It's worth noting that not only did John McCain oppose Jim Webb's bill expanding educational benefits for veterans, but he has a long track record of fairly stingy behavior on veterans' issues. As Hilzoy puts it "McCain has supported basic appropriations for vets. However, when there are two competing proposals, he generally chooses the cheaper one, and often, when only one proposal to increase benefits is available, he opposes it."
One sort of wonders why this is. McCain's clearly not some kind of dogmatic libertarian, and he certainly seems to have a great deal of emotional attachment to the military. I believe the particular military family in which he grew up was a bit idiosyncratic in actually being composed of life-long military officers rather than veterans (Webb, by contrast, is also from a military family and is clearly very influenced by his military background but after graduating from the academy put his time in then took advantage of veterans' benefits to move on to other things) as such. Or maybe he just takes very seriously the idea that we can't make the benefits too generous lest it undermine our ability to endlessly prolong the war in Iraq.
The American habit of electing non-federal judges has always intuitively struck me as a bad-sounding idea. I think reverence for the founders often goes too far in this country, but their arguments in favor of a non-elected federal judiciary seemed sound. But does research back this up? Certainly the result Alex Tabbarok describes here doesn't sound like justice, though it does have a certain populist quality that perhaps some will deem appealing.
Based on traffic conditions yesterday, high gas prices certainly didn't seem to be keeping people off the roads, but that's why we rely on data and the data shows a fairly large decline in driving recently showing that even in a country where public policy massively, massively, massively subsidizes driving and provides for few alternatives that people still do respond to incentives. What we need to do now is start subsidizing driving less (including through implicit subsidies like parking regulations) and start plowing some of the savings into better service on our existing transit routes and the creation of new ones.
Rod Parsley withdraws endorsement of John McCain. Given McCain's decision to embrace Parsley, then continuing to embrace Parsley when Parsley's repugnant views were brought to his attention, and then to distance himself from Parsley when the MSM brought Parsley's repugnant views to the attention of the public, it's understandable that Parsley's not happy with McCain.
But still -- why not endorse? What's really changed here? From the point of view of a social conservative who yearns for Muslim blood to be shed, McCain clearly seems like the lesser of two evils whatever else you might say about him.
Young people looking for summer jobs this year are set to face some of the worst labor market conditions in a while. There's a lot of stickiness in the labor market, so during a downturn firms don't necessarily cut back as much as they would if real life were a frictionless plane (instead, you just like nominal wages stay flat as real wages decline). But many slightly unorthodox corners of the labor market -- the summer jobs segment among them -- don't have these kind of features and it's easy enough to just avoid hiring as many part time temporary workers as you did the year before.
I think to really appreciate how foolish it is to worry about literally regaining the loyalty of "Reagan Democrats" you need to look at the winning coalition Jimmy Carter assembled in 1976. That's the coalition Reagan disrupted, and I think it's safe to say that it's a coalition that's dead for good. It'll be a cold day in hell before you see someone win New York and Texas while losing California and Illinois. At this point, the past is a different country in political terms.
UPDATE: And note that even in the more normal 1968, Humphrey carried Texas but badly lost in Vermont. Humphrey did better in West Virginia than in Pennsylvania which could never happen for a Democrat these days, and Nixon got a higher percentage of the vote in Oregon than in Oklahoma.
John Sides argues convincingly in the LA Times that once the Democratic nomination race is finished, the dynamics of an Obama-McCain campaign are very likely to unify Democratic voters around Obama. It's a good piece, and a welcome reminder that it would be good to see more political scientists doing popular writing on these much-discussed points about election dynamics.
I'd say that the more legitimate concern about unity would have to do with elite unity. There's a certain set of people who, say, donated to the Clinton re-election campaign in 1996, to Al Gore in 2000, to the DNC when Terry McAuliffe was chair, to some pro-Kerry 527 groups in 2004, and to Hillary Clinton's primary campaign in 2008. These folks aren't going to vote for McCain, but how invested will they be in backing Obama? That's in part going to be a function of whether or not Bill and Hillary urge them to be deeply invested in backing Obama. And much the same could be said for other brands of elites -- interest group leaders, random consultants and strategists, etc.
Maybe Hillary Clinton would strongly prefer being Vice President to being Senator from New York. If so, her sway over these kinds of people could be a good reason for Obama to seriously consider a unity ticket even though such a ticket has a bunch of other drawbacks.
I'm not sure how much of a difference it would really make in the end, but I do think it'd be neat to have a president and a team who can write and deliver great speeches with this one wending together a tribute to Ted Kennedy with a call to service for young people:
Each of you will have the chance to make your own discovery in the years to come. And I say “chance” because you won’t have to take it. There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should by. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s.
But I hope you don’t. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, though you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get here, though you do have that debt. It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story.
As with many of Obama's speeches, I think it would be possible to sniff at this one and proclaim it banal. But I think part of the brilliance of Obama's rhetoric is an ability to elevate important but somewhat banal sentiments, like how cleaning the facade of an old building you've passed dozens of times can make you appreciate the architecture in a way you rarely have before.
Julian Sanchez is also at the beach with me, and he's experimenting with some kind of set-up where he records movies on his iPhone and then they upload to his server as vlogs. This one's about ways to make distributed reporting work:
There seem to be some wind-induced sound quality problems,
I was reading GQ yesterday and they were advertorializing on behalf of a $795 sweater. Does anyone really walk around wearing an $800 sweater? I've had the opportunity in my life to meet a healthy number of rich people, and still I'm blown away by the price tags on the clothing I see in magazines whenever I break out of the sad political magazine ghetto.
Fascinating. Not only did I like Barack Obama's speech on Latin America policy, but apparently lots of folks in the audience from the fairly hardline Cuban American National Foundation liked it, too. As with the gas tax, perhaps, it's possible to win some political points by eschewing a bit of the usual BS.
It seems the inventor of the frozen french fry, J.R. Simplot, has died. It seems he wound up with a billion dollar fortune off this invention (primarily through McDonald's) even though it's the kind of thing I wouldn't have even thought of as having "been invented" as such.
My friend Dave Weigel's one of the best political reporters in the country in general. And when it comes to a story like the Libertarian Party convention with its seven ballots before Bob Barr prevailed, his account is the definitive one.
Via Tyler Cowen and Chris Blattman an op-ed about the madness of donating more money to Harvard's already-giant endowment (various other private universities also work here) rather than focusing your giving on causes that will actually help people in need.
A university that rich ought to either embark on some kind of ambitious expansion program and start educating substantially more students, or else decide that it would unduly alter the character of the place to expand that much and just close up the development department and enjoy the luxury of being able to focus single-mindedly on the university's core teaching and research functions.
Ron Rosenbaum sings the praises of so-called "liberal guilt." I largely agree. He says, though, that "What I don't understand is why there doesn't seem to be any conservative guilt over racism." I don't actually find this puzzling at all: There's little conservative guilt over racism because political exploitation of racial animosity has been an integral element of the conservative movement's political strategy ever since the day when the conservative movement stopped issuing straightforward defenses of white supremacy.
Under the circumstances, anyone who feels too upset about racism can't make it far in the conservative movement. You don't need to be a racist, as such, but in your public work you need to express much much much more concern about the alleged evils of "political correctness" or some such than you do about actual racism.
Via Brad Delong, Stan Collender thinks the Bush administration embezzled $15 billion and nobody in the press seems to have noticed or really cared. Commenting on this report of money that can't be properly accounted for in Iraq spending, he says "it appears as if virtually every procedure and law designed to prevent just this type of malfeasance was circumvented."
Greetings. I left DC Saturday morning with a bunch of friends for a beach house in North Carolina, and I'll be here on the Outer Banks all week on vacation. That doesn't mean I won't blog at all -- I like blogging, and don't think I've skipped a day since some time back in 2003 -- but I don't intend to keep up the full-service posting volume you normally see here on a business day. Consequently, I'm enlisting the assistance of some guest-bloggers. Specifically, we'll have Kay Steiger, associate editor at Campus Progress (sort of like the Komsomol for the new liberal revival in America); Alyssa Rosenberg, staff correspondent at Government Executive (like Forbes or Business Week for the public sector is how they describe it); Kathy G. whose self-titled blog has been taking the intertubes by storm and describes her as "a shrill feminist, bleeding heart liberal, hardcore policy wonk, political junkie, ardent cinephile, and lover of 19th century novels"; Ta-Nehisi Coates author of a self-titled blog, this great article, The Beautiful Struggle, etc.; and last, out of white male solidarity, I've recruited Isaac Chotiner whose work you can often see at TNR or in yesterday's Week in Review and who's promised to say something about the NBA.
And, as I say, I'll almost certainly keep chiming in. So enjoy! And be nice!
First off, thanks to Matt for his hospitality. I'll try and blog a bit about the exciting NBA playoffs, which seem to have started months ago and show no signs of ending (or, for that matter, fatigue). But Hendrik Hertzberg's Comment in this week's New Yorker is a good place to start, because it makes the connection between Hillary Clinton's popular vote strategy, and the HBO movie 'Recount,' which premiered last night and was both diverting and unexceptional.
The problem with the Clinton strategy--and I don't mean in political terms--is not that it shows her willingness to change positions in the name of political expediency. Rather, it's that if the popular vote had been the metric all along, Obama would have used a different strategy that did not rely so heavily on caucus states and their (generally) small populations.
The strange thing about 2000 was that it was Bush who pursued a strategy that should have netted him a popular vote win; he spent many of the campaign's last 72 hours in states like California and New Jersey, where he ended up getting destroyed. Meanwhile, Gore was working hard to win Florida and thus an electoral vote majority, but still managed to beat out Bush by half-a-million votes.
Incidentally, is there any doubt that if the Florida recount had gone the other way, Karl Rove would have been branded as a dope for allowing his candidate to spend time outside of Florida and Pennsylvania in that last week before the polls opened?
Over at The Plank, my co-blogger Josh Patashnik has an excellent post on how politicians and pundits badly miss the mark when evaluating the importance of the vice presidential selection. Rather than obsessing over the short term political gain--which according to the available evidence may not even exist--candidates selecting running mates should focus on the fact that their choice will be closely identified with their party for decades to come.
In my mind, the most ridiculous aspect of the veepstakes frenzy is the focus on vice presidential "qualities" that will supposedly help the presidential nominee. This can be seen most humorously in John Heilemann's New York magazine article on the "possibility" of a McCain-Bloomberg ticket. The idea is crazy enough on its own, but this quote in the essay is priceless, and perfectly captures the degree to which the issue is blown completely out of proportion: “The GOP is losing on the economy by 10 to 15 points,” says Doug Schoen, who served as Bloomberg’s pollster in his mayoral runs. “With Mike on the ticket, that gap would quickly, dramatically close.” Instead of disputing this absurd statement, Heilemann even more ridiculously adds that the "McCain–Bloomberg–Arnold Schwarzenegger troika" would put California in play for the GOP!
Anyway, let this stand as a plea for no more Veep talk until at least late July. Okay, fine, how about June 1st?
I second Isaac's thanks to Matt, and extend my gratitude to him for taking over basketball coverage for the week. Now I don't feel guilty about throwing a little baseball into the mix. But before I get all serious, I thought I'd wave goodbye to the hour left in the long weekend and welcome summer in with a few thoughts on summer jams.
Far be it from me to defend Will Smith’s rap career. My own tastes run a little more towards the Dirty South and a little less towards “Welcome to Miami.” But New York’sVulture blog is running a search for the best new song of the summer, and none of the entrants so far are particularly...summery. Is there actually a better song about June, July and August than “Summertime”?
I’ve racked my brain and my iTunes playlist. And while “Summer of ‘69” and “The Boys of Summer” capture individual summer romances, and the entire early Beach Boys catalog is the best possible homage to surfing and driving, the former are kind of well…angsty, and the latter are more than a little dated. But no matter how passé Will Smith’s shorts and flattop are, I can’t imagine a time when firing up a grill and hanging out in the sunshine wouldn’t be more fun than, say, coming back to work after a holiday weekend.
If you need to procrastinate while you recover on Tuesday morning, throw your favorite summer songs in the comments and I'll put up a Muxtape of the most-mentioned ones at the end of the week.
First off, many thanks to Matt for asking me to guest blog. Matt has long been one of my role models as a blogger and I'm honored that he invited me here. If you want to read more of my stuff, you can visit my own blog, The G Spot.
Now on to my first post here, which I warn you will be looonnnggg.
A number of people I greatlyrespect have been touting Virginia senator James Webb as Barack Obama's vice presidential pick. Indeed, more than a few of my liberal male friends seem positively smitten with the man.
But I say, enough with the mancrushes already! It's true that Webb, a Vietnam vet who's been decorated with with two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, the
Silver Star and the Navy Cross, is undeniably butch. But there are a number of reasons why he would be a terrible vice presidential pick.
Back in February, Ezra Klein made the case against Webb, and the reasons Ezra gave then still hold. For one thing, if President Obama wants to get anything done, he'll need a filibuster-proof majority in the senate. It would not be wise for him to choose a red state senator, because who knows if another Democrat could be elected to that seat? Also, as Ezra argued, the things that make Webb valuable as a "gadfly senator," such as his "brashness" and his "willingness to push the conversation forward," would be a bad match for the vice presidency, which would require him to "constantly watch his mouth" and not say anything that conflicts with the president's agenda.
All that is true, but the reasons why Webb would be a poor choice go way beyond that. Even Alex Massie, who strongly supports Webb for veep, has admitted that the man is "hopeless on the campaign trail":
You could see that it
pained him to even ask people to vote for him and he plainly had little
patience for the self-abasement and daily humiliations of life on the
campaign trail. He is not a natural baby-kisser. My sense - from his
own writing and what I've read about him - is that he is also
difficult, stubborn, awkward, cussed and not to be trifled with. these
too may not be attributes best-suited to a national campaign in the
modern political era.
Doesn't sound too promising, does it? But that is actually the least of my worries about Webb. No, what I worry about is the fact that Webb basically became a Democrat the day before yesterday, and he has a long history of holding some pretty wingnutty opinions and making some fairly outrageous and offensive statements. To quote a Rolling Stone profile of the man, just a few years ago he was saying that "Liberals were 'cultural Marxists,' and 'the upper crust of academia and the
pampered salons of Hollywood' were a fifth column waging war on
American traditions."
So. I've done my share of measured cackling at the fact that black folks have played a decisive role in the ending of Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions. I go back and forth on whether the campaign race-baited or not. As this thing winds down though, I begin to lean on the old rule that incompetence is more common than conspiracy. Racebaiting or not, I think the racistfool Geraldine Ferraro was/is poisonous, and I wish Hillary had said something close to that. I think her hard-working, white people remark was something of a slip and I wish she could have acknowledged as much. I think Bill meant what he said in North Carolina, but the worst part is his insistence that Obama was, in fact, race-bating him. I think her recent charge that sexism is widely accepted, while racism isn't, is, as I've said before, akin to a welder opining on carpentry. Like all competitors in the Oppression Olympics, she's unqualified. But in that, she's got alot ofcompany.
Still, in general I don't buy a campaign of race-baiting for a couple reasons: 1.) It's not a particularly great strategy in a Dem primary. You essentially trade blow-outs across the South, for single to low-double digit wins in Ohio and Pennsylvania, which you likely would have gotten anyway. 2.) I know this is naive, but I give some credence to the fact that there are several black people supporting--and running--Hillary's campaign. I'd like to think they wouldn't go along with such a thing. My cackling is more based on black voters DQing someone who shared many of George Bush's worse managerial qualities--confusing loyality with competence, an inability to say I'm sorry, changing the rules to suit your needs. It almost redeems our shameful role in that 2004 roll-out of gay marriage bans across the states.
Alright so I'm rambling. My point is that there's been some speculation that Hillary's beef with black voters will follow her home. Black New York pols--most of whom back Obama--are claiming that she's going to have some bridges to repair here in Harlem, in Bed-Stuy etc. Let me be the first to step up and say that I don't see it. Begin with the fact Hillary doesn't even have to run again until 2012. I expect that she will, indeed, go all out and campaign for Obama. If he wins, than people will more remember her helping him get elected. If he loses, well she won't be running for Senate then anyway. Moreover, I just don't think the wounds are that deep. I desperately don't want her anywhere near the White House or the Naval observatory. But she's been a fairly decent senator. In fact, I'm more pissed at Schumer for rolling over for Mukasey. Call me daft, but I think the politics of the moment are just that. A year ago, no one expected Obama to be getting nine out of ten black votes.
And of course, peace to Matt for allowing me this platform to publish my various screeds, fulminations and love notes. I'll try not to lower your stock too much.
Which is why it's strange that almost three weeks after the Service Employees International Union announced that they'd spend precisely that amount both to swing the elections they're targeting and to support a massive mobilization to push for health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act in the first 100 days of the new administration, not a single major news organization has written about that decision. In fact, nobody's really written about it all, unless Lab Law Weekly's decision to reprint the press release counts.
I'm not entirely shocked that such a big number has slipped between the waves. As David Simon and others have pointed out, the labor beat frequent falls on the non-essential list, unless you live in a city like New Haven, where labor is still an essential element of the political system. I do some labor reporting, and can testify to the fact that even in Washington, it's not a crowded beat. And in an election where even vaster fundraising numbers are getting tossed around on a daily basis, I can see a lot of scenarios where a lot of folks decided this particular $150 million wasn't newsworthy.
But it matters not least because SEIU is one of the first organizations to explicitly lay out a post-election plan. I've written elsewhere that this election is one to watch because many unions, not just SEIU, are trying to develop strategies that will keep their members mobilized, and will help boost organizing drives and win contract fights.
Two elements of SEIU's plan caught my eye: the commitment to involve a million members, 200,000 of whom would have leadership positions, and the development of round-the-clock activism centers, operating in multiple languages, to serve those members. Those centers, if they're advertised effectively, and depending on what resources they have, could play a huge role in activating communities of folks who rely on public libraries for internet access, and who may not have access to good non-English language newspapers. And the commitment to engage that many members speaks to an ambitious internal organizing plan. It's worth watching--and writing about.
If you were unfortunate enough to have dropped ten bucks on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull over the holiday weekend, the last thing you should feel is alone: The movie has made over $150million in just five days. And the reviews have been okay, too: According to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie garnered a not-unimpressive score of 79%. Still, you might be one of those (brilliant and thoughtful) people who thought the movie was nothing short of dreadful. If so, you are probably asking yourself, How on Earth could this film have been well received by critics?
A friend suggested one theory to me, which is that reviewers were scared to dump on a beloved franchise. This seemed plausible, although weren't the three most recent Star Wars films rightfully trashed? Well, sort of: Although not as well reviewed as Indiana Jones 4, none of the moves in George Lucas’ second trilogy received the drubbing it deserved.
Anyway, this is a long-winded way of broaching my real problem with the film, which was its awful, awful CGI. David Denby, in an otherwise sensible review, actually seemed to enjoy some of the action scenes, including the big one near the end that looked to my eyes almost completely fake. Denby writes: "In a sequence like that, with wild improbabilities linked by speed and rhythm, Spielberg re-creates the spirit of Buster Keaton’s most elaborately synchronized gags, but on a much grander scale." This could be said of many Spielberg action scenes, to be sure, but not the one in question. In fact, the special effects are so bad that they make the scene the most ridiculous and ponderous in the entire film.
Critics who are so concerned about the dreck Hollywood produces every summer should be focusing more time and expending more ink on the CGI that is ruining action movies. If there was one series that should be have been immune to this kind of nonsense, it was Indiana Jones. But alas...
Commenter BigSister takes Obama post-racialism a little far and claims that I don't see race-baiting from Clinton because I'm "not black." OK, so I confess, it is indeed true that I'm a terrible dancer, I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid, and I've got the sort of jump-shot that careens over backboard.
BUT--in my defense--I have dedicated my life to defending the beauty of fried whiting, congac, and Nia Long. More to the point, my parents are, you know, black. Alright, they are a brownish/yellow, but the point is either I am black, or I need to get a paternity test done on my son. I know I'm addicted to The Flaming Lips and all, and the time has come to "get beyond race," but come on guys, I live in Harlem for Christ sake. And I once wore a daishiki. And my name is Ta-Nehisi. Hello?
Wow. Rasmussen has Mitch McConnell losing in Kentucky. Of course, Barack Obama's horribly unpopular there meaning that "[w]hile McConnell will try to make Obama a part of Lunsford’s name, Lunsford will emphasize McConnell’s ties to the current President." You kind of figure that McConnell will probably pull this one out, but it's a real sign of how desperate the Republican situation is.
Meanwhile, in an interesting way Kentucky Democrats will probably be better off if Obama doesn't do too well in the presidential campaign. If he opens up a clear lead over John McCain, I think the argument that Kentucky should send a Republican to help obstruct the Obama agenda could be fairly persuasive but if the race is close then people will just focus on McConnell versus Lumsford and it seems like Lumsford has a real shot.
Obviously, it's bad news that the Chinese government is now rushing to evacuate survivors in case a dam created by the earthquake breaks. But it's been interesting to me to watch how the Chinese government has responded to the crisis, because it seems to signal the culmination, or at least a further development, of certain trends in Chinese governance.
I was in China in March, in part working on a story about how the Chinese government has forged partnerships with American universities, including Harvard and Georgetown, to provide continuing public policy education for Chinese civil servants. One of the folks I talked to, the incredibly generous and helpful Dr. Lan Xue, the Executive Associate Dean of School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University (the equivalent of MIT), said that two areas the civil servants he'd worked with over the past five years have grappled with are crisis management and public relations. Until the outbreak of SARS in 2003, most Chinese ministries didn't have spokesmen, much less the armies of public relations officers that government agencies here employ, and they didn't have the sense that people wanted information on a regular basis. So it's interesting to see someone like Wen Jiabao, who has been quick to recognize and feed that hunger for information, rise to the fore in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Dr. Xue said it was important to remember that the Chinese and U.S. governments view crisis through very different lenses, SARS and civil unrest, and 9/11, respectively. I never got anywhere near Tibet during my time in Beijing and Shanghai, which roughly coincided with some of the worst of the rioting and crackdown, but it was obvious from the Channel News Asia in my hotel going dead mid-broadcast, and from a cabbie's absolute refusal to take me and my father to Tianamen Square, that yes, they do things differently in China.
But the Chinese government has made big committments to these American-run programs, and the American professors I talked to emphasized that they haven't been pressured to teach any particular content or in any particular way. It's clear the Chinese government thinks its employees have something to learn from the American approach to governing, and it may be that some of those ideas are catching on.
Photo by Flickr user martnpro used under a Creative Commons license.
This weekend veterans from around the country paraded through the streets of DC on motorcycles, but last week the Senate passed massive Webb-Hagel GI Bill reform legislation with a veto-proof majority. While the bill on the national level is still in the works, it looks like some states are starting to step in and attempt to repair the GI Bill legislation on their own. New Jersey's proposed legislation is particularly generous, limiting the amount that a veteran or veteran's widow to pay only $50 per credit for a public in-state college or university. Other states that are offering free or reduced-fee tuition are Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. The worry, of course, is that states will pass the legislation without compensating for the added cost. This could end up causing higher tuition among non-veteran students.
It seems that GI Bill reform is yet another thing that states are taking on to compensate for the lack of movement on the national level, much like immigration reform, health care reform, and gay marriage/civil unions. When there's lack of movement on a national level to create reform, states will start to pass reforms. The result is a patchwork of legislation around the country, leaving some veterans high and dry while others that have (limited) options.
Megan's guestbloggers have a goodconversation going about what happens to the news business as reporters get bought out, staffs shrink, and people devote more reading minutes to blogs and online-only publications. I have a couple of very quick thoughts to throw out there.
1) I think Tim is probably right that folks like Howard Kurtz overemphasize the value of newsprint. But I think he underemphasizes the impact on newsrooms of large buyouts that lead to the sudden departures of significant numbers of significant staffers. It's bad for the Washington Post to lose Thomas Ricks because he's a great reporter, but it's also bad for them--and the journalism community--to lose someone like Stephen Barr. Steve is not someone I'd wager that most readers of this blog are familiar with; he writes the Federal Diary column, about issues affecting federal workers. In addition to being a good writer and reporter, he's a genuninely nice, helpful guy who made me feel at home as a newbie on the federal workforce beat. When big papers shed senior reporters on small beats, some of those reporters will stay in journalism, and will continue mentoring other writers. But a lot won't just migrate to other publications or to blogs, and their knowledge, and the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge by bumping into them at a hearing or a press conference, won't get passed on.
2) I think Conor is right to worry about the decline in local news, but I think there are some real bright spots on the horizon, too. The New Haven Independent, an online-only publication founded by alt-journalist Paul Bass, has done incredible work, and has become part of a network of Connecticut news sites. I actually wish some bigger organizations would look at those smaller models for inspiration. I think there's a lot to learn from their mix of news reporting, video commentary, and lively message boards.
A neat spreadsheet from Nicholas Beaudrot uses demographics to predict Barack Obama's likely vote share in November, then looks at each incumbent Republican member to see which are sitting in districts where Obama's likely to do well. It's a pretty large number of districts.
The current Democratic strategy focuses around painting John McCain as "McSame" as Bush -- a man running for a third term. That's not entirely fair, as McCain really does differ from Bush on a few important issues. On climate change, for example, McCain is clearly better. But on national security policy, McCain is, if anything, more hard core than Bush. This is clear in his record, but we're also starting to see it on some forward looking issues like North Korea where McCain wants to repudiate Bush's current policy and go back to Bush's previous, more rightwing policy.
Bush abandoned that policy eventually because even he came to see that it was a disastrous failure but McCain, in keeping with his record, wants to bring back the super-duper-crazy Bush of 2003-2005 in place of the semi-chastened Bush we've seen for the past couple of years.
All those who dearly love the NBA have been forced to become Celtics and Lakers fans over the past two weeks for the simple reason that a Pistons-Spurs finals is too painful to even contemplate. And this is what makes the unbelievable cluelessness of Celtics coach Doc Rivers a huge, huge problem. Last night he insisted on playing veteran point guard Sam Cassell for 17 minutes, with predictable results (no points and no assists). Normally I could let this pass without comment, but the possibility of Detroit once again playing into June is a threat to decent Americans everywhere.
If you aren't a serious NBA fan, but have tuned into any Boston games, you probably found Rivers to be a likable figure. Unlike most coaches he will smile and display excitement, and even seems to have a rapport with his players. But his coaching in the playoffs has been absolutely dreadful (for the fullest take on this see Bill Simmons).
As a friend put it (in jest) this morning, "Don’t you think the NBA has to get involved at this point?"
Let me just say that I think it's a sad day for America when partisanship and a desire to bring down Barack Obama has led conservatives to demand that the Red Army's work in defeating Hitler and liberating concentration camps obtain sufficient recognition. Everybody knows that the idea of the pristine and wholly virtuous war in which American force of arms, with an assist from Winston Churchill's moral clarity, stopped Hitler's war machine is among the most cherished myths of our nation. Discussion of the Eastern Front is to be avoided at all costs!
Surely preserving this principle is reason enough to let Obama off the hook. We can't have people running around believing that the Greatest Generation was a greatest generation of Communists!
I'll try to write something on this subject soon, but a friend poses the following counterfactual which readers might enjoy discussing in the comments section:
If David Axelrod had run Hillary's campaign, and Mark Penn had run Obama's, a) would the outcome have been different and b) would we have had a very different understanding about the role gender and race play in this country? I think the answer to b) is definitely yes and to a) is perhaps yes.
Christy Hardin Smith over at Firedoglake reminds us of an issue that gets reported on occasionally: female soldiers that experience rape suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Apparently the problem is that MST=PTSD isn't always believed among VA medical professionals whose job it is to treat soldiers. I've been to a number of hearings that explored this topic, mainly centered on combat-related stress, but there are three in-patient treatment centers specifically designated that treat women who suffer from a combination of combat and sexual trauma and a smattering of other programs around the country. (Sen. Patty Murray has been something of a leader on this issue in the Senate.) The stories are heartbreaking. As Smith said, "As a female soldier or Marine, you prepare for service with a lot of training with your squad, a lot of extra time in the gym, a lot of mental and physical preparation. But nothing could prepare you for an assault ... a sexual assault ... from one of your fellow soldiers." Treatment for sexual trauma needs to widely accessible to women in the military, but with increasing medical costs for all veterans on the rise, there's a chance treatment for MST could get squeezed out of the budget. Ultimately, of course, it would be best if women in the military (and otherwise) weren't raped at all.
Former National Journal White House Correspondent, Reader's Digest Washington Bureau chief, and brand-new blogger Carl Cannon argues that the reporters who follow around the next president are going to get to spend some time in pretty sweet vacation spots. As much as Ellen may joke about getting hitched on the Crawford ranch, I can't imagine it's best place to spend time if you're a beach rather than a brush type.
All kidding aside, Carl knows just an insane amount about the presidency and what it's like to cover it, so it's great that he'll be sharing some of that experience daily and out from behind a pay wall. Plus, he is a really, really funny guy, and serious baseball nut, so hopefully once he's settled in, we can hear stories about hanging out with Frank Robinson, too.
There is a WaPoarticle today about a study released on a 1994 adoption law that was designed to increase adoption of black children. The problem is that the law didn't really work; adoption of black children increased, but only marginally. The law forbids discussing race during the adoption process, and social parents can't specifically address the issues of white parents raising a black child.
The law had not significantly changed the situation, the new report found. In 2006, black children represented 15 percent of the nation's children yet made up 32 percent of the half a million in foster care. Black children still waited longer for adoption than white children, and the adoption rate for black children barely rose from 17 percent of those awaiting adoption in 1996 to 20 percent in 2003.
It seems to me that the main problem with the law is that it's the same kind of erroneous thinking that's been applied to affirmative action for years. The thinking seems to be that people don't want to take race into account so in the end it is non-white people that end up losing out.
If there is a silver lining to this endless primary battle, it has been the public decomposition of Clinton apparatchik Lanny Davis. Davis, you may remember, was a big Bill Clinton defender during impeachment; he now spends his time blogging and spinning for Senator Clinton's campaign. If you missed his classic CNN breakdown, it's here.
Now, via Andrew, I see that Lanny has published what even for him must count as a pathetic attack on Obama. Portentously titled "Four Things the Obama Camp Couldn't Resist Doing to Anger Clinton Supporters," the post is even more unhinged than we have come to expect. Here's #1:
Couldn't resist waiting one day after Sen. Clinton won West Virginia by 41 points to announce John Edwards endorsement.
Eh? This decision was somehow nefarious? Moving on:
Couldn't resist waiting to win majority of all delegates to announce Jim Johnson as VP search committee head -- the first candidate in my memory ever to do so while his chief opponent is still fighting for nomination -- and winning in last primary in crucial border state by 36 points (Kentucky). What's the rush? Obama wouldn't confirm or deny the that Mr. Johnson has been appointed to head the VP search effort. That makes many Clinton supporters feel uneasy about Senator Obama.
I'm not even sure what Davis' point is here, but it does at least put on display the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger style that he likes to alternate with his generally angry disposition. Finally:
Couldn't resist listing Bill Richardson as under consideration for Veep - the one Red Flag name that infuriates even moderate Clinton supporters the most -- not because he chose to endorse Sen. Obama, but the way he did it, i.e., his inability to avoid making negative comments about Sen. Clinton while doing so -- another person who sometimes can't resist the temptation of not being gracious when he should be, a great disappointment to many of his former close friends from the Clinton camp and which will not be forgotten.
The phrase “I ain’t no punk” has probably led to more renditions of “Blessed Assurance,” more grandmothers in big hats and dark dresses, and more black boys laid out in closed caskets than any other four words in the English language. “I ain’t no punk,” is of course corner-talk for “I am foolish enough to mortgage my life on even the pettiest act of perceived disrespect.” I grew up in West Baltimore during the late 80s, a time when being seen as a chump was basically the worst thing that could happen to you. So I’ll admit to throwing out that line once or twice in my younger days, though I can’t think of one instance where the "slight" was actually that bad.
Having seen the cost of living by the “I ain’t no punk” credo, I have an instant distaste for posturing. This runs the gamut from rappers who threaten each other with great bodily injury (often mere months before doing a press conference, and recording a song together) to Democrats attempting to show that they're tough on the various annoying phenomena of the day. (crime, defense, obscure black people etc.) So I’m going to whole-heartedly back John Dickerson’s call for Obama and McCain to kill the “I’m more macho than you act.”
I like seeing Obama get after McCain as much as the next vino-sipping, Claritin-popping, trust-fund dipping, lefty. (It’s been told to me that you can put virtually any string of adjective in front of “lefty” now.) But I’m now seeing how much more I enjoyed watching Obama mix it up with Hillary. I think maybe because he was running against a woman, or a fellow Democrat, Obama basically didn’t get into a competition of brass balls. Instead he responded with the jujitsu of humor, which repeatedly exposed the stiff, stilted nature of Hillary’s whole campaign.
Much has been made of gender’s role in this race. To me, it’s most insidious effect was that Hillary always had to show she “wasn’t no punk.” In debates she was always solid on the issues, but then she’d throw these wild haymakers which would leave her open to some brutal counterpunches. It began with her yucking it up during an Iowa debate at a tough question about Clinton advisors on Obama's team, and Obama catching her flush with that "I look forward to you advising me Hillary" line. In the Ohio debate, she allowed Obama to get in the last swing (“I would reject and denounce.”) when Tim Russert had him in a tough spot on Farrakhan. What I remember most about her “Shame on you” rant, is how Obama turned it on its head with that Annie Oakley riff. Her woefully scripted “change you can xerox” line only served to highlight Barack’s earlier “silly season” response to the whole plagiarism flap.
But the jujitsu period of this campaign seems to be over, and now its Obama who has to show that he “ain’t no punk.” Of course, war hero John McCain is going for the gold in the "ain't no punk" olympics. So now we reconcile ourselves to a long hot summer of dueling press releases, miscellaneous rants, and feigned rage. Yay. Obama really shouldn't drop the humor from his pitch--it's one of his best qualities. McCain may not need to show toughness because of gender, but he can’t help himself, and does it anyway. I’m hoping Obama doesn’t leave me thinking he deployed his humor, strictly, against the only woman in the room.
NBA conspiracy theorists must reckon with the fact that the Los Angeles Lakers, the biggest ratings draw in the league, received some of the worst officiating of the playoffs tonight in San Antonio. No contact with Spurs players was too minor for the officials to blow the whistle. The first half was particularly egregious: Lamar Odom and Derek Fisher were forced to sit out with foul trouble, and what should have been a double digit halftime lead was only six points.
But stop right there, because on the last play of the game Fisher clearly fouled Brent Barry and the refs didn't make the call. So, let the conspiracy theories commence. Still, on balance, the Spurs got the vast majority of breaks tonight. And Barry should have taken Charles Barkley's advice and jumped into Fisher directly, rather than trying to get off a clean shot. If he'd done so, he surely would have gotten three free throws.
As for the Lakers, they now go up 3-1 and continue what has been a remarkable playoff run. I was skeptical a few nights ago when the TNT crew speculated that this Lakers team might be as good as the Lakers championship teams from the early part of the decade. But now, on the heels of very impressive series' wins over Utah and Denver, they are a win away from vanquishing the mighty Spurs in five games. (Remember, too, that they have been playing in arguably the best conference in NBA history).
Tuesday was, to my mind, the first full-fledged day of low-skies-shirt-sticking-to-your-back summer here in D.C. And because of that, when I sat down to watch the Red Sox game last night, I cranked up the AC, broke out the salted peanuts and opened up Once More Around the Park, which, even though Roger Angell sides with the Mets over the Sox in 1986 in "Not So, Boston," is one of the finest collections of baseball writing ever published. (A Great and Glorious Game is a close second.)
Warning to all, ye who enter here: I am an unrepentant baseball sentimentalist and Red Sox fan. Deal with it.
Is Barack Obama doomed in a matchup with John McCain among the demographic groups where he did poorly against Hillary Clinton? The AP says not really:
Polls this month show the Illinois senator leading McCain among women, running even with him among Catholics and suburbanites and trailing him with people over age 65. Results vary by poll for those without college degrees. And though Obama trails decisively with a group that has shunned him against Clinton -- whites who have not completed college -- he's doing about the same with them as the past two Democratic presidential candidates.
The key fact here is "doing about the same" with whites who lack a college degree as Al Gore and John Kerry. Gore and Kerry both lost narrowly, but they lost. On the other hand, though they both lost, they lost narrowly. I think it's totally feasible to win the presidency without improving on the Gore/Kerry performance among this demographic group (you'd have to make up the ground elsewhere), but it's hard for me to see how it would be viable to slip further behind and still win.
On the one hand, it's a huge deal that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is now out there admitting that the Iraq War was a mistake sold with lies. But on the other hand, it's sort of banal. We've known this for years. It's a shocking truth about our current state of affairs, but not a truth that any longer has the capacity to shock me. On the other hand, this from Byron York was interesting:
One of the main reasons John McCain is facing such an tough job today is that we are now in the sixth year of a war that the president of his own party started by mistake. That's a major headwind when you're running for president; an error of that magnitude will exact a political price. Would anyone be surprised if voters say that they've had enough?
That all seems reasonable enough to me, but what York is missing is that McCain doesn't think it was a mistake. One would think the virtue of nominating a guy who doesn't have close personal ties to the Bush administration would be that McCain could say something like "hey, I think liberalism is wrong and conservatism is good, but that doesn't mean I'm a sociopath who loves war so much that he still thinks the invasion of Iraq was a good idea." But he doesn't say that, presumably because he doesn't believe it. At even a time when the chief propagandists of the Bush administration are willing to admit that there BS was BS, he's a true believer.
The world only spins forward, but sometimes it spins in fits and starts
[Alyssa]
There's lots on Hillary Clinton and issues of feminism and sexism to read today. Harold Myerson warns her die-hard supporters not to "turn feminism into the last refuge of scoundrels," but I think the more important piece is Michelle Cottle and Amanda Fortini's discussion over at The New Republic.
The Democratic field this year was a cornucopia of opportunities for voters to address their anxieties about what it would be like for a black man, a Latino man, or a woman to run the country. And while opportunities like those are exciting, they also involve deciding which societal ill to address first, and no matter the scenario, that's a profoundly uncomfortable decision for anyone who cares about eliminating both racism and sexism.
Of course the chance to address race, or sex are far from the only things that matter. Mechanics of the campaign, the candidates' personal histories, voting records, speaking abilities, etc., have all been crucial in this race, and those elements shaped how Clinton and Obama presented the narratives of their respective gender and race. But race and gender were visible and important issues in this race; it wasn't just about mechanics, and it's not just about societal perceptions. And as Michelle puts it so eloquently:
You have pundits like Andrew Sullivan waxing rhapsodic about how fantabulous it would be for America's image, how great and glorious a morning it will be, when we have an African American taking the oath. You would never hear someone say that about a woman. Even if they're talking about the historic nature of it, they don't talk about it in such grand and soul-cleansing terms. And I think part of it is that in the history of this country, slavery, Jim Crow, and racism have been much uglier, more overt, nasty phenomena than sexism.
Sexism is here, sexism is present, but it's been more paternalistic, and presented in soft, warm and fuzzy terms...Women weren't persecuted for burning their bras. Feminism is a different cause than civil rights. Slavery is kind of a moral scar for America, so we can be poetic about how great it's going to be when we, at last, elect an African American. And we just can't talk that way about electing a woman.
Whether that was a conscious choice we made or not, America's going to seriously grapple in a general election with what it will be like to have the first black president before it takes on what it will be like to have the first woman president. That's not a right or wrong priority, it's just what we've got. But it doesn't make it wrong for people who care about seeing a woman in the White House to be frustrated about that their vision is still a ways away from reality.
Update: Quick clarification. I don't think that electing a black man, or a woman, or a Latino, or anyone in particular is going to--in and of itself--produce substantive change in the lives of Americans, much less produce a magically just society where everyone gets a pony, seasons tickets to the sports franchise of their choosing and a mint-condition copy of "Meet the Beatles." But I do think that who is in the White House gets folks talking and thinking about what the role of that office is, what qualities matter in leadership, and the face we present to the world, and those conversations are one stop on the road to much bigger, and more pressing, changes.
The news that Virginia has performed it's first execution in two years got me thinking about a topic that seemingly fallen off the radar this season--criminal justice reform. The death penalty, sadly, seems here to stay. But one of the reasons I so emphatically fell for Jim Webb (before Kathy took him apart) was because in addition to being outspoken about veterans issues, he's probably the most prominent senator i've heard speak on reforming our prisons. I could be wrong on that, and would love to be corrected. That said, I have heard very little about this issue out on the campaign trail. Frankly, this is as it should be--you don't win elections by talking about shortening the sentences of criminals. Still, I hope this issue is a priority, should Obama win.
Indeed, to me, one of the promises of an Obama administration would be that he could (hopefully) deracialize certain issues that really occur to me as matters of basic fairness and justice. Heather Macdonald has had a field day dismantling those who claim that the criminal justice is racist. But I think that's a strawman. Frankly, I don't much care about whether the law was intended to hurt black people, nor do I care whether it's called racist or not. To the extent that the "racist" label is a distraction, it should be jettisoned. It seems like the real question should be, Does our drug policy make sense? Are we helping or hurting the situation in our inner cities?
Polling English people on the question of which British actor does the worst American accent on television seems a bit bizarre. Shouldn't Americans decide who's doing an American accent well? Meanwhile, any list along these lines that features Ian McShane's depiction of Al Swearengen as a bad American accent has some serious problems. The character's just supposed to have been born abroad -- it's not an American accent at all! Oh well.
Smithsonian has an amusing list of the ten most outrageous art thefts of the last century. I didn't know, for example, that the guy who stole the Mona Lisa in 1911 was offended by the idea that an Italian masterpiece was in a French museum, or that the Irish Republican Army ripped off 19 paintings from Russborough House in 1974. It's hard to imagine, in today's transnational and uber-pricey art market that there are many art theives inspired more by intense national pride than the money involved (although this particular crook got caught when he tried to sell Mona Lisa for some serious-in-1911 coin). And stealing art seems like a pretty impractical way to finance your armed resistance movement. In fact, theft is probably best left to bored, art-loving fictional playboys, period.
But whatever the reason, big heists are always fun to think about after the fact. There's the object of the theft to consider: how do you decide your target is going to be a massive museum coin collection of mixed value? There are the logistics: if one is going to steal the Gutenberg Bible, one might factor the fact that it weighs 70 pounds into the planning process. Finally, it's giddy and transgressive to think about. Art theft isn't a victimless crime, but it's less directly and immediately harmful than robbing a little old lady or committing murder or defrauding a pension fund. Prints are cool, but it's fun to imagine having the real thing tucked away to look at.
In her interesting discussion with Amanda Fortini over at The New Republic, Michelle Cottle says the following (see, also, Alyssa's post below on the same topic):
The best way I've found to explain it is through a contrast with the media's reaction to Barack Obama's candidacy. You have pundits like Andrew Sullivan waxing rhapsodic about how fantabulous it would be for America's image, how great and glorious a morning it will be, when we have an African American taking the oath. You would never hear someone say that about a woman. Even if they're talking about the historic nature of it, they don't talk about it in such grand and soul-cleansing terms. And I think part of it is that in the history of this country, slavery, Jim Crow, and racism have been much uglier, more overt, nasty phenomena than sexism.
Sexism is here, sexism is present, but it's been more paternalistic, and presented in soft, warm and fuzzy terms: "We want to protect the women! It's not that we don't like them." Even when talking about being in battle, it's, "We don't want women to get hurt." Women weren't persecuted for burning their bras. Feminism is a different cause than civil rights. Slavery is kind of a moral scar for America, so we can be poetic about how great it's going to be when we, at last, elect an African American.
There are two important points here, the first being that the media seems much more excited by the prospect of a black president than a female president. The second is that the world would be more excited by a black president than a female president. To take the second point, I think Michelle is right to note that the particular history of America is one of the reasons that people abroad would see a black president as a more historic step. Our place in the eyes of the world, after all, is in part defined by our historical role in the slave trade, and by what many see as a legacy of racism that extends to this day. Were a dark-skinned man with Algerian parents to be elected as the president of France, I think it would be a very, very big deal here and abroad (or at least as big a deal as French elections can be).
The gender issue is more complicated because every country and every society has "gender issues." Some nations have already chosen female leaders, and some nations are beset by vastly more misogyny and sexism than the United States. So the election of a female American president, viewed through the various prisms of people abroad, will mean a variety of different things (yes, many countries have ugly racial histories, too, but there is still a distinction to be made, I think).
I think this point has probably been made elsewhere, but from a rainy day at my beachy retreat it occurs to me to point out that one really ought to look at the selection of a Vice Presidential nominee as something where the substantive merits are important. Of our eleven postwar vice presidents (Nixon, Johnson, Humphrey, Agnew, Ford, Rockefeller, Mondale, Bush, Quayle, Gore, and Cheney), four have gone on to become president and three more have gone on to become a major party presidential nominee. That's by no means a perfect batting record, but generically speaking becoming vice president is the best means of going on to become president. Under the circumstances, it seems foolish to advocate for someone or other purely on the grounds of political expediency.
Indeed, I suspect this is part of the reason that "veepstakes" conversations tend to get so annoying. Much like "electability" controversies during presidential primary season, people are playing without putting all their cards on the table, and tend to coincidentally get the result that the person who they think would be the most politically savvy pick is also a substantively good choice.
I really said I was going to stop talking about this. But I just read through the convo over at TNR between Amanda Fortini and Michelle Cottle, as well as Isaac's response, and I just want to throw in a couple notes.
1.) Picking up on Isaac's great point about "excitement over a woman/black president," I think so much of this has to do with the candidate themselves. This whole notion of masses of people "excited about a black president,"in particular, ignores the fact that since 1984, we've had a black person at least declare for president every year. In 2004 we had two--a black man and a black woman. I don't recall there being much excitement around the notion of President Al Sharpton, amongst blacks or whites. It's true that there is a great deal of excitement now about electing a black president--but that's because the prospect is Barack Obama. Ditto for Hillary. This sort of reductionist thinking that focuses only on her gender--independent of much more mundane factors like ignoring caucus states--is myopic. It misses, and greatly diminishes, the power of the individual.
2.) If there is one thing that all this gender/race analysis has taught it's this simple lesson--There Are No Black. Women. Anywhere. Ever. There's been great handwringing over an alleged schism between younger and older feminists. But if that's a schism, I don't know what you call the chasm between black and white feminists. We all are very interested in how the campaign would have unfolded if Barack Obama had been a woman. But we could care less how it would have unfolded if Hillary had been black, mostly because the answer is much simpler--there would have been no campaign to begin with. She would, most likely, be hooked up with a black dude, and thus likely would never have been First Lady of Arkansas, much less of the United States, and much less a Senator from New York. An inability to even consider other worlds explains why every time I see some writer attempting to assess the interplay of race and gender, it's rarely someone who actually has to, you know, deal with race and gender. That of course includes yours truly.
Amnesty International released their report on human rights abuses, and it has a pretty scathing take on the United States. One of the top abuses they list are indefinite detentions at Guantanamo Bay, the imprisonment of conscientious objector soldiers, and the coercive interrogation policies in place. It's not really surprising that the United States would be subject to scrutiny by AI, given the controversial nature of these practices domestically. (Although there's a pretty strong argument to be made against COs in a volunteer military, unless that person enlisted before the United States was at war.) AI's report is a reminder of how the Bush administration's policies on war and torture damage the credibility of the United States when decrying other countries for humanitarian abuses. What the Bush administration has essentially done is used the second-tier excuse of human-rights abuses to invade Iraq, then piled on to the laundry list of human rights violations in the world with his own policies on torture and indefinite detention. The record on human rights had damaged the credibility of legitimate work Americans want to conduct on human rights abuses in the future, even given a new administration that is presumably less comfortable with torture.
Other practices by the United States in the report included were failure by the government to properly address sexual violence against Native American women, the criminal justice system that includes a death penalty, and victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita who (still) lack access to housing.
I'm a bit behind the curve, but it seems that John McCain offered up a perfectly reasonable speech on nuclear proliferation issues yesterday. It wasn't earth-shatteringly good and didn't break any new ground, but it did involve him embracing several ideas that liberals and non-proliferation experts have been pushing for a while now and that Barack Obama has already embraced.
I guess that's good news, but as Ilan Goldenberg writes it's pretty annoying to see people hailing McCain's ideas when they're so contrary to his record over the past ten years including things he was saying just months ago when we were going to be booting Russia out of international organizations and forming a League of Democracies to battle to the death with the forces of autocracy. Certainly I'm not one to say a politician should never be allowed to change his mind, but when you see someone abandoning a decade of extremism in favor of moderation in the middle of a presidential general election campaign it's reasonable to suspect that you're seeing some "tacking toward the center" rather than genuine rethinking of things. Would it be too much to ask to get some kind of explanation from McCain of how he wants to square these new ideas with his old ones?
In this week’s Times Literary Supplement, the usually engaging Niall Ferguson has a long review of a new, generally sympathetic Henry Kissinger biography. In addition to recommending the book (which, despite a few questionable assertions, appears to have some interesting stuff on Kissinger’s childhood), Ferguson poses his review around the following question:
Has the ferocity of the criticism which Kissinger has attracted perhaps got something to do with the fact that he, like the Rothschilds, is Jewish?
Before returning to this particular topic, it’s worth mentioning a few things about the rest of Ferguson’s piece. It’s a vigorous defense of Kissinger, and also a critique of Kissinger’s critics, among them Seymour Hersh and Christopher Hitchens. Ferguson starts off very shakily, with a notably weak plea for leniency:
It would in fact be much easier to implicate a number of Kissinger’s predecessors in civilian bombings, coups d’état and support for murderous regimes. Unlike the case of Chile, to give a single example, there is no question that the Central Intelligence Agency had a direct hand in the coup that overthrew an elected government in Guatemala in 1954. It also played an active role in the subsequent campaign of violence against the Guatemalan Left. Many more people (around 200,000) died in this campaign than were “disappeared” in Chile after 1973 (2,279). In any case, Richard Nixon was not the first President to seek to influence Chilean domestic politics. Both of his immediate predecessors did so. Yet you will search the bookshops in vain for “The Trial of John Foster Dulles” or “The Trial of Dean Rusk”.
There are two responses to this. The first is that it is not a ringing defense of the former secretary of state (only 2,279 people killed under Pinochet!). And the second is that if someone did write a book about Guatemala called “The Trial of John Foster Dulles,” you can be absolutely sure that Niall Ferguson would be the first person to accuse the author of hyperventilating and reducing a “complicated” period in American history to a “naïve and simplistic” bill of wrongs.
...from arguably the last group of people who should be giving advice on race. I won't get into this too much, but I just want to say that rather than writing a memo to Obama on how to deal with "white voters" and the "race problem", Newsweek would have done better to send "white voters" a memo on how to deal with Obama and the "race problem." It was tragic to see so many interviews with folks in Kentucky and West Virginia saying point blank that they wouldn't vote for Obama because he was a colored. The conclusion always was, "Wow this is a huge problem for Obama," not "Wow. this is a huge problem for these people."
I know that seems backward, but roll with me for a second: We can all agree that a presidential election is an extremely important event, arguably the most important mass event in the country. If you have voters who essentially disqualify candidates, on race alone, isn't that, like, kind of a problem for the voters? Please do not counter with "but blacks vote for Obama on race!!" As I've said before, it ain't the same dog. Blacks--because we've basically had no other choice--have a long record of voting for white people, and will continue to do so. A guy who openly says "I'm not voting for a black guy," get's no such consideration.
Anyway, my point is that this is of a piece with the widely held view that racism is basically a problem for black people, not whites, that our history of slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping, housing covenants are an injury to black people, not to the larger country. We think about the Civil War, as a war to free the slaves. But here's another way to think about it: It cost us 700,000 American lives--and the near fracturing of our country--to accomplish something that the rest of the civilized world accomplished with the stroke of a pen. I'm simplifying I know, but the point is racism poisons everything and everyone. Black folks obviously pay the most obvious price, but we really aren't its only victims.
Lately, we've heard a lot about how conservatives are allegedly "outofideas." Lack of ideas is supposedly the reason conservatives have recently been losing a slewofelections and scoring low ratings in public opinion polls, and why George Bush is the most hated president since the final days of Richard Nixon. What conservatives need, say some, are "new ideas." That's the ticket! Then their fortunes, currently in such spectacular free fall, will rally once again and stage a dramatic comeback.
I confess that talk of ideas in the context of American electoral politics long puzzled me. What on earth are these idée fixe-ated pundits talking about? Surely they don't mean ideas in the philosophical sense. American political discourse in no way resembles the Oxford Union debating society, let alone Plato's Republic.
Then I finally got it. By "ideas," by and large the pundits seem to mean a boutique-y marketing of a political agenda to the policy-making elites. As the historian David Greenberg once wrote, the main task of the Heritage Foundation (and I would argue, of other think tanks as well) is to "flood politicians and editorialists with ready-made policies and easy-to-digest talking points." Many political "ideas" amount to changing the packaging, but not the basic product. Old wine in new bottles and all that. Because I don't believe there really are any big "new ideas" in politics. It's just the same old ideas dressed up in a fancy new set of clothes.
One of my friends from college had an Electronic Frontier Foundation sticker on his laptop bearing the legend "Information Wants to Be Free." One of the coolest examples of that sentiment I've seen in recent years is this joint Israeli-Palestinian venture to build a no-cost virtual computer, called G.ho.st, by integrating functions from services like Google Documents and Flickr.
This is hardly the first project in recent years to try to address the problem of computer access in under served communities, particularly for children without steady computer access. On the hardware end, probably the most elegant solution is the One Laptop Per Child project, which combines tough, portable technology with simple functionality. Obviously, G.ho.st won't produce hardware that individuals can keep and access any time, but it also can't fall prey to hardware breakdown or lack of maintenance.
Leaving the Israeli-Palestinian cooperation element aside, which the project leaders acknowledge is an important byproduct, if not the main point, of their collaboration, G.ho.st seems to represent another step forward in thinking about what you really need for personal computing. It seems to me like Apple went in the wrong direction in creating the MacBook Air; the product is both utilitarian and elegant, but its hefty price tag for the power makes it less accessible than other computers that can do more. While people who can afford it will probably continue to want increasing bang for the buck in their computing purchases, projects like G.ho.st and One Laptop Per Child, or really for that matter Google Documents, raise good questions about what we actually need and want out of our computers. G.ho.st's primary purpose will probably be to provide computing services to people who wouldn't be able to save documents and access them again later otherwise, but I know I'd be interested in some kind of effective services integrator simply because it's convenient.
And hey, G.ho.st even has sense of humor about itself. The official launch is slated for Halloween.
First Lethal Weapon. Then Die Hard. Then Indiana Jones. And now...
One advantage to starting a series when your star is 23-years-old, however, is that you can make a sequel a quarter of a century later and he will still be mobile. Still, with Brett Ratner directing, my expectations for this are not high.
I haven't been over to Martin Peretz's blog in some time, but if I'm reading this post correctly, the New Republic editor in chief's position is that the so-called "occupied territories," including both the Golan Heights and the West Bank, must be kept perpetually in Israeli hands in order to punish Syria and Jordan for past acts of aggression. He writes:
After World War II, the allies allocated to themselves (and their allies) territories from which Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had aggressed against the rest of Europe. These are the costs paid by the bellicose and the belligerent. Japan paid a similar price, too.
This of course raises the question of what to do with those pesky Arabs who happen to live in this territory. They could be given full Israeli citizenship, of course, though that would entail a fairly radical departure from the Zionist concept of a Jewish state. Alternatively, they could be perpetually held captive as stateless subjects of a Jewish herrenvolk democracy. Or, of course, they could be forcibly removed from the territories -- told they had to depart under thread of death. I take it by Peretz's approving citation of the handling of the situation in postwar Europe that this is what he wants -- something similar to the mass expulsions of Germans from Eastern Europe following the war.
But if this is his preferred resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, surely he should say so more plainly than this. He's the editor-in-chief of a well-regarded biweekly magazine, after all, so it's not as if he couldn't find a venue in which to publish the (counterintuitive!) case for ethnic cleansing in a straightforward manner and let people debate this vision of the Jewish future in a more head-on manner.
Man, this is Carville (courtesy of The Jed Report) blaming the Obama campaign, and how they played the assassination story, for Hillary potentially pushing this race past June 3rd. Incredible. I was in college for most of the 90s doing the sort of illicit, dumb things that people in college do. But I read a newspaper now and again. Were these guys always this dastardly? I know others have claimed that they were, but does it says something about progressives that we backed people like this?
...you go into an election with the voters you've got, right? Now it's pretty clear that a lot of folks in the left blogosphere would like to do their own purge of the voting rolls--get rid of those dirty, smelly hillbillies, etc., maybe with a literacy test [I've actually seen that proposed on some blogs--ah, progressivism!], but to borrow the metaphor, that dog ain't gonna hunt. In a democracy, it's the voters who reward and punish, for better or for worse. Ta-Nehisi is right: It's a moral problem for the voters, not for Obama. B
