Never say never: How Republicans put themselves into a box

Republicans aren't negotiating to solve the debt crisis.
This animated cartoon by The Washington Post's Ann Telnaes may illustrate their fate:



The difficulty for many Republicans arises from their loyalty to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a group headed by Grover Norquist, who once said, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Most Republicans have traded their responsibilites to their constituents for loyalty to Norquist and ATR. Brian Rosenberg, writing in The Minneapolis Star Tribune, had this to say about ATR and Norquist, in part:

The most powerful figure in today's Republican Party is not John Boehner or Mitch McConnell. It is not Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. It is not even Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin.

It is, of course, Grover Norquist, the man with The Pledge.

Norquist, who has never held elected office, is the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, a group whose pledge not to raise taxes under any circumstances has now been signed by hundreds of Republican candidates and officials at both state and national levels.

And they do mean "any circumstances." Enormous budget deficits? No. A country at war? Nope. Famine and plague? Sorry.

Our grandmothers kidnapped and threatened with death until and unless we raise taxes, as Norquist was asked recently by Stephen Colbert? Well, answered the unflappable Norquist, we always have our memories and our photographs

(Colbert was being characteristically satiric. There appeared to be nothing satiric about the response.)

Rosenberg then asks a simple question:

Americans for Tax Reform asks every candidate for elected office on the state or federal level to make a written commitment to their constituents to "oppose and vote against all tax increases."

Every member of Congress, upon taking office, is asked to swear an oath to "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter."

Here is my simple question: Which "pledge" takes precedence?

Brian Rosenberg is President of Macalester college, and his complete article is "Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge undermines democracy."


After realizing what the Reublicans' no-tax pledge is doing to the country, many papers are now editorializing against dangerous, foolish pledges. An editorial in USA Today, "Our view: Candidates who sign pledges outsource their brains," about pledges in general, closes with:

Whether they come from the right or the left, these sorts of pledges are recipes for gridlock, such as the current standoff over raising the national debt ceiling. The vows stop politicians from working out compromises with colleagues who disagree with them. Isn't that how democracy is supposed to work?

Elected officials owe their allegiance to their constituents and the Constitution, not interest groups bearing pledges. The only pledge we'd like candidates to endorse is simple: Don't sign any pledges.

A Michael Gerson opinion in The Washington Post, "The danger in political pledges," states, in part:

The imposition of oaths beyond the Constitution also assumes a certain theory of representation — the belief that politicians are merely mechanisms for the expression of public sentiment. They are, in this view, computers to be pre-programmed for desired outcomes. When Edmund Burke was presented with a similar argument, he agreed that the opinions of constituents “ought to have great weight” with a representative. “But his unbiased opinion,” Burke continued, “his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living.” This exercise of judgment, he argued, is not consistent with “authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience.”

Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, writing in The Washington Post, said, in part, after Republicans withdrew from talks with Vice President Biden, late last month:

It is now clear that the Republican strategy is to drive America to the brink of fiscal ruin and then argue that the only way out is to cut spending for the powerless. Taxes — a dirty word thanks to Norquist’s “no new taxes” gimmick — are made to seem beyond the pale, even as the burden of paying for our society shifts disproportionately to the middle class and working poor. It is the height of fiscal folly. It is also not who we are as a country.

It is the height of fiscal folly, because it ignores one-half of this simple equation: expenditures = X multiplied by revenues, where 'X' may be a fraction, one, or larger than one. Republican attempts to solve the problem by ignoring the right-hand side of that equation, by refusing to increase revenues, give away their ignorance and innumeracy. Many Americans know what Republican tax policy has done to our society -- they experience its effect through stagnant wages, spiraling healthcare and education costs, unemployment, and crumbling infrastructure -- even if they haven't yet connected cause and effect. Should Congress allow society to further deteriorate to satisfy a pledge to Grover Norquist?

Republicans' fealty to Norquist is a syptom of their inability to think outside the box, their lack of ideas, their inability to negotiate -- in short, their political immaturity. By surrendering their minds to Norquist, they don't have to think, don't have to debate, and don't have to compromise, anymore. They have made themselves unfit to live in a democracy.

USA Today identifies Sarah Palin's Culpability in Tucson Massacre

From USA Today's "Our view: After Ariz. shooting, time to tone down vitriol:"

Saturday's tragedy in Arizona was unspeakable, as President Obama put it, but it was not unthinkable. American history is blighted with assassinations and attempted assassinations of prominent figures, often by disturbed young men with motives that make sense only within their twisted minds.

Combine that past with today's overheated political rhetoric and easy access to high-powered weaponry, and perhaps the only question was when, and where, the next unspeakable act would occur.

The heartbreaking answer was Jan. 8, 2011, outside a supermarket in Tucson. A 22-year-old gunman, identified as Jared Lee Loughner, opened fire with a Glock handgun, grievously wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killing six others, including federal Judge John Roll and, poignantly, a 9-year-old girl learning about democracy. ...

... With speech comes responsibility, a notion that seems lost on too many players in today's hyperpartisan hothouse. Regardless of Loughner's motivations, his killing spree is a grisly reminder that deeply disturbed people are easily driven to violence, whether by their own personal demons or by others who stoke their anger. When talk-show hosts warn about using bullets if ballots don't work, or candidates speak about resorting to "Second Amendment remedies," they invite risk for the sake of ratings or political gain. As Giffords hauntingly warned in March, after Sarah Palin's political action committee targeted her congressional district using the cross hairs of a gun sight, "there are consequences" to such imagery. ...

In Congresswoman Gifford's haunting words, "there are consequences:"

We need to realize that the rhetoric, and the firing people up and ... for example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, the way she has it depicted, we're in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize that there are consequences to that action ...

USA Today is the nation's largest daily print newspaper, in terms of circulation.

The Unreality of 'Sarah Palin's Alaska' -- UPDATED!

Nick Jans, an Alaskan writer and outdoorsman, has written an intereresting article, "What Palin's show says about us," which states, in part:

... Those of us who've actually lived off the land are less than impressed by Palin's televised exploits and, more important, by what they tell us about her. Tentative, physically inept, and betraying an even more awkward unfamiliarity with the land and lifestyle that's supposedly her birthright, Palin deconstructs her own myth before our eyes. ...

... From the opening credits, Palin's not actually leading, as the show's stirring theme song (Follow Me There) suggests. Instead, she's tucked far under the wings of professional guides, friends, or family members — in a curious subtext, almost all males.

They instruct and coddle her along, at one point literally hauling Palin uphill on the end of a rope. ...

And The Anchorage Daily News' "Always on the hunt, Palin shown what to do," by Paul Jenkins, elaborates on the idea of Sarah Palin as frontierswoman front woman:

... But the story is in the story. All but Dowd seemed to miss the boatload of delicious allegory about Palin's life and politics wrapped up in the [hunting] episode. It was Palin on the hunt; on the hunt always. First, it was small-town politicos in Wasilla who befriended her, then GOP Chief Randy Ruedrich, then Frank Murkowski, who appointed her to a cushy job, and finally, a shot at Barack Obama. Older white men carrying her guns, loading them and handing them to her, advising her, telling her when to shoot, showing her how to do the job. Letting them do the work. Out of her element. Indoor girl in an outdoor world. Missed shot after missed shot after missed shot. Blaming someone or something else when it all goes south. Killing a scrawny little caribou to sell the image. Jumping the ship of state after only two disinterested, unengaged years, going for something bigger. Out of her element. Peddling the lie. The mama grizzly. Sarah the Sniper.

Jenkins' article uses the words disinterested and unengaged to describe Palin while she was governor. Was she governor in name only? Who made the decisions while she was governor?

Jenkins' article appeared about the time that Alaska Dispatch's "Palin's record vs. Palin's Facebook" appeared, which is concerned with the discrepancies between Palin's record and what she has since claimed she did as governor. An explanation of those discrepancies could simply be that she doesn't know what she did, because someone else acted as behind-the-scenes governor.


Maureen Dowd's column, mentioned by Jenkins, is here.


Update: Andrew Sullivan wrote (more than) a few words about the USA Today article and noticed that where it appeared (USA Today) is important. Sullivan's title is "Levi's Vindication: The Self-Exposure Of Sarah Palin."

My co-blogger, snowbilly, wrote "It Was Fact-checked," which surmised that because one critical part of Levi Johnston's Vanity Fair story, "Me and Mrs. Palin," was clearly fact-checked all of it must have been fact-checked.

Sullivan's point is different than mine -- that Sarah Palin may have been Governor of Alaska in name only -- but is a valid point, nonetheless. Jans' article (and Jenkins' (and Dowd's)) are a rich source of insights into who Sarah Palin was (or wasn't).

By the way, Jans' point, although he deconstructed Sarah Palin's myth, is that many politicians strive to create a narrative, or myth. Remember George Bush? Clearing brush in Crawford, TX? Well, as soon as he left the White House, George got out of Dodge Crawford and moved to Dallas. He was really a city-slicker at heart. And didn't the Reagans (Remember the wood chopper? At the ranch?) really live in Pacific Palisades, CA? Sarah Palin's myth is, in some respects, easy pickins, but someone like Jans, who has articulated something we "know," so that we really do know it, is worthy of our praise. When a politician's myth gets busted, he or she will soon exit the stage.

The delicious irony of it all is, as Jans wrote, "Palin deconstructs her own myth before our eyes." She's done herself in.