Columnist.
In Springfield, Ill., last week, President Obama commemorated the ninth anniversary of his bid for the White House. He admitted that one of his "few regrets" was his inability "to reduce the polarization and the meanness in our politics." To conservative ears, Obama's comments fell somewhere between risible and infuriating. Obama has always done his best to demonize and marginalize his opponents. Either the president honestly cannot see that, or he's cynically pretending that the fault lies entirely with his critics. If only there were some way to figure out whether he's sincere. Well, let no one say the moral arc of the universe does not bend toward second chances.
Welcome to Infomercial America, or, if you prefer, the United States of Spam. Whenever political conspiracy theories break out into the open, pundits and intellectuals name-check the brilliant but flawed essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter. Under President George W. Bush, the "9/11 Truthers" were the poster boys and girls of the paranoid style. Others hinted that the flooding of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina might have been deliberate. Under President Obama, it was the "Birthers." A related theory was that Obama is a secret Muslim. A generation before that, it was the John Birch Society and various other groups convinced that fluoridated water was a nefarious communist plot. And let's not even get started on the issue of who really killed Kennedy.
Hillary Clinton is not a woman, and that's a triumph for feminism and a problem for Hillary. Let me clarify. Yes, technically she is female. But when millions of Americans think of Hillary Clinton, they don't think of her gender; they think of, well, Hillary Clinton. Some may think of her as a heroic liberal technocrat. Others might think of her as a deeply partisan politician. The list goes on: She's a supportive (or enabling) wife, a great (or terrible) former secretary of state, a left-wing bully or a victim of political witch hunts. What she is not is an icon for a category of humanity called "womanhood."
"The Republican Obama." That's the new hot attack on Sen. Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz leveled the epithet at Rubio just days before the Iowa caucuses, which is a little ironic since Cruz has been called the same thing in the past. But the leader of the opposition to Rubio, at least when it comes to this line, is actually someone not in the race: Joe Scarborough, the normally affable host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Hillary Clinton's asterisk-heavy victory in Iowa might have been the narrowest of wins for her, but it was arguably the worst of all possible outcomes for the Democratic Party. As of this writing, the result was a statistical tie, 49.9 percent for Clinton and 49.6 percent for Bernie Sanders. The margin of victory in the delegate count was decided by six coin tosses that "flip truthers" will forever remember as mysteriously biased toward Clinton. Clinton raced to the podium to declare victory, but the news media will continue to describe it as a tie, probably forever. Sanders' supporters won't even make that concession, bitterly complaining about irregularities and, again, coins that seemed to be in Clinton's pocket, figuratively speaking.
The campaigns will be eager to tell you the meaning of Ted Cruz's victory and the virtual tie between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in Iowa last night, but the larger significance of this election has been clear for months: The two major parties are paper tigers. My old boss, the late Ben Wattenberg, was a conservative Democrat who worked for decades to keep his party from drifting leftward. In the end, he failed. But he fought a valiant fight. He helped found the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, which was a kind of precursor to the Democratic Leadership Council, the "New Democrat" organization that helped Bill Clinton burnish his image as a more conservative, "different kind of Democrat."
First, kill the Iowa caucuses. Please note: I didn't say, "Kill the Iowans." I like Iowans and I like Iowa. But we need to get Iowa's boot off our neck. That may be misunderstood, as well. You see, we're not under the heel of all Iowans. If we were, that'd actually be better because that would mean lots of Iowans turned out to vote.
I've been hearing about the impending "conservative crackup" for nearly 25 years. The term was coined by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., the founder of the American Spectator. He meant that conservatism had lost its philosophical coherence. But the phrase almost instantly became a catchall for any prediction of the right's imminent demise or dissolution. These dire prophesies always reminded me of those "Free Beer Tomorrow" signs. As Annie sings, tomorrow is "always a day away." Well, thanks to Donald Trump, tomorrow may be here. There's a fierce internecine battle over whether to oppose Trump's run, passively accept his popularity, or zealously support his bid.
Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has a new book out: "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right." It's mostly about those old devils the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are billionaires. They own a very big company. They also are very prominent philanthropists, giving hundreds of millions to cancer research, concert halls and other worthy causes. But what makes them hated and feared by progressives such as Mayer is their political work. They help fund some organizations and foundations, some purely educational, some partisan.
According to the Constitution, the legislature is the first and most powerful branch of government. And yet, many believe — on the left and the right — that the institution has atrophied. By all accounts, House Speaker Paul Ryan is eager to change that. He has his work cut out for him. At the Republican congressional retreat in Baltimore last week, I participated in a panel discussion about how to revive Congress' traditional role. It was off the record, but I can certainly repeat a story I told.
Clearly the only explanation for Jeb Bush's almost effortless stroll to the Republican nomination is the pernicious stranglehold of big money in politics. Oh, wait. Bush is in the low single digits in most national polls, despite his campaign and his super PAC raising more than $100 million. Perhaps that's only because Donald Trump, the billionaire populist, is buying the nomination with his dragon's hoard of gold? Well, no. Trump has spent less than any other major candidate.
According to conventional wisdom, the GOP nominates the guy whose turn it is, while the Democrats look for a savior. As Bill Clinton once said, "In every presidential election, Democrats want to fall in love. Republicans just fall in line." George H.W. Bush came in second to Ronald Reagan in 1980. As the sitting vice president, it was Bush's turn for the nomination in 1988, and he got it. Sen. Bob Dole came in second to Bush in 1988, so in 1996 it was his turn. In 2000, there was no obvious line of succession, but George W. Bush came closest as the heir to the Bush dynasty. Sen. John McCain came in second to W. in 2000. In 2008, McCain got the nomination. Mitt Romney: Second in 2008, he got his turn in 2012.
For partisan Democrats, when the word "Benghazi" comes up, the sophisticated thing to do is roll your eyes. If the name Charles Woods comes up, the normal thing to do is say, "Who?" So let's talk about Cindy Sheehan for a moment instead. Remember her? For a while, she was the Joan of Arc of the antiwar left. The mother of a U.S. Army specialist killed in Iraq, Sheehan held a vigil outside President George W. Bush's ranch, demanding to meet with him so she could denounce the war to his face.
There has been a lot of talk — almost all of it accurate — about how Barack Obama's presidency has fueled the rise of Donald Trump. The president's fans hate this talk, for understandable reasons. They see the president as dignified and cerebral. They see Trump as crude and bigoted, a "short-fingered vulgarian," as Graydon Carter famously put it. The argument that Obama paved the way for Trump takes many forms. He "lowered the bar" for presidential qualifications, argues Peggy Noonan. Trump's Don Rickles act, writes Michael Barone, reflects "the coarseness of Obama's non-stop insults of Republicans and anyone who does not share his views and priorities."
In interviews and on the stump, Sen. Ted Cruz likes to attack President Obama, Hillary Clinton and "some of the more aggressive Washington neocons" for their support of regime change in the Middle East. Every time we topple a dictator, Cruz argues, we end up helping terrorists or extremists. He has a point. But what interests me is his use of the word "neocon." What does he really mean? Some see dark intentions. "He knows that the term in the usual far-left and far-right parlance means warmonger, if not warmongering Jewish advisers, so it is not something he should've done," former George W. Bush advisor Elliott Abrams told National Review. Another former Bush adviser calls the term "a dog whistle."
If you're opposed to slavery, is it OK to still like "Star Wars"? It's a question I've been wrestling with ever since Jonathan Last, a friend and writer at the Weekly Standard, pointed out to me that the "droids" in the "Star Wars" movies are slaves. Unlike a lot of the ridiculous "Star Wars" revisionism in recent years — much of it ushered in by Last himself when he argued that Darth Vader & Co. are in fact the good guys — Last's case that droids are slaves strikes me as nearly incontrovertible. I'd hoped to be persuaded otherwise when I went to see the "The Force Awakens." No such luck.
Populism is typically born in places like Nebraska, Louisiana, Kansas and the other places given short shrift in that famous Saul Steinberg New Yorker cartoon showing the view of the world from 9th Avenue. It's not supposed to hail from Brooklyn or Queens, never mind Burlington, Vermont, or midtown Manhattan. But that's where the two reigning populists of the 2016 cycle call home.
I don't typically endorse candidates, but as 2015 draws to a close, I feel I must make an exception. I think it's a safe bet that for most of us, the year-that-was was not the year we wanted it to be. Oh, sure, there's got to be the stray story about how this was a great year for some happy couple. Some executive at Disney probably has his feet up on his desk, lighting a cigar with a lightsaber, thinking: "2015 was all right by me." But for most of us, 2015 was the year in which differences hardened.
Have you heard? The GOP is declaring war on science again. In February, a government-appointed nutrition advisory panel said Americans should eat less sugar and red meat. It also suggested that environmental considerations should factor into a healthy diet, which livestock producers understood as an attack on their industry. Republicans in Congress think the guideline process is out of control and are now trying to rein in the panel. By their lights, nutrition scientists should concern themselves with nutrition — not sustainability. Critics say they're pandering to special interests.
"We have people across this country who are scared to death," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared loudly at this week's Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas. Virtually the entire debate was based upon this premise. Which is understandable. Since the bloody Islamist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, terrorism has shot up as the chief concern for most Americans, particularly Republican voters.
