Cable News and the Average American

Democracy in America:

KEVIN DRUM reminds us that the outsized influence of cable TV news is bizarre, since its ratings are abysmal. Average Americans simply don't watch it. They watch "American Idol". As Matthew Yglesias points out, the only people who do watch cable TV news all the time are political professionals. But what's truly absurd is that those political professionals don't watch it because they think they'll learn something substantive. (It is physically impossible to learn anything substantive by watching cable TV news. It's like trying to grow muscles by drinking Coke.) Rather, they watch it because they think it will keep them in touch with what average Americans are watching.

Filling Time on TV News

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

The New McCarthys

This little gambit seems to have failed, or at least been exposed for a while. A team of rather prominent conservative lawyers calls Liz Cheney's outfit just like it sees 'em:

The past several days have seen a shameful series of attacks on attorneys in the Department of Justice who, in previous legal practice, either represented Guantánamo detainees or advocated for changes to detention policy. As attorneys, former officials, and policy specialists who have worked on detention issues, we consider these attacks both unjust to the individuals in question and destructive of any attempt to build lasting mechanisms for counterterrorism adjudications.

The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams’s representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre. People come to serve in the Justice Department with a diverse array of prior private clients; that is one of the department’s strengths.

In today's Post, Eugene Robinson tries to keep the Cheneys in perspective:

But there I go again, taking the whole thing seriously. This is really part of a death-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy to wound President Obama politically. The charge of softness on terrorism -- or terrorist suspects -- is absurd; Obama has brought far more resources and focus to the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan than the Bush-Cheney administration cared to summon. Since Obama's opponents can't attack him on substance, they resort to atmospherics. They distort. They insinuate. They sully. They blow smoke.

This time, obviously, they went too far. But the next Big Lie is probably already in the works. Scorched-earth groups like Keep America Safe may just be pretending not to understand our most firmly established and cherished legal principles, but there is one thing they genuinely don't grasp: the concept of shame.

The fear appeal is the Right's go-to strategy - more on that here. The Center/Left tends to respond with a mix of snarky condescension and perplexed annoyance. In this case, it's refreshing to see an offensive, rather than just defense.

Spring Break

On Message

As Health Care Reform nears completion in reconciliation, the debate shifts from content-distortions to smoke and mirrors regarding process. E.J. Dionne is worth reading in full:

In an op-ed in Tuesday's Post, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) offered an excellent example of this hypocrisy. Right off, the piece was wrong on a core fact. Hatch accused the Democrats of trying to, yes, "ram through the Senate a multitrillion-dollar health-care bill."

No. The health-care bill passed the Senate in December with 60 votes under the normal process. The only thing that would pass under a simple majority vote would be a series of amendments that fit comfortably under the "reconciliation" rules established to deal with money issues. Near the end of his column, Hatch conceded that reconciliation would be used for "only parts" of the bill. But why didn't he say that in the first place?

Hatch grandly cited "America's Founders" as wanting the Senate to be about "deliberation." But the Founders said nothing in the Constitution about the filibuster, let alone "reconciliation." Judging from what they put in the actual document, the Founders would be appalled at the idea that every major bill should need the votes of three-fifths of the Senate to pass.

All this "ramming" business plays very well on TV, but it is fundamentally incorrect and dishonest in context. As usual, Jon Stewart is pretty good too.

An Evolution of Arguments

The employment of liberal language by opponents of evolutionary theory is fascinating. That they've decided to use it against global warming simultaneously is more so:

Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.

In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

The bill, which has yet to be voted on, is patterned on even more aggressive efforts in other states to fuse such issues. In Louisiana, a law passed in 2008 says the state board of education may assist teachers in promoting “critical thinking” on all of those subjects.

Last year, the Texas Board of Education adopted language requiring that teachers present all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming.

Oklahoma introduced a bill with similar goals in 2009, although it was not enacted.

The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general.

The discourse strategy of our time largely boils down to this: if your arguments don't work, make them about freedom.

Unusual Choreography

Narrative Fidelity Fail

Democracy in America:

BARACK OBAMA forgot to read the memo from Dick Cheney that the president is "trying to pretend we're not at war". Today comes the announcement that another Pakistani Taliban leader, wanted for a terrorist attack on the American consulate in Karachi, was killed (along with 13 other militants) in a Predator strike. Guess someone at the CIA or Pentagon didn't get the memo either. There has been a grievous failure to "connect the dots" here: despite overwhelming evidence from Fox News, Mr Cheney, Liz Cheney, Scott Brown and furious other torture supporters, the president, the military and the intelligence services seem not to have understood that they're supposed to think we're not at war. We risk a major attack on cherished narratives if this kind of complacency keeps up. Everyone should have seen this coming, and yet 56% of Americans are so foolish as to miss the picture too.

Among its many other virtues, free speech gives liars just enough rope.

What's In a Name

Chris Bodenner links to this ad from "Keep America Safe," run by Liz Cheney. The implications in the video come courtesy of Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley. Spencer Ackerman doesn't mince words:

In the latest bit of brazen slander from the right, Republican Senators are trying to invent a scandal about Justice Department lawyers who — horror — represented Guantanamo detainees. You know, provided the representation that the Rehnquist and Roberts Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled those detainees are entitled? And which even the military commissions provide for? Instead, there’s this McCarthyite tactic of calling Justice Department lawyers the “Gitmo Nine,” a name that oh-so-cleverly suggests that those lawyers were themselves detained at Guantanamo. From the Washington Times:

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is rightly unhappy that the Justice Department won’t divulge the names of the nine Justice Department lawyers who directly represented suspected-terrorist detainees, or their cases. Grassley identified two himself, Neal Katyal (an aside: Katyal is a very impressive guy and very charming and level-headed) and Jennifer Daskal.

There’s absolutely nothing “hidden” about this; it’s a pure smear job. Daskal, a former Human Rights Watch attorney, is so committed to hiding her representation of Guantanamo detainees that it’s on her Wikipedia page. And Katyal, the deputy solicitor general whom even this Washington Times bottom-feeder has to concede is a talented attorney, very publicly represented Salim Ahmed Hamdan and took his case to the Supreme Court, which promptly struck down the first phase of the military commissions. There is not a shred of a legitimate issue here, just pure innuendo.

Grassley knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s taking one of the strengths of the American justice system — the fact that everyone is entitled to legal representation — and implying that it’s unseemly. It’s a testament to the weakness of his character that he will never forthrightly accuse these attorneys of what he’s implying — sympathy with accused terrorists — in a way that they could refute. What a pathetic excuse for a man. Those of us in the media have an obligation to call this smear campaign what it is.

Fine, but it seems to me that the DOJ is making things more difficult for itself by keeping these names quiet. Folks who wonder why they are hidden need look no further than Cheney and Grassley - admit your service, get your name on a list. But, as Ackerman mentions, insinuation artists like these always work better with misdirection than honest engagement, and certainly lawyers in the Department of Justice shouldn't be intimidated by stuff like this. Come clean, all their bluff.

Not content with "Gitmo 9," Cheney's ad calls them the "Al Qaeda 7." When it comes to being evil, is it nature, or nurture?

Out of Context

"When this point is reached, domination – in the guise of affluence and liberty – extends to all spheres of private and public existence, integrates all authentic opposition, absorbs all alternatives. Technological rationality reveals its political character as it becomes the great vehicle of better domination, creating a truly totalitarian universe in which society and nature, mind and body are kept in a state of permanent mobilization for the defense of this universe."

Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man