Soapbox

How about radical centrism?

2006-01-29T12:03:00.000-08:00

When we think of politics in terms of left and right, we tend to see the center as the boring place to be. The extremes have clear perspectives and bold agendas. The center has confusion and compromise.

But the ends of the political spectrum are becoming boring places to be. The right's majority in Congress and occupation of the White House are not helping it pass insufficiently popular legislation. The left is contributing to the stalemate, but dependent on a more powerful middle as centrist Republicans break ranks with colleagues further to the right.

The nation is looking for a third path. Politicians like Barak Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton are homing in on it, as are pundits like Tom Freidman and David Brooks. And a shared agenda is emerging to seize the imagination of radical centrists, willing to think big about goals and flexibly about means.

Let's combine sustainability, national defense and economic growth into a bold quest for energy independence. Let's combine our business sector's need to remain globally competitive and our citizens' need for a humane, shared safety net by tackling health care. Let's address terrorism, ecological degradation, population growth, and human rights abuses through mostly peaceful, occasionally military and always culturally astute support for good government and entrepreneurial endeavor. Let's fix broken government and business systems by improving transparency and aligning incentives with the public good. And let's do it all with Yankee ingenuity, borrowing the best ideas from across the political spectrum, bringing us together and giving us a chance to be great again.

Changing the Subject on Pre-War Iraq Intelligence

2005-11-13T19:13:00.000-08:00

Recently President Bush has been denying that he manipulated intelligence and misled the nation about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. He is crying foul that Democrats are playing politics with something so important as the war while troops are in harm's way. And John McCain is agreeing with him. Meanwhile Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and John Edwards have been responding with various versions of "did to".

"Did to" is an appealing response to people who feel misled back then and feel the President's current denial on Veterans Day in front of veterans is playing politics as well, not to mention a lie. But "did not", "did to", "did not" is not very interesting or valuable political discourse. Isn't there a more useful response: one that moves the conversation forward and shines the light more brightly on truths awkward for the President?

Why not say: "We don't know for sure what happened behind the scenes because the Bush Administration and Republicans have been doing everything in their considerable power to keep us in the dark. But we do know that when we democratic Senators voted to support our President's future decision concerning whether or not to go to war in Iraq we never anticipated that he would short circuit the United Nations inspectors' efforts to confirm the presence of WMD's. In rushing to war without verification he not only alienated the world but violated our trust in him that he would act prudently as our Commander and Chief, and ultimately started a war on accusations that could have been proven untrue before a war commenced."

This reminds people that the vote happened way before the decision to go to war and that when the President bullied the world into stopping the inspections and invading he rashly crossed a line that has been both a foreign policy and fiscal policy disaster, and for him is becoming a political disaster as well.

Framewatch: Mainstream Media Use Republican Point of View in Bolton Vote Headlines

2005-06-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

What should tomorrow morning's headline be: A or B?

A. Senate Democrats Again Reject Bush Effort to Withhold Bolton Information
B. Senate Democrats Again Block Floor Vote on Bolton Confirmation

There's no right answer. Each is true. And each is biased.

"A" frames the event from the Democratic perspective. As Joseph Biden said about an earlier Bolton vote "this is about whether we are going to stand up for this coequal branch of Government's rights to review relevant information in the exercise of our constitutional responsibility and our constitutional power to advise and consent to nominations put forward by the President or whether we are going to let the executive branch define for us what information is necessary in the exercise of our constitutional responsibility."

"B" frames the events from a Republican perspective. They pin the blame on the Democrats for obstructing a floor vote, not on the Bush administration for denying the Senate's constitutional right for relevant executive branch information.

Lots of mainstream news sources used the Republican "B" frame: NPR, The New York Times, and The Washington Post to name a few. Nobody that I could find used the Democrats "A" frame. Perhaps it's too awkward a headline. Perhaps they think the information-witholding argument is a smokescreen. Perhaps they wanted to throw "liberal" press-bashing conservatives a bone. Or perhaps they didn't see the headline's bias.

So what's a centrist news source to do? Some tried to be balanced, using a fig leaf to hide the partisan split by reporting that "the Senate" had blocked a vote on the Bolton nomination. Others succeeded. Salon lead with the headline "Bolton in Limbo", focusing on the undeniable consequences of the vote to the nominee. Reuters homed in on the Senate's inability to find middle ground: "Senate Fails to Break Impasse over Bolton". CNN, without attibuting any blame, reported the "Vote on Bolton Delayed Again" And MSN Money tilted somewhat to the alliterative left, opined in its headline that the Democrats won a round, reporting a "Fresh Blow to Bush on Bolton Nomination"

I say "Big Names in Journalism Blew Bolton Vote Headline."

Have the Republicans lost their marketing marbles?

2005-04-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

Today Senate Majority Leader Frist’s appears via pre-recorded videotape on the Family Research Counsel’s Justice Sunday telecast “The Filibuster Against People of Faith” tacitly approving an effort to position the fight over federal judicial appointments as between people of faith and people against people of faith.

And some months ago, Trent Lott, the Republican Senator from Mississippi and Bill Frist’s predecessor as Senate Majority Leader dubbed the Senate rules change to deny the power of the filibuster to judicial appointments the “nuclear option”, a term that has stuck in spite of the efforts of some shrewder Republicans who have tried to re-dub it the “constitutional option”.

So there you have it. We who are for retaining a rule designed to temper extremists in the party that happens to be in power in their judicial appointments are not only godless but against the faithful. And the faithful, to get their way, are going to bomb long-established precedent into oblivion.

I realize a secular guy like me is unqualified to judge the behavior of the faithful. Nevertheless it strikes me that characterizing your opponent and your course of action in extremely negative ways is neither very Christian nor very mature, and certainly not very smart. Will it make it easier for moderate Republicans to vote with you? Will it impress the swing voter?

A prediction: Should the filibuster get nuked, these marketing tactics will increase the size of the hole Republicans shoot into their collective foot. Should the filibuster dodge the bomb, fingers will point to these gaffes as key factors in its survival.