"'Wanker' is a leftie blog cliché used to describe people who deviate from the left-liberal line but aren’t conservatives. Say, Tom Friedman."

"It has been a long time since I’ve won Wanker of the Day, and the rush of gratitude has me feeling a bit flustered. So many people to thank!"

The secret video reveals Romney as "the sneering plutocrat..."

"... fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the mania that has seized his party," says Jonathan Chait.

[Romney] believes that market incomes in the United States are a perfect reflection of merit. Far from seeing his own privileged upbringing as the private-school educated son of an auto executive-turned-governor as an obvious refutation of that belief, Romney cites his own life, preposterously, as a confirmation of it. (“I have inherited nothing. Everything I earned I earned the old fashioned way.”)...

The revelations in this video come to me as a genuine shock. I have never hated Romney. I presumed his ideological makeover since he set out to run for president was largely phony, even if he was now committed to carry through with it, and to whatever extent he’d come to believe his own lines, he was oblivious or naïve about the damage he would inflict upon the poor, sick, and vulnerable.  It seems unavoidable now to conclude that Romney’s embrace of Paul Ryanism is born of actual contempt for the looters and moochers, a class war on behalf of his own class.

There are plenty of conservatives who will celebrate all of that. Not the "sneering plutocrat" part, but the Paul Ryanism.

Chait is demonstrating how Democrats can stir up antagonism to Romney, but much of that antagonism will be felt by people who were never going to vote for Romney... like Chait himself. I have never hated Romney, he says. Yeah, you didn't hate him because he seemed so bland and ineffectual, and you didn't think he'd win. But Paul Ryan and his crisp conservatism — that, you hate. I'd say Romney ought to avoid sucking up to Chait. That's the McCain mistake: You get liberals to like you, but they don't vote for you, and the conservatives lose interest.

Chait gives it all away when he brings up Ryan and portrays him as contemptuous. "Sneering plutocrat" is a great phrase, and I expect Democrats to take advantage and plunge forward with that meme. But Ryan is no sneering plutocrat. He brings youthful vitality and intelligence to the conservative cause. If Romney seemed like Ryan in the secret video, that's a useful revelation.

IN THE COMMENTS: Crimso said:

Did Chait actually suggest it is wrong to have contempt for looters and moochers? 

And edutcher said:

When you've lost Jonathan Chait...

you've really started to scare the Lefties. 

Jonathan Chait sees "frightening outlines of a future systemic crisis"...

... in Richard Lugar's defeat. 

I'm seeing outlines of liberals getting really nervous about what is — I suspect — the American voters' preference for some crisp conservatism.

"And yet the perception is that last week was bad for Republicans and good for the Dems. What gives?"

Says Instapundit, noting today's Rasmussen tracking poll that has Romney at 48, Obama 43 and even Santorum at 46, with Obama at 45.

As an example of that perception he's referring to, check out Jonathan Chait:

Today's report that the economy added 227,000 jobs last month, and far more than expected the previous two months,  seems as good an occasion as any to take stock of President Obama’s electoral standing.

Obama has clearly improved his position.... Pretty much everything has moved his way all at once. The recovery, which stalled last year, is picking up speed, and perceptions of the economy are improving along with it. The Republican candidates have all hurtled rightward and lost popularity in the center. Obama has managed to establish a contrast against the wildly unpopular Republican House rather than allow himself to be sucked down into its dysfunction.

And here's Rush Limbaugh — the infamous Rush Limbaugh — on his show yesterday, talking about the media as "now just willing accomplices of the Democrat Party." Excerpt:

Just remember, folks, in 2005, 2006, unemployment in this country was at 5% under the hated, despised, and dreaded George W. Bush.  "Job Growth Remains Brisk in February."  "Healthcare Continues to Lead Employment Growth," TheHill.com.  "Employment Grows Solidly for Third Straight Month."  So the new normal is more than twice as high as unacceptable unemployment under Bush.  The new normal, what the media says is a roaring economy; what the media says is a steady economic upbeat; what the media says is job market improving; what the media says is brisk job growth.  Eight-point-three percent unemployment is more than twice as high as what was unacceptable unemployment during George W. Bush. 

"To an extent, Romney’s secret antipathy is a healthy quality."

"The truly fanatical politicians are those who detect no contradiction between their interpretation of what is right and the desires of the great and good American public.... But feigning respect is exhausting. Romney does not suffer fools gladly—he does suffer them, though, because there are a lot of fools out there, and he has put himself in the fool-suffering business. His constant discomfort on the trail is the agony of suppressed contempt."

Says Jonathan Chait, adding that Romney reminds him of George H.W. Bush. Me too. So... advice to Mitt: Whatever you do, do not look at your watch.

By the way, why is Jonathan Chait so mean?

There are just a lot of people out there exerting significant influence over the political debate who are totally unqualified. The dilemma is especially acute in the political economic field, where wealthy right-wingers have pumped so much money to subsidize the field of pro-rich people polemics that the demand for competent defenders of letting rich people keep as much of their money as possible vastly outstrips the supply. Hence the intellectual marketplace for arguments that we should tax rich people less is glutted with hackery.

Now, go away wingers! You're flummoxing Jonathan!

When did articles all start to begin "When did...?"?

"When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?"

"When Did Liberals Become So Unreasonable?"

Jonathan Chait on Michelle Bachmann: "she may be crazy, but she does have a strong grasp of political reality."

"The problem with so many radical candidates is that they lack political sense as well. Bachmann is a potent combination of substantively radical and politically shrewd, much like [Paul] Ryan. And if Ryan does not run, Bachmann could make some noise."

Subtext: Distinguish Bachmann and Palin on the sanity/intelligence axes. Palin is the stupid one, so Bachmann is the crazy one. With the negatives nailed down, we may concede that Bachmann is pretty smart (watch out!) and Palin is pretty sane (now, go home take care of your children).

"When this debate ends, you will notice that I will not be shaking his hand tonight."

Rand Paul:



ADDED: Jonathan Chait, a commentator with no affinity for conservatives, writes:

The ugliest, most illiberal political ad of the year may be this one, from Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway:

... The trouble with Conway's ad is that it comes perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office. That's a pretty sickening premise for a Democratic campaign.

Consider that the ad has more to do with the question of whether Rand is weird than whether he's irreligious. But, ironically, Conway has made himself seem creepy for throwing all this crap at the screen.

AND: Conway stammers through an attempted explanation of his ad:



AND: Here's a montage of nastiness:

Jonathan Chait makes a Special Olympics joke!

He wisecracks "Mitch Daniels Wins The Fiscal Special Olympics."

What is stupider than being stupid while calling other people stupid? You'd think Obama fans would at least learn from Obama's mistakes.

Jonathan Chait calls Evan Bayh a "wuss."

He thinks he's "just pathetic" that Bayh is quitting because he "hates the Senate" and "hates the left bloggers."

Ooh. Chait is angry. Bayh is angry. The Democrats are an angry, angry party now. They won, and then they all got so angry with each other. It's hard being a liberal. You want so much for so many people, and then you don't get it. It hurts. It hurts a lot.

"If the Democrats let health care reform die, they'll be looking at a turnout cataclysm."

Says Jonathan Chait, reading the tea leaves that come in the form of the Illinois primary results. ("GOP primary turnout is up 11% over 2004. Democratic turnout has dropped 29%.)

Liberal commentators doggedly push the theory that whatever happens, the heathcare bill must be passed. Ezra Klein works that theme here:

Today's televised session between Barack Obama and the Senate Democrats wasn't encouraging to those of us hoping the Democrats are spending their time worrying about how to pass the health care bill. There were questions on the deficit, on jobs, on partisanship, on energy and on judicial nominees. No one bothered to ask about health-care reform....

To Obama's credit, he valiantly twisted questions on things like jobs and partisanship into opportunities to talk about health-care reform....

If we don't pass this, he told the assembled Democrats, "I don't know what differentiates us from the other guys."...

Without healthcare, you don't know the difference between Republicans and Democrats?! There are 2 ways to respond to that:

1. National security, taxes, social issues, that $3.8 trillion budget, etc. etc.

2. Since people are drifting toward the Republicans, won't being more like them help you (despite what Jonathan Chait says)?

"Obama's Dull, Cheap, Successful Speech."

"President Obama’s speeches have always been notable for both their exquisite prose and their unusually high intellectual level."

You know what, Jonathan Chait? You are wrong. Obama's speeches have always been bland. Look into your own head to discover why you heard "exquisite prose" and "unusually high intellectual level."

"It’s very strange. We’ve had months of sturm and drang, and massive attention focused on the question, Whither health care reform?"

"It’s just quietly turned into a fait accompli."

Mickey Kaus leaks a JournoList thread.

We've discussed JournoList here before. (Remember? It seemed to trigger Ezra Klein's bizarre tweet that there were "a lot" of anti-Semitic commenters on my blog.) There are 300 journalists hanging out with each other on the list. Is that a bad thing? Are they coordinating their stories, losing their independence and sharp edge? Well, they aren't so coordinated that they can all keep the list secret, and here's what Mickey got hold of. They seem pretty tedious and unattractive. I don't mind if they keep it private, very private. That said, if there's anything on the JournoList about me — some scurrilous charge of anti-Semitism, perhaps — please pass it on.

ADDED: "The JournoList Sure Has A Lot Of Anti-Semitic Commenters."

"Although I thought Ann's Rush apologism was unseemly and unfounded, I have to say I basically agree with Jon Chait..."

Eve Fairbanks reflects on our Bloggingheads encounter and displays the high regard TNR folk have for other TNR folk.

And what exactly is Apologism? (Homophone fans see "Apollo jism.") Wikipedia says:

Apologism is the metaphysical philosophy that argues that it is wrong for humans to attempt to alter the conditions of life in the mortal sphere of influence. It is opposed to the idea that absolute "progress" is a desirable goal for the pursuit of human endeavors...

Apologism stands solidly in opposition to the metaphysics of meliorism, which states that absolute "progress" is the desirable goal of all human endeavors. Apologism is not to be confused with apologetics.

Oh, I'm sure it all makes sense over at TNR as explained by Jonathan Chait or some other genius. Over here, we will quaff the nectar of the gods and allow the unseemliness to rage on.

Pushing the big liberal mandate meme.

Rejected as a blog topic yesterday: "Barack Won A Mandate: Here's why you shouldn't let anyone tell you differently," by Jonathan Chait. (I know that, at the link, it's called "Defining Barack Down: In which we separate the mandates from the boy-dates," but the other title is what The New Republic successfully teased me with in its "Today at TNR.com" email.) Reason for not blogging it: Text nowhere near as interesting as either title.

Today: "It's Time to Give Voters the Liberalism They Want: Don't believe pundits who say there's a centrist mandate," by Thomas Frank. I'm biting because: 1. It's starting to look like a meme, and 2. Frank's piece feels more substantial.

[It's] possible that, for once, the public weighed the big issues and gave a clear verdict on the great economic questions of the last few decades. It is likely that we really do want universal health care and some measure of wealth-spreading, and even would like to see it become easier to organize a union in the workplace, however misguided such ideas may seem to the nation's institutions of higher carping.

If it's possibly clear, it's not clear. Obama never identified himself with these positions in a way that can be said to have transformed a vote for him into a vote for them. We voted for the man, and he was (and is) a man who built his success on creating the appearance that he is whatever it is we want.

"Liberals are more interested in listening to opposing points of view than are conservatives."

Says Jonathan Chait, interpreting this study and appropriately and humorously checking himself: "I'm going to wallow in smug self-satisfaction for a few minutes, then go over to the Corner to see if anybody has a rebuttal."

"I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother."

Barack Obama gives his big speech in response to the uproar over Jeremiah Wright. Brief excerpts:

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy....

... Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together...

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough....

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man....

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me...

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother...

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up....

Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. [T]he anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

Missing here, I think, is an explicit acknowledgment that Wright is not merely expressing the anger he feels but that he is leading people into anger, keeping anger fresh and alive.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

Again, Obama speaks as if Wright were only expressing his beliefs, and he does not say that Wright was, from his powerful leadership position, instilling these beliefs in many others.

But the key question isn't whether Obama puts Wright down strongly enough. It's what Obama himself is. Would he, as a leader in the most powerful position, instill this destructive thinking in others? That doesn't at all seem to be what he does, and the rest of the speech is largely a demonstration that he does not:

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

He ends the speech with a saccharine anecdote about a decidedly un-angry old black man who tells a young white woman — Ashley — that he's supporting Obama "because of Ashley." Mustard sandwiches were involved. Did that distract you from what he did and didn't do in the speech?

I'd say he did not do very much — other than to resist condemning Wright and to model his socially acceptable attitudes and generate a feeling — I'm sure you didn't all feel it — that we need unite behind this man if the terrible divisions over race are going to end.

ADDED: Andrew Sullivan felt it: "I have never felt more convinced that this man's candidacy - not this man, his candidacy - and what he can bring us to achieve - is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides." And it felt all Christian to him.

Jonathan Chait thinks it worked, but only because Obama is black:

My first reaction is that the speech was extremely smart and intellectually subtle....

He may be liberated to operate at a high intellectual level in public because he's black. I'm not trying to be Gerry Ferraro here; let me explain. Candidates like John Kerry and (even moreso) Al Gore were also very smart, but constantly forced to dumb it down lest they be tagged as out-of-touch elitists. Since the egghead image is so at odds with the prevailing stereotypes about African-Americans, he has much less to fear by speaking at a high intellectual level.

Oh, bullshit. You may not be trying to be Gerry Ferraro here, but the only nonsexual difference between you and Geraldine is that you're for Obama and she's on the other side. And here's a clue: John Kerry is not very smart.

Righty Paul Mirengoff delivers a left-handed compliment:

Although Obama's speech is not without its evasions, I consider it a courageous one by usual political standards. He has refused to walk away from Wright's black liberation theology when it might well have been expedient to do so. The rest of us now should have the courage to take Obama at his word and decide whether it is acceptable to elect as president of the United States someone who carries Rev. Wright around as part of him, and who takes his ranting seriously.

Kathryn Jean Lopez does a pithy paraphrase:

Damn straight, Rev. Wright is angry. That's how I wound up at his church. That's why I stay there. I'm mad too, I just control it better. Now let's get electing me president so we can all feel good.

Of course, that's completely unfair. Even if he can be understood to have said something along the lines of "I'm mad too," he distinguished himself from Wright not in hiding his anger, but in believing we can change the things that cause the anger.

AND: Don't miss Shelby Steele's column in the WSJ (written before today's speech, but on point):

How does one "transcend" race in this church?...

What could he have been thinking? Of course he wasn't thinking. He was driven by insecurity, by a need to "be black" despite his biracial background. And so fellow-traveling with a little race hatred seemed a small price to pay for a more secure racial identity. And anyway, wasn't this hatred more rhetorical than real?...

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

Here's what Steele means by "bargaining":

Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

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ADDED: Michael Weiss at Slate quotes this from me: "I'd say he did not do very much — other than to resist condemning Wright and to model his socially acceptable attitudes and generate a feeling — I'm sure you didn't all feel it — that we need unite behind this man if the terrible divisions over race are going to end." Weiss interprets this to mean that I saw the speech as a failure. But that's not right. I know I wrote "he did not do very much," but that doesn't mean it was a mistake not to do very much. Obama did not condemn Jeremiah Wright. He did not reach for a "Sister Souljah moment." He didn't present himself in a new light. But, in a way — within a narrow band — he did a lot, perhaps too much. It was all very subtle. He tried to be entirely inclusive, reaching out to everyone, and stepping on nobody's toes. He insisted both that we confront race and also that we get past it. There were complex contradictions in what he said, but his smoothly honed language made it possible for us to ignore these difficulties even as we could credit him with taking on an elaborately sophisticated problem. I think he meant to deal with his predicament this way. There's no reason to call that a failure.

AND: Mickey Kaus does a terrific job of identifying many of the contradictions you weren't supposed to notice.

"I'm imagining this 22-year-old guy with his scenario for, you know, marrying Scarlett Johansson."

Jonathan Chait talks to Matthew Yglesias about what it would take for Rudy Giuliani to win the nomination. Video.

Unserious.

I've been looking back over my 2007 archive and putting together some year-end posts as I've done in the past, and I ran across this reference to a crazy Bloggingheads snafu that made me laugh a lot back in February. But I couldn't embed the video back then, and I can now, so let me show it to you. It's Jonathan Chait and Jonah Goldberg, and neither knows that Chait's camera is going into demo mode: