Senator McCain has long been a vocal proponent of American military involvement abroad. He vigorously advocated for American interventionism in the 2008 presidential election, and was soundly defeated by Barack Obama and his milder foreign policy approach.

On Sunday McCain condemned the candidates’ desire to scale back American military presence, claiming, “This is isolationism. There’s always been an isolationist strain in the Republican Party, the Pat Buchanan wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak.”

Nothing new from such a prominent hawk, but the following statement from a CNN article really tickled me silly:

“If former President Ronald Reagan had watched the debate, McCain said, he ‘would be saying that’s not the Republican Party of the 20th century and now the 21st century. That is not the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom’ for people all over the world.”

Now, Reagan was no angel on foreign policy, but this constant invoking of Reagan as a justification for military overstretch is an absolute fabrication, a disrespect to President Reagan and his legacy.

In June 2010, Peter Beinart of Foreign Policy aptly debunked this modern Reagan myth:

“Today’s conservatives have conjured a mythic Reagan who never compromised with America’s enemies and never shrank from a fight. But the real Reagan did both those things, often. In fact, they were a big part of his success. Sure, Reagan spent boatloads — some $2.8 trillion all told — on the military. And yes, he funneled money and guns to anti-communist rebels like the Nicaraguan Contras and Afghan mujahideen, while lecturing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. But on the ultimate test of hawkdom — the willingness to send U.S. troops into harm’s way — Reagan was no bird of prey. He launched exactly one land war, against Grenada, whose army totaled 600 men. It lasted two days. And his only air war — the 1986 bombing of Libya — was even briefer. Compare that with George H.W. Bush, who launched two midsized ground operations, in Panama (1989) and Somalia (1992), and one large war in the Persian Gulf (1991). Or with Bill Clinton, who launched three air campaigns — in Bosnia (1995), Iraq (1998), and Kosovo (1999) — each of which dwarfed Reagan’s Libya bombing in duration and intensity. Do I even need to mention George W. Bush?”

More telling are the words of Ronald Reagan himself in his memoirs, in which he reflected on his decision to station U.S. troops in Beirut in light of the tragic suicide bombing in 1983 that claimed 241 American lives.

“Perhaps we didn’t appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that made the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the marines’ safety that it should have.

In the weeks immediately after the bombing, I believe the last thing that we should do was turn tail and leave. Yet the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there. If there would be some rethinking of policy before our men die, we would be a lot better off. If that policy had changed towards more of a neutral position and neutrality, those 241 marines would be alive today.”

What’s this? A thoughtful assessment of the intrinsic complexities of Middle Eastern cultural and political norms? A subtle acknowledgement of American ignorance of said norms and the potential for blowback from American actions? Heck, even a desire to be seek a more “neutral position and neutrality”!

Yes, Senator McCain, you are wrong. As is every other neoconservative or Republican that haplessly cites Reagan to convince voters that the path toward bloodshed and death is one that the GOP icon would heartily endorse. Please, step away from the limelight and let the American people dictate how we use our courageous men and women abroad.

Photo Credits: Vivirlatino.com

But I don’t see how Hayworth can recover from this:

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), who is currently challenging Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary on a right-wing platform, had an interesting job for a time in 2007: Appearing as an infomercial pitchman — for a company telling people that they can get free grant money from the federal government.

…

“Well I don’t want to shock anybody’s sensibilities, but I have to use a four-letter word: Real. This is real,” Hayworth said in the infomercial. “The money is out there, the opportunities are out there. And by the way, it’s not something where it’s the government’s money — it’s really your money. You surrendered it in the form of taxation. Now’s the time to take advantage of a situation where the government can invest in you. And in turn, you’ll have a chance to build a business, or make a better life for yourself — and in so doing, you’ll help improve the country.”

Allahpundit over at Hot Air still thinks he has a shot, if only a long one. But one of the easier sacrifices you make as a fiscally conservative politican is that you can’t star in an infomercial run by a company with an F from the Better Business Bureau and promise desperate people “free money from the federal government.”

You are either a serious political contender, or you are Matt Lesko (see picture at right). Hayworth might as well start learning how to tie a bowtie.

Charlie Crist's winning smile

Governor Crist will undoubtedly point to his infamous “hug” with President Obama, backin early 2009, when the President was campaigning for his massive stimulus program. Then, Crist was seen as a pragmatic Republican, willing to compromise and work with the popular President. Crist will say that the Charlie Crist’s winning smile Republican Party as moved too far to his right leaving him no choice but to run on his own mantle. In some ways this does look plausible, as Marco Rubio has shot up the top ranks of the Republican Party from obscurity, buoyed by support from the fledgling Tea Party movement and early endorsements from conservative leaders like Mike Huckabee and Jim DeMint. Yet, Crist’s cataclysmic fall in popularity among conservatives in Florida is far more a demonstration of his failure to demonstrate solid convictions, than crazy extremist right-wingers. Recently, perhaps in preparation for his independent bid, Crist vetoed a Republican-backed education reform bill that would have removed the system of tenure for Florida public school teachers and instituted performance based salaries. Such a bill had been the brainchild of former Governor Jeb Bush, and subject to countless compromises, and the veto clearly demonstrated again political expediency over conviction.

Fortunately for Floridians, a Crist independent run would probably only further damage his reputation. The country needs genuine leadership to tackle the issues of a growing budget deficit, runaway entitlement spending and vast socioeconomic divide. From what we have seen from Charlie Crist, he may shine well in the spotlight, but when it comes putting the people of Florida first, he has failed.

Photo Credit: FortLauderdaleSpecial

Events on Flickr Creative Comments

President Obama has proposed a plan, which the House approved as the Waxman-Markey bill in June of last year, to limit overall carbon emissions through a system of cap and trade. As I have noted in the Harvard Salient, the ability of this proposal to reduce emissions is suspect due to its enormous scope for evasion and dubious allowance of “offsets.” To the extent that the bill would cut emissions, it would do so very inefficiently: enforcement of the program would entail tremendous administrative costs, firms would have an incentive to compete for permits—85 percent of which will be given away for free—rather than become more efficient, and higher energy prices would redistribute wealth from households and small businesses to politically connected companies that receive permits. Fortunately, the Senate seems unlikely to approve Waxman-Markey.

And for good reason. Democrats are already in trouble for passing health care reform, and supporting the much-decried “tax and trade” bill will not help matters. Additionally, the environment is a relatively low priority on the public agenda. In a March 12 Gallup poll more than half of respondents answered that the greatest problem facing the country today is either “unemployment” or the “economy in general,” and the environment did not even rank among the top six voter concerns reported on Gallup’s Website.

The first step for the President to enact meaningful environmental reform, therefore, is to frame the issue in terms of the economy, which he can do by emphasizing our energy dependence rather than climate change. The Energy Information Administration reports that the United States imported just under six million barrels of oil a day from OPEC last year, which amounts to an enormous transfer of wealth to countries that, to quote Sen. John McCain, “don’t like us very much.” Restoring the long-run health of the U.S. economy, Mr. Obama should argue, will require that we shift to an economy powered by an expanded U.S. energy sector.

Since eliminating dependence on foreign oil requires increasing domestic supply, the first thing the President should do is radically expand domestic oil drilling. His move to open part of the Atlantic coast was a good start, but the entire Pacific coast, the west slope of Alaska, and the ANWR region remain off-limits. Drilling should be permitted in these and other areas to maximize domestic output.

To reduce emissions, the President should propose an excise tax on fossil fuels, which oil companies would pay upon extracting oil from the ground, as well as an equal (or greater) tariff on fossil fuel imports. This carbon tax could be gradually increased over time, thereby encouraging development of clean energy alternatives by making fossil fuels more expensive. Note that a carbon tax would be far simpler and less costly to administer, and would entail far less opportunity for evasion and political finagling, than the cap-and-trade plan.

Having implemented a strategy to reduce both energy dependence and carbon emissions in the long run, the President could further help the economy by making the carbon tax revenue-neutral: any revenue derived from the excise tax on domestic fossil fuel production and the tariff on imported fossil fuels would be returned to the people through a cut in the income tax.

The beauty of this revenue-neutral carbon tax is that it is politically feasible. The proposal includes two perennial Republican priorities—an income tax cut and expanded oil drilling—while reducing America’s dependence on rogue oil exporters. Democrats might prefer cap and trade, but it is difficult to imagine that they would pass up the opportunity to enact the first-ever comprehensive attempt to curtail carbon emissions. President Obama thus has a remarkable opportunity to save the environment, eliminate America’s energy dependence, and improve the long-run economy all at the same time. We can only hope he will recognize it.

Photo Credit: HuffingtonPost

A Republican resurgence in the 2010 election?

One year into the Obama presidency, the Democrats have faltered on key initiatives, most notably health care reform, and public dissatisfaction with Congress has skyrocketed. Many factors that allowed for the GOP takeover in 1994, including voter frustration, a struggling health care reform effort, frail economic conditions, and a weakened Democratic president, recur today. Although the Democrats are prepared to defend their seats, if the GOP can take advantage of voter frustration and control the energized Tea Party contingent of its party, the Republicans will make significant gains in both the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections.

ANGRY ANGRY VOTERS

When Obama took office, he enjoyed high approval ratings and seemingly insurmountable congressional majorities. Voters had entrusted the Democratic Party with complete control of the federal government after expressing intense frustration with the Bush administration during the 2006 and 2008 elections. However, Matthew Baum of the Harvard Kennedy School explained that “expectations were so high and reality so bleak that it is not a surprise that many people were disappointed with Obama’s first year in office.” Indeed, despite the Obama administration’s and Congress’ efforts, the economy has not fully recovered, and the job situation is still bleak. Furthermore, Obama invested much of his political capital in health care reform, and has not yet seen tangible results. If reform does pass, it will nevertheless have cost Obama a great deal more time and political capital than he expected.

What may have turned popular support away from the Democrats was the extraordinary breadth of the agenda that Obama pursued. With a very high unemployment rate, Obama attempted to tackle health care reform, overhaul the conduct of two wars, and pass climate-change legislation. Many voters perceived all this activity as disregard for fiscal discipline. Former representative Ernest Istook (R-OK) told the HPR, “People have realized that spending more and increasing the size of government seems to be the common factor and principal motivation behind the decisions made in Washington.” According to a Rasmussen survey from early February, 75 percent of likely voters are “angry at [the] government’s current policies,” numbers typically seen before elections marked by major pick-ups for the minority party. Congressional approval ratings are similarly disastrous, a bad sign for the Democrats, who have controlled the legislative branch since 2007.

DEMS AND REPS MANUEVER

Democratic performance in November will depend on some semblance of economic growth, and though the economy has improved recently, high unemployment bodes poorly for the Democrats’ prospects heading into the midterm elections. Republican Scott Brown’s surprise victory in the Massachusetts Senate race set off alarm bells within the Democratic Party, prompting national attempts to rally an unenthusiastic base. According to Baum, “hubris definitely contributed to electoral defeat [in 1994],” and this year the campaign committees for House and Senate Democrats are fundraising nonstop, resolved not to repeat their mistakes.

The GOP cannot approach the midterms too complacently, however, as Republican incumbents must be careful to fend off attacks from the right. Even 2008 Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is facing a serious primary challenger, former representative J.D. Hayworth. Tea Party members, who are strongly opposed to many of Obama’s economic policies, are threatening Republicans to push their candidates rightward. The Tea Party movement, which has energized conservative and libertarian activists nationwide, has gained a significant following. But Istook predicts that “there will be continuing friction, but not major conflict” between the mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party.

An enthusiastic Republican base, including the Tea Parties, and widespread dissatisfaction with Democrats are key advantages for the GOP. If Republicans and passionate conservative activists cooperate, the overall conservative movement can overcome minor internal dissension. Furthermore, huge swings in independent support have uprooted the political balance. In recent elections in three states that Obama carried in 2008, Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, independents have voted 2:1 for Republican candidates.

Significant Republican gains in the House and Senate are extremely likely, given the present political climate and the lessons of history. Having won many competitive seats in the past two election cycles, the Democrats have a lot of ground to defend, a weakness compounded by the current economic environment. Although voters have not fully forgiven the GOP for its missteps during the past decade, by skillfully channeling voter frustration and offering a clear vision for America’s future, the Republicans could take back control of Congress.

Alex Chen ’13 is a Staff Writer.

Photo Credit: asecondhandconjecture (Flickr)

case is a blow to democracy

The outcome of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission has rocked the political world by reframing the controversy over corporate influence in political campaigns. In the 5-4 ruling, a majority of the Supreme Court struck down provisions of the McCain–Feingold Act that forbade corporations and unions from directly supporting or opposing candidates for office. The decision leaves candidates more susceptible to corruption by tilting the balance of power in our democracy towards wealthy corporations and interest groups.

DIVERGENT INTERPRETATIONS

The majority opinion took a novel but somewhat expected approach to the monumental case, which saw its beginnings in the recent presidential campaign. In 2008, the Federal Election Commission banned the interest group Citizens United from airing its unflattering attack-documentary against Hillary Clinton on cable television, saying it violated campaign finance restrictions under the McCain–Feingold Act. Citizens United appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which heard two sets of oral arguments in the case. By asserting the inalienability of free speech while also extending it in an unprecedented way to corporations and other associations, the Court employed both a strict enforcement of the First Amendment and a loose broadening of its application. Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking for the majority, wrote, “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.” In effect, the court extended First Amendment protections to interest groups, completely overturning the restrictions permitted by the ruling in Austin vs. Michigan Chamber of Commerce in 1990. As John Samples of the Cato Institute explained to the HPR, “The Constitution doesn’t mention speakers,” only speech, and therefore distinctions between corporations and other speakers are impermissible. The McCain–Feingold law, according to Samples, restrained associations’ right to express their political views.

Dissenting justices, led by John Paul Stevens, emphasized their wariness about corporations’ influence on government. Stevens lambasted the majority’s “rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding,” and worried that the decision would “undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation.” Drawing on over a century’s worth of statutory and constitutional law restricting the sort of influence that the majority has now allowed, the dissenters made a case for favoring the intent or principle behind the First Amendment over a literal interpretation. Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet told the HPR that “the dissenters argue that constitutional law should leave more room for policy judgments by Congress than the majority’s doctrinal framing allows.”

DEMOCRACY DERAILED

Regardless of the constitutional merits, it seems unquestionable that the decision will have a negative impact on politicians’ susceptibility to corruption, or at least what most of us would call corruption. Corporations, unions, and other interest groups, using their treasuries as threats, will have substantial leverage over representatives. Nevertheless, supporters of the decision, such as Samples, argue that “it is easy to exaggerate the practical effects of this decision” and that “[corporate] speech is not the same thing as results or power.” Harvard Kennedy School professor Alexander Keyssar, drawing on recent history, countered that “anyone who’s witnessed elections in the past ten years will see the influence of money in elections. Big Pharma doesn’t donate to campaigns out of altruism.” This influence will expand at the expense of the millions of individuals lacking the means to conglomerate their funds to affect the electoral process. Brookings Institute senior fellow Thomas Mann warned the HPR that “the potential dangers to American democracy are great.”

THE FUTURE FOR REFORM

Cautiously working within the confines of the Court’s recent ruling, leaders on Capitol Hill are scrambling to mitigate the decision’s effects. While a handful of senators, including John Kerry (D-MA), have gone so far as to endorse a constitutional amendment to restrict corporate influence, Keyssar said that its success is “unlikely” and that “it’d take a crisis” for the movement to gain any traction. A more feasible path to some limited reform may be to enact legislation forbidding foreign-owned corporations from influencing American elections, a phenomenon about which policymakers of both parties have expressed concern, but which is of uncertain importance. Others are calling for requirements that corporate political expenditures be approved by shareholders. Indeed, Tushnet emphasized that “the real action should be to shift attention from campaign financing to corporation law, and figure out some ways to ensure that shareholders really do approve of corporate expenditures on political campaigns.” Still, the future of reform remains unclear. While Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has promised legislation, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a long-time proponent of reform, has indicated that he “[doesn’t] think there’s much that can be done.”

As Keyssar noted, an implicit deal was once struck between government and corporations: the latter would be protected from antitrust suits in return for a promise that “the political arena would not reflect the imbalance of power represented in the economic arena.” The Supreme Court has upset this equilibrium, and it may also have taken away the tools necessary to restore it.

John He ’13 is a Staff Writer.

Photo Credit: Robert Palmer (Flickr), AMagill (Flickr)

Can you blog Tweets? I don’t know, but let’s give this a try. For those of you who couldn’t spend an hour and a half at the Halperin/Heilemann forum last night, here’s a minute-and-a-half tweet rundown….

Waiting for Halperin/Heilemann forum to start. Definitely not packed. Maybe people are over the 2008 gossip? What about midterm gossip?

Bill Purcell just said “Game Change” is a spicy smorgasbord. No one else seemed to think this was funny.

Halperin says if the 7th most interesting candidate in a race is Rudy Giuliani, you know it’s a good race.

flashback: remember “lipstick on a pig”?

moderator cuts to the chase quickly: should we trust your no-name sources? asks if they left anything out because it wasn’t well sourced

Heilemann says they paraphrased quotes to avoid nitpickers. But isn’t paraphrasing just as unfair sometimes?

Moderator Susan Gilligan: I’m not fazed by affairs. I mean, I lived in Europe. Big laughs. But John Edwards shocked her.

Heilemann: “John Edwards brought the crazy”

Heilemann: John Edwards got overtaken by his “ego monster.” Nice John Edwards went away.

“People are not any less interested in John Edwards than they are in Barack Obama at this point.” Uhh… no.

Moderator really really wants H and H to talk about Obama’s “self-doubt”

Obama aides were concerned in 07 that his heart wasn’t in it. They took him out and he asked if it was an intervention.

“McCain is at core a loner, a fighter pilot… It’s not until he’s at rock bottom that he’s suddenly happy again.”

“Sarah Palin.” Laughter… Halperin: “You know, there are some parts of the country where her name doesn’t elicit laughter.” More laughter.

Lieberman would have been both an unorthodox and an orthodox VP candidate. Hilarity.

Palin vetter just did some Lexis searches. “almost no background check.”

Halperin semi-justifies McCain’s choice by pointing to his “fighter pilot” mentality. Why can’t they just say “he’s a crazy man”?

McCain vetter to Palin: “Is your daughter going to get married?” Pause… “Is she going to get married tomorrow?”

Halperin: Obama too professorial. Me: Halperin too superficial.

Halperin: Obama doesn’t change course readily enough. In other words, he won’t stop pushing health care. Yeah, what’s wrong with that guy?

“To thine own self be true” is lesson from 2008. How poetic.

Also, “don’t look like Tina Fey.”

Uh oh… A Cambridgeite asking a question. Incomprehensible and disturbed.

Halperin: “I lost you when you mentioned Scott Brown. He’s so dreamy.”

Halperin: Obama should stop supporting TBTL orgs, and start worrying about the middle class. Right, the middle class loves depressions.

Reality check: Obama poll numbers have been at 50% for basically half a year.

Halperin shoots back to questioner: point out something gossipy from our book!

MH: People who say there’s gossip in the book should look up the definition. We just asked what happened.

JH: People are interested in “the human spectacle,” not the employer mandate.

Shorter Gilligan: Presidential contests are popularity contests. And we are the student newspaper editors.

Question: When do agreements with sources have to go out the window?

Halperin basically reiterates that you can’t get juicy stuff if you don’t promise anonymity.

Question from high school freshman: Why didn’t McCain give up when he wasn’t into it in 07?

JH: McCain never doubted he’d be a good president. Me: That makes one of us.

Furthermore, McCain just hated Obama. Thought he was green, all talk no walk, etc. “Personal animus drove him [McCain].”

Halperin jumps in to add McCain’s no quitter. Calls that admirable. What does he think of the personal animus? Not so admirable?

And that’s a wrap.

Photo credit: Harvard Institute of Politics

From the Feb. 18 edition (“What’s Wrong With Washington?”):

Washington has its faults, some of which could easily be fixed. But much of the current fuss forgets the purpose of American government; and it lets current politicians (Mr Obama in particular) off the hook.

America’s political structure was designed to make legislation at the federal level difficult, not easy. Its founders believed that a country the size of America is best governed locally, not nationally. True to this picture, several states have pushed forward with health-care reform. The Senate, much ridiculed for antique practices like the filibuster and the cloture vote, was expressly designed as a “cooling” chamber, where bills might indeed die unless they commanded broad support.

…

It is not so much that America is ungovernable, as that Mr Obama has done a lousy job of winning over Republicans and independents to the causes he favours. If, instead of handing over health care to his party’s left wing, he had lived up to his promise to be a bipartisan president and courted conservatives by offering, say, reform of the tort system, he might have got health care through; by giving ground on nuclear power, he may now stand a chance of getting a climate bill. Once Mr Clinton learned the advantages of co-operating with the Republicans, the country was governed better.

I think this is a pretty fair assessment. It acknowledges some structural problems (later in the piece) while avoiding the pitfalls of the one-dimensional “system-is-broken” narrative. It’s also a bellwether for the Obama administration. They seem more nostalgic for Bill Clinton than John McCain, but there is a world of difference in tone from their endorsement of Obama sixteen months ago.

Then came the 2008 presidential campaign.

I can’t exactly fault McCain for steering hard to the right; he was, after all, trying to win the Republican primary and then energize the party’s base in the general election.

Still, there are plenty of nuts in the Republican Party ( to be fair, there are plenty of nuts in the Democratic Party, too), and I wish McCain would have done a better job of calling out those radical contingents of his party.

There was, of course, his decision to choose Sarah Palin as a running mate.  There was that time when a woman at a rally called Obama an “Arab,” to which McCain replied, “No, no, he’s a decent family man.”  (As if the two were mutually exclusive!) There was his insistence on bringing the Bill Ayers conspiracy into the election. And–one of the things that enraged me most–was McCain’s and Palin’s repeated attacks on government spending on fruit-fly-DNA research. (Anyone who’s taken a high school biology class knows that drosophila research has provided some of the most important insights into our understanding of DNA!)

But now, McCain has come out with a new ad attacking J.D. Hayworth, his opponent in the Republican primary, for aligning himself with the birther movement.

As TNR’s Jonathan Chait noted, McCain deserves credit for stepping up and labelling conspiracy-theorist nuts for what they are.  Mainstream Republicans have, for the most part, been shy to alienate the far-right elements of its party–Tea Partiers and birthers–and I hope McCain’s ad encourages others to come out and do the same.

People like Hayworth deserve to be told the truth: Your views detract from the level of political discourse in this country, and you have no business governing. Props, John McCain.

In his critique of that column, the Harvard Salient’s Dhruv Singhal begins by criticizing my evidence of anti-atheist bias in America. I had cited a study that documented 25 child-custody cases over five years in which a non-religious parent had been deemed less fit than a religious one. In my column, recognizing that this might seem paltry, I explained further: the study looked only at cases that reached appeals courts, which most custody cases do not; and it documented only instances in which the judge explicitly cited lack of religion, which biased judges would not always do.

President Dawkins?

I recognize that this last point is speculative, though I believe it is sound. But Singhal never acknowledges the first point. My point was not that there are “five child custody cases a year involving apparent discrimination.” My point was not even that there are many more than that, which there undoubtedly are. Rather, the point was to show that, even among educated people like judges (in divorce courts, and all the way up to the Supreme Court, as I showed in the first half of the column), anti-atheist bias is a pernicious force, one that causes tangible injustice to some number of people.

The poll numbers cited elsewhere in the article, which Singhal likewise never mentions, were meant to show that anti-atheist prejudice is also a force among the general public. The strongest evidence for this, even stronger than the poll numbers, is that there is only one acknowledged atheist in national elected office. Why is this good evidence? Not primarily because it suggests that voters are rejecting openly atheistic candidates for office, but because it suggests that atheist candidates, knowing they would be rejected if they revealed themselves as such, stay in the closet. To paraphrase Arnie Vinick, the fictionalized John McCain knockoff from the West Wing: if you demand religious demonstrations from your politicians, you’re just asking to be lied to.

What is Singhal’s response to the under-representation of declared non-believers? First, he points out that they aren’t alone: women and African-Americans are under-represented too. Since one point of my column was to draw something of a connection between anti-atheist bias and the more familiar forms of sexism and racism, I heartily accept this point. But then Singhal implies that“prejudice alone” cannot account for the under-representation of atheists, just as it supposedly cannot account for that of women. But this is where those never-acknowledged poll numbers come in. A majority of Americans wouldn’t consider voting for an atheist for president, more than say the same about Muslims and Mormons and women and homosexuals and everyone else. Likewise, a majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of atheists—more than for any other minority. Most recently, a poll came out showing that 7 in 10 Americans who practice a religion would be bothered if their child married an atheist, and 27% would never accept the marriage.

In light of these numbers, Singhal’s insistence that the dearth of atheists is “not the product of bigotry” starts to look a little pale. Call it whatever you like, you might even just call it “distrust,” but it’s clear that many Americans have a big problem with atheists.

The rest of Singhal’s article can be summed up: “But atheists do it too!” Of course it’s true that some atheists have said some nasty things about believers. And naturally, if Bill Maher had written a column for the Crimson lamenting how everyone hates atheists, one might be justified in pointing out some of his more insulting diatribes. But Maher didn’t write that column, so I don’t see the relevance of his comments.

When Singhal does return to my actual column, he says that I “apparently” assume something that I do not: that prejudice against atheists is a “religious prejudice,” rather than a “scientific prejudice.” It seems that Singhal believes that a religious prejudice is one held against religious people (his example is anti-Semitism) while a scientific prejudice is one held against a scientific theory, like climate change or evolution.

Singhal is entitled to his own terms, of course, but he assumes what he wants to prove: he wants to show that atheism is a religion because it is the victim (so, supposedly, say I) of “religious prejudice.” But if religious prejudice is simply defined as prejudice against a religious view, then Singhal’s argument is circular. So, let me clarify: prejudice against atheists is prejudice against atheists, not anything else. Does this mean that I forfeit the protection of the “aegis of religious bigotry,” as Singhal says? I guess so. If the only kind of prejudice we should care about is prejudice against religious groups, then I guess anti-atheist prejudice is fine and dandy. But I think that we should care about all sorts of different prejudices.

There seems to be a hidden definition of “bigotry” at work in Singhal’s article. It is captured by the subtitle: “If anti-atheist prejudice is bigotry, then atheism is religious.” Let’s try some other examples with the same form. “If anti-black prejudice is bigotry, then being black is religious.” “If anti-female prejudice is bigotry, then womanhood is religious.” “If anti-gay prejudice is bigotry, then homosexuality is religious.”

It seems that the goal of Singhal’s article, judging from his title, is to show that atheism is a religion like any other. He wants to enlist me in this argument; he thinks I have provided all the proof he needs by contending that there is such a thing as “anti-atheist prejudice,” or, if you like, bigotry. My point, and it really is a very mundane one, is that this argument doesn’t wash, whether or not you believe, for other reasons and with other arguments, that atheism really is a religion.

Photo credit: Flickr stream of mrccos