The good news is...
...that the psychopath who said this:

The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

...is going to get repudiated this fall along with the psychopathic wing of the grand old psychopathic party that laughed with him and stuck with him through thick and thin and lies piled upon lies.

It's the possibility of the electoral annihilation of the Republican Party that intrigues me about Obama. But I can't count on it, and I just don't believe he'd be met halfway by people like Bush and the kind of people who laughed with Bush there in Mississippi. For the endless, bitter rearguard fight the Mitch McConnells of the world are sure to put up if Dems win in November, maybe we need a team with a little less youthful enthusiasm and a little more guile and venom. That's what intrigues me about Clinton. I'd be fine with either one picking the other for Vice President.*

Come fall, I now think I'll be working for either one. But my mantras won't be "Change You Can Believe In" or "Hillary Cares." They'll be "Remember New Orleans," "Out of Iraq," and "Let's Drown the GOP in the Bathtub This Time."




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* What about Edwards? Novak may just be engaging in campaign season mischief, but I'd be happy if his Attorney General rumor comes true . posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:47:00 PM -- |  

 
Help a Posner-fightin' blogger out
Dave Neiwert ("Orcinus") is doing a bit of fundraising over at his blog, and you should head over and give him some of your hard-earned cash for... what? For nothin'.

Actually, not for nothing. Neiwert is an excellent writer, author, and journalist, who now contributes to the liberal/progressive supersite "firedoglake" as well. In a recent post there, "Repackaging Korematsu," he picks up on Stephen Griffin's observation (at "Balkinization") that a certain variety of legal mind is now trying to peddle the story that Korematsu v. United States -- the Supreme Court ruling OK'ing the Japanese internments during World War II -- was only a terrible decision in guilt-ridden, liberal, 20/20 hindsight. Among said peddlers, I'm not surprised to learn, is the "pragmatist" judge and frequent op-ed scribbler Richard Posner. Griffin:

Apparently making a comment about liberals today, Posner states: “Liberals detest Korematsu, but not because it allowed pragmatism to trump principle; rather because of suspicion of the military and a sense of shame about the history of the nation’s mistreatment of East Asians.”

And surely we can all agree that suspicion of the military and shame about mistreating East Asians are mere emotional outbursts, unworthy of such eminent and pragmatic folk as ourselves. But Griffin and Neiwert make the point that the internments weren't just opposed in hindsight; Griffin writes that "[m]ost responsible lawyers with access to relevant information knew the internment was unjustified at the time." Neiwert:

The problem, of course, is not that "pragmatism trumped principle" in the Korematsu ruling -- it's that hysteria trumped both pragmatism and principle, a hysteria fueled by unchecked military officials seeking to accrue new powers outside the purview of the courts. [...]

Neiwert makes a couple of important points that extend and crystallize Griffin's post. First, the argument helps "the Bush administration further open wide the hole in the Constitution (one, in fact, largely created by the internment episode) by wildly expanding executive-branch powers during wartime."

The second and perhaps even more instructive point is that the "Korematsu -- you had to be there" notion was also circulated by the eminent legal thinkers and noted online harpies Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin,* illustrating the principle that in the wingnut ecosphere, the worse the idea, the more often it is reconsumed and re-excreted.

Another "Balkinization" post by Eric Tamanaha once crystallized my own feeling that while Judge Posner might write elegantly, he was a worthless guide to human rights, civil liberties, and especially to how to safeguard them with the laws he's supposed to judge by. According to Tamanaha, Posner once wrote:

The way I approach a case as a judge--maybe you think it heresy--is first to ask myself what would be a reasonable, sensible result, as a lay person would understand it, and then, having answered that question, to ask whether that result is blocked by clear constitutional or statutory text, governing precedent, or any other conventional limitation on judicial discretion. That is how I would proceed if asked to decide a case challenging the legality of the NSA surveillance program.

Perfect: start with the result you want, and work your way back to the legal flim-flammery you can employ to justify it. Those of us watching this kind of thing from home may often feel powerless to stop it. But with David Neiwert's help, at least you know what's going on and can observe the life cycle of a nasty little wingnut idea, from its birth as a judicious little sentiment in a $34.95 hardback by Judge Posner, to its final instar as degraded spewings by Coulter or Malkin.

So when you give Neiwert a nice donation, why, it's almost like you're kicking Posner or Malkin in the shins. Surely that's worth a little something.


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* See Muller vs. Malkin and Malkin v. Muller on this site. -- It's not clear Neiwert means to imply otherwise, but it seems to me Posner's arguments preceded Malkin's. Judging by the "Bush v. Gore" description in Griffin's post, he seems to be citing Posner's 2001 book "Breaking the Deadlock," though the judge appears to have made a similar argument in a 2003 book "Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy". Either way, Malkin -- whose book was published in 2004 -- is likelier to have picked up the general idea from Posner than the other way around.

UPDATE, 2/1: LOC photo added. -- My post fails to mention that Mr. Neiwert has written a book about the Japanese internment, "Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community," so I'm correcting that here.
UPDATE, 2/26: Kip Esquire ("A Stitch in Haste") is another Posner-fightin' blogger, e.g., More Posner Rantings Against Civil Liberties, 9/27/06.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:42:00 AM -- |  

 
Edwards

You saw it coming back in Iowa, really, certainly by the time he scored so very low in Nevada. By the time he came in a distant third in his home state of South Carolina, you had to wonder what was keeping him going. I for one was not looking forward to the one in a thousand scenario of a hung convention and Edwards somehow walking off with it there.

But it still grieves me to see him bow out, and I think his speech today again showed what was good and hopeful about him and his campaign: a good disposition even on a day that must have been very painful, a champion of labor, and above all a focus on actual people who need help and who he intended to help. That all might still be a winner this election, I hope Obama and Clinton give it their full consideration. And I wonder if New Orleans gets another visit by a presidential candidate this year.

I'm obviously out of the habit of writing lately, so I'll just record a couple of excellent posts about John Edwards. First, Matt Yglesias ("John Edwards's Indelible Mark"):

It's widely noted that there's no enormous policy gap between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Less widely noted is that it didn't always have to be that way. Both Clinton and Obama are running on domestic platforms that are much, much, much more ambitious than anything Al Gore or John Kerry put on the table. And not because Kerry was a notably right-wing Democrat or Clinton a from-the-left insurgent. Rather, the centre of gravity within the party shifted several notches left between the last cycle and this one. In part, that was a response to shifting dynamics in the real world. But to a surprising extent, it was simply a response to John Edwards. [...]

The 2008 version of Edwards chose instead to swing for the fences. His healthcare plan set the pace for the competition, forcing rivals to adopt similarly bold proposals. Similarly, his climate change proposal is sweeping enough to meet the standard that scientists tell us is necessary to avert catastrophe. In retrospect, it seems bizarre to hail that as an achievement - surely anyone, certainly any major Democrat, would be on board for such a plan, right? But the truth is that they weren't on board until Edwards was. And so on down the line from poverty to education to nuclear proliferation - on issue after issue Edwards became the candidate of big, smart ideas.

In what must have been an agonizing experience for him and his campaign, he suffered the misfortune that his ideas were so good that others decided to embrace similar ones. Obama and Clinton both seemed determined to move far enough left to deprive Edwards of the oxygen he would need to catch fire. And, in the end, they succeeded. Edwards's hole card was his ideas, but the thing about ideas is you can't stop other people from using the good ones.

Ezra Klein wrote several posts today along similar lines; one that emphasizes Elizabeth Edwards stands out. But I'll go back to his profile of Edwards, which probably did as much as anything else to put me down as an Edwards supporter:

But his Four Trials, unlike most campaign tracts, doesn't say a word about his experience in the Senate or his plans for the country. Instead, it recounts a quartet of trials Edwards fought: two against corporations, two against doctors. More to the point, it introduces four clients whom Edwards fought for: ordinary individuals who display heroic endurance in the face of profoundly unfair events. At the close of one wrenching trial, Edwards turns to the jury and says, "What you have been doing for the last seven weeks is you have been watching what happens when absolute corporate indifference collides with absolute innocence. That's what this case is. That is what this case is about. And that is why you are here."

In some ways, that is also what Edwards' campaign is about, why he is here. When we sit down for an interview, one of the first questions I ask him is whether he thinks of himself as a populist. "If I knew what that meant," he laughs, "I could answer that question." But as I start to offer a definition, he interjects: "Can I answer first, then you tell me? I don't want my answer to be influenced by the other definition. If being a populist means standing up for regular people so they don't get … ," and here he pauses, searching for the right words, "… stomped on by powerful multinational corporations, the answer is, 'Yes.'" I abandon my own definition, which, by comparison, would seem tinny and esoteric.

Senator Edwards has my thanks for running the campaign he did. I hope he and his wife find new political roles in our country commensurate with their abundant talents, intelligence, and heart.


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MORE: eRobin, who says, "[Edwards's] message - that the only way to change the corporatist direction of this country is through unrelenting political action of regular people - is the most important one that Edwards could have chosen to share today."
Avedon Carol links to one heck of an ice-cold shower for Obama fans (by Paul Street), and writes, "...I don't think changing the physical shape or color of a president is going to do much for you and me, let alone all those people who can't even vote in this election. So what do I do, now?"
YET MORE: Greg Sargent puts together clips of Elizabeth Edwards pushing back against Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Chris Matthews, and reminds that Edwards was the first to refuse to participate in a scheduled debate to be hosted by FOX News in Nevada.

UPDATE, 1/31: The CAP Progress Report lead item -- "Edwards Blazed A Progressive Trail" -- salutes Edwards's poverty, health care, climate change, and Iraq proposals, with lots of links. Here's hoping Edwards is a better version, for the Democratic Party, of what Goldwater once was to the GOP -- a harbinger of substantive change in tone and substance, more influential in defeat than many before him were in victory.
UPDATE, 2/1: Krugman: "...even as his personal quest for the White House faltered, his ideas triumphed: both candidates left standing are, to a large extent, running on the platform Mr. Edwards built."
posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:23:00 PM -- |