Brian Kanowsky

Two of my favorite political writers are having a bit of a showdown today, and I just thought I’d throw in my two cents.

Over at The American Prospect, Jamelle Bouie wrote a thoughtful critique of Markos Moulitsas’ new book, American Taliban. Digby responded, arguing with Bouie’s review more than defending Markos’ book.

I see two elements to Bouie’s critique: there’s the polemical nature of the book itself, and then there’s an argument about the outcome and effectiveness of that approach.

Let’s start with the more interesting argument here, that the GOP’s extremist and negative tendencies have actually been ineffective:

Conservatives haven’t actually gained from their willingness to bend and misrepresent the truth. For starters, Republicans are still deeply unpopular; according to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, only 24 percent of Americans gave the GOP a positive rating, a historic low. At best, with their constant attacks on “socialism” and “tyranny,” conservatives are responding to a gross caricature of liberalism; after years of taking down liberal straw men, conservatives can neither respond to actual liberals nor offer the public anything other than decades-old dogma. Indeed, their likely electoral gains notwithstanding, movement conservatives are still incapable of making an affirmative case for their governing philosophy. Their “new ideas” are anything but, and to most informed observers, it’s clear that “no” is the only functioning weapon in the Republican Party’s paltry arsenal. Put another way, there’s a reason why the movement’s leading voices are quasi-religious charlatans, rent-seeking celebrities, and failed ex-governors.

Digby’s response is the same as my initial response – is Bouie actually “living in the same political world” as the rest of us? But as I re-read Bouie’s argument and thought about it, I think it deserves much more credit than Digby gives it. After all, like Digby, I’ve linked to Paul Krugman’s depressing takes on the economic environment. I think there’s merit to the argument that the administration’s inattentiveness and/or unwillingness to appreciate the depths of the unemployment crisis has doomed the Democratic party’s prospects in this November’s midterm election. But you can’t say that the bad economy is driving the political winds of the midterm election AND credit a Republican party that you think is in disarray.

Here’s what Digby wrote:

This is a mind-boggling assertion, really, especially considering the fact that they are on the verge of making an epic comeback even in the face of total institutional disarray and a takeover of the GOP by the lunatic fringe. And it’s purely on their willingness, indeed eagerness, to go for the jugular.

Frankly, no, it’s not mind-boggling.

Crediting this economy to GOP policies is an argument I happen to buy, but Digby seems to be instead crediting this to conservative aggression. Maybe there is a link, and maybe conservative aggression is part of the reasons Dems have been unwilling or unable to make a convincing case to voters. But it was Democratic Senators elevating centrist posturing over sound policy that watered down the stimulus – not the GOP. It was Democratic opposition that watered down credit card reform. It was Democratic opposition that watered down Wall Street reform. It was Democratic Senators who were unwilling to overcome a filibuster of extending unemployment insurance. But it certainly was not a preference for the GOP’s proposed alternative policy solutions that drove those decisions.

If you buy that the economy and joblessness is driving the GOP’s comeback, then you can give some credit to their lock-step opposition to any policy choices that would alleviate suffering. But that’s exactly what Bouie is arguing – that NO is their “only functioning weapon.”  Bouie carefully chose his words here, saying that Republicans “haven’t actually gained” from this situation. I don’t buy that this is a zero-sum equation here. While it’s true that the GOP has managed to hurt the Democrats with this strategy, it’s hard to see where this has directly benefited the conservatives. They’ve driven moderate Republicans from the party and made races that should have been slam-dunks into tight contests.

The idea of GOP disarray has been wildly overstated, as we can see by their impressive discipline in maintaining a negative bloc of votes. That isn’t really evidence of “institutional disarray”, but rather evidence that the RNC is not their primary source of leadership.

Then, there’s Bouie’s less-impressive arguments about the polemical nature of the book:

Like Liberal Fascism, American Taliban is another entry in the tired genre of “my political opponents are monsters.” Indeed, Moulitsas begins the book with the Goldbergian declaration that “in their tactics and on the issues, our homegrown American Taliban are almost indistinguishable from the Afghan Taliban.” And he fills the remaining 200-plus pages with similar accusations. In the chapter on power, Moulitsas writes that “the American Taliban seek a tyranny of the believers in which the popular will, the laws of the land, and all of secular society are surrendered to their clerics and ideologues.” Which is, of course, why these American Taliban participate in the democratic system and hew to the outcomes of elections. Later in the chapter, Moulitsas argues that the right-wing hates democracy — they “openly dream of their own regressive brand of religious dictatorship” — loves war, fears sex, and openly despises women and gays. In the chapter on “war,” Moulitsas calls Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota a “high priestess of the American Taliban” — a veritable Mullah Omar, it seems! — and in the final chapter on “truth,” Moulitsas concludes by noting the foundational “kinship” between the two Talibans.

I think Bouie overstates his case here. Digby responds:

Evidently, the use of hyperbole to make the ironic point that they have the same worldview as their proclaimed mortal enemies is verboten because it isn’t literally true. But polemics often make use of such literary devices to make a larger observation, so I’m not sure that Moulitsas is trying to convince people that the American Far Right is secretly cutting women’s noses off but rather that in the context of our society, they are the nose cutters. (And frankly, I think it’s fairly obvious if they could enforce their religious doctrine and political ideology on all of us, they would. No nose-cutting, so that’s good. They’ll just engage in old fashioned American slut-shaming, which I grant is an improvement over physical disfiguration but the deeper meaning of the act is exactly the same.)

Like Digby, I’m still waiting to get a copy of the book, so I can’t go into much detail here. But I think she’s right here – differences of degree aside, hyperbole is an effective literary device when used properly. Unless I’ve misread his review or missed something key about Markos’ book, I think Bouie is wrong to focus on a few GOP political figures instead of the parallels between the Christian dominionist movement (and their more mainstream cousins in the GOP, like Phyllis Schlafly) and the Islamic dominionists. There’s been an undeniable mainstreaming of the far-right elements over the past few years, as Dave Neiwert and others have documented.

And, as Digby pointed out, Bouie’s claim that Ann Coulter “was fired from National Review (an organ of the American Taliban)” for her comment about invading other countries and converting them to Christianity either completely misremembers or mischaracterizes the whole situation.

Ann Coulter was fired for going on TV and slagging National Review Online (she didn’t work for the magazine) for paying peanuts and because they wanted to edit her column. They made a big point about saying they fired her for her unprofessional conduct, not her writing. And she was hired afterward by USA Today (where she was also eventually fired and replaced by Jonah Goldberg.)She still has a nationally syndicated column and her work appears on Townhall, World Net Daily and Human Events among others. She sold many thousands of hate-filled anti-liberal books with titles like Slander and Treason and Godless, appeared all over the country to tumultuous, adoring crowds and landed on the cover of Time magazine — all after she made those statements. Apparently the National Review’s withdrawal of its imprimatur didn’t impress her audience very much. If that’s what constitutes a glaring contradiction in the book, then I’m afraid it isn’t Moulitsas who has failed to do his homework.

That factual mistake aside, Bouie’s argument is much more nuanced and creative than the usual high-minded, above the fray nonsense that Markos has written extensively about, and his criticism deserves an honest hearing.

I’m thinking of starting a futures fund betting against Mitch Daniels’ predictions.

You see, Mitch Daniels has a problem with predictions. Given his famous “misunderestimations” of the cost of the Iraq War, the trends of health care costs, and the benefits of his FSSA privatization scheme, you’d think he’d give it up. But he just can’t help himself.

Back in 2008, when it became apparent that GM and Chrysler would become victims of the economic collapse, taking more than a million jobs with them, Daniels confidently predicted that efforts to save them would fail:

“Let’s give Congress a chance, but there’s nothing in recent history that suggests they have an answer for this,” Daniels said. “The only thing we know for certain is the way they’ve been doing business does not work and throwing taxpayer dollars after it won’t make it work.” (emphasis added)

And he was wrong, as President Obama told workers at a GM plant in Detroit yesterday:

Now, that was a tough decision and let’s face it, a lot of people were skeptical.  I don’t know if you all remember, but I remember how last year there were a whole bunch of folks who said, well, that makes no sense.  There’s the “just say no” crowd in Washington — they’re still saying no — who basically said, well, this is a terrible investment.  We should just let the market take its course, let GM, let Chrysler go bankrupt.  So there was a lot of skepticism out there. […]

And now here we are a year later.  And a year later, GM and Chrysler, along with Ford, are all posting a profit. The U.S. auto industry has hired 55,000 workers, the most job growth in a decade. And not only that, but you’re producing the cars of the future right here at this plant, producing cars that are going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  This car right here doesn’t need a sip of gasoline for 40 miles and then keeps on going after that. (Full transcript here)

While speaking to a crowd of workers at a Chrysler plant earlier in the day, Obama challenged critics of the plan to come and see the good that its done.

I wish they were standing here today. I wish they could see what I’m seeing in this plant and talk to the workers who are here taking pride in building a world-class vehicle.  I don’t think they’d be willing to look you in the eye and say that you were a bad investment.  They might just come around if they were standing here and admit that by standing by a great American industry and the good people who work for it, that we did the right thing. (Full transcript here)

And you don’t have to take Obama’s word for it. Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein wrote of the auto industry plan’s “unqualified success”:

Perhaps none was more controversial than the decision to rescue Chrysler and General Motors, using $86 billion in taxpayer funds and an expedited bankruptcy process that wiped out shareholders, brought in new executives and directors, forced creditors to take a financial haircut, closed dealerships and factories and imposed painful cuts in wages and benefits on unionized workers. It was an extraordinary and heavy-handed government intervention into the market economy that left the Treasury owning a majority of both companies. […]

A year later, the auto bailout is an unqualified success. The government used its leverage to force the companies to make the painful changes they should have made years before, and then backed off and let the companies run themselves without any noticeable interference.

The results, which President Obama will tout on a visit to Michigan on Friday: For the first time since 2004, GM and Chrysler, along with Ford, all reported operating profits in their U.S. businesses last quarter. The domestic auto industry added 55,000 jobs last year, ending a decade-long string of declines. Auto sector exports are up 57 percent so far this year and, thanks largely to new government regulations, the industry is moving quickly to introduce more fuel-efficient vehicles. Most surprising of all, GM and Chrysler have already repaid more than $8 billion in government loans, while GM is preparing for an initial stock offering later this year that would allow the government to recoup most, if not all, of its investment.

And Ezra Klein posted this graph, illustrating the point more succinctly:

You can see the White House’s full report here, but you can really get a good picture of the scope of the investment by looking at the interactive map. There’s a nice cluster of dots trailing down from Lake Michigan, each representing a plant expansion, electrification, “supertruck”, or green vehicle project – you can hardly see an empty spot in the state of Indiana.

Last night, the House failed to pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.  The bill needed a 2/3 majority to pass, but the final vote was 255-159. Indiana’s Congressional delegation split their votes along party lines: Carson, Donnelly, Ellsworth, Hill, and Visclosky voted for the bill, while Pence, Burton, and Buyer voted against it.

This piece of legislation was named after NYPD detective & 9/11 responder James Zadroga, who died at the age of 34 after developing a disease attributed to inhaling toxic chemicals. Zadroga dedicated 450 hours to helping with rescue and recovery efforts and Ground Zero. This bill would have provided medical care to responders and nearby residents who continue to suffer the after-effects of the terrorist attack.

Today, the GOP wants to talk about arcane rules of procedure or NY Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (justifiably) angry speech on the House floor. But that’s just because they don’t want to talk about this bill or their votes.

While the GOP, including our Hoosier delegation, has never hesitated to call these responders heroes in the past, this vote revealed how little they actually care about the sacrifice of those Americans. When it’s cheap to praise them, Reps. Pence, Burton, and Buyer are there. But when it comes to doing the right thing and standing by our heroes, they’re nowhere to be found.

The GOP offered a specific script to its members for opposing this bill, calling it a “new entitlement program,” a “tax increase”, and a special giveaway to “trial lawyers.” The one problem? The bill was entirely paid for by closing a tax loophole on foreign companies doing business in the US.

Steve Buyer serves on the committee that initially heard the bill, and he followed the GOP script on this bill to perfection. He offered a meaningless, redundant amendment to make doubly sure that no undocumented immigrants would be eligible to receive money under the fund – something already explicit in the text of the bill. Before voting against the bill in committee (PDF), Buyer criticized the bill as costing too much and being a parochial giveaway, saying:

"If we want to talk about New York City and Congress only acting for the benefit of New York City, that’s what this bill is about." (Source: NY Daily News)

I think it’s clear from the GOP’s vote what this what about: protecting tax loopholes for foreign companies instead of protecting the heroic Americans who responded to the 9/11 attacks.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of talking with Purdue professor and 4th District candidate David Sanders. He was out greeting voters at the Monroe County Fair after spending the day going door to door – something he’s done in all 12 of the counties in the 4th. Sanders was also encouraging the people of Monroe County to come and see the debate between the Congressional candidates in Ellettsville on August 10. But, he warned voters, GOP nominee Todd Rokita might not show up.

As Masson noted on his blog the other day, Rokita hasn’t responded to the debate invitations – either the one planned for Ellettsville on August 10 or the one in Greenwood on August 24.

David Sanders initially issued the debate challenge by sending letters to Todd Rokita and Libertarian candidate John Duncan on June 7th. Duncan quickly agreed, but more than 50 days later, Rokita is still noncommittal. While seeming to admit that his candidate has no campaign conflicts on those dates, his campaign spokesperson, Mike Sullivan, says Rokita wants someone else to arrange the debates. Sullivan also dismissed Sanders’ idea of having more debates:

“I don’t even think the (U.S.) Senate or statewide races do nine or 10 debates,” Sullivan said. “That seems like an excessive number for a congressional race.”

Sanders told me that he spoke to Rokita early in the year, and Rokita said that as the chief election officer for the state, he understood the importance of & need for debates.  But  Rokita’s dissembling on the actual details of debates shows that he’s simply not committed to the ideals he claims on his website – such as being “committed to ensuring an open, collaborative approach to government” and choosing “principle over politics”.

UPDATE: Indiana Public Media reports that Rokita will, in fact, skip the Ellettsville debate on August 10.

I was disappointed to see the usually-sharp Ed Kilgore fall into the trap of buying Mitch Daniels’ spin – in a recent piece on Mitch Daniels’ presidential prospects, Kilgore wrote that “his state’s positive fiscal record stands out sharply against a national landscape of state fiscal disaster.” Ed, if you believe that, I think Mitch has a bargain-priced $50 billion invasion of Iraq to sell you.

Far from being the “island of growth” that Mitch Daniels likes to pretend we are, Indiana is struggling just as much as the rest of the region. And it’s not just Daniels’ phony jobs announcements that are the problem – Indiana has a real problem with unemployment. And I don’t see any hope of fixing that when the party that controls the state executive branch and the state Senate won’t acknowledge that there’s a problem.

Indiana’s unemployment rate over the last decade:

Source: BLS.gov 

A cursory glance at Indiana’s unemployment rate gives you the outlines – 10% unemployment, using the standard U-3 measure. When you look at the bigger picture, it gets even worse. Using the broadest measure – U-6, which includes “marginally attached” workers and those working part-time who would rather be working full-time – more than 18% of Hoosiers can’t find a real job. That means Indiana is worse off than our neighbors in Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky.

Just yesterday, the Indianapolis Star ran a piece on how Indiana’s job picture is worse than our neighbors. A recent study by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project shows that Indiana ranks 6th-worst in the nation when they measure declines in employment from November 2007 to May 2010. It’s simply unacceptable for the Governor of the state that ranks 44th in employment growth to be celebrating our nonexistent jobs. The objective reality is that Indiana’s employment growth trails Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky (and almost every other state in the US).

It’s easy for Mitch to spin Indiana’s unemployment when our neighbors to the north in Michigan are facing the worst unemployment rate in the nation. But he shouldn’t get a free pass just because Hoosiers are marginally better off than the hardest-hit state.

But what about Indiana’s budget? It’s often asserted that Indiana has a “positive” budget and that we have a surplus. And that’s true – if you choose to selectively leave out a large chunk of Indiana’s finances.

Indiana is one of 26 states who are in debt to the federal government because they can’t afford to pay out their unemployment insurance benefits, according to ProPublica. Indiana’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund has been insolvent since at least 2008, and we currently owe almost $2 billion to the federal government for the state’s share of UI benefits. Just a couple of months ago, at Mitch Daniels’ urging, the state postponed a law that would raise UI rates to start paying off that debt.

March 2010 marked 17 straight months of Indiana’s revenues falling well short of projections. In April, we learned that:

Sales tax collections, though higher than April 2009, are lower than FY 2008, FY 2007 and even FY 2006 levels. Year to date sales tax collections are 5% below prior year. If the -5% trend continues for the full fiscal year it will be the worst performance in state history, exceeding FY 2009’s record of -4.7%. The budget as passed projected sales tax collections equal to prior year. April individual income tax collections are the lowest in five years. Year to date income tax collections are 11% below prior year—on top of an 11% decline for FY 2009. The budget as passed projected a 1% decline in individual income tax collections for FY 2010. (Source: Indiana State Budget Agency)

May’s monthly revenue report showed that “revenue collections through eleven months of the current state fiscal year are now $1.032 billion or 9% below the budget passed by the General Assembly.”

And too much of our state’s budget remains a mystery, even to those in charge of voting on it. When state lawmakers requested details on Mitch Daniels’ budget cuts, he released 476 pages of news clippings, but none of the actual information.

All this shouldn’t surprise Hoosiers. We elected – twice! – a man who oversaw record budget deficits when he ran the Office of Management & Budget for George W. Bush. We elected a man who rushed out to denounce critics in his own party by promising the Iraq War would cost only $50-60 billion. We elected a man who predicted that health care costs were done rising in 1994, so there was no need to address the issue. Given that record, it’s hard to believe anyone would buy Mitch’s spin about the Indiana economy.