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Mark Krikorian takes on the Illegals-Are-Leaving-So-What's-the-Problem argument (which has of necessity replaced the Illegals-Are-Here-To-Stay-So-Deal-With-It-Yahoos argument). We might as well make the borders porous, this new argument goes, "because people will just leave when the economy slows down." Yes, they will. But Krikorian notes they're leaving in part because of the economy but in part because of the enforcement efforts that people like Krikorian have championed. And, he might add, because the promise of amnesty as a reward for sticking around has faded.
But it's more than that. We don't want low-paid illegals immigrants streaming back in when the economy heats up again. One of the virtues of a hot economy, for Democrats, and certainly for Democratic adherents of Clintonomics, is that it tightens the labor market at the bottom, raising wages for the groups that have gotten screwed the worst by the forces of trade and technology over the past three decades. Sure, in boom times we need more workers. But we want employers to have at least some trouble finding help--then they have to pay more to get it (and maybe pay relatively less to their well-educated managers). It worked in the '90s. It won't work if the proximate effect of a boom isn't raises for unskilled American workers but rather more jobs (in America) for new, unskilled non-American workers. A free flow of immigrants, in this sense, functions eerily like the reserve army of the unemployed functions in paranoid Marxist theory. ("My men are demanding raises. Time for a recession," whisper the industrialists to each other over cigars at the club.) It's bad enough that the Fed takes away the punch bowl whenever the party starts getting good.** ...
Of course, sophisticated defenders of "comprehensive" reform realize this, and argue that in the future the inflows will be controlled. That argument's equally flawed (in part because many of the interests supporting "comprehensive" reform don't really want it to be controlled). But it's a different argument from the one Krikorian is refuting--which is the idea that--hey, look!--uncontrolled, natural flows solve any problem themselves. ...
**--['without all sorts of uninvited guests crashing the party and drinking the punch first?'-ed No. The full metaphor might almost work, I suppose, if the "party" is a wage-increase party, not a growth party. Immigration doesn't seem to inhibit growth. But the "punch" in the metaphor is easy money--and the immigrants aren't drinking that. I give up.] ...10:48 P.M.
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The Jobs Bank Lives! It's not for UAW workers. It's for termed-out Dem politicians in California. The aptly named Waste Management Board ... [via Insta] 10:07 P.M.
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25% of the Amnesty with None of the Enforcement! Even if "comprehensive immigration reform," legalizing more or less all illegals, doesn't pass in the next year, a seemingly more limited measure called the DREAM Act might. In WaPo's words:
The legislation would have halted deportation efforts of children who are here illegally, giving them citizenship opportunities if they entered the country before age 16 and have lived here for five years.
They would then have six years to complete two years of higher education or two years in the military. But because the Act would apply to any illegals between the ages of 12 and 30 (as long as they entered the U.S. before age 16) it could effectively legalize millions. And do you really think the government is then going to take action against their parents, or against siblings who are also here illegally? That's why even DREAM proponents claim the act would be an amnesty for "25% of our total undocumented population."
On bloggingheads I attempt to explain why this means DREAM offers the worst of three worlds. 1) It creates a powerful magnet for future attempted illegal immigration--"Sneak into the U.S. with your children and they can be made U.S. citizens and attend U.S. colleges like their predecessors!" 2) But it doesn't have the toughened enforcement parts of the "comprehensive" compromise--so those incentivized to sneak in by Factor #1 would find it as easy to do as it is now;. Meanwhile, 3) it still leaves the bulk of the illegal population living "in the shadows." ... All of the perverse incentives with none of the non-perverse incentives! It took decades of practice for sophisticated activists to achieve this result. ... 8:21 P.M.
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You have to wonder, can the good Bill Gates is doing with his Foundation ever match the suffering caused by Vista? ...
P.S.:
October, 2001 --Windows XP launches. One month later, economic expansion begins..
January, 2007--Windows Vista launches. Ten months later, economy plunges into recession.
Coincidence? I'm not so sure! ...10:25 P.M.
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UAW Offers Concessions in Bailout Effort: The key paragraph--
At the meeting, the union did not discuss wage and benefit concessions for active employees, said Jeff Everett, a local Chrysler president.
One problem with the Wagner Act is that surviving in a modern economy requires fast decision-making, but negotiations with unions take time (and energy). Like pulling teeth takes time (and energy). You sometimes wonder whether boosters of Wagner Act unionism are familiar with the concept of "too little too late." ... Update: AP reports that UAW leaders did vote to "let the Detroit leadership begin renegotiating elements of landmark contracts signed with the automakers last year, a move that could lead to wage concessions." UAW President Ron Gettelfinger "stopped short of saying the union would reopen contract talks with General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. but said it would be willing to return to the bargaining table to change some terms." But "any modifications would still have to be ratified by local union members." [E.A.] ... Gettelfinger blamed a "perception problem" for (in AP's words) "a negative view of the union." The union is buying TV ads to counteract it. ... 3:44 P.M.
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A Knack for Diplomacy: What attitude do the Hillary people bring to the State Department? I didn't think her spokesman Phillipe Reines could top his obnoxious and nonsensical response to the Gerth and Van Natta report that Hillary had secretly eavesdropped on her enemies ( “We don’t comment on books that are utter and complete failures”). But he's come close with his spin on the legal argument--a seeming winner*** if you actually believe the Constitution's language--that Hillary is barred from becoming Secretary of State by the Emoluments Clause:
This is a Harvard Law grad nominating a Yale Law grad here, so all parties involved have been cognizant of this issue from the outset,” [E.A.]
Well all right then! No clinging to guns and God in this administration! ... I'm sure they spent a lot of time on the Emoluments Clause at Harvard and Yale.
Why do Hillary's people think this smug, sneering approach** is productive? Because of its success in winning them the nomination? Think how well it will work in the India-Pakistan crisis! ...
**--The technical term is "Lehanism," coined after its most conspicuous practitioner used it to put Al Gore and Wesley Clark in the White House. ....
Update: Eugene Volokh cites two law professors who agree that the Emoluments Clause means trouble for Hillary. Volokh himself thinks the wording is "ambiguous," but he didn't go to Harvard or Yale so ignore him. ... [via Plank]
***--Text originally said "slam dunk" rather than "seeming winner." Prof. Volokh convinced me that it isn't a slam dunk. You shouldn't call anything a "slam dunk" anymore anyway. ...12:23 A.M.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008
From the NYT account of the GOP runoff win in Georgia:
Many voters interviewed Tuesday said the balance of power in the Senate had been an important factor in their choice of a candidate.
"If you can’t have a little back-and-forth arguing between the parties, then the party in power will make mistakes,” said Ron Zukowski, a computer expert in Atlanta who voted for Mr. Chambliss. “This was my chance to say no, and I said no.”
Hmm. Didn't Mike Kinsley say that "almost no one" thinks like that? I think he did! (He was arguing voters don't choose dividied government, not that they don't choose undivided-but-still-filibusterable government. But it's the same mindset.) ...
P.S.: What's at stake: It's important that Democrats fail to achieve a filibuster-proof Senate. Chambliss' victory assures this. But what's most important is that Nate Silver turn out to be wrong about something, anything, however small. Otherwise he will have to be worshipped as a god. Was he wrong about Georgia? Here's the best I could find in a quick search:
"We think when it's all said and done Martin will lose by around 10 points."--Silver's blog partner Sean Quinn, as the returns came in. The actual margin is looking more like 14 points.
"The question is, will more Chambliss voters drop off or will more Martin voters drop off? That's the unknown. In wave years I'd tend to bet with the wave party, but I'm nowhere near ready to conclude Martin will win."--Quinn again.
[I]f the polls going into December 2nd say that Saxby Chambliss is going to win the runoff by 7 points, you shouldn't be a but surprised if Jim Martin actually wins instead. And you also shouldn't be surprised if Chambliss wins by 20."--Silver on Nov. 13. Final polls had Chamblis ahead by 4-7 points.
Not wrong enough! Eyes turn to Minnesota, where Silver has a hostage to fortune in the form of his confident prediction (in a TV talk with Arianna Huffington) regarding Al Franken:
[H]e`ll pick up votes in this recount.
Also his Nov. 23 projection "Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes," Unfortunately, it is still possible Franken will win the recount by 27 votes. ...11:46 P.M.
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Holder's Defense: 'I was played for a sucker by a lobbyist!' From the NYT today, the lawyer for Attorney General nominee Eric Holder defends him in the Marc Rich Pardon scandal:
“There’s no question that [Marc Rich lobbyist Jack] Quinn played him and it was astute by Quinn because he did catch Eric unawares.”
Creative defense. Unfortunately, the NYT story makes it pretty clear that Holder knew too much about the case to have been unwillingly played. Seems more like the buddy system at work. ...[Thx to reader J.] 12:10 P.M.
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Undernews Alert: Rezko sentencing set for January 6. The Tribune story suggests this means he is not cooperating with prosecutors (if he was cooperating it would be delayed). ... [via NewsAlert] 11:47 A.M.
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On Warren Olney's To the Point, LAT veteran Doyle McManus says Robert Gates
is in the unusual position of being a cabinet member who can't really be fired because if the President and the Secretary of Defense were to end up at loggerheads on an issue, that could be politically very damaging for the president. [E.A.]
This seems astonishingly wrong. Obama can fire Gates more easily because Gates is a Bush holdover, no? Obama won an election by opposing Bush's policies. ... Maybe Sam Zell had a point about McManus. ... 2:14 A.M.
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Monday, December 1, 2008
'You should never have made those loans groups like us pressured you to make!' The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a "community-based organization," is suing Wall Street ratings services for approving bonds backed by home loans to African American and Latino home purchasers with "insufficient borrower income levels."
The firms "knew or should have known" that subprime loans disproportionately were marketed to minority consumers -- a process known as "reverse redlining" -- and that those borrowers would ultimately default and go into foreclosure at high rates, according to the coalition's complaint.
Hmmm. Didn't community-based organizations push for exactly this sort of reverse-redlining? I think they did. It's one thing to argue that they maybe weren't the major cause of the subprime meltdown. It's another for them to pose as victims wronged by the very system they worked hard to set up (including the securitization that enabled banks to keep up "reverse redlining"). ... 2:21 A.M.
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Here's a Saturday Belfast Telegraph story about Sebastian D'Souza, the photographer who took a now-famous photograph of one of the Mumbai terrorists in the process of gunning people down in a train station:
But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back." [E.A.]
Here's a Sunday New York Times front pager about the "troubling questions" the attacks raised about India's "ability to respond":
[T]he most troubling question to emerge for the Indian authorities was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled Indian security forces for more than three days in three different buildings.
Part of the answer may lie in continuing signs that despite the country’s long vulnerability to terrorist attacks, Indian law enforcement remains ill-prepared. The siege exposed problems caused by inexperienced security forces and inadequate equipment, including a lack of high-power rifle scopes and other optics to help discriminate between the attackers and civilians. [E.A.]
Read the Times story and you'll see a numbing litany of "systemic" problems with Indian security, including "Ill-paid city police [who] are often armed with little more than batons," and "little information-sharing among law enforcement agencies" and all that inadequate equipment, including "old, bulky bulletproof jackets" and lack of thosehigh-power scopes and "no technology at their disposal to determine where the firepower was coming from ..." [E.A.] It reads like the budget-increase proposal submitted by the Mumbai police bureaucracy--The Indian Omnibus Anti-Terror Funding Act of 2009. Nowhere in the NYT story will you learn what American blog readers learned a day earlier when Instapundit (among others) linked to the Belfast story: Police had lots of guns, and no problem seeing who and where the terrorists were, but they wouldn't shoot at them.
I'm used to a sort of Liebling-like hierarchy of news sources, with twitterers and bloggers being fastest, but maybe less reliable, while the grand institutions of the MSM weigh in later with more comprehensive and accurate accounts. But that's not what is happening with this Mumbai story. The "fast" sources are telling you what happened. The "slow" MSM sources are using their extra time to sanitize what's happened, to build euphemistic assumptions into their very reporting of the events themselves--in this case, it just so happens, liberal assumptions:1) the idea that there is no problem that can't be solved by greater funding for government bureaucracies and more interagency taskforces** 2) the predisposition to think widely-distributed small arms and a willingness to use them can never be a good idea and 3) an antipathy to any suggestion that an aspect of foreign culture is inferior to nasty American culture. (Maybe we Americans are trigger happy. But do we think that a handful of terrorists could have gone on a similar rampage in New York City without quite quickly encountering a fair number of cops who would have shot back--let alone armed civilians who did the same)? ...
**--Substitute "lousy test scores" for "vulnerability to terrorist attacks" and you have the stereotypical liberal MSM template for reporting on inner-city education failure: insufficient spending leads to ill-paid teachers who lack the latest technology! ... 1:27 A.M.
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Saturday, November 29, 2008
A friend of mine who occasionally visits the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai tells me that earlier in November the hotel bristled with security, including aggressively manned checkpoints--security that had been absent a few months earlier. Apparently the security was withdrawn before terrorists attacked the hotel this week. ...I don't know what to make of this, but it at least suggests that the attacks might not have been "a complete surprise," as the headline on Slate's home page (but not the article to which it links) claims. ... Maybe they were anticipated but on an earlier date? ... Maybe the extra security caused the terrorists to postpone them. ... If so, were they originally planned for before the U.S. election? ...
Update: Hotel's owner says "we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures," which were relaxed before the attacks. But he argues they wouldn't have made a difference because ... the gunman didn't go in the front door.
However, [Tata Group chairman Ratan] Tata said the attackers did not enter through the entrance that has a metal detector. Instead, they came in a back entrance, he said.
"They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All of our arrangements are in the front," he said.
Reminds me of the time I visited Hyannis Port when JFK was staying at the family compound there. The Secret Service was protecting it closely, except for a one-way street leaving the area, which was left unguarded--apparently on the theory that an assassin wouldn't go wrong way down a one-way street. ... More: kf's friend says that during the early-November high-security period the rear doors to the hotel were locked. Not that that would necessarily have stopped the terrorists. Still, they seem to have preferred low-security to high-security. ...1:21 A.M.
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Mazda has joined the ranks of Pixar cars and chosen an unfortunate new corporate face. Is it smiling or hurling? ... 11:04 P.M.
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Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Gird Your Loins: David Frum and Bill Bradley offer hard nosed, savvy explanations of why picking Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State makes sense for Obama. He looks magnanimous. He'll find out her secrets--then he has the goods on her. He can fire her. She'll work for him. Bill will be controlled. Now she'll have real trouble paying Mark Penn's bill! ...
Sorry, I'm not buying it. It seems simple to me: She can't do him much damage from the Senate, where she doesn't rank. She can do him a lot of damage through self-interested leaking from the State Department. (Here's Exhibit Z, if you needed it, from Elizabeth Drew.) If he fires her she can then run against him and make more trouble.
Even smart, well-advised people make mistakes. I think it's a mistake. Or else there is some other factor at work that we don't know about (e.g., Hillary has the real birth certificate! Joking!)... [How do you know her aides will keep leaking? That's just CW. The CW said Joe Biden would be a walking gaffe machine, remember--ed Joe Biden was a walking gaffe machine. Remember] 10:24 P.M.
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Jonathan Chait argues that Clinton made a political mistake by running up a budget surplus in his second term--because "all you ended up doing was just giving more money for George Bush to devote to tax cuts for the rich." I've never understood this argument. It would have been better if the money had been pissed away on veteran's programs, civil service salary hikes, agriculture subsidies and money for the failing education bureaucracy? In Democrats wouldn't have enacted universal health insurance in Clinton's second term after all. (The GOP controlled Congress.) They would have just larded up existing programs--programs that are then almost impossible to cut. Now, at least, the Obama administration has the option of raising money for health care by raising the taxes on the rich back to where they were before. If Chait's advice had been followed, Obama wouldn't have that option (because taxes on the rich would never have gone down). ... It's hard to raise taxes, but it's easier to raise taxes starting from a lower base. And it's easier to raise taxes than to try to finance health care by cutting government programs with powerful constituencies. ... A fuller version of this argument can be found here. ... P.S.: I'm not saying Bush's distribution of tax cuts was the right one. I'm saying that running up a surplus from 1996 to 2001 and then spending the surplus on tax cuts of some sort was way better for Democrats than not running a surplus in the first place (because the money was spent on the sorts of Democratic "priorities" that would have been funded at the time). Politics isn't a football game where Dems gain yards by spending on their "priorities" and GOPs gain yards by helping the rich. Some Dem "priorities" get in the way of other Dem "priorities." Some GOP "victories" set the stage for later Democratic achievements. ... 7:10 P.M.
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Wake Up Call: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells the Detroit News that Obama and McCain reached an "agreement" to "move forward" on "comprehensive immigration reform" (i.e.: legalization) early in the next Congress.
Q: Will there be as much of a fight on immigration as last time?
A: We've got McCain and we've got a few others. I don't expect much of a fight at all.
Brian Faughnan has the details, and notes Sen. Menendez urging Senators to swallow the bitter immigration pill early, instead of close to the midterms when voters might remember. (That's because "comprehensive" reform is so popular!). .... 1) This is a stronger statement from Reid than I, for one, had expected; 2) The Senate has passed legalization before. They balked in 2007, but it's not clear that this year the biggest obstacle won't come in the House, where lots of newly-recruited centrist Dems ran tough-on-immigration campaigns. 3) Rahm? Rahm? Don't you maybe want to put a stop to this? 4) There are ample opportunities here for posturing and "make believe"--e.g., scoring points with Hispanic groups by voting for a reform that you don't think will actually pass. Of course, if enough legislators vote for a reform thinking it won't actually pass it might pass; ... P.S.: Note that Reid also pours cold water on hopes of fast Senate action on health care ("[T]hat's going to take a lot more time to do.") .... So voters don't get health care (which Obama made a central issue in the campaign) but do get illegal immigrant semi-amnesty (which was a selling point only on Spanish language radio)? .... 12:27 P.M.
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Mark Krikorian is not impressed with likely Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano's border-control credentials but concedes
[S]he's about as close as any Democrat governor can get to appearing hawkish on illegal immigration.
He speculates:
"It could mean that the Obama administration picked an immigration person for this job because they want to burnish their pro-enforcement credentials to make a more plausible case for amnesty down the road ...."
That would be shrewd. But I wonder--suppose it all miraculously works according to plan. That is, suppose Napolitano succeeds, against all expectations, in controlling the border. The ACLU sues to cripple enforcement in the workplace. It loses! Illegal immigration in effect ceases. The public feels soon confident enough to allow Congressional Democrats to legalize those illegals already in the country. No more living in the shadows. Celebrations in the streets! But because the border is controlled, no new illegal immigrants get in. Guest workers, including agricultural workers, do get in--perhaps with a "path to citizenship." But only in the numbers authorized. The question is: Would the Congressional Dems and their allies be happy?
I'm not sure. ... They'd get 12 million new, mainly Latino voters. Likely Democrats. But that would be it. I suspect there are a lot of Dem pols who would not-so-secretly be rooting for things to not go according to plan--for an amnesty to be accompanied by a breakdown in border control, as it was the last time it was tried, meaning there would be millions more illegal immigrants, mainly Latino, to legalize and empower in future years.. ...
I suppose the answer would depend on whether the new rules allowed existing immigrants to keep bringing in members of their extended families, thereby rapidly expanding the newly-arrived, legal electorate. ...
I'm not saying this scenario is likely to happen--it's a thought experment. The very forces that might be happy to see the border-control part break down (low-wage employers, pols hoping to surf the Latino surge, anti-nationalist libertarians) would try to make it break down. Which is why it probably would. ... 12:17 P.M.
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A job for Anna: New York is still in a state of intense speculation on the central policy question regarding Obama's transition: What does it mean for Vogue? Editor Anna Wintour's "rep" has denied gossip reports that she'll be joining the administration, but that hasn't stopped them. ... She raised some money for the campaign. What might she want? Ambassador to France would be a good fit, no? "The French would deal with her a lot better than the Iceberg Lettuce King of Salinas that W. sent over," says cosmopolitan kf reader Madame S. ... 10:50 A.M.
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Sunday, November 23, 2008
"Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes": Give Nate Silver points for not playing it safe. ... Update: A new Silver calculation:
The various versions of the model project a Franken win by between 48 and 136 votes once all ballots are re-counted and all challenges are resolved.[E.A.]
There are some disclaimers about high "margins of error." Nobody will notice them if Silver's right. ...11:22 P.M.
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Richardson Vets! [You said this wouldn't happen-ed. Vets for Commerce. That's like being "Hot for D.C."] 1:45 P.M.
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The Mistake: What will Hillary Clinton bring to the Obama administration? British sourcing on this one--an unnamed "veteran" Obama "aide" tells "a friend"--but the ring of truth:
"He's making a mistake." As one of the [Obama aides] participants told a friend later that night: "She'll do a good job but she'll do it for herself, not for Barack. I can't bear the drama again." ... [snip]
The Obama aides who went for coffee on Wednesday discussed how the initial tentative talks between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were leaked by the Clinton camp, then how every twist and turn of the financial vetting found its way into the media. ...[snip]
They can't help themselves," the Obama aide told his friend, a fellow Democrat strategist. "Every event is a potential ladder up or a bullet to be dodged. They're positioning and spinning all the time. They lost. Now we seem to be handing them the farm." [E.A.]
Where is Gina Gershon now that we need her? ... [via Lucianne] 11:50 A.M.
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Saturday, November 22, 2008
More signs of the Gran Salida of Illegal Immigrants: Emergency room visits are dropping. In Arizona
In the Maricopa Medical Center in Arizona, the director of the ED commented that 45% of adults and 80% of children seeking ED care at the hospital emergency department are Hispanic. The economy in the area is getting worse and the hospital believes that many of the patients that usually come to the ED have left town
It's not just Arizona--a commenter from North Carolina notes:
Around NC, the poor economy has illegals leaving in droves…no work.
Our ED volumes are down. Most ED patients are those without insurance (lay-offs), so the family doctors won’t see them. Hospital census is down by my estimated guess, 10%. We have 3 ICUs, one is completely closed, the other two at about 60%. Hours being cut throughout.
P.S.: There's a less entrada too--"Mexican emigration has dropped 42 percent over the last two years ..." [Thanks to alert reader W.O.] 11:53 P.M.
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Friday, November 21, 2008
The New Plan? Cripple Honda! Save Detroit with Card Check! Eliminating the secret ballot and making it easier to organize U.S. Honda and Toyota workers (and imposing contract terms via binding arbitration) would "level the playing field," says Dem. Congressman Tim Ryan. ... Then when Honda and Toyota responded by importing more cars from abroad, we could have import quotas! Eventually the whole automotive sector could be planned by Congress in conjunction with existing business and labor interest groups. Red State has seen the future and it is corporatist. ...12:21 P.M.
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Mickey's Assignment Desk: 2000 words on "The Agony of Richard Holbrooke." He can't just be sitting still and patiently waiting for Hillary to make up her mind about whether she wants to be Secretary of State. ... Assigned to: Lloyd Grove. David Ignatius. Or someone young, who doesn't want a foreign policy job someday. (Michael Crowley?) ... Update: Reader emails that "[H]olbrooke WANTS hillary to take sec of state -- that's the only way he gets back into the state dept." OK. Bet he's still been in agony! 11:53 A.M.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Mitt Romney writes that in a "managed bankruptcy" of the auto industry
[M]anagement as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.
Why "must" Alan Mulally of Ford go? He practically just got there (in late 2006). He's not a Detroit lifer like GM's Rick Wagoner. He can't be held responsible for Ford's sorry condition--he was brought in to fix Ford's sorry condition. A new face recruited from a successful outside company (Boeing) he seems like just the sort of person Romney says should be hired. Is Romney really sure recruiting another new CEO--who'll have to relearn whatever Mulally has learned--will be so much better? Maybe Romney knows something about Mullaly that I don't. Or maybe he's failing to discriminate among three different companies in a way that can't be the mark of a good "turnaround" artist. ... P.S.: For one thing, Mulally hasn't killed off Ford's new products the way GM and Chrysler seem to be doing--perhaps because Ford has more hope of actually selling its new products. ... 1:43 A.M.
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Crocodiles: Good to see my father's most famous quote back in the news. It's about how hard it was for him as a judge to be uninfluenced by the possibility that voters might boot him from office if they don't like his decision. The quote is freshly relevant because everybody's wondering whether the current California Supreme Court has the balls to invalidate Proposition 8, which reversed that same Court's ruling on gay marriage.
Now the moderately conservative state Supreme Court is being asked to take an even riskier step -- to overturn the November voter initiative that reinstated the gay-marriage ban and possibly provoke a voter revolt that could eject one or more of the justices from the bench. ... [snip]
Kaus later said that as hard as he tried to decide cases impartially, he was never sure whether the threat of a recall election was influencing his votes.
"It was like finding a crocodile in your bathtub when you go to shave in the morning," Kaus said. "You know it's there, and you try not to think about it, but it's hard to think about much else while you're shaving."
I suspect the crocodile effect won't even come into play in the state court's review of Prop. 8. True, the court could throw it out if they decide it amounts to a wholesale "revision" of the state constitution, rather than a mere "amendment." But the arguments that it's a "revision" are implausible. (See Prof. Volokh's analysis.) Precedent and reptile are in accord. I'll be shocked if Prop. 8 isn't upheld.
Does that mean gay-marriage advocates should stop bringing lawsuits? Prof. Althouse asks:
Why should a minority group that perceives itself as oppressed accept the will of the majority? Why should the intransigency of the political majority convince them that they should refrain from using the courts?
The answer is it shouldn't. Gay rights groups remain perfectly free to argue that Prop. 8 is invalid under the federal Equal Protection clause. But they don't want to argue that case, apparently, because they are worried they'll lose.
Gay rights lawyers, fearful that a high court defeat on same-sex marriage would set the movement back decades, have urged supporters to stay out of federal court.
With state constitutions amended, they may have no other judicial remedy. But it still seems simpler, and preferable just to wait a couple of years and overturn Prop. 8 at the ballot box. A democratic resolution will tend to stick. A judicial resolution will produce an ongoing, painful social battle (what abortion has been ever since Roe). ... 1:14 A.M.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Still not black enough! Sasha Frere-Jones disses Will.i.am. .. 10:23 P.M.
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Rahm: Yes on universal health care, noncommittal on card check. ... The hesitancy about card check would be more significant if Emanuel hadn't been talking to a business group. Still. ... 10:09 P.M.
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Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: Automobile is offering subscriptions for $6 annually. That includes a free tire gauge. I'm waiting until they offer free tires. ... P.S.: The way things are going could also throw in the New York Times. (Not just a subscription to the New York Times. The New York Times.) ... 8:39 P.M.
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Excitability + Aflatoxin = Iraq War Hillary! Atlantic backscratchers Andrew Sullivan and Jeffrey Goldberg are swooning over Secretary of State Clinton. Sullivan says it's "an inspired idea." Goldberg cites a passage that he says demonstrates Clinton has a "simultaneous mastery of the smallest details and of the biggest themes" that is "beyond impressive." Read it for yourself. Does it reflect Hillary's "uncommon knowledge"? Or is it, rather, an unremarkable politicians' statement that either tells Goldberg what he wants to hear ("You do not get people into a process ... unless the other side knows that your commitment to Israel is unshakable.") or makes Hillary someone Goldberg might like to promote for either political or beat-sweetening reasons? You make the call! ... P.S.: It does seem like he's always selling somethin'! ... P.P.S.: And Holbrooke doesn't know about the Middle East? ... Update: Dick Morris is making sense. Always a troubling sign. ...
Goldberg responds: "I plead guilty to the charge of political promotion." ... :6:28 P.M.
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A young Facebook/PayPal mogul is catching flak from his Silicon Valley peers for his alleged support of ... not Prop. 8**, but Numbers U.S.A., the highly effective "restrictionist" lobbying group. In particular, the mogul is said to have fallen under the sway of a "Christian right wing thinker" named "Rob" Morrow:
Earlier this year, Morrow wrote a paper called "The Bull Market in Politics." His thesis was that "government influence — over trade policy, social programs, decisions of war and peace — becomes much more important" to investors. One key policy area: immigration, where Morrow thinks there is a rising consensus for restrictions.
A politically driven drop in immigration has broad economic implications, especially on the housing market; with less population growth, housing prices will continue to suffer for much longer than most anticipate.
The Northern California beef against Morrow is that he's "not merely forecasting the market. He has cajoled his influential boss to spend money to make his forecast a reality." OK, but what about the forecast? The timing more or less fits, no? Real estate prices started to plummet just as expectations of imminent semi-amnesty were turning into the reality of harsher enforcement. Schools in immigrant heavy areas of L.A. for example, reported declining enrollments in 2006. The nationwide character of the Gran Salida became apparent, even to the press by early 2008. . It seems highly plausible to me that there is some non-trivial causality running between the decrease in the net inflow of illegal immigrants and the real estate bust--all the immigrants who have disappeared would have had to live somewhere. Even if they were renters, not buyers, they would ordinarily have bolstered the value of housing stock. (And some were buyers--search for "this borrower has gone back to Mexico and has no intention of returning.")
But you don't hear many MSM analysts making this obvious connection. It's odd, because you'd think the reporters who favor legalizing illegals and increasing immigration would want to be able to say, "We need more hard-working immigrants to buy our damn houses!" But they aren't saying it. Why? Is it because a) admitting that immigrant populations are declining contradicts the reigning bipartisan right-thinking line that illegal immigrants are here to stay, they're never going back, so therefore we have no choice but to legalize them? Also, b) once you admit that immigration flows affect the real estate market, you might also have to admit that they can affect other markets, like the labor market--where more immigrants would have the likely effect of driving down wages, especially for the unskilled workers who've been doing relatively badly recently. ...
**--The Prop. 8 list is here, though, for those who want to engage in distasteful and counterproductive boycotts. ... 12:58 A.M.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Lieberman keeps chair after anonymous private vote of Senate Dem caucus. Netroots unhappy. Uh, oh. Now they'll really hate the secret ballot. ... 11:53 A.M.
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"How Hard Can It Be?" Ex-National Reviewer David Frum tries to put his finger on what annoys him about what Sarah Palin symbolizes in the GOP (and why she's like Harriet Miers) ... 1:22 A.M.
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Monday, November 17, 2008
James Carville explains why Hillary's nomination as Secretary of State might be complicated by her husband's business dealings:
"She's not married to Todd Palin," Carville said, referring to the oil field worker and snowmobile champion who is married to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee.
Maybe that just accidentally came out sounding like snobby Clintonite arrogance. ... Hadn't had a dose of that for a few months--I didn't miss it. Did you? ... P.S.: Will the Clintonites--those who haven't defected to Obama--now be more obnoxious because they lost? ...11:50 A.M.
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Forget the "Fairness Doctrine," says the American Thinker. The Dems will try to knock out Rush Limbaugh with "localism." Even discounting for right-wing paranoia, you have to think that making broadcasters consult with "leaders in the civic, religious, and non-profit sectors that regularly serve the needs of the community" is a recipe for a lot of makework meetings with self-promoting complainers and shakedown artists.**
There are three more interesting wrinkles, however:
1) The conservative strategy is to delay regulations until Obama is in power! Why this seemingly perverse approach?
The delay is critical, since once it is the Obama Administration leading the fight for rules which would shut down conservative talk radio, Republican Congressmen and Senators will find it easier to fight back. [E.A.]
Hmm. The same non-intuitive logic might apply to another issue I could think of. ...
2) Some broadcasters think McCain would have been worse, from their point of view, than Obama:
One broadcast lobbyist thinks broadcasters will be better off with Obama "only because you know where McCain's from on the issues. At least you're starting off with somewhat of a fresh slate with the Obama folks. There's not that instinctive 'let's go after the broadcasters.' "
3) There's a potential fratricidal conflict between "localism" requirements and minority broadcasters--or at least the Heritage Foundation thinks so:
"An Obama administration would definitely push stricter broadcaster controls on ownership and take more aggressive efforts on diversity, says James Gattuso, senior fellow for regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation.
"The question is what would an Obama administration do on localism: Would an Obama FCC pursue the moveon.org agenda of strong regulation to enforce local news and content?" he asks."Or would it side more with minority or smaller broadcasters who point out that the cost of regulation would fall disproportionately on minority- and women-owned stations."
**--It's not that diversity and consolidation don't seem valid issues. I wouldn't have a problem with a strict ownership limit that would require Clear Channel, say, to sell half its stations. Just unload them. Whether or not they were serving the "community," No complaints, no hearings, no self-appointed "representatives," no fuss, no muss. The problem is the tendency of liberals to promote not so much de-consolidation as the empowerment and consequent enrichment of their non profit allies.... 10:56 P.M.
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Autoshow Shocker: Ford debuts the new Mustang and it's ... not ugly. 10:10 P.M.
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Vodkapundit makes the basic point about Obama's Blackberry. ... You want the President to rely solely on information passed up the official chain through the White House gatekeepers? That way lies the Bay of Pigs! The chain of command is a lousy way to find out bad news. Emailing around seems like a pretty good way. Is it that much harder to secure than a phone call? Aren't Presidents trusted with the telephone? ... Paranoid P.S.: You have to wonder whether on some level this isn't an an attempt by the White House bureaucracy to control Obama. ... [via Insta] 8:28 P.M.
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Academics are always the last to know! Today, kf. Tomorrow ...
Kausfiles, Nov. 3--"Democrats should pause to be grateful that John Kerry didn't get 70,000 more votes in Ohio in 2004."
David Rohde, Ernestine Friedl Professor of Political Science at Duke University and Director of the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program, Nov. 17--"Let's call John Kerry's loss in 2004 what it is: the luckiest thing to happen to Democrats in 40 years."
10:23 A.M.
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The NYT gloats that Chris Buckley and David Frum's exit suggests National Review has become an un-erudite "megaphone for Republican party orthodoxy" and "'intellectual defender of the Bush administration.'" I can name one issue where that was definitely not true, in part because there was no party orthodoxy and in part because most of the magazine's editors openly disagreed with the Bush administration. Begins with an "i." (And it's not Iraq. Or Iran.) . ... P.S.: Buckley seems to be basking in his Strange New Respect. If Frum wants to keep his street cred on The Corner, which I suspect he does, I counsel him not to follow suit. ... [via Gawker, which has suddenly become much more substantive. What happened to Julia Allison?.] 2:12 A.M.
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I dunno, I'm having trouble figuring out what Obama supporter Marty Peretz really thinks of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:
[T]he young Hillary was a fashionable leftie. No, she wasn't Bill Ayers. But her Wellesley commencement address was especially trite when trite was the rule. She worked for a communist law firm. She was faddish when independent thinking was what the country needed.
Hillary then went to Little Rock, armed with a Yale Law School diploma, and worked for another law firm, this one positively sleazy.
It goes on from there ...
Now, if Barack Obama has actually offered Hillary the post of secretary of state, he has reversed what most Americans thought was one of the much sought-after consequences of his nomination and his electoral victory. That is, sought after by the voters. And this was to end the Clinton dominion in American politics. That's certainly what the primaries were about. Once Obama freed himself and the party from the vice presidential blackmail almost everyone assumed that, with Joe Biden as their candidate's running-mate, the Democratic nominee did not need the experience of someone who'd visited 81 capitals for a day or two or who'd been to Bosnia "under fire" or who kissed Suha Arafat right only moments after the pampered lady had accused Israel of spreading cancer in the West Bank. ...
I believe Barack is playing with fire.
He's for Holbrooke. ... P.S: Don't recent events tend to support Marty's view? We're already worrying whether Hillary is scheming to maniuplate Barack (by making public the possibility of her becoming Secretary of State and implicitly threatening a rupture if she's not picked) before she even has the job. Maybe LBJ was wrong. Sometimes you want them outside the tent p------g in. ...The very reasons she might want the job (i.e., she doesn't have that much seniority or power in the Senate) are the reasons she couldn't do that much damage from the outside. ... 12:44 A.M.
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
Future Unrecanters of America? On reflection, does Peter Beinart's well written Time cover essay on "The New Liberal Order" say anything other than, in essence, 'If Obama and the Democrats succeed in restoring the economy and stabilizing the government's finances without cutting popular programs or producing social disorder, they'll keep being reelected for decades'? Well, yeah. ... Beinart abstracts from the question of whether Obama and Democratic policies can actually achieve this winning result. It's one thing to say that if Obama tries to "shore up the American welfare state" it "won't divide his political coaliton." (They like the welfare state.) It's another thing to recognize that Medicare is heading for deep deficits and to figure out how to pay for it without imposing intolerable rationing. ... And of course Beinart just assumes that if Democrats give labor more power it won't significantly gum up the economy. Or that some Democrats won't reestablish no-work cash welfare under another name, giving the Republicans back one of their more potent issues. ...
P.S.: Beinart says
Obama doesn't have to turn the economy around overnight. After all, Roosevelt hadn't ended the Depression by 1936. Obama just needs modest economic improvement by the time he starts running for re-election ....
Are we sure of that? In a time of Faster Politics voters may want Faster Results. They're certainly not going to give Obama the time they gave FDR. ...
P.P.S.: I thought Dems would only succeed if they put a war against "Islamist totalitarianism" at "the center of their hopes for a better world"! Oh, well. Another day, another weltanschauung. ...
P.P.P.S.: Aren't now-recanted Iraq War supporters like Beinart about to unrecant their support, now that the war is going better? ... A prize for the reader who correctly guesses the first recantation-recanter. ... 11:42 P.M.
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Poor "Pulitzer" Chuck Philips! Patterico is on Philips' case, he doesn't seem about to give up, and he has a hot doc. ... P.S.: This isn't the embarrassing Philips screw-up that led to a spectacular LAT retraction in April. This is another, potentially more-than-embarrassing, incident--but also related to the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murder stories. ... 9:46 P.M.
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Sorry to miss the Fannie Mae Help the Homeless Walkathon! ....9:34 P.M.
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Mark Krikorian looks at Obama's likely actions on immigration and sees ... hope! He expects Obama will prioritize. ...
To the chagrin of hard-left activists, [incoming chief of staff Rahm] Emanuel has said of immigration that "For the American people, and therefore all of us, it's emerged as the third rail of American politics. And anyone who doesn't realize that isn't with the American people.” Last year Emanuel told a Hispanic activist that “there is no way this legislation [“comprehensive immigration reform”] is happening in the Democratic House, in the Democratic Senate, in the Democratic presidency, in the first term.”
There's a twist ending, though. ... P.S.: In March, we're due for a fight over reauthorizing the government's E-Verify system, which now screens one of 8 new hires for legal status. Obama has said he supports E-verify. Senator Menendez of New Jersey opposes it. ... The real objection to E-Verify is that it works, no? ...
Backfill: See also this mixed WSJ assessment, which concurs with Emanuel--"Mr. Obama will be focused on the economy and tax policy and isn't likely to expend political capital on such a divisive issue"--but which overdramatizes the anti-"comprehensivist" electoral losses, at least as described by Krikorian:
Roy Beck of Numbers USA [a leading anti-"comprehensive" lobbier] has done a preliminary analysis of House results and finds that there are six incoming pro-amnesty Democrats replacing somewhat anti-amnesty Republicans, though none of the Democrats made immigration a major issue. On the other hand, three other newly elected Democrats ran on very strong pro-enforcement platforms and four others appear to be much more hawkish than the Republicans they’ll replace. In Beck’s words, “The results of this evening have not been a reason for celebrating. But neither have they been a reason for us to put on sackcloth.”
4:52 P.M.
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Get Me a Ron Burkle Type: It looks to me as if bankruptcy might be a better solution for GM than a federal bailout--union contracts could be redone, duplicative dealers axed--except for one factor: GM sells cars, and nobody wants to buy a car if they think the manufacturer isn't going to be around to honor the warranty or provide spare parts. Formal bankruptcy would itself help sink the GM ship. A bailout could be a way to essentially do what a bankruptcy would do, but without the sales-killing stigma. Taxpayer money would be a lure to force the necessary dealer and UAW concessions. a) But do you trust Pelosi's Congress to ever make either of these groups give up some of its pay or perks? No. That's where the White House (either Bush's or Obama's) should come in. A job for Ron Burkle! (Talking unions into giving up contract gains was once his specialty.) b) Wouldn't it be good PR if the UAW stepped up to the plate and unilaterally, voluntarily, offered a substantial package of givebacks in exchange for all that federal money (and maybe a cap on executive pay)? I don't expect this to happen--for internal purposes, union leaders probably have to be seen as going down fighting for every dollar. But it would help get the money, no? [Also improve the unions' image and help them pass "card check"-ed Sorry I suggested it.] 10:53 P.M.
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Will 'more time to blog' replace 'more time to spend with my family'? Al Martinez blazes the trail. ... 8:22 P.M.
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I dont understand Andrew Gelman and Matt Yglesias' point. You don't win the House of Representative when you rack up a large percentage of the national "two party "Congressional vote, or when you win a large "average swing" vote on a "state-by-state" basis. You win when you win lots of actual House seats. That's what can pass or defeat legislation. And measured by actual House seats the Democratic gains (of about 22) were a little less than expected. There is a reason for this. Maybe my favorite theory--the SeeSaw Theory--isn't the reason. That's fine. It's just a theory. But that's different from saying there's nothing to explain because by some other, meaningless measure, Dems did great.. ... See Yglesias' first commenter. ... Update: Gelman gropes for common ground [see P.P.S.]. ... 7:57 P.M.
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Hispanic Hype Alert--That Crucial Latino Vote: Not there, says Krikorian:
[T]he benchmark in garnering Hispanic votes for Republicans is Bush's 40 percent showing in 2004. So So what would have happened if McCain had matched Bush's performance, instead of the 31 percent he actually got? Based on CNN's exit polls, McCain still would have lost Nevada, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, not to mention, say, California and New Jersey. Conversely, even if Obama had won 90 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas, instead of 63 percent, he still would have lost the state. With the possible exception of North Carolina, where the results were close but the number of Hispanic voters is too small to register in the exit poll, there doesn't seem to be a single state where the Hispanic vote was critical to the outcome. [E.A.]
Even if the Latino vote was decisive, Krikorian notes, it wouldn't necessarily follow that the best strategy for GOPs is to pursue it--which might be a tough sell--as opposed fo figuring out a way to win a bigger share from far more numerous whites and blacks. ... 7:35 P.M.
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Faster 538: Dems are slobs.** They mess up more ballots that can then be salvaged in recounts. Meet Senator Franken....
**-- Sorry, I meant "vulnerable voters." ... 7:12 P.M.
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Dick Morris: "The Election Is Not Over." He's right. We've been set up for a plot twist after the credits, if the Dems sweep the three undecided Senate seats, which is entirely possible. And there is a big difference between 57 Democratic senators and 60. ... P.S.: I don't endorse Morris' pro-GOP fundraising efforts. But I'm pretty sure I'd rather have 57 than 60. Already the prospect of a GOP-led filibuster is encouraging some labor unions to modulate their demands to end secret ballots, for example. ... P.P.S.: Democratic presidential campaign aides have reportedly been dispatched to the Georgia runoff. But you have to wonder: Does Obama really want to get to 60? Getting a large,"filibuster-proof" majority would dramatically increase the expectations from his party's left, and from its entrenched Congressional interests, making them that much harder to control. Without 60, Obama can cite the filibuster threat and easily steer a moderate, popular center-left course. With 60, he'll have to use heretofore untested muscle to control Dem demands regarding the Detroit bailout, union "card check" elections, immigration, health care, tax cuts, the Fairness Doctrine (sorry "Forced Balance") etc. ...
Update: [Don't you want Obama to think big out of the box on some issues, like health care?--ed Yes. But even there it's not clear 60 would help more than it woud hurt. a) Even within the Obamaesque consensus that Jonathan Cohn says is emerging, emblodened libs could easily push for too much--unaffordable subsidies, loose coverage limits (think "mental health parity"), protection for lavish union plans, draconian drug price controls that ignore the dilemma of non-rising marginal costs, and resistance to cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for all of it; b) Cohn says Dems don't need 60 to pass health care anyway! And businesses are on board! (Presumably they'll have a few GOPs in tow).
In any case, I'll risk less health care to avoid the disaster of card check, immigration semi-amnesty, and a Leyland-like auto bailout. ...
More: If Obama really wanted 60, wouldn't he go to Georgia to campaign for the Democrat in the runoff? [Might not want to risk losing his first postelection fight. See Crowley--ed. But if he really wanted 60 ...] 3:18 P.M.
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"Peace and Security": Maguire notes WaPo confirming that Obama's omission of "democracy" from his acceptance speech was not an accident:
[C]onversations with several Obama advisers and a number of senior military strategists both before and since last Tuesday's election reveal a shared sense that the Afghan effort under the Bush administration has been hampered by ideological and diplomatic constraints and an unrealistic commitment to the goal of building a modern democracy -- rather than a stable nation that rejects al-Qaeda and Islamist extremism and does not threaten U.S. interests.
I'd give up on the drug war (and the attempt to eradicate Afghanistan's opium crop) before I'd give up democracy.... P.S.: So we really are in for a mirror image of the 20th century, when it was liberals who criticized the U.S. government for siding with strongmen in order to fight the global enemy (Communism)? ... There are even hints that "some senior military strategists" see elected Afghan President Karzai as a dispensable, Diem-like figure. ... 2:53 P.M.
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Monday, November 10, 2008
Gawker: What was Antonio Villaraigosa doing onstage at the Obama economic summit? He is not one of America's 17 most confidence-inspiring economic minds. ... Update: Hellisotherpeople makes a good point--better to start to pay back Latino voters with this "appointment" than with other, more substantive concessions I can think of. ... 4:13 P.M.
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Obama will act quickly to "chart a new course for immigration enforcement, some Obama advisers say." Hmm. After all, why not give the fractured GOP rump a unifying issue right out of the box? ... Rahm, you there? ... Rahm? .... 3:59 P.M.
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A New Morning in America: Nic Harcourt, who for a decade has deadened L.A. musical culture (much like the L.A. Times deadened L.A. political culture) with his soul-killing taste for breathy pop and humorless delivery is leaving his influential position as music director for local NPR affiliate KCRW. ... If only the Times could go away as quietly and costlessly. ... P.S.: Harcourt "rarely pays attention to lyrics," reported the NYT in a clueless puffer a few years ago. I mean, who cares about lyrics? Bob Dylan never worried about 'em, right? ... P.P.S.: Change we can believe in! ... P.P.P.S.: Bad news for Pete Yorn. ... 3:21 P.M.
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The Big Three's Little Secret: I hate to make invidious solidarity-eroding comparisons between competing UAW shops, but Detroit's cars aren't uniformly inferior to their Japanese competitors. Ford's products have been consistently less unreliable, in recent years, than vehicles made by the other two members of the Big Three. From the most recent issue of Consumer Reports:
Ford's three brands--Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury--continue to pull away from the rest of the Detroit automakers. Almost all Ford models are now average or better, with the exception of some that are truck-based. Excluding those, Ford's reliablity is now on a par with good Japanese automakers.
GM is a "mixed bag." Chrysler seems hopeless. "Almost two thirds of its products rate below average for reliability."
I know reliability isn't everything. Most Chrysler products are ugly too! ... P.S.: If the automakers react the way GM reacted when its Saturn subsidiary actually started making good cars, their legislative strategy is clear: Figure out a way to punish Ford! ... 1:34 P.M.
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Fragging Palin: If McCain's such an instinctive man of honor, where is his "vigorous defense of his running mate"? 1:04 P.M.
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Sunday, November 9, 2008
NYT buries story on labor's "card check" campaign on the bottom of page 25. I smell liberal bias! As noted earlier, it's in labor's interest that the "card check" story gets as little publicity as possible. The NYT is complying. ... When I tell my underinformed, idealistic SoCal liberal friends that labor wants to end the secret ballot, the typical response is "Why would they want to do that?" Or else they assume that I have it backwards and it must be management that wants to eliminate the secret ballot. ... Union legislative strategists may think that demanding "card check" is a great, scary bargaining chip, to be traded away for a pro-labor compromises on other rules (like holding quick elections, or empowering arbitrators to set contract terms). But I wonder if it's not so disreputable sounding that it doesn't actually discredit all of labor's other, perhaps more reasonable demands--putting the unions in a worse position than if they'd never asked for it in the first place. It's not a bargaining chip. It's a poisoning chip. Getting voters to cheer for the "Employee Free Choice Act" is a little like getting them to cheer against Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. ... 11:48 P.M.
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Say You Won't Steal Fitzmas! A plea from Obama's hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, for the President-elect to reaffirm his apparent promise not to fire local U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, even as Fitzgerald closes in on Obama's Democratic colleagues. ... Fallback plan: Indict fast. ... Clever Way Out for Obama: Justice Fitzgerald? Or at least a Federal Appellate slot. ... How does Fitz feel about Roe? ...[via Newsalert] 11:30 P.M.
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In the past week, I bought a CD online at Amazon, then I bought the same CD at Barnes & Noble. Amazon price: $9.99. B&N price: $16.99. My impression is that this sort of price differential has opened up pretty much across the board. B&N is doomed, no? ...
Alert Reader N asks, pointedly: "Why didn’t you buy the second CD from Amazon?" Because I needed it that day for a birthday present. This is what B&N and Borders are (sometimes) good for. But it's hard to believe that the I-need-it-in-my-hands-right-now sliver of the marketplace is enough to sustain a large, expensively-located building and sales staff if you lose the basic I-need-it-in-a-couple-of-days market. ... 11:11 P.M.
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I admire Rahm Emanuel. Without him welfare reform might not have happened in 1996, and the Dems might not have won back a House majority a decade later. (Two milestones that, I think, are not unconnected--welfare reform made liberal government acceptable again.) Emanuel is smart, relentless, disciplined, gets things done, a winner, all that stuff. But here's my problem with having him as chief of staff: Suppose you work for President Obama. You send a memo up the line to the Oval Office. If a week later Rahm Emanuel tells you he's showed it to the President, would you believe him?
By way of an answer, I should add that among Clinton-era welfare reporters, the rule of thumb was that you called Rahm to get the administration's line and then you called Bruce Reed to find out if it was the truth. ...
P.S.: But Rahm was not the unnamed Clinton official who foolishly boasted to Michael Kramer, early in the administration, that the Clintonites would "roll" Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Ask Lawrence O'Donnell if you don't believe me. ... 8:57 P.M.
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And now for another view of Mayor Bloomberg, we have Mr. Fred Siegel ...
A knockoff of Berlusconi, he's a man with a media empire who has dedicated his efforts to saving not his city or country but himself from the boredom of buying influence by merely giving away pieces of his fortune. ...
[O]perating on the basis of ambiguities in the city charter, Bloomberg strong-armed the city council into overturning term-limits: threatening to cut off funds to their districts and stop his "anonymous" donations to the nonprofits they count on to get out the vote if they opposed his plan.
Siegel's attack is ... incompletely convincing,** but enjoyably vitriolic. [Not unlike his review of your book--ed. It's lucky I don't remember things like that] ...
**--Is it really true, for example, that "the additional $9 billion [Bloomberg's] spent on education hasn't shown up in any improvements" in test scores? ... 2:23 P.M.
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Newsweek s poll: Put it out of its misery. ... 1:59 P.M.
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Friday, November 7, 2008
Vertical Ticket Splitters Rule! National Journal's Charlie Cook seems to very tentatively embrace a version of the See Saw theory (which I first heard from Reader M):
[G]iven the strength of the top of the ticket nationally, one might have thought that the victory would have been more vertically integrated. ...
There is no shortage of theories. It could be that a lot of first-time and younger voters cast their ballots for Obama but didn't bother to venture down the ballot. Once the final vote tallies are tabulated, we will have a better idea of whether that happened. Or maybe there was a determined effort to apply checks and balances. By deciding to elect Obama president, more than a few voters may have opted to keep the Republican incumbent in place, just to prevent Democrats from getting carried away. ... [E.A.]
Sorry again, Kinsley. ...2:32 P.M.
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Thursday, November 6, 2008
Opponents of the "Fairness Doctrine" are looking for a more evil-sounding name. "Forced Balance"? ... 10:53 P.M.
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Mark Krikorian admits he was wrong about Julie Myers. ... Jonah Goldberg discovers that Rahm Emanuel is Jewish! ... I mean, who knew? ... 9:47 P.M.
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How About At Least Making Them Choose? So the UAW wants a $25 billion bailout and an end to the secret ballot ... Because Wagner Act unionism clearly worked out so well for Detroit. ... 9:31 P.M.
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The Sound of One Hand Sat On: One big argument before the election was whether a) McCain's heterodox positions (on immigration, campaign finance, torture, Bush's initial tax cuts, etc.) had alienated conservatives, who would fail to turn out and vote for the Republican nominee, or whether b) conservatives would turn out anyway, leaving McCain free, in theory, to run to the center (the Mike Murphy position). It should be possible to get at least part of an answer to that question now, no? Here's a start, from Curtis Gans' Center for the Study of the American Electorate--and at first glance it doesn't look good for Murphy. [Note: But see semi-vitiating conclusion