Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Jim Manzi is an interesting character. He clearly has a phenomenally high IQ and because of his obvious fluency with numbers and economics, he’s an incredibly convincing writer. He’s also very good at condensing his points and presenting them in a simple way that makes his arguments appears obvious.

The best example of Manzi’s highly convincing argumentative style are his various articles and blog posts on global warming. He disarms liberals and environmentalists by admitting that, yes, global warming is real, anthropogenic and a problem. He doesn’t engage with his intellectual opponents with the arrogance and scorn that makes Bjorn Lomberg so annoying. He consistently cites the IPCC and doesn’t rely on fatuous claims like “more people die of cold than heat.” Despite the fact that he’s the best conservative writer on climate change, he still makes an argument that most virulently disagree with:  Assuming a certain discount rate, the aggregate wealth loss from global warming isn’t that large, and so the only measures we should take are modest investments in “backstop” R&D, just in case global warming is really bad.

The depressing thing about Jim Manzi’s global warming arguments is that they haven’t been refuted very well. Ryan Avent has written some good stuff about Manzi, but Joseph Romm – largely acknowledged to be one of the leading progressive climate wonks – gets beaten like Youngstown State in this month’s Cato Unbound. So, where should those of us who support aggressive action against global warming go to find a refutation of Jim Manzi? That’s right, Duke junior Matt Rognlie.

Rognlie has written a helpful, extensive post entitled “Why I Disagree with Jim Manzi.” His three areas with disagreement are that Manzi doesn’t properly deal with the low-probability risks of global warming induced disaster, that Manzi’s discussion of the proper discount rate doesn’t make sense and that aggregate world GDP isn’t the best metric to evaluate the costs of climate change. The post is quite good – if occasionally technical – and everyone should read it.

PS – Despite all this criticism of Manzi, I should note that he’s one of the most gracious interlocutors in the blogosphere. The guy always responds to criticism in an incredibly measured manner and always assumes the good faith of his opponents, which is cool, considering how much heat he gets.

We’re going to hear a lot about Sarah Palin’s fifth child, Trig, a four month old with Down Syndrome. I think it’s actually a big reason lots of rank-and-file Republicans love Palin so much, in the pro-life community, there really isn’t anything better a mother can do than know that a child has Down Syndrome, and still have the baby. Some 90 percent of mothers in that situation chose to abort – and at least some of them would describe themselves as pro-life. It’s an admirable thing to do, and really shows how powerful unconditional love can be. But Lisa Schiffren takes her admiration for Palin’s choice a bit too far, and impliciptly criticizes those mothers who terminate pregnancies upon learning that the child has Downs:

I have been a little shocked at how much credit Palin is getting for not aborting her last child. It’s wonderful that she didn’t, of course. And the fact is that 90% of women carrying Down syndrome children do abort. Perhaps if you have 5 children, instead of one or two, you don’t need to worry about each one being a well-designed work of art; an investment that must pay off the money and labor poured into it; a reflection of you; or a perfect conduit for transmitting your values into the future. Maybe you can just love them as they are, and let them be who they are. She deserves praise. But it is disturbing how rare her choice was.

It’s really a galling statement. It’s like Schiffren doesn’t know a single mother who has a severely disabled child or who has gotten an abortion after learning that her child would be severely disabled (she probably does know women in that situation, but it’s no wonder they wouldn’t tell her). To say that women get abortions because they want their child to a be a “well-designed work of art” or an “investment that must pay off the money and labor poured into it” is one of the most insensitive and offensive things I’ve read on the Corner.

Raising a child with Down syndrome is incredibly difficult; it’s a huge expense financially, emotionally and personally. It requires a committment of time and energy that goes well and beyond a healthy child, or even a sickly one. It means having to deal with the fact that your child will probably never be independent and will have a greatly reduced life expectancy. It means having to live in the shadow of your child having congenital heart diseases and Alzheimer’s at the age of 40. It means knowing that your child won’t have children of his own, It means totally changing the life of not only you, as a mother, but also of the rest of the family. It’s a choice that many mothers and families make reluctantly, gravely and sorrowfully.

I hope that Sarah Palin has more empathy for mothers in her situation than Lisa Schiffren does. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could have less.

Say what you will about the merits of paleoconservatism, but at least its adherents tend to be quite well cultured and funny. Take, for instance, John Zmirak’s paleoconservative bumperstickers. A few of my favorites:

For pessimistic Protestants: “In Case of Rapture This Vehicle will Be… Just Fine.”

For really disillusioned conservatives: “George III was Right.”

For neocons: “America First.” (written in Hebrew.)

For tenured Straussians teaching at Christian colleges:

“God Bless America.” (then, in Attic Greek:) “Except that He Doesn’t Exist.”)

Hat tip to – who else – Helen Rittelmeyer.

One somewhat serious note: it makes sense that paleocons would be well cultured and have a cultivated sense of humor: there hasn’t been a nationally prominent paleocon politician since Robert Taft. If I were in such an anachronistic political movement, I’d be cracking jokes all day too. (Much the same can be said of libertarians, except even more so)

Matt Rognlie gets his vulcan on:

To sum up: murder to increase the general wealth is wrong not because there is any compelling first-order moral principle against it, but because in the real world of institutional design, granting a person or group of people the right to use murder is inescapably a prescription for tyranny.

True enough, but I found that these type of arguments are only convincing to people in academia.

Dana Goldstein thinks we should stop the personal attacks on Palin (including her inexperience) and just go after her on the issues:

The Obama campaign and its supporters won’t win very many hearts and minds attacking Palin for her personal life or even lack of political experience — she’s simply too compelling of a figure. So let’s stick to the issues when discussing Palin: her denial of human causes of global warming, her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and evidence of her possible corruption. There’s more than enough there without descending into the attacks that are only all too common when it comes to female politicians.

This approach is appealing in a high minded way, but seems to fail when confronted with the specific person of Sarah Palin. For one, it’s pretty hard to go after her on “the issues” because it’s not clear if she’s put much thought into issues that aren’t strictly relevant to being governor of Alaska. But pointing that out would be going after her for inexperience, which would then be the kind of personal attack that Goldstein counsels against.

Sure, we can go after her on abortion, but she’s the same as McCain on that issue, what makes her distinct from your standard conservative politician is the insane lack of experience and expertise or interest in national issues. Historians say that she’s the least experienced vice presidential pick in recent memory, the McCain campaign admits that she doesn’t know anything about foreign affairs and no one can make the credible argument that she’s ready to be president. So clearly these “personal” charges are substantive, even if they aren’t, right now, politically wise to make.

So maybe we should hold off on Palin’s inexperience and lack of expertise until she makes the inevitable crippling gaffe? Then can we start?

Exactly what a Scotsman is doing liking the most American subset of the most American sport is still beyond me, but Alex Massie’s ode to college football at Culture 11 is quite excellent.

I think one thing he could have expanded on is how the college football game is meaningfully different from the NFL. In college, the defenders are signifigantly slower – and worse tacklers – than NFL defensive players. This means that you can give an athletic player the ball on every down and run your offense. And although it’s hardly football at its best, the Darren McFadden offense Arkansas ran last year (give McFadden the ball in whatever way possible) was college football at its best. Or Nebraska’s Eric Crouch offense, or Clemson’s Woody Dantzler Offense, or Indiana’s Antwan Randle-El offense and so on and so forth.

The other cool – and unique – college football offense is the Spread. Sports Illustrated had a fantastic feature on the wide open, pass-heavy offense. Once again, because of the slowness of linebackers and their lack of coverage skills, having four receivers and a running back running around, with the quarterback in the shotgun to give him enough time, is basically unstoppable. Some would point to these trick offenses as proof that college football is an inferior product – and it is. But unlike college basketball, which really is just NBA basketball with people who can’t jump as high or run as fast, college football provides a different game than the NFL. And unless the NFL continues its all week colonialization, Saturday (during the day, not night) is still safe for college football.

There’s only glaring problem with  Massie’s piece – the love for Michigan. I mean, I guess as a Scotsman, he has free ground to pick a team, and one could do worse with Michigan, but one of the most annoying things about college football is how sycophantic the media is toward old, established, mostly Midwestern teams. Michigan isn’t the best example, Notre Dame is. For some reason, if they get into the top 12, they always get a BCS bowl. I still remember the 2001 Fiesta Bowl, where the insanely talented Oregon State team(Chad Johnson and TJ Houshmandzadeh were the first and second recievers) absolutely bull-whipped Notre Dame, an underperforming team that no right being in the game in the first place. The way I see it, the Midwestern fascination needs to be broken. As best as I can tell, the best teams are consistently from the SEC (Florida, LSU, Auburn) plus USC.

There’s also, of course, the broken Bowl/National championship system, which noticeably screwed over Kansas State in 98, Miami in 2000, Oregon in 2001, USC in 2003 and Auburn in 2004. It really speaks to the strength of college football as a cultural phenomenon that it could have a championship season that no one defends and still be so compelling and beloved. Massie really gets at just how strong the emotional connection is many fans have with their team. If you walk around Manhattan sporting a Longhorns T-shirt, you’ll get dozens of “Hook ‘em Horns!” USC too. The irony is that these fans are rooting for players that they couldn’t have less in common with. The black (college football fandom is pretty white) high school footbal stars who make up most of the top-tier teams could care less that John Hayes has been going to Texas games since he was 8 and met his wife at a pre-game frat party, they just want as much PT on as big a stage as possible.

I should also note that I’ll be participating in the great cultural tradition that is college football. The California Golden Bears are opening the season at Memorial Stadium against the Michigan State Spartans. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BEARS!

The Palin pick was weird on its face. Here was a complete neophyte on the national stage, whose past experience was being the mayor of a 9,000 person town and being governor of a state the same size as Austin for two years. She is not a national figure, or a known quantity outside her tiny state. So maybe McCain had met her campaigning earlier this year, she was a big supporter and they really hit it off. Well, no, McCain and Palin met once in February, had a phone conversation, and until this past week, hadn’t talked since then.

We all know that Palin isn’t quite sure what the VP does, but McCain doesn’t seem to be exactly sure either? Did it occur to him that his ability to work with Palin could be important? It doesn’t really seem that way; the Palin pick instead looks like a stunt designed to suck away media attention from Obama’s blockbuster speech. It might work for a few days, but eventually, lots of people (and probably lots of conservatives) are going to wonder what the hell McCain was thinking.

I recommend everyone read this Washington Post chat with Anchorage Daily News editor Gregg Erikson. His basic point seems to be that Palin is popular with Alaskans, but among journalists and legislators, her support is “down in the teens or twenties.” Her lack of popularity with people who work in or follow politics seems to come from a basic lack of seriousness about actually governing. She’s a charming and effective campaigner, but it’s not clear if she’s really much of a Governor. Just look at Erikson’s answer for her three strengths and three weaknesses:

Gregg Erickson: She is smart, vivacious and energetic; she tends to oversimplify complex issues, has had difficulty delegating authorit [sic], asnd clearly has some difficulty distinguishing the line between her public responsibilities and private wishes.

“Smart, vivacious and energetic.” That’s what you say about a bright, cute five year old, not a vice president. Her three negatives, on the other hand, are all directly related to her being an elected official. I think we all wouldn’t mind if our politicians were a bit less “vivacious and energetic” and were better at delegating authority and didn’t oversimplify complex issues.

The second revealing answer is Erikson’s preview of her debate performance:

Gregg Erickson: I expect her to stick with simple truths. When asked about continued American troop presence in Iraq she said she knows only one thing about that (I paraphrase): no one has attacked the American homeland since George Bush took the war to Iraq.

Wow, if that’s really what we have to expect from her on the national security front, then Biden is going to Steve-Buscemi-in-Fargo her during the VP debate. The McCain’s campaign raison d’être is the Surge and national security, and this is their VP pick?

Sure, her “experience” is somewhat comparable to Obama’s*, but even in 2004, when Obama was just an Illinois state senator, he could speak about foreign policy issues intelligently, Palin can’t.

Yes, she refused to vetoed a bill that would deny benefits to gay couples and even admitted to smoking pot when it was legal in Alaska, but Sarah Palin is no moderate. Not only is she down the line on core GOP issues (taxes, abortion, guns etc), but she’s also staked out the extreme conservative position on a few issues.

Here, from Ron Bailey of Reason, is Palin’s take on climate change.

A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.

And her opinion on teaching evolution in schools:

“Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information….Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject — creationism and evolution. It’s been a healthy foundation for me. But don’t be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.”

Evolution and climate change – these aren’t issues that Republicans have to toe the fringe line on to be acceptable candidates for national office. They aren’t abortion, they aren’t taxes, they aren’t guns. But maybe Sarah Palin really believes that climate change isn’t “man-made” and that evolution ought to be taught alongside creationism. That or she felt the need to toe the hard-right line. Either way, it’s not particularly encouraging.

Ramesh Ponnuru sure knows how to make wonky liberals swoon! Here’s his take on Palin:

The cons:

Inexperience. Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain’s age raised the stakes on this issue.

As a political matter, it undercuts the case against Obama. Conservatives are pointing out that it is tricky for the Obama campaign to raise the issue of her inexperience given his own, and note that the presidency matters more than the vice-presidency. But that gets things backward. To the extent the experience, qualifications, and national-security arguments are taken off the table, Obama wins.

And it’s not just foreign policy. Palin has no experience dealing with national domestic issues, either. (On the other hand, as Kate O’Beirne just told me, we know that Palin will be ready for that 3 a.m. phone call: She’ll already be up with her baby.)

Tokenism. Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?

Compatibility. It doesn’t seem as though McCain knows Palin well. Do we have much reason to think they would work well together?

Debates. Maybe, as Jonah said the other day, Biden will look like a bully going up against her—and maybe she’ll shine. But I can think of a lot of other picks who would have been lower-risk.

Sounds good to me!

But perhaps all this talk about Palin (and by extension Biden) really misses the point. Most political scientists think that the VP choice doesn’t matter that much in the election, and that the only thing they have to do is not embarass themselves in the VP debate. And this is where Palin could very well set a trap for Biden. By all accounts, Biden should be able to wipe the floor with Palin. Biden simply knows more about foreign policy and national issues than Palin does, and his sarcastic, logorrheic style could work very well in a debate. He will not only be the side that most Americans support, but he’ll be full of confidence. But he’s going up against a woman; and not just any woman, but an ex-beauty queen, especially feminine woman who recently had a child. She doesn’t project toughness like Hillary, she projects femininity. And as Michelle Cottle points out, America just won’t stand for men appearing to be rude or bullying towards women – even in a political debate:

And as irrational as they may be, the laws of politics forbid any man from behaving in a condescending, bullying, dismissive, mocking, or otherwise disrespectful fashion toward candidates of the fairer sex. Just ask poor Rick Lazio.

The fact that Palin looks to be a far more fragile flower than Lazio’s former opponent makes Biden’s job all the tougher. In head-to-head match ups, he will need to dismantle Palin completely, yet avoid triggering all those stupid, gut-level, subconscious, knee-jerk instincts that would lead voters to feel protective of her. This is particularly important in light of the remaining Hillary Issue. God forbid a meaningful chunk of Hillary dead-enders got it into their heads that, not only had Obama disrepected their gal, but now his number-two was dissing another sister.

Whine all you want about how all candidates should be viewed and treated the same regardless of gender. The research and history of our politics show they aren’t. Just something for Biden to think about when he’s strapping on the gloves.

Something to think about.

One downside to waking up at around 3 PM EST is that the first two waves of the Palin blogcycle have already crashed past me. So I’ll just add a few thoughts.

One. From McCain, we always hear we’re living in such scary times. We have the “transcendent” threat of terrorism, “first…serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War” in Georgia, a resurgent China, proliferating Iran and so on and so forth. McCain – wrongly in my opinion – has convinced most Americans that he’s probably qualified at the base level for the job. Palin, the two year governor of a state with a population smaller than Austin, Texas and a legislature that’s only in session 90 days? (also, a state that doesn’t require much governing because of the welfare checks everyone gets) I mean, really, she’s the person you want a heartbeat away in such dangerous times? It shows that either A. McCain doesn’t take his own rhetoric seriously or B. McCain is totally unaware of the fact that the Vice President actually does stuff after the election. If we were really living in such transcendent times on the foreign policy front, McCain would have picked someone else.

Two. Will it get the disaffected Hillary supporters? I think McCain was probably going to get some portion of the HIllary voters, and Palin will probably only guarantee their split.

Three. How does the Obama campaign respond? I think this opens the door/demands they do two things. The first is finally start going after McCain on age. McCain is a 72 year old man with a history of cancer. There’s a nontrivial chance he’ll die in his first term in office. That means Sarah Palin is president.
Um, that means Sarah Palin is president. Is this a possibility anyone – especially Sarah Palin – considered until today? The other issue this opens up for Obama is the fact that John McCain is a pro-life zealot. You don’t get all the symbolic coolness of a female vice president while appointing judges that would overturn Roe v Wade. Nuh uh.

In the short term, however, I can’t help but think that this pick will work (ie, give McCain a bounce going into the convention). Palin is, in many ways, the opposite of McCain. She’s young, energetic and female where he’s old, craggy and male. Because of her thin political record in a state that doesn’t require much politicking, there really isn’t anything on her. There’s no set narrative against her, or old gaffes to bring up. We’ll see how this plays out, but I think in the long term, it reflects some desperation on McCain’s part, and a lack of seriousness about actually governing.

I guess I should direct you to more positive takes on the picks. Here’s Douthat and Noah Millman.

One final note: are we ready to have a first spouse with a mustache? The history of great men in the last 70 or so years has been one of clean faces. The only “great men” with facial hair have either been terrorists or totalitarian dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Osama, Saddam). So is Mr. Palin that, a totalitarian dictator terrorist? Or just an incredibly sleezy looking dude? I understand that as first-man of a 9,000 person hamlet or a 600,000 petro-state, it doesn’t really matter that he looks like a 1976-vintage middle reliever, but on the national stage? That could well be a deal breaker.

I don’t really have much to say about the contents. It was pretty predictable, nothing new. I really liked the specific, personal attacks on McCain. I was bored with the long policy specific section, but for some reason, the media decided that he needs to get specific, despite the fact that there was nothing new in the policy points. Anyone who cared about policy already knew all that stuff. But he got it done.

The most important part of the speech is how it totally destroyed the narrative the GOP was trying to construct in the week coming up to the convention. The setting didn’t look “imperial” at all. The idea that 84,000 people cheering and waving American flags could possibly be a bad thing was always mildly absurd. But the TV coverage of the speech really showed just how ridiculous that notion was.

One complaint – and this applies to just about every convention speech besides Kerry – was that there wasn’t a single compelling, personal reason why McCain was bad. Most of Obama’s criticisms, beside that one reference to temperament and talking about Pakistan, could be said about any Republican who could be nominated. Besides McCain’s continuity with Bush, there wasn’t a single narrative thread about why John McCain shouldn’t be president of the United States. The McSame line will probably get Obama 70-80 percent of the way there, but McCain is a popular politician, with 60 percent likability ratings and still a reputation as a maverick.

What the Obama campaign ought to do is either go full frontal on his personal flaws – out of touch, angry, embittered – or turn his maverick reputation against him. I think Kerry’s “the man McCain vs candidate McCain” provides the best template to do this. It frames the discussion the way most undecided voters understand McCain, and puts his flip flops and selling out the right wing in context. The only risk with this strategy is that it might let some people think that once McCain’s in office, he’ll revert to his maverick instincts. That’s a risk, but the Republicans were able to win* two elections because they had a simple narrative about the opposing candidate. Obama should be able to win because the country is fed up with Bush and because they overwhelmingly disagree with his policies, but the polls are too close. It’s not just that they have to attack McCain more – they’ve been attacking plenty – it’s that those attacks have to coherent and specific. Obama didn’t quite do that, but hopefully he’ll figure it out soon.

You want to read my snarky and sarcastic liveblogging of Obama’s speech. Then check it out on Twitter. My handle is “mattzeitlin”

One of the odd effects of Roe v Wade is that it’s forced conservatives and pro-life types to make their arguments increasingly exact. By that, I mean, we’re starting to see much of the conservative movement adopt the rather extreme position that embryos are life, or as they put it, that life starts at conception. This position is weird namely for how newfangled it is: abortion opponents since the mid 19th century weren’t particularly aware of the embryo, and before then, it was generally accepted that pre-quickening abortions were acceptable. And although public opinion on abortion per se remains muddled, I don’t think that much of the public would be willing to accept the hard core that life starts at conception. One implication of this view is that all embryo-destructive stem cell research should be banned. So is the GOP willing to follow through? Kevin Drum tells us that the answer is yes:

according to Stephen Spruiell the GOP platform now calls for a complete ban on all embryonic stem cell research. Publicly funded, privately funded, new lines, pre-existing lines, whatever. If it’s an embryo, you can’t use it for research.

This is the kind of thing that, over and over, seems like it ought to be a big deal to me. And yet, at the federal level, it never really seems to generate more than yawns. I guess everyone is used to conservative hardliners insisting on ideological purity, being humored in one way or another, and then, in the end, ignored. So no one takes it seriously.

Which, in a sense, is almost fair. Still, just for the record: the Republican Party now officially opposes all embryonic stem cell research no matter what. In case anyone ever asks you.

This new position is logically consistent. If stem cell research is the slaughtering of embryos, and if that’s bad, then no one ought to be engaging in it. Of course, sacrificing medical research because of a highly contestable, abstract and unpopular definition of when “life” begins is unspeakably extreme. Democrats should be point this out.

You all probably know that I have an amateur’s interest in philosophy. Mostly, this has lead me to realize that the stuff is all quite complicated and that it’s better to read people who know what they’re talking about rather than pontificate on your own. One of the people who knows what he’s talking about is Justin Blank, who’s not just a fantastic commenter, but also a wonderful blogger. Here’s his blog. Read it, love it.

*His blog isn’t dreary enough to be just philosophy, but he is a PhD student at Pitt, so what academic stuff he does write about, it’s quite good.

F1 racing, despite it featuring the world’s best cars and having tracks that are more than banked left turns, has never really caught on in the United States. One reason has been that American drivers have rarely done well in the series, and most of the races are in Europe, so American auto-racing fans have never really had a reason to tune in. One great exception to the lousy tradition of American F1 racers was Phil Hill. The Times reports that he died today at 81.

Hill raced for Ferrari in the 60s, winning the Driver’s Championship in 1961. But he wasn’t just an F1 driver, he also won 24 Hours at Le Mans three times. A true American racing hero, and much more of an athlete or sportsman that those left turn jockies in NASCAR. Also, his championship car, the Ferrari 156, was one of the coolest race cars ever built.

Megan McArdle gets at a very important reason why teachers unions are, from a libertarian perspective, especially perfidious, or for from a liberal perspective, uniquely perfidious. It’s because they’ve become the primary advocate on behalf of “schools.” But “schools” – or the education establishment – don’t need someone advocating for them, kids do:

So the schools have a gigantic, powerful bargaining bloc.  Who doesn’t have a bargaining bloc?  The kids.

Of course, the customers of corporations don’t bargain with unions either–but they have the right of exit, which is what prevents the unions (or their corporate bosses) from turning them upside down and shaking them until the last nickel falls out of their pockets.  Unsurprisingly, the schools in this country that function worst are the ones where the kids have no realistic ability to exit.  So for whom are those schools run?  The teacher’s unions, the principal’s unions, the janitor’s unions, the friends and relations of people with seats on the school board.  The children have the least powerful voice.  Which is why, as far as I can tell, every single thing that is proposed by any of these groups “for the children” has the primary side effect of employing more teachers/janitors/principals, paying same more, or making their jobs more pleasant.

Look, we’re not going to be able to eliminate the teachers unions. They are too important to the Democratic party at the state and local levels. So what we need is some sort of reformist counterweight to union power. Unlike a typical situation with a corporation, where management and labor are necessarily at loggerheads and customers can always buy products from someone else, kids are basically locked in the public school system. And I don’t expect teachers unions to advocate on behalf of kids, but then someone has to.

Clearly, education wonks can’t make up the numbers necessary to push unions and local governments on reform in urban areas. Sometimes, like in DC and New York, ambitious government officials can advocate on behalf of the kids, but that’s hardly an entrenched, constantly-pushing-for reform interest group. So I guess the best hope would be mobilizing black voters against the unions.  This would be difficult, because schools are pretty big employers of people living in cities, but if Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee can just hammer home the message that the unions are intrinsically opposed to good education for their kids, then maybe there can finally be a block that’s constantly advocating for the kids.

This message was easier to promote in the late 60s, when there actually was a huge clash between black parents and mostly white teachers unions. That was, of course, the infamous Ocean Hill – Brownsville strike, which centered on whether there should be “local control” of schools or not. It famously pit the unions vs the locals, and has since been seen (probably incorrectly) as a seminal moment in American liberalism. Today, the conflict really ought not be about “local control” (which is really just a conservative ploy to prevent meaningful education reform), but it would be nice if unions could feel constant heat from parents. Countervailing power is supposed to be good, right?

One of the reasons schools in wealthy areas are so good is because the parents are tireless advocates for making them better. Where I grew up, Piedmont, not only are the parents personally involved in their children’s education, but the quality of the schools is basically the only civic issue that anyone cares about. For more on the weirdness of Piedmont public schools, check out this nicely detailed Quick and the Ed post.

Despite my neoliberal tendencies, I don’t think that teachers unions are the core source of problems in our educational system. Sure, I think their incentives are such that they’ll rarely support educational policy that’s primarily in the interest of students, but self interested actors are the nature of politics, so I can hardly hold that against teachers unions. Also, I think undeserved demonization is a good way to embitter the unions against any type of reform, which wouldn’t help anyone.

But then there’s deserved demonization, and the unions deserved to be demonized for what’s happening in DC. The Washington district of the AFL-CIO is slamming Adrian Fenty as a “budget-shattering, union-busting, promise-breaking political boss” whose “hostility to workers and unions is completely at odds with the Democratic Party’s long-standing commitment to these major constituency groups.”So what has Fenty done to draw the unions’ ire? He said this at a pre-convention educational panel:

“The American Federation of Teachers, which I don’t think does anything for the people of the District of Columbia, is weighing in against it,” Fenty reportedly said during a pre-convention panel on education reform. “And the only thing I can think of is that the heads of the union, they want to keep their jobs.”

What they’re really complaining about is that Fenty won without their endorsement and that Michelle Rhee is pushing through a plan that would allow teachers to get on a track to be paid more according to performance, not seniority. Exactly why the AFL-CIO needs to get involved in this local spat is beyond me. At a time when unions are historically weak, do they really want to align themselves with the status quo of Washington DC?. As Ryan Avent says, “When everyone in the city is sick to death of the status quo, defending the status quo is not a good way improve people’s opinion of you.”

More from Yglesias.

When they blame spikes in crime on root causes that they can’t control.

In Oakland, we’ve had a wave of brazen, armed robberies of restaurants in areas that are the core of Oakland’s night and commercial life. They’ve been going on for about a month, and police seem helpless to stop them. Volunteer crime patrols from other parts of California have even moved into Oakland in an effort to prevent the robberies. So what does Ron Dellums say when confronted with yet another should-be-career-ending crisis? Blames the economy:

“The desperation of these crimes speaks to the broader issue of where we are in terms of this economy,” the Quiet Mayor said. “When people become this desperate, they take desperate acts and we have to do everything we can to get to the root causes of crime and violence.”

Conor Friesdorf, writing at Culture11’s editorial blog The Confabulator, passes along a similar anecdote from the District:

Former D.C. police chief Isaac Fulwood Jr. said that expectations for big-city police chiefs are unrealistic. Crime is rooted in poverty, inadequate schools and dysfunctional families, creating deep problems no police department can cure. “People think police are the ultimate answer to crime and violence. For me, it is building a crime-resistant neighborhood, to mobilize communities to take responsibility.”

The DC example may be even worse: it’s a former police chief talking! I understand if mayors don’t’ want to be seen as responsible for crime, but police chiefs? That’s just disgraceful. Conor points us to a City Journal article by Heather McDonald chronicling how former NYPD  have fanned out across the country to run other cities’ police departments. Shockingly, they don’t have the attitude that they’re helpless in the face of crime. Good police work can reduce crime, this is something that nearly all social scientists who study the issue accept as true. If only our mayors would listen to them.

I wanted to avoid my summer reading, so I tuned into the Convention. I don’t want to live blog here, but if you have twitter, you can follow my frantic and frivolous commentary there. My name’s MattZeitlin. Check it out.

Oh yeah, John Kerry totally shived McCain. It was pretty awesome. Here’s a video.