Brendan Nyhan

Jon Chait smacks down Bill Kristol’s anti-dissent agitprop in the latest issue of TNR (sub. req.):

Kristol’s sensibility is perfectly summed up in one representative passage from a recent issue. The topic was The New Republic’s decision to publish an essay by Scott Beauchamp, an American soldier serving in Iraq, detailing some repugnant acts he said he and his comrades committed. Legitimate questions have been raised about this essay’s veracity. (We’ve been publishing updates on our continuing efforts to get answers to them at tnr.com.) But Kristol rushed past these questions, immediately declaring the piece a “fiction.” Offering up his interpretation of why TNR would publish such slanders, he concluded, in an editorial titled, “They Don’t Really Support the Troops”:

Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support. They sense that history is progressing away from them–that these soldiers, fighting courageously in a just cause, could still win the war, that they are proud of their service, and that they will be future leaders of this country.

In just two sentences, this passage provides a full summary of the decrepit intellectual state of neoconservatism. First, there is Kristol’s curious premise that TNR only published this essay because we have “turned against” the war. If Beauchamp’s writings were TNR’s attempt to discredit the war, why would his first contribution describe a pro-American Iraqi boy savagely mutilated by insurgents? For that matter, why would we work to undermine the war by publishing a first-person account on the magazine’s back page rather than taking the more straightforward step of, say, editorializing for withdrawal?

The notion that TNR published a Diarist merely for the edification of readers, rather than to advance a political agenda, did not occur to Kristol, because he could not imagine doing any such thing himself. He once explained his belief in the philosopher Leo Strauss to journalist Nina Easton thusly: “One of the main teachings is that all politics are limited and none of them is really based on the truth.” Whether or to what degree Beauchamp’s Diarist is true could not matter less to him.

…Next, there is Kristol’s assumption that to concede that troops do terrible things in a war is to denounce the war as a whole. Of course, George Orwell, among many others, has written about the ways that the experience of war–and, especially, foreign occupation– can blunt moral sensibilities. It should be possible to believe this and still believe in the overall justness of a war…

Then there is Kristol’s accusation that critics of the war don’t “support the troops.” I wonder if, back in his youthful days teaching political philosophy, Kristol ever imagined he would one day find himself mouthing knucklehead slogans like this. I shouldn’t need to say this, but apparently I do: I strongly support and respect the troops and would desperately like them to succeed. My respect, unlike Kristol’s, extends to soldiers who don’t share my politics, and isn’t contingent on the fantasy that all of them are saints.

Obviously, the way you support the troops is contingent upon your analysis of the war. If you think the war is succeeding, then supporting the war is a way of supporting the troops. If you think the war is doomed to failure, though, proposing that more troops die in vain is not a way of supporting them.

The most incredible part of Kristol’s diatribe is his accusation that critics of the war really believe that the war is going well: “They sense that history is progressing away from them–that these soldiers, fighting courageously in a just cause, could still win the war.” Now, perhaps Kristol truly believes that there is good news in Iraq hidden beneath the surface, but can he possibly believe that this good news is so obvious that even liberals believe it? And that liberals, including liberals who initially supported the war, are now trying to undermine it even though–nay, because–we believe the United States is winning?

The theme of traitorous liberals is becoming a Standard trope. Last week’s cover depicted an American soldier seen from behind and inside a circular lens–as if caught in the sights of a hostile sniper–beneath the headline, “does Washington have his back?” The Weimar-era German right adopted the metaphor of liberals stabbing soldiers in the back. Kristol is embracing the metaphor of liberals shooting soldiers in the back. I suppose this is progress, of sorts.

There was a time when neoconservatives sought to hold the moral and intellectual high ground… As the Iraq war has curdled, the idealism and liberalism have drained out of the neoconservative vision. What remains is a noxious residue of bullying militarism. Kristol’s arguments are merely the same pro-war arguments that have been used historically by right-wing parties throughout the world: Complexity is weakness, dissent is treason, willpower determines all.

Ross Douthat picks up a potentially misleading Karl Rove talking point from Josh Green’s Atlantic story:

As Josh Green notes, quoting Rove, “people who named education as their top issue voted for the Democrat over the Republican 76–16 percent in the 1996 presidential election, but just 52–44 in 2000.”

The problem is that this change may not mean anything. Rove is suggesting that people who value education were more likely to vote for Bush than they were for Bob Dole in 1996. However, we know that the public takes its cues from elites on what issues are important. As a result, it’s more likely that many Republicans followed Bush’s lead in naming education as a top priority, which would also shift the balance of support toward Bush in that category. (We would need better data than the exit poll can provide to know for sure.)

The Washington Post has a disturbing report today on the White House manual on how to deal with protesters during President Bush’s speeches. The worst part, I think, is this passage, which deals with how to counter those demonstrators who do get in:

To counter any demonstrators who do get in, advance teams are told to create “rally squads” of volunteers with large hand-held signs, placards or banners with “favorable messages.” Squads should be placed in strategic locations and “at least one squad should be ‘roaming’ throughout the perimeter of the event to look for potential problems,” the manual says.

“These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators,” it says. “The rally squad’s task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protesters (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site.”

In addition to the objectionable effort to screen out and shout down all dissent, the implication is that all protesters are anti-American and that a “supportive chant” that will counter their message is to yell “USA! USA! USA!.” Also, note how “USA!” is suggested as a way for attendees to express support for President Bush.

All in all, it’s of a piece with the administration’s attitude toward dissent, which it has repeatedly attacked since 9/11. (See also Chapter 6 of All the President’s Spin on the administration’s efforts to undermine dissent after 9/11.)

John McCain’s new campaign manager has some straight talk about the stripped-down bus that is replacing the lavish Straight Talk Express they used earlier in the campaign:

John McCain’s new steward of the Straight Talk Express, campaign manager Ricky Davis, says that he’s been uncovering old bills and invoices for extravagant purchases that just don’t jibe with McCain’s image as a frugal-minded maverick. Among them are whoopingly high receipts for a souped-up Straight Talk bus McCain used on the campaign trail, which came complete with flat-screen televisions and elaborate “art wrap”—the cellophane-y stuff that’s used to cover the bus with an image… Davis says he’s been able to balance the books a bit by focusing McCain’s bare-bones operation on three states—Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina—and finding a cheaper Straight Talk Express. “The next time we roll it out, it’ll be much more like the original version.” What did the original look like? “A piece of shit.”

It’s depressing to see the Edwards campaign sending out an email (PDF) with the subject line “Stop the Draft Before It Starts”:

This is an obvious exaggeration of an offhand remark by a general (though Bonior does at least clarify that the “Pentagon is now denying” that a draft is being considered).

Using the prospect of a draft to scare people is an old trick. One of my first blog posts in late 2004 was about a Rock the Vote ad with the tagline “Off to college or off to war? It’s up to you. Could you be drafted?” under an image of a young man getting his hair cut short:

Just to be clear, there is no chance of a draft for a war this unpopular, especially now, and everyone — Edwards and Bonior included — knows it.

Matthew Yglesias reminds us of the racial apartheid that made the bipartisanship of mid-20th century America possible:

[I]t really is remarkable that for all the bellyaching about the decline of bipartisan behavior in DC there’s very little attention paid to the fact that there are actual reasons this has happened beyond Newt Gingrich being a meany and bloggers being too shrill. The Jim Crow South gave rise to an odd structure of American political institutions whereby both of the parties contained substantial ideological diversity. This had the benefit of setting the stage for a wide array of cross-cutting alliances. It came, however, at the cost of consigning a substantial portion of the population to life under a brutal system of apartheid ruthlessly upheld through systematic violence.

After that system collapsed, there was a two decade or so period during which the voters and parties were re-aligning themselves during which we had cross-cutting alliances but no apartheid. And now the aligning process is done, so we have two parties where essentially all Democrats are to the left of essentially all Republicans and so you have relatively few genuinely bipartisan coalitions.

Indeed. Few people recognize that the previous bipartisan era was an aberration, not the historical norm. Consider, for instance, this plot of estimated party polarization in Congress:

When Democrats are disaggregated by region, the picture is even more clear (these graphs are for the House; those for the Senate are similar):

In short, the rise in bipartisanship was driven by Southern Democrats. Now that they are an endangered species, we’ve returned to the historical norm of sharp partisan conflict.

(Note: For the definitive analysis of how the race/civil rights dimension became aligned with partisanship, see the classic Issue Evolution by Carmines and Stimson.)

I knew the reviews for Fox’s “1/2 Hour News Hour” were bad, but I didn’t know they were this bad:

When the “1/2 Hour News Hour” made its debut in February, the weekly satire was panned by critics, gaining the unwelcome distinction of being the worst-rated program ever on MetaCritic.com. But it was well-received by viewers, and on many weekends it was Fox News Channel’s highest-rated half hour among adults ages 25 to 54.

Indeed, the Metacritic page for the show summarizes the overall tone of the reviews as “extreme dislike or disgust.” Ouch.

Postscript: The Times fails to make clear that being Fox’s “highest-rated half hour among adults ages 25 to 54” on “many weekends” does not mean a lot of people are watching. For instance, only 224,000 people age 25-54 watched the show last week.

Yes, yes, there are a lot of Hillary posts. That’s what happens when you listen to a Democratic debate in the car. More on Karl Rove and other subjects soon…

I’ve repeatedly pointed out that Hillary Clinton’s high unfavorables make her a weak general election candidate. But I didn’t know that her husband started his general election campaign with similarly awful numbers:

When Karl Rove said yesterday that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unfavorable rating was in the “high 40s,” maybe he hadn’t seen the most recent CBS News poll. And when he said no one had been elected with negatives as high as hers, he had apparently forgotten some recent history.

…Mr. Rove’s point was this: “There’s nobody who has ever won the presidency who started out in that kind of position.”

In fact, Mrs. Clinton’s husband was in that very position and did win. And Mrs. Clinton’s numbers are better than his were at this point in his first campaign for the White House.

In April 1992, only 26 percent of voters had a favorable view of Bill Clinton, while 40 percent viewed him unfavorably, according to a Times/CBS poll. By June 1992, his favorables had plunged further, so that only 16 percent had a favorable opinion, with 40 percent still unfavorable.

After Mr. Clinton won the nomination and after his convention, his favorable rating began to rise. By October 1992, his ratings had become about even, with 34 percent favorable and 35 percent unfavorable.

This might seem like a counterexample to my argument, but I don’t think it is.

First, Bill Clinton is by almost every account the most talented politician of his generation. Hillary is improving, but nowhere near as good. (And even Bill could never really overcome his high unfavorables; he went from being a uniquely polarizing candidate to a uniquely polarizing president.)

Also, Bill was virtually unknown in mid-1992. As a result, a substantial number of voters were willing to revise their initial impressions as they learned more about him. By contrast, millions of people have had unfavorable views of Hillary for fifteen years. Those kinds of opinions are much, much harder to dislodge.

Postscript: Mark Penn has claimed that Hillary’s unfavorables will decline in the general election. Bill’s apparently did, but barely (40% -> 35%). On the other hand, his favorables went up substantially (16% -> 34%) as Democrats and presumably some Democrat-leaning independents rallied to the cause.

During the long drive from Philly back to North Carolina, I subjected my family to the C-SPAN Radio broadcast of the latest Democratic debate. I don’t have anything to add about the substance of the debate itself, which sounded more or less same as all the previous ones,
but I was again annoyed by Hillary Clinton’s insistence on taking credit for her husband’s political victories:

Well, I don’t think Karl Rove’s going to endorse me. That becomes more and more obvious. But I find it interesting he’s so obsessed with me. And I think the reason is because [laughter] we know how to win. I mean, you know, I have been fighting against these people for longer than anybody else up here. I’ve taken them on and we’ve beaten them…

And the reason — the reason why we’re going to win is because we have a better vision for America, we know how to bring about change, and I know how to beat them.

Note how she slides from “we know how to win” to “I have been fighting” to “I’ve taken them on” to “we’ve beaten them” before concluding with “I know how to beat them.”

But as I wrote before, Hillary hasn’t won any impressive political victories on her own and it’s not clear that she can legitimately take credit for her husband’s:

Actually, it was Bill Clinton who knew how to take [conservatives] on. Hillary was not a “winner” but a presidential spouse/adviser whose public image and poor political instincts held her husband back. She only became a sympathetic figure who helped Bill after the Monica Lewinsky affair became public. And her only significant political victory was defeating Rick Lazio in 2000, a race in which she performed about as well as Chuck Schumer did in 1998. In short, her entire claim to being a “winner” is to do about as well as a generic Democrat in a Democratic-leaning state. It’s not so impressive.

On the other hand, her posturing is brilliant politically because none of her rivals would want to risk bringing Bill into the fray on her behalf. Plus Edwards and Obama also lack a compelling record of tough political victories. So Hillary can keep pushing the line without getting called on it.