Relevant History

The DLC

2004-12-07T02:59:00.000-08:00

I have mixed feelings about the DLC, on the one hand I agree with those Democrats who see the DLC has a despicable group trying to push the Democratic party to the extreme right. On the other hand I think the DLC as it exists now is a completely corrupted version of what it once had the potential to be. Aspects of the DLC's move into the middle that happened with it's inception in the 80's are very admirable. In particular positions on economic policy and global free trade.

Where the DLC becomes much less attractive is when it starts talking about war, and terrorism, and civil liberties. The group that is the DLC today has embraced a right wing ideology that most of the left just can't accept.

So I think, what the DLC could have become is a strong progressive organization of the Democratic party. Breaking the mold of liberalism that had cursed the party for a while and bringing the party back to the mainstream. I think it definitely started to do that, but it got taken over by some of those that would like to see the party go even further and in doing that it has made the organization meaningless as the party as a whole can no longer respect it.

Musings

2004-12-02T03:08:00.000-08:00

Taft was pretty much the first president to be a corporate bitch. Really he was the only one up till now to be quite so blatant about it too. Of course, that’s what happens when you’re handed the presidency by your rich buddies.

More Assault Weapons

2004-09-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

The next thing that you'll hear about the assault weapon ban is that it was too weak and didn't really do anything to prevent crime, or even limit the sale of these types of guns. This is true, but misleading. While gun manufacturers did work around the ban by creating guns under different names like the XM-15 (a version of the M-16) the weapons are actually significantly different from their banned cousins. Also, one of the most effective part of the ban was the restriction on high capacity clips.

Really though the assault weapons ban is difficult to defend as good enough, it is something, we are now in a situation where we have effectively no limits on these types of weapons. While I would strongly favor even greater restrictions the assault weapons ban was supposed to be a first step towards something better. That it has now expired with nothing to replace it indicates a step backwards.

Clarence Page or at The Chicago Tribune writes more about this in his latest column. He points out Project Exile, a program which sounds distinctly interesting. I'll have to look into it more as I don't know much about it.

Assault Weapons

2004-09-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

Now that they have become an issue again – and I hope they become more of an issue – we're back to many of the same arguments we heard in 1994. The first is an attempt to confuse what it is we're talking about when we say "Assault Weapons." The pro-gun folks constantly say that it is misleading of the press and the anti-gun folks to portray it as if these are fully automatic machine guns. Fully automatic machine guns, they say, have been illegal or at least well regulated since the early 20th century. The press and the anti-gun folks do indeed paint a picture that it is fully automatic weapons that are being discussed. Who's right?

They are both correct, the assault weapons ban addresses only semi-automatic weapons, fully automatic weapons fall under other, older laws. It is important to note that there is essentially no difference between the now legal semi-automatic weapons and their fully-automatic siblings. Indeed most of the weapons that will be and are now being sold are simply fully automatic weapons that have been modified to comply with the law. Typically that modification is an added part, a part that can easily be removed by someone who knows what they are doing. Sometimes it is a little more complicated, a part is removed, or a different part is put in. In none of the cases is it particularly difficult to convert a now legal semi-automatic assault weapon to a fully-automatic assault weapon. Of course the weapon becomes illegal as soon as the modification is made, but since it is criminals that we are most worried about that they would be discouraged by something being illegal doesn't quite fly.

Even putting aside for a minute how easily they can be converted to fully automatic weapons these weapons are still exceptionally dangerous. These are weapons that have been specifically designed to kill people. They aren't good for hunting – that's an argument we heard a lot of in '94 – they aren't even good for any form of self defense. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for these weapons to be legal.

A final thought

2004-09-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

Howard Kurtz makes a good point:

So will this now become the subject of endless cable debates, blogosphere posts and newspaper investigations? The conservative president, the apostle of limited government, is revealed as a Big Spender?

Nah.

The chatter is still about IBM Selectrics and Kitty Kelley.

Whether we spend ourselves into bankruptcy: Booorring.

Weighing in on the 60 Minutes documents

2004-09-13T21:44:00.000-07:00

Timothy Noah writes about warning signs regarding 60 Minutes' Bush documents. He says the phrasing of the documents' introduction puts him ill at ease.

We still don't know whether the documents are forgeries. But in the universe I inhabit, "we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file" does not constitute responsible verification of a document in any situation in which somebody might have a motive to forge said document. Say, for instance ... a closely contested presidential election.

Of course, unless Dan Rather himself pulled the documents out of the file they can pretty much only be verified by people telling them where they came from. This is why with an unnamed source you check the source, and you ideally get multiple verifications of the facts which brings us to the next point where Noah seems to dislike CBS's use of the plural.

CBS's subsequent assertion that the documents were provided by "unimpeachable sources," which is meant to quiet doubts, only increases them. Sources, plural? More than one person has access to Col. Killian's personal file? That's surprising, given that Col. Killian passed away in 1984. Wouldn't his personal file be the property of his family—who, far from stepping forward to say they gave CBS the documents, are casting doubt on their authenticity?

As there were a number of documents, and not all of them even could have come from the same place CBS's use of the term "sources" seems quite justified, not to mention my above point that seeking independent verification from multiple sources is pretty much required when dealing with anonymous sources. As for the comment about his family being the most likely to possess these records I find it highly unlikely that the family would ever even have seen any of his military related papers. These are memos between officers, and internal records. Since there's apparently rather sensitive and private information in those papers it seems unlikely they would ever be realized to the family as that would raise some privacy concerns. It seems most likely that the files were kept by the TANG and that the source(s) for the documents were current or former members of the TANG who had some access to those files.

Mind you, Noah is no Novakian schill, he goes on to point out that regardless of the authenticity of these documents we pretty much know Bush to be guilty here. He misses some of the point which is that there really is no case that these documents are fake. The only evidence that has been put forward is that they could have been faked. Something that is not very damning in this day and age when forgeries are remarkably easy. The main effect has been spreading the rumor that the documents are fake, thus discrediting them without actually addressing them. This has been so successful that in some circles it is "common knowledge" that the documents are forgeries. In this sense Noah is guilty of helping to spread an utterly unfounded and offensive rumor.

War vs. The Economy

2004-09-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Kerry campaign, along with every other political junkie around knows that when the discussion turns to the economy, education, health care, or almost any other domestic issue Kerry wins hands down. When it comes to other things, especially terrorism, and sometimes the war in Iraq people are less sure of Kerry. Zogby just surveyed rural voters and the results emphasize this.

What I think this campaign has trouble understanding is just how much they can shape what people think are the most important issues. I must emphasize the "how much" part, because obviously they do know they play a role and they try to push these issues, and they do a good job. It is that I also see them periodically getting bogged down with issues that aren't helping them. They should not be talking about anything to do with Vietnam, all that leads to is bad. They shouldn't be talking in detail about Iraq, no matter what they say it gives ammunition to the opposition, and it highlights differences that might otherwise be overlooked by people who agree with them on domestic issues but might disagree on Iraq.

The trap is looking at a poll that says people who's number one concern is terrorism tend to support Bush and saying "we need to find a way to convince people who's concern is terrorism to support us" instead we should say "we need to find a way to convince these people that the number one concern is the economy, health care, and education."

Good vs. Perfect

2004-09-11T23:34:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton writes a little about the classic liberal trap of throwing out the good in search of the perfect. That is, not supporting the candidate who is basically on your side but might disagree on a few policies and allowing their opponent who you don't agree with at all to be elected. The classic example of this is the 2000 election where the popular sentiment was that it did not matter who was elected because they were so similar on so many things. It's a trap that is very easy for the idealist disillusioned by the reality of politics to fall into.

So with all of that it pleases me that this year the Democratic party seems to be more united than it's been in years. This is important, but I hope more that it keeps up and people stick with Kerry for the duration of the election season even as more and more comes out about him. People will start to learn cases where Kerry disagree with them, and in some cases it will be enough to push them over the edge into feigned ambivilence. In the primary with the Dean campaign in became pretty common place for people to note that they disagreed with Dean on a few issues but they would then go on to say why they supported him anyway. I hope that as people learn things about Kerry that they disagree with they take them not as a reason to not vote for him but instead as a building block to find the reasons they do support him.

9/11 Panel Recommendations

2004-09-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

I don't think that all of the recommendations should be blindly implemented. They should be taken as a guiding plan to actual reform the intelligence agencies a bit, and a general restructuring. What is going to happen is quite different, what Bush has proposed for following the recommendations is a version that does just enough to make him look like he's doing something but doesn't really do anything to help. Be it the plan Bush proposes or a variation what makes it through congress will be a severely crippled form of the recommendations and is almost as likely to hurt the effectiveness of our intelligence system as much as to help it.

Bush's plan is at least getting closer to understanding why certain things were put in the recommendations: Bush Plan Draws on Advice of 9/11 Panel (washingtonpost.com)

Terrorists and the Election

2004-09-09T04:45:00.000-07:00

I've heard both that the terrorists want Kerry to win, (e.g. Cheney's statements the other day) and that they want Bush to win. Both sides actually have pretty compelling arguments. I think though to claim that "the Terrorists" have any real interest one way or the other is absurd. Neither candidate is going to suddenly bow to their interests, neither candidate wants them (the terrorists) to exist at all.

Under Bush the popularity of they United States, especially in the Arab world, has plummeted to all time lows. Recruitment possibility for terrorist organizations in particular Al Quaeda is high and these organizations are expanding rapidly. If it's power and influence that they are after, and I strongly believe it is, then they are getting helped along immensely by this President.

On the other hand under Bush has invaded two Muslim countries, and increased US military presence in the Middle East tremendously. This is not good for "the cause" of the terrorists. You'll remember one of their main calls was for US troops to be removed for Saudi Arabia. Which, they actually have been under Bush, they've just all been moved into Iraq along with a coupld more divisions. Depending on what their cause of the moment is it could be argued the Kerry would be more sympathetic to it.

People often bring up the bombing in Spain and it's effect on their election. The comparison is lacking though. In Spain their was a clear agenda to the attacks, they wanted Spain to pull her troops out of Iraq. The clear popular support of the Spanish people to pull troops out of Iraq was also there. It was not difficult politically or logistically to do it as Spain had very few troops there to begin with. Further, there were no other long standing grievences to work with, nor is there strong anti-Spanish sentiment in the Arab world. It was a one shot deal. As a side point I think that the terrorists succeeded in influencing the election was largely coincidental

Fun with Grover Norquist

2004-09-09T04:18:00.000-07:00

"The Democratic Party is Toast" by Grover Norquist:

The modern Democratic Party is the party of government. Its growth is the health of the state--and vice versa. Over time, all the party's building blocks are dependent on continuous support and reinforcement by the power of the central government. Trial lawyer money is now a major part of the Democratic Party, but it is wholly dependent on legislators and courts maintaining the present tort laws that allow lawyers to interject themselves into any and all contracts and relationships.

His main point is that the Demecratic Party is made up solely of trial lawyers and labor unions. By eliminating trial lawyers and labor unions you will completely eliminate the Demecratic Party. This is of course laughable not least because not all of the party are union members or trial lawyers. The Democratic Party is made up of a wide swath of Americans, it is the party of the people with a strong focus on the rights of the ordinary person. Many of it's members are members of a union, many are not. A small minority of the Democratic Party is in fact trial lawyers, a much larger percentage of the party believes along with those trial lawyers strongly in the rule of law and that corporations and individuals should be held accountable for their actions. But let's continue for a minute.

How does Norquist propose getting rid of trial lawyers? Well, as you can see in the above quote what he's really after is making it illegal to sue in most cases, protecting the rights of the poor abused corporations. He also suggests that simply by clarifying the laws trial lawyers will be put out of business, because after all the corporations only had a different understanding of the law they weren't actually breaking it.

With Democrats lacking a beachhead in Congress, four more years of Republican governance with President Bush in the White House will badly damage each of the pillars of the Democrat establishment. In the first term, the Bush Labor Department wrote modern, clear, and updated regulations as to who earns overtime pay, and when and how. Trial lawyers had used archaic and unclear rules to sue companies claiming that workers who had been salaried for decades should actually have been considered hourly workers all those years and subject to overtime pay. Dozens of similarly unclear federal rules have been fodder for trial lawyer enrichment. Simply rewriting regulations to make them clear to all will cost the trial lawyers hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Republicans have been strongly pushing new laws that would limit the liability of doctors effectively making medical malpractice both fun and legal. They have been silently pushing limited liability in many other cases. And perhaps the most laughable of all:

Every ambitious Democrat hopes Kerry-Edwards fails, so that the presidency will open for her (or him) in 2008 rather than in 2012, 2016, or 2020.

More lessons from the father

2004-09-08T07:27:00.000-07:00

Bush Likely to Bow Out of 1 Debate (washingtonpost.com)

The officials said Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in the crucial state of Missouri.

Town hall style debates are, in my opinion, the most worthwhile format. They allow real people to ask a wide variety of questions, they are much more difficult to prepare for and so have in the past been responsible for exposing the candidate's true self a little more. To do well in one you have to be confident in your knowledge, quick on your feet, and good with a crowd. Bush is none of these things. When the questions stray to far from an answer he has memorized he gets flustered.

The reason I mention the father in the subject line is, in 1992 George H. W. Bush had three debates with Clinton and Perot, one of them was a town hall style with an audience of undecided voters. Bush did generally poorly, particular on one question where he was asked how the deficit had personally affected him. He hemmed and hawed and talked about teen pregnancy a bit. In the other debates he did moderately better, the questions came from members of the press and were all expected questions.

Of course Republicans in particular have a history of resisting debates, dating back to the lessons Nixon learned from debating Kennedy in the first televised debate in 1960. Of course Reagan, widely hailed as very charismatic, did very well in his debates. Most of Reagans best lines in the debates came straight out of movies though, and seemed a little premeditated and forced. Reagan never faced a town hall style debate.

Gun Makers Already Market Assault Weapons

2004-09-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

Gun Makers Already Market Assault Weapons

WASHINGTON - With the federal ban on assault weapons set to expire next Monday, gun manufacturers are marketing military-style firearms and are ready to sell them as soon as Sept. 14, a consumer group said Tuesday.

And just in case you had hope that the assault weapon ban would be renewed in time: From the Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON - The fight to renew a favored ban on assault weapons effectively died Tuesday after the lead Senate sponsor of a bill to continue restrictions on the sale and manufacture of some semi-automatic weapons conceded defeat.

"Absent the president twisting arms, it's nil," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., of the chances to get a bill passed before midnight Monday, when the law expires.

The Price of War

2004-09-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

I believe placing a lot of emphasis on the death toll in Iraq is a mistake. While it serves to further outrage those people who already oppose the war it does little to convince people who feel the war is justified. Further it makes the Democrats look weak on defense. If there is any implication that we will change our policies or back out of a conflict in the face of rising casualty numbers it does in fact make us weak. In the past warlords and dictators, most notably Sadaam Husein in the first Gulf War, have banked on the not having the stomache to fully execute a war with a high casualty count. They have not always been wrong, Somolia comes to mind as a recent case where we modified our role, basically pulling out, after taking losses.

The folks that were impressed by the Republican National convention, and who are behind Bush because they perceive strength from Bush because of his unwillingness to backdown from a fight are not going to be impressed by 1000 dead in Iraq. They are much more likely to be convinced that the economy is in bad shape and the president put it there. They are much more likely to be convinced even that the war was a bad move and that the president lied repeatedly to take us there. They can even be convinced that the President does not uphold their same values. If, however, for a second they believe that Kerry or the Democrats in general will not have the stomache to do whatever it takes to "defend America" that is likely to be enough to turn them to Bush.

Poll news

2004-09-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

electoral-vote.com has become one of my favorite sites to visit daily. Two things of major note today. First is the news that Rasmussen is saying the two polls that showed Bush with a 10 point lead were flawed, and really only show a 3 point lead at most when they are adjusted correctly. I was from the beginning suspicious of these polls, but most people seemed satisfied that they were valid because there were two polls showing the same thing. I'm not a statistician and generally I leave judgement on these things up to others but it does bother me that the polls when released got wide play with everyone saying Bush had established a firm lead, I have yet to see much of followup on it now that there's some debate about the validity of the poll.

The second is the favorability ratings of various Republican leadership. The fascinating part, and I think I'll go into this more later, is that very few people have any opinion at all about these people. This has a lot to do with the spread of information. Very few people even know who most of them are outside of the little circle of political junkies. That they for the most part the unfavorability is higher than the favor has more to do with that than with actual opinions. You can probably get 30 percent of the people to say they don't like just about anyone. To get a favorible opinion on the other hand requires people to actually know who you are.

News of Osama

2004-09-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

U.S. near seizing Bin Laden, official says

Interesting, on one hand they've been saying this all along just to allay fears that nothing is happening. On the other hand there's the conspiracy theory that they have held off on capturing Osama until just before the election. Certainly that theory has a little bit of credibility, look at the Al Quaeda officials captured some weeks before, but only announced during the Democratic National Convention.

I don't really buy that not capturing has been deliberate, but it does raise an interesting question. What would happen if Osama was captured sometime between now and the election? It would certainly have an effect. I think there's probably an optimal time in there somewhere, too close to the election and it looks too overtly political and people may be turned off by it. Too far away and people will have moved on to other issues by the time of the election. I suspect that the sooner Osama is captured the better it is for Bush, it will allow him to talk about it again. During the convention none of the major speakers even mentioned Osama's name. By that same token though it opens the door and gets it in the news and the fact that the U.S. has failed to capture him until now gets more play.

This is one of the many things that George W. Bush learned from his father's administration and reelection effort. H. W.'s poll numbers were super high during the gulf war but by the time the election came around almost a year and a half later it was no longer an issue. It was largely successful but as the old saying goes people rarely remember the good things so the big issue at the time became the state of the economy (due in no small part to Clinton campaigning on it.) George W. Bush on the other hand has managed to be a war time president for most of his term. It has, much to his chagrin I'm sure, not helped his approval rating that much. Again, just after 9/11 his poll numbers skyrocketed, but they were artificially high and when you're up there's no place to go but down and every little (or big) screwup worked against him. He has tried to have a constant string of victories, and use "The War on Terror" as a way of keeping them coming. Afghanistan was too easily won and, without a Bin Laden capture, not a large enough victory, so he moved on to Iraq. If he can bring Afghanistan back into the picture in a positive light it give s him another victory, and this one very close to the election.

NY Protests

2004-09-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

The most disturbing thing about the reports I've heard from the protests in New York and the clashes with the police is that the police seemed to try and trap people, corralling them together and then arresting everyone. I've seen a few protests, usually clashing with the police, and I've never seen the police block off the exits so that people who just wanted to get out of there could not. My suspicion is that somewhere along the chain of command they were told to arrest as many people as they could and get them off the streets. Arresting people like this, instead of just dispursing the crowds has a couple of advantages for the Republicans. First the number of arrests reported is ridiculously high, and since ordinarily that many arrests only happen when things get violent people assume the worst from the protestors. The second is that it's extreme intimidation to keep people from protesting, let alone those people that they held for the duration of the convention without hearings.

Update: This Modern World has a message from one of the arrested which is one of the best rundowns of what happened I've seen.

Less Informed

2004-09-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

One of my working theories is that in our modern age of instant communications, mass media, the internet, blogs, etc. people have access to such a diversity of information and opinion that they actually are exposed to opposing views much less often. If I can get my news from an outlet that leans in the same direction politically I will naturally choose that over an outlet that presents me with information I percieve to be biased. I will also dismiss information that may be factually accurate just because it comes from a source I see as biased.

To an extent this is intuitive, the part that is not intuitive is that even with more sources of information than ever before in history people can be less informed than ever before.

Relevant History

The DLC

Musings

More Assault Weapons

Assault Weapons

A final thought

More on the Bush Guard Documents

Weighing in on the 60 Minutes documents

War vs. The Economy

Good vs. Perfect

9/11 Panel Recommendations

Terrorists and the Election

Fun with Grover Norquist

More lessons from the father

Gun Makers Already Market Assault Weapons

The Price of War

Poll news

News of Osama

NY Protests

Less Informed