Those tree-hugging moderates

So the Right is up in arms about some of its members not being Right enough. Here's Tony Perkins:

Yesterday, Senator Arlen Specter spent much of the day defending his comments saying that, if chosen to be the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he would establish a litmus test against pro-life judges. [NOTE: Sadly, this is not true. -Jonathan] The untold story in this battle is that he won reelection to the Senate last week directly because President Bush and Senator Rick Santorum, two decidedly pro-life men, came to his side during a tight primary race against pro-life challenger Pat Toomey. Rather than expressing support for the men who helped return him to the Senate, Arlen Specter is now opposing their pro-life values. This is the height of arrogance and ingratitude. President Bush and Sen. Santorum need to remember their role in reelecting Sen. Specter to the Senate. If they want to protect their values, and the values of the vast majority of Americans, they need to ask whether or not they want Sen. Specter in control of the confirmation process. The President and Sen. Santorum can provide much-needed leadership to this debate. If the Republican Party continues to support moderates who are out of step with the American people, we will continue to see the arrogance that Sen. Specter continues to flaunt. It is time for them to weigh in with Republican senators and offer another alternative to a Specter chairmanship.

My emphasis and added brackets. Mark down November 2004 as the date when "moderate" joined "liberal" as a pejorative.

Rules of Rooting

Matt Weiner has a fascinating post on the rationality of rooting for football teams in certain circumstances. The basic question, as I understand it, is this: suppose that I am a Cleveland Browns fan, and don't care about any other football teams one way or the other. My only football interest is in the success of the Cleveland Browns. Suppose that one week, the Browns play the Ravens, and defeat them. The next week, the Ravens play the Steelers. Should I root for the Ravens? Matt says:

Here's the argument for so rooting: You want X to be as successful as possible. The better X is, the more successful they will be (most likely). The better Y is, the more evidence X's previous victory provides that X is good. So if Y beats Z, you have more evidence that your goal will be achieved. The argument against rooting for Y is basically this: What happens between Y and Z has no effect on X's fortunes. All you care about is X's fortunes. So why should you care what happens between Y and Z?

Both arguments do seem somewhat compelling, which is why we have a genuine puzzle. Add for further consideration that many of us, I think, *would* root for the Ravens under those circumstances. I guess I consider that to be weak evidence that it's rational so to do. Following are a few random thoughts on the issue: Maybe we're not *only* concerned with the success of the Browns -- maybe we also care about *respect* given to the Browns. (Or *maybe*, and I'm getting more and more tenuous, I know, respect given to the Browns is partially constitutive of their success.) It's also worth noting that it's contingent on the way the NFL works that the Ravens' future performance does not affect the Browns' future success; in college football, 'stregnth of schedule' considerations affect BCS standings, so it is clearly rational to root for previous opponents of the preferred team. I guess these two points might be applied as attempts to 'explain away' the intuition that it is rational to root for the Ravens. Matt sets up the example, as I did above, with the preferred team having *beaten* the team we're now considering rooting for. I don't see that this is critical -- even if the Browns had *lost* to the Ravens, there is still exactly the same argument for rooting for the Ravens: the better the Ravens are, the less bad that loss looks. Maybe grudge factors come into play, but I suspect they're not rational.

Elegy for a Democratic Candidate

Savannah wrote a poem!

Now that November's nipped our bums With frost and desolation, And Bush and all his right-wing chums Have swept our mooing nation, When tears bedew my shining cheeks, I weep not for John Kerry, Who pandered to gun-toting freaks And would not let gays marry. I do not mourn for Howard Dean Despite his peacenik creds, And Sharpton was a drama queen, And Lieberman on meds. And Clark did tend towards mumbling, All plumed with hawkish feathers, And Edwards, well, he's stumbling, A vane for all our weathers. No, when I mourn the Democrats Who should wear Honesty And Moral Values and White Hats And Being Strong and Free And Peace and Civil Liberty And Eating All Your Spinach For all America to see, I weep for sweet Kucinich. Kucinich had a crooked smile That winked at all our whining. Kucinich walked a crooked mile With footsteps straight and shining. Kucinich was for Peace and Love And Hugs instead of Hitting, Kucinich was a cooing dove While all the hawks were spitting. Kucinich used his inside voice And loved his fellow man. And one state made the Kooch its choice At the con-ven-ti-on. But all the others lost their way And nominated Kerry, And with conviction Bush could stab, And John could only parry. So on this dark November day I mourn our country's fate, And hope that we can find our way And that it's not too late To find our lib'ral souls again, And learn how not to mooch, To stand up proud from 'mid our pain And win one for the Kooch.

Moral Issues

The general consensus seems to be that voters were more concerned about 'moral issues' than about war. And everyone seems to respect the dichotomy. How can anyone -- let alone everyone -- consider war not to be a moral issue?

...and the winner is...

...definitely the Christian Right. I think that John Kerry is right to hold off on conceding, just in case, but at this point it would take a miracle for him to win the election. It's time for me to gradually start reconciling myself with the idea of a second Bush term. There are a lot of things I'm afraid of, but I'll start facing them in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, I'm reeling. I invested a lot in John Kerry, in terms of time, energy, and emotional capital. And, for a poor grad student, a non-trivial amount of money. What a depressing night. For now, here's what I took from the election itself: the clearest thing to me is, 2004 represented a *tremendous* victory for the Religious Right. It turned out in droves, and it elected its man. (It also emphatically banned gay marriage in eleven states.) At one point in the evening, I heard the CNN people saying that Kerry won convincingly among moderate voters. In an election with record turnout, Kerry won convincingly among moderate voters, and did not convincingly win the election. The Christian Right demonstrated yesterday that it is powerful enough to determine a nation-wide election, more or less all by itself. This could change everything.

Trusting the Media

Emily points me to a poll at the San Francisco Chronicle online. Here's the version as of 10:00 Tuesday night:

And Jon Stewart's GOP correspondent just said, "The numbers? This is not a man who's going to let the numbers keep him from moving America forward. ... Waiting for election results is a sign of weakness."

Biggest lie yet from Focus on the Family

I haven't been this nervous in a long, long time. The latest thing that disgusts me is an email from my old friend, Focus on the Family. They say the following in their "Citizenlink email update" yesterday:

Bin Laden Threatens Those Who Vote for Bush The videotaped message from Osama bin Laden broadcast Friday threatens any state that supports President Bush in the election may be targeted for attack, the New York Post reported. Bin Laden refers to Bush as a "white thug" and is angry that the president chose to stand up and fight -- and those who are Bush supporters are considered as the enemy. The message, according to a new translation of it, indicated that states John Kerry wins on Tuesday will be seen as trying to make peace with bin Laden and his followers. The Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and translates Arabic media, noted that bin Laden timed the release in order to divide the nation during elections -- hoping to tilt the vote toward Kerry.

In addition to being irresponsibly misleading, this statement is a blatant lie. Here is the transcript of the bin Laden address. Can you find the passage where bin Laden threatens Kerry states? It's things like this that make me think twice about free speech, because you just *know* a bunch of people are going to get this email and think, ooh, bin Laden's not going to scare me, I'm going to go vote for Bush!, who might not have otherwise voted. UPDATE: I may have spoken too soon. The National Review argues for the same conclusion that FOTF does, but they actually *argue* for it. I don't know if they're right or not, but apparently it's a position for which there actually can be arguments. Still, it's pretty bad of them to have plainly stated it as an uncontroversial fact.