Brendan Nyhan

Sometimes, it’s worth taking a step back and realizing just how much our politics have changed in the last few decades. Here’s a famous quote from David Mayhew, the eminent political scientist, in his 1974 classic Congress : The Electoral Connection:

The fact is that no theoretical treatment of the United States Congress that posits parties as analytic units will go very far.

Later in the book, Mayhew waves away the possibility of exactly the sort of intense partisan warfare that we see in Congress today:

It is easy to conjure up visions of the sort of zero-sum politics parties could import into a representative assembly. One possibility — in line with the analysis here — is that a majority party could deprive minority members of a share of particularized benefits, a share of committee influence, and a share of resources to advertise and make their positions known. Congressional majorities obviously do not shut out minorities in this fashion. It would make no sense to do so; the costs of cutting in minority members are very low, whereas the costs of losing majority control in a cutthroat partisan politics of this kind would be very high. A more conventional zero-sum vision is the one in which assembly parties organize in disciplined fashion for the purpose of enacting general party “programs”; the battle is over whose program shall prevail. It should be obvious that if they wanted to, American congressmen could immediately and permanently array themselves in disciplined legions for the purpose of programmatic combat. They do not. Every now and then a member does emit a Wilsonian call for program and cohesion, but these exhortations fail to arouse much member interest. The fact is that the enactment of party programs is electorally not very important to members (although some may find it important to take positions on programs)…

Party leaders are chosen not to be program salesmen or vote mobilizers, but to be brokers, favor-doers, agenda-setters, and protectors of established institutional routines. Party “pressure” to vote one way or another is minimal. Party “whipping” hardly deserves the name. Leaders in both houses have a habit of counseling members to “vote their constituencies”… In fact neither party demands anything like a truth test of its members.

The times, they are a-changing. For more on the realities of the new Congress, see the excellent Boston Globe series from last year.

James Taranto of OpinionJournal.com, the Wall Street Journal’s opinion website, follows up Friday’s bogus comparison between Harry Reid and North Korea with one purporting to link Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter:

CNN reports from Damascus on a remarkably candid speech by Syria’s dictator:

Bashar Assad has said the media and technological revolution sweeping the
region and the world is helping his country’s foes to undermine and crush
the Arab identity.

Assad told the congress of Syria’s ruling Baath Party on Monday that a media
influx had left Arabs “swamped by disinformation” about themselves.
“These many inputs, especially with the evolution of communication and information
technology, made the society open, and this opened the door for some confusion
and suspicion in the minds of Arab youth.

“The ultimate objective of all this is the destruction of Arab identity;
for the enemies of the Arab nation are opposed to our possessing any identity
or upholding any creed that could protect our existence and cohesion, guide
our vision and direction, or on which we can rely in our steadfastness,” Assad
said Monday.

Now read this passage from a column by Newsweek’s Jonathan
Alter, who argues that a scandal like Watergate would not bring down the
president if it were to happen today. He uses the literary device of imagining
himself writing a retrospective of President Nixon’s eight years in office,
ending in 2005:

The big reason Nixon didn’t have to resign: the rise of Conservative Media,
which features Fox, talk radio and a bunch of noisy partisans on the Internet
and best-sellers list who almost never admit their side does anything wrong.
(Liberals, by contrast, are always eating their own.) This solidarity came
in handy when Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post began
snooping around after the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National
Committee. Once they scored a few scoops with the help of anonymous sources,
Sean Hannity et al. went on a rampage. When the young reporters printed an
article about grand jury testimony that turned out to be wrong, Drudge and
the bloggers had a field day, even though none of them had lifted a finger
to try to advance the story. After that, the Silent Majority wouldn’t shut
up.

Both Assad and Alter are arguing that the airing of views with which they disagree
has a deleterious effect on political hygiene. Both are mistaken in equating
the ability of their own institutions to control information with the common
good.

The reality is that there’s no similarity between Assad’s effort to clamp down on access to information and Alter’s criticism of the conservative media. But the larger problem is the way that conservative pundits like Taranto now churn out bogus comparisons and linkages between disliked American political figures and hated foreign enemies, all of which are designed to transfer irrational feelings of hatred onto the domestic political opponent.

And on a related note, the Wall Street Journal editorial page has followed up on an editorial saying that Amnesty International’s criticisms of the Bush administration “amount to pro-al Qaeda propaganda.” The new editorial directly suggests that Amnesty’s actions are treasonous, even as it disavows the obvious implication of its words:

But before leaving this episode, we’d like to remind readers of the case of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. On November 19, 2001, Amnesty issued one of its “URGENT ACTION” reports on his behalf: “Amnesty International is concerned for the safety of Iraqi citizen Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, who is being held by the Jordanian General Intelligence Department. He is held incommunicado detention and is at risk of torture or ill-treatment.” Pressure from Amnesty and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq worked; Mr. Shakir was released and hasn’t been seen since.

Mr. Shakir is believed to be an al Qaeda operative who abetted the USS Cole bombing and 9/11 plots, among others. Along with 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, he was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was working there as an airport “greeter”–a job obtained for him by the Iraqi embassy. When he was arrested in Qatar not long after 9/11, he had telephone numbers for the safe houses of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. He was inexplicably released by the Qataris and promptly arrested again in Jordan as he attempted to return to Iraq.

There remains a dispute about whether this is the same Ahmed Hikmat Shakir that records discovered after the Iraq war list as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Saddam Fedayeen–the 9/11 Commission believes these are two different people–and whether Mr. Shakir thus represents an Iraqi government connection to 9/11. But there is no doubt that the Hussein regime, whatever its reasons, was eager to have the al Qaeda Shakir return to Iraq. It was aided and abetted to this end by Amnesty International.

We don’t recount this story to suggest Amnesty was actively in league with Saddam. But it shows that, even after 9/11, Amnesty still didn’t think terrorism was a big deal. In its eagerness to suggest that every detainee with a Muslim name is some kind of political prisoner, and by extension to smear America and its allies, Amnesty has given the concept of “aid and comfort” to the enemy an all-too-literal meaning.

Once again, this is all part of a long history of attacks on dissent since 9/11. From John Ashcroft in December 2001 to the New York Sun in 2003 to Rev. Russell Johnson in yesterday’s New York Times, suggestions that dissent aids the enemy have run wild. These are dangerous times for our democracy.

(See also Spinsanity on Taranto and the Wall Street Journal editorial page.)

I had a feeling that the first claim reported from the new anti-Hillary book was false. Media Matters beat me to checking it and, shockingly enough, it’s not true:

One easily checked claim about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) — which an e-mail newsletter from the right-wing website NewsMax.com hyped as a major revelation from a new book devoted to attacking her — is false.

According to the June 5 edition of “Insider Report,” NewsMax’s e-mail-only newsletter, “NewsMax pundit” John LeBoutillier, a former Republican congressman, recently interviewed author Ed Klein about his book, The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She’ll Go to Become President, which is excerpted in the July issue of Vanity Fair and is to be published by Sentinel, a conservative imprint of Penguin Putnam, June 21.

“LeBoutillier says the book will reveal Hillary’s struggle with New York’s Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan to get his seat. Though a Democrat, Moynihan had little use for Hillary,” NewsMax reported.

According to NewsMax, based on an interview with Klein, “LeBoutillier writes” that the book will reveal Moynihan’s alleged resistance to Clinton’s candidacy, supposedly voiced to Clinton at a meeting with Moynihan, who died in 2003, and his wife, Liz, at their Watergate apartment:

Still, a few months later Hillary got what she wanted: the prized photo ‘op’ at the Moynihan’s upstate farm. There, as she announced her candidacy, Pat and Liz Moynihan stood and in effect gave their ‘blessing’ to this out-of-stater who was parachuting in to create her own base for an inevitable White House run.

Oddly, Pat Moynihan never uttered Hillary’s name — not even once — during this event. He could not bring himself to mention Hillary by name — but the press reported his ‘endorsement’ just the same.

But a CNN transcript from July 7, 1999, shows that Moynihan in fact said both “Mrs. Clinton” and “Hillary Clinton” in making his endorsement…

(For part 1 in this series, see this post.)

First Wonkette, then the world! Intern Fred Becker has posted this on the famous DC gossip blog (note the link):

While LA Times columnist Ron Brownstein is off gazing into his new wife’s navel on their Paris honeymoon, his colleagues back in Washington seem to be rooting around in their own bellies over a ponderous ethical dilemma: Can the star political reporter cover John McCain when his wife is the top flack for the Arizona Senator and likely 2008 hopeful?

“We’re all agreed that Ron can’t cover McCain per se,” the Times Washington bureau chief, Doyle McManus, told Howard Kurtz, but he sees no problem with Brownstein writing a story “if McCain’s name comes into it in a minor way.

A minor way? A press-shy guy like McCain? Not likely to come up in many stories about the 2008 presidential campaign or stories about Congress, or lawmaking, or wars, or treatment of prisoners, or campaign finance, or the breathing of air in Washington DC. If McCain’s name only comes up in a minor way, it won’t be Brownstein but his wife who has problems. She’ll be out of a job.

I hadn’t seen the quote Becker was referring to, which ran in Howard Kurtz’s column yesterday. Here it is:

Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein told readers last week that he didn’t intend to treat John McCain any differently, despite the fact that Brownstein’s wife, former CNN producer Eileen McMenamin, has become the Arizona senator’s communications director. “I am confident that her new job will not affect my judgments,” he wrote.

Times Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus says the couple is in Paris and “we decided not to stop the honeymoon to have the argument” about “where the right boundaries are” for Brownstein. “We’re all agreed that Ron can’t cover McCain per se,” but McManus sees no problem with Brownstein writing a story “if McCain’s name comes into it in a minor way. . . . We think Ron is the best political writer in the country and don’t think it’d serve the nation or our readers to take him off politics.”

So if Brownstein can’t cover McCain, why did he write a column touting McCain’s presidential chances without disclosing his engagement to McMenamin? Is that a “column” and not reporting under McManus’s purview? I’ve emailed McManus to seek clarification; will post his reply as soon as I get it.

Matthew Yglesias makes a prescient point about the President’s endless Social Security roadshow:

There does, however, seem to be a method in the madness. When George W. Bush first started talking about Social Security, virtually everything he said was false, and virtually nothing he said was challenged by reporters. Then Democrats, bloggers, etc. started a big hew and cry and all of a sudden it was getting challenged. Then everyone got bored with the whole thing. But Bush just kept on plodding. Now he’s still saying all the same stuff that was discredited months ago, but isn’t getting challenged on it as much — either from liberals or from the press. So even though just about everyone in the world except me seems bored by this issue already, I still think it’s crucially important not to lose focus.

This is the same approach he used during both presidential campaigns and the pushes for his tax cuts and the Iraq war resolution. See All the President’s Spin for the gory details; also see this post for a depressing analysis I did in October 2004 of how Bush and Cheney’s repetition of misleading claims outpaced the media’s willingness to report the deceptions and correct the record.

In short, the reason Bush does this is that it works. Consider the way he’s erasing the “clawback” from the Social Security debate. The Los Angeles Times is unusual in noting that the “nest egg” statistics Bush is touting are, to put it mildly, a load of s—. Here’s what he said Thursday in Kentucky:

If you’re a 20-year-old making $8 an hour over your career — 20 years old today, $8 an hour over your career, and if the government lets you put a third of your payroll taxes in a voluntary personal savings account, you’ll end up with a nest egg of $100,000 when you’re 63. If you’re a police officer and a nurse, who started working in 2011 and you work your entire careers, when you retire both of you will have a combined nest egg of $669,000 as part of your retirement package. That’s how money grows.

But the fine print is missing: even if private accounts invested in stocks grow according to the White House’s optimistic projections, the government will take back 3 percent per year on every dollar invested, meaning that the traditional benefit accompanying that “nest egg” will be much lower.

Similarly, during a speech that night in Missouri, Bush touted another misleading statistic, saying that “with a conservative mix of bonds and stocks, you can get at least 4.5 percent. You compound that difference over time, somebody is going to have a pretty sizable nest egg they can call their own.” Again, the real return on private accounts is the return on investment minus 3 percent per year, so even if private accounts earn 4.5 percent annually, the real return to the beneficiary would only be 1.5 percent.

The problem, of course, is that Bush’s misleading claims are “old news” to the national media, so he can dump this nonsense on less sophisticated local press with near-impunity.

PS The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also has a piece up criticizing the 4.5 percent claim on somewhat different grounds here.

Sigh. In a New York Times story today about George Voinovich, the Ohio Republican who helped cut a deal on judicial nominees, a conservative reverend is quoted endorsing the anti-democratic principle that opposing the President undermines the war on terror:

In a news conference on Tuesday, the president affirmed his commitment on both fronts, mocking the judicial compromise and castigating the Democrats for delaying Mr. Bolton’s nomination. And in Ohio, where a social conservative groundswell helped Mr. Bush win the 2004 election, the rebellions of its senators combined to draw considerable ire from Mr. Bush’s conservative base.

“Criticizing and undermining the president weakens the war on terror,” said the Rev. Russell Johnson of the Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, a leader of the Ohio Restoration Project, a conservative advocacy group borne out of the last election. “The two senators from Ohio have become the poster boys for the foreign press to beat up our president.”

By this principle, no one could ever oppose Bush without hurting the country. Sadly, this is part of a long pattern of attacks on dissent since 9/11. It’s especially sad to see from a religious official who’s not a professional pundit or politician.

PS The Note highlights a great quote from the story that I had missed:

In the interview, however, Mr. Voinovich said he supported the rest of Mr. Bush’s foreign policy and had his interests at heart in his opposition to Mr. Bolton. “It is like kids,” he said, laughing. “You do some stuff for them, and they don’t want you to do it, but you do it anyhow.”

There’s nothing better than comparing the administration to children when you’re trying to win back conservative support!

Is Mickey Kaus running the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board? Ron Brownstein? In a May 25 editorial, the Inky drops hints about a centrist third party — the Brownstein/Kaus meme — and adds Kaus’s assertion that John McCain would have won the presidency last year as a third-party candidate:

In a real cliffhanger, 14 U.S. senators, seven from each party, announced a compromise on judicial nominations that pulled their institution back from the precipice to which it had been driven by baying packs of ideologues.

It was great to see that the Senate still includes people who don’t view all issues as iron-cage death matches between good and evil. The moderates won a victory, however temporary. Their civil good sense shamed partisans on both sides.

Looking at the group as it announced the deal, you could almost – but not quite – glimpse the outlines of a third party of the center. A key architect of this compromise, John McCain of Arizona, likely would win a presidential election today if he ran against any of the probable nominees of the two parties. By standing up for principle here, though, he’s probably forfeited any shot at the GOP nod in 2008.

Disclosure: The Inquirer ran a weekly Spinsanity column from January-November 2004.

Josh Marshall flags Janet Hook’s article in the Los Angeles Times claiming President Bush ran on a “specific agenda” in 2004:

Many of the assets Bush brings to his second term distinguish him from other two-term presidents. Unlike President Reagan’s broad-brush “Morning in America” campaign for reelection in 1984, for example, Bush ran in 2004 on a specific agenda of new issues, notably overhauling Social Security and the tax code. Some Bush allies say his recent troubles in Congress are a measure of how ambitious his aims are, not how much leverage he has lost.

Marshall replies:

The idea that President Bush ran on a specific agenda that included privatizing Social Security strikes me as little more than preposterous. And I am surprised to see Hook accept it so uncritically.

Yes, he did mention it during the campaign — just enough to allow his supporters to say now that he didn’t spring it on the public without ever having mentioned it before. But when he did mention it, it was almost always in speeches to loyalists and just as a few toss-off lines intended for said loyalists’ eager consumption.

But he didn’t bring it up in ads, in the debates, in any prominent setting. And for good reason. His entire campaign was framed around two planks: strength against terrorism and the flaws of John Kerry.

Josh is right, though he overstates the case a bit. Bush did briefly raise Social Security in some prominent settings, but he did not give any indication that it would be his top legislative priority, nor did he give any specifics on what he would propose (indeed, his “proposal” is still largely undefined). Let’s review the evidence.

The platform

The party platform is the major programmatic document released by a presidential candidate’s party in an election year. While platforms are often long on rhetoric and short on specifics, they give clear indications of the relative emphasis that candidates and parties put on specific issues and proposals. And the evidence is clear that the 2004 Republican platform (PDF) focused heavily on the war on terror. The section “Winning the War on Terror” runs from page 1 to page 38, while the section on Social Security is roughly one page in the next section on “ownership,” which runs all of six pages.

Moreover, when judged from the perspective of today, it is a demonstrably misleading portrayal of the President’s plans. For instance, one bullet point states that “Key changes to Social Security should merit bipartisan agreement,” even though the GOP is trying to push through reform on a partyline basis. Another states that “Today’s financial markets offer a variety of investment options, including some that
guarantee a rate of return higher than the current Social Security system with no risk to
the investor.” This is an suggestion that private acccounts are a free lunch, but as it turns out President Bush’s proposal includes a 3% per year clawback for each dollar invested in a private account, which means that no investments will guarantee a positive return.

The convention speech

President Bush’s speech to the convention — his only nationally-televised address of the campaign — was more than 5,000 words, almost 2,000 of which were devoted to the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Meanwhile, he devoted approximately 100 prefunctory words to Social Security:

In an ownership society, more people will own their health care plans, and have the confidence of owning a piece of their retirement. We’ll always keep the promise of Social Security for our older workers. With the huge Baby Boom generation approaching retirement, many of our children and grandchildren understandably worry whether Social Security will be there when they need it. We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger workers to save some of their taxes in a personal account — a nest egg you can call your own, and government can never take away.

The debates

During the debates, which focused heavily on foreign policy (it was the sole subject of the first debate), Social Security only came up twice. Vice President Cheney offered this sentence about it during his debate with John Edwards: “We’ll do everything we can to preserve Social Security and to make certain that it’s there for future generations.” And President Bush discussed the issue during his third debate with Senator John Kerry, but he only did so because moderator Bob Schieffer asked him a question about it. Here is what Bush said — it was, as always, exceptionally general:

First, let me make sure that every senior listening today understands that when we’re talking about reforming Social Security, that they’ll still get their checks.

I remember the 2000 campaign, people said if George W. gets elected, your check will be taken away. Well, people got their checks, and they’ll continue to get their checks.

There is a problem for our youngsters, a real problem. And if we don’t act today, the problem will be valued in the trillions. And so I think we need to think differently. We’ll honor our commitment to our seniors. But for our children and our grandchildren, we need to have a different strategy.

And recognizing that, I called together a group of our fellow citizens to study the issue. It was a committee chaired by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a Democrat. And they came up with a variety of ideas for people to look at.

I believe that younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their own money and put it in a personal savings account, because I understand that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return being given in the current Social Security trust.

And the compounding rate of interest effect will make it more likely that the Social Security system is solvent for our children and our grandchildren. I will work with Republicans and Democrats. It’ll be a vital issue in my second term. It is an issue that I am willing to take on, and so I’ll bring Republicans and Democrats together.

And we’re of course going to have to consider the costs. But I want to warn my fellow citizens: The cost of doing nothing, the cost of saying the current system is OK, far exceeds the costs of trying to make sure we save the system for our children.

The campaign website

Finally, GeorgeWBush.com was the definitive archive of Bush’s “Agenda for America” — the official set of policy positions for the campaign. The Internet Archive’s copy of the website on Election Day 2004 shows that the campaign’s security/foreign policy platform was long and detailed, while the campaign’s statement about Social Security (buried under a section on home ownership) consisted of the following bromides:

Social Security represents a solemn commitment to the American people. To keep that commitment, we must fix Social Security permanently for our children and grandchildren. Fifty years ago there were sixteen workers paying into Social Security for every person receiving benefits. Today, there are just 3.3 workers for each person on Social Security. Without principled leadership, sound policies, and courageous action, Social Security will be unable to pay the benefits promised to our children and grandchildren without enormous payroll tax increases.

The President understands that Social Security must be fixed, and workers deserve to own part of their Social Security benefits and to build a nest egg for retirement. He has put forward clear principles to strengthen Social Security permanently:

-No Changes in Benefits For Current Retirees and Near-Retirees – For those already in or near retirement, promises made must be promises kept.
-Voluntary Personal Retirement Accounts for Younger Workers – These personal accounts would give workers ownership, control, and the opportunity to use their Social Security payroll taxes to build a nest egg for retirement that can be passed on to their families.
-No Increases in the Social Security Payroll Tax – The President has stated that we cannot tax our way to fixing Social Security.

And that’s it. Not exactly a “specific agenda.” The evidence clearly suggests that President Bush de-emphasized his position on Social Security in favor of using the war on terror and gay marriage as wedge issues. Yet he has claimed a “mandate” on the basis of his narrow victory and tried to use it to press for private accounts — an obvious bait-and-switch enabled by the coverage of muddle-headed reporters like Hook.

The creativity of the non-English-speaking spam wizards is truly amazing. Scanning my spam folder in Yahoo Mail, I see emails from “Dispatching R. Brimmed,” “Pharmacist T. Hairpieces,” “Hallucinatory R. Heartwarming,” “Irregularities V. Mono,” and my personal favorite, “Antifreeze B. Chi.” At least they amuse me when they’re wasting my time…

The nasty tactic of comparing domestic political opponents to terrorists, Saddam Hussein, and other hated figures in order to create a negative association between them has cropped up again and again since 9/11. We wrote about it constantly on Spinsanity. Now here’s OpinionJournal.com’s James Taranto doing it again:

[Howard] Dean isn’t the only Democratic leader who is practicing the Don Rickles
style of politics. Here’s a passage from a Rolling
Stone interview with Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader:

Rolling Stone: You’ve called [President] Bush a loser.
Reid: And a liar.
Rolling Stone: You apologized for the loser comment.
Reid: But never for the liar, have I?

The Associated
Press reports that another Democrat yesterday said of the vice president:
“Cheney is hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast, as he
has drenched various parts of the world in blood.”

Oh, sorry, that wasn’t a Democrat–it was a spokesman for North Korea’s communist
regime. We should have known; the NoKo nuts at least have a little flair in
their style of insult.