Je Suis Pussies

Over seven million copies of the Charlie Hebdo survivor issue are now being printed and still only a trickle are making it out of Paris.  Sooner or later they'll get across the pond in sufficient quantity that I too can buy a copy.  As I wait for my opportunity to show this small gesture of support, it's interesting to note many news organizations chose not to print or broadcast the cover including NBC, NPR, and the New York Times.

The two primary rationales for major media outlets to not publish or display the unquestionably newsworthy cartoon cover of the Charlie Hebdo survivor issue are 1) fear of violence for their employees or 2) protecting the feelings of readers/viewers from being offended by a presumptively blasphemous cartoon.

A corporate decision to abrogate journalistic integrity out of fear of violent reprisal can be criticized, but it is at least an honest rationale. As for the latter...

Ross Douthat's NYT column in the immediate wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and his somewhat more nuanced follow-up deconstruct the rationalization and makes a very important point:

"Must all deliberate offense-giving, in any context, be celebrated, honored, praised? I think not. But in the presence of the gun ... both liberalism and liberty require that it be welcomed and defended." 

"...the kind of offense-giving that’s often most worth defending or even embracing is the kind that’s made in the face of, or in response to, lethal violence."

I'll offer less nuanced phrasing - If the "we won't print the Charlie Hebdo cover because it might  offend" rationale is not completely hypocritical, it is intellectually dishonest. In the case of Douthat's employer at the New York Times - it is both.

Your New Improved 2015 Divided Government

It's been a while since the midterms and the Dividist's last post. Never did quite get around to posting the 2014 election recap. No matter. It's 2015! This week the 114th United States Congress will be sworn in.  Our New and Improved 2015-16 Divided Government has arrived!

Of course, our divided government is not new. We've had divided government for the last four years and six of the last eight. By the time our next President is sworn into office in January 2017, we'll have lived under divided government for eight of the prior ten years. That's a pretty good run. But not all divided governments are the same.  There are divided governments and then there are divided governments.

The Golden Age of Divided Government 
In fact, there are eight possible configurations of partisan legislative / executive mixtures in the United States federal government (assuming a two party duopoly). David Mayhew outlined all eight in the 2005 updated preface to his seminal book Divided We Govern:

"This book, like most treatments of the subject, addresses party control as a yes-or-no matter. That makes good sense. It must be the case that either a) one party simultaneously control all three national elective institutions, or b) one party controls two of them and the other party controls the third. For most analytic purposes, a yes-or-no coding is the way to to go. Yet it is also true that eight possible conditions, not just the conventional two arise if we take into account which party controls which institutions. If the presidency, House and Senate are arrayed in order, the possibilities are respectively DDD, DDR, DRD, RDD, RRD, RDR, DRR, and RRR. How many of those eight patterns have appeared since 1980? The answer is now six, which shows the surprising versatility of the regime that has unfolded in recent decades. The only exceptions DDR (the Republicans have not controlled just the Senate since 1185-89) and DRD (the Republicans have not controlled just the House since 1859-61)."

Divided government has proven even more versatile since Professor Mayhew wrote those words. From 2011-2014 we experienced the rare configuration of Republicans controlling only the House.

In a March, 2012 post I listed all eight possible configurations stack ranked by the most probable outcome of that presidential election year.  The most probable outcome (DRR) did not win despite an election year stacked heavily in favor of Republicans taking the Senate majority. A variety of Republican clown candidates enabled the GOP to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  It's a good time to update that chart, but this time we'll rank the configurations in order of my personal preference.

Just Vote Divided

Welcome to our fifth election eve "Just Vote Divided" post since starting this blog in 2006.

In 2006 we advocated a straight ticket Democratic vote to break the four year stranglehold of One Party Republican Rule on the federal government. In 2008 we advocated a vote for John McCain to avoid a return to the fiscal irresponsibility, inadequate oversight, and bad legislation endemic to One Party Rule in Washington D.C. In 2010, we argued for a straight ticket Republican vote to restore divided government and begin to undo the damage from One Party Democratic Rule of the prior two years. In 2012 the Dividist voted early and for the reelection of President Obama. Not because we thought he was a good president. Just because there was no chance of the Democrats retaking the House, and there was a small but realistic chance that Romney could win with sufficient coattails to restore One Party Republican Rule.

The rationale, supporting scholarship, and core arguments for divided government have not changed. Each election cycle presents unique problems facing the country and more evidence of how the moderating influence of divided government is the right mechanism for our government to address those problems. Neither party can be trusted with all the keys to the castle. Not ever. Not under any circumstances. No matter how much you want to fetishize "getting things done".  If our elected leaders cannot find and agree to a compromise policy that satisfies (or dissatisfies) our major factions/parties equitably, we are simply better off with less "getting done". There are worse things than gridlock and a "do-nothing" congress. One worse thing is efficient and productive One Party Democratic Rule. Another worse thing is efficient and productive One Party Republican Rule.

Which brings us to the 2014 midterms.

Friday Flotsam - The "Midterms And End of Unified Government As We Know It" Edition

Time once again for the Dividist to stroll down our metaphorical beach and take note of the detritus that has washed ashore and cluttered this little island of rationality in the great big blogospheric ocean.

With the midterm election only days away, the looming reality of divided government continuing indefinitely into the future is beginning to sink in for partisans and independents alike. The prospect of President Obama facing a unified GOP Congress with majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives have Republicans giddy and Democrats checking off the stages of grief on the Kübler-Ross  Index - Denial... Anger... Depression... Bargaining... I guess we'll have to wait a while for "Acceptance".

A good time to go beachcombing and look for any shiny bits of divided government flotsam we previously overlooked. Submitted here for your reading enjoyment...

The United Coalition of the Divided - 2014 Edition

The Dividist started this exclusive club during the 2008 election cycle and simultaneously initiated the "Coalition of the Divided Blogroll" - which may or may not be found in the right sidebar somewhere. It was an ignominious start, with the Democrats seizing unified control of the Federal government. Since then we've had better luck rolling out a new membership list in each election cycle. The 2010 edition barely got posted in time for the midterms among much angst and gnashing of teeth. Can't complain about the result though, as divided government was emphatically restored. We had a bit of an earlier start on the 2012 membership drive, and that still worked out fine with the reelection of divided government along with Barack Obama. It's a midterm again and for 2014 we are late again. Why mess with success?

Membership is open to anyone writing anything in any form in any media in a vaguely positive way on the subject of divided government. New recruits will be added to the ranks, updating this post and blogroll from now until the 2014 election. 

Divided Government With Unified GOP Congress - The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

Nate Cohn's enthusiasm for this election notwithstanding, the big decision to come out of the midterms is a foregone conclusion. After four consecutive and six of the last eight years, the midterms will lock and load at least two more years of divided government.  The Republican hand will be strengthened in both the House and Senate, but there is still some drama in determining whether the GOP will take over majority control of the Senate.  Most pollsters are giving it to them...

... but the Dividist never underestimates the Republican's capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Our best bet is that the Senate will finish close to 50-50, and the GOP will flip a couple of Independents to take control. If the Republicans do take narrow majority control of the Senate in 2014, the recommended Dividist vote for 2016 will be to elect the Democratic candidate for President, as it is unlikely the GOP will lose control of both the House and Senate in 2016.

 With divided government a fait accompli through 2016, both new and main stream media are weighing in on what we can expect from our divided leadership over the next two years. For your reading enjoyment the Dividist has assembled recent wit and wisdom of the punditocracy on the subject of divided government. To bring some semblance of order to this compilation, we've divided our selections into a Sergio Leone taxonomy - The good, bad, and the ugly.

Gallup asks the wrong question about divided government (yet again), and gets the wrong answer (yet again).

Gallup released the results of their annual governance poll with this headline:

In U.S., No Preference for Divided vs. One-Party Government

Thirty percent prefer one-party government, 28% divided government

by Jeffrey M. Jones

"Americans lack consensus on whether it is better to have one party holding the presidency and the majority in Congress, or better to have control of each branch of government split between the two major political parties. Currently, 30% say it is better to have a one-party government, 28% say a divided government is better, and the highest percentage, 37%, say it makes no difference."

Over the years, this Gallup poll consistently shows little or no preference for divided government, yet the result is at variance with the way Americans vote. As the article goes on to say:

"Divided government has been the norm in U.S. politics for most of the last 45 years, with one party controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency for only 12 of those years -- 1977-1980, 1993-1994, 2003-2006 and 2009-2010, as well as part of 2001. As such, Americans may simply be used to divided government and do not see it as better or worse than the alternative. But Americans have also seemingly rejected one-party government in the midterm elections that took place in 1994, 2006, and 2010, when a single party controlled Congress and the presidency and the public was dissatisfied with the way things were going in the country."

The problem is in the way Gallup asks the question. Presumably, to make the poll comparable year over year Gallup must ask the same question in the same way, so they are stuck with this wording. Unfortunately the way they ask the divided vs. unified question every year obscures the actual voting preferences of Americans and creates this paradoxical result. 

This a pet peeve for the Dividist. I've written about the problem with this survey before and therefore have no qualms about plagiarizing myself with the same explanation to the same problem question in the same problem poll.  To whit:

The Senators Dilemma - or -Why it doesn't matter whether Nate Silver or Sam Wang is right about the GOP winning the Senate.

In case you missed it, there was an interesting  geek-fight between election prognosticators Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight Blog, and Sam Wang of Princeton Election Consortium over the last few weeks.

Nate Silver has long been the darling of progressive poll watchers as he wears his liberal sensibilities on his sleeve. However, he does not let his personal political preferences affect his quantitative analysis.  His accuracy in predicting political outcomes in recent cycles has been nothing less than exemplary. Which explains the cries, lamentations and rending of garments among Democrats when, last March, he predicted that Republicans had a 60% chance of taking the Senate. Notable among the critical cognoscenti was Paul Krugman, who is the opposite of Silver in the sense that he never lets facts, rationality or reality get in the way of his particularly progressive view of the world.

Silver's Senate prediction of a Republican takeover has remained consistently in the 60% range since that March prediction. Which goes a long way to explaining why the left-o-sphere lurched for Sam Wang's recent prediction that the Democrats would continue to control the Senate like a drowning man grabbing for floating debris. Since then Silver critiqued Wang's methodology, who responded in kind by explaining what Silver was doing wrong, leading to another Silver rebuttal, and a Wang counter-tweet...

A Toast To Scotland On The Occasion Of Their Independence Referendum

As the polls open in Scotland, I am sitting a world away on the left coast of the United States. I am not of Scottish descent. Still, I raise my glass in their honor.  I ration this 18 year old Laphroaig for special occasions. A wee dram seems appropriate now. Here's to you Scotland...

May you choose the right path for your country, your people, your future.

 Damn - that whiskey is good.

I won't pretend to know what the right choice is for you or your countrymen. Honestly, I don't even really care which decision you make. I just like the fact that you are having this referendum. I like the excitement and passion and panic it has generated.

The polls say the outcome is too close to call. While the "No" vote has a narrow lead, the difference is within the margin of error and well within the undecided vote. That said, I expect those who want independence made their minds up some time ago. The undecided tend to break for the status quo.  They are, after all, somehow still undecided.  So you'll probably still be part of Great Britain when the polls close, and it won't be that close. No matter. Don't regret your decision.

Robert Frost was an American poet of Scottish descent. His most famous and widely misunderstood stanza seems a fitting signpost to mark the occasion:

I shall be telling this with a sigh 

Somewhere ages and ages hence: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — 

I took the one less traveled by,  

And that has made all the difference.

Keep in mind that Frost was not extolling the virtues of forsaking the crowd and choosing an independent path. His narrator finds the two paths virtually indistinguishable and equally attractive. He just ruefully concludes that he will ultimately regret his decision, regardless of which path he takes. Such is the perverse nature of free choice. We always wonder about the path not taken.  Don't look back Scotland. Revel in your decision.

Perhaps I'll have just two fingers more, and we'll conclude with a few interesting and amusing referendum links that caught my attention.

We are engaged in a very significant counterterrorism operation with ISIL. We have always been engaged in a very significant counterterrorism operation with ISIL.

"We at war with ISIL... In the same way that we are at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates around the globe...”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest

"At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia..."  George Orwell 1984

"First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq."  - President Barack Obama - 9/10/14

So now we are at war with the ISIL Sunni terrorist rebels in Syria and Iraq in support of the Post-Maliki Iraq government (after we helped pressure him out),  which aligns us with the Shia Iranian regime, Syria's Assad regime, and Russia.

"In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge, which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened..."  - George Orwell 1984

"... after careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope. But I'm confident we can hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, deter this kind of behavior, and degrade their capacity to carry it out."  - President Barack Obama - 9/10/2013

And one year ago, we were aligned with Sunni Syrian rebel in opposition to the Shia Assad regime and their allies Iran and Russia.