This, Brooks says, gives us a glimpse into their supposed impotence:

So what is the theme of our history lesson? It is a story of remarkable volume and utter weakness. It is the story of media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche — even in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as “The Wizard of Oz,” of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain.

The Beck as Oz column was written before Friday’s IOC decision to give the 2016 Olympics to Rio de Janerio (and not to Chicago).  For many conservative commentators this was seen as great news because it represented a stinging defeat for Obama on the world stage.  Rush Limbaugh claimed he was “gleeful,” adding that “anything that gets in the way of Barack Obama accomplishing his domestic agenda is fine with me.”  Glenn Beck was equally ecstatic, saying that the “news was so sweet.”  What is troubling to some is this unfettered willingness to cheer any personal Obama defeat at the expense of the greater good.  Yet if Brooks is correct this was nothing more than a  form of entertainment that had little effect on public opinion.  Still, even if they don’t represent a large part of the population, this outpouring of happiness from the right side of the media dial feels unsettling.

The Brooks’ thesis greatest test is the current health care debate.  Can one  assess the violent eruptions at the summer’s town hall meetings, the use of falsehoods and the violations of decorum without thinking that these conservative commentators represent a portion of the American population that is more than what Brooks views as a “mere niche”?  The health care bill we eventually get will  likely be a watered down version of what was originally proposed.  This is being dictated, at least in part, by the will of the people.

Ultimately, however, the impact of these conservative megaphones is not that they eclipse liberal or Democratic opinions but rather that they shut out the legitimate Republican voices of opposition.  Whether one agrees with these views or not they are essential to a robust national debate, whatever the issue may be.  What the likes of Limbaugh and Beck do, at the end of the day, is create so much noise that these more rational Republican signals are simply drowned out.  And we all pay a price for that.

Why? For a variety of reasons, but mainly because it, yet again, supports the notion of Darwinian evolution, which means it is another serious chink in the already weak armor of the Intelligent Design movement. For those unfamiliar with ID, it is essentially creationism re-branded with a name that sounds less biblical (but no less unintelligent, oddly). Despite the name swap, the two share the same core idea–that the earth and every living thing therein was created by an “intelligent” cause all at once, and not by random natural selection that occurred over billions of years.

The ID movement is driven by the Center for Science and Culture, an arm of the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based conservative Christian think tank. And, like the global warming denial movement, it is a shining example of junk science. In lieu of presenting legitimate, peer-reviewed science, both movements seek to obfuscate the truth by creating ambiguity and taking advantage of legitimate scientific debate. They are PR efforts, not actual science. And while it’s tempting to dismiss them both as crackpot theories that rely on argumentum ad ignorantiam, the danger on the ID front is that it has a well-organized political agenda: they want to brainwash our children.

As outlined in an internal CSC memo leaked in 1999 (the so called “Wedge Document”), the ID movement’s ultimate goal is the replacement of “materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.” In other words, in lieu of evolution they want Intelligent Design taught in American public schools (if Intelligent Design has any place in schools, it is in a class on religion, not science).

So how would an Intelligent Design proponent explain the discovery of a hominid that is 4.4 million years old? I’m not quite sure, since one of the main tenets of Creationism is that the earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old, as per the New Testament (though even this gets murky as some Creationists argue that “years” in the biblical sense are not the same as “years” as we currently view them). Geologists generally agree that the earth is roughly 4.6 billion years old. And now we have another piece of evidence in the fossil record that links humans to primates, and that dates back to 4.4 million years.

In the spirit of open and honest dialogue, we here at The Faster Times invite those from the ID camp to explain the important scientific finding, and to square it with the tenets of Intelligent Design.

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American.

Certainly there is a morsel of truth to what Carter had to say.  As the first Black President Obama has and will continue to face a latent but deep-seated racism, despite all the healing his ascendency has helped to foster.  But discussions of race always take places on the most slippery of slopes, and Carter’s accusations are impossible to “prove,” even if we sense they are correct.

And all of this misses the point.  The salient question is: which side will Carter’s statements actually help?  During the Presidential campaign Carter was dragged out by the right as the living example of a weak, ineffective Democrat who did little but oversee soaring gas prices and who flubbed the Iran hostage crisis.  His actions yesterday are certain to be used by Republicans as yet another example of how liberals are actually the ones inhibiting free speech.  Here’s how the old saw goes: The right will claim that if every criticism of Obama is construed as racist, how can there be a lively, open debate (never mind that Republicans are showing up at rallies with guns and signs that endorse grievous bodily harm to the President)?  

The next time the Former President gets a jones to speak out in a broad and inherently indefensible way let’s hope the cameras aren’t rolling.  His heart is in the right place, and his mind is still razor sharp, but the impact of his words may turn out much differently than he intended.

Photo courtesy of MSNBC

Fortunately, I have health care coverage. But I have been without it, at times, over the course of a journalistic career that includes several stints as a freelancer.  And I can tell you from personal experience that flying without that net is as scary and debilitating as it unwise (though for most it is not a matter of choice or allocating resources; for me, in some ways, it was, since I chose to live and work in the most expensive city in America at the time, and still do).

I note this not to elicit sympathy but because my recent medical experience has brought into much sharper relief the acute need for health care reform. Our President gave an eloquent, moving and fact-driven 47-minute missive last night (yes, he overreached a couple of times, but the oratory displayed was among the best we’ve seen this decade; others are suggesting it is already part of the pantheon) in which he laid out his vision for a centrist, sensible plan.

And while the President sought to correct misconceptions and presented his case, he also swung for the ideological fences.  Among the best lines in a speech that contained dozens of gems was this one: “We did not come here to fear the future; we came to shape it.”

In terms of language and rhythm it’s a beautifully hewn sentence.  It also embodies the idea that the easiest thing to do would be to ignore the health care problem and kick the can down the line, for the next guy (or gal) to deal with. Obama has assumed a great deal of political risk to tackle the most complex domestic issue of his tenure.  It may cost him at the polls in 2012 (to say nothing of the mid-term elections, more broadly).  But he seems willing to take the fallout.  He is, in short, acting like a leader, not a politician. Or, more to the point, a human being.

Having just been through a frightening and potentially lethal surgery I can safely say that health care and being insured does not come down to a policy debate. At the moment when it is needed–and those are the only moments when it matters–it’s about a scared human being trusting in other human beings, most of whom are complete strangers.  It is people, not paperwork or politics.

Will Obama’s oratory move the needle and help Americans understand this?  Snap polls seem to indicate it was well received, but delivering a great speech and reaching a true consensus in Congress are two very different things.  One can only hope that the plan outlined last night will allow the various wings to meet in the middle.  I, for one, will use what is left of my brain to argue in favor of such an outcome, for whatever good it will do.

Bonus Read: Obama’s Health Care Speech: A Report Card

Thank you, U.S. Senate, for making Sonia Sotomayor the 111th Supreme Court justice in the history of the Republic, and the first-ever of Hispanic descent (and only the third female, which is pretty pathetic).  

It’s been a big year for historic events, though Sonia was pretty much a slam dunk from day one.  Still, it’s a relief to have it on the books.  If you listen closely you can hear an army of Republicans screaming in agony as their power erodes by the minute.

While there are arguably better ways for a President to spend his time, there is something a little bit hopeful about the efforts that Obama has made in the wake of the incident involving Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley.  Will brews at the White House heal all the ills of racism that still plague the nation?  Of course not.  Is it a staged PR effort posing as domestic diplomacy? In part, yes. But the beer-soaked moment is not entirely without meaning or political significance.

Now go out and get drunk, for the betterment of the Republic.

*If the headline reference to the advertising jingle for “the Lion’s Brew” beer isn’t familiar to you then you didn’t begin your beer drinking career in the middle 1980s, which means you have the benefit of being young.  Me, not so much.

(photo via TavernTrove)

And now he’s gone and called Rachel Maddow a “tea-bagging queen.”  Here is an audio clip (with some still photos, to pass the time while you listen) from Dobbs’ 7/28/09 radio show:

Whether or not Dobbs actually knows what the kids mean when they use the term “tea-bagging,” his actions of late seem absurdly unprofessional at the very least. To this end, Media Matters has launched an online petition.  Their goal is to get the silver-haired host booted for good.  They explain their mission thusly:

Dobbs’ relentless promotion of outlandish conspiracy theory about President Barack Obama’s birth certificate seriously damages CNN’s credibility. It is time for “The Most Trusted Name in News” to prove it deserves viewers’ trust. We the undersigned demand CNN address its Lou Dobbs problem in a credible manner.

We have a call into MM to find out how they plan to utilize this petition (they claim to have collected 15,000 names thus far), so stay tuned for an update.  With a little luck maybe Dobbs will be lost in space again. Very, very soon.

At 2:15 p.m. EST today the President took time out of his busy schedule to chat with Crowley for five minutes (he’d been pressured by the Cambridge police union to apologize for his “stupid” remark from Wednesday night’s press conference).  The two men got along swimmingly, trading jokes and making plans for a possible beer.

According to The Hill:

Obama said the five-minute conversation confirmed that Crowley is a good man and that the sergeant and the professor are “two decent people,” though he still believes that Crowley and Gates both overreacted. The president further said that he contributed to the “ratcheting up” of the story.  Obama said it was “unfortunate” that his word choice “maligned” the police department and Crowley

I’m not sure HLG, Jr. would agree with the tenor of this, but nevertheless things turned chummy pretty fast.  From the same Hill report:

Obama added that there was a discussion on the call about the president, Crowley and Gates getting together for a beer at the White House, but “I don’t know if that’s been scheduled yet.” He joked that Crowley asked him how to get the press off his lawn. “I informed him that I can’t get the press off my lawn,” Obama said. “He informed me that my lawn is bigger than his lawn.”

Cue the laughtrack…

Obama then complained that the media had taken its focus off of health care and put too much emphasis on the Gates’ matter, apparently unaware that his actions have helped turn what was a local incident (with some obvious broader touchpoints and minor academic celebrity) into an epic national melee.

Hard as it is to fathom that there are professional politicians (and others with what appear to be a certain level of bona fides) suggesting that Barack Obama is not a citizen of the United States, the blogosphere’s reaction to all this birth certificate nonsense may be fanning the flames.

My own tendency is to lump the “birthers” in with those delusional dreamers who earnestly suggest that global warming is a hoax and the Intelligent Design chuckleheads who deny Darwinian evolution (and, yes, if you’re drawing a Venn diagram there is a lot of overlap among these three camps of kookiness). Certainly Liz Cheney and Lou Dobbs have helped give the cranks a bit of legitimacy, but why take them too seriously?

One shouldn’t, philosophically. And in practical terms the problem with people who raise these sorts of spurious claims is that while the desire to debate them to shreds is irresistible, actually doing so quickly becomes a tiresome act of futility, because they aren’t playing on the same field (i.e. one where facts, logic and rational thought are present).  You cannot argue with base stupidity and ignorance.  All you can do is shake your head, marveling at the magnificent sadness of it all.

Or, you can do what TNR’s The Plank did, and point out various other presidential conspiracies, making sport of the insanity.

Broadly speaking there are three ways to pay for universal care:

1. Place a surtax on the “wealthiest Americans” (in the current draft of the bill this means individuals earning more than $280,000 per year, though Nancy Pelosi stated yesterday that she is trying to limit the surtax to invidviduals earning more than $500,000 per year and households earning more than $1 million).

2. Cut payments to medical providers/overhaul the fee-for-service system (Massachusetts is trying to implement legislation that could become a model for Congress).

3. Ration medical care (this idea was nicely if not somewhat academically outlined in a piece that ran in Sunday’s NYT magazine).

There are, of course, other options and various blended approaches. The problem with any of these–and with trying to overhaul the health care system in general–is that they require long term thinking and short term pain, neither of which sit will with politicians or citizens. Everybody wants to do the right thing, but most of us don’t want to have to suffer to get there. So far the President seems to be suffering the most.

Indeed, many are calling health care Obama’s “Waterloo” (this term, first uttered by Jim DeMint, has become a meme bordering on cliche now). We’re as skeptical and realistic as anybody, and Obama is a politician. But what if this time he’s being honest when he says it’s about people, not politics?

Related: Slate’s Jacob Weisberg has a thoughtful piece about why we should move away from a job-related insurance system.