If the nation stays on its current vector for much longer — say, another ten months or so — we’re going to be reading ignoring a lot of stories about the end of the modern Republican coalition. And eventually, some unknown number of years after that, historians will have their say about the rise and fall of whatever label they ultimately afix to the agglomeration of fundamentalists, imperialists, nativists, racists, Norquists, and sundry dead-end kids who currently make up the GOP voting bloc.* There will, I suspect, be many books devoted to the subject.
The rise side of the equation is pretty well known, though still open to debate. But the fall is unfolding as I write this post.** So I’m just guessing when I suggest that scholars will one day point to 9/11 (the taproot of overreach), the road to the Iraq War (hubris and deception run amok), or Katrina (the byproduct of incompetence and limited-government ideology) as the moment when the slide began.
Let me offer an alternative reading: on this day in 1999, Chief Justice William Rehnquist began presiding over Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. The details are relatively well known. Or, if not, you can go here or here. Regardless, Clinton’s impeachment revealed the depths of the Republican Party’s depravity. It wasn’t that Clinton was an innocent; he was a cad and a serial liar. But the idea that Congress would approve articles of impeachment because of the “facts” contained in the Starr Report seemed absurd. Especially when placed in historical context.
In 1866, Andrew Johnson, who had taken office after Lincoln’s assassination the previous year, vetoed the Civil Rights Act and campaigned against ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Both eventually passed despite his opposition.) Johnson’s intransigence outraged Radical Republicans, who tried but failed to impeach him in 1867. The following year, the president attempted to sack Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the man responsible for administering most of the key elements of Reconstruction in the South. Congress responded by successfully impeaching Johnson, who came within a single vote of conviction in the Senate.
So, before this day in 1999, a president had to derail Reconstruction to get impeached. (Remember that Nixon quit.) But no longer. Not on Henry Hyde’s watch. Now, the public would be safe from a chief executive who dissimulated about his sex life. Forget the fact that Clinton was both popular (before and after the impeachment proceedings) and pretty darned good at running the country. Ultimately, the Senate, as in 1868, voted to acquit. But not before watering down the meaning of “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” And providing Joe Lieberman with the bully pulpit. Now that was truly unforgiveable.
* As noted elsewhere on this blog, there are, in fact, honest and decent conservatives still out there. But these are trying times for them.
** Unless it isn’t. Let me be clear: this is no sure thing. Events, as I’ve said elsewhere, have a nasty habit of intruding upon inevitabilities. So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens over the next year and beyond that.
The Edge of the American West 
70 comments
January 8, 2008 at 4:51 am
standpipe
the agglomeration of fundamentalists, imperialists, nativists, racists, Norquists
Nicely done!
January 8, 2008 at 9:20 am
Rick B
Perhaps Goldwaterites and John Birchers (anti-Communist extremists) might also be considered part of the alliance. And I suspect that a large part of what cemented them together was a group of left-over Nixon loyalists (like Cheney and Rumsfeld) nurtured by the Reagan administration.
I suspect that Nixon’s resignation motivated the general acceptance of extremism in the Republican Party, combined with removing the moderate Republicans. Nixon’s resignation over “a third-rate burglary” was widely believed to have been the result of an extremist dirty trick by the left wing, and justified the extremism that we have seen in the attacks on Bill Clinton by the vast right-wing (Scaife-funded) conspiracy as well as Bill’s impeachment.
As I say, I “suspect” Nixon’s resignation was the justification of the nastiness practiced by the modern Republican coalition. As a non-historian, I really don’t know how to confirm or refute that suspicion.
My next suspicion is that Reagan’s election and the resulting power of the Presidency has been the glue that has held the Republican coalition together. The Republican establishment Money-cons really don’t care much for the evangelists, as the smearing of Huckabee clearly demonstrates. The foreign policy Republicans (NeoCons) and the libertarian Republicans also don’t care much for the evangelists, but they all have to work together to elect a President. Once they elect a President, each group has gotten certain areas of power out of the government that were under their control. Bill Clinton’s election really upset their apple cart, and since it could be blamed on Ross Perot, the Republican extremists again thought they were being thwarted by a ‘Left-wing dirty trick.’ That, I think, is what seemed to justify the extremism with which Bill was attacked throughout his terms of office.
They saw Bush 43’s installation as President as being nothing more than setting right what had been stolen from them. But now, after 12 years of Republican domination of Congress and 7 years of the Bush administration, everything they have tried to install in government has literally blown up in their faces, and they can’t blame the Left Wing. There hasn’t been any left wing to blame.
They’ve already lost Congress, and they have no real hope either to regain Congress or to win the Presidency in 2008. Power and the anticipation of power was what held the Republican coalition together, and now they have nothing left but the discredited Bush administration – an administration whose policies the current candidates for nomination as President cannot abandon, because it is all that remains of the power that held the winning coalition together. Worse, the have no realistic hope of winning anything nationally in 2008. So the glue – power and the anticipation of power – that has held the coalition together is gone.
That’s why the coalition has collapsed. IMO.
They still have the insurgent’s tactic of disrupting government so severely that they can make it appear illegitimate. That’s what the current Republican obstructionism in the Senate is all about. If they can destroy the legitimacy and public acceptance of the government and blame the Democrats, then there is a chance they can rebuild some form of alliance again.
Funny. I started to write the first three paragraphs above, and as did, the rest came to me. Hope you guys don’t mind my sharing my opinions, and as always, they are certainly open to criticism (and hopefully, improvement.)
January 8, 2008 at 10:48 am
PorJ
I have a completely different view from the previous commentator.
Wasn’t it Jerry Ford who said something like “Impeachment is whatever Congress says it is.” Well, that particular Congress may have made a bad tactical choice – but doesn’t history validate the overall strategy? The Republicans successfully derailed the last two years of Clinton’s presidency, offered GW Bush an avenue to be competitive in 2000 (regardless of whether he *won* or not – the election shouldn’t have been close. Gore should have clobbered him), and then ultimately wound up with both houses of Congress and the White House in about 3 1/2 years.
Now, what they did with such power is a whole different question. I’m only speaking of political tactics/strategies. When you look at Clinton and the Democrats in 1996, and Clinton and the Democrats in 2000 (then 2002) and even Hillary’s campaign today – the impeachment and the whole sordid mess it raised seems (to me) to have been simultaneously a brilliant political strategy and a terrible wound for the nation. Lots of Republicans paid a price for it (Gingrich, Livingstone, Barr come to mind) but maybe now we’re seeing Hillary pay a price for it, too. And that (I’m an Obama supporter) might be a *good* thing. So maybe history is a bit more complex (filled with subtleties and nuance) than presented here?
(Plus, in terms of civics, I think seeing the President of the United States forced to give a deposition (on your TV at home!) remains a terrific lesson about the rule of law in the USA. Its a shame we can’t see GW Bush giving a deposition under oath, isn’t it? In light of what has become of the Imperial Presidency, maybe a little impeachment now and then is a good thing).
(Plus: without impeachment, we never would have seen the old, drug-addicted Chief Justice in his stripped robe in action!).
January 8, 2008 at 12:26 pm
bitchphd
Agreed. The impeachment was really shocking–that they’d do something that major over something so very, very, very unimportant.
January 8, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Rick B
I’ll agree with both of the two above comments. The impeachment of Bill Clinton did derail his Presidency for two years, and it was a very shocking thing to do. It was outside normal American national politics. The Republicans placed Party advantage above the good of the country. As I said, I think the reason they felt justified was they felt that the election of Bill Clinton as President was accomplished by a Leftist dirty trick getting Ross Perot to run.
Maybe I am just naive, but the impeachment was an action that was beyond normal American national politics. Why did the entire national Republican Party go along in lock step with their extremists?
At least, to do it so blatantly and without concealing the methods they were Using. I (also) suspect that the conservative Republicans derailed Truman’s efforts to bring Korea to an end so that a conservative Republican President could be elected in 1952. The moderate Republicans derailed the conservative candidate and brought in Ike at the convention. So my question is – what happened to the moderate Republicans? Why did the entire Republican Party walk lockstep behind the nastiest and most vicious extremists when they impeached Clinton?
Reagan’s eleventh commandment was part of it, but that was something he developed to defeat a moderate opponent in the California Primary for state office. When he was elected President in 1980, it became controlling on the national Republican Party. Moderates were defeated (or threatened with defeat) simply for exposing the dirty tricks the conservatives were using against them.
Yep. And any attempt to reduce the complexities to a few relatively deep underlying themes – or is it to establish an explanatory narrative? – will always exclude important data. That doesn’t mean that there are no underlying themes or narratives in history.
I thought that was what historians did. Identify the underlying themes that explain a period of history to a modern audience that didn’t live through it or didn’t understand what the themes were when they did live through it.
January 8, 2008 at 1:45 pm
ari
Thanks [blush], standpipe. I think I should have finished with “Norquists.” At least if felicitous phrasing was the goal. But I needed the “dead-end kids” to make clear that I was leaving a bunch of folks out.
Including, as Rick notes, Birchers (the Goldwater coalition was, itself, so complicated as to resist inclusion on a list like the one above). And there’s a great case to be made that the fall of Nixon birthed the kind of rage that led, ultimately, to the Clinton impeachment. From there, sure, power, and the promise of same, is what has held the Republican coalition together. Which is why the wheels are coming off now. And, more specifically, why so many seated Republican legislators have been cutting and running.
Porj, I think, is also onto something: impeachment was a tactical move, an effort to derail a chief executive that Republicans, in part by shouting into their echo chamber, had convinced themselves wasn’t legitimate. But if impeaching Clinton was a tactical success in the short run, it was a failure if we pan out a bit. At least if I’m right. Meaning, if things continue on the same vector. Which is no sure thing. Not to belabor my uncertainty.
Porj has another point, and it really interests me: that watching a president being deposed on television is good for the nation. This is intriguing — at least in the abstract. But I’m not so sure that the point holds in thise case.
I’m not clutching my pearls here; the talk of oral sex and semen-stained dresses neither titillated nor appalled me. (Other prurient things do, by the way. I’m not auditioning for the role of Jonathan Edwards in this musical.) Still, the stakes were very high and the matters under review relatively inconsequential. What we saw, I think, was, as Porj and Rick both suggest, a matter of the Republicans choosing party over country. That wasn’t a good civics lesson. Even if it was interesting and provided a window into Article 1, Sections 2 and 3 of the Constitution. Which isn’t to say that I remember hearing about such things during the proceedings. I remember more about Monica’s dress (see above).
By contrast, I think it was good for the nation to witness the remarkable strength of our political institutions during the contests over the 2000 election. And to learn about the Constitutional provisions in such cases. The fight over Florida provided me with countless teaching moments. Impeachment really didn’t.
An interlude: Bitch agrees with me. Just saying.
Finally, Rick notes that my post is way too simple. Yes, that’s true. I wish, in retrospect, that I had framed it as a series of questions. But that ship has sailed. We work with the post we have, not the post we want to have.
January 8, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Matt W
I think it was good for the nation to witness the remarkable strength of our political institutions during the contests over the 2000 election
What, how? You mean because no one got killed? Well, the political hack in charge of the process engaged in a bunch of arbitrary tactics to throw the election, Republican operatives shut down a local recount by roughing people up, the Florida legislature threatened to annul the election if it didn’t go the way they wanted it to, and finally the Supreme Court handed the election over to their favorite candidate in a decision that barely even pretended to be about law rather than raw political power. This seems like a massive fucking failure of the institutions to me.
January 8, 2008 at 2:52 pm
ari
Um, fair point. Though I meant what I said. It was good for the country to witness the “contests.” I’m not splitting hairs. There is no part of me that has ever believed, even for an instant, that the outcome of Bush v. Gore was anything but a farce of sham of a whatever. Said outcome was really, really bad for the country. Like, opened-a-wound-that-hasn’t-healed-at-all bad. And undermined-a-great-many-people’s-faith-in-the-fabric-of-the-Constitutional-order bad. So you’re right: clear net loss. But until the end, until the Supreme Court stepped in and imposed order on the chaos of the recounts, I’m not as sure as you that it was all bad. I still think that it was a pretty impressive case of the safety nets working.
And speaking of teaching moments, I really had nothing to say after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling. I was just stumped, totally speechless, struck dumb. But, looking back, I can’t help but think of Eric’s post from a week or so back, in which he unearthed some nugget re. Sherman readying to put down an insurrection in 1876. That post made me wonder if certain members of the Court might really have convinced themselves in 2000 that they were saving the Republic from being torn asunder. And, to avoid confusion, I think they would have been wrong, meaning that such a rationalization is no kind of excuse for their ruling.
January 8, 2008 at 3:13 pm
urbino
And it reduced Justice Souter to tears. I wonder when the last time was that a Supreme Court justice wept over a decision. I can’t imagine it happens often.
Great discussion. (Sure sign of a good post.)
January 8, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Rick B
Ari,
Your post was excellent. I was responding to PorJ, not criticizing your post. And, as usual, I over explained why everything we write here is too simple. It’s the nature of the beast, not a reason to stop trying to simplify things to where we can understand the main narrative.
On another note, I’m not sure there was any real education on the application of the Rule of Law from the requirement that the sitting President testify in the court case. I don’t personally know anyone who really understands the concepts and importance of the rule of law. How many people understand that it means anyone who faces a situation described by law has an administrative certainty that the government will, in fact, apply the law and not the personal whims of the government executive making decisions? More people know that it means that no one, including the highest government officials, is above the application of the rules established by law, but no one seems to have told the five justices of the Supreme Court who appointed Bush President when they had no legal basis to do so. The Rule of law works because we have institutions that enforce law on government executives who want to apply their arbitrary whims, but no one apparently told the Supreme Court. They did feel guilty, though, which is why they claimed their decision could not be considered to be a precedent.
I could rant on, but suffice to say, there has been less and less application of the Rule of Law as each of the last seven years have passed.
And what is really amazing is that Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table! By doing so, she has literally abandoned the Rule of Law.
I wrote a blog essay on Rule of Law vs. Arbitrary Command in May 2006. But the really important point to remember is that it is the Rule of Law that makes the U.S. Constitution an effective document with real world consequences.
Without the attitudes and institutions that make the Constitution into a social reality, America and the Dream of America that grew out of 1776 simply would not exist today. The Constitution is the standard of what America is, and the Rule of Law is the process that pulls America back to the standard when it deviates.
Was there anything that came out of the impeachment of Clinton that clarified that? If so, I missed it.
Needless to say. I think that point is very important. It’s not directly on topic of Ari’s excellent post, but I think it is a point that meeds elaboration to those of us who have lived through the Bush administration if we want to keep our democracy under the Constitution.
January 8, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Matt W
And undermined a great many people’s faith in the fabric of the Constitutional order, bad.
This makes it sound as though the bad thing was that their faith was undermined, not that they (we) were right to lose their faith. I mean, what happened there was really the big test for the exploit in our government — that if you have no shame at all you can pretty much do whatever you want. (It got taken for a test run when the GOP obstructed so many of Clinton’s judicial appointments, but stealing the election was the biggo.) And that’s led to the mess we’re in today.
And the Florida Legislature’s plan to pass a bill seating the Bush electors is really a big part of it. I’ve seen the argument that the Court thought they were saving the country from chaos because, if Gore won the recount, this bill would throw the election into chaos (probably leading to Bush winning the election in the House). Without recognizing that this crisis would’ve arisen because one side refused to accept the results of the vote count.
As far as “imposing order on the chaos of the recount” goes (they make a desert and they call it order), the Supreme Court had imposed the chaos too.
January 8, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Matt W
I said this:
I’ve seen the argument that the Court thought they were saving the country from chaos because, if Gore won the recount, this bill would throw the election into chaos (probably leading to Bush winning the election in the House).
I should’ve mentioned that I think it was Richard Posner making that argument, so, not to be taken too seriously.
January 8, 2008 at 4:19 pm
ari
Two points: First, I think I should have treated “And undermined a great many people’s faith in the fabric of the Constitutional order” as a really long compound adjective modifying “bad.” I think I’ll go back and change it.
And second, you’re right. Again. But, don’t you think there was something educational about watching the whole thing unfold, absent violence, in real time? Before you answer, try to separate yourself from the outcome. Try not to, in other words, read the past backwards. Also, don’t you think that a great many of the young and first-time voters that will head out to the polls this year learned something from what they saw way back then? I know I did. And I’m neither young nor a first-time voter. What I learned didn’t make me happy. It didn’t make me celebrate the institutions. But I did learn: that the institutions, even when stretched to breaking, are pretty impressive in their resilience. But maybe I’m just being romantic. Seriously, that’s what your comments are making me think. Still, that’s all I meant by it being a useful civics lesson. As compared to, say, the process of impeachment, which struck me as both salacious and nakedly partisan. With heavy emphasis on the salacious bit n the press coverage. And total focus on the nakedly partisan stuff in halls of Congress.
January 8, 2008 at 4:20 pm
ari
Again, agreed: that argument is bunk. And I, too, think it was Posner who birthed that after-the-fact rationalization for the inexcusable.
January 8, 2008 at 4:23 pm
ari
Yes, better as compound adjectives.
January 8, 2008 at 4:44 pm
urbino
But I did learn: that the institutions, even when stretched to breaking, are pretty impressive in their resilience.
My takeaway from both the impeachment and the election kerfuffle — not to mention all the years since — was that the institutions are no more resilient than, no better than, the people in them. The contested election didn’t come to widespread violence because the people involved happened not to be willing to take it that far. On some future occasion, they might well. After all, who would’ve thought things would be carried as far as they were in 2000, or how far Bush/Cheney would carry the imperial presidency against the rule of law?
The institutions didn’t prevent Bush/Cheney from doing that. It required good people in the institutions to prevent that; they weren’t there. The institutions didn’t prevent the 2000 election from turning violent; the people involved did that.
All in all, I have to say the past 10 yrs. have, if anything, rendered the inherent weakness of our institutions rather naked.
January 8, 2008 at 4:55 pm
ari
You people are depressing me. Because you’re right.
January 8, 2008 at 5:01 pm
urbino
I don’t know that it’s anything to get depressed about, necessarily. I mean, we kinda knew it all along. Our institutions were designed to be weak. They’ve always been only as good as the people in them.
The last few years have just been a stark reminder of that, and of how few good people we’ve been putting in them, and of how easily that can happen. In short, it’s a reminder that we should be paying very close attention to these election thingamabobs, like the one what’s going on right now.
January 8, 2008 at 5:12 pm
silbey
“he contested election didn’t come to widespread violence because the people involved happened not to be willing to take it that far. On some future occasion, they might well.”
That’s a little bit simple as well. I take your point about the institutions being only good as the people, but the U.S. does have a really good record of not having violent elections. This is in stark contrast to a lot of other places, so I don’t think it’s just a matter of everyone saying “Oh, I’m not going to blow up the court house…maybe next time.”
We should also think about _why_ both the party system and the electorate are becoming more polarized now. My suggestions would be 1)the breakdown of the Cold War consensus, and 2) the economic revolution that’s making this era resemble the Gilded Age in many ways (despite what Eric says).
January 8, 2008 at 5:13 pm
ari
Okay, but what about this: if the institutions are weak, why, given the character of the people in charge over the past seven years, hasn’t the Republic crumbled? Yes, it has taken a beating. But it’s still redeemable. At least I think so. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be blogging. I’d be hoarding glass bottles, shredding cotton shirts, and buying gasoline. Viva la revolucion. And all that.
Also, your comment suggets an intensely biographical reading of American political history: that individuals always matter more than institutions. I’m not much of a structuralist — even broadly defined — but I do wonder if your view might tend to overemphasize agency. Very American of you, after all, to invest so much power in the individual rather than the system in which s/he works.
January 8, 2008 at 5:15 pm
ari
Mine was aimed at Urbino. Also, thank goodness Silbey has taken a break from engaging with the Paul people. And please, more with the suggesting that Eric is wrong. I’ve had quite enough being wrong myself today.
January 8, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Rick B
Ari,
Yeah, regarding your second point. It was somewhat educational to those of us who are poor students (test anxiety and inability to deal with the authority of the teacher – completed the course work for two P.D.s and couldn’t get past the qualifying exam to do the dissertation.)
I never learned geography until the U.S. military went to fight somewhere or they sent me somewhere. Boy, do I know a lot of geography now. It took the Bush administration to force me to learn to understand the Rule of Law. I’m working on Colombia ritgt now.
America – and maybe the world – would be a whole lot better off if I had never had any motivation to learn geography outside Texas or motivation to learn to understand the importance of the Rule of Law. The experts have failed us. Repeatedly.
I guess the real lesson is that is all comes down to me. Or to each of us. No one else can be trusted to get it right.
January 8, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Rick B
Urbino,
The conservatives understand that. That’s why they are working so hard to move true-believers like Rachel Paulose and Monica Goodling into government offices. 60% of the federal judiciary is already infected, and those are lifetime positions. As I recall, only five judges have ever been impeached before Alcee Hastings of Florida.
Cleaning those people out of government is going to be a major problem for the next President or two. Those are NOT good people.
January 8, 2008 at 5:32 pm
urbino
the U.S. does have a really good record of not having violent elections. This is in stark contrast to a lot of other places, so I don’t think it’s just a matter of everyone saying “Oh, I’m not going to blow up the court house…maybe next time.”
The first is true, certainly, but I don’t see that it leads to the second. Elections have not been violent here because people still believe that, sooner or later, they can resolve their differences peacefully. That “sooner or later” is a very middle- and upper-class notion of time. Thus, our relative prosperity helps.
To the extent our deeply ingrained faith in democracy and our largely middle-class mindset are “institutions,” I would agree that our institutions have some not inconsiderable strength in themselves. They weren’t what I had in mind in my comments, though. I was referring to the institutions of government.
Okay, but what about this: if the institutions are weak, why, given the character of the people in charge over the past seven years, hasn’t the Republic crumbled?
Because inertia counts. Our institutions are weak, but they do have considerable mass.
Also, your comment suggets an intensely biographical reading of American political history: that individuals always matter more than institutions.
Perhaps we are speaking of different things when we say “institutions.” I’m a firm believer in the importance of structural elements — of historicity. Things like economic structures, acculturation, etc., matter greatly.
I just didn’t understand those things to be what we were referring to by “institutions.” Again, I was speaking specifically of government institutions. (For example: there’s nothing in the institution of the presidency or the institution of the legislature, etc., to prevent the kind of power grab we’ve witnessed over the past 7 years if the people in those institutions choose not to prevent it.)
January 8, 2008 at 5:35 pm
urbino
Also on this:
I do wonder if your view might tend to overemphasize agency.
Maybe I should clarify that when I say the 2000 elections didn’t turn violent because the people involved chose not to go that far, I was referring primarily to the people on the ground in Florida (and elsewhere around the country). I’m not a “great man” subscriber.
January 8, 2008 at 5:40 pm
urbino
You raise a good point, Rick B. (And another parallel, methinks, with the Gilded Age: the return of the spoils system.)
What Rove, et al., attempted over the past 7 years — to turn the entire machinery of the federal government into an extension of a single political party — isn’t something we’ve encountered in a very long time. (Has it happened since the rise of the welfare state? ISTM it hasn’t.) That, again, is a case of the institutions being overpowered by the people in them, is it not?
(These, btw, are the thoughts that caused this post, a while back.
January 8, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Matt W
if the institutions are weak, why, given the character of the people in charge over the past seven years, hasn’t the Republic crumbled? Yes, it has taken a beating. But it’s still redeemable.
I agree. Bush and Cheney and their minions clearly want every bit of power they can grab, and there have been limits on that. They’ve been forced to accept a Democratic Congress (which they’ve coopted or buffaloed quite a lot, but it’s clear that they’d rather not have one at all), they haven’t managed to eliminate Social Security, that sort of thing. Which means that I was exaggerating when I said that without shame you can do whatever you want.
But still, they’ve managed to do far too much harm and evil — and I think part of that is a breakdown of institutions. Maybe this is just a rose-colored view of the past, but before 1992 I never got the idea that the major political players would rather damage the country than see it run a way they didn’t like. And with the Republicans in 1992, that institutional restraint went by the wayside.
And I think Rick B is right that Clinton’s 1992 victory just drove them insane. They saw the presidency as theirs, especially after Iraq I gave Bush I huge approval ratings. (And remember that part of Bush II’s governing strategy came from his feeling this his father hadn’t used his high ratings to ram his agenda through.) So they didn’t accept that Clinton had the right to be President. I have a vague memory of someone saying to Robert Bartley (WSJ editorial chair), “It’s like you don’t even consider him legitimate,” and Bartley instead of giving the right answer — “Of course he’s legitimate” — saying, “Well, he didn’t win a majority.” (But the only references to this I can find online were posted by me.)
This may not be a coherent comment.
January 8, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Matt W
It was, however, a comment that was written without seeing the previous five or so.
January 8, 2008 at 6:00 pm
ari
Seems coherent to me. And the Clinton victory, with or without a majority, really does seem to be a watershed. Which would lead neatly back to impeachment (I love it when my post is less horrible than I thought). I spent a great deal of time during the Clinton years wondering what Republicans were so angry about. It seemed they were getting so much of what they wanted — though I remember reading something somewhere suggesting the opposite: abortion remained legal and often available, social security remained intact, etc. And then Bush “won” the 2000 election. And Republicans seemed to get angrier. It was inexplicable to me, particularly after conservatives had control of all three branches of government. But if members within the GOP coalition really viewed Clinton’s election as illegitimate — in the same way that I view George W. Bush’s — that would explain a lot. Of course, for evidence, we have Matt citing himself. The beauty of blogging!
January 8, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Rick B
Silbey,
I think you have it right. Without an external enemy of any significance (Terrorism just won’t cut it. Bandits and Pirates is all they are.) there is no pressure that forces the corporate leaders to depend on the working class, and globalization of both finance and trade has place labor in a weak position. That’s resulted in the current movement towards a Gilded Age in America.
So why didn’t Europe also become dominated by big wealth and large corporations? My guess is that both were totally destroyed by WW II. That resulted in Labor/Socialist governments after the war.
America wasn’t as lucky. We still have the large wealthy families in place who have the power to dominate our government, and beginning with Reagan, to destroy the institutions of Labor.
If we become lucky, we will recognize the failure that the conservatives have so clearly demonstrated and recognize that their failure is in abandoning the Constitution.
If not, America will become just another failed attempted Empire.
How lucky are we going to be?
January 8, 2008 at 6:17 pm
PorJ
Great discussion – but too much echo chamber in here. What about Jerry Ford’s idea that impeachment is what Congress says it is? The framers gave the power to Congress for a specific reason – but they assumed that the power wouldn’t be abused. We all might disagree with the way it was exploited in this case on a variety of grounds, but that’s the echo chamber.
What if you step outside it for a minute and drop names like “Clinton” and “Bush” and say: this is about perspectives on the role of the Executive branch versus the Legislative. There are plenty of Bush supporters (both at U of Chicago law and on the bench) who could come over to this thread and demolish the certainties about Bush’s over-reaching (and also make a persuasive case about the Clinton impeachment). But that debate is not happening here on this thread (maybe I wandered into the wrong bar!).
Its one of the reasons I support Obama – I think he “gets” this. Not that the President will be subservient to Congress, but that he’s got a more academic conception of what the proper balance should be here. Look at it this way: who would you trust more to act in the public/national interest if they were granted both houses of Congress during their administration – Clinton or Obama?
January 8, 2008 at 6:26 pm
ari
PorJ: 1) You have too much faith in the U Chicago Law faculty. And too little in the people here. 2) Yes, it would be nice to have a really smart voice arguing against our comity. But it’s hard to find really smart voices to make pro-Bush, pro-consolidation-of-executive-power arguments these days. 3) I challenge you to find me a “persuasive” case for the Clinton impeachment. Really, I’m serious about that. But let me be clear, I don’t mean a case that says that it was Constitutionally defensible. I mean a case that says that it was necessary, proper, good for the nation. 4) I think everyone here believes that there should be more balance between the executive and legislative branches. So you may be part of the club. Even if that’s not what you want.
January 8, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Rick B
Ari,
Because human institutions are merely methods of preventing immediate revolutionary change. Given enough time and will, any social or political movement can destroy old institutions.
What’s enough time?
I’d say that the American Constitution is hanging by a thread. The key is the requirement that Congress declare war, and that was first abrogated by Truman in 1950. The various executive orders that have shifted power from Congress to the President during the Cold War went further, and the reaction to that was the Congressional hearings after Watergate. Cheney’s effort to regain those powers he felt the President lost after Watergate has been a counter reaction.
Consider the combination of Executive Orders and Signing Statements, both of which are part of institutional government. An executive order gives the President the power to require certain actions from the executive branch that were not directed by Congressional law. Signing statements, as used recently by Bush, direct executive branch departments not to conduct certain actions provided for in law because the President has stated they were ‘Unconstitutional’ (by whatever theory of the Constitution he wants to apply.)
Institutions are accepted procedures for doing certain things that cannot be eliminated because so many people believe in them, but which can be changed over time. Given enough time and changes, they can be made irrelevant to current actions.
But don’t ever think that an institution is forever. Feudalism and the Divine Right of Kings were institutions.
People operate within institutions, and institutions can be changes by the people who operate them. Of the two, institutions last longer because so many people enforce them with their actions, but neither is forever. Stretch an institution too far and it is gone.
I’m not willing to stretch the U.S. Constitution with its enabler and enforcer, the Rule of Law, one inch. It is a unique institution.
January 8, 2008 at 6:37 pm
urbino
What about Jerry Ford’s idea that impeachment is what Congress says it is?
What is there in Ford’s quote that you think is different from the “echo chamber” here? I agree with Ford. He supports my point. If the members of Congress are such embittered dolts that they can’t see the damage they’re doing by widening the scope of impeachment to include adultery, there’s nothing in the institution to stop them from doing it.
January 8, 2008 at 7:21 pm
silbey
“Also, thank goodness Silbey has taken a break from engaging with the Paul people.”
Poking a bear with a stick is only fun for so long.
“60% of the federal judiciary is already infected, and those are lifetime positions.”
Sure; welcome to the 19th century patronage system, all over again. One of the things that we should be aware of, is that much of this has seen deep historical precedents in American history, precedents that suggest that the rule of law was never as untarnished as we might think, and that the things that have been going on since 2000 are not remotely new. Waterboarding did, after all, come to prominence more than a century ago, in a foreign war that I know a little bit about.
“To the extent our deeply ingrained faith in democracy and our largely middle-class mindset are “institutions,” I would agree that our institutions have some not inconsiderable strength in themselves. They weren’t what I had in mind in my comments, though. I was referring to the institutions of government.”
I would hesitate to separate the faith in government from the government itself. I think the two are deeply interlocking. Also, could I gently suggest that you are overdramatizing the situation now and underdramatizing situations that have occurred before. Remember that Andrew Jackson once flat out refused to obey a Supreme Court decision.
Are things going on now that are horrible and dangerous? Sure. Are they worse than anything that’s happened before? (I’ve seen the Iraq War described as the ‘worst foreign policy decision ever’) I don’t think so.
“So why didn’t Europe also become dominated by big wealth and large corporations? ”
Because I think we’re in the middle of another Industrial Revolution (well, call it an economic revolution) that is having the same chaotic effects on the American economy that the first Industrial Revolution did. Among those effects are the concentration of enormous amounts of wealth in the hands of individuals (now: Bill Gates. Then: Rockefeller). Another effect of it is to weaken the industries in which there are strong working-class institutions like unions (hello, auto industry) and strengthen new industries in which such institutions are only beginning to appear (temp industries, high tech).
“There are plenty of Bush supporters (both at U of Chicago law and on the bench) who could come over to this thread and demolish the certainties about Bush’s over-reaching (and also make a persuasive case about the Clinton impeachment).”
No, there aren’t.
“Wasn’t it Jerry Ford who said something like “Impeachment is whatever Congress says it is.””
Using Jerry Ford as the voice of intellectual analysis…well, never mind.
But in any case, that’s a silly remark by Ford. It’s pretty clear that, historically, Congress hasn’t treated impeachment as just another political tool. How many impeachments have there actually been?
January 8, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Rick B
PorJ,
What makes you think that the founders even considered to likelihood that the Congress might abuse the power of impeachment?
Their focus was on preventing the abuse of power by a monarch, and they we giving the power that Parliament had acquired by removing King James II to Congress. That removal of the King and his replacement by William and Mary was the declaration that Parliament was the ultimate institution of of Government. The impeachment power gave similar power to Congress, which is why Congress was considered in the Constitution in Article I, and the President only in Article II.
The problem at the time of the American Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution was limitation of the power of the monarch. Congress was supposed to be that limitation. Why should they have considered the problem of abuse of that power of control? There was no reason to bother assuming that the power of impeachment could be abused. The real problem was whether it could be effectively used.
I also can’t find any consideration of the abuse of the power of impeachment in my copy of the Federalist. It wasn’t that the abuse of the power to impeach was assumed unlikely. It was that it wasn’t even considered because the power of the executive was seen to be so great that it was considered so unlikely.
January 8, 2008 at 7:45 pm
ari
I think nineteen impeachments. That’s what I remember off the top of my head. Only two presidents, of course.
January 8, 2008 at 8:05 pm
eric
more with the suggesting that Eric is wrong
I didn’t dispute the inequality part resembling the Gilded Age. Only everything else. Particularly the sectional part.
Which is important, I think, because the sectional distribution of inequality helped create the electoral basis for progressivism. Which I don’t at the moment see.
January 8, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Rick B
Ari,
That may be total impeachments ever. According to Wikipedia Alcee Hastings was the sixth federal judge, and I had recalled from the discussion before his impeachment that only five had been impeached before him. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
I did check before posting. Honest. I’m wrong too often as is.
I wonder who the other eleven were?
OK.God, do I ever love Google!! Apparently there have been 16 federal officials impeached. Eight were acquitted, and one resigned. Six, all judges, were removed from office.
That may make it hopeful that conservative judges can be removed from office. A paper/Article that summarizes the reasons and results of impeaching judges might be something that could be sold. Wish I were a published writer.
January 8, 2008 at 8:21 pm
ari
So, nineteen may be right? I’m usually terrible with trivia. But I’ll take any victory, no matter how trivial, I can get.
January 8, 2008 at 8:24 pm
silbey
“Particularly the sectional part.”
Mmm. Early on in the 19th century, sectionalism didn’t look so much like sectionalism, either.
In other news, there’s a call from “flyover country” for you, you latte-swilling Left Coaster, you.
January 8, 2008 at 8:36 pm
eric
In other news, there’s a call from “flyover country” for you, you latte-swilling Left Coaster, you.
When flyover country rebels against the Republican party and votes Democratic like it did in 1896, phone me up, o Man of the People.
January 8, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Rick B
Oops. Seven judges removed and one resigned. One of the seven was after Alcee hastings, so my memory was correct. I was just unaware of Walter Nixon of Mississippi.
Here I suffer from the accountants requirement that all my numbers actually balance. My kid claims that is anal retentive. Her ex-wife, as an accountant, understands me completely.
January 8, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Rick B
Ari,
Trivia is one thing, but it is a demand that the numbers balance!!
This is from the accountant’s creed.
January 8, 2008 at 9:51 pm
urbino
Also, could I gently suggest that you are overdramatizing the situation now and underdramatizing situations that have occurred before.
I think it’s quite likely I’m doing the former, at least. I’m exploring the argument; pushing it to see how far it’ll go before it breaks. As for the underdramatizing part, I’m gonna plead not guilty. I don’t think I suggested the country had never seen anything as bad. I certainly didn’t mean to.
That said, I do think we’re in a pretty serious situation that is, in some respects, unprecedented.
I also can’t find any consideration of the abuse of the power of impeachment in my copy of the Federalist.
Perhaps not, but you certainly will find at its very heart the general principle that men abuse power, and will do so at pretty much any opportunity. I think it’s not quite kosher, then, to suggest that the possible abuse of the impeachment power was somehow totally beyond the Framers’ scope of consideration. ISTM more likely that they all but assumed it would be abused, like every other power, if its possessor(s) got the chance.*
[* Disclaimer: The very notion of a unified “Framers’ intent,” on this as on any issue, is a fallacy.]
January 9, 2008 at 4:17 am
Ben Alpers
Fascinating discussion….sorry for being late to this party!
A few random thought:
1) Clinton’s impeachment had an enormous silver lining: it saved Social Security. There’s a very good case to be made that Clinton and Gingrich would have privatized it had the Monica Lewinsky matter not reared its ugly, er, head. (In fact, I believe that a colleague of mine will be making that case in a forthcoming book.)
2) I think violence did have an impact on the 2000 election outcome. It occurred in the form of the carefully staged, Republican riot that stopped the recount in Miami-Dade, and also undoubtedly provided grist for the mill of those who (honestly or dishonestly) claimed that the SCOTUS had to step in to prevent another 1876.
3) I think there’s a very good case to be made that the executive has accrued too much power since the 1930s relative to the legislature. There’s also a case (though I don’t think a very good one) that the executive needs to have still more power in an Age of Global Terra. That Republicans were on one side of this debate from 1994 to 2001, and switched sides the instant they took back the White House suggests that however good the arguments may be on either side, most movement conservatives over the last decade plus have not been making these arguments in good faith. I even seem to remember reading an article published by John “Torture Memo” Yoo in the 1990s arguing for greater limitations on executive power. FWIW, I very much belong to the presidency-has-way-too-much power camp. I would have said that during the Clinton years. And over the last seven years the problem has only gotten worse. At any rate, I honestly don’t think that the leading advocates of either Clinton’s impeachment or Bush’s power grabs have much serious to add to a dispassionate conversation about constitutional principles.
4) I still find it stunning that following 2000 there was no attempt at serious electoral reform. Most notably, no leading Democrats called for the popular election of the President. But many smaller reforms–e.g. finally getting rid of felon disfranchisement or providing a Constitutional right to vote–were similarly not pursued. The closest thing to a reform in response to 2000 was the Help America Vote Act, which, thanks to its encouragement of electronic voting systems, may prove to be the electoral reform equivalent of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (i.e. a reform that makes the problem it claims to solve much worse).
January 9, 2008 at 5:37 am
PorJ
re: Impeachment: Federalist Nos. 65, 66 & 69. I agree that the predominant fear is that impeachment would *not* be used against a villainous Executive. However, at one point Hamilton does say impeachment could be used for a National Inquest of the President’s acts.
re: Finding a persuasive source for the Clinton impeachment. Don’t have time (I’m not a professional thread commentator), but, I believe one exists (and this qualitatively different than the Easter Bunny and Santa) because if the process of earning a Ph.D. in history taught me anything, it was that all history is doomed to be revised (for better or worse). Its a humbling experience to learn that Nixon was correct and Alger Hiss was, in fact, a spy. The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled… etc. I can’t ask Ari to prove a negative (“are you saying there exists NO persuasive argument to be made for the Clinton impeachment?” How many historical controversies can you say *that* about?) so I wont. We’ll agree to disagree on this point because I don’t have time to read a whole literature opposing my political perspective right now. I’m not a conservative and I’m being asked to come up with the most persuasive conservative argument – that’s what I meant by echo chamber.
re: Ari says the argument has to be made not that the impeachment of Clinton was Constitutionally defensible, but that it was “necessary, proper, good for the nation.” Look at Ben Alpers “silver lining” above. I’m arguing that there might be more complexity here than we are able to know today. For instance: the bombing on the night of the House vote. Was it wag-the-dog, or a necessary military engagement that would not have occurred save for the House vote?
Here’s where I think we differ. Ari says the impeachment was the start of the Republican implosion we’re going to see shortly (the seeds of decline). I say the opposite: the impeachment was savvy political strategy that we both agree is Constitutionally defensible that was absolutely integral to the 2000 election and the 2002 mid-terms – in other words: the Republican ascendancy. Rather than begin the period of decline, impeachment remains the essential bridge between 1994 and GW Bush. Without impeachment, Al Gore doesn’t have to waste a campaign running away from a popular President. We have to separate what the Republicans did with the power they accrued from the strategies used to secure them. Machiavellian, yes. Not in the best interests of the USA? Yes. Good strategy if your plan is to raise your party to the most dominating political position it would have in seven decades? Yes. “Absurd” perhaps from our perspective, but certainly understandable in that worldview.
January 9, 2008 at 5:41 am
PorJ
Oops. I implied above the impeachment as “seed of decline” and impeachment as “origin of ascendancy” are mutually exclusive. Of course they are not; any good Greek dramatist (and Willy Shakes) would tell us that’s a fundamental error. It can both – or neither. Let’s not loose sight of the forests for the tree.
January 9, 2008 at 5:54 am
eric
Most notably, no leading Democrats called for the popular election of the President.
Although I am not a big fan of hers, Ben, I must point out you are flatly wrong. Hillary Clinton did try on the “abolish the electoral college” bit for a while.
January 9, 2008 at 6:16 am
Matt W
Wow, that link is a load of tripe. I particularly like his argument that it’s all-important to give more powers to white Midwesterners over urban black people, because otherwise white people’s feelings will be hurt. (OK, what he said was “Under direct popular election of the president, the Democratic candidate would probably seek large majorities in major metropolitan areas on both coasts, ignoring the smaller states in between. The alienation of ‘Middle America’ would increase,” but we know what he meant.)
January 9, 2008 at 6:38 am
silbey
“That said, I do think we’re in a pretty serious situation that is, in some respects, unprecedented.”
Pretty serious? Sure. Unprecedented? That I’m skeptical of. I can think immediately of a number of different situations that have looked a lot like now: McKinley’s annexation of Hawaii by executive order after the Senate proved unwilling to ratify a treaty doing the same thing, Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the imprisonment of a variety of people during WWI for being anti-government, the red scare of the 1920s, the Japanese-American internment during WWII. And those are just what I thought of while waiting for my typing to catch up with what I wanted to say.
The larger point here is that if we get caught up in the rhetoric of “this is unprecedented” or “worst ever” we implicitly dehistoricize it and cut ourselves off from perhaps the most important informed source we have (well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? I am, after all, a historian). We also get wrapped up in endless arguments (what’s the Ron Paul comment thread up to?) about whether it is unprecedented that are ultimately useless (“Lincoln did it too.” “Lincoln was different.” “No, he wasn’t.” “Yes, he was.”). Let’s use what we (historians, that is) are best at, and use the past to inform the present.
January 9, 2008 at 9:00 am
Ben Alpers
I stand corrected, Eric.
Did Clinton ever actually do anything to bring about a popularly elected presidency, or did she simply announce her support for it?
And since I’m (apparently) wrong about Clinton, I may be wrong about others, too: are there any other leading Democrats who did anything in this regard in the aftermath of the 2000 election?
January 9, 2008 at 11:52 am
urbino
Pretty serious? Sure. Unprecedented? That I’m skeptical of.
The larger point here is that if we get caught up in the rhetoric of “this is unprecedented” or “worst ever” we implicitly dehistoricize it and cut ourselves off from perhaps the most important informed source we have.
In my defense, Silbey, I think you’ve gone off a bit half cocked. I didn’t say it was unprecedented. I said it was in some respects unprecedented. And I quite stand by that. For instance, we have not, to my knowledge, previously had a full-bore attempt to turn the entire federal bureaucracy into a partisan political engine — not in the era of the modern welfare state.
Also, I was a historian once upon a time, myself. While I’ve forgotten much, I’ve no interest in dehistoricizing anything. As Eric notes in his latest post, and as evinced in the post from last October that I linked to above, I’ve been comparing the current era to the Gilded Age for a while now. It’s simply not the case that I’m in some kind of Chicken Little mode (or, with opposite emotional valence, Francis Fukuyama mode), running around shrieking that American history is at an end and we’re all going to die.
I do think there are aspects — important aspects — of our current situation that the nation has not encountered before, but that hasn’t led me to cut the present off from the past. Quite the opposite, I’ve gone looking for the nearest past parallel, and fetched up in the Gilded Age. It’s not an exact parallel, there are important differences that make our current situation, I think, worse in some respects, but it’s the nearest parallel I’ve been able to come up with. You seem to have reached a similar conclusion. Eric, I think, disagrees. I’m looking forward to that discussion. I think I’ll learn something from it, and I think it’s possible the country could learn something useful if we (the country, that is) had a larger, public dialog on the subject.
So, to wrap up: history good, Chicken Little bad.
January 9, 2008 at 12:15 pm
ari
And the history of Chicken Little: excellent.
January 9, 2008 at 12:37 pm
urbino
Especially when it includes pan frying.
January 9, 2008 at 1:11 pm
silbey
“previously had a full-bore attempt to turn the entire federal bureaucracy into a partisan political engine — not in the era of the modern welfare state.”
But that’s quite a substantial limit you just put on there, since the modern welfare state has only existed since the 1930s (and the 1960s if you want to be really persnickety). And hedging ‘unprecedented’ around with caveats and limits as you are doing tends to undercut the meaning of the word.
“It’s simply not the case that I’m in some kind of Chicken Little mode (or, with opposite emotional valence, Francis Fukuyama mode), running around shrieking that American history is at an end and we’re all going to die.”
I’m entirely sure that I didn’t accuse you of being Chicken Little. I did suggest that calling something unprecedented isolates one from using historical examples.
The word has tended to become a tick in American political and social commentary to signal an extreme (and here I’m not aiming this at what you said). The problem is that it’s not a useful one, because it’s invoked all too often and for things that are not, actually, unprecedented, and it doesn’t really add anything to the analysis except a tone of alarm.
“So, to wrap up: history good, Chicken Little bad.”
No argument there. Or with the pan-frying.
January 9, 2008 at 1:42 pm
urbino
But that’s quite a substantial limit you just put on there, since the modern welfare state has only existed since the 1930s (and the 1960s if you want to be really persnickety).
It is a substantial limit, in terms of years of American history eliminated from consideration as precedent. However, it is nonetheless valid. In discussing the level of danger posed by the conversion of the federal bureaucracy to a partisan political engine, is it not appropriate to limit the historical discussion to the era in which that bureaucracy’s budget constituted a significant portion of GDP and reached into most areas of every American’s life? Under the pre-welfare state (and pre-civil service reform) spoils system, the federal bureaucracy was basically always converted to partisan purposes, but did it matter all that much, as compared to now? ISTM that era’s value as precedent is pretty limited.
And hedging ‘unprecedented’ around with caveats and limits as you are doing tends to undercut the meaning of the word.
Doubtless you’re right. I might say the same about the use of “tends to undercut” instead of “undercuts.” In both cases, I think we’re each trying to make a strong point, but with [dare I say historical?] recognition that black-and-white absolutes are exceedingly rare. As always, it’s a question of degree. I think, and I’m open to being convinced otherwise, that my argument about unprecedentedness is strong enough to warrant the word, even with the qualifications I put on it. I think the rise of the welfare state and corresponding expansion of the federal bureacracy is enough of a disjunction in American history that if one runs across something that has never happened since then (and for purposes of this discussion, I consider the 1930s the relevant date), a qualified “unprecedented” is warranted.
January 9, 2008 at 2:42 pm
ari
And I thought this was the worst post I had ever put up. If only I had found a way to call Ron Paul a racist, we might really have a good discussion on our hands. Wait, I know: Ron Paul is a racist.
January 9, 2008 at 2:43 pm
ari
Sorry, Dr. Ron Paul is a racist.
January 9, 2008 at 3:08 pm
urbino
Now THAT was funny.
(I can’t quite tell if you’re saying this is a good discussion, or an overheated, bloated discussion. I hope it isn’t overheated, at least. No heat was intended.)
January 9, 2008 at 5:58 pm
silbey
“In discussing the level of danger posed by the conversion of the federal bureaucracy to a partisan political engine, is it not appropriate to limit the historical discussion to the era in which that bureaucracy’s budget constituted a significant portion of GDP and reached into most areas of every American’s life?”
Actually, I would say no, it isn’t, because that means that you’ve already made your mind up about what the question is. Limiting your focus that way limits the answers you’re going to get, limits the analysis you’re going to do, and tends to confirm the presuppositions you went into the study with. So, yes, throwing out most of American history before you start would be a very bad idea, indeed.
” I might say the same about the use of “tends to undercut” instead of “undercuts.””
You might. But then you’re trying to make an assertive point about the current situation (“unprecedented”) and I’m not.
“a qualified “unprecedented” is warranted.”
Which gives you what, exactly? Even–for the sake of the argument–conceding that, my other point in the post above was that calling something ‘unprecedented’ is simply a way of saying that it’s extreme. It doesn’t really do anything for the analysis except say that the situation is, well, extreme. What analytical advantage does calling something ‘unprecedented’ give you that is worth the caveating and careful parsing necessary to deploy it?
January 9, 2008 at 7:05 pm
ari
Oh, I wasn’t saying any of that. I was just goofing around. Because I’m a goof. I have the sense that you, Urbino, can take care of yourself. As can Silbey, I’m certain. Plus, I’m not the moderator. At least I don’t think that’s my role here.
January 9, 2008 at 7:12 pm
urbino
Actually, I would say no, it isn’t
Then we just disagree.
But then you’re trying to make an assertive point about the current situation (”unprecedented”) and I’m not.
I suppose that’s true, given the narrowness of its claim. I’m making an assertive point about the current situation, and you’re making an assertive point about the current dialog. It strikes me as a distinction without a difference, given your point.
Which gives you what, exactly? Even–for the sake of the argument–conceding that, my other point in the post above was that calling something ‘unprecedented’ is simply a way of saying that it’s extreme.
A sense of where you stand in history: what historic parallels are available to draw on, which things in the present they’re likely to apply to, and what is new. That seems like a good deal more than nothing.
As for “unprecedented” being used synonymously with “extreme,” I can only say that’s not how I use it.
What analytical advantage does calling something ‘unprecedented’ give you that is worth the caveating and careful parsing necessary to deploy it?
See above, and ISTM you’re overstating the level of caveating and parsing necessary. I’ve had to parse it for you, certainly, but because you made a pretty grossly careless reading of my original argument, not because there was anything particularly difficult about the argument itself or the rhetoric deployed.
I’m getting the sense, silbey, that is more about a beef you have with the word “unprecedented” than with anything essential to my argument. If the word offends you, I can use another (“extreme” still wouldn’t be it), but it doesn’t make the word any less appropriate to the argument.
That being the case, ISTM the returns on this discussion have diminished to the point that they no longer merit the investment. I don’t mean that to seem harsh or like personal pique or whatnot. I just don’t see what we’re accomplishing that’s worthwhile at this point.
January 9, 2008 at 7:17 pm
urbino
Plus, I’m not the moderator.
Didn’t mean to cast you in the role of nanny, Ari — not that you wouldn’t make a fine one. I was just trying to get a sense of whether you were signaling that, to your mind, the dialog had descended to Paulbot level.
January 9, 2008 at 8:00 pm
ari
Not at all.
January 9, 2008 at 8:04 pm
ac
Do you think the Supreme Court will, in future, allow suits against a sitting president? Clinton v. Jones was the beginning of the impeachment process, in a way.
January 9, 2008 at 8:17 pm
ac
I gather the decision had two parts, one that the President wasn’t above the law, and the other that surely a little ol’ civil suit wouldn’t take up too much of his time.
January 10, 2008 at 8:45 am
silbey
“what historic parallels are available to draw on, which things in the present they’re likely to apply to, and what is new”
But it doesn’t. Calling something ‘unprecedented’ effectively cuts it off from history by saying that there aren’t any parallels. Adding limits to the unprecedented essentially undercuts the point itself: “It’s unprecedented except for the following…”
“but because you made a pretty grossly careless reading of my original argument”
I did nothing of the sort, and I’m unclear why you’re being insulting.
January 10, 2008 at 3:26 pm
urbino
Didn’t mean to be insulting; just making the observation, which, I think, is valid. Recall where we started. I made a qualified statement. You read it as an unqualified statement (which does strike me as an instance of careless reading) and took me to task for it. I corrected you, and since then the conversation has been about your dislike of the word “unprecedented,” qualified or not.
ISTM we disagree on what work the word can do. I think it does the job I gave it rather well, and you do not. That could make for an interesting discussion, and on another occasion I might be inclined to pursue it with you, but as it is, I think we’re sort of talking past each other while fundamentally agreeing that the nearest parallel to our present situation is the Gilded Age.
January 11, 2008 at 12:42 pm
silbey
” which, I think, is valid. Recall where we started. I made a qualified statement. You read it as an unqualified statement (which does strike me as an instance of careless reading) and took me to task for it”
You made a vaguely qualified statement to start things off and I responded to that by pointing out that that statement was difficult to justify, backing that up with examples that ranged throughout American history. I then went on with a larger point about the use of the word ‘unprecedented’. We’ve been parsing back and forth ever since. Nowhere in there do I see myself committing a “grossly careless” reading
Two of the arguments that I find most annoying about Internet discussions are 1) the ‘you didn’t understand what I was saying’ argument, and 2) the ‘let’s pick apart every word we’ve said to show how wrong the other person is’ nuance.
Since both of those things have now happened, I would tend to agree with you that this conversation isn’t worth continuing.