“The Quality Of Civic Debate “: The GOP’s Radioactive Anti-Obama Rhetoric
The debates this presidential primary season have been less like Lincoln-Douglas than former heavyweight champ Buster Douglas — punch-drunk pugilism, providing entertainment and some great upsets along the way.
But for all the excitement of the fights, there is a civic cost to the radioactive rhetoric that gets thrown out to excite the conservative crowds.
It’s not just that the most irresponsible candidates can play to the base and get a boost in the polls, while more sober-minded candidates like Jon Huntsman fail to get attention. The real damage is to the process of running for president itself. Because when low blows get rewarded, the incentive to try to emulate Lincoln — holding yourself to a higher standard — is diminished. And one barometer of this atmospheric shift is in the increasingly overheated rhetoric by candidates attacking the current president. This serial disrespect ends up unintentionally diminishing the office of president itself.
Look, I know that politics is a full-contact sport: Elbows get thrown and egos get bruised. But ask yourself if Ronald Reagan ever called Jimmy Carter a socialist or a communist on the stump. Sure, there were deep philosophical and policy disagreements between them, and Carter was called a failed president many times. But there was a lingering respect for the office that retained an essential bit of dignity. It was only the far-right fringe who indulged in the kind of rhetoric we now hear routinely from presidential candidates.
For example, Newt Gingrich gained steam early in the primary process by accusing President Obama of having a “Kenyan anti-Colonial mindset,” and invoking the specter of a “Obama’s secular socialist machine.” As a highly compensated historian, Newt should have known better than to say that Obama is the “most radical president in American history.” But then accuracy — or even aiming in the general vicinity of the truth — isn’t the point.
Rick Santorum raised eyebrows this past weekend for saying Obama wants to impose a “phony theology” on America. Santorum has since tried to clarify that he was not trying to raise doubts about the president’s religion and I’ll take him at his word. Likewise, when Santorum compares GOP primary voters to members of the “greatest generation” called to act against the rise of Nazi Germany, I’ll assume that Santorum isn’t intentionally comparing the president to Hitler.
But a month ago, when a Santorum supporter accused Obama of being “an avowed Muslim” who “constantly says that our Constitution is passé” and “has no legal right to be calling himself president” — Santorum did nothing to correct her.
Instead, he told CNN: “I don’t feel it’s my obligation every time someone says something I don’t agree with to contradict them.”
But I think standing up for the truth in the face of unhinged hate is part of a potential president’s job. So did John McCain.
Four years ago, at the height of the general election, when a supporter called then-candidate Obama an “Arab,” McCain corrected her. He said, “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man … (a) citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.” That’s the voice of a loyal opposition, putting patriotism above partisanship.
Even the sober-minded Mitt Romney has gotten into the hyper-partisan pandering game lately. Maybe he’s trying to compensate for a lack of enthusiasm on the far-right with red meat rhetoric, but the effect is desperate.
For example, when Mitt was barnstorming through Florida, a standard part of his stump speech was this: “Sometimes I think we have a president who doesn’t understand America.” This line was straight out of the “Alien in the White House” playbook, a riff that reinforced the worst impulses of some in the audience, as one woman at a Romney rally named Katheryn Sarka eagerly reaffirmed when I asked her what she thought of the line: “Obama doesn’t understand America. He follows George Soros. Obama is against our Constitution and our democracy.”
After his big Nevada win, this line of Mitt’s scripted victory speech stood out: “President Obama demonizes and denigrates almost every sector of our economy.” Romney knows this isn’t true, but he’s been convinced that it works and he seems to be willing to say whatever it takes to make the sale.
Here’s what’s most troubling about this trend: It doesn’t seem remarkable anymore. For the candidates and many in the press, it is just the new normal, the cost of doing business. The overheated rhetoric simply reflects the conversation that’s been going on at the grassroots for a long time.
Like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water, we don’t realize that the heat is killing us until it is too late — except that the casualty here is the quality of our civic debate and the bonds that are bigger than partisan politics.
It’s naïve to think it will stop when Mr. Obama is no longer president, whether that is in one year or five. Because the next Republican president will inherit the political atmosphere that’s been created and find that it is almost impossible to unite the nation absent a crisis. Some Democratic activists will no doubt take a tactical page from recent conservative successes. This cycle of incitement — where extremes inflame and empower each other — will make our politics more of an ideological bloodsport and less about actually solving problems.
Perspective is the thing we have least of in our politics these days. But perspective is what the presidency is all about — rising above divisions and distractions to make long-term decisions in the national interest. By pouring gasoline on an already inflammatory political environment, the GOP presidential candidates not only diminish themselves, they diminish the process of running for president, and make it less likely that they would succeed in uniting the nation if they actually won the office.
By: John Avlon, CNN Contributor, CNN Opinion Page, February 22, 2012
“Beyond The Fanatical Fringe”: What Rick Santorum’s America Would Look Like?
Rick Santorum, the culture warrior who lost his Senate seat in 2006, is polling within striking distance of Mitt Romneyin Michigan and Arizona, where Republican primaries will be held Tuesday. His unabashed use of his traditionalist faith in politicking and policymaking has been gaining popularity. What ifhe wins the nomination — and then the White House?What would life look like in Santorum’s America? How religious would his presidency be? Here, the author imagines what President Santorum would tell his key constituency — religious conservatives — as he ran for reelection four years from now.
Thank you. Thank you very much for that kind introduction. As Tony mentioned, I am the only sitting president to address the Values Voter Summit, something I have done each year since I took office in 2013. I’m here today, and have been to every Values Voter Summit, because I, like you, am a values voter.
Four years ago, liberal elites said I couldn’t win. They said I talked about my faith and about social issues too much. Some even called me a bigot. They said someone like me, someone whose views were so “extreme” on matters of life, marriage and family, could not win the presidency. Well, we proved them wrong.
Because of our values, we never gave up, and under my administration we have finally defunded Planned Parenthood. No longer will your tax dollars support that abortion mill or any programs that indoctrinate young girls to be sexual libertines — programs that say, “Here’s a pill, go ahead, have fun, it’s all about pleasure.” We said no — the government cannot force us to use our tax dollars to support unnatural acts. Now that money goes to pregnancy care centers, which help mothers rather than telling them to abort their babies.
One of my first acts as president was the creation of the Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty. Since its inception in early March 2013, the commission has investigated 249 instances of infringement of Americans’ religious freedom. Its quarterly public hearings, led by Chairman Maggie Gallagher and streamed live on the commission’s Web site, have served to educate Americans about the daily oppression of our faith, in the name of tolerance, by government and individuals.
Because of the brave stands religious leaders took across the country, we stopped the Obama birth control and morning-after abortion pill mandate in its tracks. Gone. We drew a line in the sand and created a conscience exemption for religious business owners and institutions to opt out of Obamacare entirely, thanks be to God. It’s because of our values that we came close — this close! — to repealing that abominable experiment in government playing God altogether. You — we — stand in the gap, reminding Americans that our rights come from natural law, not from the government.
We have accomplished much, but there is still much to do. We have gathered support for the Dignity of the Preborn Person Act, which, if passed, would recognize in civil law what we know to be true as a matter of God’s law: that every human life, at every stage, deserves protection. This bill ensures that each life, from the moment of conception, is entitled to the rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. When that bill becomes law, unborn persons will no longer be denied their personhood, their God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
To promote families, the foundation of our society and our economy, my administration has taken several steps: We have increased funding to the Healthy Marriage Initiative and the responsible-fatherhood project through the Department of Health and Human Services. We’ve reinstated funding for abstinence-education programs. We’ve broken down barriers left in place by my predecessor to faith-based organizations receiving funding under these programs. My Justice Department, unlike that of my predecessor, is dedicated to defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, and my solicitor general will do so vigorously when the current challenge reaches the Supreme Court of the United States.
To unleash the innovations that make America great, we continue to push for repeal of the laws and regulations that stifle economic growth: Obamacare, Dodd-Frank financial reform, the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules. Lifting the yoke of all those regulations, along with securing our borders from illegal immigration, will both create and protect jobs for America’s workers. We’ve eliminated my predecessor’s boondoggles at the EPA and Department of Energy — promoting “green” energy and “green” jobs — and instead are tapping into the great natural resources we already know exist: oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy. We’ve gotten rid of wasteful, endless bureaucratic study of global warming and have placed America on the road to energy independence, freeing us from relying on sources of energy from America’s enemies.
We fight many battles here at home, but there are other battles, too, against Islamic extremists who have their sights on America, on Israel and on Western civilization — Christendom itself. I rejected my predecessor’s dangerous appeasement policy and launched our air campaign against Iran’s nuclear sites, which will continue until we ensure that this existential threat to Israel and America is annihilated.
These battles overseas are just one front in the fight against Islamic radicalism. Nothing short of the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation is at risk. That’s why I support the Defend the American Constitution Act, which would bar federal courts from acknowledging or relying on sharia law.
Friends, when I was first elected four years ago, the very core of what makes our nation great — our faith — was under assault. While the economy was unraveling under the weight of regulations and oppressive government mandates, that election wasn’t about the economy. It was about something far more fundamental than job creation and tax rates — although those things are of course important. What changed the course of the campaign and made Barack Obama a one-term president was that voters saw through the haze of feel-good Christianity and realized that we teetered on the brink. The government of the New Deal, Great Society and Obamacare was on the verge of implementing its final offensive against our most fundamental freedoms. It had become abundantly clear that if we did not stand up for our faith, we would end up sitting in the back of the bus.
After nearly four years in office, we are going in the right direction, but there is still much work to do. We must keep the White House and the House of Representatives and, crucially, regain control of the Senate, which we won in 2012 but lost in 2014. If you want Supreme Court justices who are constitutionalists, who believe that the abomination of same-sex “marriage” must be stopped before it destroys us, who believe that the “right to privacy” and “separation of church and state” were pulled out of thin air by activist judges, we need a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
When you vote this November, remember you are not just voting for Rick Santorum, but for the Senate and House as well. You can and you must vote your faith — or risk losing America as we know it.
By: Sarah Posner, The Washington Post, February 24, 2012
“Republican Standard Bearer?: No Really, Rick Santorum Can’t Beat Barack Obama
I gave into temptation and checked out the comments page for my piece on the GOP’s “Ricksanity” that was published last week. The comments were so overwhelmingly negative toward my criticism of former Sen. Rick Santorum that I actually paused and considered that maybe I was wrong, and Rick Santorum does have the support needed to become the nominee.
Then, Rick Santorum did me a favor and made my case for me.
First, there was the wide coverage of his comments about “Satan” and subsequent refusal to back away from them. Voters want to hear what a candidate is going to do to solve the soaring gas prices, high unemployment, and the deficit. Rick Santorum chooses to talk about Satan engulfing the United States of America because of issues such as Title X allowing the federal government to fund contraception. That is the exact type of useless social rhetoric that hurts the Republican Party’s image with the electorate and its chances of being successful in the November elections.
Then we got to see what front-runner Rick Santorum looks like at the debate on Wednesday night. It is now clear that while former Senator Santorum is able to deliver passionate speeches and portray himself as the unyielding conservative, under scrutiny he is about as consistent as Sen. John Kerry’s stance on the Iraq war.
The Title X that former Santorum loathes so much? Turns out he voted for it. His excuse—he proposed a second federal spending program called Title XX to counteract Title X. So much for being a deficit hawk.
The federal takeover of education in No Child Left Behind? Turns out Rick Santorum voted for that as well in order to be a “team player.” So much for being a small government conservative.
Santorum’s stance on former Gov. Mitt Romney? He endorsed Romney in 2008 calling him a “true conservative.”
Throughout the debate Rick Santorum appeared angry, dismissive of the other candidates (especially Rep. Ron Paul who was hitting him the hardest), and not ready for the limelight of being the front-runner.
Bottom line: The debate was a nightmare for Rick Santorum. It provided another window into the reasons behind his double digit loss in Pennsylvania in 2006. It was also a useful preview of what an Obama-Santorum debate would be like—not a pretty picture for the GOP.
I have absolutely no personal ill will against former Senator Santorum; I think he is a good man, husband, and father. However, I am also convinced that he should not be the Republican standard bearer in November.
By: Boris Epshteyn, U. S. News and World Report, February 25, 2012
Consistency Is An Over-Rated Virture: What “Left” And “Right” Really Mean
Perhaps my biggest frustration with the U.S. news media (and yes, I am a card-carrying member) is that we permit the two parties to decide what is “left” and what is “right.” The way it works, roughly, is that anything Democrats support becomes “left,” and everything Republicans support becomes “right.” But that makes “left” and “right” descriptions of where the two parties stand at any given moment rather than descriptions of the philosophies, ideologies or ideas that animate, or should animate, political debates.
There is a good reason why we do it this way. It isn’t the media’s job to police political ideologies, and it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to try. But that leaves ordinary voters in a bit of a tough spot.
The reality is that most Americans aren’t policy wonks. They don’t sit down with think-tank papers or economic studies and puzzle over whether it’s better to address the free-rider problem in health care through automatic enrollment or the individual mandate. Instead, they outsource those questions to the political actors — both elected and unelected — they trust.
Unfortunately, those political actors aren’t worthy of their trust. They’re trying to win elections, not points for intellectual consistency. So the voters who trust them get taken for a ride.
Consider the partywide flips and flops of just the past few years:
— Supporting a temporary, deficit-financed payroll-tax cut as a stimulus measure in 2009, as Republican Sen. John McCain and every one of his colleagues did, put you on the right. Supporting a temporary, deficit-financed payroll tax-cut in late 2011 put you on the left. Supporting it in early 2012 could have put you on either side.
— Supporting an individual mandate as a way to solve the health-care system’s free-rider problem between 1991 and 2007 put you on the right. Doing so after 2010 put you on the left.
— Supporting a system in which total carbon emissions would be capped and permits traded as a way of moving toward clean energy using the power of market pricing could have put you on either the left or right between 2000 and 2008. After 2009, it put you squarely on the left.
— Caring about short-term deficits between 2001 and 2008 put you on the left. Caring about them between 2008 and 2012 put you on the right.
— Favoring an expansive view of executive authority between 2001 and 2008 put you on the right. Doing so since 2009 has, in most cases, put you on the left.
— Supporting large cuts to Medicare in the context of universal health-care reform puts you on the left, as every Democrat who voted for the Affordable Care Act found out during the 2010 election. Supporting large cuts to Medicare in the context of deficit reduction puts you on the right, as Republicans found out in the 1990s, and then again after voting for Representative Paul Ryan’s proposed budget in 2011.
— Decrying the filibuster and considering drastic changes to the Senate rulebook to curb it between 2001 and 2008 put you on the right, particularly if you were exercised over judicial nominations. Since 2009, decrying the filibuster and considering reforms to curb it has put you on the left.
— Favoring a negative tax rate for the poorest Americans between 2001 and 2008 could have put you on the right or the left. In recent years, it has put you on the left.
I don’t particularly mind flip-flops. Consistency is an overrated virtue. But honesty isn’t. In many of these cases, the parties changed policy when it was politically convenient to do so, not when conditions changed and new information came to light.
There are exceptions, of course. It’s reasonable to worry about short-term deficits during an economic expansion and consider them necessary during a recession. That’s Economics 101.
But nothing happened to explain the change from 2006, when the individual mandate was a Republican policy in good standing, to 2010, when every Senate Republican, including those who still had their names on bills that included individual mandates, agreed it was an unconstitutional assault on liberty. Nothing, that is, but the Democrats’ adopting the policy in their health-care reform bill.
Flips and flops like these make the labels “left” and “right” meaningless as a descriptor of anything save partisanship over any extended period of time. I could tell you about a politician who supported deficit-financed stimulus policies and cap-and-trade, and I could be describing McCain. Or Newt Gingrich. And I could tell you about another politician who opposed an individual mandate, and who fought deficits, expansive views of executive authority and efforts to reform the filibuster, and be describing Sen. Barack Obama.
Parties — particularly when they’re in the minority — care more about power than policy. Perhaps there’s nothing much to be done about this. And as I said, it isn’t clear that the media, or anyone else, should try. But it puts the lie to the narrative that America is really riven by grand ideological disagreements. America is deeply divided on the question of which party should be in power at any given moment. Much of the polarization over policy is driven by that question, not the other way around.
But the voters who trust the parties don’t know that, and they tend to take on faith the idea that their representatives are fighting for some relatively consistent agenda. They’re wrong.
By: Ezra Klein, The Washington Post, February 24, 2012
Utah House Passes Bill To Allow Schools To Skip Sex Education
A bill to allow Utah schools to drop sex education classes — and prohibit instruction in the use of contraception in those that keep the courses — moved significantly closer to becoming law Wednesday. The House passed HB363 by a 45-28 vote after a late-afternoon debate that centered largely on lawmakers’ differing definitions of morality.
“We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest,” said bill sponsor Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden. “Why don’t we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?”
It was a viewpoint that met with equal conviction from those opposed to the bill.
“You cannot speak of abstinence without talking to students about methods of birth control that are not certain, about protecting oneself from [sexually transmitted diseases] and all the things that can happen in a negative sense to a young person who engages in sex ,” said Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay. “It’s really immoral not to teach kids about what the consequences are.”
Over the course of nearly an hour, lawmakers took turns trying to change the bill. Ultimately, the version the House passed would allow school districts to forgo teaching about sex altogether.
Lawmakers also, however, changed the bill on the House floor to prohibit schools that continue to teach sex education from instructing students in “the use of contraceptive methods or devices.” It was a change from the version that passed out of committee earlier this month that would have prohibited “instruction in the advocacy or encouragement of the use of contraceptive methods or devices.”
Wright said the version of the bill that passed Wednesday would prohibit instruction in contraception, although teachers could respond to student questions about the matter.
It would be a big shift from current law, which prohibits only the advocacy of contraceptive use. Current law requires high schools to teach sex education, allowing them to choose whether to simply stress abstinence or teach abstinence-only.
By: Lisa Schencker, The Salt Lake Tribune, February 22, 2012
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