Ed Kilgore wrote kind of a boring post about why it is that the Washington press made a bigger deal of Rand Paul’s predictable announcement that he was running for president than they did about Ted Cruz’s equally predictable announcement that he was running. Not mentioned is just the feeling that Cruz is such a loon that he can’t win. I always think that argument is terrifying, because people said much the same thing about Ronald Reagan. I would never count Cruz out. But the media thinks he’s a nonstarter (they are probably right), and so they don’t much care that he’s running for president. But Kilgore focuses on what is probably the bigger issue.

Kilgore wrote, Libertarianism With a Human Face. He quotes David Frum correctly noting that libertarianism appeals to mainstream media because it is “socially permissive, fiscally cautious.” This is the core of my indictment of the supposedly liberal media. Even in Eric Alterman’s classic What Liberal Media? he notes that the claim that the media are liberally biased on social issues is largely true. It isn’t that they go out of their way to be biased, it is just that everyone they know — including conservatives — are socially liberal. The Koch Brothers don’t actually care about same sex marriage and reproductive rights.

This is why I devalue social issues. The policies that the vast majority of people care about are bread-and-butter issue. Abortion and marriage are things that happen rarely in people’s lives. But they have to eat each day; they have to pay the rent each month. So the fact that the rich have managed, over the last last 70 years to make the whole political debate in this country to be about non-bread-and-butter issue is really an amazing defeat for democracy. Regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power, the rich still win.

And it is doubtless the case that the greatest weapon that the rich have in their fight against democracy is the media who often discount the thoughts of the social conservatives, even while they serve up a constant diet of neoliberal policies designed to vilify the government and argue in favor of privatizing all services. If there is one thing in American media coverage that isn’t even questioned, it is that charter schools are a great thing and “school choice” is just common sense. And as all of this is taken for granted, never do we discuss the egregiously unequal way that we fund education.

And why is that? It is because the major media players who bring us their “objective news” are upper middle and upper class reporters and editors. They may not think of themselves as elites, but they are precisely the kind of people who Anand Giridharadas had in mind when he said:

But of course these media figures think they totally know what’s going on. And that’s a big part of the problem. The way that American politics is now divided, they can look at their socially liberal and economically conservative viewpoints and think that they are just telling it like it is. But what they are really doing is what the privileged have been doing for thousands of years: they are seeing what is good for them as being what is generally good. So of course they think that Rand Paul has a real chance to become president. They are his constituency.

See Also

Serious Centrist Saletan’s Selfishness
The People Don’t Care About Gridlock
Professional vs Regular Moderates
The “Moderate” Voter and the Selfish Pundit

This most recent case of John T Booker Jr is just amazing in being like pretty much every other FBI arrest of a home grown terrorist: it starts and ends with the FBI. John Eligon at The New York Times managed to report on the whole thing as though he were totally unaware of the FBI’s history regarding these things, Two Kansas Men Charged in Suicide Attack Plot at Fort Riley. Actually, there is just one man: Booker. The other is a friend who allegedly knew what Booker was up to. But this case is even more sad than usual. Booker, who is just 20 years old, is clearly mentally ill.

Early last year, he began making very public statements about wanting to commit Jihad. The FBI was well aware of this and had created a five-page report on him date 20 March 2014. He had signed up for the army, but apparently the FBI put an end to that. On 26 March 2014, he checked himself into a mental hospital. On 1 April 2014, Jana Winter at Fox News reported, FBI, Military Hunt Ex-Army Recruit Suspected of Plotting “Fort Hood-Inspired Jihad.” But the FBI didn’t think it was too big a deal because Booker had neither car nor guns. What he did have, however, was a death wish.

So in October 2014, the FBI sent an undercover agent to talk to Booker, who was, as he had been for years, still talking about Jihad. But just as impotent as ever, the FBI decided to set him up with what he needed to carry out his fantasy suicide plot. So without a hint of irony, Eligon reported, “Mr Booker agreed to let the informants make the car bomb and planned to drive it onto the base to detonate it, killing himself in the process, the complaint said.” So really, the extent of Booker’s involvement was his suicide.

The first indications of Booker’s behavior come around a year and a half ago — about the time of his 18th birthday. This also happens to be around the time that psychosis tends to start in people. Booker was very clearly a young man who needed psychiatric help. When he went to get help, the authorities seemed to have determined that he was not a threat to himself or anyone else and so he was released. But looking at his statements, I don’t see a young man who is really engaged or violent. I just see a young man who is suicidal. For example, “I am going to wage jihad and hopes that i die. I want to be with my lord so bad that I cry but I will miss you guys I am not going to lie. I wish I could give you guys more but I am just a guy who is so very poor. I am telling you I am so broke that my pockets are soreJ I cannot wait to go to the Prophet Muhammad’s(S) door and prank Isa bin Maryan and party so hard that it will rock Jannah to its core.”

But there was one government agency that cared about Booker: the FBI. They were there to listen to him and pretend to make his dreams a reality. The FBI did what actual Jihadists do in Palestine: find depressed or otherwise disaffected young people and get them to perform evil acts as they commit suicide. We should be better than this. John T Booker Jr deserved to get the help that he needed, not to be used as a pawn for the FBI to justify its budget. And US media should be wise to this game that the FBI plays. The New York Times headline should have been, “FBI Foils Another of Its Own Terror Plots.” And they might write another article, “Mental Healthcare Still Not Easily Available.”

Now that the world was shocked to learn that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts, we enter the penalty phase where it is decided if we kill him. I’ve found it interesting that going into the trial, all the jurors were asked if they would be willing to vote to kill him should he be found guilty. That stuck out to me. I imagine everyone on the jury being a bunch of compliant people. I’m sure there are many reasons why I would never have been allowed on that jury, but certainly I could not have answered that question truthfully in the affirmative. No, just because the law says we can kill people in the name of justice doesn’t mean that I think that’s right.

The down side of an opinion like mine is that whether a defendant lives or dies would be left totally up to chance. Is there someone like me on the jury? Or is it filled with a bunch of people who simply do whatever the prosecutor wants — like the beaten dogs that they are? That is indeed a problem. But can anyone seriously say that our justice system is consistent? Who we kill and who we don’t is mostly just a matter of dumb luck.

But in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I have visions of Frankenstein with an angry mob with pitchforks and torches. I’m not saying that Tsarnaev isn’t guilty. I’m not saying that his crimes are not horrible. I just don’t see what killing him gets us. But I’m afraid that I’m extremely clear on what killing him gets those who are baying for blood. For them, Tsarnaev is no longer a convicted criminal; he is a symbol; he is a sacrifice that we use to wash away the blood of that terrible afternoon two years ago.

Of course, his death will not do that. All it will do is show yet again that the United States really isn’t a civilized country. Because let’s face it: Tsarnaev isn’t anywhere close to as awful a person as others who we have not put to death. We didn’t put Jeffrey Dahmer to death for example. Charlie Pierce noted a few other more obvious analogies, A Verdict in Boston: What the Trial Is Still About. Ted Kaczynski killed three and badly injured 23 others. Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park Bomber, killed two and injured 111. Yet they are still alive. Could it have something to do with the fact that these men were captured long after their crimes? I suspect so.

And that raises an important question: can we meed out justice when crimes are still vivid. I remember after 9/11 when the country was so hot to go to war in Afghanistan and to pass the Patriot Act and to set up the Department of Homeland Security. At that time, all I could think was, “This is a huge mistake.” And I wasn’t alone. Others said the same thing. Of course, they were dismissed as un-American. And the fact that we are later shown to be right hardly matters. Right now, there are a lot of people who want to feel a sense of justice by seeing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev killed. I understand it. But it doesn’t have a thing to do with justice.

What does it say about American conservatism that the most reasonable writer around is totally unreasonable? On Friday, David Brooks wrote, The Revolution Lives! It is one of the most disingenuous things I’ve ever read. He starts by asking, “Are the men who control [Iran] more like Lenin or are they more like Gorbachev?” Forget Iran for the moment; since when was Lenin unreasonable and irrational? Brooks is posing the question in such a way that there are “good” enemies who you make deals with and there are “bad” enemies that you don’t. This is what makes Brooks special in the conservative movement. Instead of making patently false statements about never negotiating with enemies, he’s carved out a niche of enemies that may be negotiating with. Of course, in practice, it is all the same.

On Thursday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a big speech where he demanded that all sanctions be dropped as soon as the deal is struck. Instead of seeing this for what it is — part of the negotiating process and Khamenei’s attempt to pacify hardliners in his country — Brooks sees this as proof that Khamenei can’t be trusted. He is supposedly still in the grip of the revolution. He seems to have forgotten the Iran-Contra affair where the sainted Ronald Reagan made a deal with the Iranians when they were much closer to their revolution.

Brooks is also upset that people listening to Khamenei’s speech were chanting, “Death to America!” This is just silly. This is like Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that the only deal that we should make with Iran must include Iran’s statement that Israel has a right to exist. In this case, the Iran deal is about nuclear enrichment; it isn’t about America and Iran becoming best buddies. But consider those people chanting, “Death to America!” These are the same as the people here in America who want to “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran” back to the stone age. Any reasonable person would be more concerned about the latter, more specific, claims.

Another part of Brooks’ argument is that Iran doesn’t trust the United States. Funny that. Why would Iran be suspicious of the United States? Might it be the 1953 coup that we organized against Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq? The United States has done a great deal to meddle with Iran and what does the United States have to complain about? An attack of a bunch of college kids on the US embassy in 1979 — something that even 36 years later our country can’t get over?

Regardless, what political leaders say in their own countries do not necessarily have much to do with what they are actually doing in their foreign affairs. And Brooks knows this. He even wrote, “Khamenei’s remarks could be bluster, tactical positioning for some domestic or international audience.” Of course, he throws the idea to the side. He added, “If Iran still has revolutionary intent, then no amount of treaty subtlety will enforce this deal.” Does he really think this way? It was Ronald Reagan who said, “Trust, but verify.” That’s what this deal is about. Not, “Trust, and hope for the best.”

This is Brooks’ ultimate argument, “If President Obama is right and Iran is on the verge of change, the deal is a home run.” What it shows is that Brooks, like all the other conservative loons thinks that we really shouldn’t make deals with enemies. If Iran is about to turn into our ally, then this deal is good. But if that’s the case, we wouldn’t need a deal at all.

Brooks is just a conservative apologist. He exists to make the crazy conservatives sound like there is some reasonable argument for what they think. But there isn’t. David Brooks doesn’t think we should make a deal with Iran for the same reason that hardliners here didn’t think that Reagan should make a deal with Gorbachev. Their analysis was wrong then and his analysis is wrong now. But that is to be expected.