Times Columns

David Brooks is very interesting on the American political center, progressive conservatives, and McCain's failure to appeal to this group despite his natural instinct for them.

There are two major political parties in America, but there are at least three major political tendencies. The first is orthodox liberalism, a belief in using government to maximize equality. The second is free-market conservatism, the belief in limiting government to maximize freedom.

But there is a third tendency, which floats between. It is for using limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility. This tendency began with Alexander Hamilton, who created a vibrant national economy so more people could rise and succeed. It matured with Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War Republicans, who created the Land Grant College Act and the Homestead Act to give people the tools to pursue their ambitions. It continued with Theodore Roosevelt, who busted the trusts to give more Americans a square deal.

Members of this tradition have one foot in the conservatism of Edmund Burke. They understand how little we know or can know and how much we should rely on tradition, prudence and habit. They have an awareness of sin, of the importance of traditional virtues and stable institutions. They understand that we are not free-floating individuals but are embedded in thick social organisms.

But members of this tradition also have a foot in the landscape of America, and share its optimism and its Lincolnian faith in personal transformation. Hamilton didn’t seek wealth for its own sake, but as a way to enhance the country’s greatness and serve the unique cause America represents in the world.

Members of this tradition are Americanized Burkeans, or to put it another way, progressive conservatives.

Tom Friedman offers a cautionary point about the problems with having the US Government as a major shareholder in big banks, belaboring illustrating the notion that the government is normally not a creative, entrepreneurial risk-taker but is subject to political favoritism and influence:

“Government bailouts and guarantees, while at times needed, always come with unintended consequences,” notes the financial strategist David Smick. “The winners: the strong, the big, the established, the domestic and the safe — the folks who, relatively speaking, don’t need the money. The losers: the new, the small, the foreign and the risky — emerging markets, entrepreneurs and small businesses not politically connected. After all, what banker in a Capitol Hill hearing now would want to defend a loan to an emerging market? Yet emerging economies are the big markets for American exports.”

Friedman also notes that not all banks drove themselves off a cliff and calls for better management.  What I would like to see (but won't) is a serious discussion of what, in the current organizational structure of Wall Street, went wrong.  Dems will glibly blame greed and failed regulation, as if greed has not always been a part of Wall Street and as if regulators possess uncanny vision and insight unavailable to the rest of us.

Personally, I remain mystified.  Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns had a billion dollars of the company stock and held a position of great influence with free access to the company's books - did he really need a regulator to remind him not to lose a billion of his own money?  Did Dick Fuld of Lehman really not understand his won business, and the impact of a Lehman collapse on his own net worth, better than some civil servant at Treasury or the Fed?

Obviously something went wrong, just as something went wrong with the spectacular over-investment in technology in the late 90's.  I am sure we can look forward to a nuanced airing of alternative viewpoints under a Dem congress controlled by super-majorities.

Finally, in a clear sign of over-confidence Frank Rich rallies to the defense of most white people and criticizes the media's coverage of race in the Presidential campaign:

But the other, less noticed lesson of the year has to do with the white people the McCain campaign has been pandering to. As we saw first in the Democratic primary results and see now in the widespread revulsion at the McCain-Palin tactics, white Americans are not remotely the bigots the G.O.P. would have us believe. Just because a campaign trades in racism doesn’t mean that the country is racist. It’s past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America’s defense.

That includes acknowledging that the so-called liberal media, among their other failures this year, have helped ratchet up this election cycle’s prevailing antiwhite bias. Ever since Obama declared his candidacy, the press’s default setting has been to ominously intone that “in the privacy of the voting booth” ignorant, backward whites will never vote for a black man.

A leading vehicle for this journalistic mind-set has been the unending obsession with “the Bradley effect” — as if nothing has changed in America since 1982, when some polls (possibly for reasons having nothing to do with race) predicted erroneously that a black candidate, Tom Bradley, would win the California governorship. In 2008, there is, if anything, more evidence of a reverse Bradley effect — Obama’s primary vote totals more often exceeded those in the final polls than not  —  but poor old Bradley keeps being flogged anyway.

I am hoping for a McCain win just to watch Rich explain that without invoking racist whites.

Comments

[clarice]

"Just because a campaign trades in racism doesn’t mean that the country is racist."

Which campaign? Any specifics?

[bgates]

poor old Bradley keeps being flogged
The Emancipation Proclamation was 143 years ago. When will Democrats get over their fixation with whipping black men?

[kim]

People aren't hiding their fear of blacks, they are hiding their fear of polls. To ascribe the inaccuracy of the polls to racism is to miss the point, but since this campaign is all about racism for the left, they are led down the garden path of misunderstanding the polls.
=====================================

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Which campaign? Any specifics?

Any campaign that insists on pointing out Obama's weaknesses.

[matt]

Frank Rich is now writing so convolutedly I think he wants his own Nobel to match Krugman's. Maybe for fiction?

[Freefloatingsocialorgansim]

The Third Tendency |party|:

'The foundation may offer Community Investment Notes through InCapital Inc..........The Calvert Foundation may also offer the notes directly.'

Orgs funded by US government agencies are setting up foundations to sell the 1,3, and 5 year Notes. The notes are sold internationally(you can buy notes from different countries). Merrill just bought 10 million in the Clinton Note.

'Chief Credit Officer for the American Communities Fund in the Housing and Community Development Division of Fannie Mae'

[M. Simon]

Obama’s primary vote totals more often exceeded those in the final polls than not — but poor old Bradley keeps being flogged anyway.

It would be interesting to see the results without the caucus states. Apples to apples.

[Want to defeat Obama? Push this.]

The "racism" of the McCain campaign was largely invented by the MSM through such things as claiming that "socialist" is a code word for "black" or highlighting a few people out of a crowd of thousands. Rich then comes back as the good cop. It's all pretty sleazy and quite effective, but there's no one around who has both a megaphone and the ability to do something about it.

[ROA]

Re: The Bradley Effect
I voted for Tom Bradley when he ran for mayor of Los Angeles and governor of California. Bradley had been a lieutenant in the LAPD before becoming mayor of Los Angeles.

If he had been a community organizer rather than a police officer, there is no way in hell I would have ever voted for him.

[syn]

"But there is a third tendency, which floats between. It is for using limited but energetic government to enhance social mobility"

The fallacy of David Brooks and his argument is the failure to recognize the authoritarian influence of FDR's New Deal nanny-statism which was then extended under LBJ's Great Society.

First address the problem Mr Brooks, which is always and forever the massive urge to march towards serfdom.

Perhaps after you've thought a little deeper then maybe you'll you be able to consider yourself a thoughtful person however at this time you are just another noble intelligentsia blathering endlessly on the useless stuff much like the Roman noble class blathered endlessly about their own superior intelligence while the cities burned.

Mr Brooks if you need Serfdom as a means of employment please go live with the Democratic Party, they've already arrive.

[Bilby]

Rich today:
That includes acknowledging that the so-called liberal media, among their other failures this year, have helped ratchet up this election cycle’s prevailing antiwhite bias.

Rich on October 11:

From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.

Rich obviously considers the race over now so he's trying to step back from his own BS and pretend to be a serious political observer.

He makes me sick.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

...highlighting a few people out of a crowd of thousands.

Not to mention just flat making shit up.

[clarice]

Do you suppose it's time to point out that Biden has had serious health problems, has not provided full medical records, and if he wins and is unable to serve his term Pelosi will be out vice president?

[Jane Plumber]

yes

[Focialorsim]

Obama has a nice fiddle. The election is about you, not me. Congress planned the economy before the election like it did for Bill. This economy, stupid, is about Obama, not you, do you see why it burns? It's about you. Social mobility.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

If Biden is unable to serve out his full VP term, the next VP would be whatever person Obama picks (and gets through the Senate).

[clarice]

Thanks, Patrick --I really wasn't sure of that and thought it was the Speaker of the House..Is that the case only when both the president and VP are unable to carry on their duties?

[clarice]

25th Am apparently deals with that situation per Wikipedia:
"The 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, clarified Article II, Section 1: that the Vice President is the direct successor of the President. He or she becomes President if the President dies, resigns or is removed from office. The 25th also provides for the situation where the President is temporarily disabled, such as if the President has a surgical procedure or becomes mentally unstable. It also required vice presidential vacancies to be filled by the President and confirmed by Congress. Previously, when a vice president had succeeded to the presidency or otherwise left the office empty (through death, resignation, or removal from office), the vice presidency remained vacant. "

[Dennis D]

Its nearly impossible to run a campaign against a Black Candidate without being called a racist.. Even if your name is Bill Clinton and blacks worshipped you for 16 years.

[Wye]

Obama see a psychiatrist? All Presidents do, maybe he hasn't yet.

Yes, he's insane.

[MarkJ]

"Column":

What Frank Rich writes when he's not mingling at cocktail parties, appearing at Broadway openings, and carousing with chorus boys.

[Cirque du' Bama]

'Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers union...
Yes, we can!' Does obama know anyone in that Minnesota farmer's party?

'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need ...When you serve the government you serve God, For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required....' Obama know anybody in the Baptist church?

[ajacksonian]

Yes, indeed, Hamilton wanted more economic power to accrue to the National government and he got that wish... but Congress wisely put a re-up time limit on it, and it went down as a Democratic President made one of the best arguments against it in his veto of said bank. That veto would stand until Woodrow Wilson and the Federal Reserve which would stand up and take many of the roles of the defunct institution, nearly 80 years later.

But a good cite on TR's autobiography in which he states in Chapter X:

"Gradually, however, I was forced to abandon the effort to persuade them to come my way, and then I achieved results only by appealing over the heads of the Senate and House leaders to the people, who were the masters of both of us. I continued in this way to get results until almost the close of my term; and the Republican party became once more the progressive and indeed the fairly radical progressive party of the Nation."

Yes a 'fairly radical progressive party', which is apparently what Mr. Brooks wants. And calling on Lincoln is something that TR did also:

"This had, regrettably but perhaps inevitably, tended to throw the party into the hands not merely of the conservatives but of the reactionaries; of men who, sometimes for personal and improper reasons, but more often with entire sincerity and uprightness of purpose, distrusted anything that was progressive and dreaded radicalism. These men still from force of habit applauded what Lincoln had done in the way of radical dealing with the abuses of his day; but they did not apply the spirit in which Lincoln worked to the abuses of their own day. Both houses of Congress were controlled by these men."

Yes, those poor conservatives just needed to be radicalized so that the Government would ALWAYS have the war-time powers that Lincoln used, ALL THE TIME. Yup, that's the ticket on 'Progressivism' and its 'radicalism' that goes with it. He would come to understand that power accrued to government goes to the government, not individuals, and faced someone who he didn't like who would use the very same powers TR accrued to government in ways that TR did not approve of. TR would come to decry the 'small minority' who would make political decisons for the Nation and the 'tyranny of minorities' influencing political decisions.

Because that was how he helped change from the traditional structure of government to a more 'radical' one that invested more power into fewer hands and held them less accountable. Apparently that is a lesson the Republican Party hasn't *learned* when faced with its own, interior, minority wanting to make more 'radical' decisions. That soon comes to look like the elites on both sides colluding to disenfranchise the American People by concentrating power into ever fewer, ever less accountable hands in non-democratic institutions set up purely for purposes of the federal government's elites.

Or, as Mark Steyn calls it: Incumbistan.

Nice to know Mr. Brooks wants *more* of that. It has worked in suppressing voter turnout for the last 40 years, because those in politics no longer reflect the values of the population and we are close to the tipping point where less than 50% of the people will vote. That is not representative democracy - it is rule by the bare majority of a plurality, which is a minority.

[MrPete]

Rich and his ilk are literally sickening.

The assumption is that Obama is the ultimate trustworthy, accomplished, electable leader, and any opposition is slime.

Given that assumption, how could anyone be opposed to Obama?

"Obviously," opposition must be racist.
"Obviously," any polling error, any Bradley effect, must be racist.

Liberals simply are unable to accept that a few of us might not want to vote for a particular person, no matter what color their skin.

[Pofarmer]

Drudge has some pretty damning audio links of Obama this morning.

[Robert Bell]

"Personally, I remain mystified. Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns had a billion dollars of the company stock and held a position of great influence with free access to the company's books - did he really need a regulator to remind him not to lose a billion of his own money? "

You and Greenspan. It is relatively easy to explain unscrupulous mortgage brokers and loan originator's behavior as principal/agent problems.

It is also easy to explain foolish retail borrowers who took out subprime or ninja mortgages either to speculate on a condo in Florida or get their first clonedivision house in Temecula, even those who lied on their applications. These are, after all, not sophisticated investors - and are precisely the people we would expect to suffer from the behavioral biases evident in, for example, 401K plans.

Even institutional investors' foolish purchases of toxic waste can be justified in terms of incentives of professional portfolio managers (again principal agent problems)

However, Mr Cayne's case is very strange - not only were massive amounts of his personal fortune at stake, but also his reputation.

One explanation which I do think makes sense is to think of market efficiency (or rationality) as being determined by natural selection ex post, rather than "preselection" ex ante, especially when thinking about how managers confront risks. In a market with a lot of competitors, where shocks are frequent and somewhat predictable in character and magnitude, it makes sense to assume that players in that market actually know what they're doing, because they wouldn't be around otherwise.

However, in a market with relatively few large institutional players confronting the (tongue in cheek) proverbial six standard deviation event, market discipline is not closely aligned with day to day decisions. I.e. people like Cayne were playing "Capital Decimation Partners", and we just hadn't been around long enough to see things blow up.

[Angie Smith]

Why are liberals, in particular, black left-wing illuminatis incapable of acepting the fact that some of us don't want to vote for a particular person, no matter what color they are? You can't ever run a campaign against a black candidate without being called a racist. What a shame.

[matt]

tell it to Spike Lee, P Diddy, Louis Farrakahn and Rev Wright....

unicorns and rainbows for everybody...

[E. Nigma]

As a counter, there was an interesting rebuttal in an online Philadelphia paper a few days ago in the comments section.

In it, the commenter noted that Lynn Swann, former NFL wide receiver and lately Republican candidate for governor against Ed Rendell, didn't win.

Was that because everyone who was against Mr. Swann was a bigot? Or was it just because the majority didn't want him as governor? Obviously, some people who voted for Mr. Swann will vote against Mr. Obama.

Can anyone solve this conundrum???

[Mike Drew]

Yes McCain is such a big racist...just the other day he said...well, I'm sure he said something mean towards blacks. He is just an angry old white man who didn't do anything for his country...If you believe this, I already know who you are voting for, thanks to the illuminati party for such a polarizing person that we know nothing about, because the media doesn't want us to know the truth.

[Whitehall]

So much of our current financial (not economic!) problems sound like a replay of the Second Bank of the United States. Sure wish my fellow citizens had better education in American history!

The bank held a federal charter, had federal equity participation, and was given a federal monopoly yet also had private investors and management.

The CEO, Nicolas Biddle, dabbled with political intrigue, and became the sworn enemy of Andrew Jackson. Land speculation and inflation was the events of the day.

Jackson succeeded in killing it by denying a renewal of its charter and removing federal deposits and giving business to other, politically connected and favored, banks.

The result of the political battles was a financial and economic crisis.

Here's more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bank_of_the_United_States

[Obama's brain]

Rich's views can be summed up as metrosexuals posing as RINOs.

[d r richard]

Sowell on NRO explains it all.