Political MoJo

It's always hazardous putting out predictions, but Will Saletan's take on the Supreme Court and abortion is, in all likelihood, exactly right. The Republicans are too scared to install a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade; it would be the biggest disaster for their party in decades. (The last time Roe was facing imminent danger, back in 1989, turned into an electoral disaster for Republicans.)

On the other hand, incremental restrictions on abortion seem to be quite popular, and the GOP will have no trouble gunning for justices who approve of those bits. So Sandra Day O'Connor—who wasn't the swing vote on Roe, but was the swing vote on a variety of other parental notification and partial-birth abortion rulings—will likely be replaced by a hard right social conservative, as a sop to the evangelical base. Ditto with William Rehnquist, when he retires. But if John Paul Stevens—who would become the crucial swing vote on Roe—happens to retire under Bush's watch, the president may well nominate Alberto Gonzales or someone else who would uphold Roe. That would keep the "base" agitated and frenzied for years to come, without leading to electoral disaster.

On the other hand, even the partial restrictions on abortion that O'Connor's replacement is likely to uphold will prove extremely harmful. But it's also not clear that liberals can in practice do much to stop those restrictions, short of the Democrats retaking the presidency or winning over public opinion. Not in a million years will Bush nominate a Supreme Court justice who intends to strike down parental-notification laws or partial-birth abortion bans and, sadly enough, he has the bulk of voters on his side. That puts liberals and pro-choicers in a bit of a bind.

Meanwhile, one much-neglected story on this Supreme Court business, as Jordan Barab points out, is that O'Connor's replacement is likely to be even more business-friendly than the already-quite-business-friendly O'Connor, and a variety of labor protections and workplace safety laws could draw heavy fire. Michael Scherer discussed the grand strategy at work here in Mother Jones two years ago. That's the sort of thing that would certainly resonate with millions of voters—big business isn't nearly as popular as people think—and liberals would be well-advised to point this out while they figure out how to win the abortion battle.

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Quite a few blogs, left and right, are having the great "chickenhawk" debate again. This argument always gets pecked over every week or so, with the idea being that war supporters are horrible hypocrites if they don't immediately sign up for the Army and ship themselves off to Iraq. Now clearly that argument's wrong, and a quick analogy makes that clear. I—like many other liberals—think this country needs higher tax rates than we currently have, for a variety of reasons, even though those higher rates will certainly affect me much less heavily than they will others. But for fairly good reason no one claims that only those making over $200,000 are allowed to support higher taxes on the wealthy. It's a stupid argument.

Also annoying is the claim that Americans are kept free and safe only because there are U.S. soldiers are out there risking their lives in combat. Presumably this line is intended to make non-military war critics feel guilty and stop their carping. Well, in many ways the claim true, but then again, we can also afford to have the largest military on earth because Americans across the country are working hard and paying taxes. We're all a community and dependent on each other, and that's just the way the world works. It's fine to be grateful; but it's a bit silly to insinuate that a person has no right to criticize the military just because he's some slouch in an office cubicle.

Back to the chickenhawk argument. It's true that the Young Republicans and other junior war-supporters are too scared to sign up for war in Iraq. Rightly so, I am too! That doesn't make them hypocrites. What it does signal, though, is that the war in Iraq just isn't all that important to these people. If there actually was a conflict in which the fate of the United States—or the fate of freedom itself!—hung in the balance, and we didn't have enough soldiers to fight it, then we'd obviously see a lot of people who thought the war was really and truly critical pouring into recruitment offices. How could they not? But if you don't think this Iraq war—a war for which we may not have enough soldiers to win—is all that crucial in the grand scheme of things, then you won't sign up. Simple as that. The Young Republicans are implicitly suggesting that if we fail in Iraq for lack of troops and have to leave, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Well, okay then. In many ways I agree; I just wish they'd be more open about it.

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Just to pick up on a post by Ezra Klein here, the Washington Post is running this paragraph today in a story on CAFTA:

But the Democrats' near-unanimous stand against CAFTA carries long-term risks for a party leadership struggling to regain the appearance of a moderate governing force, some Democrats acknowledge. A swing toward isolationism could reinforce voters' suspicions that the party is beholden to organized labor and is anti-business, while jeopardizing campaign contributions, especially from Wall Street

Well, this all seems quite airy to me. "[M]oderate governing force," eh? Let's look at some actual poll numbers, namely, the recent and massive Pew Press poll that divided voters up into different subgroups. On the question of whether trade agreements are "bad for the U.S." or "good for the U.S.," the only core Democratic constituency that's overwhelmingly in favor are "liberals," 50-44 percent. Needless to say, they're not in any danger of leaving the Democratic party. Meanwhile, the two other core Democratic groups—"Disadvantaged Dems" and "Conservative Democrats"—are much more tepid on trade agreements. As for the swing-voter groups, "Disaffecteds" lean slightly against trade agreements, 43-40, while the "Upbeats" are very much in favor, 59-24. But on the other hand, no more than 47 percent of any conservative subgroup thinks trade agreements are a good thing, and "social conservatives" are far and away the most pessimistic group on this issue, with only 36 percent thinking trade agreements are good.

So three things: first, CAFTA is not a "swing toward isolationism," can we please not overstate how very minor this trade agreement is? (Which is precisely why many of us don't think it's worth hacking up labor standards for—the imports and exports seemed to be moving along just fine under the Generalized System of Preferences, which required that countries afford "internationally recognized labor rights".) Second, even if it was such a swing, it's not clear that an anti-trade stance would necessarily hurt Democrats—although they would lose support among the "Upbeats," perhaps a crucial swing group. Perhaps. Third, why doesn't someone write a story about how core Republican constituencies are overwhelmingly against trade agreements, so Bush is taking a massive risk by supporting CAFTA. Hmmm?

Meanwhile, the point about campaign contributions from Wall Street is perhaps a better one; like it or not Democrats will still depend on this source of funding for a long, long time. On the other hand, the two big groups that stand to make a killing from CAFTA are the pharmaceutical industry and the telecommunications industry. In an ideal world, Democrats would be pushing for universal health care and laxer patent protections, so Big Pharma is sort of a natural enemy anyway. And the telecommunications industry ought to be re-regulated so that we can all have the sort of low-cost, high-speed internet that people in Japan enjoy. So not to be too flippant here, but are these really the worst of Wall Street allies to lose?

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I'm still awaiting the day when New York Times op-eds will cost $50 to read; that way, we won't have to click on them accidentally. Today's "offering," by Nick Kristof, goes yard for nine paragraphs bashing liberals and praising Bush to high heaven for his, er, aid in Africa, only to stop in paragraph ten to say: "The divide I portray between the left and right is, of course, a caricature." Oh, thanks. Only after this wry admission do we learn, at the very bottom of the column, that Bush's anti-condom crusade in Africa has in fact cost untold lives, that his signature aid project, the Millenium Challenge Account, is a dud, and that the president is more concerned with tax cuts for the rich than helping Africa. But the headline to the column? "Bush, a Friend of Africa."

By the way, Bush has not boosted aid to Africa by two-thirds, as Kristof claimed—the figure is actually 56 percent, and drops to 33 percent if you discount money for food aid, which goes to American farmers. The two-thirds figure is in nominal dollar terms; presumably Kristof doesn't understand the difference. (Also, in what sense is Bush "setting in motion an eventual tripling of aid for Africa"?) But Bush is better than Bill Clinton? Well, then give the man a ribbon, but that's setting the bar awfully low. Meanwhile, Kristof offers up a "magnificent example" of the "standard conservative approach" to aid in Africa: the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, which he claims is a missionary hospital set up by American conservatives. In fact, it is no such thing; the hospital is Australian in origin, has as its principle American sponsor a Quaker foundation, and works in partnership with... the United Nations Population Fund—precisely the sort of "weak-kneed" multilateral organization Kristof spends nine paragraphs insulting.

At any rate, this seems to be the disturbing new trend in the run-up to the G-8 conference: liberals making the "counterintuitive" claim that the "liberal" aid approach to Africa is doomed. Now on the one hand, it's true, it's time to rethink our approach to aid in Africa. But the relentless attacks on the United Nations and other aid organizations has a bit of the ol' baby-bathwater quality to it. So we have Slate editor Jacob Weisberg attacking Jeffrey Sachs' UN Millenium Project without, apparently, taking the time to actually read anything about the project. None of the "objections" Weisberg raises in the piece are things Sachs hasn't already thought and worried about. (Plus, Weisberg's proposed alternative here is the "free trade will eradicate world poverty" line; opening first-world markets is a good step, but not even close to a panacea.) And that's just it: if either Kristof or Weisberg took the time to read Sachs' proposal, or acquire even a passing familiarity with what these liberal aid organizations actually do, they'd see that many of their criticisms are, as Kristof sort of admits, mostly caricatures, which doesn't do anyone any good.

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