Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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How serious a risk is it to burn the Quran? It's regrettable that the Gainesville pastor ever considered burning copies of the Quran, and it's regrettable that after announcing he wouldn't, he now seems to be see-sawing back and forth and may ultimately go through with it. But how serious is the risk we face if he chooses to exercise his First Amendment rights in this fashion? Obama posed the risk not just in terms of assaults on our troops, but fueling anger for attacks here. Is this really that credible? Well, yes, it is. There's a profile of KSM in the current issue of The New Yorker, subscription required. KSM's transformation to an American hater is described as occurring when he attended college in North Carolina. While there with other Arabs, intolerant American students singled them out for mockery. When the Muslim students would pray, for instance, the Americans would steal their sandals and throw them in the nearby lake. In the dorms, the American students would target them for "tricks" which involved flooding the Muslim students' dorm rooms. When KSM returned to the Middle East after college in America, he was pretty damned angry at Americans. Someone who knew him before his US matriculation could not persuade KSM that the idiots who targeted him and other Muslims were not representative of Americans in general; could not persuade him that Americans generally do not hate Muslims. KSM brushed his old friend off, told him not to bring it up agains, that his views on the issue were "strong." Beyond burning the Quran, the Gainesville pastor was kicked out of a church in Cologne over financial issues, and his Gainesville church doesn't enjoy tax-exempt status because he runs a furniture business on the premises. And somehow he's got four times as many Qurans to set fire as he has parishioners. Voter enthusiasm. As pointed out below, Republicans have higher levels of "voter enthusiasm" than Democrats do. This is based on the surveys such as Gallup's, which register how many are "very enthusiastic" about voting. Now, can I ask you a serious, personal question? You don't have to answer here in a public forum, honestly. Are you "very enthusiastic" about brushing your teeth? Do you say to yourself, "woo hoo, this is the point where I get to brush my teeth!!" If you don't, do you find yourself brushing your teeth just the same, because you know that dental hygeine is important, in all that it will forestall and so on? This is one of the big reasons to not get discouraged by Gallup poll results on "voter enthusiasm." In research terms, we call it "construct validity." A survey question is legitimate about the question itself, but in exrapolating it more broadly... well, there are questions. Sure there are correlations, but that doesn't mean observations are insurmountable. And this is why you should remember there's another element in play about the mid terms: a sense of responsibility can bring people to the polls, even if they're not enthusiastic about being there. "Very Enthusiastic" probably plays extremely well for extremist element who doubt Obama's native birth or think he's a terrorist, a little less so for those who get all the emails from GOPUSA and Newsmax and so on. But the civic responsibilty of voting is a completely different concept, and it doesn't need to draw on hate. It can also draw on setting up a firewall against hate. A firewall against hate is an extremely valuable concept here: hate drove the Republican party in the late 90's, and it seems to drive much of what's going on here. They're the opposition, and they're going to use every card in their hand, even promises such as "We'll impeach him!" For now, let's just remind all our friends that it's their job to vote. In another post, if I get the time, I'll talk about the more micro levels, such as school boards. 
Minnesota myopia. Powerline's John Hinderaker has been at it again. A few days ago, he contested the concept of American Islamophobia with an anecdote from his state fair, asking "Who's Islamophobic?" He'd totally forgotten a post he wrote last Christmas, describing his and his son's xenophobia, in which he concluded that the Somalis were probably Muslims. As in, who'd a thunk four Muslims would be nice people? And yesterday he got on Yahoo for failing what he considered approrpriate credit to fellow-Powerliner Scott for noting a Jimi Hendrix reference in an Obama speech. About 17 seconds with Google would have shown him that his colleague was not, in any fashion, the first to note the Hendrix allusion, but why bother checking facts when your fantasy world is so much more pleasurable? Tortoises vs. Hares. Last week Gallup released a very scary number in its polling for House races, showing generic Republicans with a 10-point advantage over generic Democrats. Much hand-wringing ensued, with a few voices (Mark Blumenthal among them) pointing out that while Republicans probably have an advantage, the size of the gap may be an outlier (not as bad as 10 points). Yesterday Gallup's most recent numbers showed the two parties tied at 46 on the same measure. The figure is among registered voters. While it may be premature to refine the focus to likely voters (Gallup has not narrowed to that yet, others have), the current figure of what they've been calling "enthusiasm" (% very enthusiastic about voting) is twice as high for Republican registered voters as it is for Democrats (50-25). On the face of it this suggests that Republicans are more likely to vote in November. However, as a point in time snapshot it doesn't strike me as surprising: Republicans have been keeping their base at full throttle for so long over so many lies like "death panels," you'd expect them to be more fired up about voting. But while 50-25 is a large gap to overcome, I don't think today's gap will be the same in November. There are enough arguments to use to get Democrats to the polls right now if they were better publicized: continued obstructionism (and worsened if they take committees); the Tan Man; rejection of business tax breaks just because they come from Obama; noise about impeachment. (Wouldn't a replay of the Republicans' vicious, partisan behavior during Clinton's impeachment scare Democrats to the polls? The Republicans proceeded with the impeachment in spite of Clinton's popularity and in spite of America's rejection of impeachment. Won't that help?) We have a couple months ahead. Let's be persistent, let's not run around like Chicken Little. Get your friends fired up. (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
Just showing respect for the democratic process. A Republican candidate in Arizona is trying to fill the Green Party's slate with homeless people. He admits they may draw away some Democratic votes. Lovin' America! Michael Moore hearts Rahm Emanuel for Labor Day. Not. I don't understand what's with the slow response on jobs from the White House. And it can't all be blamed on Bush: the Obama White House low-balled their stimulus package. And my worst fears about Obama came true. (HT to Digby.) The Teflon Party. Polling says "slightly" more Americans think the GOP can handle the economy better than the Democrats. I'm just flummoxed by this: it's testimony to the GOP's ability to shift reality. The last time the budget was balanced was under a Democrat, and the reason we got in this mess is due to the policies of the Bush Administration and Alan Greenspan. The Republicans' sole agenda seems to be to 1) obstruct; 2) continue Bush tax cuts which are due to lapse, without any way of paying for them. These are not difficult points to convey. Why haven't they been? This should be a slam dunk, Mr. President.
Don't forget, the final verse is about the END of Summer. And it's still hot here in Brooklyn. I love how he builds in a bar for Larry Graham's vocal. But we know Fall is approaching... My Gators played today, and not well. Florida coach Meyer said, about the Gators, "I didn't imagine the offense's incompetence that we experienced today." I hope for better performances. The Murfreesboro mosque fire was arson. The Feds have decided. I thought they wanted small government? Fox's Stuart Varney bemoans job losses that are due to letting temporary census workers go... In May, he used their temporary hirings to downplay job increases. It would be one thing to provide context on the losses by saying that even with the termination of the Census workers, there still isn't enough hiring going on. But Varney didn't do that. Would he have preferred the Census workers were retained? And in another clip here (straight from Fox News) Varney doesn't mention the Census workers at all, just that more people came back into the job market, raising the unemployment percentage. The Census workers, which he used to downplay increases in May, seem not to have existed. Impossible for Muslims to acquit themselves. Here's a new twist: you can't trust a "moderate" Muslim because their religion tells them to lie for the cause:
This is akin to "the only good Muslim is a dead one," or, "the only good Muslim is one who's not a Muslim." It's an impossible test. When all else fails, presume they're all evil and out to get us. I want my country back. You know, the one from the 90's that had prosperity, and where the rich had the sense to know that paying taxes wasn't so bad if their disposable income was okay, even if Clinton edged their marginal tax rate up; a country that actually handed an in-coming administration a budget surplus; a country that knew that Saddam Hussein could be contained with constant attention and that war wasn't necessary. One that addressed future challenges and invested in the country's long term. I want that country back. I don't want the one Mike Pence wants, with a top priority of extending Bush's tax cuts to the rich, burdening the deficit and putting more obligations on our children. And I don't want this Cat Food Commission, which seems intent on raising retirement ages as a way to "protect" Social Security (which only seems to need protection from Republicans). I want my country back. What astonishes you most about this? First, you really have to read an item in the NYT, and it's important enough that I'm going to make the link open in new window or tab. There are several contenders here.
"None of the above astonishes me" is a legitimate answer, too.
First they came for the First Amendment. A new poll confirms other polls, a majority of New York City residents wants the Park 51 Community Center (the "9/11 Mosque") to move. Although they "recognize" the First Amendment, they think it's insensitive to put the center so close to Ground Zero. Fortunately, this whole debate has nothing to do with sensitivity. Sensitivity is out there, but it's irrelevant. The founding fathers didn't draft the Bill of Rights so the first ten amendments would only apply when everyone thinks it's okay; they were drafted to be there specifically even when people objected. Anyone who wants the center to move is essentially spitting on the Constitution. The Constitution is not about a passing moment's sensitivities, and anyone who wants it to be there for them needs to understand that they need to make sure it applies even now, and stop talking about sensitivities. End of story.
Ask me why I should care. BP says that efforts to make the industry behave imperils their ability to be responsible. This is kind of like, we can only pay the fines if we continue to venture into risky efforts! and find new ways being irresponsible! Sometimes capitalism is like heroin.
Obama's big "Come Together." No segment of America deserves more praise for what we've done in Iraq than our troops. Not only have they done everything we've asked and done it admirably, but they did so even though we asked far too much of them. While President Obama wants us to praise them and move on to looking forward, we can't really fully praise them without appreciating how much we asked; and we can't appreciate how much we asked while at the same time trying to look the other way about the behavior of the Bush Administration. Think of the extended tours, the too-brief interstices between tours; think about the stop loss which was instituted. Think about the lack of armor, think about Rumsfeld's callous remarks in his Q&A with the troops. Think about how our time in Iraq was not only unnecessary from the start (more on that...) but also prolonged because of disarray. Think about the ineffective structure we put in, full of twenty-somethings from the right think tanks or who had the right conservative profile. All this happened because of too little planning and too much wishful thinking. We asked our troops to do all they did under these very difficult circumstances. We, the people, owe them our thanks. Our government owes them an apology. As for Obama's interest in turning the page, this is getting rather annoying. As he himself said in his speech, this has been a very expensive war. It not only distracted us from capturing OBL, but it also cost the lives of over 4,400 US troops, and used money which could have gone towards investing in our future... or universal health care... If we all agree that these are foregone opportunities, it behooves us to make sure that we don't repeat this mistake in the future. The Left understands this principle, and they understand how much Bush et al got wrong. It's not clear yet how much of the Right understands this, and so I'm not for turning the page yet. To keep the book metaphor, how about if we watch two timelines at once? The elementary school kids do this when they read "Holes;" surely it's something adults are capable of? Before her mike went out last night, Rachel Maddow was doing a very good job of recounting the flimsy excuses for war which were put out by the Bush Administration, from Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and so on. And Olbermann led into Obama's speech with a reminder that after 9/11, Rumsfeld liked hitting Iraq more than Afghanistan because it had "better targets." But this didn't all blossom full-grown as a result of 9/11: the interest in invading Iraq was there before 9/11. This needs to be remembered. The Project for a New American Century was on Clinton because they didn't think sanctions were getting them the regime change they wanted, and they advocated war. And Bush met with Hawks about Iraq before he was elected. And Paul O'Neill reported that Iraq was an agenda item on the very first cabinet meeting of 2001. This did not start with 9/11; it was waiting to be pursued. Mr. President, we disrespect our troops if we turn the page without making this completely clear. We cannot misuse our troops again.
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