allentown wrote:Yes, hard to argue for a vote against Roberts. I still think the original no vote on Bork was very well deserved. He was an extremely political lawyer in Nixon Administration who was high executioner in the Saturday night massacre, after several less political lawyers refused and fell on their swords instead, out of principle.

kruker wrote:"Obama fiddles while the world burns"

-actual title of an article in the RCP log today

Ralph Peters is Fox News' strategic analyst.

What matters is the message that a lot of Republicans believe the Birther nonsense and that it gets out to the rest of the public. That message's ultimate impact could be to socially alienate Republicans from potential newcomers to the party.
...
The Birthers threaten to salt the fields around the GOP's reduced territory and make it hard for the party to harvest new voters in the future. This could be especially true of younger voters, who were the least accepting of the premise that Obama wasn't born in America. They are also quick to not tolerate anything that smells racist and mostly voted for Obama last year.

The ultimate dilemma with Republicans and Birthers has haunted parties and armies alike: virtually no group kills its detrimental allies while fighting an enemy ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). It can be tempting to draw an analogy between Birthers and the right-wing John Birchers of the 1950's that accused President Eisenhower of being a communist and were then exiled by conservatives. However, conservatives weren't trying to bring down the Republican Party; they were trying to take it over from liberals without ceding it to red-baiters.

Maybe another civil war lies ahead for today's Republican Party, or maybe Birther fever will cool, or perhaps Democrats will suffer a cataclysm that drives people into the arms of the GOP regardless. It's an unenviable position for Republicans to be in when they're trying to avoid the first scenario, don't want to be seen enabling the second, and are limited in bringing about the third.

Bucky wrote:kruker is that a larry david-chris wheeler encounter

dajafi wrote:The Birthers and the Republicans:

What matters is the message that a lot of Republicans believe the Birther nonsense and that it gets out to the rest of the public. That message's ultimate impact could be to socially alienate Republicans from potential newcomers to the party.
...
The Birthers threaten to salt the fields around the GOP's reduced territory and make it hard for the party to harvest new voters in the future. This could be especially true of younger voters, who were the least accepting of the premise that Obama wasn't born in America. They are also quick to not tolerate anything that smells racist and mostly voted for Obama last year.

The ultimate dilemma with Republicans and Birthers has haunted parties and armies alike: virtually no group kills its detrimental allies while fighting an enemy ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). It can be tempting to draw an analogy between Birthers and the right-wing John Birchers of the 1950's that accused President Eisenhower of being a communist and were then exiled by conservatives. However, conservatives weren't trying to bring down the Republican Party; they were trying to take it over from liberals without ceding it to red-baiters.

Maybe another civil war lies ahead for today's Republican Party, or maybe Birther fever will cool, or perhaps Democrats will suffer a cataclysm that drives people into the arms of the GOP regardless. It's an unenviable position for Republicans to be in when they're trying to avoid the first scenario, don't want to be seen enabling the second, and are limited in bringing about the third.

I'm continually struck by the irony that for years, the Republicans slammed the Democrats (with considerable justification, IMO) for being in the thrall of "identity politics"... and now it's all they have left. The rejection of Obama by a plurality to majority of Republicans has much less to do with his policy views than his simple other-ness. I'm sure a good part of this is racial, but I think even more it's cultural.

kruker wrote:

Bucky wrote:kruker is that a larry david-chris wheeler encounter

the man in the cape

CrashburnAlley wrote:Bill Maher FTW

The problem arises in how the climate policy interacts with the overall tax system. As the president pointed out, a cap-and-trade system is like a carbon tax. The price of carbon allowances will eventually be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for carbon-intensive products. But if most of those allowances are handed out rather than auctioned, the government won’t have the resources to cut other taxes and offset that price increase. The result is an increase in the effective tax rates facing most Americans, leading to lower real take-home wages, reduced work incentives and depressed economic activity.

The hard question is whether, on net, such a policy is good or bad. Here you can find policy wonks on both sides. To those who view climate change as an impending catastrophe and the distorting effects of the tax system as a mere annoyance, an imperfect bill is better than none at all. To those not fully convinced of the enormity of global warming but deeply worried about the adverse effects of high current and prospective tax rates, the bill is a step in the wrong direction.

What everyone should agree on is that the legislation making its way through Congress is a missed opportunity. President Obama knows what a good climate bill would look like. But despite his immense popularity and personal charisma, he appears unable to persuade Congress to go along.

Squire wrote:

allentown wrote:Yes, hard to argue for a vote against Roberts. I still think the original no vote on Bork was very well deserved. He was an extremely political lawyer in Nixon Administration who was high executioner in the Saturday night massacre, after several less political lawyers refused and fell on their swords instead, out of principle.

I really am not qualified to argue about Watergate because I was 4 years old. But I note that they were Richardson's and Ruckelshaus' principles. What if Bork's principle was the President (the head of the Executive Branch) had the power to fire the Special Prospecutor who was a creation of the Justice Department. Seems like a legitimate legal position to me since I'm fairly certain there is no concept at all of a Special Prosecutor in the Constitution. Following the law doesn't always lead to great results or even results that we all can agree on. At least one article I read indicated that while Richardson and Ruckelshaus resigned they encouraged Bork to stay to carry out the order lest the Justice Deparment completely collapse.

TenuredVulture wrote:I do think it is curious that whenever Democrats act like jerks, their defense is often, "well, conservatives did it first."

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I do think it is curious that whenever Democrats act like jerks, their defense is often, "well, conservatives did it first."

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I do think it is curious that whenever Democrats act like jerks, their defense is often, "well, conservatives did it first."