saletan on the dem debates

new saletan on the dem debates

i know we're all probably sick of the post-debate hair-pulling that's gone on around here, but i want to give it another go.

i'm not sure what i think of saletan's work on the whole...i don't often read slate.

his observations on candidates dean, kerry, clark, lieberman, and edwards (their performances last night) are interesting.

read the article and comment away....my thoughts are below.

dean

He wants to repeal all of Bush's tax cuts; Kerry wants to keep the parts that benefit the middle class. I've seen them spar over this several times, and it's increasingly clear that Dean's position is indefensible and a huge albatross in the general election.

Part of the problem is that the average middle-class person's share of the tax cuts, while low, isn't zero..... But the biggest problem is Dean's stated reason for repealing that middle-class portion: that he has to do so in order to balance the budget. If the amount of money involved is so small that you don't need it as a taxpayer, why is it so big that Dean needs it as president?

i think that's a fair point. the arguement, as kerry has framed it, is a no-win for dean.

so what should he do? 1) he could insist on "fiscal responsibility" (that's good), but ALSO insist that everyone - even those that have benefited the least by bush's policies - take a hit. 2) he could insist that the tax cuts be repealed, and put forth a comprehensive tax reform package - and fast - that includes middle/low-income tax relief. 3) or he could stick to the script he followed when he bagan calling for the repeal: we need the money to pay for health care for every american.

i think options 2 and 3 are best. if he choses 2 he may even want to crib an old gephardt proposal - a progressive flat tax system (i think gep put it out there in '96).

kerry

When Lieberman chided him for voting against the $87 billion appropriation for Iraq, Kerry shot back, "Well, Joe, I have seared in me an experience which you don't have, and that's the experience of being one of those troops on the front lines when the policy has gone wrong." The audience applauded loudly. Kerry went on to give several reasons why his vote was a better way to "protect the troops," but what made these reasons credible was the battlefield experience Kerry had invoked.

wow, i thought the vietnam stuff was truly puke-worthy. that's the kind of "my dick's bigger than yours" shit that grinds me. what i kept thinking as he rambled on was "why did you allow a failed policy to take shape - knowing full well the consequences for 'troops on the front lines'?"

john kerry's courage, and the wisdom he claims to have becasue of his experience in vietnam, did not serve him well during the vote for the war.

clark

On the other hand, Clark looks less honest all the time.... Has Clark not read the transcripts of his appearances on CNN? Or does he think nobody else has?

Clark compounded this insult to our intelligence by joking that he gives credit where it's due--"even Republicans doing something right." Does Clark think if he bashes Republicans hard enough, we'll forget he voted for them and praised them two years ago?

word. 'nuf said

lieberman

i don't like him as a candidate (or a senator for that matter). i won't vote for him in the primaries. and i don't really agree with saletan's appraisal of his performance ("muscular integrity"? how about delusional self-righteousness?). but i've become more appreciative of his presence in the race. he serves as a foil to my candidate on a few issues - i like that. and he seems to at least try to have a sense of humor about himself. my feelings might be less accomodating if he had a chance.

edwards

Edwards' boast Sunday night that he's "written down" his plans.... What's his point? That he's literate? That promises are more solemn when they're on paper? That writing down your ideas makes them more specific?

if edwards' strategy rests on winning the votes of people who would be impressed by "writin' thangs down", he is not in good shape. those folks are already committed to bush anyway....

more likely, he's got a jackass for a speech writer. come on john, we all know you can do better than that.

•  Re: saletan on the dem debates

  Saletan, though he has already admitted he's a dean supporter, omitted a crucial part of Dean's "the middle-class didn't get a tax cut" argument. Dean says that the tax cuts were, by and large, offset by tax increases in many states and muicipalities.

  I was impressed when I first read Saletan, but lately I've come to think that he's a one-trick pony: he hones in on points of logic but seems to lack a deeper understanding of issues. To Saletan, writing about politics is like judging a mock trial competition. Kinsley has a similar style, but without the vapidity.

  by praktike on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 04:43:21 PM PDT

  •  Re: saletan on the dem debates

    This is exactly right on Saletan. I too thought he was pretty smart and interesting way back when, but the more one reads him the more his ruthless-logic pose comes to seem like a reflexive shtick that more often than not misses the big picture.

    And this piece seems pretty par for the course. His attempts to read major interpretive significance into little rhetorical details of various candidates' speeches are largely boneheaded. His cracks on Edwards' "I wrote it down" theme are way overdrawn. One could certainly say that it's a fairly weak rhetorical device, but it misses what Edwards was trying to communicate to the people who are just tuning into the race who claim (as seen on that C-Span focus group thing last week) to want to see someone with a "plan." He was trying to tell them--clumsily, I'd agree--that he has such a plan that they could check out if they wanted.

    And his stuff on Clark is particularly silly. Clark's comment on not getting out of the service had nothing to do with Kerry--he was talking generally about the hit the military took in the post-Vietnam era but which he chose to stick out. And Saletan also misses the whole point of Clark's rather crafty comments about praising even Republicans when they do something right. It remains to be seen whether it will turn out to be a successful strategy, but a big part of Clark's campaign is obviously that he can supposedly appeal to centrist Republicans as well as Dems, which--in a nation still basically divided 50/50--is where the battle is going to be fought. As I say, we might have different opinions about whether that's the kind of candidate the Dem base wants, but it's obviously foolish to not recognize that, if and when the general election rolls around, it would be a positive advantage to Clark to be able to say that he can rise above partisan politics and reach out to middle-ground Repubs? Instead, Saletan focuses on the "gotcha" game, thinking it makes him look sooo smart and clever. Instead he'll end up looking like a dolt when all his close-reading cleverness proves exactly wrong (remember, this is the guy who claimed "Bush is toast" during the 2000 campaign).

    And Saletan's reading of the egregiously uninspiring and underhanded Lieberman as embodying "muscular integrity" (as noted above) merely demonstrates Saletan's residence in an alternate reality from the rest of us.

    Saletan always chooses snark over serious analysis. He's part of the problem with the contemporary press--obsessing over petty rhetorical inconsistencies and claiming to see in such "flip-flops" some kind of major moral or intellectual failing (remember Gore and the internet or James Lee Witt?), while unable, or choosing not to see the obvious, glaring serious lies (WMDs, Iraq/9-11, Plame etc) that are staring them in the face. That's how all these debates are structured--they're just extended attempts to find instances of supposed hypocrisy in the candidates--which is why they're so useless. And, it should also be said, pretty insignificant until the actual primaries.

    by WendellGee on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 07:23:55 PM PDT

    •  Re: saletan on the dem debates

      ditto.

      I forgot to add that saletan, though his title is "political correspondent," does zero actual reporting. He appears to have no sources whatsoever.

      by praktike on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 09:13:58 PM PDT

  •  Re: saletan on the dem debates

    Praktike's right.

    Saleton shamelessly omitted where Dean pointed out that most Americans are paying higher property and state taxes as a result.  That's not a tax break at all!

    Saleton did point out that Dean said the tax break was very small, but the other half of the argument is that TOTAL taxes went up.

    I think that's the winning answer, because if your property taxes went up more than $300--and it did for most homeowners--there was no tax "relief" at all.  

    Howard should start calling it what it is:  sticking it to the little guy.

    by Manhattan Dan on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 09:14:24 PM PDT

•  I thought Clark did well

  He praised the Republicans for Afghanistan at first and then opposed that they didn't keep troops there. He said the administration did a good job at persuing the offensive in Iraq but didn't know what to do afterward. Thats been consistant with what he's said since he's been a comentator.

  by Carl Ballard on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 05:23:36 PM PDT

•  Re: saletan on the dem debates

  I am a big Dean supporter and I am afraid he's going to get slaughtered on this tax cut non-sense.

  He is right that most every middle class family got hurt by service cuts, increased property taxes, and lousy schools because of Bush's tax cut. But as long as that 40,000/2 kids "sweet spot" exists, Dean is going to get railroaded on this in the general election (why the F did the Democrats add the lower income tax breaks? They could've campaigned from here to kingdom come about the unfair Bush tax cuts if they hadn't done that!)

  I recommend a proposal for tax simplification ("Scrap the whole thing") with closing loopholes and increasing the tax burden on corporations. If you listen to his economic policy speech, Dean does suggest this, but it is not clear enough. He needs to get this plan out there with a "tax cut" calculator showing people what they save under the Dean plan. He needs this out there YESTERDAY.

  The other option I would like to see is a re-jiggering of the payroll tax. Robert Reich proposed exempting the first $10,000-20,000 while removing the income cap. This would benefit everyone (TAX CUT) making under $97,000-$107,000 (the current cap is $87,000 I believe) and it is easy for people to see that those making above that should pay their fair share. This also helps social security solvency.

  New Patriot - It's time for a new patriotism || DFLers.org

  by LFinMN on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 05:52:59 PM PDT

•  Re: saletan on the dem debates

  The problem with the tax cut issue is that the Dems have taken it up as a tax cut issue.  They would be better off addressing it as an issue of the public sector and then demonstrating how everyone (even rich folk) but especially the middle class benefit from a healthy public sector.  After that has been established then they can begin to discuss the particulars of tax policy, tax cuts and fiscal "responsibility".  

  Otherwise Dems, no matter what position they take, lose, since its not really a question of tax cuts or no tax cuts, tax cuts or whose tax cuts, its a question of public sector, modern industrial society, or no public sector, backward economically polarized banana republic society.  

  The mistake we all make is to assume that the mark of a "developed" society is the measure of its wealth.  That's not the case.  The mark of a "developed" society is the breadth and health of its public sector.  Even the most "backward" or underdeveloped of societies have wealth.  What makes a society "under developed" isn't so much its lack of wealth as it is its lack of a  structure to facillitate maintenance of social functions and sustenance and reproduction of the society.  

  The Democratic party long ago abandoned this understanding of politics and became far too enamoured in the accounting business.  

  by a gilas girl on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 07:10:37 PM PDT

•  Hmm...

  I don't know what Dean is thinking.  He definately didn't come across well in the debate on that tax cut thing.  If he is insisting that people didn't receive a tax cut because taxes went up at the local level, he should make that point more clearly.

  As far as Clark.  I'd love to see those CNN transcripts.  As a military commentator at the time, Clark was commenting on the effectiveness of the US troops doing their mission.  As such, he rightfully praised them, as they did a fine job.

  The failure was with the strategy, which has been Clark's point since day one.  To claim that he was for this war would be terribly deceitful, as he gave testimony before the Congress in September of 2002 advising that this war would be a really really really bad idea.

  http://armedservices.house.gov/openingstatementsandpressreleases/107thcongress/02-09-26clark.html

  I'd love for anyone to show me a quote from Clark showing that he supported this war in Iraq.  This nonsense that to show your opposition to war you must attack soldiers is a holdover from Vietnam that needs to be lost.  This party has got to start treating the military with respect it deserves.

  I do worry about the tax cut issue in general for 2004.  That's how Mondale lost in 1984, but I also think 2004 is a watershed realization that taxes can be too low.  Democrats just need to be careful not to overextend the point.

  by sodablue on Mon Oct 27, 2003 at 08:14:16 PM PDT