[Posted by Karl] According to the AP’s Julie Pace , it might just be the Sheriff: A year from Election Day, Democrats are crafting a campaign strategy for Vice President Joe Biden that targets the big three political battlegrounds: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, states where Biden might be more of an asset to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign than the president himself. Doug Powers goes right to the Biden Blooper Reel ; I’ll simply note that last month, the AP’s Julie Pace was reporting that Michelle Obama might be her husband’s not-so-secret weapon. I don’t mean to pick on Ms. Pace in particular. After all, the Tribune Co . and New York Times were writing similar pieces before the 2010 midterms — and we know how well that turned out. TIME did the Michelle O story in 2010; NBC’s Andrea Mitchell joined Pace for 2011. The obvious cheap shot would be that Obama’s not-so-secret weapon is the esatblishment media. But it’s not just bias, it’s laziness, as evidenced by all the stories written about Laura Bush as a secret weapon , despite a similar lack of evidence . It may be more useful to read the Biden spin is light of the larger debate on the left between analysts like William Galston, who thinks Obama’s path to victory still runs through the Rust Belt, and those like Ruy Teixeira, who argues that demographics make Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina more appealing targets for Obama. Alec MacGillis thinks Obama is adopting the latter strategy, but sees it as a false choice. But maybe it just looks like Obama is focusing on the latter group of states because the best Obama can do in the Rust Belt right now is to send Joe Biden. –Karl
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Obama’s not-so-secret weapon
William Galston tries to walk back Elizabeth Warren’s claim that nobody in this country got rich on their own. He argues that George Will and other conservative critics are imputing to the Democratic Senate candidate a collectivist impulse she has not evidenced. Without the enabling framework that only government can create, individuals cannot securely enjoy the fruits of their endeavors. Every return on investment, then, is actually a return on two sources of investment, one reflecting individual choice, the other public decisions. Taxation is not theft; nor is it, as the late philosopher Robert Nozick once put it, “on a par with forced labor.” Rather, it reflects the return on the public investment to which nearly everyone contributes. It does not rest on the claim that all resources are collective and that individuals receive what is theirs as an act of grace, but rather on the more modest claim that we all owe something in return for the collective goods without which our individual striving cannot succeed. Even this doesn’t necessarily justify a steeply progressive tax code or even establish when someone has paid their fair share once they’ve paid a certain minimum, as Gallston himself concedes. But more importantly, everyone gets the public benefits Warren specifically mentions. Not everyone can build an Apple, a Boeing, or a factory. Instead of acknowledging this, Warren seems to be saying that such people are even more indebted to the government for the provision of public roads. This is surely backwards. As I pointed out in my column on Steve Jobs, it can be equally true that the rest of us enjoy a return on the innovators’ investment , realizing collective benefits without direct government involvement on behalf of the public good.
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TNR, Elizabeth Warren, and the Rich
The Daily Caller ‘s Chris Moody has rounded up Washington’s five most ridiculous responses to the Tucson shooting. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) wants to put Plexiglass all around the House gallery. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is going to introduce a bill that would ban guns within 1000 feet of members of Congress. Rep. Robert Brady (D-PA) wants to outlaw threatening lawmakers with symbols (such as crosshairs). Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) has pushed for the reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine. And David Frum, not a congressman but still very much a Washingtonian, has advocated tougher drug laws to guard against “pot smoking loners” like Jared Lee Loughner. One response left off Moody’s list is the only one I’ve seen that addresses what seems to be the specific problem with Loughner, namely schizophrenia. In today’s Wall Street Journal Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, author of The Insanity Offense: How America’s Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens, suggests that Loughner suffers from schizophrenia and that Tucson-type tragedies are “the inevitable outcome of five decades of failed mental-health policies.” Torrey concludes: The solution to this situation is obvious-make sure individuals with serious mental illnesses are receiving treatment. The mistake was not in emptying the nation’s hospitals but rather in ignoring the treatment needs of the patients being released. Many such patients will take medication voluntarily if it is made available to them. Others are unaware they are sick and should be required by law to receive assisted outpatient treatment, including medication and counseling, as is the case in New York under Kendra’s Law. If they do not comply with the court-ordered treatment plan, they can and should be involuntarily admitted to a hospital [emphasis added]. And in The New Republic , William Galston begins a similar argument with the warning that “[t]his article will make civil libertarians unhappy.” The story repeats itself, over and over. A single narrative connects the Unabomber, George Wallace shooter Arthur Bremmer, Reagan shooter John Hinckley, the Virginia Tech shooter-all mentally disturbed loners who needed to be committed and treated against their will. But the law would not permit it. … A delusional loss of contact with reality should be enough to trigger a process that starts with multiple offers of voluntary assistance and ends with involuntary treatment, including commitment if necessary. How many more mass murders and assassinations do we need before we understand that the rights-based hyper-individualism of our laws governing mental illness is endangering the security of our community and the functioning of our democracy? [Emphasis added.] But Reason ‘s Jacob Sullum is already pushing back against the calls for increasing involuntary commitment: Even worse is a legal regime that imprisons eccentrics on the off chance that they will commit murder someday. …University of Maryland political scientist William Galston said civil commitment rules should be changed to “shift the balance in favor of protecting the community.” Such a shift inevitably would mean locking up more people who pose no real threat to others. I suspect that an examination of the numbers would weaken Torrey’s case: there are probably more schizoprhenia-influenced killings today than in the ’60s simply because there are more people than in the ’60s. And Galston’s case that many recent high-profile killings by “disturbed loners” could have been prevented doesn’t address the fact that many different people in Loughner’s life had plenty of actionable warnings, including apparently the sheriff , and yet no one took any of the steps that would precede involuntary commitment. Increasing involuntary commitment is the only response that addresses the root problem in the case of the Loughner killings, but there are still reasons to be extremely skeptical.
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Responses to Tucson
Filed under: Democrats , Republicans , Independents , Tea Party The grassroots group has identified the problem — rampant frustration with both political parties. But the challenge is getting more Americans engaged in politics.
The Washington Post
