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- Conor Friedersdorf's comparison between Wall Street hucksters whose exotic financial products wrecked the economy and modern conservatives who cynically exploited their adherents has a lot of truth. Conservatives commonly assume that liberals don't "get" the populist rumblings on the right. Not true! It's perfectly clear people are angry. But it's also clear that for every thousand Americans who want our outrageously extravagant foreign-aid spending to be slashed, there's a Dick Armey ready to channel that ignorance into a return to power for Republicans, or at the very least enrich themselves in the process.
- The problem with Founding Father- or Constitution-worship isn't just fealty to textual literalism but reliance on "intent" to fill in the gaps where the sacred text is a little vague. Which isn't to say that there aren't values to be found in the Constitution; it's just that understanding those values in the terms of a messianic American Exceptionalism with a divinely ordained mission is extraordinarily presumptuous.
- "The only people who are making some serious arguments about the relationship between constitutional structures and outcomes are some members of the Tea Party." That's Sandy Levinson, praising the "intellectual acuity" of the tri-cornered hat set -- as opposed to the left, which "seems almost altogether brain-dead in this regard." Well, the loss of "Republican virtue" is lamentable and all, but the real problem isn't "constitutional structures and outcomes"; it's the way government functions now. And the way government functions now is largely extra-constitutional -- filibusters, the imperial presidency, party-line votes, etc. -- all of which have been on the minds of the left for some time now. That's the reason the left regards the Tea Partiers mockingly, at best. Returning to an imaginary constitutional golden age is simply not a serious solution.
- Weekend Remainders: The president's "reimagining" of civil liberties has been the most disappointing thing about his administration; another Blue Dog Democrat we can bid good riddance to; Ben Quayle is doing a heckuva job distancing himself from his father's reputation; the Heritage Foundation actually used the term "peace through strength" to describe a portion of its "Solutions for America"; and Obama's forgotten base.
--Mori Dinauer
