials.

But if Rosenberg is right, the key is not ideological purity but combativeness, and an appreciation of the power and tone of the Internet. Hillary must adapt—she has to “join the Resistance”—and her history has shown that she is nothing if not adaptable.

So for Mr. Fineman ( or is it Mr. Rosenberg, who is "worth listening to?"), the winning "adaptation" for Senator Clinton is doing by calculation something like what Howard Dean did by instinct? Howard Dean is now supposed to be the "success" model - not Bill Clinton? Whatever you say, Mr. Rosenberg or Fineman or whoever is talking.

It is a curious and recurring fact that the inclusion of anything related to the internet (including the Blogoshpere) often completely disorients mainstream media types such as Mr. Fineman, causing them to perceive very standard problems as unprecedented. In this case, the banal problem of how one tacks towards the party activists to win the nomination without appearing too "extreme" for the general election is presented as the fresh and new "Beltway v Blogosphere." But "Beltway v Blogosphere" is not the essential variable here. Nor is "narrative."

And Howard Dean, who has reportedly been as big a disaster for Democratic National Committee fund raising as he was a presidential candidate, is no role model - not even a little bit. That's another point that should be obvious to anyone not frequenting the Plutonic surface.