To the Editor: Fire William Kristol

When The New York Times decided to add conservative political commentator William Kristol to its op-ed columnist line up, I was not pleased. The idea was that a good op-ed page should present a multi-faceted view of the issues facing the nation. Known for being a "liberal rag" and the butt of most "liberal media" jokes, The Times' editorial board felt it necessary to give a token right-wing nut job a weekly column. In theory, this is fair enough - we liberals always rag on FOX News for being a pawn of the far-right wing of the Republican party, so we should promote fairness and balance, right?

I'm all for fairness and balance, and I think intelligent authors like David Brooks can certainly bring some balance to such an unabashedly liberal op-ed page. The problem is that Bill Kristol just isn't a very good writer. Now, I'm no literary genius, but I'm not writing for The Times, either. Kristol's columns, unlike Brooks's, are rarely thoughtful - that is, they hardly ever shed new light on an issue. His columns read like talking points sent out by the McCain campaign. The title of a recent column was "Be Afraid. Please." The object of the proposed fear was, of course, Barack Obama, or more specifically, the havoc Obama would bestow upon America if he were President while the Democrats control Congress. Mr. Kristol extols the benefits of divided government, noting with an un-Times-like lack of eloquence,

You really should be alarmed about a President Obama rubber-stamping the deeds of a Democratic Congress next year. A President McCain, on the other hand, could check Congressional appetites — as well as work across the aisle with a Democratic Congress in a bipartisan spirit where appropriate.

Yes, because divided government has worked so well since 2006 when the Democrats won control of Congress. Given Senator McCain's recent shifts to the more extreme right-wing of his party and his appalling lack of dignity, there is no reason to suspect that his White House would be any more willing to cooperate with a Democratic Congress than the current administration. Moreover, with Kristol's logic in mind, one might have expected to see him campaigning for Democratic candidates for Congress in 2006, arguing that an unchecked majority is bad for democracy.

Maybe I missed it.

And today, Kristol provided us with what I'm sure he thought was some brilliant insight with his article titled "How to Pick a V.P." I guess we can overlook the fact that he doesn't even touch on the choice Obama faces (that would just be asking too much). What we cannot overlook is the fact that he is just regurgitating what the cable news networks have been saying for weeks now. Oh, Mitt Romney would bring useful executive experience to the ticket? Bobby Jindal would represent the new era of the Republican party, echoing the Obama campaign's call for change? Tim Pawlenty would please staunch conservatives who don't want McCain to try any funny business with his pick? Meg Whitman would provide "outsider" cred while appealing to women?

None of these are revelations. These points have all been made numerous times by the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC and FOX News and so on.

So, it's not just that Kristol is preaching a thoughtless, uninspired, trite sermon on conservatism. Worse, his thoughtlessness is about two to three weeks behind the rest of the media.

Times, I understand what you were going for hiring Kristol, I really do. But, he's been a failure. He's not doing the job of presenting a thoughtful, informative, provocative conservative voice for the op-ed page. If you want another conservative voice, use your own David Brooks as a model. But it's clear to me - Bill Kristol is no David Brooks.

In Defense of the New York Times (and John Edwards [and liberalism])

The Times has a pretty standard article about John Edwards' trip to New Orleans. It discussed his stated purpose (poverty, of course), listed a few questions from reporters about non-poverty issues (i.e. Louisiana's sad excuses for representatives - particularly Senator Vitter and Congressman Jefferson), and gave his smooth-as-ice responses. It didn't criticize; it didn't cheer. It just told. But, it elicited this response from a reader:

Did he ride into New Orleans in his Porsche, or his private jet?

The Champion of The Poor…as he lives as far away from the poor as possible?

Absurd…only a liberal hallucinator would go for this non-sense…the same crowd that accepts statements like “we voted against the war before we voted for it.”

…same crowd that calls the Iraq war a quagmire, even though we destroyed the 5th largest military in the world in a matter of days, and the amount of casualties sustained thus far is far below any figure that military planners even imagined.”

Liberalism and Islam are the recipe to the destruction of America.

…feel proud liberals.

The NY Times is undermining this nation everyday…this article continues the madness.

I've defended John Edwards against this attack before, but it bears repeating. Someone does not have to be poor to stand up for the poor. Just as it took action on the part of white people to make the goals of the civil rights movement a reality, it will take action on the part of astronomically wealthy people (the only people capable of reaching the highest seats of government) to make any attempt at ending poverty (which is probably a naive goal anyway, but we'll let that slide).

Next, this ridiculous Iraq claim. It isn't a quagmire because we beat the Iraqi army in a matter of days and we didn't have as many casualties as some people thought? First, no one is claiming that the Iraq war is a quagmire because of the Iraqi army. After the first week or two, the war had absolutely nothing to do with the Iraqi army. And second, the quagmire-esque state of a war is not measured by deaths, it is measured by how much progress is being made or is capable of being made. There are plenty of wars in American history that had heaps of casualties but were not quagmires. This guys arguments simply don't deal with the quagmire argument.

At all.

I love that this guy thinks that liberalism and Islam are the harbingers of the destruction of America. Oddly enough, the combination of the two (i.e. Liberal Islam) would solve many of our problems. I, for one, fail to see how equal rights, fairness, and/or worshipping Allah will destroy America, but his conclusion, "...feel proud liberals" has an air of authority, so I'll accept it.

Even if you are a conservative and are offended by the Times' slightly liberal slant (which is nowhere near as noticeable as Fox News' conservative slant), it is a big stretch to say that it is undermining the nation, and that a simple article explaining a candidate's appearance somewhere is "madness." God, what would this guy say if he saw the op-ed page?

Politicizing the Surgeon General

The New York Times has an article regarding the political pressures faced by Richard Carmona, President Bush's Surgeon General from 2002-2006. While it shouldn't be surprising (given the way we've seen other supposedly non-partisan officials being politically manipulated), it is still frightening.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

Some of these are somewhat understandable (not to say excusable), given that the Bush administration promotes abstinence-only sex education and what not. But, I didn't think that even the Bush Administration would stoop so low as to call into question the legitimacy of the Special Olympics just because the Kennedys are associated with it. But, they did just that. Indeed, one top official told Dr. Carmona, "Why would you want to help those people?" So, the Surgeon General cannot support the Special Olympics because it would "help" the Kennedys? This is one of the most ludicrous, immoral arguments I have ever heard, and that's saying a lot, because the Bush Administration makes boatloads of them.

The Surgeon General is supposed to be the nation's top doctor. We are supposed to be able to look to him for sound advice regarding any and all health issues. We shouldn't have to worry that he is simply a pawn of the appointing President. Health issues are more important than politics. But, as it has been shown many times in the past, nothing is more important than politics to the Bush Administration.

New York Times on Scooter Libby

The New York Times points out the obvious in the Scooter Libby case:

Until he commuted the 30-month prison sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. on Monday, President Bush had said almost nothing about his philosophy in granting clemency while at the White House.

As governor of Texas, though, Mr. Bush discussed and applied a consistent and narrow standard when deciding whether to issue pardons and commutations. And that standard appears to be at odds with his decision in the Libby case.

Mr. Bush explained his clemency philosophy in Texas in his 1999 memoir, “A Charge to Keep.”

“In every case,” he wrote, “I would ask: Is there any doubt about this individual’s guilt or innocence? And, have the courts had ample opportunity to review all the legal issues in this case?”

In Mr. Libby’s case, Mr. Bush expressed no doubts about his guilt. He said he respected the jury’s verdict, and he did not pardon Mr. Libby, leaving him a convicted felon. And Mr. Bush acted before the courts had completed their review of his appeal.

“As governor, Bush essentially viewed the clemency power as limited to cases of demonstrable actual innocence,” said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas who has represented death-row inmates.

“The exercise of the commutation power in Libby,” Professor Steiker continued, “represents a dramatic shift from his attitude toward clemency in Texas, and it is entirely inconsistent with his longstanding, very limited approach.”

Financing Judicial Elections

The New York Times has an editorial denouncing the recent increase in fund-raising in state judicial elections.

By 2004, the amount raised by candidates for states’ highest courts had reached nearly $47 million nationwide, up from $29 million in 2002. In 2006, total fund-raising decreased to $34.4 million, largely owing to a decrease in the number of contested races. But the median amount raised by individual candidates in 2006 soared to nearly $244,000 — from the 2004 median of about $202,000.

Television ads, until recently a rarity in top-level state court races, are now the norm. Such ads ran last fall in 10 of the 11 states where such judges were up for election, compared with just 4 of 18 states in 2000. Average spending on television airtime per state was also up, much of it for 15- and 30-second attack ads. In the race for Alabama’s chief justice seat, the second-most-expensive judicial race ever, 17,830 spots were run on behalf of candidates.

The idea, of course, is that money and judicial elections do not mix. This makes sense to a certain extent; the notion that judges can be "bought off" is frightening. However, this editorial seems to suggest that advertising in judicial elections is inherently bad. I do not see why; advertising is required for an informed electorate, especially when it comes to these sorts of elections. Judicial elections have long been characterized by extremely low voter turnout (most judicial elections are held either in odd years or during the spring elections, meaning that there are no Presidential, Congressional, and very few gubernatorial elections to bring out the voters), and perhaps as a consequence, many uncontested races. As a matter of democracy, this is shameful. In this light, advertising could be seen as a good thing; it "informs" (I put that in quotes because I don't know how much true information one can gather from a campaign ad) the public, hopefully inspiring them to vote.

What we're talking about here is competition. Increased spending isn't a sign of impending doom, it is a sign of increased competition, or democracy in action, if you will. Certainly, it is troubling to think that whoever raises the most money can become a judge just like that (although, the editorial does point out that the victor in fund-raising is the victor in the election in only 68% of elections), but it is even more troubling to think that someone can run unopposed and become a judge just like that.

Judicial elections are meant to secure judicial accountability. Making judicial candidates be more vocal seems to be a step toward accomplishing that. Of course, there are plenty of worthwhile arguments against judicial accountability, but such arguments would require denouncing judicial elections per se, which this editorialist seems hesitant to do. But that makes me wonder: why support judicial elections if you do not support judicial accountability? As long as judicial elections are around, I think this trend (i.e. getting more interests - yes, even business interests - involved) is a good thing. After all, if the choices are democracy with no one involved and democracy with more people involved, I'll take the latter. Of course, neither of these choices may be good as a method of choosing judges (I, for some inexplicable reason, favor executive appointment), but that's not the point. The point is that the trend we're seeing is an improvement from the previous way of going about things.

On Obama's Race

People have been wondering for quite a few months now whether Barack Obama's race would play a role in the 2008 election. Janet Elder over at The New York Times has an article discussing this topic (or at least one aspect of it). In relatively recent history, there has been a phenomenon which allows black candidates to poll better than they actually perform in the election. It has been hypothesized that white voters like to think that they are comfortable voting for black candidates, but come election day, they cannot overcome their reservations. So, will this happen to Obama?

I don't think so. In a very recent example, Harold Ford, Jr. (a black Senate candidate from Tennessee) actually performed slightly better in the election than he did in the polls. There might be two explanations for why the phenomenon didn't happen. First, perhaps Americans are getting less racist. Compared to the 1950s, I would say this is generally true. However, I think another reason explains it better, which may, in a way, be linked to the first. I don't think Ford was viewed as (and I don't think Obama will be viewed as) a "black candidate," but rather "a candidate who happens to be black." Now, perhaps that subtle distinction is only made because Americans are less racist, but it's important. After all, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would be viewed as "black candidates" and they would lose for that reason.

So, when a black candidate can be viewed as "a candidate who happens to be black," I don't think there will be much of an effect. After all, the only people who would completely rule out voting for the latter would be complete racists, and they would not be compelled to seem more open-minded when questioned by pollsters. So, nowadays, I don't think this phenomenon applies to so-called "candidates who happen to be black."

But, there is something else to think about. As the article points out, 90% of Americans say they would be "completely comfortable voting for a qualified presidential candidate who was black;" however, only 55% of Americans say that "Americans are ready to elect an African American or black as president." 35% say no. So, that means that at least 25% of people are comfortable with voting for a black candidate, but do not think that Americans are ready. Odd.

But, even with this mystery, I don't think Obama's race will effect him. The 35% of people who say America isn't ready are almost certainly Republicans anyway, so I don't think there's much to worry about.

Oddly enough, black people are tending to support Clinton more than Obama. He is not "a black man's black man," at least not in the way someone like Al Sharpton is. He is a black man who can draw a very broad base of support, because he does not campaign based on his race or based on racial policies.

More on Landrigan

Please read Linda Greenhouse's article about the Shriro v. Landrigan decision over at the Times. She is excellent. I want her job.

Anyway, after reading that, I was reminded of something I left out of my last post: the Alito factor. This case probably would not have gone the way it did if O'Connor was still on the Court. Indeed, a case a few years ago entitled Rompilla v. Beard had O'Connor siding with the liberals in a very similar case involving the constitutional right of death-row inmates to be represented by competent attorneys. Interestingly enough, Alito, in his capacity as an appeals court judge at the time, actually wrote the opinion that O'Connor helped to reverse in Rompilla. So, it seems that the Court is shifting noticably to the right thanks to Alito.