You said the T-word! Tee-hee-hee-hee!

On any normal day, Brendan Nyhan is worth reading. But this was silly. Yes, Pearlstein's word choice was sloppy, for reasons explained by Yglesias, but Nyhan is making a mountain out of a molehill. He is actually counter-productive, as he accuses a bunch of people of joining in the smear based on their endorsement of Pearlstein's article. But Pearlstein's article is indeed very good, with the exception of those two words. One shouldn't get so stuck on those two words to discard the rest of the article. And I wonder what Nyhan would have said if Pearlstein had characterized the Republicans correctly.

Double-dog-dare you to define my -ism

Arnold Kling wrote a silly little post about progressivism, or rather an idiot's misconception of progressivism. It makes no sense at all: What are "unfettered free markets"? Who are the "technocrats"? What is "optimal"? Such lazy indulgence in empty words deserves no attention.

But then Tyler Cowen took it a step further. He claims he tried to "cast progressivism in the best possible light". He probably did honestly try; he seems like an honest and often lucid thinker. Certainly one of the most lucid thinker of the "right" blogosphere these days. But is he lucid enough for this task? His points seem lame and inaccurate. For example:

1. There exists a better way and that is shown by the very successful polities of northwestern Europe and near-Europe. We know that way can work, even if it is sometimes hard to implement.

You've got to be kidding me. This is the first point of an ideology you are "trying to cast in the best possible light"? A better way for what? "There's a better way" is not basis for an ideology; depending on how you are disposed to interpret those generic words, it is either a truism (of course there is a better way for everything - we humans are imperfect) or mere nagging. And the rest of the two sentences suggests that progressivism is all about imitating "northwestern Europe" (a geographically-challenged characterization?), so why is it then not called "northwesterneuropeism"? Or how about:

4. The needs of the neediest ought to be our top priority, as variations in the well-being of other individuals are usually small by comparison, at least in the United States.

Um, "the needs of the neediest ought to be our top priority" is utilitarianism, which is compatible with progressivism, but by no means synonymous with it. That's something Tyler ought to know (and does know, but he is either too lazy or unable to come up with more precise wording). Or how about:

9. State and local governments are fundamentally to be mistrusted (recall segregation) and thus we should transfer more power to the federal government, which tends to be bluntly and grossly egalitarian, when it manages to be egalitarian at all. That is OK.

Oh, so progressivism is anti-federalism! ("Anti-federalism" is what the "founding fathers" called "federalism", but never mind.) Except it isn't - it's just that, for as long as the US has existed, anti-progressives have touted their fictional concept of "states' rights" whenever it has suited them, which is whenever the federal government happened to be more progressive than the states, which is probably roughly half the time. Whenever it doesn't suit them, those same people conveniently forget "states' rights". By the fallacy that there have to be two equal sides to each issue, progressives, who have no analogous fictional concept, are perceived as "anti-states' rights", whatever the hell that would mean.

Tristero says this is complete bullshit. That may be a bit too harsh, but, obviously, I agree it is not an intellectual exercise Cowen should be proud of. Tristero is also miffed that Yglesias took the bait, and it does seem that Yglesias bent over backwards to "cast libertarianism in the best possible light":

I think libertarianism is best understood as a kind of esoteric doctrine. There’s strong evidence to believe that people who overestimate their own efficacy in life wind up doing better than those with more accurate perceptions. It follows that it’s strongly desirable for society to be organized so as to bolster myths of meritocracy.

I understand that Yglesias is not necessarily endorsing any of this, but merely ascribing it to libertarianism, but the second sentence is written as a statement of fact, so either Matt agrees that it is true, or he is saying that the foundation of libertarianism is simply false. Now I hope he means the latter, but then, if that is the best possible light in which to cast libertarianism, why even bother? He could have said it more concisely as "garbage in, garbage out". Maybe libertarianism should be called GIGOism? But in case Matt actually believes the factual claim to be true, he may be demonstrating poor deductive reasoning.

As far as I know, there is evidence that the most successful people are more likely than average people to be prone to overestimating their own efficacy. However, that does not mean that the converse holds. People who overestimate their abilities may, in effect, be gambling in life, ending up disproportionately at both ends of the outcomes distribution. They will then tend to be overrepresented among the winners as well as among the losers. By observing that most winners are cocky, we learn nothing about the average effect of cockiness. Concluding that cockiness is useful on average is the same fallacy that critics of Larry Summers use to falsely accuse him of stating that men are smarter than women.

But there is an advantage of Yglesias' writing on any topic: he has smart readers, and some of them contribute sensible comments. Thus Keith M Ellis:

A more accurate version of libertarian theory is that it is based upon an idiosyncratic view of inherent (and arguably metaphysical) individual human rights that is strongly oriented to property rights and is extremely American in historical origin and flavor. Sitting atop this view of individual rights—which itself is sufficient and requires no utilitarian elaboration—is a whole bunch of utilitarian justification for a libertarian sociopolitical organization built around the notions that said organization results in the greatest overall material and psychological benefit.

This theoretical basis has three great weaknesses: first, the notion of inherent individual rights is eminently contestable. Second, the almost exclusive emphasis on individual property rights is idiosyncratic and myopic. Third, the utilitarian arguments for the benefits of the resulting sociopolitical organization are extraordinarily simplistic and are as often as not disproved by empirical fact.

In practice, libertarianism is a political philosophy which emphasizes the notion of virtue in selfishness and has as its historical genesis the exceptional American experience. As such, it appeals mostly to white American males who are moderately above-average in intelligence, economically secure, independently-minded, and prefer simplistic theoretical constructs for making political and moral decisions. It validates their own affluence/privilege not by group affiliation, but by inherent individual merit; and it likewise superficially validates the poverty and lack of privilege of others not on the basis of group affiliation, but inherent fault. In this it mimics a meritocratic view, which allows the libertarian to congratulate himself on his lack of bigotry; but, in fact, it is a facade behind which his true bigotry hides.

Or Duncan Kinder:

The problem with libertarianism is that they tend to conflate liberty with possession of property.

This made sense 200 years ago, when owning a small farm or business meant that you were secure in the means of your livelihood. (...) However, due to economic shifts since then, owning property does not mean you therefore are secure in the means to your livelihood. Indeed, large property holders such as medical insurers are very much in the business of interfering with others’ means to their livelihood.

This means that libertarianism now is, in practice, a misguided and often cranky ideal.

Keith M Ellis also says something that especially resonates with me:

I write as someone who thought of himself as a libertarian in my late teens (a self-identification which quickly ended once I met actual, active libertarians)

I'll give Keith the final word:

American libertarianism could have foregone all its academic intellectuals and it would still be largely what it has become with them. Libertarianism is not an intellectual movement, it is a cultural movement. Libertarianism is essentially: individualism, good; property, good; commerce, good; government, bad. It’s a historically/sociologically related set of sentiments.

Absurdly Strained Neutral POV

Brendan Nyhan wrote a ridiculous post, and it's ridiculous right from the title:

Liberals go soft on Sykes's Limbaugh "jokes"

Putting "jokes" in quotes implies that they aren't really jokes, and the rest of the title implies that they deserved being gone hard on, whatever that means. Such a title is not a good sign that the body of the post will be well thought out.

there's no avoiding the fact that what comedian Wanda Sykes said about Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents Association dinner was loathsome

Fact? Loathsome?? Give me a break! Humor can only be loathsome when it mocks or humiliates the weak and powerless. The way Brendan describes it, one would think that Rush Limbaugh is a rape victim or a mentally retarded person - those would be likely targets of loathsome jokes - and not the man whose words make the most powerful Republican politicians soil their pants if they let slip a less-than-flattering opinion of him.

Adopting the language of GOP attacks on dissent since 9/11, Sykes equates Limbaugh's political speech with treason and compares him to a terrorist.

Um, no, Brendan, she satirizes him, making him the target of words paraphrasing his own. I don't think you'd get a good grade in an English class if you didn't recognize what was going on. That she is a comedian and was speaking as one at an event that was supposed to be comedic might be a hint, too.

Like many conservative talk show hosts, she also uses aggressive language expressing a desire for a political opponent to be physically harmed -- specifically for Limbaugh's kidneys to fail and for him to be waterboarded. This echoes the practice of many conservative hosts who make "jokes" about waterboarding liberals.

That's a patently fallacious comparison: those conservative talk show hosts were not joking when they said it, or at least I am not aware of any theory of humor that encompasses their statements. They were trash-talking or bullying, which a lot of people evidently confuse with joking, but I would hope that a PhD in political science wouldn't be among them. There is no discernible intent of irony, surprising incongruence, absurd, or exposing the target's hypocrisy in waterbording "threats" that come out of mouths of babes like Limbaughs and O'Reillys. They are just expressing aggression. By contrast, Sykes was obviously applying standard satirical forms. She "echoed" her targets' words, all right, but that's a standard tool of her trade. But Brendan is implying that the echoed words are morally equivalent to the originals. That is just absurd.

What's striking is how liberals -- who were frequently outraged about accusations of treason during the Bush years -- have sought to downplay Sykes's comments.

Wow! It is striking that people understand the difference between earnest accusations and jokes! Or between bullying and satire! How remarkable! Oh, wait... isn't it more striking that a professional analyst of political communication cannot tell the difference?

Of course, as Media Matters and Tapped's Adam Serwer pointed out, Limbaugh makes similarly offensive "jokes" on his show attacking dissent and comparing liberals to terrorists. And yes, he is far more powerful and influential than Sykes. But if it's wrong when Limbaugh does it, then it's wrong when Sykes does it too.

It would be if they were doing the same thing, but Brendan's pox on both their houses is logically similar to stating that if it is wrong to kill for material gain, then it's wrong to kill in self-defense. The fallacy is in asserting (without support and contrary to evidence) that two superficially similar acts are the same.

The hypocrisy here is staggering (especially in the Media Matters case).

The idiocy of Brendan's post is the only staggering phenomenon here. But it gets worse:

Imagine that a conservative comedian had accused Keith Olbermann of treason at the WHCA dinner back in 2004 and said he should be waterboarded. Would liberals have minimized the comments as "jokes" and catalogued all the offensive things Olbermann has said on his show? I don't think so.

That is extremely stupid, and Matt Yglesias aptly calls Brendan's bullshit:

But these aren’t symmetrical cases. Jokes advocating that conservative proponents of waterboarding should be subjected to waterboarding make a real political point, namely that this practice the right dismisses as “dunking” is, in fact, horrifying torture. The point of the joke is that this would be clear enough to Limbaugh if it was done to him. A comparable case, I guess, is if a conservative comedian were to say “if Keith Olbermann likes higher taxes on the wealthy so much, then he should have to pay higher income taxes, too!” But I don’t think Olbermann or his fans would find that particularly stinging since I take it he already understands the basic implications of Obama’s tax policies.

Brendan noted and quoted that, and had a chance to graciously say "Touché!" - but instead he just dug himself deeper:

First of all, it's not clear that Sykes was making a point about Limbaugh's support for waterboarding -- if that was her intent, she didn't make it especially obvious. The more general point was calling for physical harm to Limbaugh, which was quite clear

I can't believe this was written by the same guy whom I put on my blogroll. Last time I checked his blog, he had a brain. Where and when did he lose it?

Oh, by the way, Brendan didn't criticize the artistic value of Sykes' jokes anywhere in his post, so that issue is irrelevant to the discussion. But to prevent attacks on straw men, l'll say that I found the quoted jokes lame; however, my arguments do not depend on the artistic value of the jokes at all.

The Constitution Commandeth: Thou Shalt Not Call Creationism "Superstitious Nonsense"!

I woke up from blogging hibernation because another Bush-appointed judge decided that we've always been at war with Eastasia.

As Orwell said, freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If a teacher is not allowed to say that creationism is "religious, superstitious nonsense", then we are in deep trouble. And, as of last Friday, a teacher is not allowed to say that, at least not in the Central District of California.

Briefly, James Corbett, a high school history teacher and adviser for the student newspaper, was found liable for Establishment Clause violation because of the comment he made in reference to John Peloza, a biology teacher who has been fighting (and suing) the school district for his "right" to teach creationism in his science class.

The most important reason this ruling is appalling is that it prohibits telling the truth. PZ Myers nails it:

First of all, he told the truth: creationism is religious, it is a product of superstition, and it is nonsense — it doesn't fit any of the evidence we have about the history of the world or life on it. We have to have the right to tell students not only that something is wrong, but that it is stupidly wrong.

And the judge's reasoning is mind-boggling (emphasis mine):

The Court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.

Hello? The context, as described by the judge himself, was Corbett's opposition to Peloza's attempts to teach creationism. Not only is creationism false, but teaching it in public schools - especially in a science class - is illegal. Pointing this out obviously has a secular purpose.

So much for one prong of the Lemon test; the judge sours the next one just as badly:

The Court finds that Corbett’s statement primarily sends a message of disapproval of religion or creationism. As discussed above, Corbett states an unequivocal belief that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” Corbett could have criticized Peloza for teaching religious views in class without disparaging those views.

This is wrong on several levels. First, it is beyond dispute that, in the context of science, which is what Peloza was supposed to teach, creationism is superstitious nonsense. If it weren't, the fact that it is illegal to teach it would be hugely problematic. If those views did not deserve disparaging, Peloza would be a victim of persecution by the Capistrano Unified School District, the US District Court for the Central District of California (the same one that decided this case) and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. There is a reason creationism is not allowed in the science curriculum.

(And, to preempt the argument that it has nothing to do with truth or falsehood, but only with favoring religion, let me ask if teaching some claim that came from a religion - and, to make the case harder, was denied by another religion - would still be prohibited if the claim turned out to be true. Let's say science discovered that it really was turtles all the way down; would it make any sense to proclaim that teaching that violates the Establishment Clause?)

Furthermore, if so many non-fundamentalist believers and conciliatory non-believers have been trying to convince the public that religion is compatible with evolution, how come disparaging creationism is equated with disparaging religion? Again, I'll outsource this to PZ:

[W]e are being told over and over again that Christianity is not equivalent to creationism. This teacher has specifically said that creationism is nonsense, and this judge has equated a dismissal of a weird anti-scientific belief with making a rude remark about Christianity. So…where are all the Christians rising in outrage at the slander of their faith?

Finally, this suit was not brought by Peloza, but by a student, Chad Farnan. It is a mystery why Farnan should have standing to sue over a disparaging statement one teacher made about another teacher.

Ed Brayton wrote about the decision as well, but he seems terribly confused for a normally staunch free speech proponent. While Ed seems to tepidly agree that the creationism comment did not violate the EC, he also seems to think that some of Corbett's other comments, which the judge found not to have violated the EC, were more problematic:

Again, this is really strained reasoning. If he really wanted to make the nuanced point that the court thinks he was making, he could certainly have done it in a much more scholarly and serious way. Instead, the statement he made was inflammatory and insulting. There just isn't any place for that kind of hostility in a public school classroom.

The way I read it, Ed would have found Corbett liable at least for the "Jesus glasses" comment. That is very disappointing, even more so because he stops at hand-waving and makes no attempt to argue with the Court's actual reasoning. Not surprisingly, a lot of Ed's commenters agree with him, many of them flaunting their ignorance of the facts (e.g., implying that Corbett was a science teacher). I will reproduce my comment here:

Why would the "Jesus glasses" comment be inappropriate? Jesus (if he existed, or other people in his name) promoted a certain set of moral rules that are demonstrably impossible to follow without acting against one's best interest, as the vast majority of Americans understand "one's best interest". It should be a history teacher's duty to explain why a certain group acted against its own interests - at least as it would appear to us. Unless there is evidence that "they were blinded/manipulated by religion" is not a fair explanation, i.e., not one widely accepted by historians, the teacher should be free to teach it.

As for the Mark Twain quote, as long as it is a true quote, it ought to be fair game for a teacher to use it. After all, Twain is arguably the greatest American writer ever (certainly the most acclaimed word-wide), and is (hopefully) well-represented on the syllabus of some required courses. Shouldn't students learn that the greatest American writer was an atheist?

But don't take my word for it, go to the source and read the decision.

UPDATE (5/5/09): As usual, Digby gets it.

The Left vs. Larry Summers

It's another of those rare occasions when I have to disagree with Digby. I am puzzled with the Left's allergy to Larry Summers; one of its symptoms is obsessively scratching and digging up the 1991 World Bank memo about the possibility of selling toxic waste to Third-World countries. Says Digby:

Jonathan goes on to point out the unpleasant truth about such allegedly "out of the box" thinking --- that the people who reap the "benefit" of such things usually don't have to live in the putrid, polluted hellhole that's created by our toxic waste.

All I have to say in response is what I already wrote in a comment to a similarly-themed diary on Daily Kos, and an important part of it was the exact mirror image of Digby's thought - the people who scream that it is horrible and evil even to consider such ideas also don't have to share the fate of the poor people in the Third World:

In third world countries there are cities where children spend all day scavenging landfills. Perhaps there is unpolluted nature 20 miles away, but that does not help to make the lives of those children any safer, healthier, or more hopeful. Some more wealth in the country might, though - provided we can make sure it is actually spent on developing the country's economy and not on the leaders' luxury.

My current opinion (which is reality-based, so it may change with new information) is that toxic waste trade would be a bad idea, primarily because we could not effectively ensure that the money would be well spent. My educated but fallible guess is that Summers holds a similar view; my million-dollar bet is that he would similarly try to base his conclusions on reality and facts.

Look, some ideas seem yucky. But dissecting frogs is also yucky, and if you can't get over it, you can miss out on learning science. Part of maturity is that we should not let the yuck factor dictate our thought process and evaluation of ideas.

C'mon, people. All Larry is guilty of is bad taste.

I've been hoisted

There is no individual blog I read more faithfully than Brad DeLong's, so I was honored that he elevated my recent comment to a post. Prof. DeLong adds:

What would I have to pay to get another, alternative, decent opposition party to the Democrats?

I agree. A functioning democratic society needs a vigorous opposition - but that's different from a vicious opposition.

Mankiw bequeaths $7M to middle-aged kids for down payment on first home

I have several economists' blogs on my blogroll. I have a couple of conservative economists' blogs on my blogroll. Greg Mankiw's blog is not one of them, and for a good reason. Although Mankiw is undeniably a first-class economist in terms of his contributions to academic research, his public-policy positions could be charitably described as naive and simplistic, and most of the stuff he writes in his blog is just crap. (His position on Pigouvian fuel taxes may be a notable exception, but I take it more as a confirmation the issue is so non-controversial among economists that even right-wingers agree with the normal people.)

Did I say crap? Mankiw's recent post on his work incentives under McCain's and Obama's tax proposals makes crap look appetizing in comparison. He computes:

even under the low-tax McCain plan, my incentive to work is cut by 83 percent compared to the situation without taxes. (...) Obama's proposed tax hikes reduce my incentive to work by 62 percent compared to the McCain plan and by 93 percent compared to the no-tax scenario. In a sense, putting the various pieces of the tax system together, I would be facing a marginal tax rate of 93 percent.

and concludes:

The bottom line: If you are one of those people out there trying to induce me to do some work for you, there is a good chance I will turn you down. And the likelihood will go up after President Obama puts his tax plan in place.

Jonah the Economist does some pretty good debunking of Mankiw's fallacies, showing that Mankiw uses wrong formulas and wrong parameters, as well as a misleading source for his numbers. But the problems with Mankiw's post don't end there; his underlying logic is fatally flawed. Even if the numbers were correct (they are not), his argument would not hold water.

Mankiw's main premise is that any extra dollar he might earn would be set aside, invested, and bequeathed to his children. That is the only way he gets to apply all taxes to it. And here is how he describes the goals he has for those bequests:

To a large extent, the beneficiaries of that extra effort are my kids. My lifestyle is, as a first approximation, invariant to my income. But if I make an extra few dollars today, I will leave more to my kids when I move on. I won't leave them enough so they can lead lives of leisure, but perhaps I will leave them enough so they won't have to struggle too much to afford a downpayment on their houses or to send their own kids to college.

However, to apply a 45% estate tax under Obama's plan, he must be assuming that the amount of his bequest will exceed $7 million (in today's dollars). His stated modest goals are totally inconsistent with bequeathing that amount. Moreover, as an economist, Mankiw ought to realize that inheriting millions would greatly reduce his children's incentives to work.

Mankiw's narrative is not convincing to any reader seeking more than to validate his own prejudice that Obama will raise taxes and destroy the economy. It is unlikely that, as a star professor who obviously loves what he does, he works primarily for money. Even if he does, he states explicitly that he doesn't want any more money for himself, but only for his children. I like how he describes the purpose of the bequests, but it doesn't add up chronologically. I don't know how old Mankiw's children are, but he is 50, and his calculations assume that he will live to 85. By then, I would think his children would be at least in their 40s. If one of the most successful economists in America believes that his children will need help with down payment on their first homes when they are almost his present age, he is either extremely pessimistic or full of shit.

The very end of Mankiw's post is perhaps its best part:

And the likelihood will go up after President Obama puts his tax plan in place. I expect to spend more time playing with my kids. They will be poorer when they grow up, but perhaps they will have a few more happy memories.

Whether he arrived at this conclusion by flawed logic or not, the outcome seems the best for all parties involved (especially if "poorer" means having only $7,000,000.00 instead of $7,000,001.85). He is actually implying that he and his kids will be better off under Obama's plan (and we will too, as Jonah the Economist concludes). Could anybody refute Mankiw's main point more effectively than Mankiw himself?

Barack Obama stole my puppy

Barack Obama Stole My Puppy is a great new blog dedicated to collecting "personal stories of real Americans (from small towns, not those big city cesspools) of encounters with the Democratic nominee for president". How well do we really know how horrible Barack Obama is?

I thought of leaving my story in a comment, but this is a meme worth spreading, so I'll write here and I hope that at least one of the three people reading this blog will write about their own experience, and this will spread like a chain letter and soon everybody will see what a spammer Barack Obama is.

So please write your own personal stories, just don't forget to credit Barack Obama Stole My Puppy with the monstrous mutation that created this meme.

And here is my horrible, terrible, no good, bad story:

Barack Obama Made a Potty Mouth of Me

One awful day when I was the tender young age of seven and Barack Obama was a mean thirteen, we were traveling on a bus together. How we got to travel together, I don't recall. Either he threw my Mom and Dad under the bus or he ate them; the events I will describe left me so traumatized that I don't know who my parents were. And I think Barack Obama erased my memory, just so I would never remember the time I was better off than I am now.

Anyway, I was a little nervous so I was kicking the seat in front of me, when an old man who was sitting in it turned around and said "Get off my back, you bratty little fucker!" Imagine a seven-year old small town boy being exposed to those words - and Barack Obama didn't cover my ears!

A few minutes later, I was watching the young woman next to the old man playing with the old man's hair. I asked Barack Obama why the mean old man's daughter was petting his head, and he told me he thought she was his wife. I looked at him and asked, "You mean, they have sex and make babies together?" And Barack Obama said "Yeah, I think so." Eeeeygghhh! Yuck! I felt I had been exposed to a pedophile, and Barack Obama didn't even put his hand over my eyes!

Then the woman told the mean old man that his hair was thinning out, and he started yelling. He roared: "At least I don't plaster on makeup like a trollop, cunt!" Everybody in the bus turned and looked at them, which means also at us, as we were sitting right behind them. That made me nervous; I knew I had just heard something I wasn't supposed to hear. So I asked Barack Obama what a "trollop" was, and he said, smirking, "Hey, you should ask about 'cunt' first!" Can you imagine!? "Cunt first!" Until that day I was a good small-town boy who went to church and target practice every Sunday, and now I was suddenly forced to grow up and become a prisoner of sin and blasphemy - and all because of Barack Obama!

I have been a prisoner of Wicked And Revolting language - a prisoner of WAR, for short - all my life, and I am so wretched that I can't get up in the morning or go to sleep without swearing at somebody. It was Barack Obama who traumatized me so, when I was just seven, that I will never get that awful phrase "Cunt first!" out of my head. And now Barack Obama made it worse because he is running for President, and that other guy who is also running for President - see how Barack Obama influences people, they want to immitate him and do the same bad things he does - yeah, that other guy, he keeps saying something that sounds like "Cunt first!" all the time, and he looks like the mean old man on the bus, and I can't escape from the prison of turpitude in which Barack Obama locked me up that awful day when I was the tender young age of seven.

Glenn Greenwald admits he was wrong about Palin

She is much worse than he thought:

One of two things is absolutely clear at this point: she is either (a) completely ignorant about the most basic political issues -- a vacant, ill-informed, incurious know-nothing, or (b) aggressively concealing her actual beliefs about these matters because she's petrified of deviating from the simple-minded campaign talking points she's been fed and/or because her actual beliefs are so politically unpalatable, even when taking into account the right-wing extremism that is permitted, even rewarded, in our mainstream. I'm not really sure which is worse, but it doesn't really matter, because with 40 days left before the election, both options are heinous.

And it matters a lot:

Vice Presidents matter much more than they did before. So much unfettered power is now vested in the Executive that it's inevitable that the Vice President will wield significant authority. McCain evinces little interest in domestic policy, and the fact that he will be beholden to her and her Dobson-ite base if she wins makes it highly likely that she will exert substantial influence over numerous important areas. All of that, combined with McCain's age -- and what really do appear to be legitimate and growing questions about his health (those are mere suspicions, but appropriate ones that should be answered by McCain) -- makes Sarah Palin's candidacy a very real hazard, something that, by the day, I'm convinced is as important as any other issue in the campaign.

The scariest thing is that somewhere about 48% of American voters will vote for these freaks. That could easily round up to 50%, but even if that disaster is averted, we have to ask ourselves: Why isn't this election a blowout? Why isn't it like Chirac v. Le Pen in 2002? Or at least like Johnson v. Goldwater in 1964? Hell, is there any sane person who would not choose Goldwater and Miller over McCain and Palin?