RIP Kevin Drum — a scatblogging roundup tribute

I heard earlier this evening of the passing of Drum, whose most recent journalism home had been Mother Jones, which posted his obit.

As I said when sharing it on Shitter (hold on to that word) and Substack, he was too much of a BlueAnon squish for me. But, he was more personable by far, at least through the online prism, than other big names of early 2000s liberal blogging. Like Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. Atrios? I don't have a read on Duncan Black from way back then. Josh Marshall? As lucky as Kos, and more so than Black or Drum. Plus, Kos banned me for from the site there for being too Green and Josh? Way too Zionist, even if Oct. 7, 2023 has forced him to smell a tiny bit of coffee — or largely ignore Middle East affairs. (Markos seemed early on like a political operative at bottom line and Black like he would be a slightly less fastidious, but not much less, lawyer version of Niles Crane. Beyond the big political disagreement with Marshall, he also came off as too didactic.)

I did note one other thing.

It was about part of Kevin's non-political blogging.

Riffing on the "Friday catblogging" that Drum had already been doing, at least occasionally, at Calpundit and then brought to Washington Monthly, starting in 2008, for a period of roughly three years, into 2011, I did semi-regular Friday SCATblogging. Yes, scatblogging; that's the tag for it if you click that link.

It was often about animal scat, though not always.

The most popular, by eyeballs, was tracing coyote scat in Cook County, aka metro Chicago.

Second most popular? Scat you don't want to see, as in fresh grizzly scat while out hiking. 

Third was ecological, but also about a big critter — tracking expanding moose populations by scat.

The fourth most popular was also about a cat, for better riffing on Drum — a cougar wandering the Twin Cities that was also tracked into Wisconsin by its scat.

Fifth was back to big animals, with a San Diego Zoo subsidiary creatively dealing with elephant scat.

Other scatblogging about cats included Macho, er jaguar Macho B scatblogging, with a follow-up on a criminal case over his death.

I blogged about other things that fit "scat" as well, like riffing on a giveaway by Sarasota County Area Transit (since renamed).

The most popular there? Metaphorical scat — a San Francisco activist trying to get a new city sewer plant named after Shrub Bush.

Another? Scat-singing.

As noted, I was riffing on Drum. And on people who followed in his wake.

About a month after starting it, I explained why — I said it was in reaction to things like a catblogger writing about giving a cat antidepressants.

My opening post? I actually used the word "crapblogging," not "scatblogging," but it was about archaeologists using human coprolites in the Americas as one avenue of support for "before Clovis." Not long after, I wrote about a dinosaur coprolite selling for nearly $1,000.

I eventually got the reaction to catblogging out of my system. I think the "I can has cheezeburger" meme "triggered" me as much or more than Kevin. (I do read Bruce Schneier's Friday squidblogging semi-regularly today, I'll add.) 

Unlike the person wanting to put their cat on Elavil, though, Kevin never shoved cats in your face. Nor did he shove obnoxious cat memes in your face. This, too, he kept personable.

NOTE: I have no doubt you'll hit a lot of broken links. The blog posts show a lot of broken picture links.

Anyway, condolences to Kevin's family, A kudo to Mother Jones for linking to Kevin's piece about death with dignity, which is what it is. Briefly a one-time adjunct professor, I taught a course on issues in death and dying — at the time of Jack Kevorkian's first trial, and in Michigan no less.

Jon Chait STOPS fellating Obama, becomes bigger hack

Exactly two months ago, political insider Jonathan Chait wrote a big steaming pile of blather with this headline: "The Case for Obama: Why He Is a Great President. Yes, Great."

It included such dreck as this:

Obama can boast a record of accomplishment that bests any president since Roosevelt, and has fewer demerits on his record than any of them, including Roosevelt. 

And dreck that is indeed.

Says who?

Not just me, but ... Jon Chait!

Exactly two months later, he writes, with this headline: "Why is Obama Caving on Taxes?" and proceeds to excoriate Dear Leader up one side and down the other.

That includes this closing paragraph:

Obama may think his conciliatory approach has helped avoid economic chaos. Instead, he is courting it.

That's a Loooong ways away from "great," isn't it?

Well, the second Chait is right. But, refusing to let even 10 percent of that thought into a political puff piece two months ago (Note: Obama's biggest achievement, allegedly, Obamacare, actually is Nancy Pelosi's doing) shows just how much a hack he is.

But, really, he's a representative of a type. In days ahead (whether the House approves the "fiscal slope" deal or not) you'll see others like Chait, neoliberal but not quite as conservative as Dear Leader, and still clueless as to how bad an executive leader he is, similarly burn rubber and strip clutches at the strenuousness of their change-of-direction rethinking about O'Bummer.

I'll bet we soon smell similar burned-out clutches from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos, Steven Benen at Washington Monthly, and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, among others.

In order of hackery, Kos is right there with Chait, as is Benen, a consistent Democratic Party fluffer. Marshall at times ranks higher on the snootiness level, though.

And, even IF the House GOP approves this ... a definite if ... this is only a two-month Band-Aid. Why?  The "great" Dear Leader didn't get a debt ceiling long-term fix as part of the deal.

In any case, let's see exactly sort of Ricky Ricardo "splaining" they do.

Greenwald fillets Obama AND neolib bloggingheads

I have GOT to love, and blog about, a Glenn Greenwald column in The Guardian.

Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald not only fillets the Peace Prize Prez like a cheap carp, he also nails Duncan Black, aka Atrios, by name, and by implication, Josh "the pontificating online publisher" Marshall, Kevin Drum, Steve "former Democratic party operative" Benen (Washington Monthly), Markos "I ban real liberals" Moulitsas (Kos) and other neoliberal/tribal Democratic blogging heads.

And, deservedly so, on the group filleting of a bunch of willingly co-opted DC Village types.

First, the specific takedown of Atrios, which Glenn does simply by quoting old Duncan:

The left ... will create an epic 360-degree shitstorm if Obama and the Dems decide that cutting social security benefits is a good idea.

To which, Glenn says, but a bit more politely: Where's your shitstorm, Atrios?

Greenwald next gives us the specific bill of charges against Obama worthy of being shitstormed:

Fast forward to 2011: it is now beyond dispute that President Obama not only favours, but is the leading force in Washington pushing for, serious benefit cuts to both social security and Medicare.

This week, even as GOP leaders offered schemes to raise the debt ceiling with no cuts, the White House expressed support for the Senate's so-called "gang of six" plan that includes substantial cuts in those programmes.

The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America's bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America's most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.

That then leads to the broader takedown:

Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama's legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party's leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.

Atrios? Mr. Drummeister? Josh the blog-publishing pedant Marshall? Markos the banner of true liberals Kos? What's that I hear from you? Crickets? Oh, Kossacks, if not Markos himself, will occasionally criticize Dear Leader, but that's about it. Marshall runs White House press office photography slide shows like he's either addicted to them or getting paid for it. Benen, befitting a former Dem operative, will never bite the hand that once fed him. Drum has focused less on DC Village-type politics lately, but, I have no doubt where his loyalties are. And Atrios is already hoist by his own petard.

Kevin Drum has officially had his brain co-opted by Obama

Many Democratic partisans rightly attacked Bush on Iraq. And, they fought back against wingnut bloggers who said, "You can't question the president in a time of war!"

But, Kevin Drum, now of Mother Jones and formerly of Washington Monthly, and a neoliberal to some degree of long standing, is now close to that same territory with Obama.

Here's the nut graf (courtesy Glenn Greenwald):

So what should I think about [the war in Libya]? If it had been my call, I wouldn't have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted.

(Italics added in quote.)

Drum has a follow-up post in response to Greenwald, where he shifts the goalposts a bit:

I think pretty highly of Barack Obama's judgment. But what does it mean to say that? Just this: that I think highly of his judgment even when I disagree with him. How could it be otherwise, after all? If, when you say that you trust somebody's judgment, what you really mean is that you trust their judgment only to the extent that they agree with you, that's hardly any trust at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

To make this more concrete, I also think highly of Glenn Greenwald's judgment on issues of civil liberties and the national security state. This means that when he takes a different position than mine, it makes me stop and think. ... This doesn't mean that I've outsourced my brain to Glenn, but it does mean that he influences my judgment, and that's especially true on issues that I'm unsure of.

Ditto for Obama.

OK, Mr. Drummeister, nice try but a fail.

In the follow-up, you didn't say you'd literally trust Greenwald's judgment better than your own in case of disagreement, unlike what you said with Obama.

A reminder. Kevin, in the original post you said:

I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own.

Earth to Kevin: Your brain has been co-opted.

And, so much for the "reality based community," eh? It's kind of Orwellian to put that type of trust in a leader. In his original post, Greenwald juxtaposed your comment with one by John Hindraker about Bush. Yeah, Hindlicker was more slobberingly effusive than you, but ... he's not an alleged member of the reality based community.

Beyond that, your first graf in the follow-up has a straw man, of the particular type I call "false polarities." I don't know about you, Drum, but here's how I operate on partitioning and sharing trust. I can disagree with someone on one issue yet trust their judgment on that issue, but I can also disagree with someone on an issue, even if I respect that person overall, yet NOT trust their judgment on that particular issue.

And, "Democrats right or wrong" bloggers like you are yet another reason I don't vote Democratic.

Beyond this, it's not a political issue, but one of integrity. If Drum made a statement like this about anybody, I'd question, if not his integrity, his self-actualization or something similar. To say you'd "literally" (and not mean that in a scare-quotes way) trust someone else's judgment over yours on an issue on which you disagree sounds like a psychological problem.

Kevin Drum hits new low in Obama butt-kissing

When running the Washington Monthly blog, he was bad enough, although much better than Steve Benen. (I haven't even gone there in more than a month.)

But, his new low? Well, many Democratic partisans rightly attacked Bush on Iraq. And, they fought back against wingnut bloggers who said, "You can't question the president in a time of war!"

But, Drum's now close to that same territory with Obama.

Here's the nut graf (courtesy Greenwald):

So what should I think about [the war in Libya]? If it had been my call, I wouldn't have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted.

Of course, I haven't read MoJo in a while, either. And, with crap like that, I doubt I'll resume anytime soon.

Update, April 3: Drum has a follow-up post in response to Greenwald, where he shifts the goalposts a bit:

I think pretty highly of Barack Obama's judgment. But what does it mean to say that? Just this: that I think highly of his judgment even when I disagree with him. How could it be otherwise, after all? If, when you say that you trust somebody's judgment, what you really mean is that you trust their judgment only to the extent that they agree with you, that's hardly any trust at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

To make this more concrete, I also think highly of Glenn Greenwald's judgment on issues of civil liberties and the national security state. This means that when he takes a different position than mine, it makes me stop and think. ... This doesn't mean that I've outsourced my brain to Glenn, but it does mean that he influences my judgment, and that's especially true on issues that I'm unsure of.

Ditto for Obama. Unlike Glenn, perhaps, I'm unsure about the wisdom of our Libya intervention, and the fact that I'm unsure makes me more open to giving Obama's judgment a fair amount of weight in this matter. That's what it means to respect another person's judgment. On the other hand, as my post made clear, it doesn't mean that he's persuaded me. As I said twice, I think the Libya intervention was mistake. I wouldn't have done it. But partly because a president I respect disagrees, I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong. His position has made me stop and think.

The first graf? A straw man, of the particular type I call "false polarities." I don't know about Drum, but here's how I operate on partitioning and sharng trust. I can disagree with someone on one issue yet trust their judgment on that issue, but I can also disagree with someone on an issue, even if I respect that person overall, yet NOT trust their judgment on that particular issue.

Take Greenwald. I agree with him on a lot of issues, and, respect him, but I've busted his chops before here, and will do so again, now, for not speaking out about ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero teaching the Ford Foundation how to comply with the patriot Act, and the big ACLU board brouhaha and ultimate dissenters' purge that follows. I know Glenn is solid with the ACLU, but I think he's too tight; he doesn't promote alternative groups such as Center for Constitutional Rights on anything close to a regular basis.

Drum then has a second straw man: that one MUST show one's brain has not been co-opted by disagreeing with someone, and making that protest in public. Silence is another way of doing that.

That said, Kevin, in the original post you said:

I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own.

Earth to Kevin: Your brain has been co-opted.

And, as for Greenwald taking an "appallingly hostile" reading of your original post? In his follow-up, he was pretty darn generous. In fact, too generous, in my opinion.

TARPoholic neolib Obamiacs get the vapors

The neolibs and Obamiacs are singing in praise of TARP with its second anniversary approachoing. And, of course, they're singing the praises of George Barack Obama as a large part of that.

First, Kevin Drum:

And the cost of TARP? CBO estimates the government will make a profit of $7 billion from the bank bailouts (though it may still lose money on GM and Chrysler, which were also rescued with TARP funds) and it now looks like AIG will pay back all its bailout money too. Bottom line: the ongoing recession caused by Wall Street's reckless behavior has cost us a bundle. But TARP itself? Its net direct cost is zero, and when you include the fact that it almost certainly saved the banking system and softened the recession, it may boast the biggest bang for the buck of any bill ever passed by Congress.

Drum ignores the debit side, including a financial "reform" bill that does little of the sort, and was probably enabled by TARP, and may encourage further recklessness. He also offers no proof that TARP seriously ameliorated the recession. As for AIG paying back all the bailout, the devil is in the details of stock conversions, etc.

Yglesias unsurprisingly weighs in with more on the profit motive.

Is $7 billion any more than chump change, not a real profit? Of course not, on the size of Big Banking. And, like Drummie-poo, Yggy doesn't even try to calculate potential losses.

Karl Smith ignores the idea we had a better alternative - bank nationalization - even when it's raised by a commenter.

Meanwhile, Ezra Klein decides if he's going to bury his head up Obama's ass on this, he'll go whole hog.

Reality? Bank nationalization would have given Obama easy leverage to do real financial reforms. But, with his Goldman Sachs/Robert Rubin based financial team, and outraising McCain for campaign funds on Wall Street, he never really wanted to do that. Too bad none of the above will admit that.

Meanwhile, Obama again mocked the "professional left," this time while sucking up to the rich in Greenwich, Conn., many of whom he protected from real financial regulation with his pseudo-reform bill.

It's clear that he's a flat-out liar about wanting to be "pushed" by the left. It's clear he's both a worse, and more unskilled, liar about it than Bill Clinton was on the same subject.

Go, Kucinich, Go!

I am totally with Heather Michon — if Dennis Kucinich's vote kills the current version of health care reform, two thumbs up. John Nichols notes that Kucinich also voted against the original House bill.

Both people note, as I do and do many other real progressives, that this bill will do nothing of note to rein in private insurance costs, little to rein in pharmaceuticals costs, and therefore is largely a sham.

That's compared to Democratic Party-line squish bloggers like Kevin Drum who say, "Pass something and it will get better later," using the stair-step argument.

Really?

Forty-five years after we got Medicare and Medicaid, we haven't done a lot of stair-stepping since then, have we?

Healthcare blowback after Obama town hall

First, Sam Stein notes that President Barack Obama just doesn’t get Sarah Palin and other wingers.

Here’s the problem, Barry. Not everybody’s hymnal has “Kumbaya” in it. Second, to mash up Nazi Germany and cognitive science, to tell the Big Lie convincingly, you have to tell it to yourself enough, and convincingly enough, that you first believe it for yourself.

That said, ABC’s Kate Snow notes that, on the end-of-life consultations that Palin et al say would be “government-forced euthanasia, hospitals do them right now. Hospice does in a sense. And, if that hospital or hospice is paying that patient’s bill with Medicare, well, then we right now have the government involved with end-of-life issues and no euthanasia.

Finally, Michael Lind says that progressives/liberals need to stop bashing stereotypical Southerners as a class, whether over national heathcare, or over other issues.

Taking direct aim at Kevin Drum, Texas native Lind says his state produced LBJ (set Vietnam aside, please), Barbara Jordan, Anne Richards and Maury Maverick, among others, while Drum’s California was the home of Nixon, Reagan the John Birch Society, Prop. 13 and as late as last year, Prop. 8:

According to Drum: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual Southern whites who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, Southern white culture is [redacted]. Jim Webb can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]." …

Drum's creepy bigotry becomes clear when other groups are substituted: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual blacks who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, black culture is [redacted]. Barack Obama can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]." Or maybe this: "There are, needless to say, plenty of individual Jews who are wholly admirable. But taken as a whole, Jewish culture is [redacted]. The late Irving Howe can pretty it up all he wants, but it's a [redacted]."

From there, he goes off on Prop. 8, and how stereotypes aren’t always put into place:

Blacks and Latinos, it appears, are allowed to hold conventionally conservative social views about gay rights, abortion and (in the case of blacks) immigration without being mocked and denounced by elite white liberals in the pages of the Washington Post and Mother Jones, as long as they vote for the Democratic Party on the basis of other issues.

Beyond that, there’s always the “why” behind non-stereotypical anger, which is the bottom line of what Obama doesn’t get. After all, besides “Kumbaya,” hymnbooks also contain “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

Naïveté watch – Steve Benen and Kevin Drum

Two deluded people on voter registration reform

At Washington Monthly, Steve Benen believes the GOP would willingly sign off on the federal government registering voters.

At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum things we should make a national ID card part of this.

My response to both of them, in order:

Boy, are you naive if you think the GOP would sign off on this, Steve.

The last thing it wants to do is depoliticize this.

Ditto for Dems on certain issues.

Some 20 months ago, I and many other real progressives begged Pelosi to attach a COLA to the min-wage increase. Wasn't done.

But, Steve isn't half as naive as Kevin is.

As for “national ID,” there’s going to have to be decades of trust-building before I’d accept a national ID card, given what the current administration would have done with one.

And, given his status as a FISA 45 percenter, the “that one” from Illinois hasn’t raised the cockles of trust inside me very much on civil liberties issues.

Geez, with MSLBers like this, no wonder Kool-Aid sellers can get elected as “agents of change.”

Mother Jones’ blog commenting sux (and Drum is no better than at WM)

When you go to MoJo’s blogging home page, first of all, it’s slow to tab through the different blogs.

If I URL a specific blog, like Kevin Drum (more on him below), and try to post a comment to a blog post of his, I repeatedly get the error, after hitting the “post” button, that “this page cannot be found.” (We’ll see how long MoJo takes to respond to my comment to its support e-mail address.)

Now, as for Drum? Been there less than two weeks and already, earlier today, he has a blog post about carbon taxes where he comments on a radio interview with a guy from the Cato Institute. Weekly links to Megan McArdle McAwful can’t be far behind. And Brad DeLong. And the other liberal bandwidth-wasting he did at Washington Monthly.

But, MoJo is a more progressive mag/news site, indeed, than WM. If MoJo offered Drum the spot freely, I don’t get it. It’s like Dianne Feinstein continuing to be senator from California rather than the state electing two Barbara Boxers.

Kevin Drum and Freakonomics get future of ’burbs wrong

Drum, in summarizing a Freakonomics post on the future of suburbs in an era of Peak Oil, and the Freakonomics post itself, are both wrong, or at least potentially wrong on the future of the suburbs.

Going to the Freak source, quoting James Kunstler, with a pull quote from his long comments:

“The suburbs have three destinies, none of them exclusive: as materials salvage, as slums, and as ruins.”

And Thomas Antus, a New Jersey municipal government official:

“To pay for the expanded services taxes will also increase exponentially to the point where individual pay checks are made payable to the government and deposited directly in the general treasury.”

Next, Jan Brueckner, economics professor at Cal-Irvine:

“If [gentrification] continues in a significant way, large numbers of suburban households looking for urban stimulation may end up switching places with minority central-city dwellers, stirring the ethnic pot in both places.”

Kevin sums this up as:

A focus on increased density is going to mean a funny political switcheroo for a lot of liberals. We're mostly accustomed to fighting evil corporations on behalf of the little guy, but it turns out that most suburban (and many urban) zoning regulations have been put in place by exactly the little guys we're used to teaming up with. Developers, on the other hand, would happily build out every last acre to the maximum possible density and maximum possible profit if only they were allowed to. So if we're in favor of higher density, we're frequently going to find ourselves siding with big developers and very much against local public opinion — and believe me, you haven't really taken on the task of changing public opinion until you've sat through a planning commission meeting trying to out-talk an angry mob of homeowners who are dead set against a proposed zoning change that might affect their property values by 1 percent

Wrong. Or, at least potentially wrong, in the sense of, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Kevin, and Freakonomics folks, you’re talking only about quantity, and not quality on point 2.

Cities can be and should be focusing on building codes more than zoning ordinances, requiring MUCH higher insulation standards, more use of recycled material, etc.

New development, redevelopment, infill, etc., should all HUGELY tighten the quality side of the equation. Of course, in major metro areas, this is an invitation for suburbs to cheat on each other, which means state-level governments have to intervene.

Ultimately, it’s going to require the feds to intervene with tax credits for development quality features.

And, while Kunstler is good as a prophet of alarm, not so much as prophet of doom.

(In an e-mail, Drum dismissed the idea of talking about quality, rather than quantity, with the comment, “it’s a blog post, not a book.”) Well, the length of the Freakonomics post, if not a book, is longer than your typical newsmagazine article by a factor of 2.

John Archer is more optimistic at the Freak:

“Suburbia will be flexible, it will be smarter, and it will be hybrid.”

Of course, Kevin’s going to run out of water and electricity in the Southland, perhaps, or at least cheap electricity and halfway cheap water.

Kevin Drum punks himself

By swallowing whole hog the spinmeistering by Peter Mansoor, Gen. David Petraeus’ former executive officer that, while other things beyond “the surge” may narrowly have contributed to “more success” in Iraq in 2007-08, it really was the surge.

Here’s Kevin, all sweetness and light:

Pro-war conservatives (have) … always had a much better argument to make (about the surge), one that Mansoor comes close to making here. …

The security situation in Iraq was on the cusp of something potentially dramatic, and it was possible that a small nudge might make an outsized difference. The surge was that nudge. …

It sure seems like both the most plausible and the most persuasive argument in favor of the surge — one that I'm not at all sure I'd reject out of hand.

The surge was a “nudge”? First, the various surge backers would n never describe as just a nudge.

Second, Mansoor himself rejects Drum’s idea while also pulling the McCain trick of redefining the surge:

To realize how misleading these assertions are, one must understand that the “surge” was more than an infusion of reinforcements into Iraq.

Finally, Mansoor's column ignores the ephemeral nature of any surge “success.”

And THAT’s what the neocons and just plain cons don't want to discuss.

In the middle of August doldrums, we have a clear winner for Kevin Drum’s worst post of the week, already on a Monday!

A toast to Kevin Drum – with sewer water

Since January, Orange County, Calif., home of the Political Animal blogger, has been using recycled wastewater as part of its water supply.

Actually, the water, as recycled, is cleaner than Poland Springs bottled water. But, for psychological reasons, rather than being directly added to the water supply at that point, it’s injected into the county’s aquifers, in the process, actually becoming dirtier.

A toast to Kevin Drum – with sewer water

Since January, Orange County, Calif., home of the Political Animal blogger, has been using recycled wastewater as part of its water supply.

Actually, the water, as recycled, is cleaner than Poland Springs bottled water. But, for psychological reasons, rather than being directly added to the water supply at that point, it’s injected into the county’s aquifers, in the process, actually becoming dirtier.

Kevin Drum is a DLCer

This post of his last week, approvingly linking to Tyler Cowan and his claim that immigration doesn’t depress wages – without distinguishing between legal and illegal immigration – was the light-bulb moment.

OK with illegal immigration depressing wages? Hiding that fact by refusing to talk about illegal immigration? Check?

OK with “free” trade but won’t ever talk about fair trade? Check?

An Iraq war hawk who never really has apologized for his stupidity? Check.

Democratic Leadership Council, American neoliberal, however exactly you want to parse it, Drum is it.

Of course, so is his employer.

How WM ever settled on him, I don’t know. Atrios (Duncan Black) has government experience and an economics graduate degree. Josh Marshall had a history master’s and journalism experience before starting TPM. Don’t start me on Orange Satan.

Kevin Drum’s worst post of the week – wet dreaming for gun nuts

This week, the Flip-Flop Blogger™ is instead in his Squish Wasting Liberal California Bandwidth™ mode

In blogging about the Supreme Court’s 5-4 strikedown of DC’s handgun ban, Drum misses so many points it’s not funny.

First and foremost, he misses the original intent of the Second Amendment, where it is clear, and has been clear to most liberals, except the recently AWOL Lawrence Tribe, that the “well-regulated militia” clause is the primary clause of the Second Amendment.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

George Washington, above all, was familiar with problems with an unregulated militia. Also, Minutemen kept powder, and many of their weapons, at armories similar to National Guard armories of today. That’s what started the Revolutionary War, for doorknob’s sake. The British were marching on Concord to seize the arsenal there, as well as to try to round up Patriot leaders.

Second, Drum ignores Nino Scalia running roughshod over originalism when it doesn’t suit his tastes and philosophy.

Why does Kevin Drum hate caribou?

The Washington Monthly blogger again proves he’s a neo-centrist squish with the statement he would use ANWR as a political trading chip. This is an appalling blogpost that needs extensive quoting:

ANWR’s weird totemic quality has always baffled me. As near as I can tell, the environmental damage from drilling in the tiny portion of ANWR at issue would be pretty modest.

Uhh, Kevin, 123,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd whose summer calving grounds would be disturbed would disagree strenuously.

Personally, I'd look at ANWR as a bargaining chip. I don't have much interest in drilling there, but I'd be willing to trade it away if Republicans were willing to support a serious climate policy in return. This means cap-and-trade (or a carbon tax) in order to price the externalities of carbon properly; it means serious research into clean energy technologies (and, yes, regulation of dirty technology); and it means real efforts to spur greater energy efficiency.

For more on the controversy over ANWR, including the possibility that drilling there could affect a treaty agreement with Canada over the protection of the Porcupine Caribou herd, see here.

Also, Kevin, if you’re OK with drilling in ANWR, are you also OK with harassing polar bears near oil rigs?

You know, this is not just your stupidest post of the week, but, the stupidest of the month, if not the last couple of months.

Drum has again shown the delusional hyper-Obama Kumbaya centrist squish side of his blogging.

It's kind of like Diane Feinstein being a wasted Senator from California, because she’s on the conservative side of California Democrats.

If Washington Monthly wanted a California blogger, couldn’t it have gotten a more liberal one?

Update:And now, just 48 hours later, the Flip-Flop Blogger™ is giving McCain, putatively a Drum-type “reasonable Republican,” a needling over an environmental issue.

Early winner on Kevin Drum’s worst post of the week

The comments, as well as Kevin’s original post, about the possibility of Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama’s VP are what make this one such a doozy.

Commenters proposing her for SCOTUS. Commenters saying she could run in 2016, imagining that sexism in the MSM and elsewhere would lessen with her being an “old woman” of 68 at that point.

Of course, Kevin ignoring the fact that Clinton’s campaign shoved her name into Obama’s face as part of wondering if she really wants it is interesting enough. And, then, there’s the waste of cyberspace by linking to the latest pro-Hillary inanity from pro-corporate shill Armando.

I'll venture that Clinton supporters like Juliet, a poster over at the WM threat, want to be "stroked." And no, not by Obama himself, but by Obama supporters who don't seem inclined to do that yet. Or possibly ever.

That's exactly what Arachnae is saying.

I don't many will vote for McCain, but, will a fair amount stay home? Yes.

If Vegas gave me odds on a certain percentage, I'd even make a small online bet.

Kevin Drum’s worst post of this week

It’s a clear winner when you say Joe Biden, Sen. MBNA, would make a good vice president. Kevin didn’t even have to link to Megan McArdle to win this baby, either.

Kevin Drum becoming neo-Kausian

That’s as in, becoming more like Mickey Kaus all the time, and no, that’s not a compliment. If only it were neo-Kantian instead.

The latest assault on progressive-minded brains? Two posts today on Roger Lowenstein’s New York Times Magazine piece denoting the detailed contributions of Moody’s to the subprime crisis in particular and the credit crunch in general. For my in-depth take on Lowenstein’s article, go here.

Anyway, on to Drum’s offenses. It’s just Sunday, and he’s already written two pieces which will certainly tie for weakest post of the week.

In this first piece, he calls himself a “dissenter,” in the Kausian Puke Badge of Pseudocourage sense, I guess for standing up to alleged progressive orthodoxy. Then he quotes his favorite Kausfiles type economic shill, Brad DeLong, in support of the dissenting view, which he expressed in a rhetorical question at the start, “were they (Moody’s and others) innocent bystanders in a world gone mad”?

But then, he backs away from DeLong, in three paragraphs of turgid, or turd-gid, constipated writing that you can’t say for sure where the hell Kevin even stands.

Then, in a follow-up post, Kevin says, “Call me a rube,” with naïve incredulity that Moody’s has computer software that lets it “game” the ratings for CDOs, SIVs, etc. He finally comes to his Teddy Roosevelt-reminding, backbone of a chocolate éclair conviction that “Maybe the real bubble of the last few years has been a rating agency bubble.”

Hey, way to stick your neck out, Kevin.

Why don’t you ask one of your blogged cats, Inkblot or Domino?