Oratorical Animal

Rhetorical Violence and Planned Parenthood

I have hesitated thus far to comment directly on the murders in Colorado Springs because we have not had much information. In fact, I found the rush to make political points by those on the right and the left over this past weekend disturbing. But I'm crowding into the fray today at least partly because the debate is addressing an issue that has long troubled rhetoric scholars: Can speech incite violence?

At the extremes, of course, most everyone would acknowledge that when Don Corleone orders a hit, then speech leads to violence. Beyond that, we struggle often with these issues, including a wonderfully disturbing conference on symbolic violence at Texas A & M University a few years ago. As a rhetorician, I tend to focus on the particular and shy from the general. That is, I do not believe that speech always leads to violence or never does so. It's a terrible mistake to say that because all or nothing statements do little to illuminate our muddy communal life. So, how might we think about the particular?

First, I'd urge everyone to ask the right question for the right circumstance. In this case, abortion providers in general and Planned Parenthood in particular have long suffered violent attacks. So, in this case, it's not whether rhetoric has led to violence because the violence predates recent inflammatory statements and controversies (such as the faked videos). Rather, does the rhetoric enable and sustain a continuing campaign of violence against women's health workers?

Second, I'd argue that an answer requires a good deal of evidence and argument, certainly more than we have seen thus far. I say that because a "yes" implies (hell, says) that people ought to stop talking the way that they talk and that requires, to borrow a legal term, strict scrutiny. I'm no fan of social pressure against speech--quite the opposite--but I am a fan of honesty. For liberals to answer this question with a yes means that pro-life folks truly need to moderate their rhetoric and that, in fact, there's a strong case to be made that the common good requires it. To shy away from that conclusion, or to say yes, and then deny the obvious (oh, no, I don't mean THAT) is dishonest.

Third, what might such evidence look like? I think it has to be multivariate, again to borrow a term. We'd have to see violence and symbolic violence in a variety of ways at a variety of levels, always intertwined. Here's my case for that.

On a physical level, there have been 8 murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings, 182 arsons, and literally hundreds upon thousands of stalkings, attacks, arrests, and so on and so forth since the late 1970s. On a daily discourse level, that is, in terms of everyday, consistent interaction, we know that harassment, fury, and violent language is unceasing for those who work at women's health centers and abortion providers. On an electoral and legislative level, we know abortion opponents (and, increasingly, birth control opponents) use language that dehumanizes and scapegoats health care providers. In particular, as Ed Kilgore argues in the link, Holocaust and slavery analogies facilitate violence. After all, the GOP candidates recently spent some time trading barbs about whether they would kill baby Hitler. Most, Jeb Bush in this link, would happily do so to prevent all of the deaths. So, it's not hard to follow the chain of logic that leads to the murder of health care providers.

I think, then, there's a considerable level of evidence to suggest that people ought to take some care. Too often, as Kenneth Burke has taught us, we try to take our language to the end of the line, to seek perfection, in the sense that humans wish their reality to match their words. When we call someone Hitler, a Nazi, a murdering whore, then this perfection principle suggests rather strongly the next action in the sequence. As conservative Christians understand, no one is perfect; we are all sinners. Such humility should characterize our public debate as well.

 

 

 

Thinking about the Cards, Cubs, and Sox

Long runs give you time to think about lots of stuff and today I occupied myself with the three local MLB teams. I thought I might actually put myself on the line by writing what I think. Unique, I know, but here goes.

1) As usual, the Cardinals are the strongest regional franchise. They have stable, intelligent ownership, a beautiful, new stadium, a nice revenue stream from it and, I suspect, from the stores and shops on its plaza. The media contracts are solid. The minor league system has been excellent, regularly reinforcing the major league club.

There's not much wrong with the big league club, either, although injuries will soon force some hard choices. Matheny is excellent. The Cardinals were solid nearly everywhere until Wainwright and Adams went down. Now, they face 2 real challenges and 1 potential challenge. First, there is no way that Mark Reynolds will last the year as an everyday first baseman. He needs at least a platoon partner and his aging skill set is probably best suited to the bench. But they can probably get by with someone else to play the position in a platoon. I'm no expert on the Cardinals, but this looks like a need they'll need to fill from the outside; 2) The major challenge is the pitching staff. The Cardinals have thrown exceptionally well since Wainwright went down and, on the surface, all is well. But they have only 2 pitchers on the roster who have ever gone over 120 innings in a season: Lynn and Lackey. Their bullpen has made up for the spot starters and the short outings so far, but this is a staff that'll face serious, serious questions come August and September. They need an innings eater; 3) They now must be on the Holliday/Molina watch. Those two are incredibly important and, at some point, they'll simply get old. Molina probably shouldn't be catching this number of innings. They need a real backup catcher, one who could step in far more regularly.

And this situation is the one fly in the ointment for an otherwise superb organization. The current management does not seem to be all that good at identifying and completing good deals. Despite Lackey's performance this year, I think the Kelly deal from last year will come back to haunt them. The Jason Heyward/Shelby Miller deal is already bad and could be a real disaster. Heyward's just one of those guys who seems like he should be better than his numbers show that he is and the Cardinals badly overpaid for him. They would have been better off keeping Miller and finding even a replacement level guy from the bench or inside the system to help. So, whether they can swing a good deal that brings back another Lackey but doesn't hurt them in the long run is an open question. They ought to talk to the White Sox (see below).

2) As a Cubs fan, I'm so happy to watch real games. That said, the rest of the organization is shaping up nicely. Evil capitalist owners appear set to lift the revenue stream high--the ballpark renovations will generate cash, a new tv deal will come on line in a couple of years, just as the team is peaking, and they're buying up enough of the neighborhood and rooftops that soon, you're basically going to have CubsWorld (bars, restaurants, rooftops, concerts on the plaza, etc) for all around the park, all of which will generate cash for the team.

Right now, the team on the field is much better but still has some big flaws. Left field is a hole that, so far, doesn't seem to have an internal solution, although rumor has it that Javier Baez is going to start playing there at Iowa. They need another starter; the bottom of the rotation is struggling. But they have three major problems, two of which only time is likely to solve: Defense, Strikeouts, and the bullpen. The players have the talent to play defense, but they're young and stupid right now. They'll get better as they get used to each other and as positions solidify. Strikeouts, too, are likely to go down by the end of the season and certainly next season as they learn pitchers around the league and sense their own strengths. Finally, there's bullpen talent, but there have been injuries and Rondon has lost something--confidence, perhaps, which is bad for a closer. Maddon has been an excellent manager, except for his quick hook, which has contributed to the bullpen problems. I hope he learns. 

I suspect they're still looking mostly to next year. I also think that Lester and Arrieta will become ever more effective as the weather heats up and the year moves on. Ideally, they could get a left fielder, 1 starter, and a closer. In reality, I think they'll look to trade only for the latter unless the others fall into their lap. There are several teams who are out of it with veteran closers (Papelbon, anyone?) and I wouldn't be surprised if they sought a deal. That, and the return of a couple of guys from injury, would set up the bullpen nicely. The 2015-16 offseason will have lots of starters available and there's always a left fielder around. They'll look for a closer and improve the rest, hoping to get into the playoffs on a wild card.

3) I thought the White Sox should have blown up the club last summer, I had no idea what they thought they were doing in the offseason, and they should blow up the club now. This season couldn't be going much worse. Everything permanent about them is ok, not great--the stadium, the media deals, the ownership, although the latter has gotten steadily worse. The minor league system has been terrible for years and has not produced a single adequate everyday player for the current major league club, unless I've missed someone. Particularly now that Rodon is up to be abused by Ventura, there's no real help there and there won't be for a year or two.

The major league club is a mess. They have holes at catcher, second, third, and DH that seem highly unlikely to be filled adequately anytime soon. Eaton in center should get better than his start, but he's another one of those guys whose numbers show he's not nearly as good as he looks hustling around the bases. The complete lack of power really hurts him. Cabrera is replacement level, basically, without his PEDs, RF has been fine and 1b excellent. They have 3 good starting pitchers, who have been up and down, but should be fine, and a two good guys in the back of the pen. The rest of the staff is a toxic waste zone, except for Rodon, who soon will be. Ventura keeps running him out there for better than 100 pitches and the general manager finally made Rodon skip a start. Ventura promptly sent him out there for 108 last night. As a Cubs fan, as a Mark Prior, Kerry Wood fan, I know his future as long as Robin "Dusty Baker" Ventura keeps doing this; I suspect this is why Sale is fragile, too. Ventura should be fired.   

What makes this even worse, of course, is that the Royals and the Twins have both leapfrogged them with massive amounts of young talent and more on the way. The Indians will get better, I suspect, and the Tigers will always find a way to be competitive with their leadership. But it's the Royals and Twins are the real issue. The Sox are looking up at them for at 4-5 years, absent catastrophic injuries, etc.

They need to blow it up. Some clubs with real minor league talent--the Cardinals, Red Sox, Dodgers, even the Twins, and others--could use Sale, Shark, or Quintana. The Sox should make everyone available and fire sale big time in hopes both of tanking for next year's draft and of replenishing the system. Two of those three starters should go, one of the bullpen guys should go, and if they can get someone to bite on Eaton or Melky, they should go. In other words, the big offseason spending spree bought them trade assets. Given that Shark is a free agent at the end of the season, they'll only get rental for him, but if they trade all these guys, they could get a lot of young talent. Of course, they've shown little ability to recognize and develop young talent in the last decade, but you've got to start somewhere. They're bad now and, as injuries inevitably hit, they're going to get worse because they have little bench and no help in the upper minors. This is a very bad situation.

So, high on the Cards and Cubs. Couldn't be lower on the Sox.

Size Matters

The Republican presidential field surpasseth all reason. Not, let me hasten to say, in ideology or reason. In size. There are likely to be 15-20 "mainstream," loosely speaking, candidates by the time the serious campaign kicks in next fall. This is unprecedented in the modern primary era--or, perhaps, in any era. This has happened for several reasons. First, the growth of the conservative infrastructure has achieved such heights that running for office is a good career move, regardless of one's chances. Why not run? You could end up with a plum post at the Heritage Foundation or a nice talk show on Fox. The left simply does not offer such opportunities, which is why Secretary Clinton does not face a horde of eager "personalities" in the Democratic primaries. Second, in this new campaign finance era, all that's required to be plausible and make a real run, is one lousy billionaire. That's what Newt Gingrich did last time and Marco Rubio's life has but one sponsor. One billionaire. How hard can that be? Third, there is no one who is next in line. The Republicans always like to nominate a familiar guy (H.W., Dole, Bush, McCain, Romney) and, for the first time really since 1964, there is no next in line (Nixon did not run again, opening the door for Goldwater). That's over half a century for those counting. So, what will this mean? In no particular order:

1) The Republicans won't know how to manage this or be good at it. Nobody could, and particularly not a party so fond of precedent. There are traditional written and unwritten maxims for sorting candidates. Some still work but many don't. In the era of the interwebs and billionaires, fundraising simply isn't much of a measuring stick anymore. Most of these guys will find a way to ante up. Media attention will be a good indicator, too, but Tea Party conservatives hate the lamestream media so too much NYT attention might signal a particular candidate is one of "them." Poll standing matters but lots of early money, from that one lousy billionaire, could buy a temporary bump. It's a mess. Previous name will matter and help Jeb enormously, but he's not really next in line, despite his name. Too long since he last ran for Governor, too long (over a decade) since any Bush ran, and too much brother baggage.

2) How in Reagan's name will debates work? 17 of them on stage? It's insane. I suspect the RNC wants to get rid of this troublesome platform for charismatic crazy people (I'm looking at you, Ben Carson) so they'll cut way down (and already have) on debates for one thing. For another, they may have to consider poll or support cutoffs in the early debates, which would be unprecedented and, in past years, would have eliminated some eventual Democratic nominees. And do you use national or state polls? Do you limit a debate to a single topic in hopes of giving people more time? I think they may well end up, helter skelter, having a series of partial 10-12 person debates with a rotating cast. Kinda like American Horror Show.

3) Is there even enough time on Iowa or Boston tv stations for all these people to buy it? Srsly. How much time are they going to want to purchase? 

4) The traditional R strategy is to cut right in the primaries, then drive back to the center in the general election. The sheer size of the field may both help and hurt that effort. I'm honestly not sure how it will work out. On the one hand, unspoken agreements about where you'll debate and where I'll debate may end up sorting the field into "crazy" debates and "sane" debates, limiting the times when Jeb Bush is seen vigorously nodding his agreement with Ben Carson. Plus, the field will be such a mess that many, most, Americans may simply choose to ignore the whole thing until the winnowing is over, until they're only really paying attention, say, to Bush, Rubio, Walker, and a token extremist, maybe Cruz or Paul. That might make it easier to move back to the center.

On the other hand, a very small amount of votes--Ben Carson led a recent poll--could make a "winner" of someone or make a huge difference, so even the mainstream candidates may have to cater to some pretty petty interest groups. And, of course, everything and every step is recorded by someone, somewhere, somehow now, so any pandering will be caught and endlessly available. For instance, Walker is clearly not a bright guy and I'm guessing he'll really mess up somewhere or another.

5) The primaries will be covered by online entrepreneurs and the conservative infrastructure. The mainstream folks--the networks, the cable news networks, the NYT, Washington Post, etc.,--simply do not have the resources. NBC has recently had 1 correspondent covering the Rs--Kelly O'Donnell. What are they going to do, clone her? Their inability truly to cover and report this massive race means that the coverage will turn on ever more shallow, eyeball catching incidents--witness the Iraq kerfluffle of the past week. Not that it, in particular, is shallow, but it's the result of a gaffe, in the classic sense, and that's all they'll really be able to cover. Which will add to the general impression that this is a clown car.

6) Finally, it's important to note that the flood of candidates does not generally reflect any ideological fragmentation. Nearly all agree on big tax cuts for the wealthy, big cuts in social programs, increases in defense spending, more trade agreements, more military rather than diplomatic solutions to foreign policy problems, a purer "Christian" nation, a denial of climate change, etc. There simply is not much disagreement at all. Which means, in this array of people, the race will turn ever more, one suspects, on blown out of proportion minor issues, perceptions of electability, and who would you like to have a beer with?

Again, no particular order here nor am I wedded to any of this. But it is an unprecedented issue.

The New Rhetorical Hillary Clinton

HRC delivered a major policy address yesterday on criminal justice reform. I liked the content; many of you will not. That's not what concerns me here. The speech surprises me because it demonstrates a better grasp of the formal requirements of a campaign oration than I ever saw her display in 2008. Is our Hillary learning? Yes. Let me count the ways.

1) A simple, straightforward harms, inherency, solution structure. Bad things are happening, they flow from a lack of trust, here are a couple of ideas that would both rebuild trust and make material change. Boom. When she spoke on the Bear Stearns collapse and the economy in 2008, I believe she offered a 78 part solution. I am barely exaggerating.

2) Parallel structure. She establishes the need to speak through anaphora--"yet again, the family.., yet again...yet again," reminding us of the killings now so hauntingly familiar, from Ferguson to Baltimore, over the past months. The structure links them, formally establishing these not as random occurrences, but as a pattern, implicitly creating the need for a policy response.

That is followed by another anaphora organized around, "There is something wrong.." Here, Clinton takes advantage of the complementary qualities of examples and statistics. Examples are psychologically powerful and, strung together as I note above, make a profound emotional impact. But a series of them suggest a pattern and Clinton's subsequent anaphora uses statistical evidence to prove the wide inherent disparities between black and white in the American criminal justice system.

The examples move her audience; the statistics convince her audience. America, we have a problem.

3) She sees the problem due to her personal commitment and life experiences. Campaign speeches are different from other addresses because ethos--character--does not support the persuasive claim (believe x because I am y) but is the thesis--Vote for me. HRC begins by identifying with the audience in this urban university (Columbia), praises former NYC Mayor David Dinkins (the occasion is for him), recounts her long history with him, happily notes the panel discussion that will follow, and moves into the body. She is of this issue. After that, she expresses her pain as a mother and a grandmother, notes that she first learned about these inequities "as a young attorney just out of law school" when she worked "for the Children's Defense Fund" and studied "the problem then of youth, teenagers, sometimes preteens, incarcerated in adult jails." She was then director of "the University of Arkansas School of Law's legal aid clinic [and] advocated on behalf of prison inmates and poor families." She sponsored legislation as a Senator. She's no Hillary come lately. She has lived this issue.

4) God terms. "growing bipartisan commonsense solutions." Who's going to hate those? "Smart strategies," "families," "best practices," on and on. 

5) Ritualistic disparagement of rhetoric: "Now of course it is not enough just to agree and give speeches about it--we actually have to work together to get the job done." The world will little note what she says here, but will long remember what they do together. She will get the job done.

6) Startling stats and analogies that people will remember--from a front page article in USA Today (yes, our Hil was doing her research, cares about the issue): "At a conference in 2013 at Johns Hopkins University, Vice Provost Jonathan Bagger pointed out that only six miles separate the Baltimore neighborhoods of Roland Park and Hollins Market. But there is a 20 year difference in the average life expectancy." Yowza. Great way to make disparities of all sorts concrete in one horrible analogy/statistic.

7) She nicely builds on but surpasses Obama's efforts. That's the relationship she wants to draw. So, she consistently says something like he's proposed money for, which is great, and we can expand that by...He has led the way by, and I hope to....The linking phrases are occasionally a bit obvious but they craft a useful relationship: She is the next natural step.

8) Nice close. Two more parallel structures, a quotation from Dinkins, the honoree, and a request to pray for Freddie Gray and all those hurt.

This is nothing like the defensive, massively overly detailed, policy wonk addresses I saw so often in 2008. This is a confident, clear campaign oration that establishes her as the person to address this issue. I don't want to speak too soon, but she finally may understand the genre that makes presidents. 

 

Way to Go, Senator Rubio

Marco Rubio's announcement address this week easily ranks as one of the most effective conservative speeches I've heard in a long time. Announcement addresses generally announce one's candidacy (duh), justify it both in terms of the needs of the times and the qualifications of the candidate, and forecast a shining future if only the American people will pull the appropriate voting lever. Rubio's address nicely accomplishes these tasks.

He chose a symbolic location for the event, Miami's Freedom Tower. It served as a processing facility for refugees from Castro's Cuba in the 1960s and it represented both Rubio's life history and the broader immigrant narrative. That story occupied the first part of the speech, as Rubio adopted a typical challenger's structure. He defined the nation as a land of opportunity, made that vision concrete (metonymy) in the story of his family, lamented the nation's current decline, and offered a bright path to a new American century. He justified his candidacy through his immigrant narrative; as Obama once did, Rubio claims to embody the nation's aspirations.

Two additional strategies marked the speech. He nicely contrasted the problems of the 21st century to the solutions of the 20th century, implicitly attack Hillary Clinton as old and outdated. The times demand a new approach. He did so, however, without making those claims explicit, which dispersed what could be the nastiness of such attacks. He nicely used narrative, showing a powerful facility for telling personal stories, and then linking those stories to broader national narratives. That ability characterized the campaign discourse of both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, two nice role models.

In addition, Rubio's stories offered a clear and succinct alternative to the current administration. It impedes opportunity; he offers it. It degrades education; he enhances it. It embodies elitism; he rejects it. He is, in nearly every possible sense, the anti-Romney.

Only one clanging note echoed throughout the speech and that was his neocon foreign policy. In all other areas, he sounded much like the legendary Reagan--eager, clear, affable, open, and inclusive. Clearly, he also tried to sound like the Cold War Reagan, accusing Democrats of appeasement and weakness. But it's a different era; Cuba is no USSR; he sounds belligerent and unpleasant, John McCain at his worst.

Of course, he'll face other problems as he goes, primary among them the ever present Republican need to tack right in the primaries and left in the general election. The ideological chasm between Republican primary voters and the general electorate has grown so large that this rhetorical task confounded both John McCain and Mitt Romney. Rubio's announcement indicates the potential to finesse that gap.  

Life With An Old Dog

When I came home today, I let the dogs out and then they lined up for treats. It's a bit of a hard go outside for Madison J. Dog, our sixteen year old dachshund/beagle mix. The back legs work but not as well as they did, and even the couple stairs outside need to be taken slowly, coming and going. She loves snuffling around in the yard and came loping in when I called. But neither the eyes or the nose are quite what they were, and so I pretty much have to lay the treats in my open hand and let her pick them out carefully. Even putting them on the floor doesn't help; they need to be closer.

And that's the life we lead. Of course, I remember when. I remember when she first joined me in 2001 in Athens. She ran a complete circuit of the house, leaped up on the bed, and snoozed. I remember that during the nightly Finnemurph long distance calls, I'd often hold out the phone so Cara could hear the Battle of the Titans, my two little dogs wrestling, growling, and barking. I remember that she loved walking 2, 3, 4 times a day if she could wheedle it.

She still loves to walk, when it's decent weather, just a bit more slowly and not nearly so far. She still puts the other dog--now Alice--in her place, just more quietly and rarely. She still rounds the house, just a lot more carefully. We try to carry her up and down the big stairs, but she's tricky and often sneaks up or down when we're not looking. We've always joked that she's a "self-contained Madison emotional unit," yet she's now decided that laps aren't all that bad. Actually quite comfortable on occasion. She sleeps a lot.

But she's still the dog who pretty much saved me back when. And still does most every day in her own inimitable way. And so on we go. I know the time is likely short. I treasure it all the more. Twilight has its joys.

Why the HRC Email "Scandal" Matters Very Little

Much to my dismay, much of the political discourse over the past week or so has concerned Hillary Clinton's email practices. Friends, pundits, and countrymen have advanced a series of reasons why this should or will matter to voters. I've found none of them particularly convincing.

One set of reasons revolves around the claim that her use of a personal server threatened national security, broke the law, violated regulations, or was simply a bad idea. It's pretty clear at this point that she violated no law or regulation with her email. In fact, by using a private account, she followed the practice of every SecState since the advent of email. John Kerry is the first to use a State account. Nor does it seem as if she threatened security in any way. So far as we know (and I'm guessing we would, to say the least) no one has hacked her account. Hackers apparently live in the State Department server. Finally, there's just the notion this is a bad idea. She agrees. If asked again, I suspect she'll repeat these words: "I followed precedent. I wish I hadn't and I know more now. I sure wouldn't do it again but, y'know, this stuff was new to me."

In addition, there is nowhere for this to go. She's turned over 55,000 pages. She's left out personal stuff and given examples of that stuff. The proportion of work to personal seems plausible. No one is pursuing any particular set of emails that might relate to any particular controversy that matters to anyone. For instance, when W. allowed former presidents to hide what they wanted basically forever, he was covering for Dad. We know from other sources that H.W. met with all the key players in the illegal Iran/Contra scheme and historians would very much like to know what he knew and when he knew it. There's a specific claim on our attention there. There is nothing like that with Clinton, unless you're a Benghazi conspiracy theorist (more on that later). No one can possibly get legal access to anything; there's no legal cause; there will be no next development; there's nowhere to go.

On a substantive level, there's no smoking gun, no evidence of bad faith, nothing, nada, zero.

On a process level, there are several issues.

First, some claim she's been slow or weak in her response, my friend Andy Heaton in particular. Maybe. But she didn't say, "I'll have to punt on that one." And it's early. If I made Andy give an Extemp speech today, he'd suck. If I gave him a couple of months, told him his career depended on it, then he'd do as well as ever, I suspect. She needs to get back in the flow and planning to run, thinking about running, etc. is not being in the flow. Responding to this is being in the flow. It'll come. I'm confident of that because....

Second, HRC has been the spouse or the candidate in elections in 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2006, and 2008. She's 9-2. In 08, she ran a very tough, strong campaign in which she (barely) lost to a once in a generation phenom. As an Obama supporter, I vividly remember the way she kept coming back, coming back, coming back. She's used the web as well as anyone but Obama and she has a much--much--better sense than he does of the ways one can use negative media attention to one's benefit--note the 2008 NH primary, for instance. I suspect she'll soon be turning this incident to her advantage. She can run a major campaign. And she's got the Obama web folks onboard.

Third, this sort of thing is already baked into the Clinton cake, as his philandering was. If you believe she somehow conspired something about Benghazi in some way to get something, that she murdered Vince Foster, that she's Lady MacBeth, etc., then you'll think the worst of this. So what. She's not going to reach you anyway. The polls haven't moved on her, so far as I've seen. They'll probably drop a bit after this, and then bound back up when she announces.

That leaves those who might support her and wonder whether this signals something bad or those who do support her and want to feel good about it. The former is a vanishingly small species. The country is so polarized politically that the true undecideds # is very small. But she does need to hold the Democratic presidential majority.

Again, it's early. I suspect over the next year, she'll nicely meld the Clinton/Obama agenda. She'll set forth a series of opportunity policies, from expansive child care to early education to strengthened Social Security to infrastructure to tax reform, etc. all designed to convince the massive middle that the Rs take away opportunity and she'll make opportunity. She'll argue that H.W. made a mess, and Bill cleaned it up. W made a mess and Obama cleaned it up. Now, you want to give Jeb a chance to make a mess? Srsly? This is our chance, the progressive chance, the American chance, to build a better nation, to build on accomplishments, to build on what is likely to be (God willing and the creek don't rise) 5-5.5% unemployment, cheap energy, no big wars, a low budget deficit, etc. and make something rather than waiting again to clean up a Bush mess. She'll claim we can make a future, we can make history with the first woman president and, as her 2008 electorate shows, she's got a better chance than Obama of cutting into R majorities among married white women and lower class white men.

Finally, of course, it's not a referendum on her, it's a contest between her and a Republican. By the start of 2016, we'll have a much better sense of that person's identity and then it'll be time to worry about HRC if events warrant that. So far, they haven't. This is simply catnip for the tiny minority who follow this stuff all of the time, not for people who will decide the election.

 

 

Netanyahu's Rerun: Meet the New Speech. Same as the Old Speech.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed Congress today, in the absence of 50 or so Democratic members. They boycotted the speech because it is unprecedented for the House Speaker to invite a foreign leader to the podium to attack an American president. Despite some honeyed words at the start, that's precisely what Netanyahu did. Plus, the address offers yet more troubling evidence that the Republican Party has yet to kick the neocon habit that has brought the US nothing but grief. Space precludes a full analysis, as does the fact that I have a day job, but let's look at three major rhetorical/ethical problems.

First, Netanyahu consistently and deceitfully moves between questions of fact, value, and policy. In public argument, we distinguish between the kinds of issues we're debating because, otherwise, our arguments fly past one another and solutions don't meet the needs we've identified. Questions of fact deal with reality: Is Elvis dead? Questions of value deal with morals: Is abortion ethical? Questions of policy deal with choices: Should we cut taxes to spur the economy? A serious problem results when speakers jump without distinction between them and it's an ethical problem when they assure audiences that they're addressing one while relying on another.

Netanyahu is nastily slick. Sometimes, he claims as fact that which is not fact; he asserts that anyone can Google what's in an agreement that has yet to be made. On one level, everyone knows the details of a secret negotiation are not likely to be public and, if they are, they're likely to be biased leaks and wrong. On a second level, we know he knows that, so he's falsely implying special knowledge of the negotiations (from briefings) and assuring us of an authority he does not in fact possess. He's lying.

More often, he poses a question of policy--Is this a good deal?--and answers it as a question of value--Iran is evil, so all deals with it are bad deals. This is dishonest on both an ethical and a practical level. Ethically, Netanyahu consistently lies to the audience about the nature of his claim--he's the hard headed realist making a practical judgment. He's not. He argues that Iran is so evil that any agreement would be bad. That is a values, not a policy argument. He tries to make it one with the implied link that one cannot make a policy agreement with irrational actors; they will not or cannot keep it. But, in doing so, he presents as a consensus the judgment that Iran is irrational when that is simply not the belief of most Israeli and American experts. They think Iran will abide by agreements. Jonathan Chait notes, "That’s why the Bush administration’s 2007 National Intelligence Estimate said Iran is “guided by a cost-benefit approach.” It’s why Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in 2012 that “we are of the opinion that Iran is a rational actor.” It’s why Benny Gantz, then head of the Israel Defense Forces, declared the same year that “the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.” It’s why Meir Dagan, the longtime head of Israel’s intelligence agency, called the Iranian regime “rational” in an interview with 60 Minutes. And it’s why Ron Burgess, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress that “the agency assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or provoke a conflict.”  Netanyahu wishes to transform a question of policy--How can we best forestall an Iranian nuclear weapon?--into a question of value--How can we best signal our moral repugnance at the Iranian regime?

Second, that leads to a serious plan meet need problem. We assume the plans offered in speeches meet the need identified. President Obama thinks a negotiated agreement, if we can get one, is the best way to forestall an Iranian nuke. Netanyahu thinks....what? Moral disapproval? A "better deal"? He pulls a trick popular among politicians and others forever--he sets conditions he knows the other party will not accept. He then points the finger and claims the failure is their fault. That's all well and good, but, to coin a phrase, failure is not an option. The status quo will result in an Iranian bomb, a fact that is distinctly absent from Netanyahu's speech. So, if Netanyahu believes that the Iranians are so evil (more evil than the Soviets?) that no agreement is possible, then his alternative is....? It can only be war. And even a military strike, by all estimates, will set back the Iranian bomb for less time than what's rumored to be a ten year deal. This is a strategically and ethically bankrupt speech.

That makes it quite attractive to contemporary American neoconservatives. Matt Yglesias best characterized neocons with his "Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics." The Green Lantern corps is a fictional intergalactic peacekeeping force in DC comics. Each member gets a green power ring that can, basically, do anything. It is limited only by the willpower and imagination of the wearer. Yglesias writes,

"A lot of people seem to think that American military might is like one of these power rings. They seem to think that, roughly speaking, we can accomplish absolutely anything in the world through the application of sufficient military force. The only thing limiting us is a lack of willpower. What's more, this theory can't be empirically demonstrated to be wrong. Things that you or I might take as demonstrating the limited utility of military power to accomplish certain kinds of things are, instead, taken as evidence of lack of will. Thus we see that problems in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't reasons to avoid new military ventures, but reasons why we must embark upon them."

The Republican/Netanyahu solution is clear. Contrary to everything the military has said, we can simply destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure and we can do it with no consequences. All we need is the willpower. Just like Iraq the first time. And the second time. Now the third time.

This is based, as Netanyahu's speech implies, but does not argue, on an analogy to 1938. If only the democracies had stood up to Hitler at Munich, then all would have been well. They simply lacked any Churchillian backbone. They appeased.

Really? Well, how would that have worked? Would Hitler have backed down, as he did in the face of war on September 1, 1939 (sarcasm)? Were the Allies ready for war in 38? Would they have done any better than they did in 39 and 40? If Hitler had "backed down," would he have stayed in power? How would that have worked? Needless to say, the limits of historical analogy never occur to these people.

For the neocon, it's always 1938 in Munich and s/he is always Churchill. Although the right always accuses the left of identity politics, this is their form of it. By being "tough and clear," with no "moral ambiguity," you show what kind of a man you are. You are, in fact, quite manly and those others--those women, those diplomats, that president--is not. Identity, willpower, a Green Ring, that's the key to success, according to this speech. It's not. As is always true, as Reinhold Niebuhr should have taught these people, success results from difficult, annoying, endless work. From moral compromises that are unsatisfactory but better than the alternatives. It's called life.

 

Brian Williams, NBC, and Moral Panic

I'm at something of a loss to understand the furor over Brian Williams and his serial exaggerations. But I think the concept of a moral panic helps to explain it. A moral panic occurs when gatekeepers seize upon an incident, person, or group of people to portray it or them as a serious threat to the social order. Usually, the accusation is an exaggeration, meant to enforce the power of the gatekeepers, to police important boundaries, or to distract attention from worse offenses. So, let's think about what Williams did, how NBC reacted in practical and moral terms, and why it makes sense to see this as a moral panic.

My reading of too many articles (and I could still be wrong) is this: On a reporting trip to Iraq, Williams flew in a helicopter convoy. It may or may not have come under small arms fire. A convoy ahead of them did come under small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire. Williams may or may not have heard that over a headset and, given the seating arrangements and the bad view, could have thought it was his convoy. Nonetheless, he clearly knew, at minimum, that he had not come under RPG fire. Initially, he told the story with some accuracy at the various speeches he gave but over the years it gradually evolved into a narrative that put him at the center of the action--the brave newsman, in khakis (of course) risking his life in the company of American heroes. Similarly, he may have exaggerated the conditions he saw in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, although this has not drawn quite as much press.

I'd argue this was a minor sin, at worst. Williams exaggerated in order to make himself look better, more dangerous, a real newsman out in the field. Since no anchor ever really does that ever in their lives any more, they perform instead a simulacrum of fieldwork as anchors. They don the right clothes--that's very important to this performance--and head out onto the beach in a hurricane, Times Square in a blizzard, a helicopter in a war, a ship out on the Gulf in a well leak. They are always surrounded, coached, produced, coddled and safe and deep down, I suspect they hate that. So, they tell some tall tales, much like the ones I tell of my speech team experiences. I suspect the lunch meat really wasn't (always) moldy, the hotels (except for Tomah and Baltimore) weren't quite that bad, nor was the coach completely insane. This was a version of the "walked to school in a blizzard ten miles uphill both ways when I was a kid" lie and "why do YOU get a snow day?"

Think about what he did NOT do. He did not commit a major personal transgression--he did not commit adultery, serial rapes facilitated by drugs, a DUI, crash a car that kills someone, etc.. He did not plagiarize a news story, lie about a source, commit a Judith Miller, pay for a story, pay a source--in fact, there's no evidence he ever got a story wrong. As a matter of fact, he and Anderson Cooper probably did the most to stoke outrage about Katrina and create a correct consensus that Bush screwed up and people needed help.

Should NBC have suspended a #1 anchor and a rare bright spot at a besieged network? Because, honestly, it's Lorne Michaels, Jimmy Fallon, and Brian Williams. That's about it at NBC. Now, you can cut Williams. Should they have done it? No.

Practically speaking, we know the playbook for these transgressions and many considerably worse. The gatekeepers rage. You lower your head, bite your lower lip, and say (Southern accents? Use 'em if you got 'em), "I deeply regret the damage I've done to my friends and family. All I can do now is to work harder for them and for the American people every day. Every. Single. Day." When the gatekeepers rage again, and say you have no credibility, you just keep saying that and doing your job. Because most people simply don't care about this stuff. And Bill Clinton knew that. Show regret. Move on. Ignore the pontificators. That's the playbook.

In a larger moral context, let's think about NBC. Since Tom Brokaw created the Greatest Generation, it has been the most consistent and powerful advocate of the military in the media landscape. It has made veterans stories its own; it pulls Brokaw out of mothballs at every opportunity; it constantly passes along inside info from the Pentagon; its reporters and anchors wore flag lapel pins in during the Iraq War; John McCain is basically a co-host of Meet the Press. It never, not once, reflected upon its coverage of the leadup to the Iraq war nor its gullibility in its acceptance of Bush Administration lies. Unlike the NYT and other outlets, for instance, it never investigated its reporting. The contrast to the present situation is stark. In search of ratings, it put David Gregory in charge of Meet the Press. This is not an institution known for its ethics. Brian Williams has been the least of their troubles over the past twenty years.

And that's why they fell into moral panic. I think the concept explains two aspects of this. When your credibility, like NBC's, truly should have gone away due to your sins (the Iraq War), I think you find yourself deeply sensitive to smaller infractions. In the classic, stereotypical example, if the guy replaces the toilet paper roll every single time it needs it, he's likely committed adultery.

Second, and more important, the media landscape has flattened. People like me can pontificate. The only thing that protects the big money in national news is the appearance of gravitas. Let's face it, all kinds of geeky folks on the interwebs and elsewhere are way smarter than the mainstream media and likely able to outthink and outreport them. The only thing the big boys have going for them is an exaggerated sense of self, a cultural sense of weight, of matter, of tradition, of being the place to go, so that old folks like me will keep watching the evening news. Absent that, if they have to compete on even terms, if Andrea Mitchell really has to match her "wits" against Thomas Ricks or Jonathan Chait, it's over. It's not about substance; it's about the appearance of substance, the illusion of weight. That's why the appearance of impropriety--a tall tale--is so much worse than an actual impropriety--swallowing lies that make a war. Because appearance is all they have left. And appearance earns them millions and millions of dollars.

The British have the perfect term. A television presenter. Brian Williams is an excellent presenter. He does that job very well and people like him in that role. He should be allowed to keep it.

It's a Bad Start for Bruce Rauner

I'm a liberal and I desperately want Republican Governor Bruce Rauner to succeed. By some estimates, Illinois faces as much as a $9 billion dollar budget deficit for the coming year. For decades, under governors of both parties, the state failed to support its pension funds and it failed to address a structural deficit in its budget. We're a mess. As a result, Illinois voters turned to a billionaire to bail them out and, like most people, I hoped we were getting a practical, capable executive. We have not yet seen that man. His mistakes have been legion. This AP story supports many of the claims I make below.

First, he signed a series of executive orders that no one quite understands. They were designed to freeze spending and address alleged corruption, yet they were so badly drafted, no one quite knows what they mean or what sorts of acts will violate them. Now, Rauner is no lawyer, but he did hire the people who drafted these orders which leads to...

Second, Rauner has spent much of the transition and his early days as governor misleadingly and hypocritically attacking those he is supposed to lead. He's argued repeatedly that state employees are paid too much, using a Pew study that failed to correct for comparable education and skill levels. A 2013 UI study did and found that public employees in Illinois could expect to be paid 13.5% less than similar folks in the private sector. Now, that includes local employees, but nonetheless, it casts serious doubt on Rauner's claim. Moreover, he's paying his office staff 36% more than his predecessor. He's justified that by saying, get this, that they're taking significant cuts to leave the private sector and thus he has to pay them something like what they're worth. Yes, Governor, that's right, public employees make LESS, contrary to what you've been saying. And how good are these people if they can't catch THIS gaffe or draft a clear executive order?

Third, he's spent the last few weeks blaming everything but the pension problems for the deficit. There are issues. But, he's not quite telling the truth. There is a rise in Medicaid recipients, but the feds are covering nearly all of that. He decries the business environment and argues for right to work laws, but Moody's Analytics notes that "Illinois' business climate outshines its regional rivals," and that business costs "are now lower than those in Wisconsin and Ohio but higher than those in neighboring Missouri and Indiana." The latter is likely true because of "high metropolitan areas [Chicago] with unique features that appeal to business such as California and New York" do. Plus, right to work laws reduce union membership but likely do not contribute to economic growth in the long run due to the "downward pressure on incomes" that results.

Fourth, his animus toward unions is significantly damaging his political credibility. Illinois is a blue state. Both houses of the state legislature have Democratic super-majorities. Not simply majorities--super majorities, enough Ds to pass anything over the Governor's veto. Plus, even Republicans like public unions in Illinois. When the anti-union theme of his recent tour of the state became clear, only 1 Republican lawmaker showed up for his speech in Decatur and none in Champaign. Downstate. That's Republicanland. Those are areas represented by Republican Congressmen. Respect for him is low enough that when he offered his own plan for a long term minimum wage hike during his State of the State address, Democratic legislators openly laughed. And, again, they're a super majority.

Most important, he's simply refused to speak about the elephant in the room--the budget crisis. He's offered no hints, no plans, no trial balloons on his budget, nothing nada, not in his Inaugural nor in his State of the State. It's as if when Ronald Reagan assumed office in 1981, he decided that, rather than persuading people to support his budget plans, he would speak about free trade agreements. Reagan liked free trade and it was part of the conservative agenda, but it was completely beside the point at that point. The crap Rauner is peddling is beside the point and he's wasting precious time and capital doing so.

Bruce Rauner had--still has--two choices. He can be Jim Edgar, a wonderful former Republican Governor who focused like a laser beam on the state's problems and worked with Democrats to solve them. Or, he can be Scott Walker. Yeech. So far, he's chosen the latter. I hope he changes his mind.