alien & sedition.

Back from the Dead?

Published on 2008-11-08 16:00:00

Two items via Andrew Sullivan: In one, Ross Douthat mulls over the question of what might constitute the most promising shape for a future GOP coalition: an aliance of "Joe the Plumber and Joe the Office Park Employee," or one that would appeal to "upper-middle reformism" as formulated by David Frum? Douthat is somewhat skeptical as to whether a message aimed at "the Obama-voting, ex-Rockefeller Republicans making $150,000 a year" would harmonize well with one pitched at the Wall-Mart Republic

Rudy Dances with the Fundamentalists

Published on 2007-10-09 07:32:00

Rudy's trying to make nice with the Christian right rebels. The LA Times reports that Giuliani has accepted an invitation to attend, along with the rest of the Republican field, the "values voter summit" sponsored by Tony Perkins's Focus on the Family in Washington on October 20. Perkins, of course, is one of the "secretive" Council for National Policy illuminati who has been talking up the idea of a Christian right third-party campaign should Giuliani win the GOP nomination.While, as Matt Orteg

Rudy, the GOP, and Spending: The Binge-and-Purge Mentality

Published on 2007-10-06 10:47:00

Cross-posted at The Right's Field.The notion that the GOP lost in 2006 because of spending is absurd. It's not just absurd; it's verging on insane. While it may be true that ridiculous earmarks like Don Young's "bridge to nowhere" helped contribute to the general air of corruption surrounding the Republican party, spending per se had nothing to do with the GOP's midterm defeat.But, for reasons I'll get to in a minute, Republicans themselves like very much to tell themselves that the defeat had e

Social Cons, Econo-Cons

Published on 2007-10-01 11:05:00

Ramesh Ponnuru raises some interesting arguments, building off a debate with Thomas Edsall from May. His original point was that "The relative social conservatism of the Republican party has increased over the last twenty years, not decreased."This comes up now in the context of a related question: can socially conservative candidates prosper even as society in general becomes steadily more liberal? Ponnuru argues that yes, they can. I'd say this point is self-evident, given the history of the p

Dobson's Choice

Published on 2007-10-01 10:38:00

Cross-posted at The Right's Field.First things first: can we please stop referring to the Council for National Policy as "secretive"? The CNP is the most publicity-seeking "secret" organization on the planet. It's made up of prima-donna religious right leaders who enjoy their public positions of political influence; if it were truly clandestine it wouldn't be alerting the national media every time it has a significant meeting.So the CNP is considering backing a third party candidate if Rudy Giul

Back to Rangoon

Published on 2007-09-25 09:48:00

When I lived in Southeast Asia, I wanted to visit Burma, but the official word from the democratic opposition was that foreigners should stay away as part of a general boycott of the military regime. I'm not sure whether that particular form of sanction is productive or not, but that's what they ask, so that's what we observed.While democratic revolutions swept the world at the end of the 1980s, Burma has thus far been unable to redeem its failed uprising of 1988. The current demonstrations by t

Details Aren't the Devil

Published on 2007-09-24 10:35:00

Cross-posted at Alien The Right's Field.Democratic candidates offer a wealth of ideas, explained in rich detail. Republicans offer a few vague platitudes and promise to get back to us after the election.Steve Benen says that, infuriating as it may be, the Republican approach may be savvier:I’m not sure Republicans are wrong about this. When a GOP candidates says, “Vote for me — and I’ll work out the details later,” I’d love for there to be consequences. There never are. In 2000, Bush

Study: Conservatives Dominate Op-Ed Pages

Published on 2007-09-23 08:57:00

This Media Matters report won't surprise you, but it should infuriate you. They actually contacted almost every daily newspaper in the U.S. on an individual basis to collect the data to show that conservatives are greatly over-represented in the opinion pages. On the plus side, I remember coming of age in the 90s just knowing this was true -- it was obvious -- but back then it seemed like there was hardly anyone willing to say or do anything about it. That, at least, has changed.Still, the findi

On Hiatus

Published on 2007-09-20 11:53:00

A&S is on hiatus for the next few days, but we'll be back soon.

NY Times Ending "Times Select"

Published on 2007-09-18 07:50:00

After two years, down comes the pay-wall:In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free. [...]What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming di

GOP Frontrunners Snubbing Minorities Again

Published on 2007-09-17 10:45:00

Cross-posted at The Right's Field.MyDD's Melissa Ryan wrote about this yesterday: Giuliani, Romney, and McCain have all turned down invitations to participate in Tavis Smiley's All American Presidential Forum on September 27. She cites Jack and Jill Politics:Tavis did a 'Shout out' to his fellow Black Republicans, asking them why they were so silent on this matter. They keep on yapping that the GOP is a valid alternative for Black America, yet, when a nationally televised forum is put together s

All in the Family

Published on 2007-09-13 13:31:00

In an Opinion Journal piece reprinted from Commentary, Kay Hymowitz offers a notable exercise in conservative critique of libertarianism. It's timely: as Hymowitz herself observes, with the growth of the internet as a political medium (and for a number of other reasons), the libertarian voice in conservative discourse is more prominent now than it has been in quite some time.In her review of two new books by prominent libertarians (Radicals for Capitalism by Brian Doherty, and The Age of Abundan

Being Fred Thompson

Published on 2007-09-13 12:50:00

Hoover Institution fellow and former Reagan advisor Richard Allen has a rambling endorsement of Fred Thompson at the National Review. The point of the piece is to validate the Thompson-as-Reagan idea, but it mainly consists of nostalgic anecdotes about the political genius of the Gipper. Allen says little of substance about Thompson (despite mentioning that he's known him "for many years"), and the whole thing comes off as illustrative of precisely the mindset Thompson must be counting on among

Yes, I'm Alive

Published on 2007-09-12 15:17:00

Allow me to indulge in a blogger cliche: sorry for the lack of posts recently.I'm beginning something of a career transition and it's taking a toll on my blogging time; what time I've had lately has mostly been spent over at The Right's Field, where I've been writing about the Republican presidential field.Despite a few notable incoming links, A&S remains a low-traffic blog, which is fine, but it also means it's harder to write when I'm less energetic. I expect to continue to use this site to po

The Cognitive Question

Published on 2007-09-10 16:23:00

Do liberals and conservatives think differently? Yes, according to yet another study. I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing. I largely agree with Peter Suderman, who wonders: what's the point?But other than giving the blogosphere a secondary story to argue about this week during breaks from analyzing the Patraeus Bush report, there doesn't seem to be too much point to these stories. Yes, conservatives and liberals are different, and some of their differences can ocassionally be shown i

Last Night's Debate: The View from the Right

Published on 2007-09-06 12:06:00

Cross-posted at The Right's Field.For all the fun we in the netroots can have watching the Republican sideshow, we forget that they aren't doing it for our own amusement. They're trying to win support from the right. And with that in mind, here's a sample of conservative reaction to last night's Donnybrook in Durham.Hoping to wrap things up on a positive note, the National Review's Kate O'Beirne instead sets herself up for a delightful little pratfall. "All three frontrunners have had a good nig

This Is Why Everyone Hates the MSM

Published on 2007-09-05 16:05:00

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people? Bad enough we've had to be subjected to years of vacuous chatter about which presidential candidates people would enjoy having beers with (despite the fact that neither of our last two presidents have actually been beer-drinkers). Now ABC, in all its investigatory splendor, demands that the public discuss whether we'd rather go on a road trip with Hillary or with Giuliani.Christ.For the record, neither. It would be weird and awkward and unplea

Republican Decline, Part XXVII

Published on 2007-09-05 13:24:00

It isn't just wishful thinking, it's real data showing the decline of the Republican party. Today's Wall Street Journal has the latest, reporting on a study by prominent Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio:For Republicans hoping the 2008 campaign will bring a fresh start after the troubled tenure of President Bush, there are sobering signs: Evidence indicates that the party's problems with the American electorate are much bigger than the president and won't go away when he leaves office.Recent vot

Manufacturing Shared Prosperity

Published on 2007-09-05 11:07:00

Cato's Daniel Ikenson follows up on his own thesis about the allegedly-surprisingly-vital state of American industry with a mention of Peter Goodman's recent article, which provided a case study in the same phenomenon.As Goodman describes it:The United States makes more manufactured goods today than at any time in history, as measured by the dollar value of production adjusted for inflation — three times as much as in the mid-1950s, the supposed heyday of American industry. Between 1977 and 20

GOP Abandons Latinos; Latinos Abandon GOP

Published on 2007-09-04 15:32:00

Cross-posted at The Right's Field.As sure as night follows day, if you abuse a constituency long enough, it'll turn on you. As Republican candidates ignore real Latinos and play to the white GOP base's fear of imaginary ones, we can start to see the consequences on the horizon. For instance, via Soren Dayton, here's the Dallas Morning News's William McKenzie on how Republicans are losing Hispanic evangelicals:A note here for Mitt, Fred, Rudy and the gang:You guys gunning for the GOP nomination r

Right Back Atcha

Published on 2007-09-04 15:01:00

The National Review's editors argue that Republicans should stop complaining about the Democrats' "do-nothing Congress":Democrats have already responded to the charge by saying that they would have passed a lot of bills if not for Republican obstruction. The solution, they will say, is for voters to remove enough Republican senators that no more filibusters will be possible, and to take the veto out of Republican hands. This advice will fall on receptive ears.Instead, our editor friends say, Con

Alien & Sedition Will Be Back

Published on 2007-08-31 11:29:00

...after Labor Day. I'll be bringing back the "advisors" series, and, eventually, the conservative history series.Also, what the hell is wrong with the Mets? Ugh.

Blah Blah Blah Hates America

Published on 2007-08-29 14:05:00

Even the more respectable members of the conservative commentariat seem susceptible to the strange game of parsing the political significance of pop culture for the sake of determining whether x is good or bad for The Cause. The newest question: is The Bourne Ultimatum anti-American? Yes, really -- that's the question.The whole thing begins, as so many delightful discussions do, with Bill O'Reilly, who complains that, in the film, "the CIA guys are bad, bad, bad," and also Matt Damon and Julia S

A Telling Silence

Published on 2007-08-29 11:36:00

On the second anniverary of the New Orleans levee failure in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, d-day offers an instructive comparison between the two American political parties. While each of the frontrunning Democratic candidates for president has a comprehensive plan for reconstruction, the Republican candidates have, er... not so much:Rudy Giuliani: Three-line press release, no specifics.Mitt Romney: Nothing on the front page.Fred Thompson: Nothing on the front page.John McCain: Three-paragraph

Iraq: Whose Failure of Will?

Published on 2007-08-29 11:01:00

Subbing for Andrew Sullivan, Hilzoy reposts a fantastic essay examining the common right-wing trope that victory in Iraq is primarily a matter of will -- and its corollary, which is that those who oppose the endless prolongation of the war are a "party of defeat," since they sap the nation's will to victory.Hilzoy asks:[W]hose will and resolve failed us in the war in Iraq? And to the extent that any sort of success in iraq was possible, whose feckless irresolution and lack of full commitment sho