Harvard, Dear Harvard...

One of the real regrets in my life is not being born smart enough to attend me an Ivy League school. But then, we all envy the intellectual horsepower the creator bestowed on people like Al Gore and George W., don't we? Here's a case in point: Super-genius Matt Yglesias demonstrating that his Harvard edjamacation learned him about as much of our gubbermint as it did about climate sciencey stuff:

It’s true that the Founding Fathers wanted checks and balances, but this is why we have bicameralism and presidential veto power. Those are the checks. The filibuster rule is not in the constitution. But since the Founding Fathers did specify supermajorities to override a Presidential veto and to ratify a treaty, presumably there (sic) would have written a supermajority rule into the ordinary legislative process if that’s what they’d wanted to do. I don’t think “the Founders wanted it this way” should carry a ton of weight in our arguments, but it’s very clear that the Founders didn’tintend the Senate to vote by supermajority; if they’d wanted that, they would have written the constitution that way.

All I can say is if you aren't bowled over by the suppleness of the argument, you were probably won over by the elegance of the prose. I know I wasn't. Ah, Harvard. Dear Harvard.

Anyway, as one of Little Matty's commenters immediately points out, the Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, gave both the House and the Senate the power to establish their own rules and procedures. The filibuster exists because the Senate, in its wisdom, put it in place. And it remains in place because that's the way the Senate wants it. That has nothing to do with what the Founding Fathers did or did not want.

Being far more humble than your average 20-something Harvard graduate with a degree in Philosophy, the Founding Fathers recognized that they did not possess the ability to foresee all developments and cover all contingencies for all branches of government. That's why they gave the three branches of our government wide latitude to operate in the manner they chose. In other words, they left the details to those who were actually going to be running institutions such as the Senate. And if Little Matty, Harvard super-genius, had a passing knowledge of either the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, or early American history, he'd know that.

But he doesn't. Probably because what he does know about any of the Founding Fathers, the Constitution and early American history came straight from a quick skim of the collected works of Howard Zinn. Who is, thankfully, still dead.

So while he polishes his pseudo-polymath persona to perfection, it's worth noting that what Matty is really doing is voicing his frustration over Obama/Democratic failures in the most simplistic and childish manner available to him (at least in blogging terms). The bottom line is that this isn't about Judd Gregg being too stupid to understand the Constitution, it's about Matt Yglesias being too intellectually shallow (or dishonest, take your pick) to correctly process the present political situation in Washington, and too immature to deal with it like an adult.

Note: I'll forever remember this bit of nonsense.

First we get this:

Meanwhile, just to point out that Gregg is an idiot, where on earth has he gotten the idea that the Founding Fathers “saw the parliamentary system” and “knew it didn’t work?” There were no countries operating on a modern parliamentary system when the constitution was written. And why doesn’t it work? It seems to work in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, etc.

Clearly Little Matty knows as much about the English Civil War as he does the subject at hand. Last time I checked, the English parliment rather emphatically established its primacy over the English monarchy by seperating Charles I from his crown (and his life) in 1649. From Charles II on, England had itself a constitutional monarchy which had limited powers in relation to parliment. That's clearly what Judd Gregg was referring to... the English parlimentary system that had been in place over 100 years before the creation of the U.S. Constitution.

Nice going, Matt. 

Then we get this:

Arguably what history has shown is that the “strong president” system used in the United States doesn’t work. It’s worked out okay for us (despite that Civil War business) so far, but the vast majority of enduring stable democracies go parliamentary or semi-presidential systems.

Of course it doesn't work if your idea of a strong president is Barack Obama! Duh! Christ, there's a bit of historical ignorance for the ages...

This punk doesn't know his ass from his elbow, and I'm guessing he works next to the likes of Alex Seitz-Wald for a damn good reason.

Comments

[Randy Rager]

"it's about Matt Yglesias being too intellectually shallow (or dishonest, take your pick)"

I have to choose just one?

[Dennis the Peasant]

I don't want to get too rough. The poor boy might break down and cry. As it is he seems to be on the verge of having an episode.

[Matthew Yglesias]

I guess you're not familiar with what "strong president" means in a comparative government context.

Meanwhile, the notion that late 18th century Britain was an example of a modern parliamentary system is laughable. The King took an active role in government and the House of Lords exercised meaningful power; it was very different from the sort of parliamentary system you see in contemporary countries like the UK or Germany. I don't see why this should be controversial. Judd Gregg made a mistake. I pointed out the mistake. But you're blinded by partisanship or personal dislike of me (or institutional dislike of Harvard?) and won't admit it.

[Randy Rager]

BWHAHAHAHA!

Dennis, I had no idea your site traffic was up so high.

Or did I just see Yglesias make the epic n00b mistake of punching down?

Either way, good times.

[David]

That left a mark, Dennis. Good one.

"the notion that late 18th century Britain was an example of a modern parliamentary system is laughable"

The notion that anyone pays any attention to what you write is laughable, Matt. Your writings, such as they are, reflect someone so short on life experience and work as to reveal a profound ignorance of how people who don't run in your circles live (these people are called "Americans"). Your blog is a series of unquestioned (and poorly-written) assumptions that seem to be the product of living in a hermetic environment where everyone agrees with you.

As far as a personal dislike of you, why would you assume that? Is it because the political is always personal with you lefties? Or is it because you're too thin-skinned to take it?

As far as Harvard goes, why see it for anything other than what it is, the Vatican of self-esteem?

[John]

Nice try.

Other than your ad hominem attack you are shooting blanks. Just another specious argument from a wingnut.

[David]

"Just another specious argument from a wingnut"

Ah, liberal projection. Next!

[sparky]

ahh, speciousness. fortunately it comes from all over our great land.

anyway, while i defer to your use of invective and ad hominem, someone ought to point out, since for some odd reason you don't, that matty y was writing in response to what appears to be an attempt by J Gregg to pretend that the filibuster was a "founding fathers" intended procedural rule.

now, we can talk about whether the conversion of the filibuster procedural rule into a supermajority requirement for all Senate legislation is a good idea or not. being a commie, i think it's a rather bad idea as it allows a group of Senators from small states (both R & D) to hold, well, pretty much anything, hostage. but i suppose it might be a good thing if you live in, say RI. or MT.

as for your other point (the parliment argument), well, "obviously" is, i am somewhat sorry to say, a rather disappointing lapse on your part. if you are going to call out sloppy argumentation the least you could do is avoid deploying it in the selfsame posts.

/signed,
disappointed commie

[Simon]

Meanwhile, just to point out that Gregg is an idiot, where on earth has he gotten the idea that the Founding Fathers “saw the parliamentary system” and “knew it didn’t work?” There were no countries operating on a modern parliamentary system when the constitution was written. And why doesn’t it work? It seems to work in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, etc.

This is akin to saying 'Bob Smith said that Ben Franklin saw the prototype of an airplane (ie a bloke wearing wings) and knew it didn't work. Bob Smith is a fool - jet airplanes work really well'.

Young Mat is what we, who live in parliamentary systems, call a fair dinkum fucking idiot.

[badanov]

What Matt likes about the modern parliamentary system is that is gives tiny political parties a say in governing whenever they join a majority coalition.

It means the extreme left wing of the democratic party gets to make policy as a condition of it participation in the coalition, when in most other systems, their ideas would be considered on the fringes.

[just passin by]

The smartest thing America could do is to ban anyone with an Ivy League education from political office, political organization, or journalism.

These schools specialize in an education of circular logic, selective argumentation, pompous indifference to facts, politically correct dogma, "gotcha" semantic games, leftist based "deconstructionism", changing the goalposts, and derision towards American greatness.

Yglesias is a perfect example in this post alone. He first makes the statement, "where on earth has he gotten the idea that the Founding Fathers 'saw the parliamentary system' and 'knew it didn’t work?' There were no countries operating on a modern parliamentary system"
When Dennis cluebats him with a little history, Yglesias then states "...The King took an active role in government and the House of Lords exercised meaningful power; it was very different from the sort of parliamentary system you see in contemporary countries like the UK or Germany"
What Yglesias does not do is to demonstrate why that means the Founding Fathers could not see the problems with the way the the British parliamentary system "exercised meaningful power"
"Modern", in Yglesias's context, simply means "whatever wins the argument at any given point"

The "Vatican of self-esteem". Fucking priceless, David :>

Yglesias; if you want to be taken seriously, how about publicly deconstructing Chomsky as just another pompous, socialist, academic with an anti-American philosophy?

[Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain]

How is it possible that a group of chattering apes misses the point, has been informed it missed the point, yet still continues to fling poo?

Gregg implied, in his usual less than honest way, that the filibuster is part of the Constitution. He quotes Washington's "cooling off" metaphor, but refuses to mention the institutional the check the Senate was supposed to provide was that its members were not chosen by the very people whose whims made the House so dangerous. So, Gregg cherry picks Washington for the purpose of mis-leading his audience and Dennis (motivated by what the RNC calls "fear" or "vanity" or being a "reactionary") follows suit and pretends Matt's essay is about comparative government when it is about the ignorance or duplicity of Judd Gregg.

Address the point, Dennis: is Judd Gregg correct that the filibuster was envisioned by the Founders as a way to gum up the works*

*hint: the answer is "no" I'd ask you to apologize to Matt, but I'm sure you're displaying your vain, fearful reactionary attitudes at some other person's better intellect. On the plus side, at least there will never be a shortage of topics.

[just passin by]

LOL...there's your point; "the better intellect"

Did you learn that at haaaavahd?

[Dennis the Peasant]

Still no word from Matt. I suspect he and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain are at the club having dinner with Thurston Howell III and his wife. No doubt celebrating their return from that three hour tour...

[Dennis the Peasant]

Being a super-genius myself, I posted this in the wrong post's comment section. Ergo, it is out o' sequence:

Oh my... controversy!

I've sent an email to Yglesias asking him to confirm the above comment was his. I suspect it is a fake, largely because he's too far up the food chain to be bothering with a 1,500 pageview per day blogger. Until he confirms or denies, I'm going to pass on burning any time on it. If it is fake, there's no point in fooling with it.

It is tax season, after all.

[Just One Friend of Peter Bocking.]

Well, it was the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that established Parliamentary primacy more than the earlier unfortunate episode, but otherwise, I couldn't agree with you more.
================

[TmjUtah]

How can people who presume to declare a 250 + year old legislative system as broken based on their failure to enact an agenda miss the doctrinaire Marxist (of the dorm room variety, but hey, he was a Leaguer, too...) running the fucking Executive branch?

What is this "strong president" model of which he speaks? Why does he think it's not happening right now? All those czars writing lines of Federal regulation across scores of agencies reflect more real clout than Sam Rayburn's whole stint as speaker, or the impact of all the entitlement law since FDR. Since when has an organization ever benefited from having passive leadership, Mr. Kos? Outside of "Growing Pains"? The PC rot is apparentlyrun so deep that wussification as the norm is now the expected state of the presidency.

Right now, sitting around some tiki bar in Florida, there are a bunch of old retired Soviet sleeper agents who ran Disinformation and Agitprop on college campuses in the sixties and seventies, and they are reading Kos and his ilk.

"Wow. Piotr, Sergei... WE WON!!!"

Shit. I thought... I ASSumed that dickless men were mandated only as white straight male TV characters. I guess they assumed that The Won's diminuitive stones were already securely ensconced in Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeechelle's disco purse.

Come to think of it, that's a safe bet.

[Danube of Thought]

Where was Yglesias when the Dems were filibustering judicial appointments?

[Randy Rager]

He was beating his meat like a chimp at the zoo.

Was that over the top? I never can tell.

[Mike Myers]

Geez, I figure a parliamentary system strong enough to commit regicide (for Matty--they cut the King's head off) is a pretty "strong" parliamentary system.

But the power between the executive and the legislature ebbs and flows. I figure that LBJ was pretty strong--for a while--and that Carter was a weak dipshit from the git go.

[richard mcenroe]

Dennis, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain would have known Yggie and his defenders for the fatuous oafs (oaves?) they are. He was a man of genuine accomplishment and sacrifice for this country and the Constitution Yggie never got around to reading. It's embarrassing to see him used so cheaply.

[TmjUtah]

Hmmm. What's Chamberlain famous for?

"We will refuse the left. At all costs, we must refuse the left."

And he did. They, the 20th Maine, did. And the Republic (or at least the Army of the Potomac) was saved.

I think that's genuine unintended funny right there, that is....

[Tim Worstall]

Err, the evidence that the King influenced politics, that the House of Lords had power.....this isn't realy evidence that it wasn't a strong parliamentary system.

I mean, the last time a Monarch refused to sign a bill into law after it had passed both houses of Parliament was, umm, Queen Anne, in 1708 (The Scottish Militia Bill, for purists).

Obama's got more veto power than that....

[Dennis the Peasant]

Don't confuse us with facts, Tim.