China teaches the value of political pluralism

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When today’s middle-aged Chinese citizens were young, the People’s Republic was a gigantic experiment in egalitarianism, anti-capitalism, anti-consumerism, and opposition to Western imperialism. One of its core values was unending [...]

When today’s middle-aged Chinese citizens were young, the People’s Republic was a gigantic experiment in egalitarianism, anti-capitalism, anti-consumerism, and opposition to Western imperialism. One of its core values was unending “people’s war”: a “revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures.” Today, the same Communist Party still rules. There was never a specific economic crisis or meltdown, and China was never seriously threatened from overseas.  The Party’s leadership cadres have turned over with relatively little violence or stress. Yet the children of the heads of the still-ruling Party are now “princelings”:

Jiang Mianheng, the 61-year-old son of Jiang Zemin, the former Communist Party leader and the most powerful political kingmaker of China’s last two decades [has undertaken] ventures with Microsoft and Nokia and [oversees] a clutch of state-backed investment vehicles that have major interests in telecommunications, semiconductors and construction projects. …

Wen Yunsong, the son of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, heads a state-owned company that boasts that it will soon be Asia’s largest satellite communications operator.

President Hu Jintao’s son, Hu Haifeng, once managed a state-controlled firm that held a monopoly on security scanners used in China’s airports, shipping ports and subway stations.

And in 2006, Feng Shaodong, the son-in-law of Wu Bangguo, the party’s second-ranking official, helped Merrill Lynch win a deal to arrange the $22 billion public listing of the giant state-run bank I.C.B.C., in what became the world’s largest initial public stock offering.

This is a powerful reminder that ideologies, laws, explicit principles, and cultural norms mean only so much. If one party rules and no one can challenge its political control, it is bound to turn into a kleptocracy. Even cynics might be taken aback by the speed and scale of this particular transformation, but the pattern is general. That’s why, even if your political opponents really outrage you, you should be glad they exist.

Rep. Mike Coffman tells supporters that "in his heart" President Obama is "just not an American"

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By Richard K. Barry No, I never mean what I say. I don’t even listen to myself when I speak. To my mind, there is little more disturbing than the [...]

No, I never mean what I say. I don’t even listen to myself when I speak.
To my mind, there is little more disturbing than the kind of comments made recently by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) about President Obama. While discussing the issue of Obama’s birthplace, he said that “in his heart, he’s not an American.”
The full comment, as reported by Fox 31 Denver, was: “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”

He later gave some bullshit apology, probably only because he had to. It seems that his district has been redrawn to include fewer Republicans and this kind of incendiary remark may not help him with more rational voters in the fall.

His Democratic opponent, State Rep. Joe Miklosa (D-Aurora) has already jumped on it, calling Coffman “Colorado’s version of Rush Limbaugh.”

I do understand that local races are different than national races, but if Republicans continue to give Democrats this kind of ammunition, this kind of Tea Party, hate-filled rhetoric, to use against them, this isn’t even going to be close come November.

If you, you stupid Republicans, really want to gin up the Democratic base, keep on suggesting that liberals, and the leaders with whom they identify, are not really American. Please. Go there.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann’s Ghost.)

Fox News poll has Obama leading Romney 46% to 39% nationally

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By Richard K. Barry Fox News released a poll on Wednesday. Here are some of the key findings:  Obama has a 46% to 39% advantage over Romney at the moment.  [...]

By Richard K. Barry

Fox News released a poll on Wednesday. Here are some of the key findings: 

  • Obama has a 46% to 39% advantage over Romney at the moment. 
  • Among independents, 34% back Romney, 29% support Obama. A third are undecided or say they won’t vote. Romney led by a 46% to 33% margin last month among independents. 
  • Women continue to be more likely to support Obama by a 55% to a 33% margin. Men support Romney by a 46% to 33% margin. 
  • Obama voters are much more like to say that they are satisfied with the candidate choice by a margin of 74% to 59%. 
  • Obama’s current approval rating is 49% to 47% to the good. That’s up from 45% approval to 51% disapproval three weeks ago. 
  • A range of responses suggest more people think the economy is improving. 
  • The prize for the weirdest question goes to “who would you rather have managing your personal finances, Romney or Obama?” Would you rather have the guy who made himself millions or the former law professor? Guess who won that one? 
  • The poll is based on 913 randomly chosen registered voters nation-wide. It was conducted May 13-15. Margin of error was plus or minus 3%.

What does it all mean? Very little in the short term. Come back in a few weeks and the numbers will probably be totally different.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann’s Ghost.)

Donna Summer (1948-2012)

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By Richard K. Barry  I honestly could not say I was ever a fan of disco. Maybe if I had learned to dance, I would look more kindly on the [...]

I honestly could not say I was ever a fan of disco. Maybe if I had learned to dance, I would look more kindly on the genre. About as close as I came to liking it is to say that I really enjoyed the Saturday Night Fever album, which I don’t actually consider disco, but I guess music from that movie has to qualify.

It was sad to hear of the passing of Donna Summer at the age of 63, a disco legend if ever there was one. It seems that she had been dealing with cancer for some time.

She had a big career and was, notably, a five-time Grammy winner. She was best known for songs like “I Feel Love,” Love to Love You Baby,” “She Works Hard for the Money,” “Hot Stuff,” and “Bad Girls.” Hell, I even remember her unusual version of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.”

I had forgotten she performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in honour of President Obama, but she did.

The Rolling Stone piece on her passing carried a quote from Summer that she made in an interview done around the time of her last album, Crayons, in 2008. She was asked if she felt vindicated by her longevity. She replied:

I don’t think they made fun of my music as much as they made fun of some of the music that maybe came as a result of that whole genre. But I do think in the course of time it is nice to reestablish something and to say, “Okay, this stood the test of time…” I have nothing to prove to anyone. I just get out there and do my best, and those who love it, great. And those who don’t, they’ll move on to something else.

That’s funny. She was clearly stung by the shots people have taken at disco. I know I’ve taken some of them myself. But a number of the recordings during that time were good pop music, her’s in particular. She had a great career. A lot of people loved that stuff, even if it wasn’t for everyone. And the girl could flat out sing.

She got to be a famous recording artist and seemed to do it with a good deal of grace. No small feat.

“Last Dance” was a song I always liked.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann’s Ghost.)

Ben Stein shares his superior wisdom

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By Richard K. Barry Former Nixon speech writer and sometimes actor Ben Stein was on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show recently and offered that he didn’t think Barack Obama was [...]


Former Nixon speech writer and sometimes actor Ben Stein was on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show recently and offered that he didn’t think Barack Obama was a very smart man, at least not as smart as Richard Nixon.

Does anybody care what Ben Stein thinks about anything? Anyone? Anyone?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann’s Ghost.)

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MJWS adds: The pic above is great, but I’ve got to add the clip:

Lawrence O’Donnell as an actor on The West Wing

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By Richard K. Barry Here’s a little diversion from our daily cares. I was watching

By Richard K. Barry

Here’s a little diversion from our daily cares. I was watching Lawrence O’Donnell‘s show last night on MSNBC, as I frequently do. It is called, as you may know, The Last Word. I was well aware of the fact that he was closely associated with the television drama The West Wing, as a story editor, writer, and co-producer. I must say that I was very surprised when he said he also did a brief acting stint on the show.

I fancy myself quite familiar with every season and could not imagine what he was referring to. When he mentioned he played Josiah Bartlet‘s father in a flashback sequence on the episode “Two Cathedrals,” I was amazed. I remembered it well, and remembered the character, but hadn’t put it together.

I went to YouTube, found it, and there he was. He did not a bad job, actually. Judge for yourself. 


(Cross-posted at Lippmann’s Ghost.)

Republicans plan all-out smear campaign tying Obama to Jeremiah Wright (updated)

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By Michael J.W. Stickings  UPDATED WITH BREAKING NEWS BELOW. The Times is reporting that “[a] group of high-profile Republican strategists” is planning a vicious assault on President Obama that would [...]

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

UPDATED WITH BREAKING NEWS BELOW.

The Times is reporting that “[a] group of high-profile Republican strategists” is planning a vicious assault on President Obama that would involve “running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.” The campaign would be financed by right-wing billionaire (and Cubs owner) Joe Ricketts.

In a copy of the plan — called “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good” — obtained by the Times, the strategists write that the campaign would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do.”

Which is to say, go brutally nasty in their efforts to destroy Obama, in this case with a not-so-subtly racist effort to link the president to Wright, and selectively to every questionable thing he has ever said, reinforcing the right-wing narrative that Obama, the black Obama, is a dangerous anti-American leftist.

You know what? It’s not going to work. We’ve been here before, in 2008. Back then, Candidate Obama distanced himself from Wright, as he was right to do, and outside of right-wing circles there’s no interest in rehashing any of this, particularly given how blatantly racist it is (so much so that the plan includes a a blatantly racist proposal to hire, as cover, an “extremely literate conservative African-American” for some black-on-black attacks). Anyone who would be impressed with such a campaign is already going to vote Republican, and there’s no way it would attract much-needed support from independents. 

BREAKING: Ricketts has reportedly rejected the plan. This follows the Romney campaign’s repudiation of it earlier today (though there may have been support for it privately; once it went public, Romney pretty much had to come out quickly and object to it, though he himself brought up Wright earlier this year).

So that’s it, right? Of course not. This particular plan may be dead, but you can be sure Republicans will go nasty even as Romney himself tries to stay somewhat above the fray, preferring to lie about the president and his policies instead of engaging in broad character assassination. They just can’t help themselves. It’s who they are, and it’s all the worse now given how vindictively they hate Obama, a president who throughout his first ten has advanced a moderate, often Republican-leaning agenda but who is nonetheless viewed on the right as the second coming of Che Guevara.

What’s more, the point is that some leading Republican strategists, with loads of money at their disposal, actually wanted to do this, actually wanted to take their assault on the president even deeper into the gutter.

As Steve Benen writes, this is “a reminder that many Republicans have never heard the adage about the futility of fighting the last war.” And it shows that Republicans don’t think they can win on the issues. “[A] project like the Ricketts Plan would likely represent the most shameless effort to play the race card this year. If the right were confident about defeating the president on the issues, it wouldn’t feel the need to exploit racial animus. This plan, in other words, comes across as rather desperate.”

To me, it’s also yet another reminder that in politics the right is populated by abhorrent people who do and say abhorrent things.

Census Bureau: Whites now account for under half of U.S. births

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By Richard K. Barry  The New York Times is reporting one of those newsy little bits that makes you think about long-term electoral implications: “After years of speculation, estimates and [...]

The New York Times is reporting one of those newsy little bits that makes you think about long-term electoral implications: “After years of speculation, estimates and projections, the Census Bureau has made it official: White births are no longer a majority in the United States.”
“Minorities” — which include Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and those of mixed race — have reached 50.4%.

It’s certainly true that whites will remain in the majority for some time, but times are changing. And, while facile assumptions about what this might mean at the ballot box in the distant future may not be very helpful, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Republicans are probably not that happy with the trend.

One thing that is not a guess is an observation made by Dowell Meyers, a demography professor at USC: “If the U.S. depended on white births alone, we’d be dead. Without the contribution from all these groups, we would become too top heavy with old people.”

Can’t argue with that.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann’s Ghost.)

Citizens United gets nasty (and not in a good way)

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By Richard K. Barry  I put one finger here, and… I don’t quite know what to make of the controversy to do with incredibly nasty fundraising letter sent out by [...]

I put one finger here, and…
I don’t quite know what to make of the controversy to do with incredibly nasty fundraising letter sent out by Citizens United. They are a conservative non-profit organization made famous by the Supreme Court decision that now makes it possible, almost mandatory, for obscene amounts of money to pollute the political process.
BuzzFeed got its hands on the letter sent out to donors over Gov. Mike Huckabee’s signature. The language in it was quite disgusting, even for a conservative organization, which is saying something. For example, it contained this line: “President Obama has surrounded himself with morally repugnant political whores with misshapen values and gutter-level ethics.” Whoa! Really? That’s not nice.

The implication, of course, is that the letter was “written” by Huckabee, although everyone knows big names don’t write these things, they just allow their name to be used. Having said that, these luminaries are pretty sensitive about what is said in their name and, at least in my experience, either they or “their people” sign off on the content. Within a big campaign, where the candidate is too busy, a campaign manager might do the authorization, but there is a necessary degree of trust between candidate and manager that you wouldn’t find between an organization like Citizen’s United and someone of Huckabee’s profile.

In a statement to Politico, Huck said this:

This was a complete surprise to me. I most certainly did not approve such language and would never have used that kind of repulsive rhetoric. I repudiate that language, find it offensive to me, and have ordered that it be pulled immediately.

Initially, Jeff Marschner, a spokesman for Citizens United, “categorically denied” the letter was sent by his organization. Some time after, Marschner corrected himself to say that the letter was sent as a test. Here is his statement:

Neither Governor Huckabee nor Dave Bossie, President of Citizens United, approved the language presented and used in the fundraising letter that was sent out as a test to a small number of people. Both have taken corrective action to make sure that this does not happen again. It is language that is beneath Governor Huckabee and Dave Bossie, and language that they would not use.

I’ve done a ton of political fundraising letters in my life. You do not generally put a letter out, no matter what it says, no matter how small the mailing, without the approval of the person whose signature appears at the bottom. When I first read the full text, which BuzzFeed has at its site, it simply did not seem that the governor would allow his relatively good-natured public image to be used in that way. He’s making his money in television now, looking goofy with an electric bass around his neck. It doesn’t seem like the approach he would take.
It struck me as so improbable that I even thought it could have been a dirty trick to make the right look even more extreme than it is, though that hardly seems necessary.

No, it looks like Citizens United was trying to pull a fast one and got caught. I’m not sure I buy the “test” excuse. No, I’m sure. I don’t.

This is the nuts and bolts of politics. Believe or not, there are some rules it’s best not to break.
(Cross-posted at Lippmann’s Ghost.)

what’s good about Americans Elect

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I have been very quiet about Americans Elect, the organization that obtained open lines on the presidential ballot in 29 states, reserving those spots for whomever its members chose as [...]

I have been very quiet about Americans Elect, the organization that obtained open lines on the presidential ballot in 29 states, reserving those spots for whomever its members chose as nominees for president and vice president.

On the one hand, I disagree with several aspects of the organization’s diagnosis and strategy. On the other hand, their leaders were kind enough to meet with me early in the process to discuss youth participation, and my lengthy discussion with them gave me confidence in their motives and made me doubt the most hostile attacks. Yet I couldn’t really rebut those charges except by citing a superficial personal relationship, which needn’t persuade anyone else.

Now that they have decided not to field a nominee, I feel more free to comment.

One take on Americans Elect is that they want to be a moderate alternative to the polarized Democrats and Republicans. I happen to believe that the national Democratic Party is a moderately conservative one, that there is little daylight between the two parties, and that the only space left between them should be filled by the Republican Party itself, once its moderates strengthen their hand. So I am uninterested in building a centrist third party. On the other hand, the Americans Elect website does not prominently cite either moderation or centrism, and its leaders emphasized to me that their ticket could be taken by, for example, a Democrat and a Green. They required that the two nominees come from different parties, but not necessarily one from the left and one from the right.

Another read of Americans Elect is that they wanted to offer voters an alternative because both major parties had failed. That is closer to their own rhetoric and I don’t completely disagree with it. The problem is tactical. In a close presidential reelection race like the one we face in 2012, a third party is just a spoiler. Anyone who votes for the third-party candidate is actually helping Obama or Romney but cannot know which one. That is the opposite of empowering; it means giving up your vote for a random draw. A case can be made for greater political pluralism, but a close presidential reelection campaign is the worst time to add a third choice.

A different interpretation is what the leaders stressed to me. They argued that the major parties’ nominating systems are corrupt and broken. Why, after all, should one state vote at a time, starting with two almost entirely white and heavily rural states, and reaching California and New York well after the contest is over? Why should you have to vote on one particular day but register a month before? Why should the “money primary” (the race for private funding) be so important?

By getting on the ballot in 29 states and promising an entirely different nominating process (online, deliberative, simultaneous), Americans Elect reminded us that alternatives are possible. Our political system is the oldest in the world and is now sclerotic and corrupt. We take things like the parties’ nominating systems for granted when those are eminently changeable.

The main reason Americans Elect failed to field a candidate was the unwillingness of serious contenders to participate. Some presumably preferred either Obama or Romney and didn’t want to play a spoiler role. Others were put off by the prospect of a national race that would require half a billion dollars to be reasonably competitive. The campaign finance system of the general election is beyond the control of Americans Elect and represents a very serious obstacle to decent politics. But the experiment did remind us that our existing national parties could completely change their own nominating processes. At this point, the question is: Why don’t they?

Herman Cain’s third endorsement goes to… Mitt Romney!

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By Michael J.W. Stickings Herm Cain and the Swiss Miss, falling into partisan lockstep behind Mitt After dropping out the Republican presidential race, Herman Cain endorsed “The People”: “We the [...]

Herm Cain and the Swiss Miss, falling into partisan lockstep behind Mitt
After dropping out the Republican presidential race, Herman Cain endorsed “The People”: “We the people are still in charge. That’s who I’m endorsing. We’re going to have to lead this revolution. We have to take our power back. I’m endorsing the people. The people who started this country.” Not exactly the most conservative rhetoric, and not exactly all that meaningful an endorsement. But in its stupidity it lined up with his whole campaign.
Then, a while later, he endorsed Newt Gingrich: “When you find a candidate that basically is running still on the ideas and the ideologies that I was running on, along with him embracing 9-9-9, then it was a no-brainer and I thought that the timing was right.” In other words, Newt said he liked his crazy tax plan, which is highly unlikely, and Cain thought they were ideologically similar, though what we witnessed back then was Newt coming to Cain’s rescue on policy matters during debates and other joint appearances and Newt using Cain to attack Romney.
Well, we now have Cain’s third endorsement, and this time it’s for… Mitt Romney: “My endorsement evolved. Early in the process is one thing, but as we converged toward the convention, what we did earlier isn’t as relevant. It wasn’t a matter of changing my mind.” Yes, it’s just like it was for Obama and same-sex marriage, an evolution in his thinking. Please. Embracing Romney because he’s the guaranteed nominee isn’t exactly the same as taking an historic stand on a major civil rights issue.
And, yes, like so many other Romney endorsements, this one lacked conviction. Cain said that Romney is “right on the big issues,” but to a simpleton like Cain, or indeed to any Republican, that would pretty much describe… any Republican.
Really, none of this matters. No one cares what Cain thinks about anything these days, including the election, and his endorsement is essentially meaningless, particularly after the ridiculousness of his time on the national stage. He was a joke then, and he remains one, more so even than Trump.

The only even vaguely interesting thing here is what this endorsement says about Romney — which is, again, that Republicans aren’t exactly excited about having him as their nominee. It’s just that he’s the only one left.