Brendan Nyhan

Since it’s impossible for anti-evolution conservatives to win a debate on the merits, George Gilder is trying to smear proponents of evolution instead:

Skeptics of Darwinism like William F. Buckley, Mr. West and Mr. Gilder also object. The notion that “the whole universe contains no intelligence,” Mr. Gilder said at Thursday’s conference, is perpetuated by “Darwinian storm troopers.”

“Both Nazism and communism were inspired by Darwinism,” he continued. “Why conservatives should toady to these storm troopers is beyond me.”

Essentially, Gilder is saying, “Nazism and communism are bad. They were inspired by evolution. Therefore, evolution is bad.” You won’t find a more pure example of the guilt by association fallacy.

Update 5/5 2:38 PM: As Jason points out in comments below, Gilder’s claim about Communism is also factually wrong:

[A]pparently “Darwinism” can time travel. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, while Origin of the Species was published in 1859.

And as he points out, it’s especially sad that three Republican presidential candidates indicated that they don’t believe in evolution in the first GOP debate:

Two legitimate candidates for President (sorry Tancredo) made it a point on Thursday to indicate they don’t believe in evolution. I wish I could wordsmith something that indicates my outrage.

Imagine you’re a writer for the New York Times, a newspaper that many people believe is politically and culturally out of touch with the South. Shouldn’t you try to avoid using words like “inbred” when writing about the region?

This new wave of historians, many of them young, believe that one cannot understand today’s housing, schooling, economic development or political patterns without understanding the mostly apolitical white Southerners of that era. None of these scholars play down the inbred racism of the region, but they argue that the focus on race can obscure broader economic and demographic changes, like the dizzying corporate growth, the migration of white Northerners to the South and the shifting emphasis on class interests after legal segregation ended.

Obviously, the writer (Patricia Cohen) is referring to historic patterns of racism among whites in the region, but it’s a regrettable word choice to say the least. If she had been writing about a minority group instead, there would have been an uproar.

Postscript: To complicate the picture, it’s worth noting that a recent Washington Post profile of pollster Mark Penn referred to his “deep roots in the national security wing of the Democratic Party, along with other centrist Democrats — some of them Jewish and pro-Israel, like Penn — who saw the merits of invading Iraq before the war began.” The cultural biases of the national media are more complex than most people recognize…

The family and I are headed west to the mountains, so no posts until Friday. Enjoy the week!

I challenge you to watch or read Joe Biden’s rambling, unfocused answers on Meet the Press and support his presidential candidacy. How long until he pulls the plug?

Biden’s defense of his position(s) on the war in Iraq was a particular lowlight:

MR. RUSSERT: But, senator, there has been an evolution in your thinking because this is what you said in—to the Brookings Institution in ’05. “We can” tell it—”We can call it quits and withdraw [from Iraq]. I think that would be a gigantic mistake. Or we can set a deadline for pulling out, which I fear will only encourage our enemies to wait us out—equally a mistake.” You’re now setting a deadline.

SEN. BIDEN: No, we’re not setting a deadline. Read what it says. It says the target date, left up to the generals to determine whether or not it is appropriate to withdraw all forces.

MR. RUSSERT: Well, a target date is setting a deadline.

SEN. BIDEN: No, no, but it leaves forces behind.

Even Tim Russert, who usually interrupts ruthlessly, frequently allowed Biden to prattle on and dig himself in even deeper.

In a comment on my post about Sam Brownback’s death penalty position, my friend Ben Fritz (formerly my co-editor at Spinsanity) makes an excellent point:

Though I’m not sure if this is what Brownback meant, there are people who
we’re not protected from even when they are in prison. Some prison
gangs, like the Aryan Brotherhood, continue to operate when the leaders
are in jail and even in solitary confinement. When I read about that,
it was the first time I really reconsidered my position on the death
penalty… since even supermax prisons weren’t preventing leaders of
the Aryan Brotherhood and other prison gangs from ordering murders. So
maybe I agree with Sam Brownback.

So when Brownback refers to bin Laden as an example, is he anticipating an Aryan Brotherhood-like problem there? That would make sense (though it’s hard to know in advance), but in any case this kind of hedged death penalty support is going to be a hard sell in a GOP primary.

Hmm, I wonder who David Brooks has in mind in this passage?

Second, there is the corrupting influence of teamism. Being a good conservative now means sticking together with other conservatives, not thinking new and adventurous thoughts. Those who stray from the reservation are accused of selling out to the mainstream media by the guardians of conservative correctness.

If they’re “thinking new and adventurous” thoughts, it’s obviously not Brooks!

Here’s a disturbing example of what Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution would call “Markets in everything” — “pay-to-stay” upgraded jail accommodations:

Anyone convicted of a crime knows a debt to society often must be paid in jail. But a slice of Californians willing to supplement that debt with cash (no personal checks, please) are finding that the time can be almost bearable.

For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades. Theirs are a clean, quiet, if not exactly recherché alternative to the standard county jails, where the walls are bars, the fellow inmates are hardened and privileges are few.

How long until we offer rich people nicer courts too? Or let them buy their way out of their sentence?

PS As I am writing the post, I see that Alex Tabarrok at MR has already posted the link.

Talk about a headline that sounds bad out of context: “Sex Slave Dispute Follows Abe Even as He Bonds With Bush”. It’s, uh, not what you think.

In the latest series of post-9/11 attacks on dissent, Republicans are trying to discredit the Democratic proposal to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq by describing it as “surrender,” “waving the white flag of surrender,” and “appeasement.” Of course, Democrats are not calling for American troops to surrender to insurgents, nor are they suggesting that withdrawal is aimed at appeasing Al Qaeda. Nonetheless, Republican politicians and conservative elites are using this inflammatory language to try to smear their opponents.

For instance, the White House is describing the proposed withdrawal deadline as a “surrender date,” and a prominent conservative website has started a “no surrender” petition:

At the White House, Dana Perino, the deputy press secretary, released a statement minutes after the vote, calling the bill “disappointing legislation that insists on a surrender date, handcuffs our generals, and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war.”

The White House has been repeatedly using this “surrender” rhetoric, as has the Republican National Committee. According to the New York Times, GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani just said that “[i]f a Democrat were elected president, he said, they would ‘wave the white flag’ in Iraq.” And this language has also been picked up by Republican allies in the press such as the Washington Times, New York Post, and Townhall.com.

In addition, Senator Orrin Hatch has opened a new rhetorical front, nonsensically accusing Democrats of “appeasement” and comparing them to Neville Chamberlain:

“This is the worst case of capitulation to appeasement since Neville Chamberlain spoke the words ‘Peace in our time,’ ” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said during yesterday’s debate.

I’ve posted a substantially updated version of my timeline of GOP attacks on dissent since 9/11 below the fold.

(more…)

As a joke, another grad student here sent me the canned Unity08 appeal to your friends, which makes the anti-democratic tendencies of the “movement” especially clear:

I thought you’d be interested in Unity08, a new citizen-led movement to elect a bi-partisan ticket in the 2008 presidential election in order to put an end to divisive politics and special interest influence.

No more “divisive politics,” ever. When Unity08 wins, we’ll all agree on everything! Who needs democracy anyway?

(See my past posts on Unity08 for more.)