Salud, Camerado

The poet/writer Bill Holm died yesterday in South Dakota, at 65. (Holm sent Paul Wellstone into the mists with the Whitmanism in today's title.)

Holm was a sentimental, deracinated Icelandic American, a Luddite and a pianist. (He didn't own a television and by god he was going to make sure you knew he didn't own a television.) Feeling isolated and rejected by America's mammon obsession and imperialism, Holm eventually purchases a tiny dwelling in Hofsós, Iceland. (His exile had to be in Iceland's remote hinterlands, as Reykjavík is itself polluted by commercialism, technology, fashion and urban leering.)

In The Windows of Brimnes, Holm idealizes rural Icelandic life, though a complaint or two arises when his neighbors noise-pollute the pristine fjord, gullibly seduced by that odious emblem of slutty American suburbia, the weed whacker. Holm is isolated, bitter, obsessed with America's failings large and small--and uninterested in pursuing any program for fixing it. Instead he seeks happy irrelevance far from America's invasive tintinnabulations. (He's not playing citizen-of-the-world in Hofsós--he's there playing honorary Icelander.)

In Brimnes, Holm doesn't come close to integrating into Iceland's social life or mastering Icelandic; his alienation follows him. His internationalism is thin; he poses as the 19th century's final heroic defender to a world that doesn't care. Obituarists have been holding him beside Walt Whitman, but Holm's modest artistic gift does not merit comparison with the Good Gray Poet--and Whitman's obsession with the penultimate century had an authenticity not matched in Holm's escapist preciosity.

Holm's self-perception eventually became so 'exotic' he started speaking of himself in the third person. His lifestyle (dividing his time between Marshall and Hofsós) would have been impossible had his ruralist cultural fantasy carried the day. Though often called a polemicist, I haven't yet come across an interesting or original attempt at political analysis or persuasion within the versifier's oeuvre. (Have you?) Holm's solution to the anxiety that comes with modernity justly persuades no one; his impact is least evident upon the young, who view him as a mildly uninteresting, self-exoticizing hothouse flower.

Adieu, fellow Muzak hater. Salud, Camerado.

Against 'Fitting the District'

Eric Holder--the other day--reminded us that our imperfect history impels serious citizens to disregard regional and local particularities, when choosing federal officeholders. A recent commenter seemed to suggest, 'Of course Erik Paulsen has nothing to say on racial matters: He's a white dude who represents a white district.' But the inherited racial disparities (in poverty, educational opportunity, safety of immediate environment, etc.) ought to concern all Americans; politicians ought to have positions on how to address this national problem. Nor should we overlook the fact that CD3's racial composition is not primarily the result of historical randomness. You're damn right: Erik Paulsen ought to think up something to say on this topic.

And when someone says we ought to support Candidate X based on her fitting the district, they're getting things quite wrong. First, voters have strong, ethical reason to disregard localism in choosing their federal representative: They ought to be thinking about the best direction for the country as a whole, in the awareness that current demographics are--in part--symptomatic of historical injustice. Fitting the district adds absolutely nothing to the discussion; it's an inkblot of unlabelled political traits, fleetingly projected. And its very undefinedness allows sleazy participants--people like Ron Carey and Sen. Geoff Michel--to use the tame-sounding phrase to signal tribal, 'demographic' loyalties without defining their terms...to inject--and then deny having injected--a racial/martial melody to release a bit of anxiety in the suburbs.

Cultural Revolution, Come Hither

A Year Ago, in Medina

A commenter took issue with yesterday's post.

Were one to run for US Congress in the DFL, one would interact daily with racially integrated, diverse groups of people. Even in CD3. You'd become aware that your success as a candidate is critically linked to your ability to establish rapport with historically-excluded minority participants.

If you're seeking the Republican nod for US Congress in CD3, you're going to encounter far fewer minority participants--and those you do encounter are going to be vastly less representative, ideologically, of their communities. Your outreach to minority communities will simply not make or break your candidacy. (Within the Republican CD3 culture, releasing a video like this will not seem bizarre.)

On the campaign trail last year, I twice ran into the mustachioed Republican kingmaker pictured above. At the Medina event one year ago (within earshot of Erik Paulsen) he repeatedly referred to then-Senator Barack Obama as Yo Mama--and repeated the clever witticism for anyone caring to chat. The anecdote illustrates a major cultural distinction between largely integrated DFL political meetings and largely non-integrated Republican ones.

A Republican Party seriously committed to winning over minority voters would require a top-to-bottom rethink. Such a transformation would require a cultural revolution within the GOP. But I had somewhat hoped such a revolution might be put on the table, in response to the recent election. And I'm not thinking of a more-enthusiastically-reactionary Republican Party, but one that somehow figures out how to welcome the minority population as they are. Perhaps I'm just indulging in an imaginative exercise, momentarily conjuring a no-longer anti-irony Republican Party...a no-longer stupider-than-thou GOP.

A Nation of Cowards

Jonah Goldberg and Peter Beinart chatted today (click below) about Attorney General Eric Holder's Nation of Cowards speech. In the speech, Holder is at times euphemistic and formulaic, but his essential point is sound--white America is often clueless about our brutal racial history. Our country was founded upon white supremacy and after our greatest internal conflict, we blew Reconstruction. In the late 1950's or so, our main political parties switched places on race, with the Republican Party becoming the bigot's comfortable political nest. And it's too bad the Republican Party doesn't make a greater effort to integrate itself, and desegregate American political life. In housing and public education--America remains far too segregated.

People running for US Congress should be expected to articulate a vision for transforming our historical inheritance of racial inequality. Rep. Erik Paulsen has never made a serious contribution to this discussion. Indeed, Paulsen exudes complacency on racial matters--and at a tense point in his campaign, Paulsen got very close to 'playing the race card'. Here's an example of Team Paulsen's typically monoracial campaign propaganda:

My 2/22/09 email to Rep. Paulsen

Dear Rep. Paulsen,

On February 20, 2009, you emailed me saying, 'Thank you for letting me know of your support for the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act [sic], the "stimulus bill." ' (Your letter's opening appears above.)

Your 2/20/09 email must have been in response to my 2/2/09 email to you, when I wrote:

You’ve stated that you want an economic stimulus bill to pass, and that your preferred economic stimulus would concentrate on small business tax cuts. What would be the preferred dollar value of such a stimulus? And since you campaigned in support of amending the US Constitution to prohibit federal borrowing, do you admit that—in calling for any deficit-financed stimulus—you are supporting the passage of legislation you believe ought to be outlawed by a properly-amended US Constitution?

So as you can see, I didn't write to you in support of the Stimulus Bill.

On 2/17/09, I publicly stated my opposition to the Stimulus Bill.

So can I ask you to acknowledge your error--and let me know you're aware that I have never emailed you in support of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009?

Very best wishes,

Gavin Sullivan

Pecha Kucha Night at Fred's

Deepali Dewan on a different occasion

I attended WAM Chatter: a pecha kucha event at the Weisman this evening. A pecha kucha format allows each speaker twenty slides, with each slide appearing for twenty seconds. So each speaker narrates her six minute forty second slide show, and then--at this particular pecha kucha--the panel sat down and took questions for another ninety minutes or so. Our starting point: “Does the work of Asian women artists matter?” The event was an offshoot of the current exhibit Changing Identity: Recent Works by Women Artists from Vietnam.

The Q&A was moderated by Jigna Desai; the panel was Deepali Dewan (the evening's mesmerizer), Joan Kee and Miwako Tezuka. Deepali Dewan's presentation had the most impact, as she flipped through slides showing works by Zarina Bhimji, Rachel Kalpana James and others. Alone among this evening's panelists--Dewan offered a gutsy [albeit lightly yes-hedged] 'No' in answer to the question. Dewan and Kee both rejected the 'Asian woman artist' idea as containing dumb essentialism, with Dewan arguing that the concepts of history and art contain the inescapable 'silent referent' of Eurocentrism.

So both 'Asian artist' and 'woman artist' were dismissed as being self-subordinating, racist [though I didn't hear that word used] or sexist [nor that]--persuasively, to this listener--with a bit of time left over for dissecting work and matter too. About fifty people attended. Quite lively.

A Dissent and a Concurrence

While Rep. Erik Paulsen's criticisms of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 have been stupid, I remain unconvinced that it's going to work--and that the spending will benefit the economy in the long run. I hope I am proven wrong.

On fiscal matters, Rep. Paulsen is schizophrenic: He claims to support a permanent ban on federal borrowing while faulting Pres. Obama's Stimulus Package for misallocating the federal CARE package. So Erik Paulsen simply misunderstands basic economics. What should responsible adults think?

I'm a deficit hawk, a free trade supporter and a Keynesian. So I'd like to reduce the deficit [as a percentage of GDP] in the long run. A sensible economic policy should reduce the deficit over the course of a business cycle. During a steep economic downturn, it might well make sense to borrow to get the economy moving again. But I'm not convinced that the just-enacted Stimulus Package represents a politically-neutral and efficient use of resources. Were I CD3's congressional representative, I would have voted against the Stimulus Package.

Eric Black also expresses skepticism about the Stimulus, but he's decided to hold unrepentant Balanced Budget Amendment supporters blameless: 'There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no fiscal conservatives on the brink of a Depression.' While Black's viewpoint is idiotic, it is also the conventional wisdom. My rationality-based viewpoint--that anyone formerly allied with the Balanced Budget Amendment who now advocates massive government borrowing ought to be called to account, and asked to clarify whether they still support a permanent constitutional ban on federal borrowing--is still considered beyond the pale. In the marketplace of ideas, moronic equilibria can prove surprisingly long-lived.

Peter Eichstaedt Speaks

I arrived a bit late for Peter Eichstaedt's book event last night at Magers and Quinn. About twenty people attended. Eichstaedt just published First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army. The LRA ["a cult of child killers"] is led by Joseph Kony, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Kony remains at large, though Ugandan forces are claiming to have him surrounded. Eichstaedt--here's his blog--is a veteran journalist; he has a moderate, humanitarian concern for promoting peace in the area where the LRA has caused tremendous suffering.

During the Q&A, several young people (who I learned are with Child Protection International) seemed incredibly well-informed about the situation over there.

Somalis and Media Exchange Perspectives

An event called News Coverage and the the Somali Community was held this evening at the University of Minnesota, with a panel composed of five Somali community leaders and five local media luminaries. Perhaps one hundred people attended--more than half Somalis; the Minnesota News Council sponsored the meeting. (I'm aware that Somali-American is the more correct term--but it's a bit clunky.)

The Somalis bashed the press with varying degrees of stridency, some quite nuanced--while the press people apologized, outreached and defended their critical perspective. It was a fun event to observe; many Somali panelists and audience members said it was a dialogue which should have been initiated long before--but that it was very satisfying nonetheless.

The immediate cause of the Somalis' unhappiness is the coverage of the young, local Somali men who have gone missing. And this article--published in the Strib on Sunday--appears to have set off considerable Somali outrage.

NPR's reporting on the missing young Somalis has also irritated the Twin Cities Somali community. In response to criticism of the two NPR pieces, Laura Yuen emphasizes that NPR and MPR are separate entities; she appears to be dissociating herself and her organization from the the two flimsy Dina Temple-Raston pieces.

Dutch Feat

Dr. Ashis Brahma [on right]

This evening a Save Darfur event was held at Edina High School. Principal Bruce Locklear ('Doc Loc') starts the event off; about 250 people attend. A house-of-mirrors mutual flattery suffuses; the principal is bowled over by the love and sincerity of today's youth, whose leaders are themselves as concerned as can be by the suffering in Africa. Two representatives from Edina High's STAND chapter then introduce a Sixty Minutes segment on Darfur--which we view for seven minutes, until the technology abruptly crashes. They then introduce keynote speaker Dr. Ashis Brahma, of the Netherlands.

Brahma preaches a sub-lyrical Bob Marleyite life philosophy; he maintains 'one eye crying' at what he sees on this earth, with the other laughing--he tells us twice. (Not a metaphor original or poignant enough to merit repetition, alas.) He shows us Hangala, Darfur, Sudan and a later, incinerated photo of same--and tells us that hundreds of villages have been erased by the Jangjaweed.

Brahma finds two Sudanese men in the audience and establishes fraternal solidarity. He says the Sudanese are wonderful people--and 'very hospitable'. (Just once one would enjoy hearing of some ethnic group somewhere--perfect in so many ways--but just 'not very hospitable.') Then the doctor asks Asians, then South Americans, then Australians in the audience to reveal themselves. A bit much.

We get lots of anecdote from the full-maned, Afrocentrically-dressed Dr. Brahma, but leave without a strong feeling of having any clue what the current situation is, despite his telling us that it's worse than ever and devolving. Brahma reviews several genocides in the past century, lamenting that after the Holocaust we said never again but again came anyway--and he lists several 'subsequent' genocides--quizzically including the WW1-era Armenian Genocide within his list.

**

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing. --Oscar Wilde

**

Brahma Bull: Dr. Brahma tells us it felt cool to be on Sixty Minutes in front of sixty million viewers and that Angelina Jolie has not only beautiful eyes 'but a beautiful heart too', that Zaghawa children are not permitted to cry and that 'not everything is bad about a genocide' [he tells us twice, in separate contexts]. That female genital mutilation 'is not something Africans should be proud of'. Judging others is wrong, in his view--and he quotes the bible for support. (Though elsewhere I'm quite sure the bible makes a judgmental statement or two.) Brahma informs us that he loves ambiguity--and that women are amazing creatures because they give life.

Perhaps it's unfair to blame the audience for Dr. Brahma's gushy, overly-broad, cloying rhetorical love-feast. I can bear no more, but as I rise to leave the hilariously wooden Dr. Ellen J. Kennedy takes the lectern, imploring Erik Paulsen's staffer to join her on stage to receive the students' oversized petition. John-Paul Yates stands as far from the banner-presenters as possible, but eventually senses an end is in sight and relaxes. Kennedy tells us it's too early to glean Erik Paulsen's antigenocide bona fides; Yates resumes his seat, rolled-up scroll in hand.

No Time for Platform Shoes

Carleton College held a lunch today in Minneapolis on the economic crisis with two speakers: Economics Prof. Michael Hemesath and Master-of-the-Universe Jim Ulland. After parking downtown and heroically finding the 40th floor venue [I'm an Eden Prairie guy!] I took in the view, grabbed a box lunch and barely introduced myself to my tablemates when the event started. Perhaps sixty people attended. Ulland--who was good and wears cool glasses for a '64 grad--spoke second and discussed the microeconomic side of the crisis. Hemesath handled the stimulus bill and the macroeconomic aspect, which is what I'd like to discuss here today.

Hemesath, who has appeared previously on GavinSullivan.com, is a centrist, mainstream economist--the sensible policy advice giver, ever ready to disappoint your inner utopian and insist you take off the platform shoes and put on your Rockports. He says the Great Depression is not a good model for understanding the current recession. The Depression was caused by dumb policies and exacerbated by worse policies--in part because at the time macroeconomics didn't exist. [And it was a vastly more painful experience for the masses--Ed.] Keynes didn't even publish his General Theory until 1936--three years into the New Deal.

Prof. Hemesath discusses the Stimulus Package, noting the CBO opines that ten years from today we'll be in better economic shape with no stimulus than with the Obama economic recovery package. The stimulus package now before us includes an excessive amount of pork and too much of its spending oomph gets injected after 2010. (Hemesath says no serious economist predicts we'll still be in recession after 2010.) I nod knowingly, concealing a sigh of relief.

After the event, I goad the impartial Hemesath to advocate; he says the current stimulus package should be divided into two bills--one a true economic stimulus (meeting Larry Summers' original goal for it to be targeted, timely and temporary)--and a second bill stuffed with the gigantic liberal Christmas list [that ur-Rockport-wearers could then oppose]. By itself, such a stimulus bill might make greater economic sense and not result in a long-term reduction in economic growth.

Hemesath says there is ongoing debate among economists as to which has the larger multiplicative effect--government spending or tax cuts. In a world free of messy politicking, the economist believes a more efficient jolt could be achieved by cutting the Social Security payroll tax--and once the economy rebounded, gradually raising the gas tax to replace today's SSI payroll tax.

Leaving the skyscraper after the long lunch, I walk out into the 40°F light rain, pay my $11 parking fee (for a friggin' Kia!) and drive back to Gray Minivanville. Returning to the dimly-lit cubicle, there's a newly-arrived, companywide email reminding all of the hours we are expected to toil. (I'm reasonably certain I didn't set that one off, but that's uncanny still.)

Bonoff-Madia: 2010 Rematch Unlikely

I emailed Ashwin Madia the other day asking whether he'll run for Congress again in 2010, among other things. Madia ran a strong campaign in '08--even polling ahead of Paulsen once. (I supported Madia and still stubbornly fly the Madia for Congress bumper sticker on the old Kia Rio.)

Ashwin Madia looks back on his candidacy as being 'one of the best experiences of my life.' Perhaps Madia's plans are well-known to campaign insiders, but I learned new stuff in the candidate's friendly response: 'I want to run again for office, and I want to win next time. However, for a number of reasons, I don't think that I'll be running for Congress in 2010. I had a good shot at it, I gave it everything I had - as did my team - and I came up short. While, in retrospect, I think I made some mistakes that I'll correct the next time I run, I think somebody else should run against Paulsen in 2010 - and beat him.'

So Madia isn't entirely closing the door on a 2010 re-try, but he doesn't now appear excited about the prospect.

During the last cycle, Sen. Terri Bonoff and Ashwin Madia clashed for the DFL endorsement for US Congress. That contest culminated in the lengthy floor fight at Wayzata Central Middle School on April 12, 2008, but Team Madia's powerful performances at the DFL senate district conventions during the weeks preceding April 12 were key to the endorsement win. And Ashwin Madia's success at the senate district conventions was the result of very energetic efforts during the earlier weeks and months.

The Bonoff-Madia clash is fairly caricatured as a clash between the CD3 DFL hierarchy and the rank-and-file. Once it became clear--going into the April 12 CD3 Endorsing Convention--that Bonoff had far fewer democratically-elected delegates, the state senator continued to fight ferociously to get the nomination. So Team Bonoff essentially had to convince wavering delegates that--in the interest of beating Erik Paulsen--the excited newbies outnumbering her supporters had to be overridden.

So it's funny that Terri Bonoff is now arguing that the candidate-selection process is excessively under the control of party insiders--as just ten months ago she appeared to be making the opposite argument.

Sen. Bonoff is aware that the change she is proposing will significantly destigmatize challenging endorsed candidates in primaries. People are free to change their minds; perhaps Bonoff has a different interpretation of her conduct at the end of her congressional campaign. Alternatively, Bonoff might be thinking, 'Politics is a messy business; do not judge my political philosophy based on April 2008. My real, principled belief is that our candidate selection process ought to be more democratic.' Something like that?

If Bonoff is planning on trying again for the US House in 2010, it would seem strange she'd now be seeking to reduce the importance of the April CD3 Endorsing Convention. You'd think Bonoff would prefer maintaining the present system, which discourages unconventional candidacies and intra-party populism.

Perhaps Bonoff isn't interested in running for Congress again. Or perhaps she's so principled she's even willing to advocate rule changes specifically harmful to her own political prospects. Or perhaps she hasn't thought it through--or is receiving mistaken advice. Or?

The June Primary

Sen. Terri Bonoff was an early Obama endorser

Chris Truscott and Jeff Rosenberg have posted recently on Sen. Terri Bonoff's proposal to move the state primary from September to June. I called Sen. Bonoff this morning and we talked about the idea a bit.

Elections are unpredictable. When the rules governing state primaries get changed, weird stuff surely happens. Yet we have to ask, 'Will this change help our party?' 'Will it affect the loyal opposition in any special way?' and 'Will the state as a whole benefit from the change?' (And 'What about my ass?')

Bonoff mentions that the existing September primary strongly discourages potential candidates from entering, as party insiders view noisy intra-party fighting--just eight weeks before the general election--as deeply damaging to the party's November prospects.

The Bonoff proposal would shift power from partisan activists to the somewhat less politically committed--from the 24/7 political fiends to the I'd-like-to-attend-the-precinct-caucus-but-Dancing With The Stars-is-on crowd.

I ask Terri what would have happened had her proposal been in effect during the last cycle? She hands me an oracle bone of an answer; I think she believes she good governance might have benefited from the change. Going into last cycle's April 12 CD3 Endorsing Convention without having expressed firm commitment to abide by the result would have greatly weakened either contender.

Setting the primary for June will much reduce the stigma of challenging endorsed candidates. It's early enough for wounds to have healed and for the winning candidate to go on to fight a robust general election campaign--goes the CW. The left being naturally more fractious than the right, we might anticipate harder-fought DFL primary battles. Perhaps.

In the legendary 2008 CD3 DFL endorsement contest, Bonoff's support was top-heavy, with many party leaders and DFL-in-the-blood activists (whose war stories went all the way back to the Al Smith campaign). Ashwin Madia ignited greater excitement among people newer to the process. (Plenty of exceptions on both sides, of course.) Had Madia-Bonoff gone to a June primary, maybe Terri could have pulled it off--but I wouldn't have bet on it.

Should you support moving the primary to June? If you want to destigmatize primary challenges--and thus weaken the power of party insiders--then yes. The 130-or-so DFL Endorsing Convention delegates are to the left of primary voters. In their candidate-selection process, primary voters probably obsess less about a candidate's lengthy history of party loyalty.

But such changes are difficult to game out; results will often confound expectations. I think [if enacted] the Bonoff proposal will--on the congressional level--result in far more primary challenges. We might see CD3 DFL fields with many entrants, in which case the winner might be someone who cobbles together energetic support from the ideologically pure. So it's difficult to say whether the change will favor moderation or encourage ideological candidacies, will increase or decrease the role of early money or will magnify or diminish the prospects of the charismatic.

But I like the idea.

They Stoop to Conquer

"Equally, there is a danger that Protestant clerics who are not open about their own doubts will lose sight of what is distinctive about the faith to which they belong. Sidgwick, like Hobbes and Mandeville before him, takes it for granted that Catholics are inveterate hypocrites, in the sense that play-acting is the essence of the Catholic faith. But the reason all these writers nevertheless worry more about Protestant than Catholic hypocrisy is precisely because in the Catholic case it is unavoidable, whereas Protestants have the capacity to exercise discretion and personal judgment. Moreover, concealment on the part of Protestant clergy will leave them not merely compromised on their own account, but also in a far weaker position to criticize Catholic hypocrisy when they would wish to."

David Runciman, Political Hypocrisy, p159.

**

This evening I attended the Social Justice Committee meeting at Edina's St. Patrick's Catholic Church. Early in the meeting, the committee's leader (who is employed by the church) tells us that [Edina's state] Sen. Geoff Michel is seeking our input on how to solve the state's budget crisis--and how to end poverty in Minnesota by 2020. Having observed the oleaginous Sen. Michel in action on several occasions, I drew a conclusion which seemed obvious: Michel is playing church leaders around his district, flattering them so as to strengthen his political base. This viewpoint was deemed psychotic by other attendees--and the leader reminded me of our long-promised private sit-down in which the rules of the road will be driven home to me. (I shiver with anticipation.)

The parish has a relationship with a Catholic church in Cobán, Guatemala, annually sending a self-financed delegation there--and regularly purchasing water purification equipment in Minnesota and sending it there. The Social Justice Committee has an extra $5,000 to spend as it pleases; this evening people discussed what to do with it. Everyone agreed that it should go to the poor in Cobán.

Your lone dissident spoke in opposition to the proposal: If we have some money to spend to alleviate global poverty, it isn't a wise idea to spend it in Guatemala, I argued. Per capita gdp in Guatemala is $5,400--but in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it's just $300. So I think the church's $5k can alleviate far more misery in the DRC than in Guatemala. And I don't think any equipment should be purchased in Minnesota. It'd be far cheaper--and more efficient and beneficial to the impoverished country--were the equipment purchased in the poor country.

Voicing this viewpoint elicited additional Torquemadan grimaces. No one would momentarily ponder such idiocy: One committee stalwart spoke for all in saying, 'There will always be people poorer or more unfortunate than where we give. There's nothing we can do about that.'

So the committee doesn't really seek to efficiently use its limited resources to help the largest possible number of desperately poor people. The Cobán mission is perceived as incontestable, unarguable proof of the parishioners' pure intentions. Alas, their Cobán effort is a self-flattery program.

Paulsen's KKMS Interview: In Over His Head?

On January 28, Rep. Erik Paulsen granted an interview to Jeff Shell and Lee Michaels, hosts of KKMS Live--the conservative Christian station's afternoon-drive show. (You can listen to the entire brief interview here.) During the interview, we gain further insight into the ignorance, incoherence and irresponsibility of Congressman Paulsen's worldview.

The topic of the moment is the economic stimulus bill, which Paulsen opposed. The Congressman tells KKMS listeners he supports an alternative stimulus--one that would focus on providing small business owners with tax deductions. He doesn't say how much he'd like to borrow.

So he's playing both sides of the issue, complaining that the Democrats' bill is moving too slow and too fast. It's too big (but his would be big too). And it's going to cost tax payers a lot of money. Paulsen's grandstands: 'I’m doing great, unfortunately I think they’re going to spend some more of your money out here today.' (This from a congressman who advocates an alternative stimulus, not no stimulus.)

I've emailed Erik Paulsen seeking clarification.

From an economic standpoint, Paulsen's policy preference amounts to industrial policy--to picking winners. If we're going to inject liquidity into the economy, we want the funds to go to people who are most likely to spend it--people in the middle on down. Consumers will spend the money where they see fit; such an injection differs from Paulsen's as it allows the marketplace to function competitively, rather than handing out money to favored political factions. And Paulsen offers no evidence in support of his view that small businesses are likely to respond to tax cuts by hiring additional workers.

Shell and Michaels--open Paulsen supporters, both--ask Erik for specific examples of waste in the House's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Paulsen offers two--both stupid:

a) The Democrats preferred bill adds $600 million dollars (to the already-allocated $3.5 billion) to upgrade the government's automobile fleet. (So the Democrats want to spend 17% more on cars than we would have anyway.) Is that the best you can do, Erik?

b) Paulsen's second example of wasteful spending in the House Democrats' bill? It includes $50 billion for the NEA. (Listen to the interview if you don't believe me--Paulsen really sounds in over his head.) So Paulsen is simply confusing the words billion and million. Does an extra $50 million (the indisputably correct number) of arts spending sound insane to you? Do you think we can afford 20¢ in arts funding per American?

And how did we get into this mess, anyway? That's a complex question beyond the scope of this evening's blogpost. But we did make one extremely costly error in 2003, in going to war in Iraq. (Both Paulsen and I supported that invasion; I've long since acknowledged the decision was a grave foreign policy error.) Leaving aside the immense human toll, we ought not forget the Iraq War has cost us enormously financially--and it has consumed much of public policy-makers' attention. It may even have played a role in putting us where we are now.

I'll give him the last word: Paulsen prefers instead to blame the financial crisis on others--even as he himself advocates a massive deficit-financed stimulus: 'I’m really worried that we got into so much difficulty with our economy because of so much borrowing and spending, it’s hard for me to fathom that the right answer is more borrowing and spending.'

In Defense of Piss and Vinegar

A half-dozen or so Twin Cities journalists have interviewed Rep. Erik Paulsen in the past month. All have asked very similar questions; all have taken a similarly deferential tone. In response, I've accused them of embeddedness with Rep. Paulsen.

Alone among the journalists I've censured--Esme Murphy has responded to my criticism. (Props, Esme!)

To review, I've argued that a serious journalist ought to explore Erik Paulsen's views in three areas:

1) Paulsen is calling for deficit spending to be banned by a Constitutional amendment--while at the same time calling for an alternative, massive deficit-financed economic stimulus. It is bizarre that no journalist has asked Paulsen to explain this ideological pirouette.

2) Paulsen supported a Congressional Resolution declaring Hamas to be 100% to blame for Israel's Gaza assault, an attack which killed at least 700 innocent Palestinian civilians. Paulsen should be asked to explain his support for the Israeli assault. (Please see my numerous previous posts on Gaza.)

3) Journalists participating in interviews with Erik Paulsen should ask him when--and how often--he will be holding town hall forums around the district. CD3 town hall forums--where citizens can question our representative--have been a three-decade tradition spanning the careers of both Paulsen's living predecessors.

In the interest of defending democracy in CD3, journalists should ask Paulsen for an explanation of his blacklisting of me. Were Paulsen to take questions from everyone except for Esme Murphy, my first series of questions to him would seek explanation for his blacklisting of her. It would be lazy and dishonorable for me to enjoy journalistic access to Paulsen while remaining silent as he blacklisted other reasonable, civil bloggers.

If you get involved in journalism or politics, people will sometimes criticize you. When you're criticized, it is human nature to find reasons to avoid seriously grappling with the criticism--to seek escape. You can lob charges against the motivations of the person criticizing you or try to argue that your detractor is insane--as Erik Paulsen does, implicitly--and stupidly--against me.

By responding to my blogpost on-air, Esme Murphy is acknowledging that my position lies within the range of acceptable civil discourse--and that I'm raising serious, substantive questions: Mine are not personal attacks. I thank Ms. Murphy for this.

That said, I hasten to add that Murphy's dismissal of my charges is indefensibly brusque: She believes that in interviewing a high-level politician such as Paulsen, 'I don’t see my role as an interviewer as adversarial.' Then we do disagree--fair enough: The three criticisms of Paulsen (reviewed above) are so glaringly obvious they do require an adversarial tone from the responsible interviewer.

And Murphy acknowledges her chummy tone, with Paulsen:

'I’ve always believed in the old saying You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.' [And surely you mean flies, no?]

So, Ms. Murphy--can you now list the bees caught in your Paulsen honey-snare? What have we learned about Paulsen's willingness to respond to questions from constituents, and about his undiscussible blacklist? What do we now know about his schizophrenia regarding deficit spending? What can we now say to the devastated people of Gaza, whose pummeling Paulsen found so worthy?