Presto, Read the Communist Manifesto/Guerrillas in the Midst, a Guevara Named Ernesto.

Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns and Money is one of the better bloggers out there when it comes to law and political economy, but maybe less so rap music. Lemieux posted a brief item the other day dismissing an American Enterprise Institute piece on “The 21 Greatest Conservative Rap Songs Of All Time” as a patently absurd exercise. The piece may be absurd, but if it is it’s not patently so.

Conservative attempts to discern the hidden right-wing messages in movies/televisions shows/popular music/certain nineteenth-century presidents are irritating when they’re not completely idiotic. But in this instance the premise, at least, may not be entirely off base. Lemieux and the LGM commenters seem to think that rap and conservative ideas are oil and water, which is pretty clearly not the case.

Expect a Modest Victory for Marriage Equality

For explication of today’s oral arguments on Prop 8, you could do worse than SCOTUS blog. Tom Goldstein at the aforementioned site believes that the Prop 8 case will ultimately be dismissed because enough justices are convinced the petitioners defending the proposition lack the legal standing to appeal a district court’s ruling. That will result in a modest, but not major, victory for marriage equality:

If those features of the oral argument hold up – and I think they will – then the Court’s ruling will take one of two forms.  First, a majority (the Chief Justice plus the liberal members of the Court) could decide that the petitioners lack standing.  That would vacate the Ninth Circuit’s decision but leave in place the district court decision invalidating Proposition 8.  Another case with different petitioners (perhaps a government official who did not want to administer a same-sex marriage) could come to the Supreme Court within two to three years, if the Justices were willing to hear it.

Second, the Court may dismiss the case because of an inability to reach a majority.   Justice Kennedy takes that view, and Justice Sotomayor indicated that she might join him.  Others on the left may agree.  That ruling would leave in place the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

For my part, I think that’s what’s going to happen as well. Kennedy just sounds like he’s not ready to move forward one way or another, and so Roberts and the four more liberal justices (and possibly Kennedy) will probably punt. That means, in all likelihood, the ruling with more far-reaching potential should come from the DOMA case, whose oral arguments will be heard tomorrow.

She Was Just Reaganing

“It’s the sincerest form of flattery, guys!”

Jennifer Rubin, whose columns I would otherwise assume were parodies of conservative angst if I didn’t already know better, is evidently apoplectic over the First Lady’s appearance at last night’s Oscars ceremony:

It was the average too-long, unfunny, over-produced Academy Awards TV show and then, after suffering through the 10-hour (well, it seemed like it) show, there was the first lady. In a ball gown. With military service personnel in dress uniform behind her.

It is not enough that President Obama pops up at every sporting event in the nation. Now the first lady feels entitled, with military personnel as props, to intrude on other forms of entertaining (this time for the benefit of the Hollywood glitterati who so lavishly paid for her husband’s election). I’m sure the left will holler that once again conservatives are being grouchy and have it in for the Obamas. Seriously, if they really had their president’s interests at heart, they’d steer away from encouraging these celebrity appearances. It makes both the president and the first lady seem small and grasping. In this case, it was just downright weird.

You see how she uses phrases? as sentences? for dramatic effect? Jennifer Rubin is the best. And, in any event, she’s also not the only conservative hack furious about the surprise FLOTUS appearance:

Stage Left

I’ll be back. Wait, I’ll be back… right?

It’s all becoming somewhat surreal, but on the eve of comprehensive immigration reform, and in the immediate aftermath of the House GOP extending a clean debt limit, Fox News has severed its ties with she who once sent starbursts through a yearning man’s television screen. Paul Waldman wants Sarah Palin to know that we liberals will miss her dearly:

There are few political figures remotely as interesting as Palin, with her unmatched combination of crazy ideas, absolute confidence despite a level of understanding of public affairs that would embarrass an average seventh-grader, and a nearly inexplicable white-hot charisma. For liberals, she’s been the embodiment of “hathos,” the thing you find so repulsive that not only can’t you look away, you derive pleasure from your hatred of it (“hathos” was apparently coined by Alex Heard in 1985, but it has more recently been popularized by Andrew Sullivan). Can you imagine encountering a politicianagain whom you will find even half as appalling?

Other politicians have been considered dolts—Dan Quayle and Rick Perry come immediately to mind—but none has reacted to the accusation like Palin, not only defiant but without the slightest hint of embarrassment for whatever new way she exposed herself, from not knowing what the Bush Doctrine was at the end of George W. Bush’s term, to coining inane new terms (“refudiate”), to reacting to every new controversy by claiming that the real victim was Sarah Palin (remember “blood libel”?), to that extraordinary, rambling statementshe gave upon quitting midway through her first term as governor, explaining that she was walking away because to stay and do the job that the voters elected her to do would be “the quitter’s way out.” There really should be a long German word referring to the feeling liberals got whenever Palin said something even more idiotic and offensive than she had before, that combination of shock, disgust, and satisfaction that comes from getting yet more evidence that one of the other side’s leading figures is such an epic nincompoop. Every time, you could almost hear a thousand conservatives plant their faces in their hands.

I believe I owe Keith some money.

Marriage Equality.

A little too predictably, Barack Obama’s announcement that he was in favor of gay marriage rights elicited some harrumphs on the Left. Richard Kim was skeptical, and Adam Serwer was underwhelmed.

I would never question any progressive’s prerogative to doubt the Obama Administration’s policies. I’m not a big fan of the administration myself. But that doubt should also be open to scrutiny. In this case, I think it’s a little too knee-jerk. It’s almost become sort of a game on the Left to see who can come up with the best explanation for why a seemingly liberal policy by this administration is in fact bad for liberals, and that seems to part of what’s going on here.

Political Animal

It seems that Tim Tebow–you know, the backup quarterback for the offensively-challenged New York Jets–found himself this past Easter Sunday busily entertaining thousands with his good looks and boyish charm:

Some at the “Easter on the Hill” morning service under sunny skies drove more than 100 miles to hear Tebow speak. The service took on the feeling of a rock concert with more than a 100 school buses shuttling people to the sprawling megachurch campus from local shopping centers and the nearby college.

The service was peppered with lively Christian rock songs and Tebow hit the large stage to cheers from those who could see him while others toward the back of the crowd watched on massive video screens. Tebow sat for a 20-minute interview with Champion to talk about his faith and the role it plays in his public life.

“It’s OK to be outspoken about your faith,” Tebow said.

Varieties Of Liberalism.

Eric Alterman argues that we have steadily accepted an impoverished liberalism.

“Cultural liberalism,” Alterman says, is ascendant, while “economic liberalism” wanes. He gives a practical and a historical reason for this. The practical reason is that cultural liberalism is easier to support; it doesn’t raise taxes. The historical reason is more complicated.

The story Alterman tells is one that historians have been elaborating in important works over the past few years. The abridged version is that while liberals had plenty to say about social justice in the 1960s, they had few answers to economic failure in the 1970s. That’s because the liberalism of the mid-twentieth century was, to a large degree, what historians have labeled “growth liberalism” – a social and political agenda that presumed an expanding economy and near-limitless resources to apply to all of the issues that the New Deal had neglected: racial equality, feminism, environmentalism, education, and cultural enrichment. Lyndon Johnson declared that the United States would end poverty and move beyond simple economic concerns to achieve what he called his “Great Society.”

That never happened. Instead, the economy slowed to a crawl while unemployment and prices remained high, defying economic orthodoxy and leaving Keynesians with little to offer. Republicans stepped into the space created by liberal silence and proposed their own plan: supply-side economics. Ronald Reagan won the White House in 1980, and conservatives have dominated economic discussions since. Liberals, cowed by voters’ embrace of Reaganism, turned to the cultural issues that remained largely their turf.

There are several ways to take this story. Alterman’s is the glass-half-empty read. David Courtwright’s is the glass-half-full: Republicans have achieved certain economic victories in what remains a basically liberal electorate. I agree with Alterman. A liberalism that achieves all of the social and environmental goals of the 1960s and yet allows an increasingly economically stratified society is a failed liberalism. It’s the sort of liberalism that believes in abortion rights, gay marriage, and social justice but opposes government interference in the marketplace and resents paying taxes – a West-Coast libertarianism that Fred Turner documents in From Counterculture to Cyberculture. For a hint of what that sort of liberalism might entail, consider the consequences of welfare reform.

Granted, these things cannot be entirely teased apart; social and economic justice are woven together. But the Democratic Party has managed, generally, to emphasize the former while glossing over the latter. If Obama wins a second term this will be at the center of liberals’ ongoing attempts to reassert and redefine their ideology.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

Andrew Delbanco had a well-meaning but probably pointless opinion piece in the New York Times last month.

Noting Rick Santorum’s recent characterization of higher education as snotty and liberal, Delbanco pleads sort of a little bit guilty, maybe. He acknowledges the growing economic stratification between the higher-educated and the non-higher-educated and admits that it is fair to accuse the academic industry of certain kinds of elitism. Then he talks about the protestant origins of the university, the long-forgotten value of humility, etc., etc., etc., and finally offers:

Perhaps if our leading colleges encouraged more humility and less hubris, college-bashing would go out of style and we could get on with the urgent business of providing the best education for as many Americans as possible.

Sure. No one’s going to argue that Ivy-League hubris is a good thing, and no one is going to object to just a little less arrogance amongst the recently B.A.’d. But perhaps if we didn’t grant that this is a matter of attitude and values, and insisted instead that this is in fact a matter of public policy, we wouldn’t have to deal with this culture-war nonsense at all.

The War on Women, cont.

Adam Serwer has a fantastic piece detailing why, exactly, certain Republicans are blocking the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Their objections stem from revisions to the law relating to gays, immigrants, and Native Americans:

In a speech before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, Grassley laid out his objections to the bill. Republicans’ biggest qualms are about provisions that make federal grants to domestic violence organizations contingent on nondiscrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgender victims; rules extending the authority of tribal courts over domestic violence matters; and a section that would provide more visas for abused undocumented women who agree to cooperate with law enforcement.

In completely and totally unrelated news, a new Quinnipiac poll has Obama ahead of Romney by 8 points in Virginia, with the President leading among woman 52-39.

Barack Obama Supports… Racial Diversity

There are moments, occasionally, when the realization hits me that my worldview is so profoundly different from that of the mainstream American right that I might as well exist in different time space continuum. This is one of those moments. Apparently, Barack Obama speaking out in favor of racial diversity–is this provocative? who knew?–and in support of Derrick Bell, his then-law professor at Harvard (and one of the critical race theorists who figure centrally in my own thinking about American history), led Andrew Breitbart to believe that he could shake up the election. Well, the video, in the aftermath of Breitbart’s death, has surfaced. And it shows Barack Obama being… Barack Obama, albeit in some early-90s garb:

If anything, my main criticism here is of Obama’s insistence that he put his hands in his pockets while speaking. Also… RACE WAR!!! THE HORROR!!!