Hugh Hewitt, whom I genuinely like, has spent the entire week flogging his strained defense of Neera Tanden’s candidacy to head the OMB. Now, of course, part of this is Hugh trying to get people to read his weekly column where he makes the same argument in print, but Hugh’s need to sell his work does not excuse the argument itself.
Hugh’s beef breaks down into two parts, which I’ll deal with separately.
First, he argues that the Senate is creating a standard, call it the “Neera Tanden mean tweets standard” that will eliminate an entire generation of young people who are active on Twitter from ever serving in a Government position that requires confirmation. Hugh is an establishment guy, he’s as much a part of Government as any Senator or Congresscritter and he has a vested interest in the smooth operation of Government. But I think this is a perfect example of the disconnect between establishment Republicans and the rest of us. I don’t think the argument that “people will have trouble getting into Government because they are assholes on Twitter and that’s bad” will hold a lot of water with regular Americans who live in fear of getting cancelled every single day. If you make it as far as a Senate Confirmation hearing then you are officially a part of the Elite and I think it rankles most Americans when you make the argument that the Elite should be held to a different standard simply because they are Elite.
On top of that, Hugh needs to understand that we live in a world of incentives. If we want people to stop being assholes on social media, then we need to start punishing people for being assholes on social media. If there’s a young person in Government right now who wants to be a cabinet official, but who also likes being an asshole on Twitter, then that person needs to make a choice. If you want to continue to rise in Government, then delete your account and get the hell off social media, doing so is a healthier choice anyway. If you’re an addict, however, and you can’t give up the endorphin rush of being a snarky dick on Twitter, well they you pays your money and you takes your chances. If enough people pay a professional price for being an asshole on Twitter, then fewer people will be assholes on Twitter, ipso facto. This is a long term outcome Hugh Hewitt should support.
Second, Hugh argues that the Senate is setting up an unconsitutional standard where people who criticize Senators can be denied positions in Government by that same Senate. I see the point, and we should always be wary about creating special standards of protection for Government officials. But I think he’s being dishonest about what’s happening here. Neera Tanden is not going to be voted down because she criticized Senate policy, she’s going to be voted down because she personally insulted individual Senators. This is a critical difference. Again, we live in a world of incentives and I think it’s a worthy goal to help young people understand that if they personally and publicly insult the people from whom they seek employment, then that employment is likely to be denied. Indeed, this is a lesson worth teaching good and hard.
Trump’s election revealed a huge gap between a Republican electorate who feel they are constantly being asked to default to compromise with Democrats by a GOP Party Establishment who never seems to demand that the other side make similar concessions, and Hugh’s argument in favor of Neera Tanden is further evidence that this gap continues to widen post-Trump.
UPDATE: Michael Walsh used a phrase in his column today on the SCOTUS refusal of Trump’s PA fraud case that perfectly describes what I think is the Hewittian approach to the Neera Tanden case and beyond…
” Heads, Democrats win, tails, Republicans lose.”
Yup… that’s the way the voters out in flyover country see it. They know that if the Dems had a GOP nominee dead-to-rights with offensive tweets that they would bounce him outta the Senate so hard and fast it would show up on the Cal-Tech seismographs, and they don’t see why we always have to be the ones to fold up our tents and go home.