Mordecai Lee—A descent into hollow reasoning

via mal

Mordecai Lee, Prof of Gov Affairs
UW-Milwaukee

'That 's sort of what this fight in Wisconsin is all about.'

The Rachel Maddow Show featured a superb guest host in Melissa Harris-Perry Tuesday night. 

Unfortunately, no one warned the host or her producers about Mordecai Lee, professor of Government Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Lee was a guest on a segment about Scott Walker's voter suppression-voter ID-close-the-DMV-offices.

Lee is notorious for, and let's be honest, acting like he is a dolt.

He's not. But Lee's commitment to veering into nihilism should the rational method indict the Republican Party is infamous.

A la the Washington Post editorial page, Lee pretends to believe that facts, logic and data show that all political parties are the same; and holding any one party accountable for its lies is missing the insight Lee has on the American political process.

Enlightening the viewers of the Rachel Maddow Show, Lee offers that in Wisconsin, "Partisan politics is a contact sport."

Brilliant.

An indignant Melissa Harris-Perry asked Lee about Scott Walker's closing down DMV offices right after signing the Voter ID law in an effort to make voting more difficult.

Lee said of Walker's DMV scheme: That's a "smooth move."

Asked if Republicans stand a chance in Wisconsin unless they make these draconian Voter ID laws, Lee responds with blather.

So, Harris-Perry presses him, asking Lee for comment on the lower-d, democratic value of obstructing rather than facilitating voters.

Here was Lee's great chance to tell the world that both major political parties are equally guilty of betraying democracy, national and Wisconsin Republican voter suppression programs aside.

Lee did not disappoint.

Said Lee: Since the civil rights movement era, "Every argument about enfranchisement or disenfranchisement has really been about partisan advantage. I don't necessarily think the Democrats have just, purely clean hands. Every party wants to gain an advantage. Democrats want lower-income and younger people to be able to vote. That 's sort of what this fight in Wisconsin is all about."

Got that? Republicans are engaged in a massive voter disenfranchisement scheme; but Democrats do not have "clean hands" because they want to enfranchise voters. Both parties are mere analogues of each other in the strange logic employed by Mordecai Lee.