The Commentariat -- October 18

"Do You Mind Being a Vulture?" Huffington Post video:

Michael Isikoff, now with NBC: "How can [the Obama Justice Department] credibly prosecute mid-level bureaucrats and junior military officers for leaking classified information to the press when so many high-level officials have dished far more sensitive secrets to [Bob] Woodward?" CW: I love Isikoff.

"Pride and Prejudice." Margaret Talbot in The New Yorker on the country's movement toward gay equality & the inevitable increasing violence against it. Toward the end, she touches on the right to privacy, & concludes with this brilliant nugget:

The unobserved life is so totally worth living.

Sen. Sherrod Brown in a New York Times op-ed: "Unless the administration takes punitive steps in response to China’s unfair trade practices, the American economy — and the American worker — will continue to suffer."

Edward Luce of the Financial Times: if Republicans take control of the House, Rep. Darrell Issa plans to investigate everything, including "whether the federal government should be involved at all in sponsoring home loans for the poor."

Jim Abrams of the Associated Press: "The public panned it. Republicans obstructed it. Many Democrats fled from it. Even so, the session of Congress now drawing to a close was the most productive in nearly half a century." ...

... Nicholas Lemann has a good, in-depth article in The New Yorker on Harry Reid & this year's Nevada Senatorial race.

A real policeman questions Tony Hopfinger, in handcuffs, as Joe Miller's "security" detail looks on. Anchorage Daily News photo.Anchorage Daily News reporter Richard Mauer taped Hopfinger after he was handcuffed & while Miller's security force continued to detain him. As you can see, Miller's guards attempted to manhandle Mauer & accused him of "trespassing":

Steve Benen comments on the handcuffing & detention of journalist Tony Hopfinger by guards working for Alaska's Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller. Benen wonders if this is the Tea Party's vision of American "freedom." CW: I think it is. Taking the law into your own hands takes law enforcement out of the hands of "the government" and reduces taxes "wasted" on police & the courts. See links to news stories under today's Ledes in the right column. ...

... Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is waging a write-in candidacy against Miller & Democratic nominee Scott McAdams, issued a statement condemning Miller's actions.

This behavior is particularly disturbing, especially for someone who claims to be a ‘constitutional conservative.' Apparently Joe Miller has forgotten both the first and fourth amendments to the United States Constitution. -- Sen. Lisa Murkowski

... The "security goons" "scare" Andrew Sullivan. ...

... CNN Update: "Republican candidate for Senate in Alaska, Joe Miller, admitted he was disciplined for the misuse of local government computers but said it was not a factor in his eventual departure from his job as an attorney at the Fairbanks North Star Borough (an area of Alaska) in September 2009." CW: the article includes a video of John King's interview of Miller, but it currently (8:30 pm ET) isn't loading properly. ...

... Fox "News" Update: Miller tells Neil Cavuto that Hopfinger followed him into the restroom (with a camera?) TPM video:

     ... Anchorage Daily News: in an earlier statement, made before Miller told his "bathroom ambush" story, Hopfinger said he & Miller had coincidentally used the bathroom at the same time, but that he (Hopfinger) didn't ask Miller any questions then because he thought it inappropriate.

New York Times Editorial Board: Republican Senatorial candidates, with the single exception of Mark Kirk of Illinois, "are re-running the strategy of [climate change] denial perfected by Mr. Cheney a decade ago, repudiating years of peer-reviewed findings about global warming and creating an alternative reality in which climate change is a hoax or conspiracy."

None of Us Is Perfect, Christine. Matt Lauer, Chuck Todd & Donny Deutsch discuss this season's campaign ads:

The Commentariat -- October 17

President Obama & the First Lady at a rally at Ohio State University today. The President & First Lady come on stage at about 8 min. in:

Nicholas Kristof travels to Afghanistan to talk with local people, & comes away with explanations of "why America's strategy in Afghanistan isn’t working." ...

... Carlotta Gall of the New York Times paints the same picture, with a broader brush. ...

... BUT Joshua Partlow in the Washington Post: "... top U.S. military and civilian officials in Afghanistan have begun to assert that they see concrete progress in the war against the Taliban, a sharp departure from earlier assessments that the insurgency had the momentum." ...

... Meanwhile, in Our Excellent Adventure in Iraq ... Timothy Williams & Duraid Adnan of the New York Times: "Members of United States-allied Awakening Councils have quit or been dismissed from their positions in significant numbers in recent months, prey to an intensive recruitment campaign to rejoin the Sunni insurgency.... Security and political officials say hundreds of the well-disciplined fighters — many of whom have gained extensive knowledge about the American military — appear to have returned to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Beyond that, officials say that even many of the Awakening fighters still on the government payroll, possibly thousands of them, covertly aid the insurgency." ...

... More Casualties of War. Aaron Glantz in the New York Times: California statistics reveal "a surge in the number of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans who have died not just as a result of suicide, but also because of vehicle accidents, motorcycle crashes, drug overdoses or other causes after being discharged from the military.... The figures ... underscore how veterans ... engage in destructive, risky and sometimes lethal behaviors."

Sebastian Rotella of ProPublica in the Washington Post: "Three years before Pakistani terrorists struck Mumbai in 2008, federal agents in New York City investigated a tip that an American businessman was training in Pakistan with the group that later executed the attack. The previously undisclosed allegations against David Coleman Headley, who became a key figure in the plot that killed 166 people, came from his wife after a domestic dispute that resulted in his arrest in 2005."

Robert Reich: the Fed's plan to goose the economy by reducing long-term interest rates won't work because businesses know consumers can't afford to buy stuff. ...

     ... Here's the underlying story from the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, sent a clear signal on Friday that the central bank was poised to take additional steps to try to fight persistently low inflation and high unemployment." You can watch the speech here.

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times on the SEC's $67.5 million settlement on its fraud case against Angelo Mozilo, the former head of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial: the "gulf between Mr. Mozilo’s private views and his public proclamations went to the heart of the S.E.C.’s case against him." Here's the Times' story on the SEC settlement.

It Isn't What's Illegal that's Scandalous; It's What's Legal. Jill Abramson of the New York Times: the secret donors are back, mostly on the Republican side, but unlike the piles of money that figured into the Watergate scandal, this time the secret campaign donations are legal. ...

... Michael Luo & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: the Republican Governors Association, "led by its chairman, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, out-raised its Democratic counterpart by more than three to one from July 1 to Sept. 30. With $31.5 million in the bank, the group had more than twice as much cash available for the final stretch of the midterm campaign." ...

... This Los Angeles Times article by James Oliphant suggests secret donors will be a or the primary factor in a Republican takover of Congress. ...

... CW: I don't do polls, BUT Nate Silver, who's never wrong, writes, "FiveThirtyEight’s projection for the U.S. House shows little change from last week. Republicans are given a 73 percent chance of taking over the House, up incrementally from 72 percent last week. During an average simulation run, Republicans finished with 227 seats, up from 226 last week; this would suggest a net gain of 48 seats from the 179 they hold currently. However, there is considerable uncertainty in the forecast because of the unusually large number of House seats now in play."

Shades of the Tea Party & the Weimer Republic. BBC News: in a speech in Potsdam, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said multiculturalism was not working in Germany & more had to be done to integrate foreign-born workers -- many of whom are Turks & Arabs -- into Germany's mainstream. Especially since the economic downturn, anti-immigrant feelings have increased among the native-born population. With video.

Vox Populi. Frank Rich: "Don’t expect the extremism and violence in our politics to subside magically after Election Day — no matter what the results. If Tea Party candidates triumph, they’ll be emboldened. If they lose, the anger and bitterness will grow. The only development that can change this equation is a decisive rescue from our prolonged economic crisis. Not for the first time in history — and not just American history — fear itself is at the root of a rabid outbreak of populist rage against government, minorities and conspiratorial 'elites.'”

David Neiwert of Crooks & Liars examines the physical threats against Democratic Sen. Patty Murray & recounts instances of incendiary language by tea partiers & pundits which has inspired the mentally-ill to try to attack Murray & her supporters. It's a short, chilling piece.

Maureen Dowd has been doing a lot of traveling lately, & on this trip she stopped in to visit two "mean girls" who are running for elective office: the accidental governor Jan Brewer of Arizona & the accident-waiting-to-happen Sharron Angle of Nevada.

Holy Shit! Jack Conway Gets Down & Dirty:

Francis X. Clines of the New York Times: Newt Gingrich has been encouraging Republicans to run against food stamps, & some Democrats are doing so also. Clines points out that "Unlike the upper-income tax cuts Republicans furiously protect, food stamps, minimalist as they are, are antirecession sparks that generate $9 in economic activity for every $5 spent, according to federal statistics."

Catholicism is clearly superior. Don't believe me? Name one Protestant denomination that can afford a $660 million sexual abuse settlement. -- Stephen Colbert

Kimberly Winston in the Washington Post: Stephen Colbert may play Catholicism for laughs, "but his thoughtful Catholicism still shows through."

Tea with Adolf

Frank Rich: "Don’t expect the extremism and violence in our politics to subside magically after Election Day — no matter what the results. If Tea Party candidates triumph, they’ll be emboldened. If they lose, the anger and bitterness will grow. The only development that can change this equation is a decisive rescue from our prolonged economic crisis. Not for the first time in history — and not just American history — fear itself is at the root of a rabid outbreak of populist rage against government, minorities and conspiratorial 'elites.'”

Not surprisingly, the Times moderators would not publish this comment on Rich's column:

Since Frank began with Carl Paladino's embrace of a reference to Adolf Hitler, I was reminded of how much the current tea party "populism" resembles German populism between the world wars.

The socio-economic situations then and now were similar. Both the 'tween-wars Germany & today's U.S. were suffering through dire economic times. The European nations who defeated Germany made Germany pay reparations for the first world war. It appears we will be paying our own "reparations" to China because of our profligate borrowing.

Beginning in 1929, all of Europe & the U.S. began to suffer through a Great Depression; the situation is Germany was even worse. Unemployment doubled & the parties began bickering about the cost of unemployment benefits. We are now suffering through the Great Recession & the parties are bickering about unemployment benefits.

After the first world war, Germans lost faith in "establishment parties" & sought answers from outliers. The government could not hold things together. Similarly, tea partiers have formed their own loose "anti-establishment" groups & are fielding candidates who would not pass muster in the established Republican & Democratic parties. Paladino, of course, is the poster boy for the dismal tea party candidate parade. Meanwhile, popular approval of the American Congress is at an all-time low.

Germans accused the Weimer government of betraying their nation by signing the Treaty of Versailles. Today's tea partiers think our government is illegitimate; they think the President is not even an American, and they know he is not "one of them."

In Germany, radicals like Hitler promised the people they would return Germany to its pre-World War I glory. In this country, tea partiers & their candidates vow "to take our country back." Just as Hitler was militaristic, so are today's tea partiers, carrying guns to political rallies, forming militias in the Hinterlands, & looking for leaders like Sarah Palin & Sharron Angle who pepper their speeches with incendiary words & phrases like "lock-and-load" and "target" and "bulls-eye" and "revolution." The entire right wing is obsessed with the Second Amendment, as if that were the only amendment that mattered. At the same time, many right-wingers see the military as the best solution to every foreign problem. John McCain is hardly the only conservative singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." In both 1930s Germany & the modern U.S., many people view jingoism as sensible public policy.

Germany had a significant ethnic minority to scapegoat, & Hitler encouraged the centuries-old bigotry against Jews. Though he was not religious himself, he borrowed from Martin Luther's playbook (Luther became a horrible anti-Semite) & named a Lutheran anti-Semitic bishop to head the German church. We have quite a few minorities to choose from, and the right enjoys scapegoating them all. The other day a Fox "News" host said, "All terrorists are Muslims." As far as I know, he still has his job. While it's unacceptable to specifically scapegoat black Americans & Jews, the tea party is not immune from doing so. Much of the animus against President Obama is based on his race, and talk-show pundits like Glenn Beck & Rush Limbaugh make racist statements about him.

In Germany, big money interests secretly funded Hitler's Nazi party. (Many of those financial backers came from Europe & the U.S.) In this country, the Supreme Court has just made secret funding of politicians legal, and we're seeing the effects in this election.

Tea partiers like to paint Hitler mustaches on President Obama. But it seems much more apt to apply little brush mustaches to their own upper lips. Although the causes of the economic crises in Germany & in the U.S. were different, the early political responses appear to be much the same. Most important, the attitudes of the so-called populists of both eras are identical. We should worry.

Update: the news of Angela Merkel's speech on the failure of multiculturalism, linked here & below, suggests another layer of connections between then & now.