I have promised several correspondants not to “blog about blogs” very often, but there is a basic reporting function I think I need to offer to readers: how many of them are there?This question was prompted by a MyDD post, based on an inscrutable primary source, that ranks political blogs by weekly page-views. There are all sorts of disqualifying factors for the rankings, and being institutionally sponsored (like this blog and The Moose) seems to be one of them. But I’m happy to report that our traffic appears to put both of us comfortably into the top 35 or so–New Donkey is regularly getting about 90,000 page views a week, while The Moose usually tops 100k–establishing both these blogs as Mid-Majors. Not bad for centrist blogs that have only been up for about seven months, and that don’t boost page views with comments or diaries. Thanks to all of you who visit this site for putting it in shouting distance of the Big Berthas, and I’ll try to earn your continued interest.

Today’s papers are full of campaign-style coverage of the conclave now solemnly assembled to elect the next Pope. But aside from quotes from a handful of American Cardinals who are in this faction or that (or more importantly, who will speak to American reporters), you’d think the United States and its 60 million or so Roman Catholics are pretty much irrelevant to the whole thing. Apostate Europe is important; so too are those inhabiting the endangered Catholic turf of Latin America and the promising battleground of Africa. But not America.This treatment of the papal election is, to put it mildly, in sharp contrast to the U.S. coverage of John Paul II’s legacy in earlier weeks, which insistently focused on the Vatican’s relative indifference to the clerical abuse scandal that has roiled the American Church. And it leads one to think that U.S.-based media are finally tumbling to the truth that We Just Don’t Matter in terms of the immediate future direction of the Catholic Church.That’s why I recommend that those of you interested in that future direction read an impressive piece by Notre Dame church historian John T. McGreevy, just up on The New Republic’s site. His argument, basically, is that to the extent the Vatican pursues or even intensifies John Paul II’s battle against worldwide trends inescapably identified with the U.S.–secularist individualism, capitalist globalization, and a hedonistic popular culture–it must come to grips with what Catholics in the belly of this particular beast should do.I’ve already published my own view that the Catholic Church has decisively cast its lot with the global South (a view that’s beginning to creep into coverage of the papal election), but McGreevy advances the argument to another level. If the universal Church is becoming fundamentally anti-American (despite its tactical alliance with U.S. conservatives on abortion, gay marriage, and Terri Schiavo), are American Catholics doomed to a choice between their own country and culture and Rome? Will U.S. Catholics be pushed into a reverse kulturkampf? And if so, will the flash points be those teachings which discomfit the Left or the Right?This is probably a more fruitful issue to discuss than all the pre-election handicapping about which man will get to wear the Shoes of the Fisherman.

For years, as a conscientious Christian, I have tried to understand the point of view of those fundamentalists, supposedly guided by nothing but Scripture, who seem to believe the Bible clearly instructs us that Human Life begins at conception; that homosexuality is a major threat to godliness, and that equal rights for women represents a rebellion against the divine order. Sure, you can nitpick your way through law, prophets, Gospels, and Epistles, like one of those “activist judges,” and justify this point of view, but it hardly seems obvious, much less obligatory for Bible Believers. Still, there is some support for their position in the letter of The Word, even if I personally think it violates its spirit. But the current effort by Christian Right activists and the Grand Old Party to suggest that conservative evangelical Protestant Christians have a religious obligation to oppose the use of Senate filibusters against judicial nominations goes so far beyond any conceivable scripture-based approach to public life as to be actively hilarious. (Catholics, of course, are a different matter, since their tradition makes church teachings, the Early Fathers, and Natural Law important sources of moral guidance alongside scripture, and indeed, keys to interpreting scripture. But American Catholic leaders, much as many of them may desire a judicial revolution that could lead to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, are not likely to join this particular partisan campaign). The patent absurdity of pretending that evangelicals have to go so far in the tank for the GOP as to support their parliamentary tactics probably explains why the proponents of this campaign have adopted so paranoid a message. This is not just a matter of obedience to scripture or to God’s Will, they say: it’s an act of self-defense against a judiciary that hates Christians and is determined to stamp out religious freedom. Never mind that a majority of federal judges were appointed by Republican presidents; this is a life-or-death matter for faith itself. I think these fanatics are egregiously over-reaching on this subject, and are also offering Democrats a big opening for outreach to people they normally don’t talk to. It’s a great opportunity for Democrats to simply say to conservative evangelical Christians: we don’t hate you, we don’t support judicial actions that abridge your rights, and by the way, you might want to take a long look at the leaders who would subordinate your faith to partisan politics. Let the GOP try to explain to people of faith why the filibuster is the worst threat to Christian religious freedom since Julian the Apostate. And don’t give them the illegitimate ammunition of buying into the idea that Phil A. Buster’s fate is a struggle between religious and non-religious points of view.

I guess I’ve made it clear by now that I don’t think John Bolton should become Ambassador to the United Nations, on compelling national security grounds. But I have to admit I had a moment of sympathy for the guy while reading a Style Section piece in The Washington Post today, that lectured him about his haircut and fashion sense.The word “lecture” should be emphasized. At first, I thought the piece was just going to be a snarky little shot at Bolton’s rather noticeably eccentric personal touches, like his walrus mustache; this kind of stuff goes with the territory of being a public official. But no, Robin Ghivan was angry at Bolton about his appearance; furious at the “lack of respect” it showed for the Senate (that well known repository of sartorial splender and good grooming, right?); triumphant in the discovery of a class photo from 1970 in which Bolton had a nice, short haircut. I half expect a sequel in which Ghivan agonizes over the poor impression Bolton would make at the U.N., humiliating Americans in the eyes of the natty French and the expensively-tailored Italians.Maybe this Fashion Fascism just hit too close to home, since I generally get the same treatment on those rare occasions when I foolishly go on television. Let me tell you, people get livid about out-of-date hairstyles (ah, but no more, now that I regularly visit Jose of Capitol Hill for an au courant clip).But I hope Democrats don’t get on board this particular bandwagon. There’s an important swing demographic of Disheveled Male Voters who are watching this closely on television, sloppy hair spilling over untrimmed ears as they slosh beer on their cheap shirts.Let’s stick to Bolton’s record, which exemplifies the worst diplomatic impulses and national security lapses of the Bush administration. Forget his hair; the man’s got a sloppy and disrespectful point of view,

Today we learned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has postponed a final vote on John Bolton’s confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations because committee Democrats want to hold more hearings.That’s good, because the previous hearings did not even begin to get into the two best reasons for being worried about Bolton: his record as nuclear proliferation chief at the State Department, and his contempt for the kind of humanitarian relief missions we ought to be undertaking in Darfur.This is a matter of both substance and politics. This blog, the DLC, two respected analysts from the Center for American Progess, and political consultant Kenny Baer have all laid out the national security case against Bolton. The way I would put it is that this guy perfectly represents the incredibly dangerous blind spots in the Bush administration’s approach to fighting the war on terrorism, and the thinly veiled hostility to “those people” in the Third World as worthy of our interest that lies just beneath the surface of all the democracy rhetoric we’ve heard lately.So far, Senate Democrats have heavily focused on the argument that Bolton doesn’t much like the U.N. and is, perhaps, a jerk and a bully–a “kiss-up, kick-down” kind of guy. Now, I’m not a Washington lifer; try to get out of town every weekend; and don’t drink the water when I’m here; but I do know that “kiss-up, kick-down” could easily compete with “Taxation Without Representation” as the official District motto. This is not the right approach to questioning Bolton, and it doesn’t seem to be working a lot of magic, either.There is a strong, important, compelling case to be made on this nomination on national security grounds, and Senate Democrats, on and off the Foreign Relations Committee, need to start making it right away.

Unbelievable.Fresh from a vote to abolish inheritance taxes, and thus increase the federal budget deficit by, oh, about a trillion smackers over ten years, the House GOP Caucus seems poised to do something even more irresponsible, if that’s possible: push through a Social Security privatization bill with no new revenues and no benefit cuts. That’s the word from conservative warhorse Ralph Z. Hallow of the Washington Times, and he should know what he’s talking about. Get a load of this:

Conservative House Republicans, beset with growing distrust of the Senate, are urging the House leadership to jump ahead of the Senate on Social Security reform and pass a bill based on large personal retirement accounts and no tax increases or cuts in benefits.They also want House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and House Majority Tom DeLay to say publicly that any bill sent over from the Senate that doesn’t meet all these requirements will not be taken up in the House.

And it looks like they are going to get what they want, in the form of a bill that’s even more outrageous than the various Bush trial balloons:

Mr. DeLay yesterday that he agrees with his fellow conservatives.Mr. Hastert has publicly endorsed a Republican bill by New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu and Wisconsin Rep. Paul D. Ryan that would allow about half of the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax to go into a worker’s personal account. Workers could pick from a list of approved investment funds managed by firms regulated by the government.

I can barely begin to imagine how much you’d have to borrow–or cut from guaranteed benefits–to pay for this woofer, but we are probably talking about many trillions. I’m sure Josh or Max or somebody will soon enlighten us. Now, as Hallow explains, the House GOPers don’t actually think their proposal will become law; it’s all about shifting blame for failure to serve up this massive free lunch to the Senate and of course, those free-spending Democrats. But somehow, I don’t think overt cynicism is much of an excuse for complete irresponsibility. If these guys actually go forward with this stunt, it will remove any lingering doubt about the House GOP’s fundamental values: screw future taxpayers, to hell with paying for the war on terrorism, we don’t care if debt ruins our economy, don’t confuse us with arithmetic or facts: we will ride our agenda of cutting taxes for the wealthy, starving the beast, and demolishing the safety net to the gates of delerium and beyond. And in Tom (the-rules-don’t-apply-to-our-team) DeLay, they have the perfect leader. You know what their campaign song ought to be for ’06? That great anthem of white-male irresponsibility, Lynard Skynard’s Free Bird. Having proudly liberated themselves from any sense of restraint on any policy front, they might as well try to make a virtue of it. All together now, boys:I’m as free as a bird nowAnd this bird you cannot change.Lord knows I can’t change.

I’m with The Moose: it seems just bizarre that the world community, including most particularly my own country, is dumping billions of dollars on the Khartoum government without any explicit guarantees of an end to the genocide in Darfur. I know, I know, it was part of a deal to end a seemingly endless civil war that took many lives as well, and yes, I know the “reconstruction aid” is theoretically conditioned on action by Khartoum to stop the carnage in Darfur. But still…. couldn’t we have a slightly stronger appropriations rider on this money?Since our current president is a man of such legendary moral clarity, who is allegedly so willing to speak the truth no matter what those furriners think of us, perhaps he will emulate Lady Astor, who during a 1931 reception in Moscow, reportedly greeted Josef Stalin with the question: “When are you going to stop killing people?” The question needs to be asked of the Sudanese government every day, and if we’re not willing to militarily intervene to stop the killing, the Bush administration should at least go to the trouble of making sure we aren’t subsidizing it.

While I’ve been off relitigating the nature of the Confederacy and obsessing about Tom DeLay, James Dobson, and inheritance taxes, the center-left blogosphere has exploded in a dispute over a subject I’ve written about at some length: marketing of junk culture to kids; its role in the cultural concerns of middle-class parents; and its possible relevance to the weakness of the Democratic Party among this same category of voters.First up, Dan Gerstein, with his usual light touch, went after Democrats on this subject, unhelpfully choosing the op-ed pages of The Wall Street Journal as a venue. When I first read the piece, I thought Dan buried some legitimate observations in a landslide of marginally relevant abuse. After all, Frank Rich is not a spokesman for the Democratic Party, and most of the culturally concerned parents Dan’s worried about read The New York Times about as often as they play Grand Theft Auto with their church groups. And I also think it’s a confusing digression to get into the issue of Democratic politicians letting Hollywood personalities say inane things at campaign rallies (simple solution: let them smile and strut and wave, but keep the mikes off). But when you cut through the static, Gerstein’s praise of Hillary Clinton’s approach is quite measured:

She does not demonize cultural producers, overstate the extent of the problem, or let parents off the hook. She frames the culture’s influence as a public-health issue as much as a moral one, and cites research showing the potentially harmful effects of screen sex and violence. And she is honest about the limits of that research, which is why she has joined with Sen. Joe Lieberman in introducing a bill to fund more studies of the electronic media’s impact on children.

In the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog, Amy Sullivan mildly echoed Gerstein’s argument, and responded to some of the more specious arguments she’s heard about the perils of Democrats treating entertainment corporations like other corporations. And since then, she and Matt Yglesias have been talking past each other in a discussion of this issue.I respect both these folks enormously. And while I’m basically on Amy’s side on this issue, I do think Matt raises the right questions about it: (1) What’s the real problem here? (2) What, specifically, is the public policy lever you propose to use to address it? and (3) If you can’t answer (1) and (2), aren’t you just engaging in demagoguery?Since Matt includes me in the circle of demagogues on this subject (which I don’t take entirely as an insult), I’ll answer these questions for myself. In passing, I will refer to Barbara Defoe Whitehead’s recent paper on the subject, published by the DLC’s Progressive Policy Institute.(1) The problem is that a combination of new, personalized technologies and highly sophisticated marketing methods has created what can only be described as a corporate campaign to bypass parents and sell a variety of products, trends, and attitudes to kids, of questionable moral quality. It’s not just about sex and violence; it’s also about consumerism, fashion-and brand-consciousness, and a generally superficial approach to life. You know, those cultural products that have so endeared America to the rest of the world.I stress this point because Matt is simply wrong to assume this is all about some “New Prudishness.” As a parent of a teenager, I am not that worried that the ever-present marketers will turn him into a sex-addict or a sociopath; I’m more worried that he will turn into a total greedhead whose idea of the good life is stuff, and whose idea of citizenship is to demand a better personal cost-benefit ratio on his tax dollars. To put it another way, I’m worried he’ll turn into a Grover Norquist Republican.In terms of macro, as opposed to micro, factors, Matt repeatedly says the social indicators show the kids are all right, except they are getting mighty fat. We could have a debate over those indicators, if he’d specify them; and I’m sure they would be great comfort to the parents whose children’s cohorts haven’t quite yet entered the data base. But more generally, there are, as Gerstein mentions, and Whitehead cites, a variety of reputable studies indicating the kids may not be all right, at least when they are exposed redundantly to violent, sexual, misogyinist, and hyper-commercial images.The bottom line is that there’s enough smoke out there for Democrats to at least call in the smoke detecters, and beef up the firefighters. And for all the alarm about censorship and Puritanism, that’s mostly what people like Clinton and Lieberman–and Gerstein and Sullivan–are calling for.But that leads me to Matt’s second question:(2) What, other than agitating the air about it, are some of us Democrats actually talking about doing, if it’s not censorship? First, as already suggested, we think it’s helpful to take the complaints of parents seriously enough to study the problem seriously. Second, we think entertainment corporations, and anyone who directly markets products to children, should admit some social responsibility, and work with public officials to (a) develop, to the maximum extent possible, parental information and control mechanisms, like a unified rating system for television shows, video games, and movies, and like technologies that are more effective and user-friendly than the V-Chip; (b) create a “zone of protection” for really young kids by eschewing direct and indirect (i.e., television and internet) marketing techniques aimed at children too young to distinguish truth from hype and crap; and (c) provide some transparency about the most egregious of those marketing techniques, such as the practice of hiring “alpha kids” to wear brand name products to influence their peers.And if cooperative efforts to secure voluntary measures don’t work, then we can talk regulation–just like we do with other corporations–if necessary.(3) If there’s a problem, and at least some sorts of tangible public-policy solutions, then the argument that this is “all about politics” loses some of its sting. But of course, you “can’t take the politics out of politics,” so yeah, Democrats should look at this politically as well. And Amy is absolutely right that Democrats tend to view “cultural issues” as limited to abortion and gay marriage and other Republican-dictated agenda items, and Gerstein is absolutely right that such issues are often just the ways voters use to figure out whether politicians actually believe (a) there are principles more important than politics, and (b) there is such a thing as right and wrong.The whole hep Democratic world right now, from Howard Dean to George Lackoff to Bill Bradley right over to the DLC, says it’s important that Democrats clearly identify “what they believe” and “where they stand” and “what values they cherish.” If all the evidence–some scientific, some anecdotal or intuitive–suggesting that parents believe they are fighting an unequal battle with powerful cultural forces over the upbringing of their children is at all correct, then we have to take a stand there, too. It may matter a whole lot, if you look at the
Democratic vote among marrieds-with-children–steadily dropping from a Clinton win in 1996 to an eighteen-point loss in 2004, a disproportionately large swing.And if there’s a problem, and if there’s a solution–however mild, cooperative, and at most regulatory–what’s the problem with identifying with middle-class, working parents upset with big corporations? And that’s where Amy Sullivan’s, and my, injunctions against Democratic hypocrisy on this issue come into play.The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber suggests this issue has exposed a deeper libertarian-communitarian rift in Democratic ranks that we need to talk about. That may be true as well. Matt, in one of his posts, cites my mockery of Paris Hilton’s First Amendment rights as problematic. Actually, First Amendment jurisprudence has long acknowledged the legitimacy of “time, place and manner” restrictions on even the most protected (e.g., political) expressions, with a lower standard of protection for “commercial” speech. There’s no need for either side to get absolutist about it, but I don’t really think us communitarians are really on the brink of calling in Torquemada here.But any way you look at it, the willingness, or unwillingness, of progressives to identify with the parenting struggles of middle-class voters–in terms of basic economics, health care, work-family issues, taxes, and yes, corporate marketing to their kids–is an issue on which progressives, and Democrats, will ultimately be judged by history, and by voters.

If ever there was a gut check for Democrats, and an opportunity to stand up for principle, the vote in the House to abolish the federal estate tax (or inheritance tax, or Paris Hilton tax, or billionaire’s tax, or whatever you want to call it) this week has gotta be it. Today’s New Dem Dispatch sounds a call to arms.

Josh Marshall helpfully pointed us all to a Focus on the Family radio interview of Mark Levin (author of Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America, the latest right-wing bestseller) by James Dobson. Talk about a fair and balanced discussion…. it’s like listening to a couple of McCoys covering a Hatfield family reunion.Josh went right to the money quote near the end of the broadcast, when Dobson quotes some nameless minister who compared the white-robed men of the Ku Klux Klan to the black-robed men of the federal bench.And that’s vintage Dobson, who loves phony analogies depicting himself and his fellow extremists as brave souls defending themselves and the human race against totalitarian tyranny. A few years back, in a bout of self-pity about being “persecuted” by gay rights activists, Dobson took to comparing himself to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other “Confessing Church” victims of Hitler. Now, apparently, he’s a Freedom Rider risking violence from the Klan.Any day now, I expect to see Dobson at some Save Tom DeLay rally leading a horde of lobbyists and cultural warriors, arms linked, in a heart-felt rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” The whole Dobson-Levin conversation is an eye-opener for those, like me, who haven’t quite had the stomach to digest the Latter-Day Right’s view of the U.S. Constitution. Levin is a real piece of work, and it is not good news that his bestselling book may provide hundreds of thousands of readers with their only exposure to constitutional law. Unless I am missing something, he seems to object not only to recent Supreme Court opinions, but to Marbury v. Madison, the landmark case that established the right of judicial review 202 years ago.Levin’s mastered the trick of stringing together every generally acknowledged constitutional abomination since then–Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Korematsu v. The United States–and breezily identifying them with Roe v. Wade, which creates a nice litany of “black-robed masters” enabling “slavery, segregation, internment and abortion.” His “solutions”–term limits for federal judges and a congressional veto of Supreme Court decisions–would, of course, require either constitutional amendments or armed revolution, but that doesn’t trouble Levin. At one point, he says “we can’t get our hands on the Supreme Court, but we can get our hands on elected officials.” Nice turn of phrase for a legal beagle, eh? But then again, in addition to being a best-selling author, Levin’s now a radio talk show host.The other really striking thing about the Dobson-Levin “interview” is exactly how far the Souderization of Justice Anthony Kennedy has gone. God, they hate this appointee of Ronald Reagan so much more than the “liberals” on the Court. With his usual stance of posing as a victim of those he is attacking, Dobson says: “Anthony Kennedy scares me;” Levin seems to posit Kennedy as at the center of a “cabal of radical leftists” who are literally taking over the country at the behest of “moral relativists” and one-worlders.This duo’s reasoning is something to behold. Dobson slips effortlessly from yammering about “lifetime appointees to the Court” to blasting Florida Circuit Court Judge George Greer, the Devil Figure in the Right’s view of the Schiavo case. I suspect Dobson knows Greer is an elected judge who won a new six-year term just last year, but hey, can’t cut those judicial murderers any slack, can you?After all, when you’re fighting today’s black-robed Klan, you have to fight fiery cross with fiery cross.