HEARTLAND AMERICA STILL DOESN'T TRUST HIPPIES, SO TWELVE PEOPLE HAD TO DIE TODAY

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA did everything he could to offend and outrage people who don't agree with him short of breaking into the homes of the victims' families and defecating in their living rooms.

And yet even as LaPierre said outrageous and offensive things, poll after poll showed that the Americans continued to view the NRA more unfavorably than unfavorably. And recently, in Colorado, just before two state senators were recalled as a result of pro-gun outrage, we saw this:

The main elements of the new [Colorado gun] law -- requiring universal background checks and limiting magazines to 15 rounds -- have strong backing in Colorado polls, yet a recent poll found a slight majority opposed to the new law. "People want background checks yet they don't want 'gun control,'" said Jennifer Hope, a Denver activist in favor of stricter regulation.

People favor what's in the Colorado gun law, but oppose the law. People wanted specific gun control laws in the wake of Sandy Hook (and Aurora and Tucson and Virginia Tech), but they continue to look favorably on the NRA, which is not only unswervingly opposed to popular gun control measures but is offensive and boorish about it.

What's going on?

It's all part of the culture war we've been living through for at least half a century. Oh, sure, Americans support universal background checks, and want the likes of Aaron Alexis -- previously arrested for more than one gun offense -- not to be able to obtain guns effortlessly ... but "gun control" is something that comes from liberals and hippies and untrustworthy rootless-cosmopolitan city slickers like Mike Bloomberg. Whereas the NRA (despite being a Beltway lobbying operation) is identified with heartland America, so it's trustworthy and admired.

Heartlanders don't reject gun control because of how they feel about gun control proposals. They reject gun control because of who supports it. If we're for it, it's absurdly easy for the NRA to tell heartlanders they should be against it.

And that's why twelve people had to die at the Washington Navy Yard today.

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FORCING US TO BE THE VICTIMS IN THEIR HERO FANTASIES

There's still a lot we don't know about the Washington Navy Yard shooting, but when right-wingers tell us that the problem is gun-free zones (as a couple of Fox commentators have already done, not to menion Alex Jones and his Infowars), what they're telling us is that we have no right to pursue policies that help make it possible for us to live, work, go to school, shop, travel from place to place, see a movie, and generally go about our business unarmed. They want to define any space where it's likely that all of the non-security people are unarmed as abnormal -- and not only abnormal, but run in an irresponsible manner. How dare you not have several armed, trained fellow employees, or fellow daycare center workers, or family members sitting around your living room! You're the problem! You're the reason we have mass shootings!

In short, gun zealots aren't standing up for freedom -- or at least they're not standing up for your freedom to live in a way they'd prefer not to. The gun-zealot movement is coercive. Gun zealots want to compel all of us to acknowledge, and arm ourselves against, the state of siege they perceive. They prefer to see the actual level of danger increase if it will make us pack heat.

They see themselves as the ones who understood before the rest of us did that society operates according to the law of the jungle -- even if the lawlessness and danger they perceive is something they helped create. They like believing that we live in a state of siege because they see themselves as the heroes in our war of all against all. They're going to save us -- not laws, not the cops. (They may say nice things about the troops or the first responders, but many of them are the same folks who have "Terrorist Hunting License" stickers on their cars. It's all about being a self-appointed hero.)

It's their fantasy. We just die in it.

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GOTTA HATE SOMEBODY

Not that you care if you're a sane, rational person, but CNN has just released a new poll about the 2016 presidential race. Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite on the Democratic side, of course (shockingly, all those shouts of "Benghazi!" haven't dropped her below 65% among Democrats), while the Republican race is more of a muddle:

Seventeen percent of Republicans and Independents who lean toward the GOP say they are likely to support New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, with 16% backing Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee chairman and 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is at 13%; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 10%; Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 9%; Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at 7%, and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate who battled eventual nominee Mitt Romney deep into the primary season, at 5%.

Marco Rubio ... remember that guy? Seemed to be riding the zeitgeist during that brief period when Republicans appeared to be embarrassed by their 2012 electoral performance, especially among Hispanic voters? Say, whatever happened to that Rubio guy?

Well, yes, his moment is over:

Rubio's number stands out. The first-term senator, considered a rock star among many Republicans, registered in the upper teens in polls of the possible GOP 2016 horserace conducted by other organizations earlier this year.

But Rubio's support of immigration reform -- he was a high profile member of a bipartisan group of senators who pushed immigration reform passage through the Senate this spring -- may have hurt his standing with many conservative voters opposed to such efforts.

Now, I'm sure he was thinking that it shouldn't be all that difficult to overcome Republican resistance to immigration reform and win the party's presidential nomination -- after all, John McCain did it in 2008. And Ronald Reagan, the party's god among men, signed an "amnesty" bill as president.

But McCain won the nomination when the vast majority of Republicans' hate was directed elsewhere. McCain stood for unswerving support of the Iraq War. In 2008, Republican voters had their hate focused on "Moo-slimes" (as they like to call them) and on anyone in America deemed an enabler of Islamic extremism (i.e., all critics of the Iraq War). So McCain could slide by. And prior to that, Reagan was the great scourge of the commies. So he got (and continues to get) a pass on immigration.

But we're in a moment when Republicans can't be enthusiastic about war, because any war-fighting is being done by the hated Kenyan Muslim socialist in the White House. So the hate turns to immigrants (a category many Republicans -- most? -- believe includes the president).

Sorry, Marco. Maybe you could run for president as a supporter of immigration reform in the future, when we're fighting a great patriotic (read: Republican) war against a Hitler-level evildoer (defined as any foe opposed by a Republican president), but we're not in such a moment now. Maybe you could run after President Christie or Cruz spends two terms screwing up in Iran?

*****

And a quick note on the CNN poll of the Democrats. Yes, Hillary Clinton gets 65% of the vote, but there's a fairly big gender gap:

In the potential Democratic battle, the survey indicates Clinton performing better with women (76%) than men (52%).

Men are somewhat resistant to a woman? Well, if you look at the crosstabs, you see that one candidate who does better among men than women is Elizabeth Warren (10% among Democratic men, 4% among women). So maybe more Democratic men than women (at least for now) are angry enough to want a progressive rebuke to this teabagger/banker era.

And there's this:

Biden scores higher with voters age 50 and older (18%) than those younger than 50 (5%).

Well, of course. Younger voters are rejecting the Biden they know best -- the Onion Biden. If he's serious about a 2016 run, that's the biggest hurdle he has to overcome. Seriously.

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I'M NOT GOING TO CHEER UNTIL YELLEN IS NOMINATED (WHICH I DON'T THINK WILL HAPPEN)

Larry Summers haswithdrawn his name from consideration as Fed chairman. That's good news as far as it goes, though I doubt the president is going to pick Janet Yellen -- there are too many signs suggesting that he won't.

But I'll get to that later. First, I just want to respond to this quote from Brad DeLong in The Wall Street Journal. DeLong thinks Summers is misunderstood and would have been a good choice:

J. Bradford DeLong, a Summers backer at the University of California, Berkeley, said the decision to pull his name is "not something Larry would have done were he really the guy his adversaries claim he is."

Nonsense. One of the things the adversaries of Summers claim he is is a dick-swinging cock of the walk, someone who has to dominate every room he's in. A guy like that is damn well not going to allow himself to be humiliated by the U.S. Senate -- it would diminish his sense of authority. Sorry, but this is precisely what you would expect Summers to do.

So will Obama pick Janet Yellen? I doubt it. The Journal story tells us:

One leading candidate is Janet Yellen, the Fed's current vice chairwoman, who has garnered substantial support among Democrats in Congress and among economists. But the public lobbying on her behalf appears to have annoyed the president, say administration insiders, and may lead him to look elsewhere.

At Business Insider, we're told this about the chances of Obama picking Yellen:

Capital Economics' Chief U.S. Economist Paul Ashworth thinks the administration may not end up doing so....

The Obama administration has shown little, if any, enthusiasm for Yellen ... so we're not convinced she will necessarily get the nod. Summers candidacy was sunk by the opposition of many Senate Democrats, which would have made it hard, if not impossible, to get his nomination confirmed. Nominating Yellen now could make Obama look weak, kowtowing to the Democrats who have been openly campaigning for her.

I think I need to step outside. It smells like a locker room in here.

And DeLong worries about "the Obama administration tacking to the non-technocratic right in order to get Republican votes for confirmation."

I'm worried that Obama might pick former Fed vice chair Donald Kohn, about whom we learn this:

* James Kwak has written that Kohn was a proponent of the "Greenspan doctrine" that new financial instruments should be encouraged because they made institutions more "robust."

* In a speech at Jackson Hole in 2005, ... Kohn cited the repeal of Glass-Steagall as an example of successfully rolling back a regulation that stifled competition: "...at times rolling back regulation--for example, by lifting the Glass-Steagall restrictions on banking organizations--will benefit competition and help the financial sector deliver services more efficiently and effectively."

Yikes.

So I'm not opening any champagne just because Summers is out.

Meanwhile, on a trivial note, I love the insider-y way Chuck Todd slips and calls Summers "Larry" at 0:47 of this clip:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I assume we'll never hear Chuck Todd slip and call Janet Yellen "Janet," 'cause she's not a boy.

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WHO CARES IF YOU LISTEN?

Jonathan Chait thinks President Obama has done an okay but not spectacular job of dealing with the financial meltdown, and thinks that Obama, despite the inadequacies of his approach, at least has some ideas for dealing with our ongoing economic weakness, unlike Republicans. Fine -- Chait won't get much of an argument from me. But Chait thinks it's significant that right-wing thinkers have apparently given up on defending right-wing economic ideas:

A few years ago, you could certainly find a lively intellectual defense for the GOP’s position. In September of 2008, conservative pundit and McCain campaign adviser Donald Luskin argued that the economy was in outstanding shape -- "on the brink not of recession, but of accelerating prosperity." In the spring of 2009, The Wall Street Journal editorial page declared that high deficits were already sending bond prices through the ceiling. In 2011, Megan McArdle made the case that income inequality may have peaked and was already falling....

But none of these arguments were true. And conservatives have made precious little effort to replace them with other arguments.

... Do conservatives still think cutting short-term deficits will increase rather than retard growth? Academic support for that position has almost entirely collapsed. I don't even see many conservative intellectuals defending it in columns. And yet the Republican Party marches on, opposing any effort to lift short-term austerity policies that economists almost all believe are holding back the recovery. It's as if the head of the austerity monster has been sliced off, but the body lurches forward regardless.

Well, this strikes me as analogous to what's happened after each of the last two presidential elections. After a fleeting moment when Republicans seemed to be licking their wounds and reexamining whether some of the positions they'd staked out were hurting them at the polls, the reformers were suddelnly dragged into an alley and the radical tea party types seized control of the party, declaring that trying to modify right-wing ideas to make them more palatable to the center was a loser's game, and the real way forward was to damn the torpedoes and be as right-wing as humanly possible.

We know what that sort of thuggery does to Republican politicians who have even a vestigial sense that compromise with centrists and liberals is sometimes worthwhile: they clam up and join the purist mobs on the far right, fearful for their jobs. Well, maybe right-wing pundits with a bit of intellectual integrity (though I'm reluctant to include McArdle, Luskin, and the Journal editorials in such a group) are afraid that they can be primaried, too. They don't want to be banished to the right's Siberia the way, say, David Frum has been, accused and convicted of apostasy. So if they can no longer bring themselves to defend the loony economic ideas of the wingnut zealots, maybe they say nothing.

But the major issue here, I think, is that far rightists don't think they need to persuade anyone other than fellow True Believers. They imagine that they can win in 2014 and 2016 through vote suppression, scandalmongering, and making the economy worse, then blaming the Democrats -- and please note that at least one recent poll says that's working.

So why bother to sell their ideas to the rest of us at all? Just fire up the base and discourage the center and right from voting. Who needs arguments when you think you can win with brute force?

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RAND PAUL'S FAVORITE GUN GROUP SAYS, "FIREARMS ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE"

T-shirt promoted on the Facebook page of the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR):





"Firearms Anywhere and Everywhere" -- taken literally, that would mean firearms in daycare centers, on international flights, even in your living room, whether or not you wanted them there. Because really, when you say "Firearms ... Everywhere," the literal meaning is that no one has the right to say, "Not on my property." And I know the gunners all claim to be good right-wingers who worship the notion of private property, but I'm not sure they're all willing to stand up for the right of a shopkeeper or bar owner or minister to say, "Not in my establishment," especially if the person in question is a dirty stinking liberal.

Rand Paul raises money for the NAGR, with ads like the one here, which claims that the UN Small Arms Treaty "would almost certainly FORCE the United States to ... Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION" (emphasis in original).

The executive vice president of NAGR is Dudley Brown, who's also the executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO). In April, after Colorado enacted new gun laws, Brown engaged in some eliminationist-sounding talk:

He's promising political payback in next year's election that could cost Colorado Democrats their majorities.

"I liken it to the proverbial hunting season," Brown says. "We tell gun owners, there's a time to hunt deer. And the next election is the time to hunt Democrats."

Of course, some gunners couldn't wait until the next election -- two Colorado state senators who voted for the gun laws were recalled this week. Dudley Brown's response was about as tasteful as you'd expect:





But, well, what do you expect from a guy who held a protest march at a memorial ceremony for Aurora shooting victims, because Mike Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns was one of the memorial's sponsors? (Brown, we're told "carried a .45-caliber pistol to the park" where the memorial took place, which was attended by Aurora and Sandy Hook survivors.)

Would it be irresponsible to speculate that this guy might be Rand Paul's pick to head the ATF? It would be irresponsible not to.

Then again, sometimes the propaganda put out by Brown's groups is just sad:





If that's what "family" means to you, Dudley, you have a very empty life.

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OBAMA AND KERRY CAN'T SWIM

Tee-hee:





Needless to say, the story at the top is a bit more recent than the one below it:

The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.

Under a "framework" agreement, international inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November, Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a news conference with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov....

Look, I understand -- the success of this is far from assured:

An immediate test of the viability of the accord will come within a week when the Syrian government is to provide a "comprehensive listing" of its chemical stockpile....

Security will be a major worry for the inspectors who are tasked with implementing the agreement; no precedent exists for inspection, removal and destruction of a large chemical weapons stockpile during a raging civil war. Mr. Lavrov said the agreement would require the cooperation of Syrian rebels and not just the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Much of the Syrian opposition is bitter about President Obama's decision to shelve the threat of military action and to negotiate with Russia, which is a major arms supplier to the Assad government.

"This is very, very difficult, very, very difficult," an American official said of the agreement. "But it is doable."

But we're here. We're here because Obama threatened an attack and because Putin thinks that threat is credible. He's pounding his chest like a Russian Donald Trump and that makes all the right-wing and centrist insiders in America get tingles up their legs, but he wanted an out, and now here we are.

No, the president and the secretary of state didn't walk on water -- far from it (it was more like a joint stumble) -- but even if they had, the center and right response would be ... well, see the title of the post. A typical right-wing response is the sniffy one from Jazz Shaw at Hot Air:

I've been watching some talking heads on CNN this morning trying to spin this as some sort of a win-win, but that sounds like an awful lot of lipstick to try to paint on one rather sickly pig. On the plus side, if you weren't interested in a war where we wind up helping one of several sets of bad guys, this clearly will be a win.

Wait -- isn't avoiding "a war where we wind up helping one of several sets of bad guys" the reason almost everyone on your side gave for opposing a military strike? And now we're there and you're sneering at that outcome? Is there no pleasing you people? (Oh, wait, I forgot: the president is a Democrat. I just answered my own question.)

But if you're monitoring the domestic and international politics and power plays in action, this wound up being nothing but a big old black eye for Barack Obama and John Kerry, while returning Vladimir Putin for a strutting turn on the world stage as a power broker.

Yup -- in response to a credible threa of force from Obama, which Putin feared.

Will this be quick, as the President demanded? Not hardly. There will supposedly be "a list" turned over within a week. Of course, you know how lists are... details, details. Things can change, ya know? And will there be severe repercussions if Assad fails to live up to the terms of the deal in an orderly fashion? Of course there will! But it will be more sanctions, which never seemed to bother him in the fist place.

I'm reminded here of the many people who've said an agreement is pointless, because we remember how Saddam played cat-and-mouse with us regarding his WMDs back in the 1990s. Except that we now understand that he actually shut down his WMD program in the 1990s, didn't he?

... In short, if this turns out to be a ploy and nothing in Damascus really changes, the UN -- with Russia's blessing -- is firmly on track to resort to some serious tongue clucking and speaking in lofty tones. That should show Assad who's the boss of him, eh?

And since the predominant Republican alternative was to do nothing, that would have a better outcome vis-a-vis Assad and his chemical weapons how exactly?

Look, this is, at worst, a pretty good outcome, and maybe it's better than pretty good.

****

And now on to what really matters:

Will U.S.-Russia deal on Syria arms change the way Obama is being covered? We'll tackle that on @MediaBuzzFNC tomorrow at 11 am ET

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) September 14, 2013

Yeah, that's the critically important question, isn't it?

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