It's not a soliloquy if others are present, Henley-in-absentia.

Shorter Bill Kristol:

"What Hillary should do is burn down the Reichstag and accuse a communist muslimofascist did it."

After a brief violent fantasy, I saw what a great gift this video is to the Obama campaign. Thanks, Kristol, you miserable douchebag.

Do they have him in a shorter chair than everyone else on purpose?

He is noticeably shorter than everyone else there and he looks like a little grinning imp.

I also claim that he's the least Jewish-looking Jew I've ever seen. He's got that squarehead look.

It's the evil that tips us off to his religion, not his looks.

That's the insecure smile of someone who knows how far out on a limb he is.

The smile says "You are looking at me like I'm crazy for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway, because I've started saying it, and I don't know what else to do."

Walt, are you saying he worships....SATAN!

8. What part of "Jew" didn't you understand?

These jokes aren't working, homies.

They need to check Britt Hume's pulse, there.

OTOH, I find it hard to fault Mr Kristol's analysis.

I'm touched to find out that you think our jokes ever work, Ogged.

That Bill Kristol is a nasty, nasty man. But didn't we already do the "First up against the wall" post a couple months ago?

But didn't we already do the "First up against the wall" post a couple months ago?

I thought it was just a recurring topic for us.

For the record, I wasn't making a religious joke, or any kind of joke. I was just trying to figure out what makes him look so creepy.

7: Though he has just enough self-control to bite his tongue when he starts to identify himself as a member of "the va–" which I assume is "vast right-wing conspiracy." Also nice how, when asked if using the politics of fear means running from the right, he says no, then corrects himself.

For the record, I wasn't making a religious joke, or any kind of joke.

It sounded as though you were making a short joke, helpy-chalk. For which you will pay.

He's not wrong, though.

And yeah yeah, Kobe. But we hit 91 here today, only 4 degrees off the record. 84 degrees now, with a 25-35 mph NNW wind. Expected to hit 37 by dawn. That's a 50+ degree drop in 12 hours. I love Dallas.

a) As Sybil Vane notes, his analysis is correct. For Clinton to win she needs to pop the bubble, not make these pitiful 'instinct for the capillary' attacks on plagiarism and campaign tactics. She needs to advance a new Obama story.
b) What's so bad about running on fear? At least in the context where it means "this is a dangerous world, and my opponent is inexperienced?"

What's so bad about running on fear?

Let's not pretend this is abstract or likely to happen in some respectable way. Running on fear means demonizing muslims and immigrants, exaggerating threats, and basically demagoguery all around. What's the danger in the dangerous world to the average American voter?

Because the country is controlled by bedwetters right now, and that's the very thing we're trying to get away from. YMMV.

The fact that this wise advice comes from William the Bloody tells most of us that there's something wrong with it.

Right, ogged is right. Kristol is correct, but that which he is correct about is the baseness of tactic, and the specificity of that tactic, needed by the Clinton campaign.

Hey we only got a week here in Texas. I suggest a campaign here of rioting muslims and burning towers, or Latino mothers and children marched disconsolate across the border, depending on the demographics.

Ohio, at least as compared to the wondrous Lone Star State, home of the best Point Guard Ever...is weird, strange, inexplicable, complex and perhaps they even repress their violence up there. So repressed rioting gay turbaned Latino mothers marching into Cleveland or sumpin. Who can ken the North?

[poor taste]
So he's calling for a Kristolnacht?
[/poor taste. for this comment. not in general.]

And here you can see Kristol starting to rough up Obama himself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/opinion/25kristol.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

One thing I'll say for Kristol: he's got a son in Iraq. An evil warmonger, but a sincere one.

On CNBC, this would be called talking up your own book. This isn't giving away the game, this is trying to get huge leverage for the Republican game plan by having it carried out within the democratic primary. Then it will have even greater resonance in the general election since even democrats said this about him.

For those who didn't see it linked elsewhere today, here's Dani Rodrik getting some much delayed retribution with Kristol.

Look, I think Obama is an inspiring candidate. But it would be perfectly OK for Clinton to say "this guy is not prepared to be C-in-C, he's too green, you don't want him in command if there's some big crisis." Now this is, of course, "running on fear." But it's OK. If we want to translate "running on fear" into "demonizing immigrants" (or indeed, demonizing anyone) than no doubt, it's bad. But that's the same form of argument whereby you can't run as a populist because it's "class warfare."

baa, thing is, saying 'I'm more experienced to be C-in-C' has been Clinton's schtick for several months now. It isn't working. People aren't buying it in numbers sufficient to make her the frontrunner. Next stop on the experience train is inflating the threats and demonizing convenient targets.

Maybe Muslim Obama will be sympathetic to illegal immigrant terrorist... video games.

baa, you can't read Kristol benignly since he gives an example of what he means in the linked clip, when he says Clinton should say "he wants to negotiate on January 21st with Ahmadinejad." It's not like he meant to say "run on experience" but said "run on fear" by mistake.

Oh dear. Clinton is now saying that Texas "doesn't matter" either.

I saw Hillary actually come at Obama effectively today by calling attention to some of his more bizarre remarks about Pakistan. Now that's a halfway-decent attack; none of this plagiarism-this and cult-that bullshit, but a shot at an area of genuine weakness for him. Too bad it's an even greater area of weakness for her.

But it would be perfectly OK for Clinton to say "this guy is not prepared to be C-in-C, he's too green, you don't want him in command if there's some big crisis."

But she essentially tried this and decided it didn't work. If Kristol is advising her to do something she hasn't done, it has to be more than just this. If he's advising her to do things she has done and found unsuccessful, it's awful advice. It's also possible that he has no idea what Sen. Clinton has and hasn't done, in which case he's a bad pundit.

But if 31 is right, then so much for that.

1. She wimped out of the C-in-C attack in the debate when given a chance to do it directly. That's a mistake for her candidacy, although likely good for the party overall.
2. "He wants to negotiate on January 21st with Ahmadinejad." There is, in my opinion, nothing wrong with that line of attack. We may just have to agree to disagree on that.

"You are looking at me like I'm crazy for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway, because I've started saying it, and I don't know what else to do."

Kristol has a habit of that approach to crazy-speech, it seems.

Drumming up teh fear is essentially the tactic that will emerge in the general against Obama. Well, no shit. Let's wait and see whether the Hillary campaign does it before we do anything other than remark on Kristol's bluntness.

From Kos, quoting a Texas Monthly interview with Clinton:

I'd love to carry Texas, but it's usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan are.

pwned by 26.

Man oh man.

35.2: Why is there nothing wrong with that line of attack? Are you arguing for more brinksmanship? Cluster bombs blowing the legs off little Iranian kids? Skirt up and put your money where your mouth is, Mister Man.

There is, in my opinion, nothing wrong with that line of attack.

You can put that attack in a legitimate context--something about incentives and sanctions, etc.--but there's really nothing in Kristol's record or positions to make you think that he means "run on fear" in the reasonable way you're describing, and not the pernicious way I'm describing. Is it wrong, in principle, or always and everywhere to "run on fear?" No. Is what Bill Kristol has been advocating for the past decade or two wrong? Of course.

And now I'm off.

37: I'm not seeing the "Texas doesn't matter" in the "I'd love to carry Texas but..." (but the Democrats are not going to win that state). And she's talking about the general election, not the Texas primary.

42: That reason -- that X is a state no dem will carry in the general -- is one of the reasons the Clinton campaign has given in the past for why Obama's various primary victories "don't count." Texas had previously been exempted from this, it seemed.

There's nothing wrong with that line of attack because there's nothing wrong with making Obama defend his comments about negotiating with foreign leaders if you disagree with him. Also he was right and should have a pretty easy time arguing about it

42: I'm not seeing the "Texas doesn't matter" in the "I'd love to carry Texas but..."

Look into "not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee." Also novel: the theory that delegates from red states don't matter, no matter how many of them there are or whether the state was must-win a week ago.

Similarly, I hope and expect Obama to attack McCain by bringing up things he's said and making him defend them, since he seems to be in the habit lately of making astonishingly broad statements which he can't support.

"He wants to negotiate on January 21st with Ahmadinejad." There is, in my opinion, nothing wrong with that line of attack.

In the sense that such an issue needs to be addressed, or in the sense that almost all's fair in love and politics? What are the boundaries for you?

44: Right, but I don't think that was what Kristol had in mind with 'run on fear.'

Yeah, 44 is defending 35.2; I don't associate 35.2 with anything Kristol advised.

41: Is it wrong, in principle, or always and everywhere to "run on fear?" No.

I'm surprised at this. I'd say it is wrong to always and everywhere run on fear. But I'm assuming ogged was writing fast before heading off, possibly meaning for "fear" something like "caution" (i.e. legitimate and reasonable, not pernicious, concerns).

Though he has just enough self-control to bite his tongue when he starts to identify himself as a member of "the va-" which I assume is "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Look at the clip again, Jesus. There is cut to another camera right after "va-". I don't think he bit his tongue. I think the editor bit it for him.

51: Ah, right you are. But now I hate you for making me watch it again.

I'm with Parsimon. It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone to use rhetorical appeals to fear. Fear is not caution. Legitimate caution can be captured using calculations of expected utility and actuarial tables. "We'll if we do this, there is a 50% chance of dying, so lets not do this." Fear doesn't show up in your probability calculations--it distorts them.

If you are going to make an emotional appeal--and I know we all have to--for the gods' sake appeal to our better emotions. A hope monger is always better than a fear monger.

50, 53: Are you defining fear to be always and everywhere unreasonable? Otherwise I don't get what you're saying.

Also, I'm scared of policies John McCain is more likely than Barack Obama to enact (Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran) and hope that Barack Obama appeals to those fears in me and explains to other people why they should have similar fears.

Also novel: the theory that delegates from red states don't matter

Not so novel. Similar observations have been made about McCain and the blue states. Josh Marshall, for example:

Chris Matthews is actually making a pretty solid point. And one that's going to be difficult one for McCain to deal with. That is, the states McCain is winning are ones Republican seldom win in general elections. So far our tally has Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. Basically he's taking the Democratic base.

I think this is true. As a predictor of November outcomes, a win for McCain in New York is not nearly as significant as a win in Texas, because the Republicans are not going to take New York State in November. I'm persuaded by the logic of this argument not because I think the voters of one state matter more or less than the voters of another in some essential way, but because the past two elections have taught me something about the bizarre electoral arithmetic of the swing states.

53:It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone to use rhetorical appeals to fear

Uhh, how 'bout hate? Can we run on hate? Hate isn't fear. Just kidding. Open on my desktop.

A loud chorus of voices has been heard praising the demolition of cultural barriers that accompanies the supposed destruction of barriers to trade, and the glorious cultural mixing that results. In this the art world is hardly alone, for a wave of enthusiasm for globalization swept through the discourses of economics and politics, along with the humanities, from academic conference to liberal newspaper. The logic of such talk has been analytically skewered by Justin Rosenberg, who has shown the incoherence that emerges from analyses that purport to use the abstract qualities of space and time as the prime movers in social theory, replacing the parameters of economic, political, and military power, with results that are often vague or merely rhetorical. In the art world, the ferment of talk about globalization has often been quite as slack and ubiquitous.

While the art world has taken up the politically liberal aspect of this rhetoric, in particular recommending the benefits of cultural mixing or hybridity, the overall vision behind it - the dream of global capital - has been thoroughly and swiftly reflected there.

Contemporary Art...A Very Short Introduction

Obama, I mutter cryptically.

Gotta go. Mavericks and Terminators.

54: But isn't the idea that you hope Obama appeals to those fears in order to assuage them, and to convince you that, say, refraining from bombing Iran is the right course? The politics of fear that Kristol espouses is founded on getting people to act on their fears, and therefore to act in a diminished capacity; it's the fear FDR warned against. It's a little early in the thread to fulfill Godwin's law, but there's a Goebbels quote that gets at it nicely.

Somewhat, IA, but they're poor predictors of November outcomes anyway because most of the voters who voted in the primary aren't going to cross party lines. That doesn't translate into a good reason to ignore the states during the primaries.

Fear is the mind-killer, people.

But it would be perfectly OK for Clinton to say "this guy is not prepared to be C-in-C, he's too green, you don't want him in command if there's some big crisis."

I don't even understand what this means, really. Is Obama going to cower under the desk chewing his fingernails if something big happens? Will he not be able to find the keys to the situation room? Foreign policy crises" are not a bunch of regular, similar events that you can practice on.

What counts is your general judgement. McCain has been hanging around DC forever and served in teh military, but I think his foreign policy judgement sucks.

a win for McCain in New York is not nearly as significant as a win in Texas, because the Republicans are not going to take New York State in November.

Right, but a Democrat isn't going to take Texas either. I don't think we can really tell much from the patterns of victory in the primaries. This could all mean that, since conservatives aren't all that excited by McCain, their turnout will be low and the Democrat will coast to an easy victory, or it could demonstrate McCain's appeal to independents and moderate voters in more liberal states, who will join forces with Republicans to give him a commanding win. It's a lot harder to tell what it means than people are assuming.

Someone good with statistics could probably figure out the various correlations at play here (and that would be interesting to see), but I don't think anyone's done that yet.

55: the fact that McCain has crossover appeal makes him a stronger candidate. He's more likely to take independents who will be key voters in swing states. Same with Obama.

You could just as well say that taking Texas shouldn't count for much inthe Republican primary, because any Republican is likely to take that state so who cares. Same with California and NY in the Dem.

Pwned, by one lousy minute.

55: I'm not persuaded by the logic of this argument, because a) it's being employed awfully selectively (we surely wouldn't be hearing this from Clinton if she still had her lead in Texas), b) it involves reifying certain states as Red territory in perpetuity, which is probably not a good idea (as should surely be a lesson of the past two elections, along with "don't let the other guy steal the election") and would seem unnecessary in this of all years, and c) if it were actually, really not a part of the electoral calculation for the nominee, the delegate allocations should be set up that way, and they aren't.

OT, but I just noticed that Google map's streetview was just implemented for my area. When I look at my house (actually, next door it has the addresses off by 2), my son and I are standing in the street checking our mailbox. I find that kind of freaky.

Are you defining fear to be always and everywhere unreasonable?

I don't speak for helpy-chalk, obviously, but I meant just a politics of fear that involves construction of external bogeymen that results in a sort of mild hysteria.

It's a very good question in general, though: there are fears we should have (we should be concerned about another Republican administration; we should be concerned about climate change). So, no, fear is not always and everywhere unreasonable. I see your point.

The Marshall quote in 55 just isn't analogous to what the Clinton camp has been up to. It might be that in this case Texas is being dismissed as a Red State, but they've dismissed a bunch of blue states for various reasons. I realize it's No Subtext day at Unfogged, but Clinton is trying to keep appearing viable even if she loses a "firewall" state, and to lay the ground for seating Michigan and Florida; she's not making predictions about electability.

And about fear, of course I was leaving open the possibility that some situation actually calls for fear: a ticking time bomb electoral scenario, if you will. Just covering my in-principle bases.

Are you defining fear to be always and everywhere unreasonable?

Fear as a campaign tactic is a lot like Republicanism as a political orientation: It isn't always and everywhere loathsome, but in 2008 in the United States, pointing this out is reallly splitting hairs.

The politics of fear that Kristol espouses is founded on getting people to act on their fears, and therefore to act in a diminished capacity;

Here, politics of fear denotes something much more specific than "encouraging people to vote for you because the other guy is scary," it looks like you're using politics of fear to mean something like "foreigners are scary, I'll protect you, vote for me." That's bad, and not something I'd want anyone to run on. 50, 53, and 59 all say something much stronger than this about appeals to fear.

a) it's being employed awfully selectively (we surely wouldn't be hearing this from Clinton if she still had her lead in Texas)

Yes, it's being employed selectively by a campaign that is trying to save face and assuage the anxieties of donors and backers. But the Clinton campaign's selective use of the argument does not render entirely null and void the force of that argument.

Honestly, I worry that some Obama supporters are getting carried away with a sense of the inevitability of their candidate (if not with a sense of his world-historical destiny), because he has won the votes of Democratic delegates in a number of states that the Democrats are simply not going to win. It's creating an exaggerated impression of his across-the-board bipartisan appeal, is what I think.

I probably mostly agree with Howard Dean's 50-state strategy as a long-term goal of the party. But right now I'm worried about November '08.

68 crossed with 65; I now know that 50 didn't mean the stronger claim that I took it to be making.

You know what would be great? If, just once, Democrats could seize the initiative instead of worrying about whether someone is misusing fear in an election. Just once, maybe someone not associated with either campaign could look around, see the neocons, and tenderize the meat for whichever candidate emerges. Exactly how hard is it to demonize people who have been wrong about anything? And then hang them around the neck of McCain, who was their candidate of choice in'00?

If HRC makes the C-in-C argument, she makes it. I have no idea why it would be successful, as, in the one instance that came closest to such a role, she got the decision wrong. AFAICT, she'd be walking into a punch. But, hey, it's her life.

It's creating an exaggerated impression of his across-the-board bipartisan appeal

Even if so, so what? More fervid true-believers, please. David Axelrod is setting Obama's strategy, not the starry-eyed kool-aid drinkers, but their enthusiasm is going to make them vote and volunteer. Unless you think that cultishness will turn off more people than it brings to the polls, I don't see the concern. And I don't worry about the turn-off of cultishness because you have to follow politics pretty closely to even see that; all most people will see is their niece insisting that they vote for Obama.

69 - On the other hand, someone running strong in Texas (and HRC is only running about three points behind Obama in head-to-heads with McCain, so either one of them could make it a respectable race, although Obama currently has an advantage) could have a huge impact on downticket races. There aren't any statewide elected officials in Texas right now. Rick Noriega polls pretty well against the underwhelming John Cornyn; what happens if there's big turnout among African-Americans and one of them makes it a 52-48 race. What happens if the Dems take one of the houses of the Texas Legislature back, which at least one local commenter thinks could happen on the back of huge turnout?

Passing remark: people seem to really want Clinton to just bow out. Given that she's not, of course she's trying to keep appearing viable, and of course that's going to look bizarre. What seems puzzling is why she doesn't bow out; hence the judgment that her continued candidacy is embarrassing, a function of ego, and a variety of other things.

But right now I'm worried about November '08.

Me too.

What seems puzzling is why she doesn't bow out; hence the judgment that her continued candidacy is embarrassing, a function of ego, and a variety of other things.

I don't think that's a fair assessment of HRC's campaign. They're fighting to the end. WJC was, famously, the Comeback Kid. The Clintons think that maybe they can win. And, despite everyone's decision to pretend otherwise, they really might.

I don't have a problem with her staying in the race. I'm a little uncomfortable with some of the tactics, but she didn't have my vote, anyway.

Our discussion of Kristol's latest blurt needn't have gone beyond inventorying his silliness and his nastiness, perhaps carefully distinguishing between the two if we had analytic-philosophy quantities of time on our hands.

But then Baa came along and made us go all polite and NPR on the vicious, boring little man. Our bad luck, I guess.

What we need to do is bounce the bed-wetters out of government and prosecute as many of them as we can. Unfortunately Kristol himself is too chickenshit and silly to have committed any actual crimes, but maybe he'll get a chance to watch some of his heroes marched off in handcuffs.

they really might

You better hope not. If I had to make a bet, I'd give McCain 40 states against Clinton.

Here, politics of fear denotes something much more specific than "encouraging people to vote for you because the other guy is scary," it looks like you're using politics of fear to mean something like "foreigners are scary, I'll protect you, vote for me."

I'm not sure there's a clear distinction; I'm thinking of fear as different from concern, caution or awareness, something that is by definition unreasonable and should be overcome even in a ticking time bomb scenario. A fearful environment breeds yet more fear and makes people vulnerable to manipulation; the prelude to the Iraq war provides an excellent example. The other guy is scary in part because he's not equal to whatever threat a candidate wants to mention, and the big one today is a classic, the foreign brown people who want to hurt us. Clinton and McCain both appeal to this fear.

IIRC, Canetti's Crowds and Power begins, "There is nothing man fears more than the touch of the unknown."

During a foreign policy crisis, I want a C-in-C who has the presence of mind to tack to the right in the hope of picking up some swing voters.

http://thepage.time.com/halperin's-take-ways-mccain-can-beat-obama-that-clinton-cannot/

11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama's unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.

Thanks, Drudge-slobbering Mark Halperin!

Appeals to fear are not inherently wrong. Fear is a important counterpart to greed. Without an appropriate amount of fear people are prone to doing stupid things like lending money to people who can't pay it back so they can buy overpriced houses.

But right now I'm worried about November '08.

I could hardly believe what I was watching in 2004. I find it difficult to fathom how '08 gets to be worrisome until I remember that.

83 gets it right.

Every now and then I see things like this that encourage me, though.

But I wonder what the backlash is going to be like.

Shut the fuck up, Shearer, you're out of your element. You have no frame of reference here.

thats not an insecure smile, thats a shit-eating grin

69: Each year's general election is pretty much always going to be the primary concern (ha ha), and rightly so. All the more reason to take one's message to the "red states" and shake hands and kiss babies during primary season. (NB this is not intended to disagree with what you said.)

83: So white. (Not that I didn't also watch in horror and shame in 11/04!)

Shut the fuck up, Shearer

I anxiously await Emerson's campaign to have Shearer change his unfogged handled to "Donnie".

New strategy: shake babies and kiss hands?

d

Fear is a important counterpart to greed. Without an appropriate amount of fear people are prone to doing stupid things like lending money to people who can't pay it back so they can buy overpriced houses.

Your example of greed is people lending money unwisely? That's odd.

89: Chivalry and infanticide? That's only suited to certain congressional districts.

right, winning moderates in NY isn't going to help anyone. you have to win moderates (well, and the base) in swing states. overall i think looking at who won what state is a really bad way to guess about november. Although it might matter for obama in that its the difference between a big win and a landslide (and thus broader coatails).

83 is right. I rmrmber thinking then "if bush somehow wins this i will totally ahve lots faith in america and this is the most improtant election EVAR." maybe thats nonunique.

Without an appropriate amount of fear people are prone to doing stupid things like lending money to people who can't pay it back so they can buy overpriced houses.

I do not approve of the politics of fear, but just want to put another vote in for rage and hate. Rage & hate really have gotten a bum rap. With a supervised pharmaceutical schedule, they can work wonders.

I really don't understand this politics of hope stuff. Am I supposed to hope that Citibank and BoA play nice? That they self-reform under the blinding rays of Obamavision?

"Slap em silly and take their money til they scream" makes more sense. Signed, hopeless.

88: Do you think that STFUYOOYEYHNFORH will catch on as an acronym? Maybe just STFU-YOOYE?

I think parsimon and ogged are having scope ambiguity issues: ogged was saying "it's not always and everywhere wrong", which came through as "it's always and everywhere not wrong".

It's true that we're not going to win Texas in the general (in 2008 at least, etc.), but the ability to win over Texans correlates with the ability to win over more importantly located people.

91

"Your example of greed is people lending money unwisely? That's odd."

It has been in the news. Substitute borrowing money unwisely to speculate on housing prices if you prefer.

Appeals to fear are not inherently wrong. Fear is a important counterpart to greed. Without an appropriate amount of fear people are prone to doing stupid things like lending money to people who can't pay it back so they can buy overpriced houses.

This is a good example. But fear works differently on the individual level, where it tends to induce caution, than it does on the mass level, where it tends to induce various forms of panic and hysteria.

"This is a good example. But fear works differently on the individual level, where it tends to induce caution, than it does on the mass level, where it tends to induce various forms of panic and hysteria."

So appeals to the fear of getting sick without health insurance should be dropped as they will just induce panic and hysteria?

I think parsimon and ogged are were having scope ambiguity issues

99: Maybe I should have started by distinguishing fears that have a rational grounding in reality from those that don't.

69: Honestly, I worry that some Obama supporters are getting carried away with a sense of the inevitability of their candidate

Well, it's true that Clinton may yet pull off crushing 20-point victories in Ohio and Texas, I guess. Failing that I think it's more probable that the "inevitability" of Obama is underrated on the whole. When people were talking about HRC having to weather a couple of rough weeks to get to her firewall states, I don't think it was generally realized that she'd already gambled everything on crushing the opposition on Super Tuesday, as it's now obvious she did.

If the Democratic Party can't run a 50-state campaign against the smoking wreckage of the GOP post-Bush, then it never can. Period.

94: I really don't understand this politics of hope stuff.

It's nihilism, dude. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Dominionism, at least it's an ethos.

102: I'm sure IA means inevitability in the general election.

If the Democratic Party can't run a 50-state campaign against the smoking wreckage of the GOP post-Bush, then it never can. Period.

This is probably true, and part of what has depressed me about the entire D primary.

103: That would make more sense, wouldn't it?

Well, to address that, nothing is "inevitable" in the general, especially if y'all fail to organize against the use of Diebold machines to hijack the vote for the other side. (And apart from Aravosis and Brad Friedman I still don't see anyone even talking about this.) But Obama doesn't have to have "bipartisan appeal," he just has to be an effective Democrat. If ever there was a year when Dems shouldn't be talking about this or that state that's supposedly unwinnable, this. Is. It.

It's just that greed usually connotes hoarding, not lending away in expectation of future returns. Though I suppose usury is also part of the greed paradigm.

105: Actually, I think he does need some bipartisan appeal, because in popular perception McCain is the most moderate Republican. Why? Because Americans are constantly subject to experiments by aliens.

106

"It's just that greed usually connotes hoarding ..."

Not really. See lots of scams and cons which appeal to the mark's greed.

Probably pwned, but:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks

Probably pwned, but:

New to me. And, ouch.

"The politics of fear" is something specific. The rejection of the politics of fear has is not a rejection of the general principle that people are justified in thinking about possible negative future consequences of their choices.

In other words, STFUD--YOOYE.

109: It's just barely funny because it's true.

"The politics of fear" is something specific.

See the famous Richard Hofstadter essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Here's a selection from the heading, "Emulating the Enemy":

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms--he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. ... He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. ... This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid's sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.

113

"... Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. ... This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid's sense of frustration. ..."

Sounds like half the commenters here.

re: 114

Sometimes the paranoiacs are right.

Hofstadter overstates his case a lot. One of my vague goals (I hardly ever do these things) is to go through a few of his books and look at some critiques. (It may be that people misread Hofstadter, of course, but people always draw establishment centrist lessons from his work).

"Politics of fear":fear of mysterious attacks from an unknown source, fear of spies and traitors, fear of undefined disasters, fear of foreigners, exaggeration of the enemy's power, accusing the less paranoid of being disloyal, exaggerating threats.

Never forget that our country was founded by conspiracy-theorists.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...... The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.....He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

115 and 116 strike me as being similar statements, and 114 ascribes that view (perhaps innacurately) to a broader portion of the Unfoggetariat. Myself, I'll concur with the "centrist" (or is "liberal" more accurate?) reading of Hofstadter and say that one can separate conspiracy theorists that one ought to fear and ridicule from conspiracy theorists that one ought to take seriously.

I find myself wondering what mcmanus would say about this.

One can separate conspiracy theorists that one ought to fear and ridicule from conspiracy theorists that one ought to take seriously.

I have never heard a centrist acknowledge the existence of the second type of conspiracy theorist. A lot of it is American exceptionalism. Political conspiracy assassinations happen in Egypt and India and Africa and even Sweden (Palme.) In in the U.S. of A. We only have lone wackos.

Did Kristol just advise Hillary to run a campaign based on Israel's security? Just too comical.