On Technology, Twitter and Tripathi

There is an old saying – opinions are like anal orifices, everybody has one. Technology has made the act of public flatulence easy and costless. And we have a number of twits who seem to be constantly stinking up the place.

As children some of us played the game of telephone, where a message started with person ‘A’ and got passed from child to child till the mangled message was announced by person ‘B’. The point of the game was to teach kids to listen carefully before passing on rumors. As adults we play the game of twitter. In this game we take our unconfirmed, yet ‘reported’ pieces of news, punctuate them with our opinions and pass them along. Doesn’t matter if what’s being passed along is true; doesn’t matter who it hurts. All that matters is us using our digits to pass on the word and some judgment. As I said, technology has made the act of public flatulence easy and costless.

I got up rather early this morning and as I do on most mornings, I logged on. I was informed that Mike Muguleta and Sunil Tripathi were the Boston marathon bombers. Word spread. I hadn’t heard of Muguleta, but was familiar with Tripathi. I normally don’t get on to Twitter, but today I thought it was worth seeing what the search ‘Tripathi’ would bring up. On Twitter, as elsewhere, a large number of folks condemned the young man based on no evidence. Amongst the ‘let’s pass on the word’ players on Twitter was Michelle Malkin. The lady is irritating …, but the less said about her and others who helped spread the word that Tripathi was the man, the better.

The people who were in my thoughts rather immediately were Sunil’s immediate family – especially his mother and sister. I know nothing about them except that Sunil has been missing for about a month and his sister has been in the forefront of searching for him. As someone with a son in college when I first heard about Sunil’s disappearance I quietly said, “There but for the grace of God, go I!” And I’m not even a believer.

This morning those sentiments came back. My wife and I tried to imagine what Sunil’s family was going through. How were they reacting to the reports? Were they thinking, “My God, it all seems so much worse than the worst that we could imagine?” They had sent their kid off to a wonderful college, the way a whole bunch of people I know have done. He got into Brown – they must have done something right. Did they believe what was being said about their son? Were they blaming themselves?

The sad part is that Sunil is still missing. How unfortunate must your circumstance be if you get comfort knowing that your son was not the guy who was responsible for the bombings? His family has just gone from being miserable, to being incredibly miserable, to being miserable again. It is at times like this I hope I was a believer. Then in good conscience I could say a prayer for them and hope it would help. Now I can only think about them, and…

Unfortunately many of those who helped spread the rumor will rationalize it, if they give it another thought. And sometime in the future, once again many of us will use technology to indulge in another act of easy and costless public flatulence.

Hope someone uses that same technology to pass a word to Sunil’s family. You are all owed an apology. Somebody should say sorry to you all. For what it’s worth – I am deeply sorry for the what ‘we’ have done to worsen you already tragic circumstances.

And an apology goes out to the Muguleta family. Though I know absolutely nothing about them, the apology is in order. Because, somebody should say sorry!

Excuse Me – But Can I Say This, Or …?

My mother believed in her children’s ability to make independent decisions. She saw no contradiction between that and her telling me once, “You can get married to anyone provided I approve of her!” It seems that the freedom of speech and free expression meets a similar set of conditions in India today. Suppressing speech and artistic expression is no longer a once-in-a-while event and a deviation from the norm.

It was a group of self-appointed defenders of Muslim sensibility in the state of Tamil Nadu that objected to a movie titled Vishwaroopam made by the talented Kamal Haasan. I haven’t seen the movie and so do not know what the fuss is about. All that I know is that its detractors allege that it had scenes which hurt Muslim sentiments. That was enough reason for the state government to ban the movie in Tamil Nadu, while different levels of the judicial ladder rescinded the ban, and rescinded the rescinding of the ban in a forty-eight hour time frame. Never mind that the same movie was shown in neighboring states (Karnataka, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh) with very little to no effect on Muslim sensibilities. Things have now settled, with the Muslim groups winning – Kamal Haasan agreed to cut scenes which the guardians of Muslim sensibility found objectionable. An unfortunate outcome!

In Jaipur, of all places at a literary festival,  Ashis Nandy, a sociologist, author, and T.V. pundit had to pretzel what he meant (and later apologise) after he strung together words which, when reported, sounded like him saying that Dalits in India are more corrupt than…. It wasn’t enough to challenge him, say he was wrong, and engage him intellectually, on something he quite definitely did not mean (for a transcript of what he said, click here) – not that it should matter even if he meant it. Nor was it enough to simply ignore him. An FIR (First Information Report) was filed against him with the police on the grounds that he had transgressed the law by running afoul of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. So much for sticks and stones may…. To be clear, I am not suggesting that Nandy’s arguments have merit. In fact I think they don’t. What I am suggesting though is that he is entitled to his perspective, and should be able to air it without fear of reprisal if given the opportunity to do so.(For a “Dalit” response to Nandy, click here to hear Dr. K. Satyanarayana, a Dalit scholar and activist.)

While the Supreme Court ensured that Nandy would not be arrested in this instance, the court was clear as to where its heart was. As The Hindu reported on February 1, 2013, “Even as counsel Aman Lekhi began his submissions and asked the court whether a law could penalise an idea, the CJI shot back: “Why not? When an idea is not in the public interest, he can be. Whatever your intent, you can’t go on making statements. Tell your client he has no licence to make such comments.” It was not a question of an idea being punished but the manner in which it was made. “Every person has his own idea, but it should not disturb others. Statements are to be made in a responsible manner. Why do you say something which you don’t intend?” (my addition CJI – Chief Justice of India). Clearly the CJI does not believe that the only speech that needs a stout defense is offensive speech. Apparently, we all need to defer to people’s sensibilities. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter if people are really hurt by what we say; they just have to say that they are hurt, and we’ve messed up.

In Jammu and Kashmir the victims of the censoring absurdity are a group of teenage kids who put together a rock band. In a state which has been rocked (pun intended) by violence off and on since 1947 one surely thinks politicians, civil society, religious leaders, and anybody else who matter have more important things to worry about than fully clad young girls making music. But, no! A mufti (apparently the official state sponsored cleric) issued a fatwa (simultaneously translated as edict, ruling, advice, threat) which essentially suggested that music is un-Islamic, and some nonsense about Western influences and the disintegration of society. The girls seem to have succumbed to the threats and have said they will disband. The timing of all of this seems curious since in August 2012 the girls were featured on NDTV, a prominent Indian media outlet. Nobody seemed to have paid attention then when the news was positive. But now, with a fatwa, and … let’s check out what’s happening.

It seems that in this case the mufti and his message seem to have gone awry. The state Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who by past actions and statements seems to realize that we live in the 21^st century has come out in support of the girls. I predict the young women will sing again, and ironically the mufti may have done their musical careers some good.

The tragedy is, I can list a number of other cases recently where speech and other forms of expression have been stifled by self-appointed protectors of the India way. Even without scratching the surface, it is clear that parochial perspectives (often there aren’t even interests!) misinform these acts of subversion. What’s happening?

I suspect these are symptoms of a deeply insecure group of individuals and groups who seem threatened in the face of change. It isn’t that they are protecting something wonderful. When confronted with the unfamiliar and at times the unimaginable they are lashing out. They think they are losing control of a social ethos of which they were never in control. In this mix is a weak political structure, pandering to every sub-group. The pandering seems inevitable in a political climate dominated by regional, sectarian, and parochial powers and where ascension to power depends on political coalitions. Fear and opportunism stand up well to liberal values. Give me a multicultural society, social transformation at a tremendous pace, an ever changing political landscape, and I will give you an assault on values like the freedom of expression, speech, and the rights of the individual.

There’s little one can do in the short run with individuals and groups in society as they protest free speech and expression. One hopes that over time they will see that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and will back off. Or, it is possible that they will overplay their hand, and will be the victims of a backlash. However it mustn’t be too much to expect that all the organs of the state – the executive, legislative, and judicial branches – will deliver the word and spirit of Article 19 of the Indian constitution, which amongst other things delivers the right to freedom of speech and expression. I’m not holding my breath. And I wonder, will I be okay if I say that?

Go Home – No News – No U.S. Default on Debt

On August 7, 2011 I wrote:

“Does anybody seriously think the U.S. will default on its debt obligations? The recent political mess in Washington may make you say, “Maybe.”  But think about it for a second. In spite of a bunch of politically motivated, not so intelligent, partisan, ideologically driven bozos who cannot even be personable to each other running things in Washington, when push came to shove, when they had the opportunity to default, they didn’t. The last month in the U.S. simply shows us that even in terrible economic times, when the political system is quite broken, the U.S. will not default on its debt. So if you are thinking, “Maybe,” think again. The U.S. will not default on its debt. The past month has confirmed that view.

Nothing has changed in Washington. We have more or less the same cast of characters and they are behaving in more or less the same childish manner that they did about 18 months ago. They didn’t let the U.S. default on its debt obligations then, and they won’t this time around.

Rather than let them be, and not cover this now familiar game of pretend chicken that they play, the press will once again start the countdown, and wonder what will happen. Many a pundit will say things said often enough in the past. The cottage industry of covering and commenting on dysfunctional Washington has a new lease of life, and much activity will take place because of it.

The only news will be if the U.S. defaults. There is no news folks. They won’t.

President Obama and Democrats Should Support Some Republican Senators For Re-election

The problem with the American system is that the unpredictable was so predictable. See http://www.pal-item.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012312200018. If charged with amateur gloating, I plead guilty. When one is right so rarely, false modesty seems inappropriate.

So now that the never existing cliff has been avoided, many a pundit will dissect the deal and tell us that not much has changed. We will be told that the deal doesn’t do much to solve our non-existing budget crisis, and that the political class is incompetent, spineless, and …

However the process that brought us to the point where sequestration would not go into effect reveals a marked change in political forces that are at play in Washington. The fall of Grover and the diminished strength of the Tea Partiers mark a healthy change.

Over a year ago I wrote a piece on Grover Norquist and his pledge – http://noconsensushere.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/on-tax-pledges-and-taxing-vows-countering-grover-norquist/. At that time I thought of Grover Norquist as wrong, but principled. But Mr. Norquist has now shown his stance on taxes and the pledge to be nothing more than a crude power play, a bullying tactic, which he wielded for ends which still baffle me. The bully now stands exposed and with it has lost his power. Sure grOVER has now groveled (could not resist that) and claims that the Fiscal Cliff Bill is a tax cut, a line different from what he took slightly more than a month ago . He isn’t the purest ‘no tax increase’ person in Washington. That title possibly belongs to Rand Paul, a darling of the lukewarm, but still brewing Tea Party.

The tea leaves suggest that they may attempt to do to all the Republican senators who voted for the Fiscal Cliff Bill and are up for reelection in 2014, what they did to Lugar and attempted to do to Hatch in 2012 – politically neuter them in the primaries. The Republican senators who voted for the Fiscal Cliff Bill and who are up for re-election in 2014 are Sessions, Chambliss, Roberts, McConnell, Collins, Cochran, Johanns, Inhofe, Graham, Scott, Alexander, Cornyn, Enzi. And I think President Obama and the Democratic Party should commit to support some of them in the primaries.

Why? There must be some way to signal that taking a stance against false orthodoxies and axiomatic party planks deserve to be rewarded. Given the strength of the extreme right to derail a Republican’s political prospects in the primaries, there must be a countervailing force. There are some seats which will be Republican come what may – the Sessions seat in Alabama for example. The only question in such a case is what kind of a Republican will you get – someone who was willing to walk away from orthodoxy when it was important that they do, or someone who has drunk the Kool tea?. The answer seems obvious. In such cases the President and Democrats should help re-elect all those who were willing to take a bold political stance. You need compromisers to compromise.

How? Being nice to an opponent should not come at the cost of the Democrat’s political fortunes. If a seat is up for grabs even with a small probability (e.g., Alexander in Tennessee), it makes sense for the the President and the Democrats to have less than extreme Republicans defeated so that they can face extreme right candidates in the general election. Otherwise the President and the Democrats should do all that they can to make those Republicans that they can do business with win their primary battles.

I think Machiavelli and Chanakya would approve!

Tragedies and Technical Solutions – Homicide in Newtown to Rape in New Delhi

In 1968, Science published an article by Garrett Hardin which popularized the term ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’. There is very little in Hardin’s article that I find useful or worthy – in fact I think of it as reactionary, regressive, and wrong-headed.  However it did bring into prominence the notion initially propounded by Wiesner and York (Scientific American, 1964) that there exists a class of problems for which there may exist no technical solutions. In the context of the twin tragedies of the school killings in Newtown CT, and the gang rape in New Delhi, it is worth asking what role technical solutions can play in public policy responses.

Wiesner and York defined a technical solution as a solution “in the area of science and technology only,” and Hardin defined it as, “one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.”   To Hardin’s techniques of the natural sciences, I’ll add legal and administrative steps that the state and civil society can take to influence the actions of individual and develop social institutions . Such technical solutions can include laws, incentive mechanisms, administrative changes, educational programs, etc. In contrast to technical solutions one can think of attitudinal transformations – changes that come about due to events and circumstances that result in paradigmatic shifts in social norms and mores. Japan’s stance on nuclear weapons post Hiroshima-Nagasaki, and the American public’s acceptance of security measures post-9/11 are possible examples of attitudinal transformations. Clearly in some cases changes that occur can be ascribed to both technical changes and to attitudinal transformations; but for the most part, these are clearly distinguishable.

There is much in common between the circumstances and reactions in both the U.S. and India to the tragedies. Some of these similarities are:

• The Magnitude of the Problem: In both cases the particular incident is not a rare event – they are simply extreme examples of the norm. Gun violence in America occurs daily with the President’s home town Chicago itself registering over 500 gun related homicides in 2012 – or approximately 18 per 100,000 people. In a speech in Newtown following the tragedy President Obama said, “…there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children, in small towns and in big cities all across America, victims whose — much of the time their only fault was being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”  The level of homicides in America is in order of magnitude greater than that in comparable countries like Canada, Germany, Britian…trust me, it is a pretty large list.When it comes to rape and the abuse of women in India one needs no data to make the case that the every part of the country, rural, urban, wealthy, and poor, has a deep problem. A recent Reuters Thomson Foundation poll ranked India last when it came to the status and condition of women among the G20 countries. An article more than six months ago points out that, “Reports of women being snatched from the streets and gang-raped in moving cars are frequent in Delhi and surrounding areas.”

•  Shame, Outrage over the ‘Normal’: In both cases, the incidents (Newtown and New Delhi) have resulted in dramatic outpourings of national shame, anger and outrage. Following the Newtown tragedy the American media – visual and print – had wall to wall coverage of the tragedy. From talking heads to columnists to letters to the editor, in one voice everybody agreed that what happened in Newtown reflected the worst of America and that things should change. In his speech President Obama declared, “We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end.  And to end them, we must change.” The gunning down of 20 kids and 6 of their teachers is a matter of shame and outrage. But they are simply another, albeit gruesome, chapter in a series of events which should have evoked such shame and outrage all along.The reaction in India to the gang rape in Delhi has resulted in a media blitz. Television programs are full of discussions about the maltreatment of women and what should be done about it. Constant reference is made to the oppressive, patriarchal nature of society in general, and the ineffectiveness of the police and judicial system to deal with rape and other atrocities against women. Leading newspapers have dubbed the event a national shame and a reflection of the ugliest aspects of society. The young woman who was raped and who has now died is being hailed a fighter and martyr whose death should not be in vain. Her death is a matter of shame and outrage. It is simply another, albeit gruesome, chapter in a series of events which should have evoked such shame and outrage all along.

Put simply, in both cases there is a realization that there is a serious problem, reflecting badly on the country and society. Across the board people would like to stop these frequently occurring tragedies. What can be done?

The Newtown tragedy has resulted in calls for at least two legal and/or administrative changes. The first is the age-old call for gun legislation. The most probable change that will happen now is a reinstatement of the federal ban on automatic assault weapons. The evidence suggests that this will do very little to deal with the fundamental problem. More stringent measures like banning all guns except those suitable for hunting and sport will simply not see the light of day. The honest debate as to whether such measures will make much of a difference (the evidence is mixed), coupled with the axiomatic American attitude about the sanctity of the right to bear arms ensures that even if banning guns is a solution to gun violence, it is a non-starter.

The NRA’s response to the tragedy has been to call for the posting of armed guards in schools. If they are consistent and have been following the string of shootings in the U.S. recently they should also advocate for armed guards in theatres (Denver), shopping malls (Arizona), and colleges (Virginia Tech.). In fact the NRA’s suggestion simply doesn’t pass the laugh test and is clearly a defensive response to the public mood for some sort of gun legislation.

In India there have been calls for all sorts of changes to combat the rape epidemic. They range from calls for retributive justice – castration, emasculation, the death penalty – to more sober measures like increased policing, and paying greater attention to the criminal prosecution of accused rapists.  It is indeed appalling that there should be calls for what I call the ‘more sober measures’. The probability of getting convicted of rape in India is so small, that it would be wrong to suggest that accused rapists get due process; it simply is the case that rape victims get no process.

The measures outlined above are far from all the technical solutions that can be implemented to try to deal with the problems of homicides in America, and rape in India. This is not the place to outline all the possible actions that can be taken by the state or civil society. However I predict that both in the context of guns in America and rape in India two things will be true. First it is far from clear that undertaking the actions that are called for will result in the outcomes one hopes for. At the best of times it is difficult to clearly sketch out the results of a policy measure given the omnipresent law of unintended consequences. But the deeper tragedy is that most measures that many are calling for will not see the light of day. America will not see meaningful gun legislation. India will not see the suggested changes in the public safety and judicial infrastructure that may make things better. Outrage, a sense of shame, and call for change are low hanging fruit which are easily captured. The possibly more meaningful fruit are pretty high up and a combination of social and historical forces will ensure that they are not plucked. The seeds of technical solutions at least need a non-hostile, if not cooperative soil to bloom. Unfortunately in the case of homicides and gun legislation in the U.S., and issues of rape and women’s safety in India the soil is far from conducive to plant any seeds from the technical solutions seedbank.

As much as it saddens me to say it, in years to come we will all see more homicides and mass shootings in American, and hear of how common rape and atrocities against women are in India. It seems both these are problems without technical solutions. The present tragedies are not enough to effect attitudinal transformations. They have affected many and society is deeply saddened by them; just not deep enough to make changes or change ourselves.

Post-Partisan Presidency – When Good Governance is Good Politics

A good friend of mine and I who normally discuss and solve the problems of the world regularly had a conversation the day after the Nov. 6 election. I am slightly less suspicious of his claims of being a liberal than he is of my being a non-partisan.

“Are you happy today?” he inquired, without knowing who I had voted for.

“Not yet” I said, “I will be happy if Obama governs as a post-partisan.”

Right through the campaign, in our conversations I have tried to be be non-partisan, preferring to understand the dynamics of the race and campaign. I am less impressed by the case that president Obama is a hero or a zero than many of his admirers or detractors will have us believe. To my mind, President Obama is a regular pol, one who cares about issues and likes power. Like most regular pols he makes calculated decisions to strike a balance between the principled and the public good, and, pragmatism and personal ambition.

I fall into the camp which believes that the President fell far short of his potential in his first term both with regard to process and product. Easy for a mediocre college professor to judge the President on the way he balanced the different interests he faced with an obstructionist opposition (as opposed to a loyal and constructive opposition). But still, a compelling case can be made (in fact, has been made) that the President fell short of promise and possibility – and the constraints that he faced and the quality of the critic in no way dilutes the criticism.

However, now is not the time to deconstruct past failures. As the President’s campaign said, “FORWARD.” And the way to move forward is to be post-partisan or non-partisan. To get here it is worth seeing what’s different now from four years ago.

What’s Different Between Now and Four Years Ago?

The President will begin his second term with a new deck of cards. For starters he has captured all the black president presidential awards that history will award – Elected First Black President, and, Re-elected First Black President, and for a long time to come Youngest Black President, and…. Put simply, posterity will praise President Obama and he will be spoken of in the same breath as his home state fellow President Lincoln for a long time to come. (It is also worth noting that that the only other President from Illinois Ulysses S. Grant was also a giant in promoting the civil rights of African Americans.) So President Obama need not act to impress posterity.

Second, thanks  to the 22^nd Amendment, President Obama doesn’t have to worry about re-election. Combine this with not having to impress posterity, and personal ambition should play little to no role in determining the President’s actions. Put slightly differently, now that he has achieved all he could for himself, he is free to not think about himself.

Third, the Left sees him as a Rightist, the Right sees him as a Socialist, and those who love him don’t give a damn whether he is right or wrong. Very little is going to happen that will change any of this. Feelings and perceptions about President Obama are by and large not based on reason. He isn’t going to sway people to his perspective by way of compromise and accommodaton – at least not enough people to make it worth trying to fashion political compromises.

Fourth, the President has been remarkably selfish in not throwing his weight behind candidates for the Senate or the House. My guess is the Senate races didn’t matter to him unless he could have 60 pliable Senators – an impossible task. And redistricting clearly makes House races far from swingable, even if the President is the swinger. Part of this aloofness is because the President is quite apolitical with a Democratic tilt, and the rest is because in races that were contestable the President and the candidates felt that the President came with as many cons as he did with pros. Strategically speaking the President has not helped the legislative wing of the Democratic Party. However he can hurt them, and this is useful.

Taken together, three and four point to the possibility of reshaping the relationship between the executive and legislative branches. This President did not put this Congress together – the crazies on the Republican right can either not be influenced or will be punished if they are unreasonable. The Democrats in Congress need the President much more than he needs them. They will not wander far off. These are ideal conditions for the President to minimize pragmatism, and focus on principle as he guides the executive branch in its deliberations with Congress

So, what is different now from four years ago, when the President was elected for the first time? Today the President need not worry about personal ambition, can minimize pragmatism, stand on principle, and pursue the public good as he perceives it for the next four years. Put simply the President should be post-partisan or non-partisan..

The Post-Partisan/Non-Partisan Path

What does it mean to govern as a post-partisan or non-partisan? It simply means shedding the burden of political parties when governing. It is about applying in policy the phrase that made the President rocket into political space – “Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America. “ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19751-2004Jul27.html) It starts with not limiting yourself to what you think can be  done, but by striving for what needs to be done. It measures success by not what you get done, but by what you work to get done.  It is abandoning pragmatism at the altar of public good and optimal policy. It is putting into practice the belief that Obama espoused in his 2004 keynote address – “We have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges that face us.” It is abandoning interest groups and their agendas at the altar of public good and optimal policy. It is rejecting rent seekers, compromises, and petty interests for good ideas and worthy outcomes.

A call to abandon pragmatism, and reject compromise does not mean that there is no room for discussion, dialogue, and give and take. The very nature of life is that to get something you must give up something – that there are trade-offs. But it matters what the basis of the discussion and dialogue are. Negotiations should be based on getting to an outcome; the outcome should not be based on the negotiation.

What about the argument that half a loaf is better than no loaf? While this may be true in some cases, signaling apriori that you will be willing to accept half a loaf instead of no loaf may direct the opposition’s negotiating strategy to making sure that you only get half a loaf. My sense is that the Obama administration signaled rather early on in the health care bill negotiations that they were so desperate for any deal, that the President (and the nation) got quite a raw one. This is more or less the point that Krugman makes in his recent New York Times piece, when he advises the President that “standing up to hostage-taking is the right thing to do for the health of America’s political system,” and advises him to stand his ground, because, “No deal is better than a bad deal.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/opinion/krugman-lets-not-make-a-deal.html?)

Strategically and Tactically How Will this Work?

The campaign is just over. Policies were debated, ideas were discussed, and promises were made. Based on the record it shouldn’t be difficult for the President to lay out a legislative agenda. The agenda should clearly lay out what the President would like to see happen, and what he will veto. That defines the boundaries of his dos and don’ts.

The President then adopts an Introduce (Bills – needs a helpful legislator), Negotiate, Legislate, Veto, and Communicate strategy.

To negotiate means that the President is willing to have open communication on the fundamental issues of policy, and let analysis and logic trump rhetoric and bumper sticker politics. Obstructionists should be called out. It also means that the President should be willing to give up what his supporters may want if they do not stand up to the principles he outlines. To legislate means that Congress should go on the record on all issues. Even if the President’s position will lose, votes should be registered. The threat of filibuster must be met with the challenge to filibuster. The President should use his Veto pen. No longer should the President be allowed to criticize tax cuts as immoral, while agreeing to them. That may have been a wise thing to do to increase his chances of reelection. But now it should be different. Most important of all, the President should communicate. The President should give weight to the notion that the government gets its power from the plebian, and that elected politicians are servants employed by the American people. At regular intervals the President should be willing to tell the American people why he supports  the things he is pursuing and why he rejects other advocated positions. If you can communicate and plaster people with ads and information when you were asking for the job, you can inform them about what you are doing and not doing once they give you the job. And the President should be willing to debate his political and policy opponents to highlight the basis and virtue of the policies and positions he is pushing.

Note I haven’t spoken about what the President should pursue. He is President, and what he pursues is his prerogative. If whatever he chooses to pursue is not based on a post-partisan basis, then partisan bickering is all that we should expect.

There is A Supreme Reason to Court a Candidate and it Has Nothing to Do With Their Positions – Past or Present

“Trust me when I say I can be trusted. But he’s bending the truth – actually I’m being generous, he’s lying!” So goes the campaign on both sides.

The game is on, charges, and counter-charges abound. All of this tests our patience and our intelligence. And the tragic ways of FOXNEWS and NBCNews.com (the former MSNBC) have permeated the general way many of us think about the candidates – how we feel about what they do and say depends to a great extent on how we feel about them before we heard them – a political Rorschach test if you will. I’d like to suggest that what they say they will do in a policy sense matters less than something more long lasting.

It is true that Romney has been reframing and changing things he said in the primaries (and when he was Governor) to position himself for the general election. It is also true that this fits into the completely defensible narrative that Romney is a flip-flopper changing his positions on issues depending on the nature of the race ahead of him. There are so many Romneyflops, that one cannot seriously debate whether Romney has changed his position to suit the needs of his political circumstances. He has. But is that really all that bad or unusual?

Let’s take the bad first. Ideological purity and consistency in a political candidate is an over-rated vice. It doesn’t make sense for folks to want bipartisan decision making in Washington on the one hand, and then punish people in the polls for having compromised on the other hand. By the very nature of the animal, getting elected calls for highlighting differences between you and your opponent. In a world of short attention spans and a rather poorly informed electorate, the way to highlight these differences is to bumper sticker the positive and the negative messages you convey to the extreme.  However, legislating and governing in a system with checks and balances calls for give and take. If you are in favor of making sure that politicians  “get things done” without any individual or group having overwhelming power, then you should hope that politicians “flip-flop” regularly. Many a legislator who sticks to the pledge they made to Grover Norquist may not be flip-floppers, but are far from what anybody should think of as ideal and worthy of their vote. (For what I think about Norquist and his pledge, click here)

Now, to the unusual part. Democrats and Republicans in the past have been, or have been accused of being, flip-floppers to their detriment. George Bush (Sr.) and John Kerry are two clear examples. But let’s fast forward to Romney’s opponent for the presidency. In a recent interview President Obama argued that there has been “consistency with  me,”( he says this starting at minute 3.54 of the video) the implication being that he doesn’t flip-flop, and that we know where he stands and WWSIWWG (Read as ‘Two Double U See Two Double U Gee – What We See IS What We Get)

This is an example of the testing our intelligence part of the story. President Obama has flip flopped often enough and many of these flip flops can clearly be linked to political and policy making expediency, rather than some nobler reason. He was against an individual mandate for health insurance when he ran for the Presidency. In fact this was a major difference between him and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary. Also if you thought the public option was a good idea, the President was your man. But legislating is clumsy business and we’ve got the Obamacare (everybody likes this term now) we’ve got, sans the public option and with a mandate.

As the Obamacare sausage was being made, the President made an eloquent and logical defense of the individual mandate. Also, listen carefully to all the links and you will see, sometimes Obama described his differences with Mrs. Clinton on the mandate as a ‘substantive’ difference, and at other times the same differences were only ‘modest’. Nor was he very consistent with whether he and his administration thought the individual mandate was or was not a tax.

There are times when the President flip-flopped and the political advantage is less clear. Obama’s position on same sex marriage is one such flip-flop – he was against it on religious grounds, before he was for it, a transformation brought about by his being a parent. Even when the flop happened pundits were divided as to whether this was a political plus or minus on the cost-benefit risk analysis scale – politically it was a trade-off of political contributions for votes in conservative swing states. The money is in (a lot of it came in), but the jury is still out as to whether it was a gamble worth the moolah.

Given the system we live in, any successful politician will flip-flop a number of times, nay, should flip-flop a number of times. Partisans see the other side’s flip-flops as egregious, and their own candidate’s as minor changes which show an healthy tendency to learn and mature the longer they are in public life. Moreover given how evenly distributed the balance of power is in Washington between the Republicans and the Democrats, if any of us believes the suggestion that a politician makes that they are going to Washington and will change the culture of the place and remake the system, we have only ourselves to blame when Washington remains the same irrespective of who is elected. I am sure that there are differences between the Republicans and Democrats who get to Washington both at the legislative and executive levels, but given the system of government we have, these difference will translate to very small changes in actual policy when all is said and done.

However, there is one area in which we know that the two candidates will do very different things, and the power of the other side in Congress is minimal. This is in appointing Federal judges – the Supreme Court, Courts of Appeals, and District Courts. This power is especially important in the case of the first two, for they can change the status quo (what is already law) and thereby change the social and political equilibrium. The reason the President can exercise extra power in this case is because to turn down a Presidential appointee, the other side in Congress must show the appointee to be really outside the mainstream, and you cannot constantly turn down appointees as outside the mainstream, for you then look unreasonable. While you can block a judicial nomination from coming up for a vote, that is close to impossible when it comes to a Supreme Court nominee. So, when you decide whom to vote for in less than four weeks, ask yourselves which of the following group of justices you like more – Group O also called Group D (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotamayor, ) or Group R (Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas), for these folks have more power to decide a number of issues we care about in an everyday sense than the President, and so will their successors. And with four justices over the age of 70, the next four years may determine the ideological stripes of the Court for a long time to come, for those who get to the Supreme bench sit there for more than four or eight years.

While this is where the President can be thwarted the least in what he wants to do by the opposition in the legislative branches, it is also where the President should most conform to the consensus in his own party. So even in this decision it isn’t Romney or Obama that matter in terms of judicial appointments over the next four years, but Republican or Democrat. So what really matters is not the short run, but the long run; and it is not the individual but his party affiliation.

So who will I vote for? In the first draft to this blog piece I actually answered that question. However, I have decided that it really doesn’t matter, and I would like the argument sketched out above to rise or fall irrespective of the candidate for whom I will be voting. Not that my vote really matters. I live in Indiana, and Romney will win Indiana whether I vote for him or not.