PAUL RYAN DOES NOT WANT TO BE VP

"No, but you…well, I don’t have the time. It would take me too long to go through all of the math."

As I am a thinking man, a lot of things come to mind when I view a clip like this. It comes to mind that Paul Ryan is prevaricating. It comes to mind that the Romney campaign hasn't released the details of his proposed tax plan to somehow reduce taxes and close loopholes without adding to the deficit. As we are now just over a month away from the election, it comes to mind that Romney does not have plan at all, and intends to wing it if elected. But mostly, it comes to mind that Paul Ryan doesn't want to run for Vice President of the United States.

Watch the clip again. Look at him writhe. Look at the way he keeps his mouth moving while, deep down inside, he's run off to his happy place. Prior to this election, Ryan was a hero of his party, a so-called deficit hawk, an esteemed "details man." Ryan got to show up at the Capitol with extremely detailed budgets that had no chance of getting passed and deliver a good speech about numbers and "making the tough choices." Life was good until August. Then Mitt Romney called.

Mitt said, "Ryan, your party needs you. Your country needs you." Few people want to be a VP and campaigning to be one is even worse--it's all of the work of running for office, but another politician gets to tell you what to think.

Ryan looks as weary of being vague and evasive as we are of watching it.

BROWN/WARREN: THE FAILURE OF "FAIR" REPORTING

Okay, journalists,  I have about 15 minutes of free time this morning and I'd like to spend it talking about this: In Massachusetts Senate race, Warren and Brown take off the gloves. 

We have a lot of problems with the discourse in this country: no one ever knows what bills do, we think that raising the debt ceiling means borrowing more money, and there are too many misconceptions about how our money gets spent. And when we're facing problems like that, the most important thing we can do is to be not discouraged, right? Because if we get discouraged or jaded, if we we become cynical and fed up with the whole process, then we give up, stop reading and talking and voting--we surrender what little power we really have to shape this country into something worthy of our intelligence and class.

That is why, of all our problems of the discourse, so many smart people in the know talk to me about false equivalence. 

Today, Karen Tumulty's Washington Post article promises that the two candidates for Ted Kennedy's old Mass. Senate seat, studly moderate Republican Scott Brown and Wall Street ball-buster Elizabeth Warren, have dropped the veneer of civility and gotten their hands dirty as the clock ticks away on a tightly contested race.

"The most closely watched Senate race in the country has taken a sharp turn off the high road[...] each is seeking to undermine the other on the very traits that had been considered their greatest political strengths: his independence and her character."

If I don't know any better, I think, "this is just politics as usual." I think, "what's a couple more monkeys on stage, flinging their mutant poop at one another," like every election, don't I? But this is important--let's look at exactly what each candidate had to do to grab this kind of attention.

"Warren[...] is urging Massachusetts voters to look beyond their affection for Brown to consider the votes he has cast and the national consequences of an election..."

That is what passes for Elizabeth Warren's gloves coming off: she talks about Brown's record and asks voters to think.

I imagine, given the tone of the article, that Scott Brown's "sharp turn off the high road" follows a similar path--another substantive critique of his opponent's political history and place in the American ideological milieu.

"His new television ad highlights the controversy over Warren’s unproved claim that she is of Native American heritage."

He could have stopped right there.

"It also raises the possibility — also unproved, and denied by those involved in hiring her — that she claimed minority status for professional advancement."

Now, I remember these accusations from earlier in the campaign and I had already heard that the Brown team planned to bring them back. Brown is a very good campaigner, and I assume he knows what he's doing politically.

However, I still expected better from the media. I expected a reporter to recognize the difference in tone between holding a man to his record and "stop pretending you're not white, you affirmative-action hire!" I expected to read "Scott Brown Loses Mind, Calls Opponent Race-Traitor" as the goddamn headline. I expected anyone casually scanning the article to not come away with the impression that this is just another story about "both sides" and "going negative." I expected better than a soft gloss-over in the fifth paragraph. I want weaponized word-making! I want the fucking razor!

I think it was Chris Hayes (MSNBC, The Nation) who said that "you can appear fair and balanced or you can be fair and balanced; you can't do both." I really wish he didn't, but he does have a point. Just because you're a little baby journalist (and you are broke, smoke too much and sleep too little) doesn't mean Republicans and Democrats are going to make your job easier by being "equally" anything


Alright, my 15 minutes are up. Get back to work.

ROUNDUP: STORIES I MISSED

I only blog so often and it’s usually only once a week or so that something holds enough of my attention to warrant the full treatment. But the news I write about is only an imperceptible fraction of the news I consume. I think I’ll start closing each work week off with a quick follow up on some of the other headlines floating around out there. I assume that, like most Americans, you mostly read the news just enough to sound like you know what you’re talking about at parties. So get conversational on a few matters that can be tough to follow in-depth.

Chicago Teachers’ Strike:

It ended this week with a tentative deal. The good news for the teachers: they get a yearly pay raise for the next four years (a few percentage points at a time), the quality of their evaluations now matter more than seniority when layoff time comes around, a “last fired, first re-hired” rule now pertains to those layoffs, they get to vote on any schedule changes, and they no longer have to “teach” homeroom.

The bad news for the teachers: The pay increase is less than they wanted, standardized tests are a bigger part of their evaluations, classroom size and air conditioning was ignored and the school day stays longer than they’d like.

What it means?

These big strikes always have far-reaching ramifications for their profession and for the strength of organized labor, in general. In light of the conservative agenda to cripple unions that’s been going on all across the nation, a show of strength in a liberal town like Chicago may just mean that the battle is on, not over.

Monica Lewinsky’s book deal:

The woman who needs no introduction reportedly sold a new bookabout the Clinton thing to an unknown publisher for 12 million  smackerinos. Allegedly the draw of the book, what makes it different than her last one, are letters from the former cocksman-in-chief in which he complains about his sex life and Hilary.

What it means?

No one is quite sure how to take this news. On the one hand, Ms. Lewinsky and her publishers are bringing up gossip from over a decade ago about a former politician who we have not only forgiven, but have fallen in love with all over again. And the gossip isn’t even that interesting, just the sort of stuff you’d imagine a cheating husband would say.

On the other hand, there is a great swell of sympathy out there for Lewinsky, who many people see as the only real “victim” of wrongdoing. As a Slate blogger points out, Monica Lewinsky can’t get a job or ever betaken seriously because of sexual encounters she had in her twenties. Whatever life she wanted for herself and worked for up to that point is gone—she is one of the most famous women in the country and whenever anyone hears her name, they think of what man’s penis she had in her mouth.

Personally, I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason to justify pursuing this book, but your mileage may vary.

"I, Too, Gaffe America"

Obama gave his critics some ammunition this week when, in response to a question about what he’s learned since his first campaign, he replies in part that “you can’t change Washington from the inside.” It is hard to believe that this could overshadow the destructive “47%” video of Romney that’s been going around, though not for lack of Republican effort.

What it means?

Generally speaking, nothing. As a sound bite, it’s useful political fodder. In context, it isn’t as bad as it sounds. As politico points out, Romney said it nearly word-for-word in 2007. This is an honest-to-goodness gaffe, unlike the Romney video, which has been so damaging to the candidate precisely because it sounds like it’s what he really thinks.

Other:

• The protests in the Middle East have died down in many countries but are still ongoing, with more than 20 dead in today's state-sponsored protest day in Pakistan. This is a monumental and complex story about which books are already, undoubtedly, being written. If it keeps developing, perhaps I'll find the time in my of-so-important life to talk about it, too.
• Romney released his tax returns for 2011. No surprises.

ELECTORAL POLITICS AND GUESSING THE FINAL STRAW

Looking back, I don’t remember which one or two issues locked me in for Barack Obama over Hilary Clinton in 2008 and by the time the general rolled around, little remained of the former John McCain to make a case against the Democrats. The monstrous, ashamed thing that wore his face stood strained on the stage of his concession speech beside its grinning schizophrenic running mate while 53 percent of Americans gasped in the horror of what might have been.

That’s the percentage of the popular vote Obama claimed: 53%, and it looked like a landslide.

As many intelligent and civically-aware individuals manage to forget, elections are not determined by who gets the most votes, but by who wins the Electoral College game—directing a campaign’s message and money for the handful of states that matter and just might go your way .Obama conquered most of the “battleground” states in 2008, and even grabbed a few that are traditionally Republican, in a decisive 375-173 shellacking—a 202 point lead all on the strength of 53%.

Going by the numbers, this presidential race has never been as close as it looked, with Obama consistently ahead by the only count that matters.  You can forgive the commentoriate* for taking every opportunity they can to pronounce the Romney campaign dead.

There have been many. Like a tweeting teenager, the Romney campaign is preternaturally trouble-prone.

Every week we get a new headline like these. I fear is that no one will remember them all.

ROMNEY'S ANSWER TO CLINTON SPEECH COMPLETELY DIVORCED FROM REALITY

Attention liberals: if you are not subscribed to Mitt Romney on Facebook, you have no idea how angry you should be. Although I am of the center-left persuasion, I "liked" the Republican nominee's page a couple of weeks ago. So far, it hasn't been all that interesting, just a vague graph that revealed nothing in particular, a few slogans and some promotional images of Mitt smiling with his sleeves rolled up, ready for work.

My tea leaves said that today would be different. Last night, former Pres. William Jefferson "Bubba" Clinton delivered a policy-rich, 48-minute speech that almost literally took the Republican party to school. I read a comment this morning that Republicans know they're in trouble when the only thing they can criticize about Clinton's speech is its length (click for graphs!).

Today, the Romney campaign on Facebook lowered the bar:

BILL CLINTON: “Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”
VOICEOVER: “23 million Americans struggling for work. A middle class falling further behind.”
BILL CLINTON: “Give me a break.”

Welcome to the new low bar: you know the republicans are in trouble when the only thing they can criticize about Clinton's speech is that he wouldn't have said it when Obama was running against his wife 4 years ago.

The irony, of course, is that it shouldn't matter. Even if Bubba had his doubts about Obama in 2008, the man's been president for nearly 4 years--more than long enough for a skeptic to reasonably change his mind, anyway.

It gets much worse. On top of that being, on the surface, a comically weak argument, it's also complete horse shit. 

A five-minute trip to Google is more than long enough to find and view a longer clip of Bubba's comments:

As anyone can see, there's just one more problem about Romney's ad: Bill isn't talking about the economy at all; he isn't even talking about Obama as a person. Bubba is criticizing a single claim Obama made during the campaign regarding the Iraq War. That's it.

This is about as relevant as Hilary calling Obama a "bluffer" during a White House basement card game. I'm afraid that's all it takes to make an ad in Romney's America.

HORRIBLE COMMENTS ABOUT SANDRA FLUKE

Sandra Fluke is a 31 year-old, Georgetown Law school graduate and women's rights activist whose name entered the public discourse in a major way in February of this year when she testified before congress on the importance of including birth control in health insurance. There were notably few women given a voice in this hearing that consisted largely of old white men sitting around deciding the future of millions of women's bodies.

The optics were terrible.

This went down in the heat of the already furnace-like birth control debate started in 2011 with the swearing in of an army of conservatives from the 2010 elections. As I've mentioned previously, anti-abortion (and anti-birth control in general) has been the GOP's most consistent legislative goal ever since.

Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh threw fuel on the fire, as it is his idiom to stretch his 1st amendment right beyond all taste:

What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute.

He goes on to say that Fluke must not be able to afford birth control pills because she's having so much sex, displaying less than the most basic understanding of how birth control pills work.

Fluke gave an incendiary speech at the (so far, expertly crafted) Democratic National Convention yesterday, prompting fresh conservative outrage.

Perhaps, as the year is rapidly approaching 2013, you suspect that Limbaugh's comments are some sort of anomaly, that nobody is really this misogynistic anymore? Here are some of the comments from just one Newser article on the subject of Fluke's speech:

So did this dumb bitch say anything substantial.  waaah ultrasounds is about the only real quote i see.  not too many care about the oops i whored out accidentally got pregnant and need to kill the baby asap vote. - DIAPERCAKE

 A shitbag like this is the best the dems can do at their national convention?  No wonder the country is going to throw their asses out in November! - jriven00

 what an insufferable little brat she is !  her being bumped to prime time would have been a true disaster for the dems if clinton had not ended up stealing the show tonight.  seems like there's an easy joke about clinton and fluke's contraceptives here but i refuse to go there. - el_polacko

UNDERSTANDING PRO-LIFE - A LOGITICIAN'S APPROACH

The right of a fetus to live is more important the the right of a woman to choose.


I have always been more sympathetic to the pro-choice perspective than many of my peers. I have always felt that, beneath the controversy, invective, hypocrisy and outright mendacity that inevitably accompanies every occasion for an honest, America, conversation--beneath all of it, the argument is possessed of a sound operating logic, beautiful like a purring Detroit engine.

To illustrate what I mean, I spent a couple of hours once working through the formal logic of the pro-life argument with the most rigorous epistemic practices I picked up in college. generations of thought were given to modu ponens, if-and-only-ifs and what is "necessary and sufficient." A few possible constructions came out of it. My proofs were lean, clean and watertight. Then I realized I had written something nobody would ever read.

In every construction, it all winds up not mattering much how you feel about public health or women's rights, the bread-and-butter pro-choice argument follows logically from a set of true premises and a normative value.

A normative value differs from other premises because it is not conventionally "true" or "untrue." Instead, they describe what ought to be and how to assign value. It is an epistemic ground-floor. Any two people presented with the same facts who hold different normative values can reasonably arrive at opposite conclusions. For example, the premise "life begins at conception," may sound like a statement of fact (something that could be empirically disproven). However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that such a claim is purely philosophical; it does not require evidential support (i.e. "your baby has fingertips at 8 weeks"), nor does it appeal to an absolute Truth (i.e. "your baby has a soul"). At what point you consider "life" to begin depends entirely on which definition or parameters of life ought to be.

It should be altogether clear (even without reviewing my extensive legwork) that if you believe that life begins at conception, you must believe that abortion is a form of murder. What I urge my friends to consider is that if you believe murder is greatly immoral, you must have a moral responsibility to object to it. It is no big leap to sugegst that you even have a moral responsibility to prevent it, just as you would prevent a neighbor from being slain by a burglar if you had a safe opportunity.

It is unreasonable to expect pro-lifers to stand by and do nothing.


So, there. There is an elegance to the basic pro-life argument that I admire. And yet, conservatives are determined to capitulate to the middle and make things more complicated than they need to be, beyond all reach or reason. Consider that anti-abortion legislation (surprisingly the most consistent legislative goal of a Republican party overwhelmingly elected in 2010 on the promise that they would focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs,") traditionally carries language for exemptions in the cases of rape, incest and when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Moreover, far from being simple capitulations to liberals, these exemptions are actually popular among conservatives. How does this fit into the watertight pro-life argument?


In simple terms, it doesn't. 


What does the consent of the mother, her relationship to the father, or her chances of survival have to do with the premise, "life begins at conception?" Does being raped somewhat change the beginning of the life of a fetus? If you saw a raped woman who chose to bear and raise her progeny, would you tell her that her "rape baby" is not as alive as the other children? Do you tell her that, since it wasn't her fault, your "compassionate" laws allows her to kill the kid if she wants? Why not? I thought abortion was murder!

The only opening availible is that, hey, sometimes murder is okay.

To get to the bottom of this puzzle, I had to radically extend the scope of the pro-choice arguments I drafted so neatly before. Risk to the life of the mother was easy enough to explain. Incorporating premises linking moral responsibility, moral authority and consent was a real challenge. After you define and defend limiting principles for "consent" and grapple with the fact that moral responsibility has just becomes a matter of degree, not a matter of definition, you still have to explain that making a woman carry her rapist's child is a worse crime than murder in order to justify an exemption. The project became technically fussy and vulnerable to counter-arguments in ways it originally was not. It becomes pretty clear, also, that pro-life has a lot more to do with slut-shamming than it likes to admit.

Facts had to be faced: the argument against abortion is much stronger without the rape exemption. It isn't that surprising: nothing makes an prohibition harder to justify than adding the word "unless."

Of course, the rape exception was a piece of cake compared to the incest one. Despite how obvious it seems to Americans today—all of us products of contemporary Western society—it is nearly impossible to explain why we should all care if family members get it on. “It just seems icky,” is somewhat lacking in intellectual seriousness.

The point of all this is that when I read the latest news story about some ignorant mutant from Missouri or some bill written by Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan, I need to remind myself that my ideological opponents are not evil. Even when they are trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, a decision I completely agree with, they are no doing an evil deed. Even when they are trying to abolish rape exemptions, they are not doing an evil deed. Even when they are being stupid, narrow-minded, cynical or cowardly, they are not evil. Voter suppression is evil. Cutting social programs while building more nukes is evil. Whether or not to save hypothetical lives is just a difference of opinion.

Let's keep things in perspective.