Debunking polarization

Ed Kilgore makes a valid point in discussing "down ballot" races and the perceived polarizing effect of a Hillary Clinton candidancy:

Negative as well as positive enthusiasm towards candidates is often overrated, since "bonus votes" are not rewarded for the intensity of voter preferences. And as [Tom Schaller of New Republic] notes, Obama-hatred or Edwards-hatred might well emerge on the Right if either of those men won the nomination. But the anecdotal case you often hear about Clinton is that she is polarizing in an unbalanced way: her nomination would strongly motivate conservatives who think she's a dedicated socialist and one-worlder, while discouraging progressives who think she's a warmongering corporate puppet. (You even hear the reverse argument made about Edwards, i.e., that he's usefully perceived by Republicans and independents as more "centrist" than he actually is).

Interesting as they are, such theories about HRC's effect on the electorate would have more power if there was any objective evidence for them. So far, polls testing various Democratic candidates against Republican rivals in specific states (mainly those conducted by SurveyUSA) show her doing as well as or better than Obama and Edwards in most states, and doing quite well in red and purple states. To be a "drag" on the ticket down-ballot in a lot of states, you have to actually lose them, and lose them badly. To put it most simply, it's hard to get too obsessed about the down-ballot "damage" that might be inflicted by a candidate who's currently running four points ahead of Rudy Giuliani in Kentucky.

I have no doubt that whoever gets the Democratic nomination, the Repub attack machine will slash and burn the nominee. Polarization via divisive wedge issues is what Repubs and their vast noise machine do best. In considering GOP candidates, you won't hear much about how their candidates divide America. Proof?

[Keep reading...]

A blast from the past:

I'm a uniter, not a divider.

Not much news squawk dubbed Bush as a polarizing figure when he ran for the presidency in 2000. But Al Gore? And now Hillary? A sample from our rotting press corpse courtesy Bob Somerby:

WALSH (12/14/00): Gore simply does not have the charisma, the power, the emotional reach to heal the partisan divide right now. Despite his history of bipartisanship in the Senate, he's become a hectoring, polarizing figure.

And another:

''Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don't think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is—and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?—can bring the country together.

First off, let me opine that anyone who runs for the presidency had best have some fucking incredible ambition. Secondly, the world, IMO, will respond more favorably to a Democratic president -- anyone of the Democrats -- than a Bush clone like Rudy or Mitt. So enough with the polarization claptrap.

Eric Weiner writing for the LATimes offered a different approach to the polarization subject during the 2004 presidential campaign:

Candidates don't talk about their shared positions; they need to highlight their differences. Meanwhile, the media magnify those differences because it makes a better story. The result is the illusion of a polarized nation. After all, with the proper lens and the right light, any decent photographer can make a tiny stream look like the Mississippi.

The question is: Why does the American public so readily embrace this myth of polarization? Partly, I think, because it makes us feel good, reinforcing the sense that we are engaged in a feisty debate about issues that really matter. If we disagree so loudly, the logic goes, then surely democracy must be alive and well.

The advent of talk radio (to date mostly right wing, but that is about to change), along with cable TV shout-a-thons and high-octane websites, has fueled the myth of polarization.

I don't know that I agree with Weiner entirely because he didn't delve into who's ferociously spread the "myth of polarization" and why... at least not to the detail that I would like.

I've long disagreed with the divisiveness attributed to Hillary and previously to Al Gore and indubitably coming soon to the next Democratic presidential nominee. Hell, that's what they say and I don't cotton to hand-wringing, forked-tongue millionaire pundits and D.C. consultants who have ulterior motives to hype how polarizing he or she is. The meme has infiltrated our public discourse and culture so markedly that I've fallen under its influence upon occasion. Time to snap out of it!

So when you hear how polarizing Hillary, Edwards, Obama, Richardson et al are or will be, which in turns implicitly questions their electability, ask yourself who benefits by promoting such a proposition? Put another quarter in the rightwing Mighty Wurlitzer and you'll find out.

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Haute Couture, Not Hate Couture

This post is meant to be a bit of a companion piece to CJ's below. The rightwing noise machine goes to great pains to foment hate for those that they perceive to be our enemies, and they go to great lengths to pigeonhole and dehumanize them to the masses. This has been done, with a good deal of success, respectively to the Iraqis, the Iranians and to Muslims in general.

Of course, the reality, as is to be expected, is a much more complex and compelling story. More on the flip....

Fashion Week in New York City is not a place one would expect to find a devout practitioner of Islam, much less would one expect to find said practitioner to be a celebrated designer, busy behind the scenes tarting up her models with her latest creations.

Turkish designer Rabia Yalcin is a devout Muslim. In public she wears a hear scarf and conservative dress. But the plunging neck lines, peek-a-boo bras and see-through material reveal her flair for the sensual.

Asked if she would ever wear her garments, Yalcin responds, "Of course I would wear it, but in private at my home." Yalcin believes a girl can have it all, mixing haute couture with Islamic sensibility.

In stark contrast to the couture she supplies her runway models...

...Yalcin is quite modest and traditional in her dress.

In this, she sees no contradiction between her faith and her career.

"My religion has taught me about understanding and loving," said Yalcin. "As far as I'm concerned, I create designs for women of all backgrounds and religions and I don't discriminate, and I have respect and love for all."

Amazing. Not only does this devout Muslim not hate us for our freedom, not only has she not had to been fought "over there" to keep her from killing us, "over here," but she is more than happy to leave us to whatever vices in our own homes and bedrooms in which we may wish to partake. There is is many a religious leader in this little old country of ours that could learn a valuable lesson from this lady.

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Cranking Up the Mighty Wurlitzer

As they always do when they have no facts or precedent to make their case, the right-wing noise machine has been cranking non-stop in an effort to smear Nancy Pelosi and her trip to the Middle East.

None of the sources criticizing Pelosi has mentioned the five Republican congressmen who were in the Middle East this week and who also met with the Syrian president.

To hear them tell it, Ms. Pelosi is setting up a shadow presidency and only wants to embarrass the idiot in the oval. The ABC website actually implied criminality might be charged.

Please.

I would like to refer those screaming the loudest to 1997, when two different Speakers of the House truly did usurp presidential authority:

From Digby:

In 1997, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a delegation to Colombia at a time when U.S. officials were trying to attach human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs. Hastert specifically encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass” President Clinton and “communicate directly with Congress.”

…a congressional delegation led by Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) which met with Colombian military officials, promising to “remove conditions on assistance” and complaining about “leftist-dominated” U.S. congresses of years past that “used human rights as an excuse to aid the left in other countries.” Hastert said he would to correct this situation and expedite aid to countries allied in the war on drugs and also encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress.”

Subsequently, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette sent a cable complaining that Hastert’s actions had undermined his leverage with the Colombian military leadership.

In other instances, Hastert actually guided congressional staff to unilaterally reach deals with Colombian officials:

House Foreign Affairs Committee staff, at the direction of the Hastert group, would fly to Colombia, meet with the nation’s anti-narcotics police and negotiate the levels and terms of assistance, the scope of the program and the kinds of equipment that would be needed. Rarely were the U.S. diplomatic personnel in our embassy in Bogata consulted about the “U.S.” position in these negotiations, and in a number of instances they were excluded from or not even made aware of the meetings.

And from Glenn Greenwald:

This is, of course, totally different than the right-wing outrage scandal de jour:

New York Times, March 31, 1997 -- reporting on a trip to China by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one week after Vice President Al Gore's trip:

Speaking with startling bluntness on an issue so delicate that diplomats have tiptoed around it for years, Newt Gingrich said today that he had warned China's top leaders that the United States would intervene militarily if Taiwan was attacked.

As he left for Tokyo after a three-day trip to China, Mr. Gingrich said he had made it absolutely clear how the United States would respond if such a military conflict arose.

Referring to his meetings with China's leaders, Mr. Gingrich said: ''I said firmly, 'We want you to understand, we will defend Taiwan. Period.'"

He also said, ''I think that they are more aware now that we would defend Taiwan if it were militarily attacked.''

Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, delivered his message, among the most forceful ever given about Taiwan by a visiting United States official, to Wang Daohan, China's chief representative in talks with Taiwan. Mr. Gingrich said he had given the same message to President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Li Peng in Beijing last week.

Chinese leaders offered no public response to Mr. Gingrich today. But on Friday, Mr. Jiang urged him to treat the Taiwan issue with care. . . .

Asked about Mr. Gingrich's statements, a Clinton Administration official in Washington said Mr. Gingrich had received briefings about American policy toward China, but that Mr. Gingrich ''was speaking for himself'' in his conversations with Chinese leaders.

The White House issued a statement saying that the policy of the United States was to ''meet its obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act, including the maintenance of an adequate self-defense for Taiwan,'' and that the Administration would maintain its ''one-China policy, the fundamental bedrock of which is that both parties peacefully address the Taiwan issue. . . ."

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Gingrich said he had spoken with Mr. Clinton, and with Mr. Gore on several occasions, to make sure that their messages to Beijing dovetailed. At the time, he did not mention his message on Taiwan.

Several days later, Gingrich's remarks in China led to this -- New York Times, April 4, 1997:

China admonished the United States today to speak with one voice on foreign policy and accused Newt Gingrich of making ''improper'' statements on Washington's commitment to defend Taiwan from any military attack by the mainland.

The criticism was made by the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Shen Guofang, who earlier this week had expressed basic satisfaction with remarks made by Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, during a three-day visit to China.

The visit followed Vice President Al Gore's first trip to Beijing. Both men spoke on issues of contention between Washington and Beijing, but Mr. Gingrich's remarks were noteworthy for their directness and for exceeding the normal State Department formulations on American commitments to Taiwan.

China's decision to criticize Mr. Gingrich came after he traveled to Taiwan on Wednesday and met with President Lee Teng-hui.

Back then, the media treated Gingrich like he was the American Prime Minister, and his right-wing supporters had no problem with the House Speaker travelling and expressing his own foreign policy views which deviated from the Clinton administration's.

Desperate, ain’t they?

Meanwhile, I just love this bit from a Saudi paper:

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminds us of the ambitious office worker surrounded by dunderheads who can't or won't get the job done. So she rolls up her sleeves and says for all the world to hear: 'Well, it looks like I'll have to do it myself.'

This is, of course, a non-issue. Just like the military jet was a non issue. I’m not a hyper-sensitive feminist, seeing misogyny in every shadow, but there just might be an element of that.

It’s a faux scandal because they have nothing real to object to. So they crank up the slime machine and slander the most competent politician working today because she is speaking truth to power, and it is scaring the power shitless.

Good for her.

I just think it's terribly sad that Speaker Pelosi had to give up her time off with her large Catholic family to do the job that Condi-the-incompetent has failed miserably at lo these many months.

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