Thursday, January 24, 2008

Huck and Sam’s Club (3:40 pm)

I’ll give Jarrett a break on Huckabee blogging by pointing towards this pretty interesting profile in the American Conservative, which argues that the former governor’s success may coincide with an intellectual move by conservatives like Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam that focuses on rising middle-class anxiety. They call it the Party of Sam’s Club, or the undeveloped “compassionate conservatism” on which our 43rd president once campaigned.

This wouldn’t mean an abandonment of small-government objectives, but it would mean recognizing that these objectives—individual initiative, social mobility, economic freedom—seem to be slipping away from many less-well-off Americans, and that serving the interests of these voters means talking about economic insecurity as well as about self-reliance.

While this philosophy could be electorally valuable down the road (at least after the current tent collapses), I don’t see it gaining much traction. For one, the anti-tax demagogues still hold significant power in the coalition and won’t be shunted aside very easily. Secondly, a more populist GOP will need to find candidates that believe in such a message, and not just appeal to it with rhetoric and down-home charm. Huckabee, called the Huey Long of the race by some, is a weak populist at best. If he’s the best the party can do, I doubt economically insecure Americans will flock to the new message.

posted by Adam Doster | start the discussion

More Iraq recession blogging (3:17 pm)

I’m a few days late, but read Chalmers Johnson on the consequences of military Keynesianism.

posted by Adam Doster | start the discussion

Simulacra and Stimulation (1:23 pm)

Barbara Ehrenreich got off an excellent laugh line earlier this week, writing “With all the talk about how to stimulate it, you’d think that the economy is a giant clitoris.”

Well, it got somewhat less funny today when, under the guise of the newly released stimulus package, we learned that the Democratic Congress is fucking us over. (Or, if you prefer, performing cunnilingus on the rich.)

posted by Brian Cook | 2 comments

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Iraq recession (2:19 pm)

Via Think Progress, we find that lo and behold, actual economists predicted the an invasion and prolonged US presence In Iraq could spark a global recession. So, if you somehow aren’t convinced this war was a disaster on moral grounds, or that our government lied to us about the threat Iraq posed, try these on for size.

Nordhaus: “A war against Iraq could cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, play havoc with an already depressed domestic economy and tip the world into recession because of the adverse effect on oil prices, inflation and interest rates.”

Robert Shapiro, former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration: “If the conflict wears on or, worse, spreads, the economic consequences become very serious. Late last year, George Perry at the Brookings Institution ran some simulations and found that after taking into account a reasonable use of oil reserves, a cut in world oil production of just 6.5 percent a year would send the United States and the world into recession.”

Of course, when Stoller asked important policy makers about the frame, he was brushed aside. Because, you know, our foreign and economic policy aren’t related or anything.

posted by Adam Doster | start the discussion

Duck and Cover, Mr. Frum. Duck and Cover. (11:43 am)

Uh oh. John Holbo is reading David Frum again.

The last time this happened in November 2003, it led to the Greatest Blog Post Of All Time. It’s ridiculously, almost absurdly, long, but it’s absolutely a must read.

posted by Brian Cook | start the discussion

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

5.4 Million People Dead In The Congo Since 1998 (9:20 pm)

Half of them children under 5.

Read about it here.

posted by Jarrett | 1 comment

Perhaps There Is A God After All (12:42 pm)

Huckabee’s struggling, cutting back costs, looking generally dismayed; the whirlwind of media and positive attention he experienced around Christmas hasn’t done him an ounce of good past Iowa. Remember a month ago he credited the Creator for how well he was polling and all of the press attention he was getting. Now, much of the attention he’s getting is about how he’s beginning to lose pretty pitifully to Mitt and John. Me, I’m more likely to believe in a God when this guy steps down and disappears from the national stage. Really, that day can’t come quick enough.

But I’m still pretty concerned. Say Huckabee does go down. That doesn’t mean the Christian Right is any less of a threat right now. We will still need to keep a very close eye on them and their hateful rhetoric, violent wishes, and intolerance. Perhaps the future Christian Right leader who captures the nomination will be even more dangerous than Huckabee. They’re not going away. And with a Hillary Clinton nomination they may be more galvanized than they would have been if Huck got the nod. That’s my biggest concern: that in this race there are two candidates who will spark mass organization on the part of the radical Christian Right - Huck and Hillary. Without a Hillary Clinton nomination the Christian Right won’t be able to find the right angle to get their people riled…but the day Hillary wins the nomination their machine will begin working immediately for whichever clown the GOP picks. And it will be very effective in assisting her defeat.

posted by Jarrett | start the discussion

Monday, January 21, 2008

Huckabee And The Confederate Flag (2:24 pm)

Mike Huckabee: rabidly homophobic, hopelessly naive, connected to some of the most extreme Christian Right leaders in America, believes God personally intervenes to help his political fortunes…and he’s a racist to boot. But you wouldn’t know it to read the mainstream press. Here’s Christopher Hitchens over at Slate. on Huckabee’s recent Confederate flag comments in SC:

In this country, it seems that you can always get an argument going about “race” as long as it is guaranteed to be phony, but never when it is real. Almost every day brings news of full-dress media-oriented spats about Don Imus, Bob Grant, or the recent nonstory about how some golf show had managed to mention Tiger Woods and the word lynch in the same news cycle. The preceding week had involved some trivial but intense parsing of an exchange between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama about Dr. Martin Luther King. But just let the real thing occur, with a full-blooded and full-throated bellow of old-fashioned authentic racism, and you can see the entire press refusing to cover it for fear of having to confront the real and unvarnished thing (and perhaps for reasons having to do with other “sensitivities” as well).

Gov. Mike Huckabee made the following unambiguously racist and demagogic appeal in Myrtle Beach, S.C., last week:

You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with... read more