GOP HAS NO SENSE OF DIRECTION

"If the public puts us in the majority, they're saying that they want us to go forward." Thus spoketh Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy of California.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!

If the Republicans do gain a majority in the House (and possibly the Senate) next Tuesday, the direction is backwards. "Backwards" is the promise the GOP, along with the Tea Party, has made for the past two years. They are committed, at least rhetorically, to unspecified reduced spending, repealing or gutting health care reform, and less government in areas such as regulation of the financial industry, the chief culprit for the current deep recession. With these policy promises, along with a host of other anti-change positions such as anti-immigration reform, it is difficult to see how McCarthy and his fellow right wing promisers can claim that a GOP/Tea Party victory is anything but regressive. About the only policy they seem determined at least to continue is President George W. Bush's tax cuts for upper income earners.

But the comforting and reassuring thought is that we are a country that seldom makes great leaps forward or backward in public policy. The fundamental pattern of policy making in this country is to legislate a policy base and then expand it bit by bit over time--incrementalism. Or, if it can be done, shrink it slowly--decrementalism. There have been a few windows of opportunity for what can be called great leaps forward, such as the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt in the mid-1930s, and the civil rights/Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s. In both cases, these quantum leaps in policy were possible because the political stars were in the correct alignment. That is, a progressive Democratic President and very large majorities of like-minded Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate. Republicans have not had a similar alignment since the l920s and that was not progressive, nor have there been serious efforts by Republicans to undo the major pieces of our social policy.

Despite the nostalgia some still have for the conservative era of Reaganism when there were some budget cuts and deregulation, there was no repeal or gutting of the New Deal or the social policies of President Johnson. Perhaps the closest we have seen to a presidentially led effort to make a major overhaul of social policy was W. Bush's failed attempt to overhaul social security by privatizing a share of tax payments and putting the money into the hands of Wall Street. What we did get from Reagan and W. Bush was a great leap upward in the national debt because of their upper income/business-biased tax cuts, accompanied by huge increases in defense spending to fight the Cold War and launch hot wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The key point is that great policy leaps in either direction require that a President and Congress be in alignment on the direction in which they want to go, and the Congress must have very large majorities to make it happen. Happily, neither will be the case for the next two years. President Obama with his veto power will still be in office and whatever the size of a GOP majority in either chamber, that majority will be too small to even get such direction-changing legislation to the President's desk. And it is not even certain that, despite their loud promises, they will even achieve small steps backwards over the next two years.

All of this makes it even more certain that the real GOP congressional strategy is not the achievement of change, but to continue the "Party of No" strategy of the current Congress. That is, the only real change they will be seeking is a change of President in 2012, supporting that goal by thwarting any new or renewed efforts by Obama to deal progressively with our economic/jobs problems. So McCarthy, speak not of the way forward, your real direction is backward. Likewise for the rest of the GOP and its Tea Party adherents.

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P.S. I don't want it thought that I just have knee jerk reaction against anything a Republican says. I am in complete agreement with , of all people, Karl Rove in his latest assessment of Sarah Palin as a possible President. In an interview with a British newspaper, Rove expressed doubt that Palin had the "gravitas" to be President. "There are high standards that the American people have for it (the presidency) and they require a certain level of gravitas, and they want to look at a candidate and say 'that candidate is doing things that gives me more confidence that they are up to the most demanding job in the world'."

Can't disagree with that when it comes to non-gravitas Palin.

CAMPAIGN SPENDING: A PERSONAL STORY

I went to the poll yesterday to cast my early vote. It was actually an exercise in futility since I live in a House district which has been solidly Republican for years. At the state level we are electing a governor and the polls show a double digit lead for the Republican. The current governor is a Democrat but his good standing with the voters apparently isn't transferable in this basically red state. So about the only return on my going out in the rain to vote was that I have exercised my responsibility as a citizen and thereby contributed to saving our democratic system. But there was no sense of political efficacy as touted in political science textbooks; no feeling that my vote can make a difference.

As I drove into the polling place, I expected to see some jumpers and screamers dressed in Paul Revere or Statue of Liberty costumes, but maybe they won't show up until the official election day. There were many, many signs, mostly for local candidates for mayor and council. The most stand out sign was actually a small, nonpartisan black and white one that said, "VOTE THE INCUMBENTS OUT." While waiting in the voting line I did overhear a bit of a conversation between two men about making their choice for the vacant House seat. One said he didn't know much about the candidates, but that didn't seem to matter. "I just want to get rid of Pelosi." The other agreed.

Acquiring political information about candidates and policy issues requires a personal investment of time and effort, even if it only means reading the daily newspaper on a reasonably regular basis. That's a minimum investment. At the local level, don't expect much information via television where political information comes mostly and often negatively from a candidate's paid advertising. The most used term by both sides in this election seems to be "extreme" -- "extreme right" or "extreme liberal". I have used "extreme right" myself in a number of posts.

Turning to another aspect of these elections, and something that led me to a personal recall, is campaign spending. Much has been written and said about the obscene amounts of money that have been pouring into this year's elections. On one side the focus has been on the huge sums being given by unidentified sources to organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads in which Karl Rove is heavily involved. In turn, the GOP side points to the big money being spent by labor unions to support their candidates either directly or through get-out-the-vote drives. In discussion of campaign spending there has also been considerable talk about the huge amounts some candidates are spending to get themselves elected. The leader in this area seems to be Meg Whitman, Republican, who has spent $140 million of her own money in an effort to get elected governor of California. And in just one House district in Minnesota, Michelle Bachman, founder of the Tea Party caucus in the U.S. House, has a war chest of over $5 million for her campaign. This "big money" issue brings me to my own experience with big bucks and campaign spending.

I cast my first vote in the l956 presidential election when President Eisenhower was seeking his second term, challenged for the second time by former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson. I lived in a city of about 60,000 people in southeast Pennsylvania. The city was solidly Republican and I lived in an equally Republican ward. At the time I was a college student in Washington, D.C.

I didn't know much about campaign financing at the time but the part I was familiar with was that election spending included giving cash directly to the voter as he or she exited the polling place. Ward leaders from both parties knew or thought they knew who their supporters were. So when you got about 25 or 30 feet away from the actual polling booth, there was a Democratic ward leader on one side of the hall, a Republican on the other. As you passed by one or the other, being careful to stay on the proper partisan side, you were surreptitiously slipped some cash. At the time, at least in our ward, the going rate was $3 per voter. Because my ward leader knew I had to drive up from Washington to vote, I was given $5. Now if a $2 difference seems kind of cheap for driving so far, remember I was a college student and $5 was a fair amount of money to a student in l956. Besides, gasoline at that time cost only about 25 cents a gallon and if there was a price war, which occurred frequently, the price would be about 19 cents. So that was my first exposure to campaign spending (and receiving).

So, while having a sense of a wasted vote yesterday, I did have a compensating warm feeling in recalling the time when as the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." I didn't view my l956 vote as a choice between saving or dooming the Republic, I was in it for the big bucks.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO OR FROM TEHRAN?

It is difficult to find a story recently about the Middle East , including Afghanistan, that does not feature Iran or its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The most recent was the visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Tehran. A few days before that it was Iraq's interim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki who made the pilgrimmage. It was also big news when Ahmadinejad sent a representative to Rome to attend an international meeting, including the United States, on the political and military situation in Afghanistan. A week earlier the Mideast news highlighted the state visit of the Iranian President to Lebanon where the featured part of the trip were the meetings with leaders of Hezbollah, one of Israel's leading adversaries. And earlier this month, Ahmadinejad met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Tehran where Assad expressed dim hopes for success of the Israeli-Palestinian so-called peace process. Finally, just two weeks before that the Iranian President travelled to Damascus where the two Presidents discussed a variety of mutual interests. During the visit, Assad was awarded Iran's highest medal for support of the Palestinians and Hezbollah. (It must be noted, however, that Iran and Syria, both supporters of Hezbollah in Lebanon, are competitors for influence in Iraq. And while Assad and Ahmadinejad exchanged visits, the nomination of a new U.S. ambassador to Syria has been stalled in the Senate; our ambassador was withdrawn in 2005 because of Syria's implication in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri.)

Not much if anything of this could be considered good news for the United States. The Karzai visit to Tehran was concluded, according to The New York Times (NYT) with one of the Afghan President's closest advisers being given a sack of Euros at the time of the plane's departure to be used for advancing Iranian interests and against American/NATO interests within the Afghan government. Put another way, a sack of bribe money, some of which is likely to find its way into the bank account of the advisor.

The sack of money is likely to further complicate President Obama's statement in early August (see previous post) in which he said that discussions with Iran on Afghanistan issues was a "separate track" from our confrontation with Ahmadinejad over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Thus Iran's participatiion in the Rome meeting. There has been evidence for some time that Iran was aiding Afghan insurgents in a variety of ways to thwart American/NATO war efforts. And our trust in Karzai has been minimal, to say the most, because of conflict on several issues, not the least of which is the massive corruption within Karzai's government. The NYT report on the bribe money, which apparently was not a first-time occurrence, only adds to the wide recognition of the corruption in Kabul. But the public disclosure of the large amounts of Iranian money also makes it more awkward to pursue the "separate track" policy which already has its share of opponents in Washington. The "separate track" seems to have multiple side tracks, each requiring its own attention before Iran can be fully accredited as a negotiating partner for broader talks on Afghanistan's future.

That brings us to the Baghdad-Tehran road-well-traveled. The al-Maliki visit, not his first, was to gain further Iranian backing for an Iraqi political settlement to the almost 8-month old impasse in forming a new government following the early March parliamentary elections. (It should be noted that al-Maliki's most recent visit to Tehran was part of a regional trip with scheduled stops in Jordan and Egypt.) Much to the consternation of the United States, al-Maliki scored a significant coup a few weeks ago when he gained the support of the very anti-American Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr who is currently living in self-imposed exile in Iran.

Al-Sadr's willingness to join an al-Maliki coalition, on unknown terms, is viewed in Washington as a major access point for Iran to further grow its already significant influence in Iraqi affairs. That potential coalition has forced Washington to reverse its policy on a new government. The United States had been trying to hasten al-Maliki in to a coalition that would, among other things, include more Sunni representation. With the new linkage between al-Maliki and al-Sadr, Washington took a 180 turn and is now asking al-Maliki to slow down the formation of such a coalition in hope of reducing or eliminating any al-Sadr role.

In sum, Tehran, meaning Ahmadinejad right now, has become a hub for a complex array of major Middle East issues, none of which seems to be working out for U.S. policy, at least at this point. However, as said in previous posts, our political and military polices in the region, some decades old and some more recent, have contributed significantly to the empowerment of Iran in the region. Obama's efforts to undo or modify these policies is a slow, grinding process, with opponents both at home and abroad and with no certainty, or maybe even probability, of success.

MORE ON ANTI-MUSLIM RHETORIC

I didn't expect to return to the anti-Muslim issue so soon (see previous post) but the beat goes on.

The most recent headline news was the firing of National Public Radio (NPR) analyst Juan Williams. He was fired for his statement on a Fox News program that he gets nervous when he sees people wearing Muslim clothing on a plane, once again giving support to those who equate being a Muslim with being a terrorist. The reason for his firing was that he was contracted by NPR as an analyst, not to give his personal opinion on issues via the media. He was quickly hired by Fox to a multi-year contract.

The real and broader point of the Williams firing, stripped of the "analyst" vs. "opinion" terminology, was the further example it gave of anti-Muslim stereotyping that occurs more than we like to think or acknowledge. In this case, stereotyping emerged in a very public way. It was not unlike the "racial profiling" issue that broke out earlier this year when the state of Arizona passed a law to have its own enforcement procedure against undocumented residents, in this case Hispanics. In the Arizona case, the core parts of the state law were nullified by a federal court judge who ruled that Arizona had overstepped its authority by intruding into federal jurisdiction over immigration matters.

But something far less public nationally than the Williams firing is a case argued in a local court in Murfreesboro, Tennesssee. This involved the proposed plan of a local Islamic Center to build a new mosque to replace the existing one in an industrial building wedged between a pipeline company and a warehouse. The proposed construction site hit the news a few weeks ago when some construction equipment was set on fire. The case at issue this week is an effort by opponents of the mosque to block the construction on the grounds that the public was not properly notified about the meeting when the construction plans were considered. But what broke out at the court hearing took the anti-Muslim rhetoric found around the country to a new level of stupidity (or pretended stupidity) and bigotry.

The lawyer for the opponents sought, according to the Associated Press, to prove that Islam is not a real religion, but rather a militant movement trying to impose an Islamic code of moral law on the United States. The charge that Islam was not a religion was made despite a filing made by the U.S. attorney that Islam is indeed a recognized religion and as such it is protected under the Constitution. At one point the attorney for the opponents went on to accuse one member of the Islamic Center's board of calling for a religious jihad as shown by a phrase over the board member's front door. The phrase was "Allahu Akbar" which means "God is Great".

The next day a local resident opposing the mosque said, according to the news report, that "she was convinced that Muslims want to overthrow the U.S. government." When asked under cross examination whether there should be no mosques in the country, she responded, "That would be wonderful".

With such displays of legal ignorance and such evidence of an anti-Muslim attitude by a local resident, it is hardly any wonder that there is fertile ground for anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic rhetoric among some political candidates and talk show cheerleaders such as Bill O'Reilly on whose show Williams made his stereotyping statement. O'Reilly himself was involved in a recent controversy over his anti-Muslim remarks on a non-Fox talk show.

It is uncertain where all of this might lead to in terms of converting such stupidity and toxic rhetoric into public policy at the national, state, or local levels, but it does seem evident that equating the Islamic religion with terrorism will extend the anti-Muslim poison further into our body politics and cause us continued problems at home and abroad.

"CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS"

Last week a comment by Carole on the post "Tea Party Enters Export Market" referred to a "clash of civilizations" as the underlying dynamic for anti-Islamic attitudes in Britain and the United States. This was followed almost immediately by German's Chancellor Angela Merkel calling multiculturalism in her country a "total failure". I was struck by the seamless connection between the two comments.

There's an old story that goes something like this. A group of blind persons were asked to feel and describe an elephant. To keep the story short, one felt the leg and described the elephant as being like a pillar. The second one grabbed the tail and said the elephant was like a rope, etc. for the rest of the group. How they described the elephant depended on where they felt it. In this sense, both Carole's "clash" and Merkel's "multiculturalism" were describing the same thing at two different levels, both of which are inextricably parts of a core problem in the world today.

The "clash of civilization" term was, according to Wikipedia, first used in l990 by historian Bernard Lewis in a magazine article entitled, "The Roots of Muslim Rage", in which he wrote about the growing struggle between East and West. The term eventually became the central thesis of a book by Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington who said that cultural and religious identities would replace the ideological and economic differences of the Cold War as the root cause of world conflict. Huntington asserted that there were seven civilizations in the world that could be the source of such a clash. Western civilization was one, Islam another.

From what we have been experiencing the Western and Islamic cultural and religious identities have become the basis of the current world conflict and are likely to remain so well into the future. The most manifest form of this conflict has been the multitude of attacks by Muslim terrorists in countries such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Spain, Britain, and the United States. In Indonesia, a Muslim country, the attack was on a night club popular with western tourists. In the multiple bombings in Pakistan, another Muslim country, it appears to be an effort to destabilize the government which is seen, rightly or wrongly, as pro-American in the war in Afghanistan. There is also the war in Iraq which former President George W. Bush launched in 2003 ostensibly to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction supposedly possessed by dictator Saddam Hussein. That war, along with American policy toward Israel, is portrayed in parts of the Muslim world as evidence of American anti-Islam sentiment. All of this, however oversimplified, is cited as the most visible illustrations of Huntington's thesis about the religious roots of a clash of civilizations.

Equally significant evidence of such a clash is the statement by Merkel made in a speech asserting the "utter failure" (another phrase used by the media) of multiculturalism in Germany. In Germany's case, it involves the estimated four million Muslims who live there, primarily Turks (and their offspring) who came to Germany in the l950s because of a major shortage of German workers to help rebuild the country's economy. But her statement is only the most recent attack on multiculturalism. The issue has been very evident in a number of western European countries for some time. Unlike Germany, Muslim immigrants in several of those countries come primarily from former colonies in Africa and Asia as residents of the colonies legally migrated to the former home country. As the numbers grew and as economic opportunities dwindled, significant anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic movements emerged. (According to reports, in Germany there are still significant labor shortages but Merkel's statement indicated that the door may be closing on Muslim immigration to fill the need.) The growing numbers of Muslims, the wearing of traditional clothing, and the building of mosques--to name a few things--have come to be perceived as the emergence of an alien culture that threatens the basic Catholic/Protestant-based cultures of these countries. Thus, it has become popular politics in western Europe to seek or keep office on a platform of anti-immigration, anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies.

This same culture-based argument is found in the United States. In one form it is anti-immigration reform, backed primarily by right wing conservatives and Tea Party adherents, opposed to creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented residents, primarily Hispanics. Anti-immigration, "nativist" sentiment has a long history in the United States going back to the mid-19th century with opposition to the immigration of a large number of Catholics from Germany and Ireland. This evolved through various stages aimed at greatly reducing or halting new immigration from southern and eastern Europe and Asia.

Currently, primarily as a result of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) by Muslim terrorists in 2001 and the more recent issue of building a proposed Islamic cultural center near the WTC site, we now have a significant and growing anti-Muslim, anti-Islamification movement in this country fed to a considerable extent by the same groups opposing general immigration reform.

In sum, two levels of the "clash of civilizations" have emerged, both involving the West and Islamic worlds. At the most visible and feared level are the al Qaeda-type terrorist attacks that have occurred around the globe, along with two wars portrayed as a clash between western and Muslim forces, whether armies or insurgents. At the second level we have the less visible but no less destructive cultural conflict that manifests itself as anti-Muslim, anti-Islamification and is seen as a threat to nativist-based western values. The great misfortune is that as the second level becomes increasingly imbedded in political rhetoric and policy choices, the more certain it is that it will become the more fundamental "clash of civilizations" envisioned by Lewis and Huntington, a clash seemingly without end.

BUBBLE, BUBBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE

It's time for a pre-Halloween scare story. And, of course, every scare story about witches and their brew must begin with the Tea Party (TP), or perhaps a suntanned John Boehner riding a broom.

Last week the Associated Press carried a story that there were more than 70 Tea Party candidates running for House and Senate Seats in the midterm elections now just 15 days away. On the same day, The New York Times (NYT) nearly doubled that number, saying there were l39 TP candidates for Congress, although the article noted that some were running in strong Democratic districts and are thus seen as an outlet for protest votes rather than candidates in competitive races. The discrepancy in numbers may flow from the difficulty of sorting those who have been identified as TP or TP-backed candidates and those who have chosen to brand themselves as TP candidates to take advantage of what they perceive as the direction in which the ideological wave is moving. In any case, 70 or 139, and whether backed TP-backed or self-packaged TP candidates, all are running as Republicans and the TP is likely to score some significant victories and take their clash-and-clang policy and political agendas to Washington.

Much has been written, including several postings on this blog, about how the TP has forced the establishment Republican party to shift farther to the ideological right. With that shift has come the question of how the TP winners will effect the GOP legislative/political agenda in the next Congress. Will the establishment GOP, reflected in the current leadership of the House (Boehner) and Senate (McConnell), co-opt the more extremist new members, as some TP activists fear, or will the high decibel tactics of the TP's campaign politics carry over into the Congress and cause visible and audible dissension within the GOP ranks?

From this blogger's perspective it would seem that the TP extremist views have an advantage and will make further inroads into the policies and political strategies of the establishment GOP. The NYT numbers suggest that association with the Tea Party is seen as having more fire power than the GOP label, as indicated by the poll data that show both the Republican and Democratic parties in Congress are held in very low esteem by the public. And fundamental to the success of the TP movement, as noted in a previous post, is its adoption of a new puritanism with its implicit warning--"if you are not for us, you are against us." The "for us" meaning adherence to the complete package of "anti-whatever" policies advocated by the TP and the fellow traveling organizations that have found new life under the TP umbrella . The TP movement began with a focus on a balanced-budget-now and anti-big government agenda, but it did not take long before a variety of organizations with cultural/social policy agendas attached themselves to the TP's public rallies and protests. The end result was that the TP has come to be the big tent political movement often touted by the establishment GOP. At the same time the TP became the loudest and most visible voice of the so-called disgruntled voter, further overshadowing the GOP with its more traditional, "what's new" way of representing itself as the party of change.

Sadly, and to continue the abusive use of metaphors, while we see the extremist voices being herded together in border-collie-like fashion into the TP corral, the Democrats are in an "every person for herself or himself" mode. The TP "for us or against us" herding is countered by the Democratic theme of, "it's okay, you can have it both ways, just say and do and whatever it takes to win." Thus some Democrats, while accepting money from the party's Congressional Campaign Committee, are free to campaign against their own leader in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One example cited in a NYT article on October 16, is Democratic Representative Jim Marshall of Georgia who, according to the article, "spent much of a debate Thursday night renouncing Ms. Pelosi" whose liberal views run counter to those held by most voters in Marshall's district. Marshall's debate posturing has extended to his television commercials. It should be noted that Marshall voted for Pelosi as Speaker two years ago. In the "whatever it takes to win your seat" election guidance, Pelosi who has a big stake in the outcome, has said, "I just want them to win."

The bottom line of this pre-Halloween story is that even if the Democrats should retain control of both the House and Senate (and the House seems unlikely at this point), it would be a much reduced majority that will include enough conservative Blue Dog members so that prospects for advancing any new progressive legislation will be dim or nonexistent. The Democrats will continue to face solid GOP opposition, but the driving force may be the more conservative right wing ideology of newly elected Tea Party members. The GOP "Party of No" will be a more strident "Party of No, Never". And that's the best case scenario.

The more likely outcome is a Republican takeover of the House and a reduced Democratic majority in the Senate. The House GOP majority which will now include Tea Party adherents will seek to undo key elements of President Obama's legislative victories, most notably health care reform and increased regulation of the financial markets. Then there are the more extremist issues proposed by various TP candidates, issues such as the constitutionality of social security and abolishing the Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service. Whether any of these ideas will get beyond the bill introduction or subcommittee hearing stages is doubtful, although the House leadership will need to give lip service at least to some parts of the TP wish list that differ from the establishment GOP agenda.

Overall, the process will be role reversal with a more conservative GOP House sending a liberal-led Democratic Senate a series of bills to repeal or gut Obama's victories. Now, using the same 60-vote rule exploited by the Republicans to obstruct Democratic legislative goals, Senate Democrats will try to block floor consideration of the GOP bills passed by the House. Whatever the specific outcomes, the GOP/TP (or TP/GOP) aim will be to set the legislative and rhetorical stage for making Obama a one term President who presided over what they will try to label "a failed presidency".

This year Halloween should be postponed until November 2.

TEA PARTY ENTERS EXPORT MARKET

What started for the Tea Party (TP) movement as a home grown product may be moving into the export market. The product is one of the TP's long list of "anti-whatever-agenda" items, in this case an anti-Muslim point of view.

As noted in a previous post on October 11, and a previous post on October 4, the central thrust of the Tea Party when it began in early 2009 was opposition to President Obama and his agenda for large stimulus spending to create and save jobs, health care reform, and the cap and trade proposal, among other things. But the TP's anti-Obama attacks also included his personal background such as where he was born and his religious roots. These personal issues manifested themselves in TP activists highlighting that his middle name was Hussein, which was used against him earlier in the 2008 presidential campaign. Translated, this was intended to convey that there were questions about where he was born and his constitutional eligibility to be President and that he was a Muslim, not a Christian.

Thus, early on the Tea Party and other dissident groups that attached themselves to the movement propagated an anti-Muslim, anti-Islam message. Given that the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC), carried out by Muslim members of the al Qaeda terrorist organization, the general environment was fertile ground for TP efforts to wrap Obama in pro-Muslim, un-American toxic rhetoric.

This anti-Muslim message gained a new focus last spring when plans were disclosed to build an Islamic cultural/social center, including a mosque, about five blocks from where the WTC once stood. The concern about such a center was usually expressed in terms of "sensitivity". That is, if those planning the center had any feelings for the families and friends of victims of the WTC disaster and the role that terrorists who were Muslim played in the disaster, they wouldn't build an Islamic center so close to ground zero of the 9/11 attack. The result was loud street demonstrations against the building of the center. The basic counter argument was that our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion makes it a fundamental right that the center including the mosque should be allowed to proceed. But the emergence of the proposed plan for the center and the public reaction to it also raised concerns that the issue had awakened a latent anti-Muslim sentiment, stemming from the 9/11 attack, among a larger segment of the population outside the Tea Party.

Inevitably, plans for the center also became a part of campaign politics for the midterm elections next month. Opponents of the center, including TP-backed candidates, primarily based their position on the sensitivity issue; the political opposition, appearing to be backed into a defensive corner on the issue, tended to take the safe position of agreeing that the center should be relocated to a different site farther away from ground zero. But some, like Sharron Angle, seeking the Senate seat of incumbent Harry Reid in Nevada, carried an anti-Muslim sentiment farther. In another of her "what wall did that come off of" comments at a Tea Party rally she said, "there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law," (meaning Islamic-based law) to take hold in any community in the country. This anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic sentiment also manifested itself in other forms such as the burning of construction equipment at a building site for a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an unsuccessful effort in Sidney, New York, to shut down a small Muslim cemetery there. In Temecula, California, a Tea Party group is trying to prevent the building of a mosque by the local Islamic Center.

Now this domestic brand of anti-Muslim sentiment and protest is being packaged for import into Britain, the home of many Muslims who migrated there from former British colonies. It was very recently reported in a liberal British newspaper, The Observer*, that the English Defense League (EDL), described as a "far right grouping" fighting "Islamification" of English cities is seeking to create ties with the American Tea Party movement. A first step is the invitation of a U.S. rabbi to come to Britain to discuss Islamic Sharia law, best known as the legal underpinnings of the Taliban in Afghanistan during their brutal rule of that country prior to the U.S. invasion in 2001. Also, according to the Observer, the EDL is seeking ties with Pamela Geller, who according to Wikipedia is the cofounder of the "Stop Islamification of America" organization and one of the leaders of those opposing the Islamic center in New York. Geller is also connected with the Tea Party and spoke before a statewide TP convention in Tennessee last May.

In sum, the U.S. Tea Party movement which, unfortunately, has already shown its considerable ability to mobilize a high decibel, far right voice for unhappy voters in this country, is now seen as an instrument for advancing the anti-Islam activities of a protest group in Britain. For a large part of our citizenry the TP has been a harmful product for domestic consumption; it should likewise be tagged as "dangerous to your civic health" on the export label.

*guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/10/english-defence-league-tea-party

NEGOTIATING WITH THE TALIBAN(S)

Red Rascal, We Need you Again!

Red Rascal to the rescue? In case you don't follow the Doonesbury cartoon or haven't read a previous post, Red Rascal is Garry Trudeau's super hero who rights the wrongs committed by the Taliban "evil doers" in Afghanistan. In this week's Doonesbury series, the Red Rascal in an expanded role is being asked to deal with the problem of a U.S. contractor who, along with other such contractors, is to be banned by President Hamid Karzai from doing future business in Afghanistan. This post is to suggest that while Red Rascal is in Afghanistan, he should also talk with Karzai about the political negotiations the latter is undertaking with the "evil doers".

Karzai has officially stated that he wants to negotiate with the Taliban about a political solution to the now 10-year old war. The war began when the Afghan-based, Taliban-supported al Qaeda successfully planned and carried out the attack that destroyed the World Trade Center. After a decade of war between the United States/ NATO and the Taliban/al Qaeda, it seems clear that a military solution is not likely, thus a political way out must be found. (Sounds strangely like the situation in Vietnam in the early 70s.) In holding such talks, the Karzai government has in mind what have come to be called "moderate" Taliban leaders. Presumably that approximates how President Obama's now resigned National Security Advisor, General James Jones, referred to the Taliban recently. "The Taliban generally as a group has never signed on to the global jihad business and doesn't seem to have ambitions beyond its region". Within that context, Karzai has the U.S. blessing for negotiating with the Taliban.

While Karzai-Taliban negotiations are a necessary first step to ending the war and allowing the U.S. and its allies to extricate themselves from the Afghan mess, what comes next may not be so simple. A few major stumbling blocks lie on the path to a political settlement.

1. What does Taliban "participation" in governance mean? Is it simply je jure recognition of the de facto situation of Taliban control of various parts of the country? If so, does participation mean recognition of local Taliban leaders as the formal, officially recognized governors of the territory? (Would this also mean the United States can then stop paying contractors ((be careful Red Rascal)) who in turn pay local warlords to protect our military supplies being trucked through their areas, payments that seem to trickle down to Taliban leaders in the area.)

Or does participation in governance also mean the Taliban having a significant role in national decision making with important cabinet positions in Kabul? As noted above, participation in governance at the subnational level would simply be recognition of the Taliban's existing control of many areas of the country. That may be the easy part. Elevating Taliban participation to a significant national role is more problematic. According to reports, the 68-person peace council created by Karzai to guide the negotiations is heavily tilted toward members who have been fighting the Taliban for years. Among their concerns is that in allowing the Taliban into the national government in any capacity might lead to an eventual Taliban takeover and a return to the brutal pre-2001 Taliban control. Here I'll refer to another previous post about Germany in l933 when a devious ex-Chancellor thought he could bring Hitler into the government as a figurehead Chancellor while the "ex" would control the real reins of power. We know how that turned out with Hitler quickly taking control of everything.

2. What about that part of the Taliban, along with its al Qaeda associates, that is based in Pakistan? These are the most aggressive, hardline, elusive participants in the ongoing war. According to a Washington Post report, one part of the Pakistan-based Taliban, the Quetta Shura, is a possible participant in the negotiations. But another faction, the Haqqani group, supposedly is not agreeable and it is this group that is the principal target of the U.S. bombing campaign in Pakistan. Both groups supposedly have close ties to the Pakistani intelligence service which has long been linked with the Taliban.

Perhaps our bombing campaign is an effort to convince the Haqqani leaders that they too should participate in any negotiations. (That would be akin to the efforts of the Nixon administration in l972 to carry out massive air attacks in North Vietnam to force them to the bargaining table to end that war.) However, that leaves the issue of Pakistan's role in any negotiations with the Taliban. Right now it seem like Karzai, with U.S. blessing, has taken a go-it-alone approach to negotiations with the Taliban, an approach that may work as a short-run tactic to deal with local, Afghan-based leaders. However, any long-term strategic solution to bring stability to the region is likely to require setting a chair for Pakistan at the bargaining table.

In sum, any efforts to deal with the Taliban to produce short-term and/or long-term solutions are complex undertakings with a number of moving parts and players that must be dealt with. Also,while backing Karzai in his efforts, the U.S. has learned in a variety of ways that trusting Karzai is a problem in itself. It is clearly a situation where we need the Red Rascal to work his super powers.

WHAT NEXT FOR THE TEA PARTY?

A few days ago Virginia's Tea Party (TP) organizations held a state convention in Richmond. The Washington Post reported that at the meeting concerns were expressed by Manassas and Newport News attendees about the Republican party establishment co-opting the TP movement which has brought so much sound and fury to our politics and policy. Such concern is the crux of the TP organizational problem.

The TP perceives itself as being a "grass roots" organization with no single political leader, made up of loosely affiliated local chapters whose members share a common set of goals--make government smaller, make major cuts in the federal budget which in turn will end deficit spending. The term "grass roots" is in quotes since the TP has also become a tool of a lot of big outside money interests pursuing their own self-interests. The TP's chief targets have been stimulus spending aimed at creating or saving jobs, health care reforms, and greater regulatory control of the banking/financial industry-- major legislative accomplishments of the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress. In a previous post, it has also been pointed out that the TP movement has become wrapped in religious robes and the American flag to convey the message that TP opponents are godless and un-American.

As the Tea Party movement grew, it gained adherents from other activist groups focused on a variety of social/cultural issues such as anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-immigration reform, and more recently an anti-Islamic cadre energized by opposition to the development of an Islamic cultural/social center about five blocks from the destroyed World Trade Center in New York City. Within this organizational context, a few thoughts arise.

Right now it seems clearly evident that the tail, the TP, is wagging the dog, the establishment GOP. The TP ideological center of gravity is well to the right of the mainstream conservatism of the GOP, and even farther to the right of what is left of the moderate wing of the Republican party. The TP has become the visible and vocal expression of the so-called disgruntled voter. The ability of the TP to organize and bring its members and fellow travelers out for their anti-whatever rallies and demonstrations have shifted the party base farther to the right and thus forced many mainstream GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates to shift their positions accordingly to avoid being outflanked by more extremist, TP-backed opponents. So, at least in the short run, meaning this round of elections, it seems that the Tea Party movement has taken control of the establishment GOP.

At the same time, it must be remembered that in defeating establishment GOP election choices in places like Kentucky, Alaska, and Delaware, the end result is that the TP candidates are now wearing the Republican label for next month's elections. So the question becomes--if the TP favorites, running as Republicans, win in three weeks, will they slowly slide into the fold of the establishment GOP as they become members of the party caucuses in the House and Senate? Put another way, how aggressive will any TP winners be in pursuing their political outsider goals now that they are inside the GOP tent?

And, while shunning any hierarchical organizational structure of its own, the TP movement has spawned something of a small industry of name-alike Tea Party organizations. There are several organizations that have sprung up using the Tea Party label to advance their own enterprises, including some for-profit activities. One is the California-based Tea Party Express (TPE) which has funded some successful candidates such as Joe Miller in Alaska and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware. In supporting these candidates, the TPE has acted similarly to a traditional campaign organization which has a paid staff for setting up and carrying out a variety of activities in behalf of a candidate.

There is also the Tea Party Nation (TPN) which organized a national TP convention in Nashville, Tennessee, last February but which came under sharp criticism from TP activists for the high fee required to attend and for the $100,000 fee paid to Sarah Palin to speak. There is also the Tea Party Patriots (TPP) which co-sponsored a 9/12 March on Washington and received $1 million to distribute to local organizations for election activities. So right now it looks like the TP movement has fostered several name-alikes, acting independently of each other, with different agendas that sometimes take on the character of for-profit rather than ideologically driven enterprises. Each of these will, of course, want to stay around to receive and spend money for the general (presidential and congressional) elections of 2012.

In sum, the Tea Party, which started as a loosely organized so-called grass roots movement and has, at least at this point, the intention of staying that way, should not be surprised if it becomes perceived as ripe for a takeover, friendly or unfriendly, by the establishment GOP or an aggressive name-alike organization it has spawned. How all of this turns out will depend greatly on how many Tea Party-backed people get elected on November 2. What we of the left and middle can hope for is that the TP is so unsuccessful in the elections that few people will care, Whither goes the Tea Party? That would still leave the question-- Whither Sarah Palin? who has been so successful at linking herself to the Tea Party base for her own political advantage.

JOHN BOEHNER: SINCERITY AND SUNTAN

One of the first rules for political success is that you have to be able to fake sincerity. Two days ago, I had an unusual opportunity to see, or rather read about, this rule in action. Our local newspaper has two facing editorial pages. The one on the left is, of course, liberal in its views and the columnists it carries. Conversely, the editorials on the right page and its columnists are conservative. The interesting coincidence was that both pages on the same day carried columns about House Minority leader John Boehner.

The conservative column by Cal Thomas entitled, "Mr. Speaker-in-Waiting," was based on an interview (emphasis on "interview") with Boehner, resulting in what can only be called a puff piece. The liberal writer was Bob Herbert whose column entitled, "That's where the money is,"
was based on some facts (emphasis on "facts") about Boehner's ties to big businesses and their lobbyists.

Nothing could be more contrived to put the "fake sincerity" rule to a test than Thomas's asking Boehner what his late parents "given the humble circumstances" of his background might think of him today. Quoting from Thomas, "He begins to tear up and reaches for a box of tissues." Boehner's reported reply: " 'Why me? I ask God,'" he says, " 'I'm just a regular guy with a big job.'" This is the response from the same Boehner whose "suntan" is under scrutiny as to whether it's real or fake and, if fake, does he use a tanning bed or a lotion. From there the interview allows Boehner to don his Republican robes and preach the party gospel.

Regarding the GOP loss of congressional control in 2006, Boehner said, "Our team failed to live up to our principles," the theme for asking forgiveness of fellow conservatives and vote the GOP back into power, at least in the House where his promotion awaits, next month. "I came here for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government and that has not been what's happening. We don't need any more programs; we need to undo a lot of programs," etc., etc., etc.

Thomas closes out his column, ". . . John Boehner increasingly looks like the next (s)peaker of the House. His parents would be proud."

Contrast Thomas' Boehner-serving interview with Herbert's reporting of actual events involving Boehner and his coziness with the corporate world.

The most stunning example presented by Herbert goes back about 15 years when this "quintessential influence peddler (meaning Boehner) decided to play Santa Claus by handing out checks from tobacco lobbyists to fellow congressional sleazes right on the floor of the House." (Note, I said Herbert was reporting facts; I did not say he was free of judgment about those facts.) When Boehner's Chief of Staff was asked why money would be handed out on the House floor, there was no denial or hedging. The reply: "The floor is where the members meet with each other." Herbert linked this to the reply of the notorious bank robber Willy Sutton when he was asked why he robbed banks: "Because that's where the money is."

Herbert also recalled the more recent event when House Democrats were preparing for floor action on financial regulatory reform. Boehner and other GOP house leaders met with a reported 100 "industry lobbyists and conservative activists" to encourage them to get out and help Republicans defeat the legislation.

To summarize, in contrast to Thomas' Boehner puffery, Herbert puts it this way, "That's Boehner for you--always willing to stick his neck out for the elite."

So, I ask you, which is more fake, Boehner's sincerity or his suntan?

IRAN: THE 800 POUND GORILLA IS GETTING BIGGER

In a previous post I portrayed Iran as the 800 pound gorilla in the room, the room being the Middle East and our difficulties in finding solutions to our multiple problems in that region, including Afghanistan. It seems that no matter where we turn we bump into the gorilla, whether it be our problems with Iran itself, or Tehran's involvement in Iraq, Israel, or Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it seems that over the past week the gorilla has grown in size.

A major setback for the United States came in Iraq. For seven months we have been waiting for and involving ourselves in that country's inability to form a new government following the early March parliamentary elections. Given the complexities of Iraqi politics, we may be waiting still longer for a final resolution of the problem. But our hopes for a solution satisfactory to the United States took a great leap backwards when the interim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reached some kind of coalition agreement with a very anti-American faction headed by Muqtada al-Sadr with whom we had fought a separate war while fighting various insurgent groups within Iraq a few years ago.

If one price of al-Sadr's willingness to support al-Maliki is getting all U.S. troops out of the country, it would bring joy to many of us. Unfortunately, al-Sadr, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Iran, as a key government insider is likely to be the avenue for significantly greater Iranian influence in Iraq. An al-Maliki government will be Shiite dominated and thus already has strong religious attachments to Shiite Iran. Al-Maliki has already shown a willingness to establish a closer relationship with Iran, a relationship that is likely to become even greater via al-Sadr.

While the U.S. may lament the growing Iranian influence in the region in terms of political and military policy, it should be remembered that it is in a significant way a self-inflicted wound. When former President George W. Bush invaded Iraq ostensibly in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, he overthrew the major regional counterbalance, Saddam Hussein, to Iranian regional ambitions, thus further empowering those ambitions.

Enhancement of Iranian influence in Iraq through any al-Maliki/al-Sadr agreement again renews the continuously nagging question of how to deal with Iran on a host of outstanding issues ranging from stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions short of the weapons stage, to including Iran as a partner in any international effort to end the Afghan war and bring political and economic stability to Afghanistan, to release of the two American hikers who are facing charges of espionage.

While maintaining international confrontation with Iran on the nuclear issue, President Obama in early August reportedly said that for the United States, Afghanistan is a "separate track" from the nuclear talks. The "separate track" statement recalls the l970's version of the same problem. This was the Cold War "linkage" policy of President Nixon and his chief foreign policy adviser/Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. The "linkage" policy was aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, in effect saying to them that if they wanted progress on various issues such as arms control and economic/trade agreements, they would have to stop aiding and abetting revolutions and wars in the third world, including Vietnam. That policy had its biggest failure in Vietnam where it was needed the most to help end the war and our role in it.

Now we seem to be returning to the linkage/separate track issue with Iran. Despite Iran's repeated threats and blustering about the United States and Israel, and the United States being the prime conspirator behind the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center, Obama has sought to keep open a possible dialogue with Iran on the various outstanding issues. So far there is no evidence of much success for holding direct U.S.-Iranian talks, although David Ignatius in his September 17 column reported that Iran has sent positive messages through third countries about participation in the resolution of the Afghan conflict.

Certainly "separate track" is a more realistic approach than "linkage" since it is not evident how much near term leverage we have to drive any hard bargains if the issues are linked. Except for the various unilateral and U.N. sponsored economic sanctions (which have notable leakages, including military and economic ties between Iran and China and Russia), some of the outstanding near term issues with Iran involve our getting concessions or assistance from Iran. In the mid-term, we can hope that Iran will get a more moderate and agreeable President than Mahmoud Ahmadeinejad, and a religious hierarchy less inclined to view the United States as the Great Satan. In the longer term, improving working relations now might lead to ultimately to the restoration of normal U.S./international/Iranian political and economic relations, including much-needed new U.S. and international investments in Iran, as well as securing political and military stability in the region.

Last week, I asked the question "What does progress look like?" in the Middle East, focusing on the status of the Israeli-Palestinian talks and formation of a government in Iraq. I answered the question, saying, "How can I tell? I don't see any." Viewing events in Iraq over the past week (also, still no progress in the Israeli-Palestinian talks), I can add, "But I do know what a step backward looks like."

A TALE OF TWO PARTIES -- TEA AND COFFEE

In early 2009, a new movement was born, the Tea Party (TP). It billed itself as a grass roots movement to combat what it saw as a big government getting bigger, excessive government spending, accompanied by huge and growing federal deficits. It was quickly perceived as a right wing anti-Obama movement that focused its protests on major pieces of President Obama's legislative program: 1) stimulus spending to create and save jobs; 2) health care reform to provide health services to millions of the uninsured and to weaken the hold of insurance companies on the nation's health care system; and 3) greater regulation of the financial system that was at the core of the nation's severe economic recession. The TP made itself known and felt politically through shrill street demonstrations across the country. It also gained significant financial backing from wealthy sources who used the TP to advance their own right wing political agendas.

About a year later another new movement emerged -- the Coffee Party (CP). It billed itself as an alternative to the TP. It was meant to attract liberals and moderates through recruitment on the Facebook social network. Instead of the noisy and very visible extremism of the TP, its aim was to restore respectfulness and civility to the nation's political discourse. Rather than street protests, its organizing platform was to use the internet to sign up backers and to promote Starbucks kinds of gatherings to calmly discuss issues that would be more supportive of a liberal agenda.

So how has it all turned out?

It's obviously a rhetorical question since we all know that the TP, along with Sarah Palin, has become the voice of the so-called disgruntled voters. In the process, the Tea Party has driven the mainstream conservative wing of the Republican party farther to the right while, at the same time, eclipsing the establishment GOP as the leading voice of opposition to Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress.

It has succeeded in growing through its frequent street protests which attracted many fellow travelers with their own agendas such as anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-immigration reform. The TP and Palin have also registered some stunning political successes with their own candidates or those they backed winning primary elections against establishment GOP choices. And as the TP has grown, it has increasingly wrapped itself in religious robes and the American flag, aided by cheerleaders such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck so that persons opposing the Tea Party are implicitly portrayed as anti-God and un-American. Within that context, don't forget the Uncle Sam and Statue of Liberty costumes often seen at TP rallies, along with posters portraying Obama with a Hitler mustache or resembling a monkey, presumably to portray his African-American heritage.

Given all this, the counter-organization Coffee Party certainly had its job cut out for it in seeking to restore respect and civility to discussion of policy issues and political campaigning. Unfortunately, the CP's internet/Starbucks strategy never gained the traction necessary to compete with the expanding TP. While reportedly having attracted about 300,000 supporters, the Coffee Party never got on the political radar as a viable participant in the national political dialogue; about 350 people showed up for its national convention last month in Louisville, Kentucky, according to an Associated Press writer. A quiet meeting in a coffee house cannot compete with a colorful, noisy street demonstration for getting media attention.

The Tea Party, Palin, and the American flag were prominently on display at the August 28 Washington TP rally staged by Glenn Beck who wrapped himself in messianic robes as the spear carrier for God. At times it sounded like an evangelist tent meeting. A liberal, pro-Democratic rally just two days ago also drew a large crowd at the Lincoln Memorial. While many organizations were represented, the leading sponsors were some traditional Democratic backers, labor unions and civil rights groups. Their very pragmatic aim was to re-energize the Democratic base and urge those voters to go to the polls on November 2. If civility is defined as the absence of violence and arrests, then both rallies were civil.

So, unhappily, as we go into the last four weeks of campaigning, the high decibel voice of the Tea Party has drowned out the Coffee Party voice of moderation and civility. Check the signs, and maybe the costumes, outside the polling places on November 2. The next question, a non-rhetorical one, is: once we have gotten past next month's elections, will political discourse become more moderate? Not likely. The shift to presidential politics on November 3 will bring another round of noisy polemics from the far right. And if the Tea Party has even moderate success at the polls next month, the noise is likely to get even louder.

KARL ROVE WORKS THE GOP VINEYARD

"Whither . . . ?"

The scramble is on. Without knowing how the elections will turn out, a very visible part of the Republican party is out to assert or reassert its control over the so-called party establishment. The lead actor, at least a highly visible one, is Karl Rove who is building up the financial resources for this effort by reaching into the pockets of well-heeled patrons who have backed the GOP in the past. The goal: to reassert the customary control of the party establishment by business and other private interests, while seeking to head off insurgent groups like the Tea Party (TP) movement which, along with Sarah Palin, have come to be perceived by many as the overlapping voices of the so-called disgruntled voters seeking change.

For Rove personally, his self-created visibility has also led to some embarrassment. He initially supported the efforts of the Delaware Republican party establishment which backed Congressman Mike Castle in his primary race for Joe Biden's old seat in the Senate. In supporting Castle, Rove put down the character and political viability of Christine O'Donnell who was backed by the Tea Party. After O'Donnell's surprise victory over Castle, Rove and others had to quickly backtrack and embrace her for the November 2 elections.

The Delaware primary showed the concern that establishment Republicans have about being outflanked by the far right TP and Palin not only as competitors in electing candidates, but also in ideologically defining the Republican party. Historically, the establishment party has been conservative and any tensions within the party have generally been between right-of-center moderates and the more conservative, dominant wing of the party. Now the TP has shifted the ideological tension farther to the right with the TP taking more extreme and very vocal positions, however fuzzy on specifics, on a host of issues. The specifics of Palin's policy agenda are equally obscure. But the combined shrill of the TP and Palin have forced some mainstream conservative candidates for election or re-election to shift farther to the right to avoid being outflanked by TP- and Palin-backed candidates.

So unless the Tea Party/Palin sponsored candidates and those with TP/Palin support are totally blown away in four weeks, the establishment GOP is likely to be forced to move farther right on the ideological spectrum. Thus, Rove, backed by considerable financial resources, sees his tasks are to retain establishment control of the party philosophy, however altered, as well as having a large voice in the choice of future candidates. In the process, he also seeks to keep himself relevant as chief strategist and a mover and shaker of the party's future, roles he played previously for the benefit of former President George W. Bush.

On a slightly different but related note, I have always found columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. of the Washington Post to be a keen analyst of the state and direction of American politics. But his recent column "Tempest in a small Teapot" seemed a bit off the mark. He focused on the small numbers of TP adherents compared with the total size of the electorate and the number of voters in specific elections, noting further how the media has magnified the Tea Party in our politics. Where I see it differently is that it's not the numbers but the noise of the Tea Party movement that has made the difference, granting that its noise has been amplified by the media. But as that noise level has increased by the very vocal activism of TP adherents and fellow travelers, it has emerged as something bigger than the numbers cited by Dionne would suggest. At least for now the TP and Palin have become the voices of the unhappy voters(independents and moderate Republicans we are told). As that voice, they have on a number of important occasions eclipsed the establishment GOP as the spear carrier for those unhappy voters seeking a change from the policies of President Obama and the Democratic controlled Congress.

Stay tuned. After November 2 we may have a better view of "Whither the Tea Party?" "Whither Sarah Palin?" "Whither the GOP?" "Whither the rest of us?"