"I haven't been a black conservative since 1995..."

Glenn Loury talks about people he's known for 40 years who won't say hello, who won't look him in the eye because he USED TO BE a black conservative. USED TO BE! John McWhorter talks about those who think "it would be wrong to even print my name. They think of me as Satan. And that's just how it's been."



Much later in the diavlog, Loury and McWhorter weigh in on the affirmative action case that's pending in the Supreme Court. "Would you think it was a good thing if the Supreme Court outlawed racial preferences as we knew them?" McWhorter takes the "not nuanced" position that racial preferences should be proclaimed "obsolete." (Loury disagrees.)

Happy New Year!

Are you up early, like me, or are you sleeping off last night's festivities? Personally, I don't get too revved up about the shift from one year-number to the next one. I think we live in days, and when life is good, normal days are the best, and the truth is, we live in days:



But if our lives are to have meaning, don't we need to knit those days together?



If we should take account on an annual basis — to put the Ann in annual — why should it be on this outwardly imposed occasion, this flip of the calendar from December to January?



"Yeah, I can get with that!"

A conversation for the end of the year.

Reason's Jacob Sullum defends gun rights...

... in this Bloggingheads debate with Bob Wright. Bob is pushing a proposal he writes about here, and Sullum is really solid:



ADDED: Here's the section where Wright hypothesizes a school massacre every day... or every hour. Sullum calmly responds.

AND: I know a lot of my readers think Bloggingheads is too much of a slog, so here's a 17-second clip that says something shocking about rationality:

"If States Don't Set Up Insurance Exchanges, Will 'Obamacare' Implode?"

Stuart Taylor Jr. explains the glaring problem with the federal exchanges. I'll just quote his parting shot:

And in the perhaps unlikely event that the dispute over the powers of federal exchanges reaches the Supreme Court, would Chief Justice John Roberts -- having made his uneasy peace with "Obamacare" in June -- have the stomach to resume hostilities based on a legal analysis that even lawyers find hard to follow?

The stomach to resume hostilities? I would not assume that Roberts "made peace" with Obamacare. He may believe he delivered a wound that escaped notice but will prove fatal.

As I said a month ago:



ADDED: "It's a slow-motion topple. We just haven't seen it go down yet.:

Who do you really think is going to win?

Staring at the polls too long. What's going to happen in Wisconsin? Who'll take the Electoral College? My guess is: Obama will squeak by or Romney will win a lot. Bob Wright anticipates bad unemployment numbers coming out before the election. I wonder about the effect of the Benghazi scandal, Bob tries to wave it off into oblivion, saying he's "kind of tuned it out." I keep going... for quite a while. In the end, Bob asks why I agitate him so and concludes it's because I say "crazy things." I tell him to "check the transcript."

4 theories — you haven't heard them all before! — about what happened in the first debate.

One of my theories is that Obama was preoccupied by what had happened in Benghazi 3 weeks ago, perhaps scrambling to keep it from turning into a scandal that would sink his campaign. Bob Wright's response is — absurdly — to bring up the ridiculous old theory that the high altitude in Denver played havoc with Obama's big brain.

If Romney wins, will it lead to the the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade?

I explain why the answer is probably no, and that if it were yes, it would hurt the GOP:



This clip begins with an explanation of what Chief Justice Roberts did in the Obamacare case. Also, I speculate about what kind of Justices a President Romney might appoint. I don't expect them to be such staunch conservatives.

How will Sandy affect the election?

Bob Wright and I talk about that (recorded yesterday):



I explain my coastal cities theory.

"Wearing Brave Face, Obama Braces for Health Care Ruling."

NYT headline. Article by Jodi Kantor:

Former advisers are emphasizing the many aspects of the bill that are not connected to the mandate, like the subsidies to buy insurance. Some aides even argue privately that losing the mandate could be a political boon, because it would rob Republicans of their core complaint against the law.

Yeah, that's what I've been saying. Plus, Obama would get a new issue: The Supreme Court has too many conservative activists and needs re-balancing; a Democrat should make the next appointment(s). And if the decision goes the other way, Romney will have the corresponding arguments: 1. We need a President who will sign the repeal of Obamacare, and 2. The Supreme Court has too many liberals who don't respect the Constitution and we need a conservative President to re-balance it.

Back to Kantor:

Before he became president, critics said that Mr. Obama’s greatest achievement was his own rise, that he played it safe — sometimes voting “present” in the Illinois State Senate — rather than taking risks for what he really believed....

In the White House, many of his top advisers, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, counseled Mr. Obama against a sweeping health care overhaul. By summer 2009, with the country still stunned by economic crisis and Republicans falsely raising the specter of death panels, some aides practically begged the president to scale back, take interim steps and move on to other issues.

Mr. Obama did not relent...

As the brutal fight continued, the president sacrificed more and more in its name: an overhaul of energy and environmental laws, greater focus on economic issues, some of his own popularity and that of House Democrats, who eventually lost their hard-won majority....

Well, if he loses the Supreme Court case, he's got to pick himself up and look like he's ready to keep fighting. Both candidates will say they're the one to redo health care reform, and Obama is going to need to say he's the one we ought to trust. He can't be a sadsack about how hard he worked and now it's all lost. He can't be all: I could have listened to Rahm and Joe... I could have coasted a voted 'present'...

As he awaits the decision, Mr. Obama has no more knowledge of or influence on it than any of the other lawyers handicapping the odds in Washington bars and boardrooms.
The former law professor turned president is scathing about the argument that the mandate violates the Constitution, saying it has no merit whatsoever. 

Yeah, yeah, that is meaningless to me. (And I'm a law professor.) It's not that he unshakably knows the real constitutional law answer because he's a scholar. He's a partisan who's taken a position and he's saying things about the law in the advocate mode. Scathing... no merit whatsoever... That's just banal lawyer talk. It's a difficult question, and it can be answered, with eloquence and internal coherence, either way.

Have you ever noticed that I — a law professor, not a policy partisan — have never opined on the constitutionality of Obamacare. Glenn Loury pushed me to give an answer on Bloggingheads, and here's how I responded:



The commenters over there are so hostile to to me that one actually wishes that I would "go HIV positive or Full Metal Influenza." Challenged, he offers a longer list of diseases. A more normal person writes: "I can't believe what I'm hearing. Glenn asked Ann whether she thinks the Affordable Health Care Act is constitutional and she basically offers no opinion. She hasn't even blogged on the issue! Isn't she suppose to be a constitutional law professor?" The answer is yes, and that's precisely the point. I study the Court. I don't take the lawyer role and perform the theater of acting like there's a true answer and I know it. The Court will say what the law is. I'm about having a discussion of the topic.

ADDED: If I had to be a judge, I could do it. I can say without bullshitting what judicial nominees always say at the confirmation hearings: I can't tell you what I'd decide until I'm in the real situation of having responsibility for deciding a case. They might be bullshitting, but it's honestly the way I feel. I have too much respect for the process to register a vote for one side or the other in a difficult case. That said, some cases are easy. This one is not.

"Ann suggests that the Supreme Court striking down the law might help Obama's political fortunes."

"Glenn [Loury] disputes this, while observing that conservatives have certainly benefited over the years from the Court's pro-abortion rulings. They discuss the uproar over Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren's Native American ancestry, and, invoking the career of Justice Clarence Thomas, debate the politics of affirmative action. Responding to the failed attempt to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ann thinks her formerly blue state is turning redder by the day. Glenn defends and Ann criticizes efforts to promote public employment during this recession."

Here's the whole 40-minute discussion:



IN THE COMMENTS: Chip S. said:

I was surprised that Loury defended Warren so much.

His career exemplifies what's best about affirmative action: Making an extra effort to find people with potential who would otherwise be overlooked.

Hers exemplifies the worst aspects of affirmative action: A cynical numbers game that doesn't benefit anyone whose light is actually hidden under a bushel.

As Glenn tells his own story — growing up poor on the south side of Chicago — he would be someone a law school admissions committee would pick out for multiple factors and not a simple race-balancing, box-checking approach to affirmative action. And unlike Elizabeth Warren and other individuals with a claim to some Native American ancestry, Glenn does not have the power to check and uncheck the box depending on whether or not an advantage is available. He can't be creative about his conception of himself when it comes to race.

"[M]ost voters' knowledge of economics is so shallow that not only is Mitt Romney attacked for being successful in business..."

"... but Romney doesn't even seem able to defend himself."

Can Mitt educate us?

This seems related to my earlier post today, about whether people learn better taught by robots.

Let me snip a clip of the clip at the link:



More importantly, here's Glenn Loury — whose academic field is economics — critiquing our economic illiteracy (and he's "not a Romney guy"):

"On The Glenn Show, Glenn [Loury] and Ann discuss the politics of President Obama's recent endorsement of gay marriage."

"The two professors, both of whom have gay sons, defend the religious opponents of gay marriage against the charge of 'bigotry.' They argue that religion can be a force for positive social change, such as during the civil rights movement. Ann laments that politicians so often feel they must demonize their opponents, and Glenn defends Mitt Romney's background in private equity. Ann and Glenn compare the Occupy movement with the Tea Party and find the former lacking. Finally, they celebrate 'the leisure of the theory class' and compare their different approaches to vacationing." (Hyperlinks to the specific items here.)

Bloggingheads is hiring.

"Bloggingheads.tv is looking for a promotional and programming director to (1) launch an aggressive campaign to expand the site’s audience and influence, and (2) help shape programming with that goal in mind."

"Moments trip gently along" for Obama, whose "feet hum over the dry walks," in his letter to his NY girlfriend Alex McNear.

Look out! It's David Maraniss's new book "Obama: The Story," which tapped as sources 2 girlfriends, Alex McNear and Genevieve Cook (who were presented in his memoir as a composite character). Vanity Fair has a big excerpt from the book, and I'm just going to home in on one thing, Obama's letter — you can't call it a love letter — to McNear, who was a co-editor of a literary magazine ("Feast") who was "interested in postmodern literary criticism, and her arguments brimmed with the deconstructionist ideas of Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher." After some talk about Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, he moved on to the subject of himself:

Moments trip gently along over here. Snow caps the bushes in unexpected ways, birds shoot and spin like balls of sound. My feet hum over the dry walks. A storm smoothes the sky, impounding the city lights, returning to us a dull yellow glow. 

I am now willing to believe Obama wrote his own memoir. This is that jejune "creative writing" style that I was talking about back in 2009, right here:



Let's continue with the epistle to McNear:

I run every other day at the small indoor track [at Columbia] which slants slightly upward like a plate; I stretch long and slow, twist and shake, the fatigue, the inertia finding home in different parts of the body. I check the time and growl—aargh!—and tumble onto the wheel. And bodies crowd and give off heat, some people are in front and you can hear the patter or plod of the steps behind. You look down to watch your feet, neat unified steps, and you throw back your arms and run after people, and run from them and with them, and sometimes someone will shadow your pace, step for step, and you can hear the person puffing, a different puff than yours, and on a good day they’ll come up alongside and thank you for a good run, for keeping a good pace, and you nod and keep going on your way, but you’re pretty pleased, and your stride gets lighter, the slumber slipping off behind you, into the wake of the past.

Oh, how I hope Obama the President is keeping a journal, describing the experience of being President with exactly this style and perspective. So internal and yet so superficial in the recording of sights and sounds.

You nod and keep going on your way, but you’re pretty pleased, and your stride gets lighter, the slumber slipping off behind you, into the wake of the past.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The optical illusion that is Mitt Romney.

Seeing Romney in person yesterday — from a distance of about 30 feet — I was struck by how tiny he looked. And yet, on line, his height is listed as 6'2". He looks tall in lots of pictures, like this one. Why did he seem so small in person? Is it an optical illusion? You'd think you'd get the most correct measure of a man when he's right there in the flesh.

I think Henry, in the comments last night, has the answer:

It's because he has a big head.

Yes! I did notice his head was huge. He was wearing a white shirt and blue jeans, not the business suit he always wore for the debates. A suit jacket enlarges the shoulders and the upper chest, making a very large-headed man seem to have more average proportions. But the head itself, unbalanced by a shoulder-padded suit jacket, fools the eye into seeing the body as small.

Here's fashion-and-politics expert Robin Givhan explaining — to me! — the magic of the man's suit:



And here we are later, talking about suits:



Anyway... I know you expect me to get to some deeper analysis about the mysterious feeling of fakeness that people seem to get from Romney. How could he seem less like what he really is when he's there in person? Or something about human beings whose mental dimension is way out of proportion to their fleshly realm below the neck. Something about sexuality, perhaps? Eh. I don't know. You can work on that in the comments. I have other posts to post this Monday morning. I'll just say that Romney was gorgeous in person. He was a perfect dreamboat. Absolutely handsome.

And I don't mean in any way to imply that 5'9" isn't a good height for a man. It's exactly the average height for an American man. It's the height of my husband. (And my ex-husband.) It's just perfect, in my view — very proportionate... though if you're a big-headed man, it might make your head look really huge.

But what do with think of big-headed men? Henry, the commenter who solved my Romney-looks-tiny puzzle, said:

Big head politicians do quite well. Teddy Roosevelt had a big head. William Howard Taft had a big body. There you go.

Looking back over all the men who have been President during my lifetime, I think they all had big heads. Tall, with big heads.

IN THE COMMENTS: Peter Hoh says:

Why did he seem so small in person? Is it an optical illusion?  

Maybe he's best viewed in a state in which the trees are the right height.

Aw, you know, I think he was adorable in that trees are the right height clip. And I understand exactly what he meant: When you go back to the place where you grew up, you see what is — for you, subjectively — normal.

Do you care about Congress's limited, enumerated powers and the idea of judicially enforceable federalism?

Or do you think that's all a lot of conservative bull that we shouldn't have to pay attention to? — I ask Bob Wright, who asserts a belief in "legal realism," which I ask him to define... and help him to define:



Click "continue" to hear me defend Bush v. Gore.

My commenters will say "why are you talking to that horrible man?"

"I'll kick their ass in the comment for you, okay, Bob?"

Why liberals were complacent and are now panicking.

I'm analyzing the breakup of the major media monopoly and the phony neutrality of liberal voices in the political culture:



IN THE COMMENTS: Ron said:

Your remarks about media's relationship to liberalism makes it seem like the media is a kind of Nessus Shirt for liberalism; they think it makes them invulnerable, but the shirt itself is toxic.

ALSO IN THE COMMENTS: Saint Croix said:

I could never call up NPR because then I would have to do the NPR voice.

Maybe they're all medicated?

I don't know who's worse, the screaming crazy madman liberals, or the NPR voice. The NPR voice is definitely spookier.

"We are in control. Everything is fine. Listen to my voice. There is no need for excitement. Remain calm."

The NPR voice often reminds me of HAL from 2001.

"Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

This is like NPR, right after they fired Juan Williams:

"I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

The anti-democratic exploitation of the Trayvon Martin.

"To make a big deal out of the Trayvon Martin case is anti-democratic?" Bob Wright challenges me, and I respond.



Here's the whole 11+-minute discussion of the case: