Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
LIGHTNING ROUND: TEHRAN CALLING.
- Events are moving fast in Iran, which precludes an effective roundup of analysis, but it's worth noting that there are essentially three scenarios that explain the results of Friday's presidential election. It just isn't clear yet whether Ahmadinejad and his allies simply stole the election (very likely), the military attempted a coup (possibly), or if he actually won cleanly (not likely).
- In a New Yorker piece on Leon Panetta, the CIA director suggests of Dick Cheney that "it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point [on national security policy]." Well, we can't really look into Cheney's soul, but I think it's fair to say that the former VP expects another terrorist attack could happen because Obama has deviated (somewhat) from the successful -- in Cheney's view -- policies of the Bush administration.
- Center-right nation watch: Gallup has a new poll that tells us what we've known since the 1970s -- self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by around 2-1 and "moderates" make up the rest of the ideological pie. God knows how the respondents to this question define "conservative," "liberal" or "moderate," so I'd recommend instead that you read the far more interesting social science research of Benjamin Page and Lawrence Jacobs which posits that most Americans are "conservative egalitarians."
- The Washington Post reports on the kinder, gentler Real ID being pursued by the Obama administration: "The new plan keeps elements of Real ID, such as requiring a digital photograph, signature and machine-readable features such as a bar code. ... But it eliminates demands for new databases -- linked through a national data hub -- that would allow all states to store and cross-check such information."
- I'm not sure it's all that relevant that "some" Republicans are rethinking their commitment to Reagan mythology, given that the conservative movement is positively gushing over the prospect of being the "remnant" once again. Meanwhile, John Henke makes the excellent point that it's the "counter-establishment" which now impedes their progress: "Republicans just have to evolve beyond the 1980's. Unfortunately, the culture, infrastructure and people that reached maturity in the 1980's may now be a barrier to evolution - not because their intentions are malign, but because they are adapted to a strategic and tactical era that has passed."
- Weekend Remainders: Ray LaHood talks transit; the party-switching ping-pong game continues in the New York State Senate; The Hill has a good read on redistricting and the 2010 elections; John Yoo goes to court; The Washington Times can't decide what bad historical analogy to apply to Obama; and Bobby Jindal's backers form a federal PAC.
--Mori Dinauer
COMMENTS (4)
Hey, watching the minor stuff getting everybody wrapped up is sorta fun.
6 out of 9 supreme court justices are going to be CATHOLIC. Newt Gingrich just converted. Newt is a semihuman mouthy little slimeball but he is cunning. He's always slightly ahead of the curve.
Bye Bye Roe vs Wade. Cheers, bonfires, prayer meetings, non stop cheering until ALL
of the other religions in the good old US of A realize that six CATHOLICS are going to decide the laws.
Read up on the Reformation. If you are Catholic now would be a good time to cash out your assets, move to Paraguay and change your last name to Bush.
CHANGE IS GOING TO COME.
Posted by: less is more | June 16, 2009 3:06 AM
"Unfortunately, the culture, infrastructure and people that reached maturity in the 1980's may now be a barrier to evolution - not because their intentions are malign, but because they are adapted to a strategic and tactical era that has passed."
I would argue that the problem isn't so much the Reagan-era GOP cohort, so much as the GOP cohort from the succeeding two decades, which I'll call the Bitch Slap Era of GOP dominance.
Reagan, after all, was willing to engage his adversaries, and wasn't a making-enemies sort of guy. He felt he had a powerful message, and he relied on its power rather than depending on tearing down and humiliating his opponents.
But from 1988 on, the GOP road to success has been through exactly that - belittling and humiliating one's adversaries, getting them to cringe at the thought of the next attack, and keeping them in a perpetual defensive crouch. As Josh Marshall has said, the bitch-slap theory of politics. It's been incredibly successful, disposing of Dukakis, ClintonCare, Max Cleland, and so forth. It was even pretty successful in keeping the Dem Congressional majority of 2007-08 on their heels: even after their 2006 electoral losses, successful bitch-slapping enabled them to keep succeeding in the ongoing political combat.
So you've got 20 years of GOP players who've grown up and prospered in the Bitch-Slap Era of GOP success. And now that bitch-slapping is losing its effectiveness (thanks partly to the overall Dem electoral successes, and thanks partly to Barack Obama, who's figured out how to make the bitch-slappers look small), they don't really have anything else to turn to. The GOP is the party of bitch-slapping, period. Sure, they've got objectives (more tax cuts for the rich, less regulation, more conservative judges), but nothing to sell to the American people: their only argument for themselves is that the Dems are a bunch of namby-pambies. Meanwhile, the Dems are trying to pass universal health care and stuff.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | June 16, 2009 6:15 AM
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that he would have an investigation of the controversial (fixed) election. He made no mention of the UN or Jimmy Carter being part of this process.
homer www.altara.blogspot.com
Posted by: altara | June 16, 2009 6:51 AM
Mr. Cheney says he hopes Mr. Panetta was misquoted, but he brought it on himself. The former vice president did not bother to make clear that he was not hoping for an attack. Loose words sink reputations.
Posted by: Michael A. Shea | June 16, 2009 9:29 AM