You posed an either/or choice between social safety nets and unions.  I would say and have sadi: we need both.

As for being disingenuous, it’s not supporting one bailout and not supporting the other that is the whole story of Republican disingenuous-ness, but it’s part of a context where the “stumbling block” for them was that the bridge loan didn’t penalize unions harshly enough soon enough.

Which indeed seems “perverse” to me when considering the fact that unions weren’t the immediate cause of the financial/credit crisis.  Your friend’s reasons for supporting one but not the other bailout need not be disingenuous.  But my argument is that Corker & co.’s are.

This is a mere taste of how the Republican minority is going to try to govern starting in 2009:  blow up every legislative initiative that comes before them.  It’ll get ugly, I suspect.

But can you acknowledge the sincerity and thoughtfulness of the argument I was trying to make, and pay it the attention it deserves? I understand that unions help workers negotiate better pay and benefit packages. My point was that perhaps a better way for liberals to try to ensure that American workers have a high standard of living would be to fight for universal health care, free education, cheaper housing, etc. This is another way to help workers, isn’t it? I mean, you may think the best way to help workers is to support unions, and I think the best way to help them is to provide a social safety net that gives workers more freedom to leave their jobs, to work for less money, etc.

This is an argument that deserves a more thoughtful response than merely a restatment of how unions work. You disagreed with me, but provided no reasons for your disagreement beyond a simple definition of how unions work. In the context of your comments about my “perverse” opinions, I interpreted your glibness as an attack on my motives, and for that I must apologize.

You also write, “My point about malfeasance was that the moment one contextualizes Senate Republican opposition in terms of their support for the first bailout,their anti-bailout position comes to seem deeply disingenuous. It just seemed surprising to me that your post didn’t mention that important fact.”

So let me get this straight: Because Republicans supported the TARP bailout bill — a $700 billion bill intended to protect our entire global financial system from collapsing, bringing on unprecendented devastation — these same Republicans must logically be similarly inclined to support an auto bailout — a $15 billion bailout of a single industry? And that anyone who supports the first bill and opposes the second is “deeply disingenuous”?

Republicans aren’t robots who must support either all bailouts or no bailouts. They can support one bailout and oppose another.

Either way, it isn’t a “fact” that “their anti-bailout position comes to seem deeply disingenuous.” It’s your opinion. You say it “seemed surprising” to you that I didn’t make the same point in my post.

Why did it surprise you? Because even the most simple-minded jackass would agree with your opinion?

I have good friends who supported the financial bailout but don’t support the auto bailout. Their views aren’t “deeply disingenuous” or stupid. They simply believe the first bailout was necessary, and the second bailout is unnecessary.

Anyway, you’re a brilliant man and I love you very much. (I love you too Aaron, and you John, and you rbates, and all of you!) I think you are, in general, a very civil and constructive blogger. So I apologize if my defensiveness has become a distraction. Hopefully, we can keep the next blog clean of these sorts of distractions, as you suggested.

2. Re: helping workers.  You wrote:  “Wouldn’t it be better — and fairer — if liberals abandoned their commitment to the concept of labor unions and focused instead on strengthening the social safety net, so the failure of companies such as the big three auto makers wouldn’t be such a threat to the overall economy?”  I was answering this question.  My answer was no, it’s not better, not fairer.  I responded as so: “[I]f you want to help workers, help them unionize.  Doing so increases their wages and gives them the collective barganing power to acheive better work packages.

How you can interpret my answer to your question as an attack on your motives is beyond baffling.  You asked, shouldn’t we abandon unions and focus on the welfare state?  I answered, No, if you want to help unions, we should grow unions.  You respond:  How dare you attack my motives!  Your motives had nothing to do with the original conversation.  “Want” is not a moral term, it’s an intentional term.  As in, if you want to avoid heartburn, stop drinking so much alcohol.

You wrote above, “We made no demands of them and no requirements.  On this horrible malfeasance — and senseless transfer of our tax dollars from you and me to the big banks and their execs — you seem not to have much to say.”

When you wrote that I “seem not to have much to say,” about horrible malfeasance, I interpreted that as an attack on my motives. Why was I wrong?

You write, “But you seem not to be bothered by the behavior of the people bailed out by #1.” Again, I interpreted that as you calling me out for my motives. Why was I wrong?

You write, “BTW, if you want to help workers, help them unionize.  Doing so increases their wages and gives them the collective barganing power to acheive better work packages.”

The implication of your question is that I might not actually want to help workers. I had said earlier in my post that I didn’t think labor unions were the best way to help Americans, which includes workers. For you to make your suggestion conditional — as if there was some question as to what I really want — and then make the most basic argument in favor of unions is snarky and disrespectful, I feel.

As for the question of a “line,” I agree that the union workers shouldn’t be forced to work for nothing. or to sign a loyalty oath, or to sacrifice their pinky fingers. I disagree that they shouldn’t be forced to accept the conditions in the Corker amendment. Is that clear?

This latest response is indicative of what I’m talking about when I say you’re trying to “personalize” the conversation.  You think this conversation is about “[your]self” and “[your] motives.”  I don’t, and I agree that such things are “not what this blog should be about.”  If I ever gave the impression that I meant to attack your motives or person, I apologize.

My attack was not on your motives or your person but on your characterization of the situation — which I think is incorrect, for reasons stated above, at length.  What motivates you is an irrelevant question from my perspective as a political commentator.  If you were a computer algorithm whose “motivation” was producing sentences of a certain type, your output — those sentences — would be equally incorrect, and I would be equally uninterested in your motivation.

In the spirit of constructive engagement, I summarized the differences between our positions as follows:

The apparent source of our political disagreement is that I think there was a line that Corker crossed, you seem to think that there was no line Corker could have crossed.  (Or you think that there was a line and Corker didn’t cross it?)

I ask again, is this right or wrong? If it’s wrong, why?

You called my position “perverse” in your first response to my post. And your sarcastic response to my point about “the unfair, almost exploitative advantage” that union workers receive was similarly aggressive.

I guess I misinterpreted your comment about using the bridge loan as an excuse to shit on the UAW, because I thought it had some basic relevance to my post.

To Aaron: you did indeed misunderstand me. My point wasn’t that the unions were killing the legislation — my point was that the unions were apparently trying to kill the legislation. I had no idea when I wrote that line that the unions had actually done a great deal to kill the legislation.

And Lee, you write, “

This was a response to your ridiculous question to me, “Why should I care more about union workers than non-union workers?”  Implying that anyone who supports the bridge loan cares about union workers more than non-union workers.  My purpose in asking the question was to highlight how ridiculous your question was.”

I SUPPORT THE AUTO BAILOUT! So OBVIOUSLY I never intended to suggest that anyone who supports the bridge loan cares more about union workers than non-union workers. My “ridiculous question” wasn’t ridiculous at all, and your response was a bizzare attack on my motives. Which is not what this blog should be about.