Martin Schneider writes:
In 2005 I attended a debate on the then-hot topic of “Social Security Reform,” featuring Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, Paul Krugman of The New York Times, and Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute. I was reading a transcript of the debate earlier this evening, and I was struck by an odd parallel or perhaps mirror relationship between that political fight, which the Democrats won, and the fight to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2009-10, which the Democrats won.
The parallel I’m interested in is not that the Democrats won both fights. Rather, the resemblance has to do with what a ruling party does when it pushes an ambitious reform that is not very popular.
A little bit of context. The debate took place on March 15, 2005. After his reelection in 2004, George W. Bush chose to move forward on a favored policy idea of his, Social Security Reform. The Republicans had initially called the project “Social Security Privatization,” but after noticing how poorly that term polled, they switched up their terminology and began accusing Democrats of having attempted to demonize them with this term, “privatization.” (Something very similar happened later the same year with the term “nuclear option.”) The “private accounts” morphed into “personal accounts”—Republicans generally began running away from their own terms.
That spring, Marshall had a huge amount of fun trying to make Republican congresspersons squirm by asking them whether they supported Bush’s plan on Social Security (whatever name you gave it). Over those weeks, it became harder and harder to get any Republican congressperson to state on the record that they supported privatizing Social Security. The plan fizzled out, in the face of Democratic unity in favor of preserving the current system for the time being.
(I mentioned that Marshall got some enjoyment by embarrassing and neutralizing these Republicans. That is a massive understatement; I think when Marshall looks back on his illustrious career of Internet muckraking, this episode, in which he tarred this or that Republican a “bamboozler,” will be on the short list of the most satisfying moments of all.)
In the debate, Marshall was asked to describe the political aspect of the battle over Social Security reform (as opposed to the substantive side). In his opening remarks, Marshall said this:

The second thing is, and Democrats did this very quickly, is their party unity took away all the political cover. It was really going to be up to Republicans to make privatization an entirely Republican enterprise, and they were too afraid to do it because a lot of those representatives could see how their constituents were going to react and so forth.

Re-reading the transcript tonight, it was this passage that reminded me so much of the fight to pass the ACA (what used to be known as “the health reform bill”). That phrase, “an entirely Republican enterprise”…. that’s the position the Democrats were in all of last year, wasn’t it? You bet it was.
A person might conclude from this that Democrats and Republicans both obstruct, but that the Democrats happened to be better at it (aided by a larger minority than the Republicans now have). But I think there’s something more fundamental going on that tells you a great deal about the two parties and what they stand for.
Consider these two statements:

In 2005 the Republicans, in control of the White House and Congress, proposed a bold new reform that would affect a key area of American life, and it didn’t poll very well, and as soon as the unpopularity of the proposal was made apparent, the Republicans dropped the policy when they realized that it would be associated solely with Republicans.

In 2009-10 the Democrats, in control of the White House and Congress, proposed a bold new reform that would affect a key area of American life, and it didn’t poll very well, and as soon as the unpopularity of the proposal was made apparent, the Democrats, with a great deal of difficulty, passed the policy even though they realized that it would be associated solely with Democrats.

To put it more simply, both parties were given an opportunity to foist their favored policies on the nation in a unilateral way. The Republicans did not want to be associated with their own stated policies, but the Democrats were willing to be associated with their own stated policies.
I have a few conclusions about this, which may reflect my political bias.
Conclusion 1: By and large, Republican positions are minority positions, and Democratic positions are majority positions. Or to put it another way, the Bush administration and the Republican Congress of 2002-2007 found it difficult to implement their ideas because they were favored by such a small portion of the electorate. The Democrats of 2010 do not have this problem; their ideas held by a great many people, broadly speaking.
Conclusion 2: Democrats are sincere about their policy ideas; Republicans are not. I don’t want to overstate this too much, but there is more than a kernel of truth to it. Republican ideas ideas sound appealing and have some populist appeal but would have pernicious effects. Republicans express generalized distaste for the government services, but a lot of that is just rhetoric, and when push comes to shove, they are not very interested in decreasing those services. Contrariwise, the Democrats are more willing to argue for the benefits of social services and intelligent deployment of government generally, and when the going gets tough, it turns out that they actually do believe that.
And lastly,
Conclusion 3: Democratic ideas are good ideas; Republican ideas are bad ideas. Again, don’t want to take this too far. But the fight in 2005 was between a group that wanted to kill or at least diminish Social Security in favor of retirement accounts tied to the stock market in some broad way. Surely, the stock market crash of 2008 reveals this to have been a terrible idea.
Similarly, the fight of 2009-10 was between a group that wanted to provide uninsured people with health care and a group that was quite happy to keep them uninsured. Democratic ideas are easier to defend not only because they are popular but also because they are genuinely good ideas.
Thus endeth the sermon.

Martin Schneider writes:
I’m still reeling from the resentments and denial and misguided assumptions inherent in Laura Bush’s interview with Chris Wallace of FOX News, as quoted in this Jezebel post, anyway. (I haven’t watched the interview itself.)
The takeaway is that Laura Bush censored herself in order to conform to the image of a good conservative wife, and now she’s upset that she doesn’t get the fawning press that Michelle Obama gets. Something like that. For me, the whole thing is resonant in tons of ways, as if the cross-section of gender, politics, and society isn’t generally volatile.
Bush’s mild griping about being placed in a “box” proves yet again that when it comes to femininity, even relatively shrewd choices that involve denying one’s own power as a woman are counterproductive. Laura Bush, who I believe is pro-choice, anti-war, and in favor of increased civil rights for homosexuals, took one for the team, played the quiet wifey, and now she envies liberal women who, whether it works out well or badly, express their entire selves, come what may.
It’s also interesting that she identifies liberal women as getting some big break from the media—is she familiar with Hillary Clinton?
Given her political beliefs and her apparent disappointment about her role as First Lady, I’d suggest that she consider voting Democratic next time.
Beyond that, it’s fascinating to see just how much denial is tied up in the conservative, or at least Bushian, worldview. Laura Bush had to lobotomize her public persona, and is today not so happy with the outcomes that flowed from that choice. Meanwhile, conservatives of all stripes took a “don’t talk about Daddy’s drinking problem” attitude towards Bush’s deficiencies. There’s something deep going on here. Liberals may be blinkered on all sorts of things, but we don’t have the specific problem of getting tied up in knots because we refuse to countenance this or that.
Jezebel has it right when it observes that Michelle Obama didn’t exactly rush to be placed in a “box.” Laura may tell herself that it’s not proper for a First Lady to do X or Y, but for once, the “trickle-down” logic of Republicans turns out to be on the money. If it’s not proper for the First Lady to do that, then doesn’t that logic extend to “ladies” of all descriptions? How far down the chain of power do you have to go before it’s all right for a wife to have a different public opinion than that of her husband?
The problem with George Bush’s ideas about executive privilege is that you can’t draw a circle around the presidency and say, “We believe in accountability in life, but not in this area”—people are going to draw logical conclusions from a move like that, for instance that you are ipso facto opposed to accountability.
And the exact same thing holds true for the First Lady. When you issue yourself a gag order, you can’t then turn around and complain that your complexity has been silenced or whitewashed. And that predicament has everything to do with the limitations of conservative visions of propriety and femininity.
Update: Having now watched the video, I now confess to a suspicion that this post is just a tad too strident. Most of her assertions are fair enough, taken at face value. For example, First Ladies are in a box, and that doesn’t have that much to do with Laura Bush or any specific person. Plus she comes off as really sensible and likable. However, the logic I’m responding to is still inherent in certain utterances and elisions, and as such, I still think that my take and also Jezebel’s take are both entirely in bounds.

Martin Schneider writes:
Kevin Drum flags an interesting comment by Woody Allen on the benefits of belief, from an interview with Ronald Lauder:

I was with Billy Graham once, and he said that even if it turned out in the end that there is no God and the universe is empty, he would still have had a better life than me. I understand that. If you can delude yourself by believing that there is some kind of Santa Claus out there who is going to bail you out in the end, then it will help you get through. Even if you are proven wrong in the end, you would have had a better life.

It reminded me that a few weeks ago, I watched Woody Allen interview Billy Graham on The Woody Allen Show (1969). That telecast was a curious kind of variety show that also featured some sketches and a performance by The Fifth Dimension. (The commercials, all for Libby’s canned vegetables and featuring Tony Randall as an inept sleuth, are quite amusing in a Mad Men-ish way.)
In the interview, Allen and Graham treat each other with affable respect; it’s quite fascinating to watch them discuss the merits of legalizing marijuana. It’s easy to see why Graham was so greatly admired during his life. It’s funny that we consider 1969 the high-water mark for cultural turmoil in the United States, but after a generation’s worth of culture wars, it’s very difficult to imagine such a civil conversation between, say, Zach Galifianakis and Rick Warren. (Even on Oprah.) You also get to see Allen in a rabbi getup (but not during the interview).
You can watch the entire show here.
I am indebted to WFMU’s “Listener Kliph Nesteroff” for making this show known to me, in his detailed and engrossing account of Allen’s early years. Nesteroff has done the same noble service for David Letterman, George Carlin, Betty White, and others. Look out for those as well.

Martin Schneider writes:
A week or two ago, Jonathan Taylor flagged an interesting post by Tyler Cowen, in which he remarked that

In the longer run I expect “annotated” books will be available for full public review, though Kindle-like technologies. You’ll be reading Rousseau’s Social Contract and be able to call up the five most popular sets of annotations, the three most popular condensations, J.K. Rowling’s nomination for “favorite page,” a YouTube of Harold Bloom gushing about it, and so on.

I note for the record that Amazon has started to make users’ favorite passages in its Kindle books available on the Internet. (Hat tip: Kottke.)
(* Having written that title, I must now put on my “reader” hat and object that it makes no sense whatsoever—Cowen never objected to this future, after all. It was Benjamin Chambers who expressed worries about this, in the comments to Jonathan’s post. With any luck, future readers of this post will pick up on my gloss down here. —MCS)

Martin Schneider writes:
I am indebted to “SEK” at Lawyers, Guns, and Money for directing my attention to the comic stylings of Chris Muir. SEK pivots from some observations on Garry Trudeau (I almost wrote “Marshall”; there are only so many people named “Garry” around) to pick Muir’s work apart. That post is worth reading.
If you don’t know—I didn’t—Muir writes comics that are similar to Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoons, except that they represent the conservative point of view; they’re all “Sunday format,” as far as I can tell. SEK points out two important things about Muir’s work (for which, see here). First, each strip is a transparent attempt to dress up the wingnut talking point of the moment in a wry, witty package (and generally fails); and second, Muir crams in as many unmotivated images of pretty young women in a state of undress as he can. (They’re sexualized in a way that Trudeau’s Boopsie—who is, after all, a Playboy Playmate—never was; Boopsie has levels, man….)
I’m sure I’m not the first person to point this out, but It’s interesting that the inhabitants of Muir’s Obama-hostile world appear to be, demographically speaking, Obama voters. Everyone is young and slim; everyone looks like a sleek urban professional; and one guy is a cocoa-colored sort of Obama surrogate. I briefly toyed with the idea that he is the strip’s token Obama supporter, but I honestly can’t parse a good number of these cartoons—it goes so far in the “wry” direction of the spectrum (while spouting some pretty silly Tea Party truisms) that it’s often impossible to tell what the joke, exactly, is. Either way, this light-skinned black man is enlisted in the service of an anti-Obama narrative.
In any case, psychologically, dramatically, that attempt, to dress up Tea Party logic in the trappings of hip and ironic young liberals, simply fails. I’m not even making any broader criticism here, other than to say that these people don’t seem like Republicans a lot of the time, and that sometimes makes the strips confusing. (If Archie Bunker had been played by Robert Redford rather than Carroll O’Connor, surely the points wouldn’t have landed so effectively.)
I suppose the reason Muir does that is not artistic but political; he wants to make the critiques of Obama seem more grounded than they really are, as if hip, verbal urbanites are forever wringing their hands at the assault on liberty Obama represents.
The strip features that hallmark feature of Hysterical Anti-Obamaism, to wit, the unsubstantiated claim. So we hear that Obama desires to be king, that “this is a center-right nation by any measure” (what about the measure of losing elections?), that Obama is a statist, that he is ruling “by fiat,” and so on. All of this is by now so familiar that even I am bored with this paragraph. Yet the point stands, and it’s useful to keep mentioning it as long as it remains true.
When comprehension becomes a problem, as it sometimes did for me, it’s not surprising that the ones that “succeed” have less of a partisan edge. For example, there’s one making fun of the censoring of Muhammad’s image on South Park that isn’t awful.
I guess it’s interesting to see such “hot” rhetoric conveyed in such a “cool” manner. I almost want to give Muir points for that, were it not for the evident truth that “legitimizing” that rhetoric is the whole point.
The parallels to Doonesbury here are at once unmissable and thoroughly implicit, as far as I can tell; nobody ever says outright, “Doonesbury was too liberal” or “This is the conservative’s Doonesbury,” but the message—should I say “critique”?—is clear either way.
So a few brief points about Doonesbury before I wrap up. I grew up reading ’em, and I’m a fan, although I haven’t looked at them much since, I don’t know, college. So yeah, you know, I knew Doonesbury, Doonesbury was a friend of mine….
Doonesbury may have been “liberal,” but the strip has lasted for several decades now, under presidents both Republican and Democratic, and I didn’t notice that the strip got much less funny when, say, Carter was in the White House.
It’s a commonplace point, but the mark of a true satirist is that the targets can change but the essential imperative of puncturing hypocrisy or pomp remains the same. True satirists don’t go out of business when their guys seize power; only the hacks do. I note as a matter of record that when Trudeau took his 20-month leave of absence, the president of the country was named Reagan—it’s a little difficult to imagine Rush Limbaugh doing anything similar, now that the president of the country is named Obama. If Trudeau were really so partisan or really such a hack, surely he would have relished every opportunity to ridicule doddering old Ronald Reagan.
The other thing is that Trudeau did, ultimately, inject more than a modicum of psychological depth into his characters. Rather than play so aggressively against type, as Muir does, Trudeau worked within the archetypes, fleshing each character out over many years, with the end result that they did acquire a good deal of nuance (okay, Duke never did). I sincerely wish that Muir is able to do that sort of thing for many decades (so long as he gets funnier). It would be great if he could poke fun at—shudder—a President Palin or a President Gingrich, should that terrible day ever arrive. I’m not counting on it, though.

Martin Schneider writes:
A few weeks ago it was reported that the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, had purchased the letters and ephemera of David Foster Wallace. One item of note was his dictionary, which contained various markings. It’s difficult to think of another writer for whom the personal dictionary would be of such special interest, but no popular writer ever used such pointedly obscure words so frequently and so winningly.
Now Slate has cleverly provided a list of words circled by Wallace. The words on the list couldn’t be better, they are almost all quite obscure; I think many highly literate people will be unfamiliar with a great many of them. They are also quite Wallacean, and in certain cases the close reader of Wallace will be able to remember specific words and the exact context in which they appear in Wallace’s works. (For example, I think “espadrille” makes an appearance in the opening pages of Infinite Jest.)
The least difficult word on the list may be “tennis,” which pursuit had a particular importance to Wallace. It’s remarkable to see that word, of all words, nestled between “tenesmus” and “tepefy.”
Although the list is difficult, it also provides hope. For the implicit meaning of a word circled in the dictionary is that the word was a new acquaintance to the encircler. So in considering a writer of so vast a vocabulary as Wallace, even he had to do the ignoble legwork of tracking down these words, much the same way a foreign student of the language might have to circle “shoulder” or “carrot.”
Learning about language is an inherently democratic pastime—and also one that never comes to an end.