September 14, 2009

9/14: Here We Go Again...

The massive conservative protests on 9/12 generated a lot of commentary in the blogosphere, and much of it had a familiar ring. Just as they did after the Tax Day demonstrations, righty bloggers portrayed the 9/12 protests as the latest manifestation of a large (and growing) grassroots movement that will permanently reshape U.S. politics. Michelle Malkin gushed: "The success of the Tea Party movement and its allies/successors shows that there's no monopoly on 'community organizing.' You are the change we've been praying for." Meanwhile, Mark Hemingway praised the protesters as "an undeniably sober and informed crowd, especially in comparison to your standard left-liberal protest march. These people have jobs, are infuential in their communities, and you can be darn sure they plan on voting next November."

Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, downplayed the political significance of the demonstrations and portrayed the protesters as a small, angry minority. Duncan Black quipped: "Maybe next time the 700 million teabaggers should try voting." Many lefty bloggers asked why these activists hadn't taken to the streets when George W. Bush took steps to expand government and increase the deficit. Finally, numerous lefty bloggers (Lewison, ThinkProgress, Posner, Benen, Yglesias, Layne, Willis) published photos of offensive signs that conservative activists were holding -- just as they did after the Tax Day protests earlier this year.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• CA Assemb. Chuck DeVore (R) has designed an online fundraising widget for himself and three other conservative SEN candidates: ex-FL House Speaker Marco Rubio (R), ex-PA Rep. Pat Toomey (R), and TX RR Commis. Michael Williams (R). RedState is promoting this widget in an effort to raise $250K for these four candidates in the next 20 days. Meanwhile, another RedState blogger is attacking DeVore's primary rival, ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina (R).
• FL Sen. George LeMieux (R) -- whom Gov. Charlie Crist (R) appointed to fill the seat vacated by retired Sen. Mel Martinez (R) -- is already drawing fire from conservative bloggers (Erickson, Krikorian).
• Liberal bloggers aren't taking sides (yet) in the MA SEN Dem primary, but Daily Kos' Laura Clawson thinks that AG Martha Coakley needs to release "a well-defined set of position statements," since Coakley lacks the established legislative record that some of her competitors have.
• Liberal bloggers (Serwer, Benen, Kleiman) are criticizing ex-Memphis mayor Willie Herenton (D) for making explicitly race-based appeals in his primary campaign against Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN).

CONSERVATIVE PROTEST: "You Are The Change We've Been Praying For"

Conservative bloggers are very excited about the size and energy of the 9/12 protests:

• Malkin: "Activists were derided as amateurs who couldn't turn out a crowd. Then they were smeared as corporate shills. They were criticized for not having a coherent message. Then they were mocked for ideological single-mindedness. They are resented by professional strategists who accuse them of organizing empty protests that won't translate into electoral gains. But the movement has given birth to a new generation of movers and shakers who have rejected establishment partisan politics for nimble, Internet-facilitated, issues-based advocacy. The success of the Tea Party movement and its allies/successors shows that there's no monopoly on 'community organizing.' You are the change we've been praying for. March on!"
• NRO's Hemingway: "As a journalist who wears his cynicism like a badge of honor, to say that today's tea party protest wildly exceeded my expectations would be an understatement. I've yet to see a reliable estimate of the crowd size and the cops seemed bound and determined to keep any photographers away from any high vantage points, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't well into six figures. [...O]verall it was an undeniably sober and informed crowd, especially in comparison to your standard left-liberal protest march. These people have jobs, are infuential in their communities, and you can be darn sure they plan on voting next November."
• Glenn Reynolds: "I've said this before, but those in the GOP who think that the Tea Party movement is for their benefit need to think again. Roger Stone spoke, and while nobody had anything against him in particular, several people told me that they thought the GOP was trying to co-opt the Tea Party Movement, and they weren't happy about that. My advice to the GOP -- and, for that matter, to those Democrats who care -- is to try to find a way to address the Tea Party crowd's interests, bearing in mind that if you don't they're just as happy to throw Republicans out of office as Democrats."
• Reason's Nick Gillespie: "[T]he three takeaways I had from the event comport with [Matt] Welch's from yesterday's post: First, the crowd was truly huge. Second, the crowd was from all over the place (both geographically and ideologically). And third, the crowd, well-behaved and stunningly normal in the main, was genuinely pissed off at out of control spending and government policies. 'Stop spending,' was the basic answer to any questions about what Congress and the president should do come tomorrow. Throw the bums of either party out come next fall was the second most-common answer.

CONSERVATIVE PROTEST II: Hey, Tea Baggers -- Didn't We Just Hold An Election?

Many liberal bloggers are accusing the conservative activists of holding Pres. Obama and Bush to different standards:

• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "The protests, for some reason, were a little bit bigger than the massive wave of protests from these 'fiscal conservatives' when the Republicans and George Bush passed on trillions of unfunded liabilities with the Prescription Drug Act. I just can't figure out why. It is almost like this is just partisan nonsense whipped up by Koch foundation funded outlets."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "We learned today that right-wing activists don't like government spending (except when Bush and Republican lawmakers spent freely), don't like the size of government (except when Bush and Republican lawmakers increased the size of government), don't like deficits and debt (except when Bush and Republican lawmakers added trillions to the nation's tab), and don't like czars (except when Bush used dozens of them to implement his agenda). [...] In other words, the point of today's rally was to let the country know there are a lot of right-wing activists with right-wing beliefs. We knew that before today, but I guess they wanted to remind us."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Probably the weirdest thing about the Glenn Beck / Tea Party nexus to me is that it tends to rely so heavily on libertarian rhetoric and fear of incipient authoritarianism. These kind of sentiments would be a lot easier to take seriously if not for the fact that we didn't see these people marching out in the streets when George W. Bush used the threat of terrorism to justify secret, illegal warrantless surveillance, detention without trial, torture, etc. Indeed, the very same people who spend Monday, Wednesday, and Friday complaining that Barack Obama's 'czars' are a threat to liberty not only weren't worried about czars in the Bush years, they spend Tuesday and Thursday worrying that Obama's not doing enough to ensure that intelligence operatives can break the law with impunity."

Liberal bloggers are also arguing that these conservative activists are hardly representative of the country at large:

• Yglesias: "As we know, back in November most people voted for Barack Obama. Most people voted for a Democratic House candidate. And most people voted for a Democratic Senate candidate. Today, most people prefer Obama's approach to the approach of congressional Republicans. But this is a very large country. And a large minority of the population is out of step with the views of the minority. You've got your anti-abortion guys, your tenthers, your birthers, your Medicare-hating congressmen, etc. Something called the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights is among the sponsors of the rally. And so, fine, there are a lot of people with far-right political opinions. But the idea that this is actually some kind of response to specific things Barack Obama has done is pretty off-base. It's just the usual suspects getting fired up."
• Atrios: "Maybe next time the 700 million teabaggers should try voting."

Liberal bloggers also paid considerable attention to how the media was covering the event. Many lefty bloggers (Silver, Aravosis, Kleiman, Blue Texan) criticized FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe for giving a grossly inflated estimate of the size of the crowd in D.C. Other liberal bloggers (Black, Benen, digby) complained that the Washington Post displayed a "glaring double standard" by placing an article about the 9/12 protests on its front page, since the newspaper had relegated its coverage of the '02 anti-war protests to the Metro section.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Norman Borlaug, Forgotten Benefactor Of Humanity

The following is an excerpt from Gregg Easterbrook's '97 Atlantic profile of Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Prize-winning agronomist who died Saturday at the age of 95:

"Borlaug is an eighty-two-year-old plant breeder who for most of the past five decades has lived in developing nations, teaching the techniques of high-yield agriculture. He received the Nobel in 1970, primarily for his work in reversing the food shortages that haunted India and Pakistan in the 1960s. Perhaps more than anyone else, Borlaug is responsible for the fact that throughout the postwar era, except in sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were widely predicted -- for example, in the 1967 best seller Famine -- 1975! The form of agriculture that Borlaug preaches may have prevented a billion deaths.

Yet although he has led one of the century's most accomplished lives, and done so in a meritorious cause, Borlaug has never received much public recognition in the United States, where it is often said that the young lack heroes to look up to. One reason is that Borlaug's deeds are done in nations remote from the media spotlight: the Western press covers tragedy and strife in poor countries, but has little to say about progress there. Another reason is that Borlaug's mission -- to cause the environment to produce significantly more food -- has come to be seen, at least by some securely affluent commentators, as perhaps better left undone. More food sustains human population growth, which they see as antithetical to the natural world."

LEST WE FORGET: University Of Illinois Researchers Find Link Between Attending University Of Illinois, Receiving Solid Education At Great Price

From The Onion:

"URBANA, IL -- According to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois, there is a strong correlation between enrolling at the local four-year college and receiving a well-rounded, but moderately priced education. 'Our research indicates that the likelihood of getting a solid bang for your academic buck increases dramatically when attending the U of I, located in Urbana-Champaign, just minutes away from beautiful downtown,' said chief author Dr. Joseph Mahler, who works extensively in his field and brings years of experience to the classroom. 'In all cases, test subjects reported that the price of matriculating at the University of Illinois was nearly as unbeatable as the vaunted Fighting Illini Men's Basketball Squad. Go Illini!' Researchers are currently conducting a new study linking the contribution of alumni funds to the university with a sense of general happiness and well-being."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at September 14, 2009 01:00 PM