A Stopped Clock Asks Two Good Questions — Will Trump Resign? Will Democrats Impeach Him?

Trump Impeached; Pence Pleased (source)

by Gaius Publius

In a piece called "Do Democrats Want an Impeachment Fight?" Pat Buchanan asks two key questions for people not focused on the story behind the story, the story of which the story we're watching is just a part. Those question are:

• Will Trump resign?
• Will House Democrats impeach him?

Yes, I know this is Pat Buchanan we're going to quote, or "Pat F-ing Buchanan" to use the name he's known by on the left. Still, he's been doing some decent work lately — like a stopped clock that's still managed to be right more than twice a day.

(In the era of Trump, does time circle back on itself? That's probably more true than not. We do seem to be caught in a Groundhog Day loop of real problems like climate, Trump tweets about lawyers, and dollar-driven media focus on just the tweets.)

Here's Buchanan on each of these questions. I think his analysis is pretty spot on (with one proviso, which I'll offer at the end). First, part of Buchanan's intro (my emphasis throughout):

Would a Democratic House, assuming we get one, really impeach a president for paying hush money to old girlfriends?

Hence the high-fives among never-Trumpers are premature.

But if Cohen’s guilty plea and Tuesday’s conviction of campaign manager Paul Manafort do not imperil Trump today, what they portend is ominous. For Cohen handled Trump’s dealings for more than a decade and has pledged full cooperation with prosecutors from both the Southern District of New York and the Robert Mueller investigation.

Nothing that comes of this collaboration will be helpful to Trump.

Keep in mind Mueller's ability to keep Cohen, Manafort and many others "singing" as you read on. Now our two questions.

Will Trump resign? Buchanan on that:

Trump is not going to resign. To do so would open him up to grand jury subpoenas, federal charges and civil suits for the rest of his life. To resign would be to give up his sword and shield, and all of his immunity. He would be crazy to leave himself naked to his enemies.

No, given his belief that he is under attack by people who hate him and believe he is an illegitimate president, and seek to bring him down, he will use all the powers of the presidency in his fight for survival. And as he has shown, these powers are considerable: the power to rally his emotional following, to challenge courts, to fire Justice officials and FBI executives, to pull security clearances, to pardon the convicted.

Second, will House Democrats attempt to impeach him? Buchanan again:

Democrats who have grown giddy about taking the House should consider what a campaign to bring down a president, who is supported by a huge swath of the nation and has fighting allies in the [rightwing] press, would be like.

Why do it? Especially if they knew in advance the Senate would not convict.

That America has no desire for a political struggle to the death over impeachment is evident. Recognition of this reality is why the Democratic Party is assuring America that impeachment is not what they have in mind.

Today, it is Republicans leaders who are under pressure to break with Trump, denounce him, and call for new investigations into alleged collusion with the Russians. But if Democrats capture the House, then they will be the ones under intolerable pressure from their own media auxiliaries to pursue impeachment.

Taking the House would put newly elected Democrats under fire from the right for forming a lynch mob, and from the mainstream media for not doing their duty and moving immediately to impeach Trump.

Democrats have been laboring for two years to win back the House. But if they discover that the first duty demanded of them, by their own rabid followers, is to impeach President Trump, they may wonder why they were so eager to win it.

Don't be shocked if House Democrats under Nancy Pelosi or any other Speaker take impeachment off the table. Some will call that Democratic cowardice, but Buchanan is right about the other factors as well. Right now it's Republicans who are under pressure. If Democrats take the House, the pressure will shift to them — and the country will split even further and more violently.

Are Democratic leaders ready to fight that war? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. We'll just have to wait and see. Regardless of what's moral and right though, there are no good near-term political choices.
I agree with Buchanan that either way, we're in for a hellish year.

How Mueller Can Remove Trump Without Congress

If you've read this space before, you won't be surprised at the next suggestion. There is a way for Mueller to remove Trump from office. Let's go back to Buchanan's explanation of why Trump can't resign:

Trump is not going to resign. To do so would open him up to grand jury subpoenas, federal charges and civil suits for the rest of his life. To resign would be to give up his sword and shield, and all of his immunity. He would be crazy to leave himself naked to his enemies.

He's right as far as he goes. But what if Mueller takes the threat of life in court, and the legal destruction of the Trump Organization, off the table?

In other words, what if Mueller sits down with Trump, just the two of them, and says this:
​
“Sir, these are your choices. You can stay in office until Congress impeaches you and the Senate convicts, which you think will never happen. And while you're doing that, I’ll burn down the Trump Organization till it’s a smoking hole in the ground. Keep in mind we just flipped your CFO. He's already talking.

“Then, when you finally do leave, you'll leave broke. The only structure in the world with your name on it will be your mailbox, and inside that you'll find a lifetime of summons to court. That's your first option.

“Your second option: You walk out of here now for any reason you like, congratulate Mr. Pence on his good fortune, and I will make all of your troubles go away — forever.

“It's up to you, sir. Which do you choose?”

I still think this is how the endgame plays out, with a deal offer no one talks about on TV. And I think Trump takes the deal.

To all appearances, Mueller's job is to get rid of Trump and not soil the designated heir (Mike Pence). That's what the whole of the mainstream press and much of the voting public is cheering and wants. I don't think Mueller plans to disappoint.

Side note: If you're cheering for Trump to fall and not asking just as loudly why Mueller is playing hands-off with Pence, you're cheering for Pence to replace Trump. If so, no problem — I hear people say "first things first" all the time. But it would be good to admit that this is what we'll get if Mueller gives Pence a pass while taking everyone else to the cleaners.

GP
 

Can Trumpf Really Win? Or, Conversely, Can Trumpf Really Lose? Have We Ever Elected A Demagogue President?

OK, so this is the more involved second half of the post from 10 am-- slightly more abstract and something I'd suggest the Trumpf fans not bother trying to grapple with. We're going to do a little mashup of Aaron Zitner at the Wall Street Journal, Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman at the NY Times and Sean McElwee at Salon. Don't freakout if you never heard of McElwee; he's the research-oriented guy and his Salon piece is something I want to use to bolster my long-held believe that the only thing that might actually stop Herr Trumpf has nothing to do with the lame hopes the GOP establishment keeps floating. If Trumpf loses it won't because he finally says something so dumb and offensive that his dumb and offensive supporters find it too dumb and offensive. To life's losers-- the Trumpf core-- there is nothing too dumb or too offensive to make them vote for anyone else. The chances of them switching to Jeb or Kasich or Christie or Rubio are about as good as them switching to Hillary; it's not going to happen. The question, though, is will they vote for Trumpf? His fans are reality TV viewers, not actual voters. If he can get them to the polls, he'll be the nominee; if not... get ready for an even worse nightmare for the GOP DC establishment: Ted Cruz. This morning on CNN's State of the Union John Kasich speculated that Trumpf's supporters won't even show up to vote in the primaries.

And that brings us to the research by Brian Schaffner and Stephen Ansolabehere that McElwee delved into yesterday. They found that "only 25 percent of Americans voted in all four elections between 2006 and 2012. These Americans, who are disproportionately white, rich and old, have dramatically more influence over politics than nonvoters (who make up 37 percent of the population)." In other words, "far more people voted in zero elections between 2006 and 2012 than voted in all four elections." About a quarter of the non-voters are non-voters because they're not registered and among those who only voted in presidential years, disliking the candidates, lack of information and busy-ness were the top reasons for not voting in midterm elections. This is interesting: "nonvoters were mostly either Independents (30 percent) or Democrats (43 percent). [So 27% Republican.] Presidential-only voters tilt the most strongly toward the Democrats, with 53 percent saying they are Democrats and only 32 percent identifying as Republican. [So 15% independent.]

The first solution to boosting turnout is clear: Registration barriers are the most important factor depressing turnout. Thus, robust enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act, expanded access to same day registration and more states adopting automatic voter registration will all boost turnout. Second, it’s clear that many voters are alienated by parties, and many see very few differences, which can depress turnout. Low-income Americans are the most likely to perceive large differences, possibly because parties overwhelmingly favor the preferences of the rich. Some have advocated Democrats pushing toward the center, but a working paper by political scientist Seth Hill finds that parties are far more successful in pulling in new voters than in converting swing voters.

The data from Shafner and Ansolabehere suggest there are millions of potential progressives who need to be mobilized-- but America lacks strong unions, which tend to mobilize the working class. This leads to a final way to boost turnout: nonprofits. A study released this week by Nonprofit Vote, “Engaging New Voters,” finds that nonprofits tend to engage non-white, young, low-income and low-propensity voters. They find that when nonprofits contacted individuals, those people turned out at high rates, suggesting that nonprofits could dramatically reduce the class, race and age bias of the electorate.

As I’ve noted before, parties have reduced contacts to low-income people and many people of color and young people go ignored by campaigns because they aren’t registered. Nonprofits could step in and fill the void left by parties.

Is Trumpf going to get his mass of slobs and malcontents to register and to vote? His fan base is whiter and older, but not richer and not educated. Some will vote and some won't. He's got a big headstart over his party establishment rivals. But who are they really? Let's start with Zitner's look, at The Journal. He defines them as "an underappreciated segment of the GOP-- blue-collar voters who aren’t especially animated by social issues." They're not really religious and Zitner remarks that his "appeal is a form of secular populism rarely seen in Republican primary races, and one he is pressing in part with appearances in working-class communities in Iowa that include independent voters and even Democrats who may be lured into the caucuses. The celebrity businessman’s message appears to resonate among voters who believe most strongly that political leaders are unable to put the nation back on track." Trumpf's followers, he claims, "don’t have a college degree and don’t identify strongly with the party’s touchstone social issues, such as opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage. What they want is a strong man type-- a fascist dictator to be precise-- but they would never call it that.

These voters care less about a candidate’s résumé or the nuances of policy than a promise to set a direction and follow through-- as when Mr. Trump says he will stop illegal immigration by building a wall on the Southwestern border and make Mexico pay for it.

A Quinnipiac poll this week showed that Mr. Trump’s tone is more important to his supporters than are policy stances. He held a large lead of 10 points over his nearest opponent among Republicans who said the most important attribute for the party nominee is to be a "strong leader." He has a much smaller lead, 4 points, among those who said “shared values” were most important.

Mr. Trump’s backers tend to be more working class than upper income, with a large share with no college education. In combined Journal/NBC News polling this year, Mr. Trump was the top choice of 25% of all GOP primary voters under age 50 who lack a college degree, but of only 13% with a college degree. The same split appeared among older voters: He won support from 23% with no college degree but only 15% of college graduates. No other candidate showed a similar skew.

A national CNN/ORC survey released Friday showed a similar pattern: Mr. Trump had the support of 46% of registered Republicans with no college degree and a much-smaller 18% of those with a degree. His support was also stronger among voters making less than $50,000 than those earning more. Polls in the early-primary states of Iowa and South Carolina have shown the same character to Mr. Trump’s support there.

...At least some of Mr. Trump’s support comes from conservative independents and Democrats who say they plan to vote in GOP primaries, and who account for nearly a third of the GOP primary electorate, Journal/NBC polling shows. Mr. Trump is essentially tied with Mr. Carson for the lead among those voters, Journal/NBC surveys through the fall have found.

[Former Iowa GOP Chairman Matt] Strawn said many of those voters haven't attended Iowa caucuses before, and that Mr. Trump has a challenge in motivating them to attend. His campaign has held calls to train supporters on the mechanics of the caucus. Mr. Strawn notes that Pat Robertson successfully drew new voters to the caucuses to propel his second-place finish in 1988, and that Ron Paul did the same in 2012 on the way to a third-place finish.

One question posed by Mr. Trump’s coalition is whether it creates the greater challenge for social conservatives or for establishment centrists to rally behind a single, favored candidate. By drawing more heavily from less-religious voters than from strong social conservatives, Mr. Trump may most complicate the establishment-wing vote.

Another question is whether Mr. Trump has created a model for building support that future GOP candidates could follow. "Great question," said Mr. Strawn. "At present, this appears to be a Trump-specific phenomenon, rather than a new electoral portal for a nonbillionaire, nonreality TV star Republican to follow."

Healy and Haberman report on the Times' analysis of Trumpf's vocabulary. In other words, how he manages to communicate to the angry, paranoid, hateful, dumb, low-info bigots who have been drawn to his proto-fascist banner. Recall, that last week we talked about another study that found his vocabulary was geared towards a 4th grader.

The dark power of words has become the defining feature of Mr. Trump’s bid for the White House to a degree rarely seen in modern politics, as he forgoes the usual campaign trappings-- policy, endorsements, commercials, donations-- and instead relies on potent language to connect with, and often stoke, the fears and grievances of Americans.

The New York Times analyzed every public utterance by Mr. Trump over the past week from rallies, speeches, interviews and news conferences to explore the leading candidate’s hold on the Republican electorate for the past five months. The transcriptions yielded 95,000 words and several powerful patterns, demonstrating how Mr. Trump has built one of the most surprising political movements in decades, and, historians say, echoing the appeals of some demagogues of the past century.

Mr. Trump’s breezy stage presence makes him all the more effective because he is not as off-putting as those raging men of the past, these experts say.

The most striking hallmark was Mr. Trump’s constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery that American presidents rarely use, based on a quantitative comparison of his remarks and the news conferences of recent presidents, Democratic and Republican. He has a particular habit of saying “you” and “we” as he inveighs against a dangerous “them” or unnamed other-- usually outsiders like illegal immigrants (“they’re pouring in”), Syrian migrants (“young, strong men”) and Mexicans, but also leaders of both political parties.

...While many candidates appeal to the passions and patriotism of their crowds, Mr. Trump appears unrivaled in his ability to forge bonds with a sizable segment of Americans over anxieties about a changing nation, economic insecurities, ferocious enemies and emboldened minorities (like the first black president, whose heritage and intelligence he has all but encouraged supporters to malign).

“‘We vs. them’ creates a threatening dynamic, where ‘they’ are evil or crazy or ignorant and ‘we’ need a candidate who sees the threat and can alleviate it,” said Matt Motyl, a political psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who is studying how the 2016 presidential candidates speak. “He appeals to the masses and makes them feel powerful again: ‘We’ need to build a wall on the Mexican border-- not ‘I,’ but ‘we.’”

In another pattern, Mr. Trump tends to attack a person rather than an idea or a situation, like calling political opponents “stupid” (at least 30 times), “horrible” (14 times), “weak” (13 times) and other names, and criticizing foreign leaders, journalists and so-called anchor babies. He bragged on Thursday about psyching out Jeb Bush by repeatedly calling him “low-energy,” but he spends far less time contrasting Mr. Bush’s policies with his own proposals, which are scant.

...The specter of violence looms over much of his speech, which is infused with words like kill, destroy and fight. For a man who speaks off the cuff, he always remembers to bring up the Islamic State “chopping off heads.” And he has expressed enthusiasm for torturing enemies beyond waterboarding. Last month, after several men hit a Black Lives Matter protester at one of his rallies, Mr. Trump said, “Maybe he should have been roughed up.”

“Such statements and accusations make him seem like a guy who can and will cut through all the b.s. and do what in your heart you know is right-- and necessary,” said Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University, echoing the slogan that Barry Goldwater used in his 1964 presidential campaign.

And Mr. Trump uses rhetoric to erode people’s trust in facts, numbers, nuance, government and the news media, according to specialists in political rhetoric. “Nobody knows,” he likes to declare, where illegal immigrants are coming from or the rate of increase of health care premiums under the Affordable Care Act, even though government agencies collect and publish this information. He insists that Mr. Obama wants to accept 250,000 Syrian migrants, even though no such plan exists, and repeats discredited rumors that thousands of Muslims were cheering in New Jersey during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He promises to “bomb the hell” out of enemies-- invoking Hiroshima and Nagasaki-- and he says he would attack his political opponents “10 times as hard” as they criticized him.

And as much as he likes the word “attack,” the Times analysis shows, he often uses it to portray himself as the victim of cable news channels and newspapers that, he says, do not show the size of his crowds.

These patterns of elevating emotional appeals over rational ones is a rhetorical style that historians, psychologists and political scientists placed in the tradition of political figures like Goldwater, George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, Huey Long and Pat Buchanan, who used fiery language to try to win favor with struggling or scared Americans. Several historians watched Mr. Trump’s speeches last week, at the request of The Times, and observed techniques-- like vilifying groups of people and stoking the insecurities of his audiences-- that they associate with Wallace and McCarthy.

“His entire campaign is run like a demagogue’s-- his language of division, his cult of personality, his manner of categorizing and maligning people with a broad brush,” said Jennifer Mercieca, an expert in American political discourse at Texas A&M University. “If you’re an illegal immigrant, you’re a loser. If you’re captured in war, like John McCain, you’re a loser. If you have a disability, you’re a loser. It’s rhetoric like Wallace’s-- it’s not a kind or generous rhetoric.”

“And then there are the winners, most especially himself, with his repeated references to his wealth and success and intelligence,” said Ms. Mercieca, noting a particular remark of Mr. Trump’s on Monday in Macon, Ga. (“When you’re really smart, when you’re really, really smart like I am-- it’s true, it’s true, it’s always been true, it’s always been true.”)

“Part of his argument is that if you believe in American exceptionalism, you should vote for me,” Ms. Mercieca said.

Historically, demagogues have flourished when they tapped into the grievances of citizens and then identified and maligned outside foes, as McCarthy did with attacking Communists, Wallace with pro-integration northerners and Mr. Buchanan with cultural liberals. These politicians used emotional language-- be it “segregation forever” or accusatory questions over the Community Party-- to persuade Americans to pin their anxieties about national security, jobs, racial diversity and social trends on enemy forces.

A significant difference between Mr. Trump and 20th-century American demagogues is that many of them, especially McCarthy and Wallace, were charmless public speakers. Mr. Trump, by contrast, is an energetic and charismatic speaker who can be entertaining and ingratiating with his audiences. There is a looseness to his language that sounds almost like water-cooler talk or neighborly banter, regardless of what it is about.

For some historians, this only makes him more effective because demagogy is more palatable when it is leavened with a smile and joke. Highlighting that informality, one of his most frequently used words is “guy”-- which he said 91 times last week and has used to describe President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a stranger cheering him on at a rally and a celebrity friend.

“His relaxed, jokey tone makes statements about his resolve to solve every problem because he’s knows what’s right and has the energy to do it more persuasive,” said Mr. Kazin of Georgetown, who described Mr. Trump’s idea for a database of Muslims in the United States as insidious but also said he found Mr. Trump amusing at points.

It is the sort of trust-me-and-only-me rhetoric that, according to historians, demagogues have used to insist that they have unique qualities that can lead the country through turmoil. Mr. Trump often makes that point when he criticizes his Republican rivals, though he also pretends that he is not criticizing them.

“All of ’em are weak, they’re just weak,” Mr. Trump said in New Hampshire on Tuesday of his fellow candidates. “I think they’re weak, generally, you want to know the truth. But I won’t say that, because I don’t want to get myself, I don’t want to have any controversies. So I refuse to say that they’re weak generally, O.K.? Some of them are fine people. But they are weak.”

Something Between A Quarter And A Third Of Americans Are... Just Hopeless

Polls look pretty decent these days for progressive positions. The new Pew Poll for the Washington Post shows that most Americans blame the congressional Republicans for the "fiscal cliff" fiasco. Still, fully 27% of our fellow citizens must be getting their information from Hate Talk Radio and Fox. They tell pollsters if we go over the so-called "fiscal cliff" December 31, it will be the fault of the most compromising figure in American politics since Henry Clay. The Post posits that the numbers "explain why Republicans privately fret about the political dangers of going over the cliff, while Democrats are more sanguine about the prospect... Republicans are well aware of where the public seems ready to put the blame if no deal on the cliff is reached. It’s why House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) offered a counterproposal Monday to the one President Obama laid out last week. Simply letting stalemate stand for the next 10 to 14 days is unacceptable to Republicans who know they have to do everything they can to avoid the cliff-- and the blame for it that seems likely headed their way." What I fret about is how such a big chunk of Americans can be so consistently wrong about everything. I mean 27% is a lot of people. And 27% is the bottom of the sample that usually marches lockstep with Limbaugh and Michael Savage and Sean Hannity.

Yesterday's National Journal poll meant to track public opinion on the important issues Congress is dealing with, tracks the stupidity of this solid third of Americans who can charitably be lumped in with a long-dead political party, the Know Nothings. Overall, the poll showed a sane and steady public-- most Americans fine with raising taxes on the wealthy and absolutely opposed to cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

Concerning the fiscal cliff, the poll, which dives deeply into policy issues, asked voters what they thought the best way was to raise revenue from higher-income earners. A plurality, 39 percent, said that both their tax rates should be raised and their tax deductions should be scaled back. In addition to raising tax rates on income above $250,000—something the president advocates and something that will happen if Congress doesn’t act to prevent it—Congress is considering an overall cap on deductions.

...The survey found that 77 percent of respondents believe Social Security should not be cut at all. The results were remarkably consistent along lines of race, income, gender, age, and political affiliation: Even 74 percent of Republicans polled felt that way. The results were similar when the question was asked in February-- perhaps suggesting that the efforts of groups dedicated to reducing the debt had failed to convince the public that cuts in Social Security were in the national interest. An even higher percentage-- 79 percent-- did not want cuts in Medicare, the medical coverage program for the elderly. When it comes to “means-tested” programs, 51 percent didn’t want “food stamps or housing vouchers that go to low-income families” to be touched. A full 63 percent wanted hands kept off Medicaid, which aids the poor and  the disabled.

There was much more openness to cutting defense spending. Only 33 percent of respondents didn’t want defense spending cut at all, while 47 percent were willing to cut it some, and 17 percent said it should be cut a lot. By contrast, only 3 percent of respondents wanted Social Security cut by a lot.

And no matter what the poll or what the questions, there's almost always 25-35% of Americans with this Fox-manufactured stance on anything and everything. It's a fact-free world out there. Even someone as delusional as Michael Savage admits that Hate Talk Radio is "committing suicide" by incessantly criticizing Obama and forgetting about doing entertaining talk radio. And the equally credible Pat Buchanan reminds us that a quarter of Republicans are so angry about Obama being reelected that they want to secede.

While no one takes this movement as seriously as men took secession in 1861, the sentiments behind it ought not to be minimized. For they bespeak a bristling hostility to the federal government and a dislike bordering on detestation of some Americans for other Americans, as deep as it was on the day Beauregard's guns fired on Fort Sumter.

... The social, cultural, moral and political revolutions of the 1960s, against which Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan inveighed to win their 49-state triumphs, have now captured half of the country.

One America believes our history is a catalog of crimes against people of color, that women have an inviolable right to abortions, that condoms should be handed out to sexually active teens in schools where Darwinism should be taught as revealed truth, while Bibles, prayers and religious symbols should be permanently expelled.

The other America sees all this as unpatriotic, godless and decadent.

One America believes in equality of rights; the other demands equality of results brought about through the redistribution of income and wealth, affirmative action, racial and gender set-asides, and quotas.

One America believes in gun control; the other in gun rights.

Now that Christmas and Easter have been expunged from public schools and the public square and the popular culture has been thoroughly de-Christianized, we Americans seem to have but one holy day of obligation that brings us all together: Super Bowl Sunday.

Where one America divinizes diversity, the other seeks out our lost unity and community. Half the country pays no federal income taxes, but half depends on federal benefits.

I guess as long as small minds like Buchanan and Savage, Hannity, Coulter, O'Reilly are given huge megaphones we're going to wind up with like-minded politicians-- your Jim DeMints (SC), Ron Johnsons (WI), Kelly Ayottes (NH), Jim Inhofes (OK), Buck McKeons (CA), Patrick McHenries (NC), Michele Bachmenn (MN)... And we'll also wind up with politicians manipulating this ignorant "sheeple," as Limbaugh calls them, for their own purposes-- purposes that rarely coincide with policies that benefit the voters. Nancy Pelosi, we're told by Brian Beutler, is trying to keep Obama on the straight and narrow when it comes to the Grand Bargain.

As the controller of an overwhelming number of Democratic votes, she’s there to warn all negotiators, including Obama himself, not to cut a bad deal.

“Leader Pelosi is playing offense on the middle class tax cuts bill,” says a House Democratic leadership aide. “She’s unifying the House Democrats around an action they can all support, while also reminding all the negotiators at the table that you can’t reach a deal without changes in tax rates on the wealthy.”

That’s as much a warning to Obama as it is to Boehner. Until recently Obama had left himself enough wiggle room to accept a deal that would raise revenue from top earners by limiting their deductions instead of increasing their income tax rates.

Because Senate Democrats passed legislation in August to permanently extend middle-income tax cuts, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have been sidelined for the moment by dint of circumstance.

Pelosi’s role, in effect, is to make sure the Senate bill comes up for a vote in the House, ideally unchanged, so it can go straight to Obama’s desk for a signature. Most recently, she rejected House Republicans’ counteroffer to Obama, which would include benefit cuts to Medicare and Social Security.

Anders Breivik Says He Has No Regrets... Does Pat Buchanan?

Although the attorneys of right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik are claiming their client is insane (see video below), MSNBC's in-house Nazi claims he was right... no, not just right-wing, correct. He may be borderline senile but Pat Buchanan has been an unrepentant Nazi since at least the 1970s. Here's what he wrote at the American Conservative:

[A]wful as this atrocity was, native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.

That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists.

Europe faces today an authentic and historic crisis...

As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right.

MSNBC should be ashamed. What they ought to do is fire this hate-spouting bigot and give the conservative slot-- if they insist they need another one-- to someone principled and rational like David Frum.

As Media Matters pointed out after Buchanan's outburst, terrorists are never right. "Their actions are wrong, and the ideas that motivated them are wrong." Norwegian society is grappling with the whole concept of how tolerant they can afford to be of Breivik's (and Buchanan's) kind of extremism.

Hours before the bombing in central Oslo and a shooting rampage that killed at least 76 people, self-described perpetrator Anders Behring Breivik reportedly posted a video on YouTube containing anti-Muslim imagery. Set to eerie music, the video features text that rages against multiculturalism and echoes Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto calling for a Christian war to defend Europe from Islamic domination.

Breivik has been described in the media as a lone lunatic on the far-fringe of society.

But Rune Berglund Steen of the Norwegian Center Against Racism disagrees.

"Most of his ideas, his view of society is not original," Steen says. "He has bought into a certain ideology already there, including the distrust, hatred of Muslims."

Breivik, 32, once belonged to the ultra-rightwing Progress Party, which has become the second largest party in Norway. Steen says the Progress Party wants much stricter controls on immigration, while Breivik is much more violent.

"What he wants is to kill the people who are not like him," Steen says.

...Breivik claims he is part of a terrorist network with two other extremist cells in operation, and investigators are focusing on whether he acted alone or had accomplices.

It's a big challenge because rightwing extremism had been more or less ignored by Norwegian security officials.

Professor Lars Gule of Oslo University has monitored extremist websites for years, even chatting with Breivik a few years ago on one of the suspect's favorite ultra-rightwing sites.

"These websites are working as greenhouses because they tend to be isolated," Gule says. "There is no opposing voice there, so the extremist postings are the fertilizer within the greenhouse and we should not be surprised when a terrorist flower sticks its head up."

He estimates that many thousands of people regularly visit such websites in Norway alone. Adding the rest of Scandinavia, Britain, France and Germany, Gule says, "We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people with extremist, reactionary, xenophobic, and islamophobic views."

True, there may be no opposing voice on these deranged websites, but the voice that's there is reinforced by a mass media dominated by inveterate fascists... like Rupert Murdoch. Just take a look at how the supposedly mainstream Wall Street Journal reported the tragedy through its own far right prism.

Before they knew the facts of the terror attacks in Norway last Friday, editors at the Wall Street Journal concluded it was the work of Islamic extremists and whipped off the following kicker paragraph for an editorial that appeared in Saturday’s paper:

In Jihadist eyes [Norway] will forever remain guilty of being what it is: a liberal nation committed to freedom of speech and conscience, equality between the sexes, representative democracy and every other freedom that still defines the West. For being true to these ideals, Norwegians have now been made to pay a terrible price. They are not in the wrong movie. They are on the right side.

...The Journal’s editorial page wasn’t alone in jumping to conclusions. ABC News’ Brian Ross breathlessly suggested in the hours after the attack that al-Qaeda and Ansar al Islam might be behind it, but then scrubbed the online article of any mention of radical Islamic groups. And there were many other examples [though none as disgusting as right-wing hack Jennifer Rubin's in the Washington Post] Friday afternoon of hasty conclusions hastily withdrawn after an ironic rush to look well-sourced or ideologically validated.

Honest journalists, when they get something wrong, don’t expunge the record, they correct it. But in the larger sphere, the premature Islam-alarm has set off a resonating debate over whether anti-Islamism fuels Christian-extremist violence. A variety of Western politicians and writers in the U.S. and Europe have pushed back in recent years against what they see as decades of multiculturalism which has allowed the infiltration of Islamic values antithetical to societies that are properly Judeo-Christian. Leading the post-Norway backlash, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald says:

If, as preliminary evidence suggests, it turns out that Breivik was “inspired” by the extremist hatemongering rantings of Geller, Pipes and friends, will their groups be deemed Terrorist organizations such that any involvement with them could constitute the criminal offense of material support to Terrorism? Will those extremist polemicists inspiring Terrorist violence receive the Anwar Awlaki treatment of being put on an assassination hit list without due process?

Don't forget Breitbart.




WHEN THERE'S WINGNUT STUPID-AND-CRAZY IN THE
AIR, YOU KNOW GLENN BECK HAS TO BE HEARD FROM

Especially now that he's off the TV, our Glenn probably worries that people will forget about him, maybe think he can't match anyone in the land for stupid-and-crazy. So Monday on his radio show he likened the camp at which so many young Norwegians were slaughtered while learning about democracy and the political process to . . . the Hitler Youth. Now amid the blowback, he's defending himself by, as the Telegraph's Jon Swaine reports, "suggest[ing] that people who sought to stop his use of such comparisons were leading the US into a 'society of gas chambers.'"

I'll have more on our Glenn's relentless crusade to keep himself at the top of the stupid-and-crazy rankings in my 6pm PT post. -- Ken

#

The Sotomayor nomination may be safe, but at what cost for future Supreme Court picks?

"There was something distasteful about Sotomayor’s being lectured on civil rights by the likes of Senator Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, whose own retrograde views on race back in 1986 led to his being rejected for a federal judgeship by the very committee on which he now serves."

-- Jeffrey Toobin, in his July 20 New Yorker "Comment"

on the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings

by Ken

I imagine a lot of folks on our side of the war for the soul of the federal judiciary are breathing easier after the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem to have blown their wad in the hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. They were so lame, it was hard to tell whether they were just going through the motions or are just, well, that lame.

After watching "Little Jeff" Sessions at work, though, I have to say I'm inclined more to the they're-just-that-lame theory. I think the Senate Republicans thought they were upgrading their attack-dog profile by slotting Little Jeff into the SJC ranking minority member slot vacated by the hated turncoat Arlen Specter. I don't doubt that Little Jeff has all the viciousness and hatred and ignorance necessary for a high-profile demagogue; he just doesn't appear to have any communications skills, which are traditionally highly prized in demagoguery. He seems to have more the cunning of Wile E. Coyote, watching his latest scheme for Road Runner neutralization blow up in his face. (I still say the R's should have Henry Gibson playing Little Jeff.)

In the larger scheme, though, I'm still thinking about the SJC hearings in the context of the point I tried to make this morning: that all these battles the R's are losing don't necessarily mean they're losing the war, taking the long view.

Really and truly, in the absence of something really damning, what were the chances the nomination was going to be shot down? I suppose there was always the possibility of a filibuster, but were the R's really prepared to face the electorate after doing that to a Hispanic woman of such impeccable legal credentials? Oh, they had their mini-gotchas, the "making policy" remark," and the "wise Latina" one, and then the Ricci case. But even master obfuscators would have had a tough time cashing in those meager chips.

Still, it seems to me dangerous to underestimate the amount of damage the "Just Say No"-ers inflicted, to be applied to the next Supreme Court nomination, which is once again much likelier to be one of the remaining moderates rather than one of the neanderthals being replaced, meaning that on our side we're going to be fighting just to hold our ground..

Now I hope no one was surprised by my reference to "one of the remaining moderates." Surely there isn't anyone who thinks there are any actual liberals among what is casually referred to in the Infotainment News Media as the Court's "liberal bloc"? Like who? These are fine, honest folk, who performed heroic service during the Dark Ages of the Bush regime, but they're not liberals.

Is there any way we can ever repay our debt to Justice John Paul Stevens? Remember, he was within months of his 81st birthday when Chimpy the Prez took the oath of office, and any hope that he might merely have to survive another four years was dashed in the 2004 election. It's possible that the justice, apparently in good physical and mental health, would have chosen to remain on the Court anyway, but the fact is, he was pretty much deprived of the option of retirement.

(Ironically, the justice who probably helped install Chimpy as president precisely so she could retire, Sandra Day O'Connor, may have left with more regrets than she expected, as she watches the transformation wrought since her departure by the advent of the two new justices. Justice O'Connor was a bona fide conservative, but in case after case the XXXXXXs of the Roberts Court are going places she knows perfectly well they wouldn't, couldn't have gone with her still sitting.)

That said, it doesn't make Justice Stevens a "liberal." Justice William Brennan was a liberal. Justice Thurgood Marshall was a liberal. These folks, honorable justices all, are moderates.

And both the selection of Judge Sotomayor and the process by which she appears to be securing confirmation are stacking the deck even more against the appointment of a liberal judge to the Court at any time in the foreseeable future -- even if we had a president inclined to make such an appointment, which I'm sure not persuaded we do at the moment. I think "moderates" may be just fine for President Obama.

As a piece of political calculation, as I've already written, the Sotomayor selection was brilliant. It became apparent pretty quickly that it wasn' going to be necessary to read all of her huge number of judicial opinions to know that this was not a judge who had a secret "liberal streak" that had to be hidden. Now, Justice Sotomayor (to jump the gun a little) may yet surprise us; there's no such thing as dead certainty when it comes to Supreme Court justices, who -- once confirmed -- are about as beyond the reach of detractors as anybody in the workforce gets. But I think the R naysayers knew pretty quickly that they weren't dealing with a closet liberal. The judge's participation in the panel that ruled against firefighter Frank Ricci in the New Haven case may have been an undeserved gift for the R's, but surely none of them are so lame-brained as to believe they had found evidence of a disguise masking her "liberalism."

Does this mean that the next Court nominees will have to be as visibly moderate? Well, maybe even more so, since they aren't likely to have the secret weapons of Judge Sotomayor's gender and ethnicity.

And does this mean that those next nominees are going to have to maintain the fiction that the criterion for appeals-court judging is, plain and simple, applying the law?

Jeffrey Toobin expresses regret in his July 20 New Yorker "Comment" piece on last week's hearings:

In fact, Justices have a great deal of discretion—in which cases they take, in the results they reach, in the opinions they write. When it comes to interpreting the Constitution—in deciding, say, whether a university admissions office may consider an applicant’s race—there is, frankly, no such thing as “law.” In such instances, Justices make choices, based largely, though not exclusively, on their political views of the issues involved. In reaching decisions this way, the Justices are not doing anything wrong; there is no other way to interpret the majestic vagueness of the Constitution. But the fact that Judge Sotomayor managed to avoid discussing any of this throughout four days of testimony is indicative of the way the confirmation process, as it is now designed, misleads the public about what it is that Justices do.

For once that blowhard Sen. John Cornyn wasn't wrong when he said that Judge Sotomayor's answers explaining her judicial philosophy made her sound exactly like Chief Justice Roberts, who of course is even less a believer than Judge Sotomayor that the job consists of just-applying-the-law.

Oh, Toobin understands why nominees of all ideological persuasions have arrived at the practical wisdom that during the confirmation process you say nothing of substance, and especially nothing that can be used as ammunition against them. Nevertheless, he makes a great point: We have now more or less officially conceded that the subject of what judges actually do is too complicated to be discussed with, or even in front of, the American people.

And once again whole areas of public and legal policy have been declared off limits, not just as subjects of discussion, but perhaps also as areas of belief that can disqualify future Supreme Court (and lower federal court) nominees. There was, most notably, the grotesque spectacle of a vile toad like Little Jeff Sessions playing the race card, just the way Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan would -- well, did. Toobin writes aptly:

There was something distasteful about Sotomayor’s being lectured on civil rights by the likes of Senator Jeff Sessions, of Alabama, whose own retrograde views on race back in 1986 led to his being rejected for a federal judgeship by the very committee on which he now serves. (One of the more cringe-worthy moments of the hearing was Sessions’s expression of incredulity that Sotomayor might disagree with another judge on her court even though he was also Puerto Rican.)

To focus on just one point, in the extreme case -- by which I mean the ignorant and rawly hate-filled mouthing off we heard from Buchanan, most notably in the infamous interview with Rachel Maddow. Buchanan, as I've pointed out, has managed to turn the very idea of affirmative action into something shameful and unworthy. As I wrote, "In the lunar landscape that is Pat Buchanan's brain, 'affirmative action' is nothing more than a piece of the massive plot -- watch out, the plotters are everywhere! -- to cheat white males, the very people who made America what it is, out of their rightful share of the pie, which is all of it."

As a result, there's hardly any point documenting what I assume are typically Buchananite misrepresentations of Judge Sotomayor's own relationship to affirmative action. After all, confronted with the issue of her outstanding academic record at Princeton, poor Pat actually blithered on about everybody knowing about Ivy Leaguers all getting those high grades. At that point, I find it unfathomable that whoever at MSNBC is responsible for signing his paychecks, or a flunky thereof, didn't simply walk onto the set gun in hand and put the pile of puke out of his misery. As it is, as I say there's no point going back to the judge's testimony, because she would have had no reason to speak of affirmative action with any measure of hostility or derision.

People like Rush and Pat have done everything they could to load the term just that way in the American imagination -- hey, them my-norities is gittin' special vantages! But by being afraid to answer them, again on the assumption that the American people are too stupid to understand the real issues, we have more or less allowed them to define those issues. It is, I tell you, one creepy experience to see and hear Rush Limbaugh announce that of course Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Your impulse is to say, "And you would know, huh, Rush?" But of course he wouldn't, or at least he wouldn't say, not publicly. When he's among his own kind, he can brag about his racism, but of course it isn't real racism that Judge Sotomayor was being accused of.

I was feeling pretty glum about this state of affairs when a colleague who has actual experience with affirmative action, and by experience I mean 25 years litigating affirmative-action cases, offered the first sense I've heard in, well, a while, on the subject.

I was going to cherry-pick a few paragraphs, but in the end I think I'm going to quote the whole piece, which isn't that long, with just a bit of highlighting of points so basic that we need to find a way to make them part of the national understanding.

Pat Buchanan Continues His Racist Attacks on Sotomayor

By Guy T. Saperstein, AlterNet. Posted July 17, 2009.

Yesterday, on MSNBC, Pat Buchanan attacked Sonia Sotomayor, specifically, and affirmative action, in general. Included in his attack were such claims as "this has been a country built basically by white folks," that Sotomayor was purely an affirmative-action candidate who lacks real credentials and his suggestion that we need more white, male Supreme Court nominees -- like Robert Bork -- despite the fact that 108 of the 110 Supreme Court justices in our nation's history have been white.

What opponents of affirmative action like Buchanan fail to grasp is that this country was built on affirmative action -- for white males -- and you don't have to go back to the Founding Fathers to see this in action.

If you go back to the 1950s, which Buchanan apparently wants to do, and look at the major private universities, you would find that 20 to 30 percent of the admissions were "legacies" -- people who got there not on merit but because they were the sons of alumni and donors. George W. Bush, of course, is the poster child for this generation of affirmative action babies.

I'd like to see Buchanan, or any conservative, defend Bush's admission to Yale on the basis of merit. And I'd like to stack up Bush's credentials next to Sotomayor's and ask which one was more deserving of admission to a major university, or the bench, or the presidency, or anything.

The white-male affirmative action that bozos like Bush benefited from and want to protect was a monopoly of opportunities; monopolies work to undermine healthy competition and produce bad results.

The affirmative action that emerged from the 1960s civil rights movement was an effort not only to promote diversity of people and opportunities, but to democratize opportunities so that white-male hierarchies did not automatically get all the perks. This has been healthy for America, not only because society has become more diverse, but also because it now is less likely that the truly unqualified -- the frat boys like GWB with no academic credentials and problems with excessive alcohol consumption [but a connected family] -- are not automatically passed on to graduate schools, and then on to unsuccessful business careers, not to mention catastrophic political careers.

I prosecuted employment discrimination class actions for 25 years, in the process forcing many major corporations to hire and promote women, minorities, older people and the disabled. In every single case I had, when the case was over and the workforce was integrated, no matter how bitter the litigation had been, the companies would confide in me that their workforces after "affirmative action" were stronger, more competitive, more productive.

Affirmative action has been good for American business and good for America. Indeed, corporate America, which has seen the benefits of fair-employment practices firsthand, long ago abandoned opposition to it. Too bad racists like Buchanan have failed to pay attention to what really has happened in the American workforce, and in America, over the past 40 years.

Guy T. Saperstein is a past president of the Sierra Club Foundation; previously, he was one of the National Law Journal’s "100 Most Influential Lawyers in America."

#

Well, what do you suppose Pat Buchanan would have to say to get his sorry ass fired by MSNBC?

by Ken

We need to talk about the latest installment in Rachel Maddow's ongoing exploration of the ever-stranger connections emanating from the now-infamous C Street "church" of the Famlly, along with the ranking guide into the Family sanctum, Jeff Sharlet (whom she now has to apologize to profusely for dragging him away from his hoped-for vacation, as the story just won't stop metastasizing).

We'll get to that, but first I guess we really need to talk about another segment on Rachel's show last night: Pat Buchanan's appalling attempt to defend his column attacking Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whom he has taken to ridiculing as "an affirmative-action judge." Of course, to appreciate the full measure of viciousness intended, you have to understand that in the lunar landscape that is Pat Buchanan's brain, "affirmative action" is nothing more than a piece of the massive plot -- watch out, the plotters are everywhere! -- to cheat white males, the very people who made America what it is, out of their rightful share of the pie, which is all of it.

(And he is only too happy to rattle off the list of names of the white male victims, even if he can't pronounce the name of the sainted Frank Ricci -- I guess those Irishmen have trouble with Eye-talian names), and it seemed to me that a woman slipped onto the list of white males. Let's not even get into the questions of whether a program of systematic discrimination can actually be conducted against a nation's power elite, or whether a class of victims whose names can be recited in one breath by the craziest of crazy old coots really qualifies as, for want of a better term, a "class action.")

Rachel is taking some heat for her remarkable efforts at maintaining her poise, and even I sometimes wished at times that she would "lose it." But of course if she'd done that, she would have handed the even to Pat, who may be an old coot now but who has been fighting these fights for a lot of decades now, and knows that as soon as you reduce the opposition to enraged spluttering, you've won.

Anyway, Heather over at Crooks and LIars had the patience to do a point-by-point summation with commentary of this sad and sordid interview. I was in no condition to observe the spectacle closely enough to do so even if I had been inclined. I hadn't planned to watch it, and wish I'd stuck to my (sensible) original intention. It drove me storming around my apartment in -- what else? -- a spluttering rage.

Here's Heather's account:

During what was at times a bit of a heated exchange, but way too chummy in general -- given the type of browbeating Pat Buchanan actually deserves for his continued racist remarks on MSNBC -- Rachel Maddow ends up telling Pat Buchanan to quit living in the 1950s, and that he's fanning the flames of racial hatred with his rhetoric. Before that, she gives him ample opportunity to put on full display, again, just how horribly he thinks the poor, downtrodden white man is being treated in America.

Some of Pat’s "finer" moments during the interview.

-- Comparing Sonia Sotomayor to Harriet Miers.

-- Calling her a purely affirmative action candidate by the President and completely dismissing her academic accomplishments.

-- Saying that “white folks” built this country.

-- Calling Bork and Scalia “real scholars” and "tremendous minds" and saying Sotomayor hasn’t risen to their level.

-- Saying the only reason she was appointed to the bench was because of affirmative action.

-- Complaining about Sotomayor getting a chance to go to the best schools and knocking out someone who might have gotten better grades than her. When has Pat Buchanan ever complained about the likes of George Bush and other legacy children being allowed into the best schools because of who their parents are, and knocking other kids out? I would guess he has not. I’ve certainly never heard him bring it up. Rachel should have called him on that one if he'd let her get a word in to do it.

When asked if she got the grades she did in college because of affirmative action, saying that in the Ivy League schools, half the kids graduate cum laude now. Really? So they're raising students' grade point averages in college now and no one told the rest of us about it? Then retreating to saying he bet he graduated higher in his high school class than she did, and going so far as to say he probably did better than she did in college as well, but he doesn't think he's qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

So being a judge for seventeen years doesn't count for anything in Pat's world. And Pat says he did better than she did in school, without backing that up with any specifics. If anyone knows just what his grade point averages were in high school and college, I'd like to find out.

He compared the track team at the Olympics potentially being all black or a hockey team being all white to the racial make up of the Supreme Court. Yeah, that's exactly the same thing, Pat. He seems to have forgotten that there was a time not all that long ago that blacks in America were not even allowed to play on the same team as white people.

And he refused to say there is anything wrong with the fact that the Supreme Court has been made up almost entirely of white men for all these years and might benefit from other races being represented. He dodged back opining over the firemen they trotted out there as a political game at the hearing rather than answer the question.

I really don't understand why Rachel felt the need to bring him on if she was going to let him lie and talk over her for the better part of the interview. She's just not aggressive enough to deal with the likes of this bully, and he knows it. MSNBC has allowed Buchanan to become a racist sideshow on their network. As Media Matters has wondered: What would Pat Buchanan have to say to get himself fired from MSNBC?

Now that, Heather, is a splendid question. What would Pat Buchanan have to say to get himself fired from MSNBC?

For the record, MediaMatters' Jamison Foser didn't write the piece to which she directs us in response to last night's Rachel Maddow appearance. He wrote it on June 8.

#

Georgia Senate Race Has Economic Consequences For Us All-- Ask Pat Buchanan, Sarah Palin and Ludacris

Ludacris vs Ludicrous in Georgia

An Op-Ed by Pat Buchanan has a dire warning for Republican reactionaries so eager to destroy unions that they don't mind wrecking the entire domestic auto industry. He claims the GOP was wiped out on November 4th because voters were angry they didn't kill the Bush Regime's Wall Street bailout proposal but that buying up junk paper from hated Wall Street fat cats in very different from burying an iconic American industry. He urges them not to follow the wrong-headed "counsel of that quintessential Bushite Dick Darman, who said of our computer chip industry, 'If our guys can't hack it, let 'em go.' America responded-- by letting George H.W. Bush and Darman go. Are Republicans aware of what they are about to do?"

When workers, execs, engineers, dealers, salesmen and suppliers are all factored in, the Big
Three employ 3 million people who contribute $21 billion a year to Social Security and Medicare, and $25 billion in federal income taxes. Add in all the businesses that depend on the auto industry, and we are talking about one-tenth of the U.S. labor force.

As columnist Tom Piatak of Chronicles and Takimag.com writes, 850,000 retirees, and their families, depend on pensions and health care from the Big Three. If they go under, the burden falls on us.

And to let the auto industry die is to write America out of much of the economic future of the planet.

In a good year, like 2005, Americans buy more than 17 million new cars, and West Europeans as many. Tens of millions in Eastern Europe, Russia, China, India and Southeast Asia are now moving into the middle class each year. These folks will all need or want one or two family cars. If we let the U.S. auto industry die, that immense and burgeoning market will be lost forever to America, and ceded to Asia.

"Who cares?" comes the free-traders' reply. Japanese and Koreans are setting up factories here. They can pick up the slack.

But that means Americans will work for and depend on foreign companies for a necessity of our national life as vital as the imported oil and gas on which our cars and trucks operate. All the profits of the mighty automobile industry in America will be sent abroad.

Before Republicans follow this free-trade fanaticism to their final interment, they might study the results of a poll by Peter Hart:

-- Seventy-eight percent of Americans believe the U.S. auto industry is highly or extremely important. Three percent think we can do without it.

-- Ninety percent of Americans believe the death of the U.S. auto industry would do great damage to our economic future.

-- By 55 percent to 30 percent, Americans favor federal loans to save it. And by 64 percent to 25 percent Americans back President-elect Obama's resolve not to let the U.S. auto industry go under.

If the GOP blocks these loans, and the industry dies, the party can forget about Ohio, Michigan and the industrial Midwest. For the Reagan Democrats will never come home again. Nor should they.

Go, Pat, go! Let's hope some of the folks planning to vote in tomorrow's run-off election in Georgia are paying attention. There is only one reason to vote for Saxby Chambliss and that is to further wreck this country's economy and security. Chambliss is one of the half dozen of the worst die-hard obstructionists in the Senate. He will certainly join every single filibuster against President Obama's plans to clean up after the catastrophic mess Chambliss has helped Bush create. Many suspect that it's Chambliss who's actually blocking, anonymously, the appointment of a special inspector general to make sure tax-payer dollars areb't stolen from the bailout program. Chambliss refuses to deny or confirm that he's the one single reactionary crook who's keeping this from going forward.

You can't blame Saxby Chambliss for the entire Bush Economic Miracle, of course. But since he was elected to the Senate in 2002 he has been an integral part of it and has never-- not once-- opposed any aspect of the Bush agenda, an agenda that has been so harmful to working families across Georgia. Chambliss' shocking voting record can't possibly be accurately described without using the words "extremist" and "rubber stamp."

In my neighborhood-- and this could well be different from how it is in Georgia-- the only houses that sell are the ones priced at their 1991 values. Bush's economic policies have wiped out 17 years worth of home equity. On CNN a few minutes ago I heard an analyst explain how, under Bush, slightly more than one full decade of stock market value has vanished entirely. I hope everyone who thought Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and for Big Business were good ideas can understand the connection. And in Georgia, I hope they understand Saxby Chambliss' role in the disaster we're all facing. Funny how Sarah Palin doesn't but Ludacris does!

Has Pat Buchanan Lost His Mind? Or Does MSNBC Pay Him To Be... Provocative?

Tweety for Senate! Watch this all the way through. Even Buchanan couldn't keep a straight face when he said that Michele Bachman and Robin Hayes may be great congressmembers.

Why is it so hard for "Poor Old Pat" Buchanan to believe that pro-choice people might really hope to see fewer abortions?

It wasn't till this morning that I noticed the comments added to my post yesterday about Christopher Buckley's departure -- a slight step ahead of the wingnut lynch mob -- from National Review, the magazine created by his father, the late William F. Buckley Jr.

It was impossible for me to resist leading with the "sighful" quote Christopher recalled from "dear Pup" ("after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous"): 'You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.'” To which our old friend "Me" responded: "That was wasted effort. It can't be done."

Then commenter Matthew ventured: "His father was actually a horrible human being who is rotting in hell. If he likes his dad, he's probably a bad dude." And in fact Bill Buckley seemed to me quite a horrible human being. (One of my particular problems with Bill Buckley was his steadfast championing of classical music. Jeepers, that's not the kind of ally I'm looking for.) While it seems to me a bit strong to declare someone a bad dude for liking his dad, if we changed that to "If he's like his dad," I could hardly complain. And Christopher Buckley indeed seems quite a lot like old Bill -- even apart from the increasingly creepy physical resemblance.

I was happy to have these correctives, in case I may have been seen to be sentimentalizing Bill Buckley. My point, rather, is that his brand of conservatism, which was at least firmly attached to the real world, serves as a benchmark for how far into the loonosphere the present-day variant has traveled.

Which brings me to Pat Buchanan. I don't mean to link Poor Old Pat to the present-day conservative lunacy, but then, he never quite fit into the old Buckley-style lunacy. Our Pat has always been his own loon. Unless you want to count his even loonier sister, Bay. Myself, I try not to even think about Bay Buchanan.

Poor Old Pat has become especially important to one of his part-time employers, MSNBC, as MSNBC has cast its prime-time lot with two unabashedly liberal hosts, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Pat, of course, provides "balance."

One of the, er, surprising features of Rachel's show, which continues to shine, has been the semiregular feature "It's Pat," in which Rachel's "fake uncle" moans and whines about some issue of importance to the Right. (More often than not this has so far involved defending the Republican vice presidential candidate, Gov. Danger Moose.) Rachel to her credit fights back. Indeed, as AP television writer David Bauder notes in a really good piece that's ostensibly about the "odd couple" of Rachel and Pat, but in fact is more about Rachel and the show itself, with lots of excellent background material, including Rachel talking about how the show has developed and will continue to develop:

Maddow is something of a happy warrior compared to Olbermann's increasingly dark prince. The Rhodes Scholar can lap almost anyone intellectually without making you hate her for doing it.

"She's likeable," Griffin said. "She smiles, she has fun. She's interesting."

If Olbermann's show has a drumbeat that drives it, Maddow's "got a little bit of a symphony," he said.

She also doesn't back down from a fight. Olbermann's "Countdown" is well-written and meticulous, but he relies on guests who rarely disagree with him.

Maddow frequently brings on guests to argue with her, none more so than Buchanan.

He can exasperate her, and vice versa. To date, it hasn't become nasty.

Of course we understand why Rachel is saddled with Pat. Apart from the fact that MSNBC has him on the payroll, the network is surely conscious of the risk it's taking in turning its whole prime time over to Keith and her. Poor Old Pat is there to provide balance -- and to give him credit, even in his dotage he does a better job of it than, say, the "liberals" who supposedly provide "balance" on Fox News.

Nevertheless, our Pat -- with that whine that's amplified into a roar, one of the odder modes of vocal delivery I've heard -- drives me nuts in a way that not many TV talking heads have since, well, old Bill Buckley, with his exaggeratedly patrician drawl.

But sure enough, on the special post-debate wrap-up edition of Countdown last night, there were Rachel and Uncle Pat squaring off. Pat was arguing that Obama has gone so cautious that he has failed to seal the deal, even with voters who may have decided to vote for him -- and I certainly can't say I entirely disagree with this. If it weren't said in that screechy roar-whine, I might even want to ponder his claim that Obama isn't going to win any kind of "mandate" in this election. (Yes, yes, we know that Tiny George Bush didn't have any electoral mandate in his stolen election "victories" and that didn't stop him from ruling like an emperor. But that doesn't make it right!)

But Poor Old Pat said something that gave me pause. He was talking about Obama's practice in the debate of reining in his positions, "moving to the center." Again, this is something that generally speaking we liberals have been bitching about throughout the campaign. On the question of abortion, though, when Rachel pointed out that Obama had tried to find some area of accomodation by pointing out that he would like to see fewer abortions, Poor Old Pat dismissed this as "standard boilerplate."

Which stuck with me. Why is it so difficult for Poor Old Pat to believe? Has he been roped in by Young Johnny McCranky's characteristically lying rhetoric? Young Johnny loves to pretend that there's a "pro-abortion" faction, people who want to promote abortions until everybody's had one, or more. There may in fact be people who like abortion, but they keep themselves well hidden. What many of us are is pro-choice, believing that there are cases where abortion is the least objectionable solution and therefore ought to be available as a free choice.

I suppose it's important to the Right to believe that it has some kind of high moral ground. They're the ones who should be calling themselves "anti-abortion," which accurately states their position. Instead they call themselves "pro-life," which is one of the vilest lies in the history of the human race. With the single exception of fetuses, the anti-abortion crowd is, for the most part, as bloody-minded a party of death as has ever existed.

Is it because of all the lies the anti-abortion movement is built on that it's so hard for someone like Poor Old Pat to believe that, really and truly, Barack Obama -- and a lot of the rest of us -- would like to see as few abortions as possible? We would just like that decision to rest where we think it properly belongs: with the woman.

And of course any woman, or any man for that matter, who saw young Johnny put those "air quotes" around "the health" of a woman who seeks an abortion as a medical necessity -- perhaps the most shameful moment of the most shameful national political campaign I've witnessed -- it should be perfectly and permanently clear that the Crankyman ought never to be permitted any say of any kind at any time in any matter in any way relating to any woman's health.

EVEN HYPOCRISY CAN BE DEFENDED-- IF YOU'RE FAR ENOUGH TO THE RIGHT

There aren't many on the far right who are defending Larry Craig. As he prepares his September 30 resignation letter, Republican partisans are breathing a sigh of relief that the image of an arch-conservative Republican senator in a public john playing footsie with a strange man under the stall divider will probably fade from the voters' collective memories long before election day. The most opportunistic and amoral of all Republicans, Piece of Mitt, has already figured out how to make the incident work for his ruthless campaign for the presidency. Norm Coleman and Susan Collins, two of the most endangered rubber stamp Republican senators, have donated the lobbyist money Craig had laundered for their campaigns to charities.

But one extremist wingnut, aging culture warrior Pat Buchanan, asks an interesting question about hypocrisy. So what, he wonders, if it is true and Craig was living a double life-- crusading against gay dignity and equality by day, seeking out anonymous bathroom sex by night?

Is there no possibility a man can believe in traditional morality, yet find himself tempted to behavior that morally disgusts him? Is it impossible Craig is driven by impulses, the biblical "thorn in the flesh," of which Paul wrote, to behavior he almost cannot control?

Why else would a United States senator take the incredible risk of disgracing himself and humiliating his family, and ending his career, for a few minutes of anonymous sex in an airport men's room?

It is this kind of thinking, so pervasive in the thinking of today's unwashed Republican elites that has disgusted young people and turned them away from the party in droves. This kind of bigoted hate passing for some kind of moral code has no place in the modern world. It will die off with the Buchanans, Romneys and Craigs the way it has in much of the world.