Quote of the Day -- new varieties of A{B}B

From comments at Talk Left

It's not ABB, it's ALFBB (any life form) - I'd vote for a cave salamander or a fruit bat first. Actually, now that I think of it, it's ATBB (anything) - if it's Bush or my toaster oven, my bathroom plunger, well.. sorry George.

 
Posted by j.w at July 17, 2004 11:37 PM

Implied and Inferred -- A distinction with a difference?

Bush supporters who are appalled by Fahrenheit 9/11 seem to have found little joy in combing it for explicitly false statements. Seems Mr. Moore did his best to "lawsuit-proof" his production. So the attacks on the movie have shifted from claiming Moore "lied" to accusing him of "deceits," or lying by implication. Moore is especially taken to task for his selectivity -- using skillful editing or ignoring inconvenient information that might put another cast on his tale. And if Moore was demonstrably "deceitful," even though not an out-and-out liar (i.e., teller of explicitly false statements), Bush partisans claim they are morally justified in condemning those Democrats who are openly gleeful that Moore has found a large audience for his movie.

Kevin Drum at Political Animal suggests, however, that Moore's critics and supporters are missing a key element when they try to interpret what the movie actually says about the Bush Administration and its allies.

MICHAEL MOORE HOLDS UP A MIRROR ...I'm beginning to think that the real value of Fahrenheit 9/11 is that it serves as a pointedly political Rorschach test: you see in it primarily a reflection of yourself.

So is the heart of the heated debate less what Moore implied and rather what each of us inferred? But doesn't this then raise the question whether one is justified in drawing certain inferences? Or perhaps it is simply a matter of perspective: partisans see and hear what they want (expect?) to hear. But what about the "neutral" moviegoer?

Quote of the Day

Tyler Cowen: Marginal Revolution: announces I've had enough. After noting that our newest foreign policy initiative is to crack down on families visiting Cuban relatives, he asks plaintively:

What do you have to do to join The Ranks of the Shrill? Does someone have to send you an E-Invite?

Surely some thoughtful member of the Shrill Blogger club can help him out!

Sibel Edmonds docs available

The Memory Hole has posted the reclassified documents.

Budget Politics -- Dems should exploit Reps' "golden silence"

Brad DeLong asserts today that Silence is Golden for the Republicans on budget matters, contrary to Stan Collender's piece in the June 22 issue of the National Journal, "BUDGET BATTLES: The Incredible Disappearing Bush Budget Team."

DeLong quotes Collender:

Has anyone seen or heard from the Bush administration’s economic and budget team?... National Economic Council Chairman Stephen Friedman has been practically invisible.... Greg Mankiw.... hasn’t been heard from since he made a politically incorrect statement back in February about... outsourcing.... Joshua Bolten... has been one of the least visible OMB directors.... John Snow... seems to be perceived more as a cheerleader than as a policymaker.... Dick Cheney... has serious overall credibility problems....

[snip]

[T]he White House [has] a huge problem... no one within or even near the administration has the standing or credibility to defend and promote the Bush budget and economic records other than the president himself.

[snip]

But it can’t wait too long before beginning any of these efforts. If a strong economic spokesperson doesn’t emerge soon, the president will be left to fend for himself on an issue he so far has preferred not to talk about.

DeLong replies:

But isn't silence golden here? They don't want to talk about this year's budget process--what the Republican Congress has done or rather not done is a procedural disaster and a substantive embarrassment. They don't want to talk about long-run fiscal policy: a bigger disaster and embarrassment. All they dare do is say rising employment numbers show that the president's tax cuts have worked and are boosting the economy, and then exit the stage. And that can be left to Scott McClellan and company--to have somebody who actually knows stuff and can answer questions on the stage is very risky.

Not talking about it serves the administration, because if they don't talk about the economic and budget record the bulk of the press corps won't write about it.

My reply to Prof. DeLong:

Lady C -- short version

The Republicans can't afford silence, but will focus on process (Congress) rather than issues, where they don't have anything to say or anyone to say it.

This is a great opportunity for Democrats if they can get the press to focus on the budget, and if they focus on the right issues.

The Democrats must avoid 2 Republican traps:

(1) getting into a "food-fight" over who's to blame that the budget process is paralyzed -- voters don't care, and they tend to blame both sides in a food-fight; and
(2) being "morally outraged" that the beneficiaries of Bush's policies are the already-wealthy -- that emphasis plays into the Republican themes of tax-and-spend and class-warfare Democrats.

To attract the attention of the press, the Democrats must give this issue a high profile, emphasizing the dangers of high deficits in the long-run, and highlighting the job-free recovery in the near-term -- just getting the press to report the economic figures accurately would be a good start. Second, they must create a "controversy" for the press to report on that's not just "process" -- showcase traditional conservatives who oppose the Bush budget policies for many of the same reasons Kerry is opposed.

Laying the right foundation for the debates is crucial.


Lady C -- Long version

I agree completely that we won't see anyone from the Bush side who knows anything about budget matters. But they can't be totally silent as the fiscal year comes to an end. That's why I expect this year's budget disaster (which will be coming to a head in Oct-Nov) to be thoroughly politicized on "process" grounds. This represents, however, an opportunity for the Democrats.

Rather than talking about substance, the Frists of the world will be all over the airwaves blaming the "class warfare" Democrats for opposing the "compassionate" President's "brave efforts on behalf of American families" to "get our economy moving again" [no, can't say that, since it's supposed to be triumphantly growing, so how about...] "keep growing our economy" [the only thing I really hate Clinton for is introducing that appalling phrase to the political lexicon].

Yes, it will be a challenge for the Republicans to explain why their control of the WH and both houses of Congress has produced deadlock on budget matters, but it's their least risky tactic. The "blame game" on process issues is the sort of food-fight that voters tune out, unless its something like shutting down the government. The press won't challenge the Reps much, because they would have to turn a bunch of arcane procedures into sound-bites that show the Rep's are all wet. And the hold-out Republicans will try to keep their roles in the dispute from taking on a high profile. For example, if McCain is traveling the country for Bush on Iraq, it's hard to imagine he'd go into open opposition in late October on the budget. I'd expect McCain to answer all budget-related questions in a low-key way, but try to make as little to-do as possible and basically make it hard for the press to make the Dem's case for them.

So if the Republicans continue to assert loudly the fiction that it's the Dems' fault and resort to their tried-and-true scare tactics, it's the job of the Dems to highlight issues, rather than the failed Rep Congress, at the Dem convention. They have to pound away on the themes of profligacy and bad policy to counter the scare tactics of tax-and-spend and class-warfare. [BTW -- contrary to the instincts of most Dem politicians and activists, that means not emphasizing the "need to elect a Democratic Congress to work with Kerry; that's more likely to scare the marginal voters in the wrong directions.]

In addition to their convention, the Dems have two opportunities to change these dynamics -- that is, to get the press to cover budget matters even though the Bush Admin is avoiding talking about them. First is the debates, but it will be up to Kerry to use the debates for his benefit. He'll only be able to if he and his surrogates have framed their side of the budget issues in such a way that the debates will raise the right questions. That's the second opportunity -- start harping on the theme that huge deficits are a "betrayal" of "real conservatives," -- which is a controversy the press can cover (between the Repub party of Bush Jr and principled conservatives like his father).

It will be important for the Dems to position the issue so that it works for them among the broadest possible group of voters. Clinton's campaigning certainly should be studied. I'm sure you'd be able to confirm/amend my impression -- IIRC, Clinton's handling of "tax cuts for the rich" was an example of his masterly ability to make an issue work for him with a larger group of voters by appearing to defuse the issue. Rather than shout with outrage over all the benefits going to the wealthy -- which would energize his base but put off lots in the middle class -- he'd just quietly explain why "it just doesn't seem to make any sense to me." Kerry can't do Clinton's "ahw shucks" routine. What he can do, however, is to present the "fairness" arguments on taxes and spending as reasons why Bush's policies are "bad policies" (i.e. ineffective or harmful) rather than present them as morally outrageous. Such an approach will take advantage of the points you made -- that Bush isn't going to have anyone out there who's in a position to defend the policies, just condemn how terrible the Democrats' policies would be.

[OT - given the constantly shifting media distribution technologies, is the usage "all over the airwaves" archaic or futuristic?]

Quote of the Day

From Raed in the Middle, who has returned to blogging,

I mean, if u want to act like the roman colonial empire, at least do it right…

Second post -- connection to bloglines

This is the second post that points to Yahoo home.

It also has Bloglines in the post title.

We'll have to see if "green" works as a color, or whether we'll need to use WebMonkey's hex chart.

First Post

This is to set up and edit the template