Ladies And Gentlemen: Your Republican Party Leadership

by hilzoy

As you probably already know, John Boehner, the person the House Republicans elected as their Minority Leader, said this a few days ago:

"BLITZER: Mr. Leader, here's the question. How much longer will U.S. taxpayers have to shell out $2 billion a week or $3 billion a week as some now are suggesting the cost is going to endure? The loss in blood, the Americans who are killed every month, how much longer do you think this commitment, this military commitment is going to require?

BOEHNER: I think General Petraeus outlined it pretty clearly. We're making success. We need to firm up those successes. We need to continue our effort here because, Wolf, long term, the investment that we're making today will be a small price if we're able to stop al Qaeda here, if we're able to stabilize the Middle East, it's not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids."

A small price. Think about children who will grow up never having known their mother or father. Think about husbands and wives crying themselves to sleep, and parents outliving their children. Think about a soldier who comes home from war with a traumatic brain injury, unable to think clearly, or to hold things in her memory, or perhaps equipped with a hair-trigger temper where none used to be. Think about someone with PTSD getting hammered every night until one day he hangs himself, or wraps his car around a tree, or pulls a gun on the police so that they will put him out of his misery.

Even if you assume, as I do not, that Boehner was thinking only about the money and not about the lives, when Blitzer's question clearly referenced both, it's still not a small price. As Mark Kleiman says:

"If we get out of Iraq having spent less than $1 trillion (the total so far is roughly $600 billion) we ought to count ourselves lucky. Invested in long-term Treasuries, that would yield $50 billion a year. For a modest fraction of one year's interest on that endowment, we could end malaria worldwide. For another very modest fraction, we could implement the Nunn-Lugar bill to tighten up on loose nukes. A national ID system with secure documents tied to biometrics probably wouldn't cost more than few billion a year to operate. $5 billion a year — a tenth of that endowment income — would fund 100,000 Peace Corps volunteers, or just about a doubling of the National Science Foundation budget or of the budget for monitoring the nation's 4 million probationers, or the proposed expansion the S-CHIP insurance program for not-quite-poor-enough children.

But if President Obama proposes to do any of those things, John Boehner and his buddies will scream at the top of their lungs that the poor oppressed taxpayer can't afford it."

After having said something as callous and idiotic as this, the right thing for Boehner to do would be to apologize. I think this would also be the politically expedient thing to do: people generally respond well when someone who has made a real mistake steps up to the plate and accepts responsibility. Here's what Boehner did instead (via Greg Sargent):

""It's apparent that some Democrats and the far-left wing of their party are deeply afraid we are winning in Iraq now, and it's clear they will do anything they can - including making false representations - to ensure our troops come home after defeat, not victory," said Boehner spokeswoman Jessica Towhey."

Honestly: where to begin? With the despicable claim that we want defeat, or are afraid of the surge actually working to produce the political reconciliation that is its aim? The completely bizarre idea that criticizing John Boehner would in any way contribute to a defeat in Iraq? I mean: how, exactly is that supposed to work? Perhaps the idea that criticisms of Boehner rely on "false representations"? I posted the actual transcript of Boehner's remarks above. Here's the YouTube video. Unless Boehner thinks that CNN has doctored the transcripts and the video, these are not "false representations."

Decide for yourselves whether the only possible reason to criticize them is to help ensure that our troops are defeated. Personally, I opt for a different conclusion: that Boehner is too cowardly to own up to his own remarks, and has decided to hide behind the troops instead. This is contemptible and cowardly, but arguments like this also have real and damaging effects above and beyond their effects on Iraq funding and on Boehner's own character. As LizardBreath noted in comments:

"A really powerful form of bad argument is the kind that takes a real, legitimate, emotion or grievance and applies it out of its proper context. "Support the troops" is like that: there's a real, justified feeling among people I've known in the military or emotionally affiliated with it that a big part of the country is unfamiliar with and alienated from them, and that this turns into some kinds of ill-treatment."

When people in the military feel that civilians neither understand them nor care about them because they have some evidence for that claim, that's fine. (The underlying reality is really bad, but the fact that people in the military recognize it is not.) But when they feel that way, or when that feeling is enhanced, not because it's actually true, but because some politician has decided to play on it for political reasons, that's appalling. It's bad enough to actually be in Iraq or Afghanistan, risking your life, without having to think: the people I'm ostensibly making this sacrifice for just don't give a damn about me. When some politician equates criticizing himself with criticizing the troops, he's making it easier for the troops, and their families and loved ones, to think this. In so doing, he is making their lives harder, and doing his best to make them feel more alone, and more alienated from the country that they serve.

To do this for political reasons is despicable. And it is not the act of someone who genuinely cares about the troops he claims to be sticking up for.

Comments

[Gary Farber]

"'Jake insisted'? Gary, I hardly think saying something ONE time counts as insisting."

Sure it does, when you specify, ital mine: "I can only read the lack of understanding of J Thomas as all but intentional."

That's not suggesting something, as in "A likely reading of J Thomas's lack of understanding is that it might be intentional."

You said it was the only way you can read it.

That's insisting, yes, for sure: when you declare that there's no other possible interpretation but one, that's absolutely "insisting."

I insist.

[J Thomas]

Gary, I don't see an amateur diagnosis of aspergers's syndrome as an insult. I think that asperger's is a fad, a psychiatric description of a strategy for thinking. Sometimes we need to have somebody around who follows up on a problem until he gets all the details straight. Other times it isn't necessary and just annoys people. The kind of guy who does it when it needs to be done despite the social cues from people who don't see it's necessary, is likely to do it when he wrongly thinks it needs to be done despite the social cues ditto.

You annoy me pretty often doing that, but sometimes you get results that are very much worth it. I wouldn't want to tell you to quit because I'm not good at deciding ahead of time which cases those are. Though I do want to tell you to quit because I get so annoyed.

I do it too some, and I try to stop when I notice people are having trouble with it. I can always report my results later, if I get results worth reporting and after people have time to settle down. I've offered to stop a couple of times in this thread but Jes keeps egging me on as if she really isn't finished with it.

[J Thomas]

Jake insisted that "I can only read the lack of understanding of J Thomas as all but intentional."

[....]

The subject was Jake's claim that there was only one possible reading of J. Thomas' intent.

Actually, I thought he might have been talking about my all-but-intentional lack of understanding. What he wrote after that was related to my claims but not the same thing at all, and he might have been correcting me.

It was only from later posts that I saw he was talking about other people misunderstanding me.

Slarti, you're welcome to stir if you want to, as far as I'm concerned.

[Gary Farber]

"Jake wasn't referring to his own reading of J Thomas" when he wrote that "I can only read the lack of understanding of J Thomas as all but intentional"?

Say what?

Oh, I see. You write "he was referring to 'the lack of understanding of J Thomas', presumably as present in the comments of some unnamed third party."

Whereas I read 'the lack of understanding of J Thomas' to refer to J Thomas' blatant lack of understanding of what Jes and others are upset about.

It never remotely occurred to me that Jake meant anything else. Which is why I was so baffled at how Jes got into it, since her name never came up in this subdiscussion of Jake's reading of J Thomas.

But looking at it again, I see that you're almost certainly correct, and I who misread that earlier comment, which I hadn't paid enough attention to, and thus misinterpreted, and thus set off this chain of confusion. (Chai-chai-chain....)

Oopsie.

For the record, I now wish I'd written what I thought was perfectly obvious, but clearly wasn't at all: "That wouldn't allow for the possibility of large and deep tone-deafness/insensitivity on J Thomas' part, of an almost Asperger's-like quality and consistency."

[LizardBreath]

Hah. Comity!

(I still think waving around Asperger's diagnoses is bad, but last I checked IANAKitten.)

[Gary Farber]

"Gary, I don't see an amateur diagnosis of aspergers's syndrome as an insult."

Of course, I only offered it as a hypothetical possibility, as part of stating that there were many others, rather than that the only possiblity was that you were being intentionally offensive/obtuse.

But I do agree that Asperger's shouldn't be seen as an insult, absent contextually being used that way, any more than accurate diagnoses of autism, or manic-depression, or any other ailment whether organic or purely psychological, should be taken as pejorative. Using them solely as insults, on the other hand, is tacky.

J Thomas: "Actually, I thought he might have been talking about my all-but-intentional lack of understanding."

It wasn't just me!

Back on the original topic, it doesn't seem as if John Boehner will pay a significant political price for his remarks. If he had, somehow, say, lost his seat over this, it would be only a small price to pay for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids.

At least we know that serial liar Al Gore didn't make it to the presidency, so pshew!

[Jake - but not the one]

nous, i might like to "discuss" a point - and that is that it is my belief (supported by my years as a man, my association with other men, and my years in Germany (in the Navy) where I had substantial contact with the Big Red 1) that men who have ready access to sexual partners are in fact less likely to commit assaults. Or so I believe.
I also believe that an environment where assaults of a non-sexual nature are daily events leads to a general breakdown of barriers to assault in general, including sexual assault. Combine the two, and you have what WE have in Iraq. An unholy quagmire.

Jake

[nous]

Jake-

Then, hopefully, we can both also agree that the men who -- under whatever conditions -- find it difficult to refrain from sexually assaulting women are a detriment to the mission in the same way that those who respond to PTSD by episodes of berserking are a detriment to the mission and that both should be given treatment, not distractions or rewards and should be removed from service if that treatment is unsuccessful.

[Asteeele]

Jake: That is a widely held belief about why sexual assault occurs (lack of partners), and it is almost certainly wrong. However, I would agree that violent enviorments, or enviorments where violence is normalized, will lead to more violent acts in general. I would also agree that some of these will likely be sexual assaults, as sexual assaut is a crime of violence, and not about sexual availability.

J thomas: If you had said something like "the military has a real problem with sexual assaults and rapes committed by soldiers, and this problem would be lessened if the war wasn't going on" I'd disagree that the impact would be signifigant, but wouldn't of been offended. It was the implication of: "and the answer to this is more women to be expoilted as sexual commodities" that ticked me off. I take at value your assertion that you did not mean this, but I still stand by that it was easy to read your comments this way.

[J Thomas]

Gary, it's Jes's tone-deafness here. I'm trying to say something she refuses to hear because of her own biases, her own story with a quite different context that she insists on bundling mine into.

My stand is that here is a problem for our soldiers and eventually for our society, and we can't begin to handle it in iraq. It is one more reason to get out of there, one more cost we're incurring.

Jes's stand is that this is a trivial matter that would all clear up if the men involved just suck it up and soldier on. That the problem is entirely their fault and all that's needed is for them to fix it inside their own minds.

We see similar issues for all sorts of crimes. Of course it makes sense to hold individuals responsible for their actions. When criminals refuse to reform it makes some sense to lock them up and throw away the key. On the other hand if our experience has been that various criminals refuse to give up their thought-crimes and/or action-crimes then we can't expect that to change unless we do something different. Locking them up after they cause harm provides some satisfaction after the fact, but it doesn't change anything for the next batch. It just makes people feel better that they have a target to blame and punish.

I haven't even considered a big long-term solution to the bigger problem. Just, our occupation of iraq looks to me like it's making this problem a lot worse and we need to get out of there.

[lowly_adjunct]

Jake:

Assault, in the context you're discussing, seems to root itself in an assumed (male) entitlement to have sex, and an unwillingness to accept No, sorry, can't have it! as an answer.

(I say that, based on my experience as a woman, and my years on military bases and college campuses surrounded by young men who ascribed, to varying degrees, to that kind of entitlement.)

I'm not saying that this sense of entitlement/lack of partners + a prevalence of non-sexual violence isn't contributing in Iraq to morale/rape issues. But it seems to me that the 'quagmire' of Iraq should illustrate to us that we need to work on that sense of entitlement, among other things, rather than discuss, with any seriousness, brothels, prostitutes, or other ways of enabling and perpetuating it, or accepting and excusing it as somehow biologically imperative.

(Note: I'm not saying that you've put forth those ideas, or that you adhere to them, because I don't really know where you stand on the matter).

[Jake - but not the one]

Asteeele, in our more or less normal society here at home, most, but not all, rapes are acts of violence first and sexual acts second. I am not sure that the lowering of the inhibitions towards acts of violence doesn't bring the two aspects of sexual assault into a greater alignment. I have no facts, I readily admit.

So if you were to say that lack of sexual partners HERE was not a reason for sexual assault, I would completely agree with you. But Iraq is not here. And I am far less sure of what evil lurks in the hearts of men that far from home and that much in danger.

nous, I think that men who don't find it difficult to commit acts of assault of any kind are a detriment to the mission. Which may be a contradiction in terms, or it may say something about what it means to not be a detriment.

I think a persuasive argument can be made that anyone who goes to Iraq, or Viet Nam, or Germany or Bosnia or Uganda or Rwanda and commits multiple acts of violence against nother human beings is by definition wounded. Permanently.

Jake

[Jake - but not the one]

lowly (adjuncts are lowly only in the minds of administrators), what you say is true. Better to make better men than to pander. What's to argue with that?

How to make better men, now that is a problem.

Jake

[LizardBreath]

It's not so much that it's wrong to pander to human flaws generally, but that in this circumstance I can't see any effective pandering to be done that wouldn't be wrongful in itself (e.g., filling brothels with Iraqi women that we had deprived of alternative means of support). I mean, if this discussion is just "Here's another reason to end the war -- the circumstances of war: violence and sexual frustration, create rapists and that's a bad thing," great, I'm all for another argument for ending the war. Other than that, what's to be done pandering-wise?

[Jake - but not the one]

Pandering-wise? I have no clue, and I certainly don't recommend it. But, not to put TOO fine a point on it, at least a few notable republicans think that pandering is just fine. Pandering of whatever kind fits the bill.

Ok. J Thomas seems to have vacated the field and I'll be damned if I'll keep defending this pile of dirt alone.

Y'all go on without me. You've had a lot of practice at that. :)

Jake

[J Thomas]

But it seems to me that the 'quagmire' of Iraq should illustrate to us that we need to work on that sense of entitlement, among other things, rather than discuss, with any seriousness, brothels, prostitutes, or other ways of enabling and perpetuating it, or accepting and excusing it as somehow biologically imperative.

I have not suggested providing brothels or prostitutes. I have suggested that the relative absence of such things might make this cluster of problems worse than in vietnam etc.

I tend to think that one obvious way to make *your* problems less serious is for young men to have lots of opportunities to interact with women who *might* be friendly, and get socialised and find out how to behave. What they need is not to spend months in barracks telling each other how to score. And they will learn to behave better with women like you if they don't get all their post-high-school experience with the women who typically hang out with soldiers, who stereotypically appear to buy into the idea that if they get a man so aroused that he loses all control it means they're particularly attractive and it should be taken as a compliment.

It looks to me like it's a big deal -- it isn't just dealing with a few unsocialised criminal men, it's changin RedState culture and they don't particularly want to be changed.

But in the short run iraq is a bad deal for the soldiers in it and for the society they come home to. Reforming 40% of the men and the women who enable them is a bigger longer-term project than getting the troops home.

But Jes hasn't responded for awhile and I should stop. I made the offer and I ought to keep it and not keep responding to other people on an irritating subject.

[Phil]

I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that a culture that created Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show "doesn't do irony or sarcasm." Such a view seems misguided at best.

Keep in mind that J Thomas was recently in a several-thousand word comment thread here where he argued that Pol Pot simply did what he had to, and adjust accordingly.

[hilzoy]

I am a kitten, and I hereby call a halt to further discussion of J Thomas' or Jes' original intentions and claims. Discussion of such related questions as: going down on oneself: possible or not? or: celibacy: minor annoyance or potentially lethal condition? or: gee, how long can someone be expected to do without sex? (of particular interest to me, she snarled), or: onanism: mortal or venial sin? -- all these are of course fine.

[Gary Farber]

I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that a culture that created Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show "doesn't do irony or sarcasm." Such a view seems misguided at best.

It's one of the most classic British stereotypes/sayings about Americans. It's simply a commonplace: everyone knows that!

Also, we're all fat, talk loudly, love guns, wear shorts, and are particularly stupid and ill-mannered, and California is little but a land of ludicrous trends and fads.

It's pretty much the mirror of the (American) Mary Poppins view of Merrie Old Englande.

For irony, I'd far sooner point to, say, Albert Brooks, than SNL.

And I'm definitely too fat to go down on myself, so I can't say there's no truth to any stereotype.

[John Thullen]

What?

Could all of you repeat the last 50 comments because I was busy shaking hands with the unemployed? No, that is simply not true!

Just to be clear, I wasn't so much trying to refute Jes as riffing over here out loud. I suffer from Internet Tourette's Syndrome. I was just providing time for J. Thomas to rephrase his point. ;)

Sometimes I like Slart better than I like me, too. And that goes for the both of me.

This thread reminds me of the scene in "A Night At the Opera" in which an infinite number of people enter a very small stateroom on an ocean liner, all for reasons unknown even to them, and Groucho has a one liner for each and every one.

I keep expecting Moe Lane to show up and fire a gun in the air to get everyone's attention.

Now, I must prepare dinner for my lovely wife, whose exasperation is palpable.

[J Thomas]

I could do it when I was 16. I can't do it now. Maybe after 6 months of careful stretching exercises....

[LizardBreath]

I wasn't so much trying to refute Jes

I'm sorry, my comment in retrospect came off as "Let's you and her fight." All I meant is that she said Americans didn't do sarcasm, and then you showed up with one of your wonderfully meanderingly sarcastic bizarrenesses. I just thought the sequence was funny. (Come to think of it, I don't know that the thing you do is properly described as sarcasm. It's wildly entertaining, though.)

[Gary Farber]

LB says of John Thullen: "Come to think of it, I don't know that the thing you do is properly described as sarcasm."

I'd call it something more like "associative pointed fantasy riffing." A form of word jazz.

Which uses a lot of sarcasm, and sarcastic premises.

[LizardBreath]

I was trying to explain the Thullen-commenting-style to a friend, and found myself relying heavily on the word 'fantasia'. Not successfully, mind you, but that's what came to mind.

[Phil]

For irony, I'd far sooner point to, say, Albert Brooks, than SNL.

I would point to the enormous contribution of Albert Brooks's short films to the success of the early SNL, but that might be going deeper than we need to. :)

[Jesurgislac]

I went away to watch House (third-season, prime quality snark) and look what happened to my threadjack!

Onanism: how did masturbation get defined as the crime of a brother declining to help his deceased brother's wife conceive?

[LizardBreath]

I don't know, but I'll always love Dorothy Parker's decision to name her parrot Onan because he spilled his seed upon the ground.

[John Thullen]

LizardBreath:

No sweat.

Come to think of it, it's funny that I didn't get the mild irony in your comment, which proves Jes' point in one instance regarding we Americanos and also shows my flexibility in that for one minor moment, I managed to place my head in an unfortunate but gymnastic place.

[matttbastard]

Thank heavens for kittens. This thread was making me nauseous from the dizzy confusion (to say nothing of off-topicness. For a second I was a-feared that we were gonna get back into an argument on the rationality of Pol Pot, , and I've already showered twice today, and...)

One last link, dealing with rape in the US military throughout the years (no names, no fingers pointing):

Rape, sexual assault and harassment are nothing new to the military. They were a serious problem for the Women's Army Corps in Vietnam, and the rapes and sexual hounding of Navy women at Tailhook in 1991 and of Army women at Aberdeen in 1996 became national news. A 2003 survey of female veterans from Vietnam through the first Gulf War found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans from Vietnam and all the wars since, who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder, found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military. And in a third study, conducted in 1992-93 with female veterans of the Gulf War and earlier wars, 90 percent said they had been sexually harassed in the military, which means anything from being pressured for sex to being relentlessly teased and stared at.

Favourite Albert Brooks movies? Defending Your Life tops my list.

[Gary Farber]

"I would point to the enormous contribution of Albert Brooks's short films to the success of the early SNL, but that might be going deeper than we need to."

Yeah, but despite the fact that I think Brooks is a genius (why, he's at least as brilliant as Albert Einstein), and I love his work, and despite the fact that I greatly enjoyed those short films, I think they were quite irrelevant to the success of the early SNL, and that had Brooks' shorts not been there, it would have made no difference whatever to SNL catching on; with the greatest of respect for Mr. Brooks, his short films were not what made SNL popular.

I wasn't trying to kick SNL, incidentally; my point was solely in regard to the fact that it's a large grab-bag of all sorts of humor, highly variable, and as such "irony" is more of a returning guest than a non-stop part of the flavor, compared to the sensibility found in the work of someone like Albert Brooks. Or in the the humorous films of the Coen Brothers, say, such as, for instance, Raising Arizona.

I'd be curious to see someone defend the notion that there's no irony in the works of either sets of talent. Just to pick two. Or how about Wes Anderson? Or Bill Murray? Just for instance.

[Gary Farber]

"Favourite Albert Brooks movies? Defending Your Life tops my list."

Not good at lists, but he was on my mind from having finally seen Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World the other night, which I thought was hilarious, and which had me in laughter throughout most of the film. Despite, of course, the fact that most of the reviews said it was boring and incomprehensible and unfunny. (Particularly surreal was Fred Dalton Thompson playing himself, although no less so than the fact that Arnold is Governor of Caleefornee-a, or ever watching Jesse Ventura in a film, and considering that he was Governor of Minnesota; we're a strange planet.)

I suspect it was another case of most reviewers just totally not getting Brooks' sensibility -- again -- and sure enough, that was my conclusion after seeing the film. (To be sure, comedy is highly subjective, and if you don't find Brooks funny, that's fine, and I wouldn't dream of trying to persuade you otherwise, and neither would I deny that he, like the Coens, is a distinctly minority taste.)

He was probably funniest in Taxi Driver.

Just kidding!

Actually, Broadcast News is one of my favorite films of all time (meaning it's in the top fifty), and I recall quite liking Lost In America, although I've not seen it in more than a decade, and should again. I have a weakness for I'll Do Anything, although it shows all those weird signs of being a musical with all the numbers cut out. But that just adds a layer of funny! Really a James L. Brooks, not an Albert Brooks, film, though, to be sure. Defending Your Life is very good. Then there are his old comedy routines.

Favorite Coen Brothers film? No, wait, should move to open thread, really, I suppose. If anyone cares.

[Hartmut]

Maybe another piece of historical perspective on soldiers, sex, rape and war.
The German military in both World Wars had a zero tolerance policy on sexual assault (and looting etc.) because it was seen as a basic breach of discipline that would undermine the efficiency of the armed forces. It could be punished by death. It was a purely utilitarian view. Other motives (like racism, anti-fraternizing etc.) were only secondary. Paradoxically the US armed forces were never as disciplined despite being more hierarchical and anti-proactive.
It's of course open to debate whether official or private atrocities are "better" [this is not be construed as an attempted whitewash of German actions just an attempt to widen the picture on the topic of rape in war/among soldiers]

[dutchmarbel]

One of our writers (a href="http://www.arnongrunberg.com/">arnon grunberg was in Uruzgan with the Dutch army summer last year. He said that going to the shower required wearing slippers and is quite descriptive of the reason. Maybe that's why the women soldiers mainly complain about stares they receive? Or is it limiting the stay to 6 months for the troops?

[Jesurgislac]

Or locking all male soldiers into stainless steel chastity belts for the entire period of their overseas service?

(Bear in mind, I advise this as a pacifist. I think it would tend to cut down severely on men prepared to join the US army...)

[Hartmut]

There are some technical difficulties with those contraptions. But the religious conservatives would love it too.
Long Live http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/purity/index.asp>Operation Infinite Purity