In (partial) defence of HRC.
The Carpetbagger puts Hillary Clinton's recent flag-burning maneuvre into context, explaining that the rabid right Utah Republican who introduced it actually did so to head off the constitutional amendment that is only a few votes away from passing:
I don't blame Clinton for signing on to the Bennett measure; in fact, I'm surprised more Dems haven't done so already.
First, it's federal legislation, not a constitutional amendment. Second, I'm fine with protecting others' flags, since destruction of private property is illegal anyway. I'm not quite sure how they'd enforce flag damage that "promotes violence," but since this whole mess is about crass political exploitation anyway, I'm happy to let Judiciary Committee lawyers hash it out.
What's more, Senate Republicans don't like the bill, so it's basically an easy thing for Senate Dems to sign onto with impunity. It may be cynical, but it's hard to blame a Dem planning a presidential run for pursuing this approach.
This is fair enough and makes me regret the knee-jerk negative comments I've been posting about Mrs. Clinton on other people's blogs. Opposition to, as well as support for, the flag burning amendment is fairly bipartisan. That's because libertarianism and its opposite (there's no good word for it; neither "populism" nor "authoritarianism" are quite right) are fairly evenly spread across the two parties. In this case, Bennett is trying to head off a constitutional amendment; Wesley Clark (on patriotic grounds) and Dennis Kucinich (on communitarian grounds) support one.
Flag-burning is one of things that, as an issue (to paraphrase Bob Somerby), if it didn't exist you couldn't invent it. So few people actually burn flags that gratuitous displays of flag-burning can't be said to exist as a tangible public-interest problem, no matter what we might think of the practice in theory. It's much like french kissing in public. But banning flag burning is a huge issue since it's a fundamental violation of the right to self-expression and therefore of the First Amendment. The legislation is a far bigger "issue" than what it's intended to legislate. But that's not HRC's fault. She didn't bring the bullshit into being. She's trying to make it go away.
As Garence Franke-Ruta and the Carpetbagger point out, what Clinton is doing isn't a reversal; it isn't intellectually inconsistent; and maybe, just maybe, it isn't even a pander. It's just silly by default. Bennett's legislation would make it illegal to burn someone else's flag, or to burn a flag in "a way that incites violence" or to burn a flag on federal property. Except for the latter provision, Bennett is essentially introducing hate crime legislation for flags (or more accurately, for flag-lovers) -- making things that are already illegal more illegal in ways that satisfy a certain group's special needs. (Lest that sound condescending, I'm a big supporter of federal hate-crime legislation, but for people who have suffered provable historical and ongoing discrimination, not for people who consider themselves ultra-patriotic.) I haven't yet read anything that explains how the federal-property provision is going to survive the inevitable ACLU lawsuit. But absent any more research, I assume that Bennett and Clinton must have reasons to think it can if they're serious about the bill being a solution. (If they don't and aren't, then of course they are being intellectually inconsistent. For one thing, it's pure wankery to support legislation you know to be unconstitutional. For another, when struck down it will only increase the clamour for a constitutional amendment.)
My problem with all this is that it's terrible politics... or at least terrible presidential politics. Ten, fifteen years ago, this sort of across-the-aisle cultural compromising was defensible, at least in theory. But it's just not now. Democrats really need to suck it up and fight the goddamned culture war, make their rhetoric match their basic beliefs and stop ceding rhetorical ground on bullshit concepts like the perfidy of "partial birth" abortion as opposed to every other kind (many of them more horrible from the patient's perspective). The GOP, unless it's feeling weak, is rarely interested in meeting liberals half-way, and you don't have to fully buy the argument in What's the Matter With Kansas to get that they won't give up their cultural hot-button non-issues easily. If the GOP wants flag-burning to be an issue in 2006 or 2008, it will be, regardless of what happens to Bennett's bill.
Meanwhile, HRC's dogged bipartisanship is only heightening the press corps' already solidly engrained theory that she's an ambitious opportunist. It doesn't matter if the allegation is true (or, more generally, if these sorts of sweeping character assertions made on circumstantial evidence are routinely subjective and unfair). The Democrats lost the last two presidential elections for two reasons: (1) the nominees were considered too liberal (in slightly different ways); and (2) the nominees were assigned fake "character problems". I can't personally parse which of these two issues was more detrimental in terms of votes lost. But as a liberal, even a milquetoast one, I think it's far better to try to correct (2) than it is to correct (1). Right now, HRC is adding fuel to the fire on (2), making Dick Morris a rich man and building Joe Klein's soapbox ever-higher. Even if she could fully reverse (1) -- which she can't -- she'll be left holding the metaphorical flip-flop.
Unless it doesn't matter. Garence Franke-Ruta repeats my favourite speculation: maybe HRC isn't running at all:
Getting back to Clinton, more broadly -- and I'm only sort of joking when I say this -- if you take the He's Just Not That Into You approach to her actions and look at what she's actually doing instead of constantly speculating, it actually looks like she may not be running for president, or at least not at this time. This, of course, would be perfectly consistent with what she and her staff constantly repeat -- that she is focused on her Senate race -- even though no one believes them.
Think about it: She hasn't been to New Hampshire in nine years. She's chosen to sit out most of the major debates of her day. She lets other people take the lead on national security questions. Her only non-symbolic signature issue is the over-the-counter availability of Plan B. Maybe, instead of engaging in endless rounds of speculation about why she does what she does, we should conclude that "She just not that into you," and move on.
Maybe, at heart, HRC is a legislative tinkerer and just doing what she loves: tinkering her way toward future Senate Majority Leader while raising oodles of cash for her party and helping to sell the image of a moderate Democratic party the heartland could love. Given how painfully wrong I'm turning out to be in my long-time Lieberman apologism (it really looks like he's getting ready to jump ship -- link via Digby), I'm not getting my hopes too far up. But the Dems are at a point now where suddenly they have a lot of figures, elected and not, who aren't likely future presidential candidates but are nationally famous and who ought to be doing everything they can to keep Brand Democrat in the news, to put liberal talking points out there, to counter bad leftwing stereotpyes and to raise money for Democratic and other left-liberal causes.
If HRC and her people see themselves as part of that broader movement, then more power to them and their tinkering. They're not hurting and maybe improving the social discourse. If not, well, given that I think HRC is likely the inevitable nominee if she runs, I'll just have to hold my nose for the first time in my young life come 2008.
I don't blame Clinton for signing on to the Bennett measure; in fact, I'm surprised more Dems haven't done so already.
First, it's federal legislation, not a constitutional amendment. Second, I'm fine with protecting others' flags, since destruction of private property is illegal anyway. I'm not quite sure how they'd enforce flag damage that "promotes violence," but since this whole mess is about crass political exploitation anyway, I'm happy to let Judiciary Committee lawyers hash it out.
What's more, Senate Republicans don't like the bill, so it's basically an easy thing for Senate Dems to sign onto with impunity. It may be cynical, but it's hard to blame a Dem planning a presidential run for pursuing this approach.
This is fair enough and makes me regret the knee-jerk negative comments I've been posting about Mrs. Clinton on other people's blogs. Opposition to, as well as support for, the flag burning amendment is fairly bipartisan. That's because libertarianism and its opposite (there's no good word for it; neither "populism" nor "authoritarianism" are quite right) are fairly evenly spread across the two parties. In this case, Bennett is trying to head off a constitutional amendment; Wesley Clark (on patriotic grounds) and Dennis Kucinich (on communitarian grounds) support one.
Flag-burning is one of things that, as an issue (to paraphrase Bob Somerby), if it didn't exist you couldn't invent it. So few people actually burn flags that gratuitous displays of flag-burning can't be said to exist as a tangible public-interest problem, no matter what we might think of the practice in theory. It's much like french kissing in public. But banning flag burning is a huge issue since it's a fundamental violation of the right to self-expression and therefore of the First Amendment. The legislation is a far bigger "issue" than what it's intended to legislate. But that's not HRC's fault. She didn't bring the bullshit into being. She's trying to make it go away.
As Garence Franke-Ruta and the Carpetbagger point out, what Clinton is doing isn't a reversal; it isn't intellectually inconsistent; and maybe, just maybe, it isn't even a pander. It's just silly by default. Bennett's legislation would make it illegal to burn someone else's flag, or to burn a flag in "a way that incites violence" or to burn a flag on federal property. Except for the latter provision, Bennett is essentially introducing hate crime legislation for flags (or more accurately, for flag-lovers) -- making things that are already illegal more illegal in ways that satisfy a certain group's special needs. (Lest that sound condescending, I'm a big supporter of federal hate-crime legislation, but for people who have suffered provable historical and ongoing discrimination, not for people who consider themselves ultra-patriotic.) I haven't yet read anything that explains how the federal-property provision is going to survive the inevitable ACLU lawsuit. But absent any more research, I assume that Bennett and Clinton must have reasons to think it can if they're serious about the bill being a solution. (If they don't and aren't, then of course they are being intellectually inconsistent. For one thing, it's pure wankery to support legislation you know to be unconstitutional. For another, when struck down it will only increase the clamour for a constitutional amendment.)
My problem with all this is that it's terrible politics... or at least terrible presidential politics. Ten, fifteen years ago, this sort of across-the-aisle cultural compromising was defensible, at least in theory. But it's just not now. Democrats really need to suck it up and fight the goddamned culture war, make their rhetoric match their basic beliefs and stop ceding rhetorical ground on bullshit concepts like the perfidy of "partial birth" abortion as opposed to every other kind (many of them more horrible from the patient's perspective). The GOP, unless it's feeling weak, is rarely interested in meeting liberals half-way, and you don't have to fully buy the argument in What's the Matter With Kansas to get that they won't give up their cultural hot-button non-issues easily. If the GOP wants flag-burning to be an issue in 2006 or 2008, it will be, regardless of what happens to Bennett's bill.
Meanwhile, HRC's dogged bipartisanship is only heightening the press corps' already solidly engrained theory that she's an ambitious opportunist. It doesn't matter if the allegation is true (or, more generally, if these sorts of sweeping character assertions made on circumstantial evidence are routinely subjective and unfair). The Democrats lost the last two presidential elections for two reasons: (1) the nominees were considered too liberal (in slightly different ways); and (2) the nominees were assigned fake "character problems". I can't personally parse which of these two issues was more detrimental in terms of votes lost. But as a liberal, even a milquetoast one, I think it's far better to try to correct (2) than it is to correct (1). Right now, HRC is adding fuel to the fire on (2), making Dick Morris a rich man and building Joe Klein's soapbox ever-higher. Even if she could fully reverse (1) -- which she can't -- she'll be left holding the metaphorical flip-flop.
Unless it doesn't matter. Garence Franke-Ruta repeats my favourite speculation: maybe HRC isn't running at all:
Getting back to Clinton, more broadly -- and I'm only sort of joking when I say this -- if you take the He's Just Not That Into You approach to her actions and look at what she's actually doing instead of constantly speculating, it actually looks like she may not be running for president, or at least not at this time. This, of course, would be perfectly consistent with what she and her staff constantly repeat -- that she is focused on her Senate race -- even though no one believes them.
Think about it: She hasn't been to New Hampshire in nine years. She's chosen to sit out most of the major debates of her day. She lets other people take the lead on national security questions. Her only non-symbolic signature issue is the over-the-counter availability of Plan B. Maybe, instead of engaging in endless rounds of speculation about why she does what she does, we should conclude that "She just not that into you," and move on.
Maybe, at heart, HRC is a legislative tinkerer and just doing what she loves: tinkering her way toward future Senate Majority Leader while raising oodles of cash for her party and helping to sell the image of a moderate Democratic party the heartland could love. Given how painfully wrong I'm turning out to be in my long-time Lieberman apologism (it really looks like he's getting ready to jump ship -- link via Digby), I'm not getting my hopes too far up. But the Dems are at a point now where suddenly they have a lot of figures, elected and not, who aren't likely future presidential candidates but are nationally famous and who ought to be doing everything they can to keep Brand Democrat in the news, to put liberal talking points out there, to counter bad leftwing stereotpyes and to raise money for Democratic and other left-liberal causes.
If HRC and her people see themselves as part of that broader movement, then more power to them and their tinkering. They're not hurting and maybe improving the social discourse. If not, well, given that I think HRC is likely the inevitable nominee if she runs, I'll just have to hold my nose for the first time in my young life come 2008.
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