How-To Guide to TV Punditry

On “Tax Day,” April 15^th, a federal judge declared

that the US law authorizing a National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. US District Judge Barbara Crabb said the federal statute violates the First Amendment’s prohibition on government endorsement of religion. She issued a 66-page decision and enjoined President Obama from issuing an executive order calling for the celebration of a National Day of Prayer. The National Day of Prayer was first authorized by Congress in 1952. Since 1988, the date has been set as the first Thursday in May. The judge stayed her own injunction pending the resolution of any appeals.

“I understand that many may disagree with [my] conclusion and some may even view it as critical of prayer or those who pray. That is unfortunate,” Judge Crabb wrote. “A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant, or undeserving of dissemination,” she said. “Rather it is part of the effort to carry out the Founders’ plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society.”

On May 6, National Prayer Day, Bill O’Reilly weighed in on the matter, and it’s an exemplary model of how to turn a policy disagreement into a threat to the American way of life.

First, remember that your show is not about making a reasoned argument based on logic and evidence. It’s theater. It’s a show, so start with a simple, straightforward assertion, and add a dose of hyperbole:

O'REILLY FACTOR: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, today is a National Day of Prayer. It has been endorsed by President Obama. But there are legal challenges all over the place. And that of course, is dumb. The Constitution clearly states the government cannot impose religion on citizens. But setting aside a day to encourage expression of voluntary spirituality is in no way an imposition.

Simple, right? The judicial ruling is “dumb.” ‘Nuff said.

And nevermind that there aren’t “legal challenges all over the place." One group, in one venue, the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wisconsin, filed a lawsuit asserting that the federal government’s Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment’s proscription on government establishment of religion. But facts need not trouble us here.

Second, bring someone on the show who shares your view, someone who also enjoys authoritative weight among your viewers. Invite someone equally capable of oversimplifying a complex issue, and someone who won’t make you look stupid. Someone, say, who couldn’t even handle the marshmallow grilling she got at the hands of Katie Couric.

Now, a few weeks ago Sarah Palin said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska,: For any leader declare that America isn't a Christian nation and poking an ally like Israel in the eye, it's mind-boggling for--to see some of our nation's actions recently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: All right. The governor joins us now. So why do you think America is a Christian nation?

PALIN: I have said all along that America is based on Judeo-Christian beliefs and, you know, nobody has to believe me, though. You can just go to our Founding Fathers' early documents and see how they crafted a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that allows that Judeo- Christian belief to be the foundation of our lives.

And our Constitution, of course, essentially acknowledging that our unalienable rights don't come from man. They come from God. So this document is set up to protect us from a government that would ever infringe upon our rights to have freedom of religion and to be able to express our faith freely.

O'REILLY: OK.

Third, don’t worry about coherence. Palin’s answer to O’Reilly’s question—is the US a Christian nation—is evidently yes, but she confuses “Christian nation” with “Judeo-Christian beliefs,” two distinct concepts. That’s okay because we want to stay unclear while sounding so assertively clear. After all, saying “America is based on Judeo-Christian beliefs” is about as informative as saying the US’s roots lie in the Renaissance revival of ancient Greek and Roman thought, or Enlightenment principles. Sure, the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible are a part of the canon of US political culture—but that Bible is not the only text in that canon. Nor is there some sort of single, pristine Judeo-Christian belief system that traveled through time from the early Roman Christians to the doorsteps of the US Founding Fathers. But only dumb eggheads worry about such historical distinctions.

Follow the vague incoherence with some obfustication. Yes, the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution permit the “Judeo-Christian belief to be the foundation” for those who choose it, or were simply born with it, but they do not mandate it. But make it sound as if they do codify the Judeo-Christian tradition. And then stretch the meaning of the texts. The Declaration makes vague theistic references with the words “God,” “Creator,” and “Divine Providence,” but for our purposes here, that’s good enough to say we’re a Christian nation. Unfortunately, the US Constitution—the text with the force of law—does not make any reference to a divine entity, except for the standard practice of saying “Year of Our Lord” after the date. And it’s the Declaration that says “inalienable,” not the Constitution. This gives us the fifth point--don’t let facts get in the way of making your point.

PALIN: So it's ironic that here, on the National Day of Prayer, you know, there's so much controversy about whether or not we're a nation that's build on Judeo-Christian beliefs and whether or not we can even talk about God in the public square is absolutely nonsense what we are hearing.

This is good. O’Reilly’s smart programming—addressing the topic of Christian nation on the National Day of Prayer, gives Palin the opening to turn a policy difference over the role of religion in government activities into irony, though it’s not really “ironic.” Irony would be something like an Alabama judge insisting, in the name of religious liberty, that everyone must respect his particular religious beliefs and allow him to plant a huge 10 Commandments monument on government grounds. Well, maybe that’s not irony. It’s just hypocrisy. Again, only smartypants worry about careful use of language.

O'REILLY: All I have to do is walk into the Supreme Court chamber, and you'll see the 10 Commandments. And so we know that you're absolutely correct. The Founding Fathers did base not only the Declaration of Independence but the constitutional protections on what they thought was right and wrong. And what they thought was right and wrong came from the 10 Commandments, which is Judeo-Christian philosophy. That is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Sixth, be very selective with your evidence—what those social(ist) scientists call ‘massaging the data.’ And use that evidence to set up the simple equation. 10 Commandments in Supreme Court Chamber equals Christian nation. Easy. Don’t complicate matters by noting the others figures featured on the Supreme Court external friezes such as Menes, Hammurabi, Confucius, and Augustus, or Mohammed, Grotius, and Napoleon—or those pagan Three Fates near the main entrance.

O’REILLY: But here is what's happened. America has, as they say in California, evolved. And now we're a much more secular nation than we were back in 1776. So the opponents of spirituality in the public marketplace say, "Hey, this is a violation. We can't be pushing any kind of spirituality." And you answer?

PALIN: Well, that new kind of world view that I think is kind of a step towards a fundamental transformation of America that some want to see today, I think, again, that it is an attempt to revisit and rewrite history.

I think we should kind of keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant. They're quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 Commandments. It's pretty simple. I think what's missing in...

Seventh—accuse those whom you oppose of doing what you’re doing (what psychologists call “projection”). O’Reilly trots out a quick version of the modernization = secularization thesis that no one really buys anymore. Palin then knocks down this straw man by labeling it revisionism, even though she’s revising US history to fit her argument. Whatever the case, times have indeed changed, perhaps more rapidly in recent decades. According to one survey study, the percentage of US Americans identifying as Christians has declined from 86% in 1990 to 76% in 2008 (Another survey by Pew reports 78%). And a large proportion of those not identifying as Christians have not joined any other religious affiliation. Maybe O’Reilly and Palin are unaware of these data, but if they were aware, they were right not to mention them. You don’t name the secret fear—the growing pluralism of US society. And did you notice O’Reilly’s sly move? Opponents of federal government sponsorship of religious rituals really oppose spirituality in general. That suggests an eighth point. Never miss an opportunity to misrepresent those with whom you disagree.

O'REILLY: What do you say, though -- what do you say to the people in Chinatown and San Francisco and here in New York and other big cities, the Asian-Americans who come from a different religious culture? Do they not participate in the Judeo-Christian tradition? I mean, they don't believe it. They believe in something else.

PALIN: We get to say to them, "Yay, welcome to America, where we are tolerant and you have a freedom to express whatever faith. You can participate peacefully in whatever religion that you choose. That's what America is all about."

And we would ask, though, that there be respect by our courts. Look at Judge Crabb and this ridiculous ruling or her opinion that's come down that says the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. We would ask that there would be respect for what the Judeo-Christian beliefs are, too. It's mutual tolerance.

Here we see a nice repetition of the seventh and eighth points. Judge Crabb (perfect name!) and the courts are not keeping the state out of promotion of a theistic practice, they are discriminating against all those who share Judeo-Christian beliefs. And this suggests a ninth tactic—act as if you speak for all right-minded people. Your beliefs are common sense; those of your opponents are nonsensical, and this is so obvious that you don’t need to spell out why.

O'REILLY: What do you think drives -- what do you think drives Judge Crabb, who I agree with you is desperately wrong? Again, there is no imposition of religion on a voluntary National Day of Prayer. It's just encouraging people to be spiritual. You can pray to a tree. You can be a Deist. I mean, you know, Founding Fathers, some of them were.

PALIN: Yes.

O'REILLY: So there's no imposition. So what drives a Judge Crabb to say, "Hey, this should be illegal"? What do you think drives that?

PALIN: You know, you wonder what in hell scares people about talking about America's foundation of faith, and you wonder why in the world would she rule as she's ruled? And I guess she'll further explain herself.

But every state Constitution acknowledges God, because every state Constitution, which backs up our U.S. Constitution, can acknowledge that our unalienable [sic] rights came from God not from man.

O'REILLY: Why would Crabb do that? You must have thought about it. Why would Crabb do it? What does she want to accomplish by this?

PALIN: It is that world view that, I think, involves some -- some people being afraid of being able to discuss our foundation, being able to discuss God in the public square. That's the only thing I can attribute it to, is some fear of some people.

But look at our national motto, "In God We Trust." How inconsistent, then, to be told that we, on a National Day of Prayer, which, as you point out, isn't any kind of mandate or any kind of force for anybody to believe any certain thing, but how inconsistent to say that, though, in the public square we cannot talk about or talk to that God that is in our national motto.

O'REILLY: Yes, we can only trust in the God inside our own homes, but once we get out, we can't trust him.

A version of the ninth point. O’Reilly is figuratively shaking his head at the idiocy of people like Judge Crabb. Just a crazy world. Then a flourish of misrepresentation, incoherence and non-facts by Palin. Opponents of the National Day of Prayer have dubious motives (they fear believers), and the federal practice of a theistic ritual is not sanctioning a particular religion, but is a natural response to the roots of our country (also a nice confusion of a government-sponsored ritual and the entire public square). Nevermind that the National Motto was an early Cold War creation (1955), not a primordial creed of the nation. But again, don’t worry about historical accuracy. Palin could have passed off other Cold War religious innovations as existing since the founding: along with the National Day of Prayer (1952), there was adding “under God” to the Pledge (1954), and the National Prayer Breakfast every February (1954). The federal government even granted Billy Graham permission to hold an evangelical revival on federal grounds (1952). Man, those were the days.

All right, Governor, always good to see you.

PALIN: Bill -- Bill, OK, hey, we also need to remember, though, Margaret Thatcher and other foreign leaders and foreign observers thinking America is such a great and exceptional nation, because we do base our lives, our values on the God of the Bible, the Old and the New Testament.

O'REILLY: All right.

PALIN: If they can observe it, we should.

O'REILLY: We appreciate you coming on. . .

Yes—always good to end with some chest-thumping patriotism. In short—oversimplify the issue, misrepresent your opposition, don’t worry about accuracy, logical consistency, or historical complexity, and deliver it all with the upmost confidence in your righteousness, and the certainty of wrongdoing in others.

Bad Combo of Fear and Desperation in Arizona

The recent Arizona anti-immigration law (full text here) is understandable, but is likely unconstitutional, and just plain bad policy.

It is understandable because Congress has been dithering for years on this issue while others have been bearing the brunt of the costs of unauthorized immigration. I call it unauthorized—as does the Department of Homeland Security—because I don’t associate myself with those who see such immigration as a criminal act, as if someone coming to do cheap labor is on the par with, robbers, murderers, or the thieving executives of Enron and Tyco.

I witnessed these costs several years ago during a visit to Cochise County, Arizona. While walking the trails at Coronado National Forest on the border between Arizona and Mexico, I came upon garbage (discarded clothes, plastic jugs, etc.). Turns out, according to the park ranger (formerly in the Border Patrol), the park has to clean up tons of garbage each year. Moreover, the smuggler trails cross through environmentally sensitive areas, degrading habitats for plants and animals (you can find related 2006 congressional testimony on this matter here). Cochise County sheriffs sat me down with a folder of pictures—dead bodies their office was responsible for recovering—the result of federal deterrence efforts (like increasing surveillance and building more fences) that did not deter, but only drove migrants to cross through more remote areas, and, hence, higher death rates. It cost the County two to four thousand for each body recovered they said. Moreover, the sheriffs told me, the Border Patrol routinely refused to cite a suspected unauthorized immigrant if she or he was injured. Rather than take on the healthcare costs, Border Patrol agents would simply drop them off at hospitals and clinics, shunting the cost from federal coffers to local ones (though I should add that I heard numerous stories from undocumented Mexicans in Indiana that Border Patrol agents had saved them or a relative after they become separated from their coyote—or abandoned by him—and were wandering lost in the deep desert).

And there was the cost to the Douglas High School—with so many children from mobile migrant families, a significant number of students who were there at the beginning of the school year were gone by the time of testing required by the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB), and therefore the school could not meet the NCLB requirement that at least 95% of students take the standardized tests. And, of course, there are the other more dramatic costs that typically get more attention—the violence associated with narcotrafficking.

Along with bearing the costs of being the conduit for cheap labor for employers elsewhere in the country, unauthorized immigrants make up a relatively high percentage of Arizona’s total population (see table below). Though their number is far lower than those of California and Texas, Arizona’s relatively low population means their presence is harder to ignore.

State	Population (2009 est)	Unauthorized Immigrants (2009 est)	Percentage Unauthorized
California	36,418,000	2,600,000	7.1%
Texas	23,846,000	1,680,000	7.0%
Florida	18,182,000	720,000	4.0%
New York	19,429,000	550,000	2.8%
Illinois	12,829,000	540,000	4.2%
Georgia	9,509,000	480,000	5.0%
Arizona	6,344,000	460,000	7.3%

Sources: US Census Bureau, Factfinder, at http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en; and Department of Homeland Security, “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population residing in the United States, January 2009 (January 2010), at http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2009.pdf

That said, the policy is wrong-headed, reflecting the apparent US tendency to resort to force to resolve challenges or turn back perceived threats. Every time the US has increased border enforcement (with fences, more Border Patrol, etc.), the area of increased enforcement has simply meant the redirection of human trafficking, along with an escalation of violence. And US Americans need to keep in mind that migration is not just a domestic issue, it is a foreign policy matter. Migration law is within the constitutional jurisdiction of the federal government, and it needs to act now in order to prevent an array of disparate migration policies that will make overall migration policy even more irrational than it already is. The Arizona law is also impracticable, dumping a gargantuan task on local law enforcement agencies in an economic environment of state and local retrenchment.

And there’s the issue of racial profiling that will undoubtedly result. Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me’s Peter Sagal lampooned the notion that the law has nothing to do with race or ethnicity:

Peter Sagal: “What might make the police think someone is illegal? Not their skin color or accent, no, no, that would be racial profiling. Instead, the police will be looking for people who seem reeeally homesick. . .

Amy Dickinson: “Writing postcards. . .”

Peter Sagal: “Exactly. Just standing there, looking in the distance, saying, hmm. . .

Amy Dickinson: “Oh, if only. . .”

Roy Blount, Jr.: “In Arizona you should probably not go to a policeman and ask for directions.”

Amy Dickinson: “Right. That’s out. . .”

Peter Sagal: “One defender of the bill, one Californian Congressman named Brian Bilbray said ‘No, it’s not about the skin color or anything else. You can tell people are illegal by the way they dress.’ That’s what he said. And he’s right of course because as we all know they often wear T-shirts that say ‘I’m with undocumented.’ Or here’s a favorite, ‘My mother smuggled me across the Sonoran desert and I’ll got was a low-paying job you people don’t want.’”

If you still doubt that race and ethnicity do not really matter in Arizona’s militant anti-immigration policy, consider a new state law that conflates sedition and studies of particular ethnic groups. The law bans public school courses that

Promote the overthow of the United States government.

Promote resentment toward a race or class of people

Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Well, who in the world in Arizona public schools is promoting the overthow of the US government? Do they have fringe elements of the Hutaree militia or Tea Party movements teaching there? No, the implication is that there is a connection between a multicultural education program and sedition. Evidently, the state that resisted celebrating MLK is again fighting the outcome of the Civil Rights movement. Multiculturalism was a result of that struggle, and really took off in the 1980s as educators worked to make history less a story of white people, and more an account recognizing the presence of people of color, and women, in our country’s history. Ethnic studies programs are also the result of ongoing specialization in academia—every discipline has experienced an explosion of sub-disciplines.

What the lawmakers present as egalitarian individualism is really part of a incoherent project to fashion Arizona into what Sarah Palin called “real America,” a place where whites can again be unconscious of their entitlements, not troubled by the seamier side of our country’s history (hey—a shout-out to the Texas Board of Education!), and where everyone speaks American--the Arizona Department of Education has ordered schools to no longer allow teachers with “heavy” or “ungrammatical” accents to give English courses.

So the Arizona government will take care of the unauthorized immigrants at the point of a gun, and can deal with the critics by shutting down certain kinds of inquiry and teaching, and by calling them treasonous. Along with Sagal’s advice to suss out the illegals by looking for the homesick, Arizona could try testing anyone entering the state for her or his fluency in spoken American. The state will lose some potential retirees from, say, Boston and New York City, but freedom from fear of the other don’t come cheap.

By the way, Arizona made think of the depiction of Topeka, Kansas in the cult Sci-Fi classic, A Boy and His Dog. . .