Slate wasted no time in throwing up a "What now?" quorum discussion for the right in the wake of the GOP's big bruising. Now comes a host of disclosures from the McCain camp itself that Sarah Palin was an accident waiting to happen to the country if their side was victorious.

Newsweek is reporting that Palin's wardrobe expenditures, paid for by the RNC, were even higher than first estimated:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: "Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin."

Even granting the Palin aide the benefit of the doubt only shows that McCain's staff had a bit of a solidarity and loyalty problem brought on by what it saw as a disastrous and ill-conceived choice of a running mate. What sort of interdeparmental leaks and surreptitious backbiting could we have expected to take place in such an administration? Alternatively, if the RNC audits confirm this embarrassing tale, then we're left with the picture of a classless woman stealing from her own cash-poor campaign. Someone had better check to see if all the original aluminum is still attached to the Straight Talk Express.

More troubling still is the news that Palin thought Africa was a country and didn't know which countries were in North America. What liberal gotcha media outlet has loosed these vile lies upon a grateful republic? Fox:

 

 

Conservative blogs Hot Air and Ace of Spades are already crying foul, and accusing the McCain apparat of "bullshit" and scapegoating. Of course, if these disgruntled wingers thought as strategically as they wish their party had, they'd keep quiet and let this item bombinate in the left-o-sphere, which is currently preoccupied with happier thoughts. Instead, it's to be recriminations and sour grapes galore.

So here's a question for that Slate roundtable: What can we do to ensure a comeback in the 2062 midterms?

Is the traditional conception of politics as contest between the economically statist, socially progressive left, and the market-friendly, socially retrograde right, just pining for the fjords, or is it stone dead?

Consider this: Jesse Larner wrote a thoughtful critical appreciation of Friedrich Hayek in the Winter issue of Dissent, pointing out several historical and theoretical lacunae in Hayek's thought but crediting Hayek's critique of planned economies as decisive. It's notable not only for being a beautifully written piece, but also for where it's coming from: a left-wing writer in a prominent left-wing magazine (albeit one that's always been regarded as "the right wing of the left"). When the premier journal of democratic socialism agrees that the viability of systems of central planning is over, it's over. But on the other hand, Larner perceptively notes what might come as a shock to some of Hayek's most ardent fans, namely that he "recognizes such a thing as the social interest and will even endorse some limited redistributionalism --- he goes so far as to suggest that the state ensure a minimum standard of living." Which suggest the potential for a reconciliation between classical and contemporary liberalism.

Coming at the same question from the opposite direction, Cato's Will WilkinsonThe Elections Of 1896 And 1996: Notice the switch? observes by reference to Friedman and (James, not Pat) Buchanan as well as Hayek that liberal-libertarian "fusionism" is really "just seeing our way back to a pre-existing economically literate political liberalism." Socialism and communism are dead, and with them the tactical rational for libertarians and classical liberals to make common cause with the right. "The question these days," Wilkinson argues, "is whether the U.S. will have the good sense to adopt more rational market-based old-age pension policies, like Sweden or Australia, or lower corporate tax rates to a level more in line with the rest of the wealthy world...Slightly higher personal tax rates and slightly more redistribution is a possibility, but a slide into socialism just isn’t on the table."

So that's what a pair of out of touch eggheads think; what about real people? There are two texts to consult here: Christopher Caldwell's classic 1998 Atlantic Monthly piece, "The Southern Captivity of the GOP," surveyed a vast range of socioeconomic data and tracked the correlation between the shift to a post-industrial economy marked by massive suburbanization to the revival of the national Democratic party in the 1990s. Ruy Teixeira and John Judis' ill-timed but increasingly prescient The Emerging Democratic Majority filled in the political side of that story. Whereas the Roosevelt coalition was smashed when Richard Nixon and then Ronald Reagan pried away its southern and sun-belt wings, the Reagan majority is moribund due in part to the migration of Yankee Republicans to the Democrats, but at least as much in virtue of the Democrats adding scores of new voters to the electorate, thanks to the expansion of the McGovern coalition and an even larger expansion of the Latino population.

That's where the Larner and Wilkinson pieces come back into the picture. Each of them approaching the prospect from opposite starting points argues that achieving a liberal-libertarian equilibrium is not only possible but desirable. The data Caldwell, Texeira, and Judis marshal suggests that if the fulcrum of the coming realignment is a shift in the country's substructure, the lever can be a shift from persistent Roosevelt-era concepts of left vs. right and liberal vs. conservative, towards a new ideological division to match the new political economy: liberalism (broadly construed) vs. populism.

Look at two of the most emotionally salient issues in our politics, trade and immigration --- which in addition to being emotionally salient, are two sides of the same coin --- to see how it might work. Currently both parties contain populist wings furious in their opposition to trade (Democratic populists) and immigration (Republican populists); yet the emerging, if silent majority (to borrow a phrase) is friendly to both. Moreover, the core of support for populism in the south and Appalachia neatly overlaps the power center of the GOP. Whereas the Democrats have solidified their bases, nearly completely conquered traditional Republican strongholds like New England and California, and made strong inroads into "new" southern states like Virginia and North Carolina through the expansion of the wine-track liberal vote congenial to markets and primarily concerned with environmental and foreign policy and by winning over the proverbial "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" suburban moderates who used to tilt Republican. Their next battlegrounds are the southwest and Rocky Mountain states, which they can flip through the same phenomena plus the huge expansion of a Latino electorate invested in liberal immigration policy.

In other words, the Rawls-Hayek fusion Wilkinson speaks of doesn't just make philosophical sense. It's also a promising strategy for the Democrats to build a national majority they haven't enjoyed in more than half a century. Conversely, by rejecting liberalism in favor of full-throated populism, the GOP is on the verge of fulfilling Caldwell's predictions, and reducing itself as a rump Anglo party trapped in the deep south and Appalachia.

Jimmy's Defense: Philip Weiss makes a wafer-thin casePhilip Weiss has been outspoken in his support of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid at MondoWeiss, the New York Observer blog, so it should come as no surprise that he's found a new sponsor in The American Conservative, the in-flight magazine of all triumphantly domestic-bound air travel.

The fun with this rag comes when you find yourself playing neocon Mad Libs with its pieces on the dread cabal in Washington. Daniel McCarthy, one of the editors, once actually devoted pages and pages to exposing the unlikely Catholic contingent of this tenebrous ex-Trotskyist political movement, which we all know is controlled by the Shintos.

Anyhoo, here's Weiss on Jimmy the Brave:

Some of the fury hides an old-fashioned power struggle. For the first time since the State of Israel was created in 1948, a prominent American politician has publicly taken up the cause of the Arabs, describing Israel’s practices as oppressive. Such voices are common in Europe and in Israel itself. But they are uncommon here, where staunchly Zionist voices routinely assert that Israeli and American interests are identical, a view uniformly reflected in our politics and policies. The Carter groundswell seems to represent a real political threat to that claim. A recent batch of letters to the Houston Chronicle ran three-to-one in Carter’s favor. “Can’t Israel defend itself without subjecting all Palestinians in the occupied territories to such shameful conditions?” one asked. “Nothing justifies treating an entire group of people as if they were second-class human beings.”

If you take one thing away from this fawning tribute to a man who was never concerned with human rights as president, and who should therefore be disassociated from the worthy struggle for Palestinian enfranchisement, it is this: Weiss mercifully concedes that criticism of Israel is strong in Israel, which it is. It's also pretty strong in the U.S., if muted by a "not in front of the goyim" rule, which only gets reinforced when pious and noble "statesmen" write sentences like these:

"It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel."

Oh, I know he's apologized for it and said it'll get rejiggered in future editions. But such laziness of thought and morality, which have already exerted their influence at the top of the New York Times bestsellers list, are characteristic of the man who thinks Israel ought to be governed by more messianic-religious dogma, not less. And who encouraged Saddam Hussein to attack Iran in 1980, thereby inciting one of the bloodiest and most deadly wars in modern Middle Eastern history (yes, including the one that's on your mind). And who claimed that the people of North Korea really do love their Dear Leader. I could go on...One doesn't have to be an apologist for Israel to see that Carter is a lousy champion for anything.

Cuddly and fatuous though he may seem, shall we find a more cuddly or fatuous vignette rendered in print this week?

I soon found myself with 18 kids in a circle. Most were Jewish, ranging from liberal to progressive. Fearing anger and dispute, Danielle Sunberg, the group’s chairman, had brought a stuffed teddy bear. The rule was that you could only talk when you were holding the bear. When you were finished, you could throw it to someone else.

For the second or third time that day, I was surprised. A couple of students were sharply critical of Carter, but mostly they were enthused. “The campus is on fire tonight,” one remarked. It was exciting to them that the president had visited. “He was making a mea culpa to the Jewish community. To correct things, to move forward…” said Ari Fertig. They were moved by his largeness of spirit. They felt that they had a positive role to play in this discussion; they wanted to play their part as young people. “We need a few generations to die out,” one said.

[...]

The teddy bear was thrown this way and that until at the end it was passed around the circle for closing statements. When it came to me, I said that I hoped my generation’s attitudes died out and made way for theirs.

Evangelical reactionaries are said to be eagerly awaiting the return of the messiah, who has augured his material depot to be the exact spot where he skedaddled the last time. As the Buchananite Right's preferred chosen, Weiss awaits the day when a fusty old Jewry (with its bothersome long memory of the Holocaust and its wariness of continued genocidal fantasy) are all dead and buried and the kaffiyeh-wearing campus activists inherit the earth.

Hallelujah.

Here's what's going to happen to Dinesh D'Souza, in short order. He's going to find his filthy moral preference for jihadism lifted -- more in reluctance than glee -- by the hard left he so despises. He won't have seen this coming, but there it'll be all the same. The ink's probably being spilled at the New Left Review: "Even a few American reactionaries are beginning to appreciate the post-colonial grievances of Al Qaeda..."

Then, realizing he has successfully alienated all his old cronies on the Reaganite right, finding himself welcome only in the uninspiring pages of Human Events, D'Souza will turn against his new frenemies on the third worldist left with lightning speed and the kind of intellectual honesty we've come to expect from him. ("My arguments were taken out of context by precisely those elements I blamed for causing 9/11 to happen in the first place," etc.)

Then of course it'll be too late. Been there, done that, Dinesh. You were something, boy, back in the day, when we needed a subcontinental spokesman to defend empire and assimilation, but you've past your sell-by date. Thanks for the memories.

Then something about a dimly lit motel room, scattered Ecstacy pills, Coulter crying over her bedizened Chanel crucifix, redemption, televangelist tours, etc., etc.

Bruce Bawer sees it all coming:

Promoting his tract on TV, D’Souza has consistently softened and misrepresented its message. His January 28 reply to critics, which ran in the Washington Post, is a masterpiece of dissembling: he complains that Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert hounded him with the question “But you agree with the Islamic radicals, don’t you?”—but fails to mention that he finally replied “Yes.” Indeed, though he purports to disdain those radicals, he writes about them far more compassionately than about anyone on the American left: Among the images he strives to improve are those of Theo van Gogh’s murderer (he quotes out of context a sensitive-sounding courtroom remark the butcher made to his victim’s mother), of bin Ladin and Khomeini (both of whom, we’re told, are “highly regarded” for their “modest demeanor, frugal lifestyle, and soft-spoken manner”), of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (whose criticism of gay marriage he approvingly cites, while omitting to note that Qaradawi also supports the death sentence for sodomites), and even of the 9/11 terrorists (D’Souza excerpts the goodbye letter one of them sent his wife, which he plainly finds noble and poignant).

The Enemy at Home | Books | The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper

RELATED: Bullshit Reactionary [Why I think D'Souza's lying through his hush-puppies.]