links for 2009-10-28

• Beers of The Times – Call It Stout, Though It Isn't – Review – NYTimes.com
  PEOPLE get stuck on the word stout. It confuses, the way it connotes size and fleshiness. And the color, too — inky, impenetrable black — suggests mass and power. As a result, many people think stout is a formidable blockbuster of an ale, heavy and alcoholic, just the way they assume darker roasts of coffee have more caffeine than lighter roasts. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  (tags: beer)

Progressives for a value-added tax?

Via Megan McArdle is this interesting graph from the Congressional Budget Office showing the impact the recession has had on tax revenues, organized by type of tax:

I am also surprised to see that revenue from payroll taxes has essentially remained stable through the recession, and like Megan, I’m not entirely sure as to why that is (and if anyone wants to hazard a guess, I am all ears).

What’s more interesting to me though, is what this graph implies about the volatility of revenue.  Assuming that this is an accurate representation of what happens to tax revenues during a recessionary period, it seems to suggest that our most progressive taxes – income taxes – are most vulnerable to the effects of a recession, while our most regressive taxes – payroll taxes – are our least volatile sources of revenue.  And if that’s true, then it has powerful implications for progressive policies.

Since Obama entered office, I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that, above nearly everything else, progressives need to make a concerted effort to change the way we talk about taxation, in the interest of clearing the space for politicians to talk honestly and openly about raising revenue.  After all, we don’t have much of choice.  Most progressives are committed to significantly broadening the scope of the American welfare state; health care is only one part of what is a long-term effort to bring the United States more in line with our European peers in terms of what the state delivers to its citizens.  Taxation plays a critical role in furthering that project.  We simply can’t expand the welfare state without also raising dramatically more revenue than we currently do, since in the absence of any additional revenue, the United States cannot afford much beyond its current obligations (or rather it could, but it’s nice to be able to pay for what we spend).

The problem for progressives is twofold: first, we have to find a way of successfully countering the conservative narrative that taxes are unfair at best and borderline illegitimate at worst, and second, we have to find methods of taxation that are both fair and capable of raising an adequate amount of revenue.

Of the two, I actually think that the second is a far more difficult project, in part because the best solution – a value-added tax of some form – is anathema to a lot of progressives. For progressives, the VAT is simply too regressive; every imaginable form of the VAT would disproportionately affect poor, working-class and middle-class Americans.  That said, there are ways to craft a VAT as to soften its impact.  For starters, you could include exemptions for food and non-luxury clothing items, as well as use some of the revenue – Bruce Barlett estimates that a 20 percent tax could raise up to $1 trillion per year in 2009 dollars – to provide income supports for struggling Americans.  Indeed, if you buy the idea (which I do) that progressive distribution is far more important than progressive taxation, then a VAT is great by progressive standards, as the revenue generated could be used to support both a stronger safety net and significant investment into education and infrastructure.  What’s more, the stability of regressive taxes makes it more likely that you can expand the welfare state while also keeping it fiscally solvent over the long-term.

I don’t expect conservatives to sign on to this project (though it’s worth noting that the United States wouldn’t be the first nation to trade conservative taxation for progressive spending), but I think it’s something they should consider.  If you believe – as I do – that the United States is on a pretty steady march towards a much stronger public sector, then we must raise revenues one way or another.  Considering the alternatives – massive tax hikes on the rich, which depending on the form they take, I’m not necessarily opposed to – a VAT is probably the best possible outcome for conservatives.

In which Jamelle complains about the Senate, again

In an otherwise decent piece about Harry Reid’s continuing attempt to corral support for the public option, this paragraph sticks out like a sore thumb:

Just six weeks ago the public option appeared to be dying, under fierce attack by the insurance industry. A clear majority of Democratic senators favor a government-run plan. But public statements by other senators indicate that the proposal lacks the 60 votes ordinarily needed to secure Senate approval for hotly contested legislation. [Emphasis mine]

The problem, of course, is that there is nothing ordinary about this 60 vote requirement.  “Hotly contested legislation” – like any other piece of legislation – requires the support of only a simple majority to become law, and that’s been the case for the vast majority of American legislative history.  In fact, and as congressional expert Norm Ornstein explained earlier this year, this extra-constitutional 60 vote requirement is a relatively recent development, with the number of cloture motions growing steadily over the past thirty years, with a particularly sharp spike during the 110th Congress:

That we’ve basically acclimated to this new 60-vote requirement without much in the way of protest is really a sad commentary on our politics: we’ve gotten so used to legislative inaction that its institutionalization really isn’t that big of deal.  That said, even if we were eliminate the filibuster and make the Senate a more majoritarian institution, it would still be functionally broken.  The Senate is simply too unrepresentative and too powerful to not have an incredibly strong status-quo bias.

If the Senate were something akin to the House of Lords, hidebound and sort of useless but without real power or influence, it would still be really annoying but not terribly critical.  As it stands however, we live with the worst possible arrangement: the Senate is both dysfunctional and an integral part of the legislative process.

One Step Closer*

(cross-posted from the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

As much as I hate to say it, Newt Gingrich does have a point here:

Through my experience as Speaker of the House and building a Republican majority in 1994, I have learned that if America wants a conservative majority in Washington, parts of that majority are going to disagree. I was elected Speaker because a number of moderates voted for me. They gave us control of the House for the first time in forty years, allowing us to balance the federal budget, cut taxes and reform welfare for America.

My endorsement of Dede Scozzafava in the special election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District is a means of regaining a conservative majority in America.

[...]

My number one interest in the 2009 elections is to build a Republican majority. If your interest is taking power back from the Left, and your interest is winning the necessary elections, then there are times when you have to put together a coalition that has disagreement within it. [Emphasis mine]

Not too long ago, Rod Dreher observed that there isn’t really a liberal equivalent to the epithet “RINO,” and he’s right.  Democrats generally understand that a (D) is a (D), and that while it might be difficult to corral an ideologically heterodox party into supporting specific legislation, the ideological compromises are  – by and large – worth it.  That is, for all the complaining liberals like to do about Blue Dog Democrats (and I count myself among the complainers), it is simply a fact that the majority of seats won over the past two election cycles have come from conservative districts.  And while this hasn’t been great for moving forward on liberal initiatives, it does have the advantage of allowing liberal Democrats – who make up most of the leadership – to set the legislative agenda.

There are two big things I think conservative activists are missing in their relentless campaign against Republican moderates: the first is that those moderates are a necessary part of building a nationally viable Republican Party.  The simple fact is that in a large democracy, there can be only so much ideological coherence in a two party system.  Newt Gingrich, to his credit, understands this and realizes that in order to build a stronger GOP, the leadership is going to have to do far more to accommodate moderates within the Republican coalition.  What’s more, Gingrich also seems to grasp that this isn’t a zero-sum game for conservatives.  At the moment, most of the GOP’s leadership is reliably conservative.  Successfully retaking Congress, even if it requires empowering a few moderates, means that those conservatives are once again in a position to control the legislative agenda.

The simple fact is that conservatives need moderates to pass conservative legislation.  And while hyper-ideologues might not particularly like that, they are going to have to live with it.

*Yes that is a reference to that terrible Linkin Park song.  No, I will not link to it.

Only Lovers Democrats Left Alive

(cross-posted from the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

This is a good point (via Cogitamus):

As long as there was still a good distance to go before a bill was passed, Business Dog Dems could afford to be Business Dogs – to maintain the charade of being Democrats by being on the side of passing something, while watering it down to please the people who write their campaign checks, and hoping that the bill would die a quiet death amidst all the wrangling.  So they didn’t have to think much about how it would play out in 2010 if the bill passed, because that was a pretty damned big ‘if.’

Not so much anymore.  So now they’re having to think about passing a bill that they can defend to their constituents when the GOP tries to put the worst face on it that they can.  And that means strengthening the bill so that the GOP doesn’t have much to work with.

I made a similar point to my boss earlier this morning.  In terms of their opposition, the GOP has all but thrown caution to the wind and adopted a high-risk/high-reward strategy, both politically and legislatively.   Successfully shutting down Barack Obama’s health care reform effort would have dealt a crippling blow to his presidency and virtually guaranteed significant Republican gains in next year’s elections.

The huge downside of course, is that if Democrats do pass health care legislation – and that’s looking increasingly likely – then it becomes that much harder to run against them in next year’s elections.  What’s more, and as we’re seeing now, the flip side to obstinacy is that your interests won’t be represented.  Even moderate Republican input into a health care bill would have yielded one significantly more conservative than what we’re likely to see.  Democrats seemed to have genuinely wanted a bipartisan bill, and I’m fairly certain that a right-leaning “compromise” bill would have been quickly shepherded through Congress.  As it stands, not only do Democrats not have any incentive to take Republican input, but the logic of the situation is pushing them in a more liberal direction.  That is, and as low-tech cyclist points – with a bill looking very likely, even conservative Democrats recognize that their best bet for winning reelection involves strengthening the bill to make it a better deal for their constituents.  And on top of that, liberal activists are pressuring the Democratic leadership to include a public option and there seems to be a sense that liberals will actively turn against the leadership if a public option isn’t included.

The funny thing about all of this is that by categorically opposing reform, Republicans have made it far more likely that they will suffer a serious legislative loss in the form of a solidly center-left health are bill, and that in turn makes it far more likely that they suffer politically in next year’s elections.

Christopher Hitchens and moral glibness

(cross-posted from the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

Sometimes I wonder if Slate knows that they’re being ripped off by Christopher Hitchens.  After all, he’s been writing the same two columns for while now: either he complains about how oppressive it is that he has to share space with religious people, or he’s blasting liberals for not being “serious” enough to support the indiscriminate killing of Arabs and/or Muslims.  This week’s column is in the latter category:

But spastic missiles and low-yield nukes can still ruin the whole day of a neighboring state, as well as make a travesty of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and such international laws and treaties as are left to us. Thus, if it is true that Iran is not as close to “break-out” as we have sometimes feared, should that not make our deliberations more urgent rather than less? Might it not mean, in effect, that now is a better time to disarm the mullahs than later?

The rest of the column continues along these lines: “if liberals are opposed to attacks on repressive regimes on the basis of potential harm to us, then said liberals should support an attack earlier on in the timeline, when said regimes are relatively weaker.”  As Matt Steinglass correctly points out, this is nonsense – both on its merits and as a characterization of liberal opposition to the United States’ various foreign interventions.  Liberal opposition to the Iraq War – to use one notable instance – wasn’t rooted in any fear of “the awesome power” that Saddam Hussein had at hand.  It was based in two perfectly sensible observations: first, Saddam Hussein had done nothing that would warrant military retaliation, thus making the entire project illegal and immoral, and second, our utopian plan to build a stable, democratic Iraq was doomed to failure, if only because the United States doesn’t have the capacity or the power to completely transform a society from the ground up.  Steinglass’ take is worth quoting here:

Those of us who didn’t want to invade Iraq tended to focus on the fact that invading a country that hasn’t attacked you, or really even done anything that would constitute a legitimate provocation, is illegal, because it’s illegal, and immoral, because it entails killing a lot of people (including children) for no good reason, and foolish, because it leads to consequences that may spiral horrifically out of control in unpredictable ways.

Furthermore, Hitchen’s logic simply doesn’t hold up*.  We aren’t required to attack Iran because it is relatively weaker; the fact that Iran isn’t strong enough to retaliate in any meaningful way only means that attacking is a slightly more viable option among many other options.  Diplomacy is still feasible, as are sanctions and what not.

That said, I’m always amused/deeply depressed by what counts as “acceptable” in our elite discourse.  It is perfectly OK for Christopher Hitchens – or anyone, really – to euphemistically call for the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of civilians.  Indeed, doing so marks you as a serious member of the political elite.  This point has been made many times before, but there has not – and never will be – any social or professional sanction for the scores of pundits who clamored for the United States to go to war in Iraq.  And in the case of someone like Bill Kristol, who bears direct responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, their enthusiasm was met with overwhelming professional success.  By contrast, you are liable to be permanently banished from respectable circles if you so much as suggest that war for war’s sake is deeply immoral, if not a bad idea.

Indeed, the same goes for a whole host of critical issues.  When a group of overly-parochial, self-interested politicians work together to block climate change legislation, they are lauded by most in the news media as courageous moderates.  But in reality, it might be more accurate to describe them as borderline sociopaths.  After all, their actions – or lack thereof – will directly contribute to the preventable deaths of tens of millions of people who had the misfortune of A) being born deeply impoverished and B) living near the coast.  That they show almost no remorse about this is deeply troubling and absolutely reprehensible, to say the least.  Roughly 45,000 Americans will die for lack of health insurance, and its treated as a minor data-point rather than the big fucking deal that it is.

I honestly don’t really know where I’m going with this.  The short of it is that I am very – very – tired of our political culture’s moral glibness.  I’m tired of people who treat politics as a game to be won and loss and not as a serious endeavor with real consequences for real people.  And I’m tired of watching brave voices – from across the political spectrum – get pushed aside for refusing to treat politics as a game.  As it stands, if you use your influence to push our system to do right by its citizens, then you’re dismissed as naive or “shill.”  But if you have the courage and integrity to defend the government’s campaign of torture and disappearance, or solemnly advocate for the indiscriminate slaughter of brown people, then well, God better watch out because the sky’s the limit.

</end tirade>

Things you can do/some can’t be done

(cross-posted from the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

In his column today, David Brooks makes an error which I think is pretty common of conservative commentators who look to Great Britain for political inspiration.  But first, Brooks:

The Conservatives have treated British voters as adults for a year now, with a string of serious economic positions. The Conservatives supported the Labour government bank bailout, even though it was against their political interest to do so. Last November, Osborne opposed a cut in the value-added taxes on the grounds that the cuts were unaffordable and would not produce growth. It is not easy for any conservative party to oppose tax cuts, but this one did it. [...]

Osborne and David Cameron, the party leader, argue that Labour’s decision to centralize power has undermined personal and social responsibility. They are offering a responsibility agenda from top to bottom. Decentralize power so local elected bodies have responsibility. Structure social support to encourage responsible behavior and responsible spending.

If any Republican is looking for a way forward, start by doing what they’re doing across the Atlantic.

What Brooks doesn’t seem to get in his analysis – and what Matt Yglesias does seem to get in his – is that even with the considerable differences between the Conservative and Labour parties, there still exists a fair amount of consensus in British politics, especially regarding first-order concerns over the role of government.  That is, on a foundational level, British liberals and British conservatives still agree on the basics: government can serve the better the welfare of its citizens, the state is empowered to provide a minimum level of safety and security, etc.  Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are usually grouped together as contemporaries, but for all of her reactionary rhetoric, Thatcher wasn’t on a crusade to undermine the welfare state.

Reagan, however, was.  This might be boilerplate for most everyone here, but it’s worth reemphasizing: the Reagan Revolution didn’t just herald the end of the New Deal coalition, it also heralded the end of the New Deal consensus.  Reagan’s rise and victory signalled the end of a Republican Party that was – at core – in broad agreement with the Democratic Party about the role government.  With Reagan at its helm, the GOP transformed into a conservative movement dedicated to doing as much as it could to undermine and dismantle the welfare state.

Now, on some level, this was a necessary correction to the excesses of the 1970s.  But, when thinking about contemporary politics, it leaves the GOP in a much different place vis a vis the Democratic Party than the Conservative Party is vis a vis Labour.  Osborne and Cameron can use government to pursue conservative policy ends because the Tories never abandoned the idea that government can serve to improve the lives of its citizens.  The real disagreement between British liberals and conservatives is in the extent to which government should.  By contrast, Republicans have explicitly rejected the idea that government can be a force for good.  Which, policy wise, leaves them in a bit of a bind: not only does it encourage an almost criminal negligence to the operation of government (see: Bush Administration), but it virtually eliminates the space for certain kinds of policymaking.  For instance, Yglesias mentions that the Conservative Party fully signed on to the idea that climate and energy are issues which Britain must tackle (the same is true of center-right parties on the continent).  From there, he suggests that the GOP would have a bit more success electorally if it could do the same.  And I think that’s true.  But when you have a near-resolute opposition to government, it’s a little difficult to tackle problems which require government intervention (I’m oversimplifying a bit, but you get the picture).

The problem with Brooks’ recommendation then isn’t that it is a bad one, because it isn’t.  The Republican Party – and the country – would be better off if it adopted a pragmatic, flexible and mature approach towards governing.  No, the problem with Brooks’ suggestion is that it ignores the reality of the contemporary conservative movement, its near-death grip on the Republican Party, and its absolute opposition to the idea of government.  The GOP can’t build a Cameronite consensus with the Democratic Party because, at this point in time, there really isn’t much of a consensus.

How to Sell a Tax Increase

I am nowhere near informed enough to offer any intelligent commentary on economic policy, but I am pretty good at political analysis.  And so instead of focusing on the economic part of Bruce Bartlett’s argument against cutting payroll taxes, I want to focus on the political implications of what Bartlett says in defense of the payroll tax:

But the biggest problem with cutting the payroll tax is that it isn’t really a tax at all. A tax, by definition, is a compulsory payment for which no specific benefit is received in return. This is not true of Social Security. The vast bulk of workers get back all the money they put into Social Security in the form of a cash benefit in retirement and most get a substantial return. (See this Congressional Budget Office study.) That’s why Franklin D. Roosevelt always insisted that the money withheld from workers’ paychecks for Social Security was not a tax but a “contribution.”

And I think this – along with the fact that people like to get money – is directly related to why Social Security is an enduring, incredibly popular program.  Among many other things, part of the problem liberals face with expanding the welfare state is that it is incredibly easy to inveigh against tax increases.  And part of the reason why it’s incredibly easy to inveigh against tax increases is that there doesn’t seem to be much of a logical connection between what you pay into the system and what you get out of it.  Especially when – by and large – what you do get out of it is a little abstract; as we’re seeing in the Virginia gubernatorial race, it’s very difficult to defend proposed tax increases with cries of “what about the infrastructure!”  Very few people  make the connection between paying their income taxes and having decent roads, and even fewer people make the connection between paying their income taxes, and having clean water or clean air or a reasonably competent regulatory state.

Of course, barring some collective awakening of political consciousness among the voting public (think Childhood’s End except less telekinesis and more subscriptions to the New York Times), we’re going to be stuck with a political culture in which it is incredibly easy to drum up anti-taxation sentiment.  That said, if the Obama administration is actually cognizant of our long-term fiscal challenges (and I think that it very much is), then it will eventually have to sell a tax increase to the American public.  I think the best way to do that is to propose a tax which – like the payroll tax – has a direct relationship to benefits received.  Ideally, we would have seen something like this with health care reform: you pay a flat rate to the federal government, and in return, you are guaranteed health insurance and some level of subsidies to pay for it.

A payroll tax-style arrangement is not only simpler and less intrusive than the alternatives, but it would also help lessen the vulnerability of these reforms to demagoguery, as each voter can see the tangible impact the legislation – and the tax – has on their lives.

Deep Inside of a Parallel Universe

(cross-posted from the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

Reihan doesn’t think that we should dismiss Republican intransigence as irrational or nihilistic (via Andrew Sullivan):

Among Democrats and liberals, there is a belief that Republican opposition to the various Democratic proposals represents a kind of “nihilism,” and that because Baucuscare resembles proposals offered by liberal and moderate Republicans in the 1990s, today’s opposition is obviously unprincipled if not insane. My sense is that we’ve learned a great deal about health reform over the intervening period, and that, as Christensen, Grossman, and Hwang have argued, it is disruptive competition that promises substantial improvement in the cost and quality of medical services over time. I’m increasingly convinced that the only way to move in this direction is to create a system of universal catastrophic coverage and universal health savings accounts, as proposed by Martin Feldstein and a number of others. The emerging consensus among congressional Democrats moves us in a very different direction, towards a highly centralized, highly regulated system that will give entrepreneurs very little room to dramatically improve care. With that in mind, I don’t think opposition is “nihlistic”; rather, I think it’s responsible.

As I was thinking of a response to this, Nicholas Beaudrot (of Donkeylicious) posted something on the fact that policy making doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and it’s worth quoting here:

Lately I seem to be having conversations with wonkish right-of-center types who have this-or-that idea about how to design a simpler, more efficient, and more effective policy to deal with taxation, climate change, health care, whatever. But it always stops there. No one talks about managing the transition. No one talks about convincing Mitch McConnell to back these ideas. No one talks about sixty votes. No one talks about the interest group dynamics in Washington. No one even talks about working for a decade to elect members of Congress who might be more amenable to these sorts of policies. It’s just policy in a vacuum. Which is an interesting intellectual exercise, but not a legitimate substitute for governance, an ultimately messy endeavor.

And honestly, that’s what I think Reihan’s defense amounts to, an interesting intellectual exercise.  It is true that the ideological commitments of most Democratic legislators lead them in the direction of greater regulation as opposed to greater market intervention.  But it is also true that the emerging congressional Democratic consensus didn’t happen in a vacuum – it didn’t happen in the face of intelligent Republican criticism, and it certainly didn’t happen in the face of decentralized or market-oriented Republican counter-proposals.  Given that Democrats – and Max Baucus specifically – invested a lot of time and political capital into addressing Republican complaints and roping Republican support, it’s not much of a stretch to say that had Republicans been prepared to work constructively, we would have seen a bill that is a bit closer to what Reihan would have preferred.

Indeed (assuming you have a decent imagination or have seen Sliders), you can easily imagine a parallel Earth where everything about the legislative process is exactly the same, and the only difference is that the GOP is a mature, intellectually honest party with a clear interest in governing* and a robust set of conservative policy tools.  In this alternate, wildly unrealistic universe, Republicans responded to Democratic health care proposals with constructive, intelligent criticisms, and Democratic legislators – eager to craft a bipartisan bill – used those conservative insights to craft a more radical bill (it will actually upset the status quo) with a more market-oriented, individual-centered approach.

Of course, here on Earth-Prime, we are stuck with a Republican Party that hears “intelligent criticism” and thinks “death panels” and “Soviet-style gulags.”  What’s more, we’re stuck with a Republican Party that refuses to even acknowledge the necessity of health care reform.  Pace Reihan, this is not responsible behavior.  Indeed, as it stands, if Democrats were to propose a dream package of market-based solutions to various health care related problems, I’m nearly 100 percent certain that they would be attacked and denounced as Orwellian fascists out to impose IngSoc on a nation of fire-breathing freedom lovers.

When Democrats and liberals call Republicans nihilistic, it’s not because we interpret all opposition as inherently nihilistic, it’s because this particular bit of opposition is actually nihilistic.  Republicans have not acknowledged the problem, have not offered any real critiques, and spent a fair amount of time poisoning the well with dangerously inflammatory rhetoric.  And in my book, that is a signal that we shouldn’t take Republicans seriously at all.

A quick post on Obama and gay rights

(cross-posted from the League of Ordinary Gentlemen)

At the risk of ruffling the feathers of a few of my blogging comrades, I think that Kevin Drum is basically correct when he asks LGBT activists to chill out a little:

Still, even putting that aside, there’s a big segment of the gay community that’s pretty pissed off at Obama right now.  In one sense, I understand: they supported him, his record on gay issues is pretty modest so far, and the only way they’re going to get what they want is by keeping the pressure on him.

At the same time, some of the criticism is way over the top.  Obama doesn’t suddenly become a different person whenever he’s dealing with whatever your particular hot button issue is.  He’s the same guy all the time: cautious, tactical, organized, and prone to prioritizing things pretty carefully.  For better or worse, he’s also sensitive about learning lessons from the Clinton administration, and Clinton obviously failed miserably when he tried to force the Pentagon to accept gays early in his administration.

The gay community has every right to be a little miffed with Obama, and it’s good that they are channeling that frustration into activism.  Even if it takes a little while, sustained pressure will encourage the administration to pick up the pace, and direct more time and energy towards changing the status quo.

That said, I think it’s also important for activists to understand that Obama is on their side, even if he is slow-walking reform.  Jeremy Levine (who blogs at the outstanding Social Science Lite) criticized President Obama’s Friday address as “an empty speech, void of action, conviction, or credibility.”  I’ll agree that Obama’s speech was “void of action,” but to say that it lacked conviction or credibility is more than a little unfair.  In fact, I think it betrays a lack of perspective.  Say what you will about Obama’s speech, the fact that the President of the United States declared his unconditional support for gay rights is kind of a big deal.  In fact, it’s a huge deal, especially when you consider that we aren’t even a year removed from an administration that refined anti-gay hostility and elevated it to a national pastime.

President Bush, if you remember, supported a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, and was generally supportive of state-based efforts to strip gay Americans of their rights.  Indeed, stoking fear and hostility towards gay Americans was part of the Bush administration’s reelection effort.  I mean, to just sort of underscore the degree to which it was open season on gay Americans, the White House consistently opposed the extension of hate crimes legislation to gays, even as the country saw a sharp rise in the number of hate crimes targeted at gays.  Activists are well within their rights to criticize Obama’s speech as “just words,” but in doing so, they miss an important fact about presidential rhetoric: it makes a difference.  It further brings gay concerns into the mainstream and gives them a sense of urgency.

This is certainly not to say that the gay community should ignore the fact that Obama has yet to really move on gay rights, but on the whole, I that it’s far more productive to at least acknowledge that Barack Obama is an ally, and – slow-walking notwithstanding – is openly supportive of gay rights.  Tearing him down politically – as opposed to lobbying and pressuring – only makes his job that much harder.