Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

Maybe I'm the only one who does this, but whenever I hear a politician being blatantly disingenuous, it makes me think of this scene from Donny Darko. We're talking the kind of dishonesty that just reeks of insincerity, inauthenticity, or a basic failure to realize how easy it is to fact-check with Google nowadays.

You see, Sparkle Motion is not a terribly profound project (see Appendix A), and there isn't much reason to be committed to it. So when a politician exhibits an insulting disregard for the actual priorities of the nation, it makes me think he's treating citizens' priorities like the mom in the doorway treats Sparkle Motion. Herewith, a roundup of recent insults to the collective intellect of America.

John McCain:
You may know John McCain (R-AZ) as the politician committed to being a maverick outsider, willing to stake himself against unregulated soft money contributions to political campaigns. He even put his name all over the issue by cosponsoring the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law of 2002 that has helped Democrats rediscover their small donor base. His partner in that endeavor, Democrat Russ Feingold, has put his money where his mouth is by voluntarily declining soft money donations. But where he should have put his money, McCain put his foot last week by actively courting the very same soft money donors he used to oppose.

Hillary Clinton:
Clinton (D-NY) is addicted to triangulation. For those who are too young or don't remember, triangulation is the practice of stabbing your allies in the back to make yourself look good. More to the point, it's the worst of squirmy political pandering. For example, triangulation would counsel a politician to support the invasion of Iraq so as to not appear too dovish, but also to not appear too out of touch with reality by acknowledging that the occupation isn't going well; instead, the politician ought to find some ill-defined middle ground from which to scuzzily stand for nothing.

Clinton took a page right out of the triangulation book this weekend in New Hampshire. A primary voter asked her to just say she was wrong about voting for the Iraq war. Instead, she stuck to her script by saying that she was right to do what she did when she did it based on the evidence she had but that she wouldn't do it again knowing what she knows now. Does she even understand how lame that sounds? No one is questioning her hindsight, we just want to know that she understands what it means to just be wrong.

Joe Lieberman
Lieberman (CfL-CT) has proved everyone right who said he was just a selfish jerk out for he, himself, and him. Incidentally, in a hilarious twist, it does not look like Lieberman will be getting the nomination for the Connecticut for Lieberman party's 2012 Senate bid, as some cantankerous malcontent in Fairfield will be holding the party's convention in his rumpus room.

But back to the latest betrayal: Lieberman made a big stink during his campaign about how he was going to hold people's feet to the fire on Katrina accountability. To the surprise of none of his critics, he promptly abandoned that promise in favor of making out with George W. Bush some more (see Appendix B). I could have sworn someone like Lieberman would have been more committed to Sparkle Motion than that.

George W. Bush
I know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes: Bush really did do something disingenuous for once, if you can believe it. Technically, there are some people who still support Bush for some reason. But defend him as much as you like, I don't think anyone serious would argue that Bush is an environmentalist. Which is why it was so hilarious (and insulting) when the Administration tried to claim last week that Bush is really on the ball with climate change science.

This is like the Pope trying to claim he's a Mormon. Are you kidding me? I know you fooled the country going into Iraq, but who do you think is really going to believe Bush has been forthright on climate change science? The Administration's claim was laid out in a letter quoting Bush from 2001 but with a generous dose of ellipses:

"First, we know the surface temperature of the earth is warming ... There is a natural greenhouse effect that contributes to warming ... And the National Academy of Sciences indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity."

Turns out those ellipses are the places where he is saying that humans aren't to blame. Sometimes I doubt his commitment to the environment, honestly. This is like Elaine yada yada'ing sex. Come on, guy. Show us you really care about Sparkle Motion, just once.


Appendix A - Sparkle Motion in Concert



Appendix B - Bush and Lieberman, sitting in a tree

I Gotcha Politics Right Here [gestures]

Have you noticed how people keep using this phrase "play gotcha"? (You may have noticed it here, here, here, here, or here, for example.) Sometimes it's even varied as "gotcha journalism". Using this term is basically a defensive tactic for when you believe your side is not getting a fair shake. For example, you could accuse Tim Russert of playing gotcha when he asks deceptive and irrelevant questions that he knows Howard Dean won't have an answer for. In this sense, it expresses the frustration of being marginalized by someone who isn't playing fair but controls the discourse anyway.

However, there is a much more insidious use of the term. And wouldn't you know it, our old friend Joe Lieberman is at the forefront. Lieberman recently used the term in response to a heckler. Seems this gentleman was disappointed that Lieberman promised so earnestly to investigate the Administration's response to Katrina during his campaign, only to refuse to do anything about once he had won. GOP Joe, I mean 'independent Democrat' Joe, seems to think Congress has no role in placing blame. Quoth the slimeball,

"We don't want to play `gotcha' anymore," Lieberman said. "We want to get the aid and assistance to the people of the region who need it."

Now, no one is here to say that aid and assistance should not go to the people of the region who need it (sic). But decrying gotcha politics when you're Joe Lieberman is like decrying the need to know how the nation was misled into war when you're Tony Snow. The Administration has been pretty consistent in wanting to talk about how we're going to win in Iraq instead of talking about why we're there, which makes sense because they look really bad when the conversation shifts that direction.

Gotcha politics, focusing on the present, looking forward. Whatever you want to call them, these terms all denote the tactics of people who wouldn't look so good if we focused on the past. But, as Josh Eidelson points out, gotcha politics is a pretty good thing for Washington because of one simple virtue: accountability.

If no one ever played gotcha politics, no one would ever be calling anyone on their mistakes. Entrenched beltway insiders like Lieberman would be free to make mistakes all the time, constantly undermine the fellow members of their party, and generally behave in the most selfish ways possible without ever having to answer for it. W would be within reason when he asks us to trust him on Iraq. I hope I don't need to flesh out this nightmare scenario any further.

This is where politics starts to seem like a mutual fund. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, we are constantly told. And while technically that is true, it's also pretty much the only thing we have to go on when choosing mutual funds, unless we have inside (and idiosyncratic) information on how some of the stocks in the fund will be performing. So, Joe and George, I'd love to not bother assigning blame, but you guys just keep screwing up. I personally don't have any reason to think your future results will differ greatly from your past performance.

I agree that it would be nice not to have to play gotcha politics all the time, but the solution to the problem is to stop people from screwing up. Running around whining about how much we dislike it is a deceptive, ad hominem, disingenuous tactic that ends up hurting productive political discourse more than it helps. Therefore, here here for gotcha politics.