Self-Referential Opinions

Two columns out today that I thought notable for some worthwhile commentary as well as the fact that they both recycle two previous NY Times editorials written to note the current shortcomings of the GOP and Democratic Party from former Senators:

The first is David Brooks, who takes up the Bill Bradley premise of the inverted pryramid to note the current interest of some Dems to mimic the approach that led to the GOP rise:

We're living in the age of the liberal copycat. Al Franken tries to create a liberal version of Rush. Al Gore announced his TV network yesterday. Many Democrats have tried to create a liberal Heritage Foundation.

The theory is that liberals must create their own version of the conservative pyramid. Conservatives have formed their foundations, think tanks and media outlets into a ruthlessly efficient message machine. Liberals, on the other hand, have been losing because they are too fractious, too nuanced and, well, too freethinking.

As is typical of Brooks, there's a lot of poorly drawn comparisons on the way towards making all of one single salient point that bears consideration:

Liberals are less conscious of public philosophy because modern liberalism was formed in government, not away from it.

A fair point in and of itself. Leave it to Brooks, however, to surround it with a load of crap. Brooks notes that conservatives have not been as cohesive and universally happy with one another in their rise ... a feature Democrats seemingly envy. Unfortunately for Brooks, the examples he offers up are about 50 years old. The more current offerings Brooks offers are vague at best. Though there are certainly some spats to be found over Iraq, Terri Schiavo, and even Social Security, these spats have had the effect of limiting the ascendancy that the conservative movement could have had. One does not, after all, "ascend" to 51%.

Public debates are all fine and well. And Democrats would be well advised to seek out the works of not just the authors Brooks lists (was it too difficult to include Reinhold Niebuhr in that list, David?). Part of this goes into placing the solution set offered by Democratic partisans within a value system understood beyond the literal individual policy being discussed. So nothing entirely new there.

To be sure, there's also a place anda method for engaging in a more productive debate than seems to prevail at the moment. At present, we've had too many attempt to simply oust factions of the Democratic Party, as if suddenly finding virtue in Barry Goldwater's putsch of the John Lindsays and Nelson Rockefellers from his party. Unnoticed from that history was that this purge was seen as needed in order to invite a greater number of conservatives (mostly southern) into coalition. At present, it remains to be proven where the vast hordes of new progressives are waiting to come from within the GOP ranks. That point seems to be lost on the David Sirotas of the world who aren't happy with the diversity present in our own ranks. So debate all you want, I say ... but keep in mind that at the end of the debate, there needs to be resolution so that all affected wings of party see the means to unite behind the Democratic Party banner ... or at least show your math and let's see where you think these new voters are going to come from.

Completing the cross-party quoting, Paul Krugman takes up Chris Shay's quote of the GOP becoming "a party of theocrats" (a quote that parallels' Sen. John Danforth's own criticism, which is ironic in that Danforth is an ordained minister) in making his analysis of why academia seems to have so many of those blasted liberals on staff. Naturally, the 5 times a year or thereabouts that I'm inclined to read a Krugman column will be those moments where we're in agreement. This is one of em. The problem isn't a liberal bias against conservatives in academia ... it's a conservative bias against academia ... period.

In fact Krugman makes the precise comparison I've often kept at hand:

Claims that liberal bias keeps conservatives off college faculties almost always focus on the humanities and social sciences, where judgments about what constitutes good scholarship can seem subjective to an outsider. But studies that find registered Republicans in the minority at elite universities show that Republicans are almost as rare in hard sciences like physics and in engineering departments as in softer fields. Why?

One answer is self-selection - the same sort of self-selection that leads Republicans to outnumber Democrats four to one in the military. The sort of person who prefers an academic career to the private sector is likely to be somewhat more liberal than average, even in engineering.

Krugman goes on to make his case that conservatives are more prone to determine truth by revelation, not research as a key issue in explaining the difference. Ironic, because Krugman makes the case as a revelation himself, leaving the little bit of research to be offered as mere anectdotal evidence of Bush's belief that "the jury is still out" on evolution.

Therein lies the problem with columists and word limitations on the amount of written space ... there's a clear bias towards simplification. Oversimplification if necessary. Like Brooks, I don't doubt there's a shred of truth in what Krugman offers. But if there's any more than that, it's been poorly made.