"So," people ask me, "what's the book called?" "Good question," I tell them. But now: HEADS IN THE SAND: How Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.
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Title
01 Aug 2007 11:45 am
Comments (74)
My hearty congratulations to you sir. A fine title.
However, is there any reason why it's just "Republicans" but "the Democrats?" Just wondering.
...from Hitler to Hillary?
This administration's head is in something, but it's not sand.
As a self-appointed member of your title focus group, I must say:
The subtitle bothers me. Perhaps the phrase "screws up" is the problem.
I'm with Mikey. I think a simple substitution of "hurt" for "screw up" would work.
"This administration's head is in something, but it's not sand."
Perhaps the sand in question has recently been pounded.
I agree with Mikey. "screws up" sounds like you're softpedaling the "fucks up" you would prefer to be using.
Second the bothering subtitle. I think the problem is that you're trying a parallel construction but the subject agreement requires you to say "screw up" and "screws up" so it doesn't flow well.
you're kidding, right?? The subtitle is horrible. You can't use "screwed". a) it's rude, b) it reinforces stereotypes about angry young bloggers, c) it makes the subject matter sound trivial
Bah! "Screw up" is much stronger than "hurt." Marshall is probably right, though, about making the construction parallel between Republicans and Democrats with either a "the" before both or neither.
I have to second Mikey. I like the general thrust of the subtitle, but not the subtitle itself. Subtitles should have a flowing, quasi-lyrical quality to them; this helps compensate for the fact that they tend to serve as longer, draggier explanations of catchier, pithier titles. Right now the subtitle feels like a rough draft. Not that I'm the audience you really need to pitch to, since I was going to get this anyway, but still.
PT, he didn't use "screwed". He used "screw up", which is completely different and not anywhere close to cursing. What decade are you posting from, when people viewed "screw up" as rude and angry? Plenty of "respectable" new outlets use the phrase.
That said, I'm not wild about the subtitle either. "Screw up" isn't a great choice, but that's not because it's rude or angry.
I like the subtitle just fine, actually.
I believe the subtitle you meant to include was "A Very Serious, Thoughtful, Argument that Has Never Been Made in Such Detail or with Such Care".
HEADS IN THE SAND: Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Venus, and Greens are from Pluto, Which is no longer a Pleanet
KCinDC, fair enough. but I still think "screw up" is all of those things too. As someone said earlier, why not say "hurt".
You of all people should have an edit function, Matt!
I don't like the "screw(s) up" either.
I've always wondered who the market is for these sorts of book-length op-eds. I consider myself something of a political junkie, and I'd never read one, whoever wrote it -- mainly because I'd expect the content to be dated or (or possibly discredited) before I finished reading the book.
Heads in the Sand: Democrats are from Mars, Republicans are from Your Anus.
I liked "Untitled Matthew Yglesias Foreign Policy Project", but this is good too.
Matt, I'd urge a more sale-able title, like: Harry Potter and the Foreign Policy of Doom.
HEADS IN THE SAND: How the Republicans' Losing Foreign Policy Wins at Home
forward by Lou Dobbs, picking up the shards of the broken borders with his own two palsied, liver-spotted hands.
Al's attempts at humor are like watching Lou Dobbs try to order a Burrito at a Mexican restaurant and simultaneously ascertain the waiter's immigration status.
Don't listen to them! "Screws up" is a much, much better phrase than "hurts." Say them out loud and try to tell me "hurts" is better. Plus, if it suggests "fucks up," that a feature, not a bug.
WRONG
What happened to LOL WTF d00d: A Sober Analysis of the Bush Doctrine?
I confess I don't much like it. For the "screws up" reasons given, and also because the reference to sand makes it sound as if it's only about the current mid-east crisis and not foreign policy more generally.
Drop the subtitle. Careless shoppers will think it's something written by Ann Coulter.
I suggest "Sacrifical Victims".
Because the PRIMARY point about our foreign policy has been the deeply malign effects it has had on the common citizens and on the national interest.
Plus the deep deceit and hypocrisy of the responsible parties -- who waved the American Flag even as they betrayed it.
Are people like Pollack, Richard Perle and Bill Kristol all that different from the fat high priests of the Aztecs --who torn out the hearts of living people in the service of Personal Interest and Power??
Before you finish your book, visit Walter Reed. Visit the families who have lost children in Iraq.
Foreign policy requires careful thought but it is not a chess match in the park.
"Heads in the Sand" sounds more the usual smart-ass, self-satisfied liberal meme -- "my political opponents are not very bright".
Gregorio wins.
HEADS IN THE SANDS: How Repulicans screw up and that screws up Democrats.
Is this a joke? That can't really be the title, can it? It sounds like it written by a high school freshman.
I LOVE the sand wordplay: it's apt, because the Middle East has been the epicenter of Bush's abuses even if his idiocy begins with our Western allies. I think you're trying to convey how the GOP lose abroad yet continue to win at home-- in large part due to our cowardly, pom-pom or atom-bomb media.
HEADS IN THE SAND: How the Pollution of the Mainstream Media has Sickened our Political Discourse and how the Republicans are like the Pharmaceutical Companies and the Democrats are like the HMOs and How We're All Fucking Fucked. Fuck!
How about:
"Foreign" Policy: How Republicans Always Lose and Democrats Never Win
Or "The Foreign Policy Divide: ..."
The subtitle should flow from or support the title. But your title has nothing to do with your subtitle. You should change your title to some variation on "WTF" - so as to foreshadow the "screws" - or have a subtitle that has something to do with blindness or failure of vision, or start all over again.
1) The title is ok fine. Matt has a certain style, and the irreverence and ironic juvenalism are parts of it. Check his post titles.
2) I am of course, just making an informed guess on the content, but "screws up" might be succinct and accurate. The book might be about the epistemic disjuncts between the domestic ideologies and foreign policy agendas within each party. "Confusion" would not support the parallelism.
borrowing from Gregorio:
The Foreign Policy Divide: Why Republicans Lose Abroad while Democrats Lose at Home"
I like it! Marshall's right about the inconsistent "the", though.
I also don't like "screw up." It's too coarse. I realize you're aiming at journalistic informality rather than scholarly decorum. But "screw up" is, like "bollocks up" or "fuck up", too vulgar for a serious book.
However, I couldn't think of a good replacement term that would let you keep the parallel construction. "Screw up" has the happy property that it can mean both "botch" and "confound", which are the two meanings in use here.
"Hurt" is too weak, and anyway doesn't quite capture the correct meanings.
Perhaps you could find two different words or expressions that are connected by a rhyme or alliteration?
"Screws up" isn't coarse at all. It's so far removed from the sexual connation of screwing that most people don't even think of anything sexual when they hear it. Like the term "sucks" which nowadays has nothing to do with fellatio.
How old are you people that think "screw up" is vulgar, crude, and angry? It may be informal, but I hardly think that people using it are making any connection to anything sexual. And I'm hardly a youngun in the blogosphere, having been in utero when JFK was assassinated.
"Sucks" would also be too coarse, I think.
"Screw up" is less coarse than "sucks".
I'm guessing it's a book about how the Republicans are militarists and imperialists, and how militarism and imperialsm sells to the American people, so the Democrats feel pressured into being militarists-lite and imperialists-lite? Could be interesting.
The title is perfect. The subtitle is pretty good too, although I wonder whether the phrase "screw up" (in its first usage, applied to the Republicans) does not too much suggest the notion of "incompetence" which you've taken considerable pains to discredit, at least as a critique of Iraq policy (which I realize is not the book's only subject).
Borrowing from KCinDC: "Democrats" are less coarse than "Republicans."
Also, if you want a less slangy option for 'screw up' you could just use 'foul up'. Not recommending it necessarily; just tossing it out there.
The title is good, and Ogged will buy ten copies no matter what he thinks of the title, so don't worry about it.
Or if you want the midwestern housemom version, try "Fudge Up," you betcha!
Too Coulterish and too obviously partisan, I'd say.
Too partisan?
How bout this:
Heads in the Sand: Jose's Bloombergian Dream for Bi-Partisan Meadow-frolicking in the face of the Most Corrupt Administration Since, Um, Actually It's the Reagan Administration Again, but Older and Crotchetier (and more Drunk...with Power...and Bud Select)
I'd rather see 'disaster' than 'screw up'-- maybe Heads in the Sand: How Republicans Are a Disaster for Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy is a Disaster for Democrats. Or maybe that's too clunky...
Maybe your relative youth is a problem; you don't want the title to be too crude or smartass (in blogese, 'clusterfuck'), but it shouldn't sound like a master's thesis ('debacle') either. You need stronger words than 'hurt,' though... my votes are with variants on 'disaster' and 'ruin.'
I like the general idea a lot but how about:
HEADS IN THE SAND: How Republicans Mismanage Foreign Policy and Hurt Practically Everyone.
Another thing that would be nice to work into the title is the intensely myopic aspect of the Republican worldview:
ME FIRST, NOBODY SECOND: How Republicans Mismanage Foreign Policy and Hurt Practically Everyone.
Why Republicans Lost A broad..
How about
"How Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Bugger the American People"
Nope. Sounds like we're talking about Christoper Hitchens.
Sigh. Let's bring in some Pizza and Beer.
This literary shit is hard. Now I remember why I dropped that English elective course in Engineering School.
Nothing against the book, and I don't mean to pick on Matt alone, but why have titles become almost as long as the book itself these days?To be fair, this one isn't even as long as many others, but it just made me think of a complaint I often have when I'm in the bookstore.
HEADS IN THE SAND: bush sucks, dems swallow
now lose the 's' from Heads and we got something
Perhaps "damages" instead of "hurts" or "screws up?"
CLUSTERFUCK IN THE SAND: Crooked Politicians, Corrupt Media & Complacent Citizens in an Orgy of Greed, Lies & Ignorance
I like it. The subtitle does seem a little bit off to me, but it has nothing to do with being coarse. Just seems a little stilted.
Title, shmitle. The high information folk are going to buy Yglesias' book based on reputation or review. If foreign policy ain't a niche market in America, I don't know what is. More attention should be given to the Borders crowd --the Sunday morning "Meet the Press" viewer who fancies himself a political junkie. He's the guy who's going to make your sales. And guess what's going to influence his purchase more that any other factor? I'm amazed that no mention has been given to the book's cover art.
The cliche "never judge a book by its cover" exists because everybody judges a book by its cover. The title won't be worth a damn if it doesn't break away from the same old red-white-blue color scheme that forever consigns most pages to die in the Barnes & Noble "Politics" aisle. The right cover will attract readers in terms of texture, quality, appearance, and perceived worth. That undeniably increases sales. Malcolm Gladwell writes some pretty crappy psuedoscience, but he was dead right on this. And not coincidentally, he had a great cover.
Get in on those art meetings, Mr. Yglesias. Don't be afraid to veto some proofs along the way. If you don't, you'll be ceding control of one of the most important aspects of your publication.
Matt- your cover should be a close-up of an ostrichs ass with your name and title in hot blurry pink
Title's fine, and big congrats on reaching that point.
Matters of parallelism aside, can anyone explain me why I feel like I'm always hearing references to "the Democrats" but "Republicans" can generally go without an article? It seems like a subtle, probably subconscious way of making Republicans "us" and Democrats "them." Or it might just be my imagination.
Republicans: Orcs, Democrats: Elves
Whigs: Maiar
your cover should be a close-up of an ostrichs ass with your name and title in hot blurry pink
Been done. Aisle 9. Gay & Lesbian themes means even lower sales.
Nothing GLTBSQQOTSA about 100% hott myopic Ostrich ass! Now, emu buns, otoh, are totally homofabulous! Stear clear of emu rear, you flaming queer! Seacrest out !!
How about something along these lines:
HEADS IN THE SAND: Republican Quackery, Democratic Quandaries and US Foreign Policy
HEADS IN THE SAND: How Republican Sleaze and Democratic Unease Hurt US Foreign Policy
HEADS IN THE SAND: How Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.
You shouldn't limit it to just foreign policy (NSA domestic wiretapping; U.S. Attorney scandal/worst Attorney General ever; Harriet Myers for SCOTUS; Cheney left his undislosed location to shoot a man in the face, whilst holding dearly to the claim exec priv on the energy task force notes, but claiming in a separate proceeding he was not in the exec branch, but a member of the legislative branch; no child left behind; weakest dollar in modern history, etc..., etc...).
Which leaves you with:
HEADS IN THE SAND: How Republicans Screw Up Everything While Democrats Screw Themselves.
My favorite part is the the that Marshall noted, since it deviates from parallel construction at just the moment when the antithesis would otherwise feel too contrived. Do Democrats not screw up foreign policy? Does foreign policy not screw up Republicans? A little more, a little less, whatever.
I don't like the phrase "foreign policy." It's vague and wonkish. It would be better to replace "foreign policy" with "the war on terror" if that weren't a stupid Republican slogan. It's too bad the Democrats don't have any foreign policy slogans of their own, but how about: "How the Republicans Lose Wars and Lose Allies While the Democrats Lose Elections" or "How the Republicans Can Keep Power but Can't Keep the Peace."
SHRUNKEN HEADS IN THE SAND: The American Compulsion to Use Cruise Missiles as Penis Extensions to Compensate for the Deflating Phallus of Empire
Comments closed August 15, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Perfect!
Posted by anrig | August 1, 2007 11:55 AM