Zod in 2008

Finally, a presidential candidate we can get behind ... or else! Check it out.

Bush vs. Reagan

Taegan Goddard's PoliticalWire today highlights a poll of likely Iowa caucus voters about the presidential candidates. But I was fascinated by a batch of questions and answers that had nothing to do (or maybe everything to do) with the 2008 elections. Here are the questions and the results (from 600 likely Republican caucus voters):

2. Do you see President George W. Bush as a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan? (Republicans Only)

Yes 7%

No 74%

Undecided 19%

3. How important is it for the Republican presidential candidate to be a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan: very important, somewhat important, not very important, not important, or undecided? (Republicans Only)

Very Important 51%

Somewhat Important 16%

Not Very Important 6%

Not Important 14%

Undecided 13%

Ronald Reagan is the closest thing to a Saint the modern GOP has, and so he's held up as the standard against which everyone else is measured. In this survey, 67% believe it's important to a GOP presidential candidate to be like Reagan. So, it's bad news for Bush that 74% of Republicans do not think Bush is a true Reaganaut.

Allow me, however, to offer a contrarian view, damning Bush with faint praise. I think Bush is more of a Reaganaut (Reaganut?) than Reagan was. Reagan described the USA as a "city on a hill," shining the beacon of liberty and democracy on the rest of the world, but Bush has been more aggressive in meddling in other countries' business in the name of democracy. (Of course, the old hypocrisies still assert themselves: we condemn and harass Hugo Chavez, who for all his faults -- and there are many -- is apparently freely-elected and popular, and can barely manage a "tsk, tsk" at Pakistani military dictator Pervez Musharraf.)

Reagan rattled his saber relentlessly against the Red Menace -- and invaded Grenada. Bush followed through on his promise to strangle terrorism in its crib -- then missed it by a couple countries when he invaded Iraq. Reagan's tax cuts for the rich, justified by what one observer called "voodoo economics," were dwarfed by Bush's, as has the consequent damage to the budget and the balance of payments been dwarfed by the trillion dollar debt we've amassed in six years.

Reagan ran in 1980 as an ideologue, but governed in a more moderate fashion. Bush, whose 2000 campaign was notable for its "compassionate conservatism" and rejection of nation-building and international adventurism, ran as a moderate but has been the most ideological president of modern times (perhaps ever).

When GOPers sign their hosannas to Saint Ronald, are they admiring his hard-right ideological campaigning or his center-right pragmatic governing?

Brother Martin McMurtrey, 1921-2007

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings

-- Shakespeare, Richard II

Brother Martin McMurtrey, S.M. died on Friday, November 9, in, as they say, "the 87th year of his life and the 69th year of his religious profession." I have always loved the solemn dignity of that formulation, and its elegance is very appropriate to "Brother Mac's" life.

The San Antonio Express-News did a nice article about him, but it barely scratched the surface of his impact on a whole generation of students. A fuller obituary is attached below, but it also fails to capture what a great spirit he was.

I love Martin McMurtrey. He was my English teacher my sophomore year at Central Catholic High School in San Antonio, where he taught for almost 50 years. In 1970, he pulled me and, I think, six other guys out of our usual English classes so that we could work with him on a special project -- writing an analysis of poverty in San Antonio and what we could do about it. It was one of the transforming experiences of my young life.

We met every day and did research, studying all kinds of reports and government documents. Gleaning the information from libraries, the city and the federal government was a huge learning experience. I remember how shocked I was to discover that San Antonio was the poorest major city in the United States (and, for all I know, still is). We wrote what I am sure is a very forgettable report -- but the experience of writing it still remains with and shapes me to this day.

But Brother Mac was not content to let that be the extent of our immersion in the learning process. He took all of us with him to St. Agnes Parish every week, where we taught religious education classes to impoverished schoolchildren. Like our report, I am sure the CCD lessons I taught were forgettable -- but McMurtrey's commitment to the poor and the eye-opening difference between my life and those kids' made a huge impression on me, then and now.

For fifty years, Martin McMurtrey was that kind of teacher and mentor, a transformational figure in the lives of thousands of future leaders.

Sometime in the early 1990s, I was talking to Jan Jarboe Russell, who followed a stint as a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News with a writing gig at Texas Monthly and a terrific book on Lady Bird Johnson. I was then working for Governor Ann Richards, but Jan and I had known each other since I was an organizer for COPS and MCA, two powerfully effective community organizations in San Antonio.

We were talking about growing up in San Antonio and she asked me about significant influences. I mentioned Brother Mac and how he'd broadened my worldview and sharpened my sense of social justice. She told me that, in previous conversations with both Henry Cisneros and Ernie Cortes (the founder of COPS and one of the most influential community organizers of the last half-century), they'd both mentioned Brother Mac as well.

It'd be a great story to talk with all the people whose lives he transformed.

The Difference Between the House and Senate, Part 387

Rummaging around on some other blogs brought me to the website of the Texas Heritage Alliance, a right-wing political organization masquerading as patriotic Christians. The Texas Heritage Alliance is the new nom de guerre of the Free Market Foundation and its affiliated FreePAC.

FreePAC had its fifteen minutes of infamy when, in 2002, is sent out a series of factually inaccurate, hateful mailers trying to sabotage the re-election chances of Republican elected officials like state Senators Bill Ratliff and Jeff Wentworth and state Representatives Brian McCall and (now Senator) Kip Averitt. Wentworth's mailer accused him of being "extremely liberal" because he'd voted for the hate-crimes legislation and was a supporter of gay rights. Wentworth, who voted against a hate crimes bill in 2001 and later authored the Defense of Marriage Act in 2003, was understandably outraged. After all, he may be a parking scofflaw, but he's no milquetoast liberal.

Wentworth, Ratliff and the others condemned FreePAC and its hateful tactics -- Ratliff called their mailers "political pornography" -- and the uproar forced FreePAC to go underground for a while. The discredited organization resurfaced as the Heritage Alliance, explained founder Richard Ford, "to signify a unified effort of economic and social conservatives passing those values onto future generations."

Anyway, the Heritage Alliance has a Legislators' Scorecard on its website, ranking all 150 House members and 31 Senators according to their votes on conservative issues like supporting Tom Craddick for Speaker (RV1) and placing "In God We Trust" above the dais in the House Chamber (RV16). In all, there are 67 House votes and 53 Senate votes analyzed to produce a ranking.

I think it's interesting that the Senators' scores are more clustered than the House members'. While House scores range from a low of 3 (Paul Moreno) to a high of 96 (Jodie Laubenberg), the Senate scores range only from a low of 40 (Eliot Shapleigh) to a high of 79 (Robert Nichols). In other words, the Senate is less extreme in the swing of its members' views than the House.

Interesting question: why are four of the five most conservative members of the House (Laubenberg, Brown, Crabb, Harper-Brown, and Riddle) women?

Cat Got Your Tongue?

If you're like me, you love lively, robust political discourse. And what's modern American political discourse without the occasional ad hominem attack? In fact, longtime political combatants come to enjoy a little name-calling in the service of their patriotism and worldview. Bob Novak, for example, liked being called "the Prince of Darkness" so much that he gave that title to his autobiography. He probably didn't like the title Jon Stewart bestowed on him -- Douchebag of Liberty -- as much.

In any case, sometimes words fail me when, in the heat of battle, I try to rip off a good insult. Thanks goodness there's the Conservative Insult Generator, guaranteed to help you put together a snarky little comment in no time flat. Try it, it's fun!

For the more conservative connoisseur, there's the Liberal Insult Generator too. Act now and get both in time for Thanksgiving! What a wonderful way to liven up those boring Thanksgiving dinner conversations.

Ron Paul and Guy Fawkes

It's fun to watch Ron Paul's supporters act as if the $4.3 million dollars he raised IN ONE DAY makes him a serious presidential candidate. Raising that much money, period, much less in one day, is a very impressive accomplishment, but Ron Paul is still a fringe candidate, and no amount of money is going to make him a serious one.

What's interesting about the $4.3 million is the energy behind which it was raised. Although Paul's campaign played along, the drive was organized by outsiders, led by Trevor Lyman, a music promoter and Paul enthuiast who created a web site, www.thisNovember5th.com. It was Lyman's idea to tie the fundraising effort into Guy Fawkes Day, celebrated every November 5th in England.

Fawkes, a mercenary who participated in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate King James I by blowing up the Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605, is the model for the protagonist in the graphic novel and movie "V for Vendetta." Using clips from the movie and the English schoolyard refrain "Remember, remember the 5th of November," Lyman's Web site spread the word.

So Ron Paul is tapping into the anti-government, throw-the-bums-out mood of many disaffected Americans. Whether they show up to vote or not is a live question -- remember, these are much the same people that Kinky Friedman was counting on to make him Governor of Texas -- but even if they do, Paul has gotten to broaden his message and appeal quite a bit to be taken seriously by the voters.

Molly Ivins on W in 2000

I has the pleasure of attending the tribute to Molly Ivins at the Texas Book Festival last weekend. It was nice, as tributes go, but neither as rollicking or profane as Molly would have preferred, possibly because it was held in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church. Needless to say, there was almost no alcohol consumed at the tribute, which begs the question of whether it was really a tribute at all. Scholz's Biergarten always was, and always will be, a more appropriate venue for celebrating the rich melange of humor, insight and passion that was Molly's take on Texas and national politics.

In any case, ruminating on Molly led me to the Time Magazine Man of the Year issue for 2000. The honoree was none other than George W. Bush -- a distinction I'm sure they'd like to get back. He may get an award 90-some years for now for Fuck-Up of the Century.

The Time magazine coverage includes an essay by Molly which good-heartedly proposes that we should give W a break and wish him well as he begins his presidency. Says Miz Molly, echoing what many of us believed at the time:

I frankly don't expect much from him; neither do you; and that's the best thing he has going for him. If he so much as clears a matchbox, we'll all fall back in wonder. Think how pleasantly surprised we're going to be when we discover George W. is, as he has been all his life, sort of adequate. Not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but he'll do.

This was the Conventional Wisdom at the time: W would be an OK President, just as he'd been as OK Governor -- certainly not a visionary, not particularly attuned to the daily lives of Texans or the nuances of policy, but not a clueless Neanderthal like Bill Clements. In short, he'd be like his Dad -- someone we'd have fond memories of, if we could remember him at all.

Of course, Bush turned out to be one of the most momentous Presidents of our times, for better or worse. I frankly thinks it's for worse, but I'll let history be the judge of that.

Molly must be laughing as she thinks about how W suckered all of us and our bigotry of low expectations.