Politics

Why Democracy Is Public

Friday, 29 July 2011 10:31

George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith write: "American Democracy has, over our history, called upon citizens to share an equal responsibility to work together to secure a safe and prosperous future for their families and nation. This is the central work of our democracy and it is a public enterprise. This, the American Dream, is the dream of a functioning democracy."

Teachers and students from California demonstrate at a 'state of emergency' rally to protest statewide cuts of up to $4 billion in education spending, 05/13/11. (photo: Mark Ralston/Getty Images)

Why Democracy Is Public

By George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith, Reader Supported News

29 July 11

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Why Democracy is public: The American Dream beats the nightmare.

emocracy, in the American tradition, has been defined by a simple morality: We Americans care about our fellow citizens, we act on that care and build trust, and we do our best not just for ourselves, our families, and our friends and neighbors, but for our country, for each other, for people we have never seen and never will see.

American Democracy has, over our history, called upon citizens to share an equal responsibility to work together to secure a safe and prosperous future for their families and nation. This is the central work of our democracy and it is a public enterprise. This, the American Dream, is the dream of a functioning democracy.

Public refers to people, acting together to provide what we all depend on: roads and bridges, public buildings and parks, a system of education, a strong economic system, a system of law and order with a fair and effective judiciary, dams, sewers, and a power grid, agencies to monitor disease, weather, food safety, clean air and water, and on and on. That is what we, as a people who care about each other, have given to each other.

Only a free people can take up the necessary tasks, and only a people who trust and care for one another can get the job done. The American Dream is built upon mutual care and trust.

Our tradition has not just been to share the tasks, but to share the tools as well. We come together to provide a quality education for our children. We come together to protect each other's health and safety. We come together to build a strong, open and honest financial system. We come together to protect the institutions of democracy to guarantee that all who share in these responsibilities have an equal voice in deciding how they will be met.

What this means is that there is no such thing as a "self-made" man or woman or business. No one makes it on their own. No matter how much wealth you amass, you depend on all the things the public has provided - roads, water, law enforcement, fire and disease protection, food safety, government research, and all the rest. The only question is whether you have paid your fair share for we all have given you.

We are now faced with a nontraditional, radical view of "democracy" coming from the Republican party. It says that "democracy" means that nobody should care about anybody else, that "democracy" means only personal responsibility, not responsibility for anyone else, and it means no trust. If America accepts this radical view of "democracy," then all that we have given each other in the past under traditional democracy will be lost: all that we have called public. Public roads and bridges: gone. Public schools: gone. Publicly funded police and firemen: gone. Safe food, air, and water: gone. Public health: gone. Everything that made America America, the crucial things that you and your family and your friends have taken for granted: gone.

The democracy of care, shared responsibility, and trust is the democracy of the American Dream. The "democracy" of no care, no shared responsibility, and no trust has produced the American Nightmare that so many of our citizens are living through.

Nightmare it is, but there is no denying credit to Republicans for their skills at framing. The recent Republican "Contract from America," for instance, begins with a statement of their moral principles. The recommendations are special cases of those principles. It is a strategic initiative. Instead of a laundry list, each recommendation is a special case of a general strategy - to defund our American government.

Furthermore, they understand that about 20 percent of the electorate consists of people who are conservative in some ways and progressive in others. These are biconceptuals, sometimes referred to loosely by political professionals as "independents" or "swing voters." Republicans know their job is to activate the conservative part of the brains of the biconceptuals, and they do that by sticking strictly to conservative moral principles and a clear conservative strategy. They never make the mistake of ignoring biconceptuals.

Progressives too often fail to clearly state the moral principles behind the American tradition. Our arguments often sound like an abstract defense of distant "government" rather than a celebration of our people, our public, and the moral views that have defined our tradition and the real human beings who work every day to carry them out.

There is a distinction between government as the administration of what we, as a public, provide each other, as opposed to government control. The Right wants to focus only upon control, not upon all that our tradition has given us. They do not just hide the vast positives, but they also hide the fact that governmental control, control over our daily lives, is more private than public. Private government for profit runs our lives - the health care we receive, the food we eat, the cars we can drive and the gas to fuel them, the news we get, loans for our homes, and on and on. Public government is for the benefit of all of us. Private (especially corporate) government is for the private profit of top management and stockholders. If you are concerned about your life being controlled for the benefit of others, look to the private sphere.

The institution of government, however, is not the point. We must instead defend the moral principles we seek to advance through our American government - and through ethical business practices, voluntary associations etc. The traditional view of American democracy sees government as embodying these moral goals, to protect and empower everyone equally.

If we are to successfully overcome the Republican demonizing of government and shared responsibility, we must restore faith in the mutual enterprise itself. Rather than simply defend government or government programs, we must positively advance the moral values of American democracy and the Dream, not the Nightmare.

That is why we support a renewed focus on public life, a public life that includes all Americans. We should focus on the public nature of our shared responsibilities.

Public life means meeting our shared responsibilities, caring for one another, and building the mutual trust upon which democracy depends. The recommendations below are special cases of these moral principles. They also represent a special case of a general strategy - to restore public life to American democracy.

We must return the public to our political system and end the corrupt influence of selfish interests that have abandoned our shared responsibilities. This means public finance of campaigns, strict enforcement of the highest ethical standards in public life, and protection of the sacred right to vote.

Our nation has vast national wealth: a huge continental landmass with wealth in minerals, agricultural land, forests, cities, beautiful places, as well as its public wealth, that is, the creative wealth of its educated citizenry and the collective wealth of all its citizens and corporations. We, the public, can put our nation's vast wealth to use in creating jobs that make the lives of all better: building, educating, curing, and imagining. That is the Dream.

To realize the Dream, we must end the Nightmare.

We must turn back the Right's assault on public and higher education and meet our traditional commitment to education. Our children are tomorrow's public. The future of democracy depends upon them.

We must rebuild our public infrastructure, a fancy term for the necessities we share: roads, bridges, dams, parks, fair grounds, water mains, sewers, and the power grid; public agencies that monitor disease, weather and food safety. Government that works for all of us can and should create jobs that serve us all by rebuilding our shared necessities.

We must come together publicly to mutually ensure the health of all America. Health is not a private matter. It is public one.

We must protect the prior earnings of American workers set aside in Social Security or private pensions. They have been earned through hard work and discipline. Taking these earnings away is theft, despite the Right's use of the word "entitlements."

A public of unequal voices is not a democratic public. We need a progressive tax system through which all Americans pay their fair share and a business ethics that fairly rewards those whose work creates productivity and profit.

We must put the American individual above abstract corporate entities. We must end "corporate personhood," which gives transnational corporations a greater voice than individuals in our public deliberations.

We must end the move to "privatize" institutions through which we meet our shared responsibilities. When the public is removed, the private sphere takes over, charging more, and often creating unaccountable monopolies that bilk the public. Privatization of the public typically means that most citizens just pay more, often a lot more.

Discrimination of all kinds must be overcome. Public life depends upon recognition of our equal humanity.

This is why Democracy is, and must remain, public. This is why America has traditionally been a beacon to the world. This is the example America has set. We dare not give it up. The alternative is the Nightmare.

13 comments

Standard and Poor's Driving the Deficit Battle

Wednesday, 27 July 2011 19:08

Intro: "If you think deficit reduction is being driven by John Boehner or Harry Reid, think again. The biggest driver right now is Standard & Poor's."

Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)

Standard and Poor's Driving the Deficit Battle

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

27 July 11

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f you think deficit reduction is being driven by John Boehner or Harry Reid, think again. The biggest driver right now is Standard & Poor's.

All of America's big credit-rating agencies - Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's - have warned they might cut America's credit rating if a deal isn't reached soon to raise the debt ceiling. This isn't surprising. A borrower that won't pay its bills is bound to face a lower credit rating.

But Standard & Poor's has gone a step further: It's warned it might lower the nation's credit rating even if Democrats and Republicans make a deal to raise the debt ceiling. Standard & Poor's insists any deal must also contain a credible, bipartisan plan to reduce the nation's long-term budget deficit by $4 trillion - something neither Harry Reid's nor John Boehner's plans do.

If Standard & Poor's downgrades America's debt, the other two big credit-raters are likely to follow. The result: You'll be paying higher interest on your variable-rate mortgage, your auto loan, your credit card loans, and every other penny you borrow. And many of the securities you own that you consider especially safe - Treasury bills and other highly-rated bonds - will be worth less.

In other words, Standard & Poor's is threatening that if the ten-year budget deficit isn't cut by $4 trillion in a credible and bipartisan way, you'll pay more - even if the debt ceiling is lifted next week.

With Republicans in the majority in the House, there's no way to lop $4 trillion of the budget without harming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as education, Pell grants, healthcare, highways and bridges, and everything else the middle class and poor rely on.

And you thought Republicans were the only extortionists around.

Who is Standard & Poor's to tell America how much debt it has to shed in order to keep its credit rating?

Standard & Poor's didn't exactly distinguish itself prior to Wall Street's financial meltdown in 2007. Until the eve of the collapse it gave triple-A ratings to some of the Street's riskiest packages of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations.

Standard & Poor's (along with Moody's and Fitch) bear much of the responsibility for what happened next. Had they done their job and warned investors how much risk Wall Street was taking on, the housing and debt bubbles wouldn't have become so large - and their bursts wouldn't have brought down much of the economy.

Had Standard & Poor's done its job, you and I and other taxpayers wouldn't have had to bail out Wall Street; millions of Americans would now be working now instead of collecting unemployment insurance; the government wouldn't have had to inject the economy with a massive stimulus to save millions of other jobs; and far more tax revenue would now be pouring into the Treasury from individuals and businesses doing better than they are now.

In other words, had Standard & Poor's done its job, today's budget deficit would be far smaller.

And where was Standard & Poor's (and the two others) during the George W. Bush administration - when W. turned a $5 trillion budget surplus bequeathed to him by Bill Clinton into a gaping deficit? Standard & Poor didn't object to Bush's giant tax cuts for the wealthy. Nor did it raise a warning about his huge Medicare drug benefit (i.e., corporate welfare for Big Pharma), or his decision to fight two expensive wars without paying for them.

Add Bush's spending splurge and his tax cuts to the expenses brought on by Wall Street's near collapse - and today's budget deficit would be tiny.

Put another way: If Standard & Poor's had been doing the job it was supposed to be doing between 2000 and 2008, the federal budget wouldn't be in a crisis - and Standard & Poor's wouldn't be threatening the United States with a downgrade if we didn't come up with a credible plan for lopping $4 trillion off it.

So why has Standard & Poor's decided now's the time to crack down on the federal budget - when it gave free passes to Wall Street's risky securities and George W. Bush's giant tax cuts for the wealthy, thereby contributing to the very crisis its now demanding be addressed?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the Street pays Standard & Poor's bills?

Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including "The Work of Nations," "Locked in the Cabinet," "Supercapitalism" and his latest book, "AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and America's Future." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

24 comments

The Republican Wreckage

Tuesday, 26 July 2011 10:31

The New York Times: "This increasingly reckless game has pushed the nation to the brink of ruinous default. The Republicans have dimmed the futures of millions of jobless Americans, whose hopes for work grow more out of reach as government job programs are cut and interest rates begin to rise. They have made the federal government a laughingstock around the globe."

Debt Ceiling Shenanigans Threaten the USA, 07/18/11. (art: David Horsey/Seattle P-I)

The Republican Wreckage

By The New York Times | Editorial

26 July 11

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ouse Republicans have lost sight of the country's welfare. It's hard to conclude anything else from their latest actions, including the House speaker's dismissal of President Obama's plea for compromise Monday night. They have largely succeeded in their campaign to ransom America's economy for the biggest spending cuts in a generation. They have warped an exercise in paying off current debt into an argument about future spending. Yet, when they win another concession, they walk away.

This increasingly reckless game has pushed the nation to the brink of ruinous default. The Republicans have dimmed the futures of millions of jobless Americans, whose hopes for work grow more out of reach as government job programs are cut and interest rates begin to rise. They have made the federal government a laughingstock around the globe.

In a scathing prime-time television address Monday night, President Obama stepped off the sidelines to tell Americans the House Republicans were threatening a "deep economic crisis" that could send interest rates skyrocketing and hold up Social Security and veterans' checks. By insisting on a single-minded approach and refusing to negotiate, he said, Republicans were violating the country's founding principle of compromise.

"How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries?" he said, invoking Ronald Reagan's effort to make everyone pay a fair share and pointing out that his immediate predecessors had to ask for debt-ceiling increases under rules invented by Congress. He urged viewers to demand compromise. "The entire world is watching," he said.

Mr. Obama denounced House Speaker John Boehner's proposal to make cuts only, now, and raise the debt ceiling briefly, but he embraced the proposal made over the weekend by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, which gave Republicans virtually everything they said they wanted when they ignited this artificial crisis: $2.7 trillion from government spending over the next decade, with no revenue increases. It is, in fact, an awful plan, which cuts spending far too deeply at a time when the government should be summoning all its resources to solve the real economic problem of unemployment. It asks for absolutely no sacrifice from those who have prospered immensely as economic inequality has grown.

Mr. Reid's proposal does at least protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And about half of its savings comes from the winding down of two wars, which naturally has drawn Republican opposition. (Though Republicans counted the same savings in their budgets.)

Mr. Boehner will not accept this as the last-ditch surrender that it is. The speaker, who followed Mr. Obama on TV with about five minutes of hoary talking points clearly written before the president spoke, is insisting on a plan that raises the debt ceiling until early next year and demands another vote on a balanced-budget amendment, rejected by the Senate last week. The result would be to stage this same debate over again in an election year. Never mind that this would almost certainly result in an immediate downgrade of the government's credit.

We agreed strongly when Mr. Obama said Americans should be "offended" by this display and that they "may have voted for divided government but they didn't vote for a dysfunctional government." It's hard not to conclude now that dysfunction is the Republicans' goal - even if the cost is unthinkable.

11 comments

Bigger Than the Tea Party

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7278"><span class="small">Van Jones, Reader Supported News</span></a>

Monday, 25 July 2011 10:33

Van Jones writes: "The Tea Party has their message and their movement, and it continues to impact the debate in Washington. But the movement to save the American Dream is bigger. There is a silent majority of Americans who are fighting back, and many of them have been fighting alone. They've been fighting to find a job and provide for their families. They've been fighting against the banks that are trying to take their homes. They're fighting against unfair budget cuts that will disproportionately hurt the middle class and poor. They're fighting for the American Dream."

Van Jones speaking to the Master of Ceremonies at the Save the American Dream Rally, 01/26/08. (photo: markn3tel/Flikr)

Bigger Than the Tea Party

By Van Jones, Reader Supported News

25 July 11

�

ast month, I joined with MoveOn.org and launched the Rebuild the Dream campaign to help give a voice to the millions of Americans who aren't being heard in Washington. This past weekend, we organized nearly 1,600 house meetings across the country - nearly double the number of protests the Tea Party held when they launched in April of 2009. The American Dream Meetings gave more than 27,000 people, from all across the country, an opportunity to come together and discuss what the American Dream means to them and their families. They talked about how the jobless crisis and foreclosure mess is impacting their communities. They put forth creative ideas for the Contract for the American Dream - a bold progressive vision to help fix the broken economy and rebuild our communities. The Contract has already received nearly 26,000 ideas submitted online alone and over 6 million ratings.

While I'm beyond inspired by the enormous outpour of ideas we've received thus far, it doesn't surprise me that the American people are yearning to come up with practical solutions to our economic crisis. While so many Americans struggle with joblessness and rampant foreclosures, we keep hearing from Washington that we need to reduce the deficit, even if it means slashing Medicare or gutting vital programs families depend on. Washington appears to be operating on an entirely different planet than the rest of America.

There's an important story that's not being told in Washington. It's the story of the mother or father getting the dreaded call into the office where their boss informs them that they've been laid off. They were already underwater on their house, and now without a steady paycheck, they start to get behind on their mortgage payments. Then comes the big bad bank. They do everything they can to keep their house but it's no use. The bank posts that horrifying foreclosure notice on their door, and takes their home. They sell most of their belongings and move their entire family into a one-bedroom apartment. Or if they're lucky, they move in with grandma. It's a vicious cycle and it's happening every single day in America. It's the new American nightmare.

Our brave men and women in uniform are coming from a war battlefield only to return home to an economic battlefield with little hope of finding a job. Young Americans are graduating off a cliff, and sleeping on their parent's couches waiting for an opportunity to come along.

In Washington, it's almost as if these problems don't exist. It's fair to say that Washington has become obsessed with deficit politics, even though poll after poll shows that the number one concern of Americans is the economy and jobs. So, how did Washington get so off track with the rest of America? How did the debate change from being focused on job creation during the stimulus debate, to becoming focused mostly on cutting spending and tightening our belt? There was a movement with a message, and it has helped drive this deficit obsession in Washington - the Tea Party.

In April of 2009, Americans who identified themselves as Tea Partiers took to the streets to protest against what they perceived to be a "big government takeover". With the help and funding of lobbyist-run think tanks such as Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, 800 Tea Party protests were organized across the country to speak out against "big government", taxation, and more specifically, President Obama.

The media started to take notice. Who were these people? Why were they so angry? Should they be taken seriously? Like bees to honey, right-wing candidates began to flock to the Tea Party and adopt their platform as their own. The Tea Party organized protests at town halls around health care reform - successfully heckling members of Congress and making sure the TV cameras were there to spread the story. From that point on, anything and everything the Tea Party did, the media paid attention to. And, anyone on the left who didn't take them seriously had pie in their faces when Tea Party-backed candidates propelled to power in Congress in the 2010 Election.

The Tea Party didn't just make waves in Washington, DC, they also helped elect extreme right-wingers to State Houses and began occupying Governor's mansions across the country. These newly elected Tea Party candidates weren't afraid to take risks, and they weren't shy about putting their right-wing ideology before the economic well being of their constituents. They immediately began an all out assault on public workers, women's rights, and began doling out tax breaks for millionaires and corporations. They threw everything at the wall in the hopes it would stick. And to the detriment of working families, some of it did. But it wasn't without consequence for their movement or the candidates they helped elect.

Fast forward to February of 2011, Madison, Wisconsin. Just after Governor Walker doled out $140 million in tax breaks to corporations, he proposed the Budget Repair Bill, which restricted the collective bargaining rights of workers. Tens of thousands of Wisconsinites filled the Capitol and surrounded the grounds, protesting the attack on workers' rights. The protests reached a magnitude of 150,000 people in Madison - larger than the rally put on by Glenn Beck and the Tea Party in Washington, DC. The protests in Wisconsin helped ignite and inspire other protests around the country. In an effort to show solidarity with the workers in Wisconsin, "Rallies to Save the American Dream" were held in all 50 states. From Ohio to Montana to New York, protests against right-wing attacks and unfair budget cuts began breaking out across America.

A new movement to save the American Dream was born.

The Tea Party has their message and their movement, and it continues to impact the debate in Washington. But the movement to save the American Dream is bigger. There is a silent majority of Americans who are fighting back, and many of them have been fighting alone. They've been fighting to find a job and provide for their families. They've been fighting against the banks that are trying to take their homes. They're fighting against unfair budget cuts that will disproportionately hurt the middle class and poor. They're fighting for the American Dream. But, as we saw in Wisconsin, and we're now beginning to see around the country, millions of Americans are starting to fight back together. And, it's only a matter of time before the American Dream Movement comes to Washington.

10 comments

Much Ado About Michele

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7261"><span class="small">Frank Bruni, The New York Times</span></a>

Sunday, 24 July 2011 18:23

Frank Bruni begins: "Michele Bachmann is the gift that never stops giving. One week she's confusing the Iowa birthplaces of John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy, two men separated by a bit more than two syllables. The next she's signing a conservative pledge that contains language extolling the family values of slavery."

Michele Bachmann. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Much Ado About Michele

By Frank Bruni, The New York Times

24 July 11

�

ichele Bachnamm is the gift that never stops giving.

One week she's confusing the Iowa birthplaces of John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy, two men separated by a bit more than two syllables. The next she's signing a conservative pledge that contains language extolling the family values of slavery. Her library evidently differs from most. It stocks "Uncle Tom's Little House on the Prairie."

If she's not confronting accusations that a church she supported is anti-Catholic, she's navigating charges that her husband, a counselor, practices a brand of homosexual-to-heterosexual therapy known as "pray away the gay." I once tried to pray away the gay. But sometimes a houseguest just won't leave.

The most recent go-round with Bachmann concerned migraines, and what a go-round it has been. The revelation that she battles them led to a second round of stories about whether focusing on that was sexist and then a third round about whether her aides had been too rough with a headache-inquisitive television reporter who pursued her through a parking lot. In ways she means to and ways she doesn't, Bachmann doesn't merely occupy the spotlight. She sets up house there, stuffs it with velour sectionals and lays out a lavish buffet, so that legions of comers are comfy and well fed.

And that bounty - of half-baked history, hardcore religious conservatism, hard-line pledges and so much more - has made her the star of the 2012 presidential race so far, a recipient of at least twice the coverage that any of her rivals for the Republican nomination receives.

But whipping up attention isn't the same as establishing credibility. Vividness doesn't equal significance. And Bachmann's profile at this point is wildly out of proportion to her probable fate in the election and the long-term impact on it that she'll have.

The smart money remains where it has always been: on Mitt Romney. She still lags leagues behind him in fund-raising, and she finished June with less than a third of the cash on hand that he had. Although her collection pace was brisk, she'll be playing catch-up for a while and doesn't have the coziness with big donors that he and others do.

He's the candidate whom not only Republican leaders but also White House officials strongly expect to see on the ticket. When they make allowances for a twist, they talk not of Bachmann but of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who seems more and more likely to enter the race - and could eat away quickly at her support in particular. Evangelicals worship him.

Sure, Bachmann is positioned to compete strongly in, and very possibly win, the Iowa straw poll in mid-August and the caucus beyond it; South Carolina could be fertile ground for her, too. Yes, a national poll of Republican primary voters that was released early last week gave her a slight edge over Romney. And without question, she has shown more mettle than Sarah Palin, whose breezy ignorance and unfathomable syntax she doesn't share.

But that's a bar so low the world's reigning limbo champ couldn't shimmy under it, and two polls released later in the week had Romney on top, with Perry in second.

While Bachmann was third in one, she was fifth in the other, behind Palin and (he's back!) Rudy Giuliani as well. Like Perry, neither of those two has even declared a candidacy.

Here's what's certain: as she pursues the nomination, the Republican establishment won't line up behind her, because they don't think she has a prayer of broadening her ultraconservative base enough to woo swing voters and topple President Obama. And toppling is what they're all about.

I talked to a bunch of party operatives and analysts last week, and every one of them said that while Bachmann could well cause the early demise of Tim Pawlenty's candidacy and complicate Romney's bid for many months to come, she stands almost no chance of victory. And never did.

So why all the fuss?

She's a bonanza for the news media, which these days have vast acres of not only cable TV but also cyberspace to fill. She's manna for pundits, who can talk only so archly about the vanilla vanguard of Romney, Pawlenty and company. When Bachmann stormed into view, she provided a wanted, needed burst of flavor and color. But flavor and color go only so far. A Delaware woman named Christine O'Donnell can fill you in on that, provided she's not busy with coven duties.

Bachmann has proven a useful pawn for liberals as well, because she conforms to their simplistic nightmare vision of what Republicans are all about and fills them with righteous condescension while sullying the image of the enemy party. As far as they're concerned, the more chatter about Bachmann, the better, and if she somehow manages to beat Romney, well, that will be best of all: one of the luckiest breaks Obama could ever catch.

Beyond that, her biography and ideology accommodate discussions about an especially broad range of hot-button topics. Gender in politics? There was that whole hullabaloo about the Pawlenty adviser who referred to her "sex appeal."

Gay marriage? She built her political career on her war against it. The no-compromise attitude of Tea Party purists in the House? She has vowed not to vote to increase the debt ceiling, no matter the circumstances.

She's like a coat rack with dozens of hooks. You can hang almost anything on her.

So reporters and commentators do, and then they tromp over to the nearby pantry to rummage around there. Bach-mania has become indiscriminate and is now out of hand. For example the gay leaders, television comedians, Twitter-ing entertainment icons (yes, Cher, that's you) and other Bachmann opponents who have lately taken to sifting her husband's voice and mannerisms for any supposedly telltale effeminacy should cut it out. They're trafficking in the sorts of superficial stereotypes they'd excoriate in other contexts.

And the migraine-fixated are putting the cart several time zones ahead of the horse. She's a long way from her Oval Office physical. Besides, the more phlegmatic guys in the pack aren't being subjected to such examinations. For all we know, Jon Huntsman has a plantar wart that's wreaking utter havoc with his stride.

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