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Wednesday, April 30, 2008 MAKE THIS INTO A GAFFE Today's New York Times reports on John McCain's health insurance proposals; if you haven't read the article, I'm not spoiling much when I tell you that his plan clones much of Bush's health-care approach, which means it throws people on the mercy of the market, and what subsidies it provides are inadequate if the goal is ensuring that all Americans (or even more Americans) are covered. If you haven't read it, you absolutely need to read this post from Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings, which totes up the plan's deficiencies. (On the question of what a private citizen in Elizabeth Edwards's condition would get out of this plan, she'd get, well, another year older and quite possibly about $100,000 in debt.) Really, read it. What I can add is purely political. I note this in the Times article: "I'll work tirelessly to address the problem," Mr. McCain said in a speech here at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute. "But I won't create another entitlement program that Washington will let get out of control. I won't do it...." If I were a Democratic candidate, in addition to denouncing the McCain plan along the lines of what's in Hilzoy's post, I'd also react to the pronouncement above. Here's what I'd say: When John McCain talks about entitlement programs that are out of control, you know what he's referring to, don't you? He's referring to Social Security. He's referring to Medicare. Programs like that. Now I know some of you are collecting Social Security benefits, and some of you are on Medicare. I know some of you have parents and grandparents who are benefiting from Social Security and Medicare. How many of you think you and your parents and your grandparents are what's wrong with this country? John McCain does. How many of you think you and your parents and your grandparents are the greedy ones whose benefits are out of control? John McCain thinks so. John McCain doesn't think tax cuts to the rich are the problem. John McCain thinks your grandma and grandpa are the problem. Do you think your grandma and grandpa are the problem? ... Establishment wonks will, of course, argue that your grandma and grandpa are the problem, at which point Paul Krugman will tell them they're full of it. This isn't a wonkish, nuanced riff. Nothing wrong with that. This is politics. posted by Steve M. | 5:40 PM | IS IT OVER YET? A new SurveyUSA poll has Barack Obama's lead down to 5% in North Carolina among likely voters. Kos puts that in context here (Survey USA polls have consistently shown the race to be tighter than other polls, and that's still the case) -- but I have to confess there's a part of me that wishes Clinton would finish what she's started and take the nomination. Yeah, really. It's for a number of reasons. Primarily it's because it's now clear that a Democrat probably won't win in November no matter who it is, but at least the recriminations following a Clinton defeat will focus on dynastic politics and the widespread negative feelings about Clinton and her husband, rather than on the notion that Obama was dangerously liberal/radical and dangerously nonwhite and dangerously elite/effete and we can't ever make that kind of mistake again, so we'd better go looking for the most Republican Lite, boilermaker-drinker-friendly/Bubba-friendly candidate we can find in 2012, someone who'll be anathema to all those progressives and bloggers and other assorted scum. After an Obama loss we'll also hear, endlessly and erroneously, that Clinton was fully vetted and wouldn't have been subjected to the toxic-waste tsunami that Obama's facing, whereas a Clinton defeat will make clear even to obtuse purveyors of conventional wisdom that Republican run sewer campaigns no matter what and simply adjust the details depending on the target, details the press dutifully retransmits as a way of assuaging its guilt over being "liberal." Of course, I'm second-guessing my support for Obama because it's seeming much less likely these days that he can find a way to defeat or do an end run around GOP character-assassination politics. He didn't seem ready for the Wright brouhaha or the flag/hand-over-heart nonsense or the Muslim rumors or the mutterings about William Ayers; he hasn't really neutralized any of those stories the old-fashioned way, and I'm not seeing signs that he engenders goodwill sufficient to rally 50.1% of the country against a political culture that obsesses over such distractions. Sorry -- I'd like to see Obama get up off the mat. I'd like to see evidence that he's building a coalition big enough and loyal enough that they're going to reject what's happening to him now resoundingly at the ballot box in November. I'd like the story at that time to be that he took some body blows but he's so damn inspirational and his critique of our system is so persuasive that American politics turned the page. But right now it looks as if, as the saying goes, age and treachery are overcoming youth and skill. So what the hell, maybe we should just run age and treachery, and watch that combination lose to even greater age and much, much greater treachery. **** (Poll and Kos links via Greg T., in comments to my previous post.) posted by Steve M. | 2:21 PM | "RACE HUSTLERS" It might surprise you to learn that Barack Obama has the support of Marty Peretz. To say the least, it's a mixed blessing. At his New Republic blog, Peretz has posted a response to Obama's remarks on Jeremiah Wright titled "Barack Obama: Putting Race Hustlers Out of Work." ...Wright is a side-show, a freak side-show that is propped up by other black hustlers -- Cornell West comes to mind, ok, a philosophical black hustler -- who are afraid that Obama has so deeply touched a nerve among white Americans that they will soon be out of work forever. When I read something like this, I find myself thinking that the Obama experiment is doomed to failure, and might be with any African-American who hopes to stand for reconciliation. People like Peretz don't want to sort through the arguments and pronouncements of black public figures, engaging some of them and critiquing others. They want any black person who makes them uncomfortable to just go away -- and they were counting on Obama to be the banisher. They feel Wright (and Sharpton and Jackson, the usual subjects of remarks like these) have nothing constructive to offer -- and yet, even as they refuse to engage them, they consider them an ever-present threat. This isn't how they react to comparable white public figures. Jeremiah Wright suspects the U.S. government created the AIDS virus; John Hagee has crackpot notions about Catholics and about the biblical necessity of a war with Iran; and many culturally conservative white religious leaders, obviously, don't believe in evolution. Yet the Marty Peretzes of the world don't make driving the creationists and the Hagees from the public square a litmus test for conservative white politicians -- in fact, conservative white politicians embrace these divisive figures, and it's just expected, and most people just shrug. Shelby Steele calls Obama a "bargainer" -- someone who "make[s] the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him." But people like Peretz are expecting Obama to do something bigger than that -- they're expecting him to supplant every black person who emphasizes white racism. Obama is expected to make these people not exist anymore. And I'm afraid his failure to banish them into non-existence is always going to be held against him, which is why I fear he may never be able to put Wright behind him. posted by Steve M. | 10:13 AM | Tuesday, April 29, 2008 WRITE MAUREEN DOWD'S NEXT COLUMN! It's scheduled to appear tomorrow, and I think it's going to be called "The Pansies of April." Starting with North Carolina governor Mike Easley's words of praise for Hillary Clinton -- that she "makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy" -- Dowd's going to Google some information about growing the pansy and do an extended horticulture/masculinity riff suggesting that delicate flower Obama bloomed early (pansies bloom "until hot weather arrives") but then decided to "man up" (there's a 99% chance she'll use that phrase, even though it screws up her metaphor) and de-pansify himself by denouncing Jeremiah Wright (whom she's 68% certain to call "the skunk in the garden"). That's as far as I've gotten. Anyone else have any thoughts? ***** UPDATE: I recommend dnA's MoDo column in comments -- very nasty. ***** UPDATE: Well, dnA wins, and it's not even close. dnA channeling Dowd: Delicate hands trembling, the only genuine rage Obama could muster is towards the suggestion that his earlier condemnation of Wright was a "political move," perhaps the only thing the singing crack pot said that was true. The real Dowd: But in the end, it was Wright showing "disrespect" by implying that Obama was a phony that sparked the candidate’s slow-burning temper. "What I think particularly angered me," he said, "was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks was somehow political posturing." dnA: Of course, Obama standing on that stage in North Carolina, looked desperately in need of a pack of Kools and glass of merlot as he threw Reverend Wright under the bus with his grandmother. Dowd: Speaking to reporters in the heart of tobacco country in Winston-Salem, N.C., the poor guy looked as if he were dying for a smoke. But dnA's is funnier on purpose than Dowd is inadvertently. (She's mostly in faux-somber mode -- I should have known she'd get faux-somber, as if she still has painful memories of watching a nun in her grade school whack a kid's hand with a steel ruler for saying "nigger" while issuing a stern lecture about how God sees all souls as equal, even those of Negroes -- or maybe it's just that Dowd didn't want to put the boot in full force while Obama's still standing and there's still a Hillary to be slain.) Oh, and there's no talk of pansies, so I wasn't even close. So a round of applause for dnA. posted by Steve M. | 3:39 PM | ON THE NEVER-ENDING HAND-OVER-HEART-GATE From Media Matters: Wash. Post uncritically quoted NC voter's assertion that Obama "will refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance" if elected president ...In an April 28 article on record-breaking Democratic voter registration figures, The Washington Post uncritically quoted one voter's assertion that "[f]rom what I can tell, if he [Sen. Barack Obama] becomes president he will refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance." The voter, North Carolina resident Al Landsberg -- who, according to the Post, receives "frequent political e-mails, most of them critical of Obama" -- was apparently referring to a chain email containing a photograph of Obama that appeared in Time magazine. In that photo, Obama was standing but did not have his hand placed over his heart. Moreover, a caption below the photograph indicated that it was taken during the national anthem -- not the Pledge of Allegiance.... Yes, I realize you know all about this and you don't need me to remind you that the right is never, ever going to stop trying to defeat Obama by fooling the rubes with it. (Not that I want to insult Mr. Landsburg by calling him a rube, but, as the Post article notes, he does pronounce the Illinois senator's surname "Embowa.") I bring this up because I want to know what John McCain does when he hears the national anthem -- and I'm certain the media can answer that question: ... by all accounts, [Rudy] Giuliani and [John] McCain are legitimate pals, friends since 1998. When the New York Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series, the two even attended six of the seven games together. Not only was this the World Series, but this one that involved a New York team playing just after 9/11. McCain sat next to Giuliani, who was one of the most famous people in the world at that moment. Thus, there must have been still and video cameras on the two of them every minute of every one of those six games.  So since this hand-over-heart question has become one of the central issues in American political life -- bigger, apparently, than the war or economy (even though Obama has been photographed with hand on heart during the pledge at other times) -- shouldn't the media spend hours combing through photo morgues and video archives to determine whether John McCain put his hand over his heart at each of the six games of the '01 Series when the national anthem was played? Doesn't America need to know this? ...Whoops, I forgot. America doesn't need to know this about McCain. America only needs to know this about the Democratic front-runner, just as America doesn't need to know whether the people who talk about Barack Obama and the flag pin actually wear flag pins themselves. Sorry. Never mind. posted by Steve M. | 2:11 PM | I WOULDN'T MIND A LITTLE MR. HYDE In a Salon forum titled "What Should Obama Do About Rev. Jeremiah Wright?," Robert George of the New York Post writes: Wright's Jekyll and Hyde nature is inevitably damaging to Obama. At his best -- as he was in much of the NAACP speech and with some aspects of the National Press Club appearance -- Wright comes across as a man of some scholarly depth and sense of American history (the good and the bad). At his worst, however (as, arguably, he was during the press club Q-and-A), he comes across as angry, dismissive and flip (not in a good way). The Obama many Americans have come to appreciate is similar to the "good Wright." What must unnerve many of those who have voted for Obama or are open to voting for him is the fear that there exists a "Mr. Hyde-Wright" lurking in Obama. There's the irony: the Obama-bashers on the right and in the Clinton camp want you to think that Obama has a secret angry side that's a lot like Wright's, while some of us (me at least) wish a little of that aspect of Wright had rubbed off on Obama all these years. I woke up yesterday, and we were in the thick of the media's Wrightapalooza, and Hillary Clinton was taunting Obama about debating from flatbed trucks, and the image of Obama was a guy who was just besieged and helpless. Righties and Clintoniacs think Wright's crazier ideas rubbed off on Obama? Not even his style did. Obama heard Wright for twenty years and didn't seem to pick up any of Wright's merry pugnaciousness. Yes, at this moment Wright's out of control, but a bit of that pugnaciousness -- directed at the distraction-crazed press, at John McCain and the Republicans, at Clinton -- would do Obama a world of good right now. Right now, Obama needs to do things that write the headlines; instead, he's just the unfortunate subject of them. Clinton has been skillful lately at feeding the media beast what it wants, and the press is (Tuzla excepted) writing the stories the way she set out to have them written. Wright is making his own headlines as well. Obama needs to be a little more like Clinton and Wright. posted by Steve M. | 7:57 AM | Monday, April 28, 2008 HE HELD US DOWN AND FORCED US TO INTERVIEW HIM EVERY FEW WEEKS FOR SEVERAL DECADES Joe Klein, in response to Reverend Jeremiah Wright's appearance at the National Press Club (emphasis mine): ...worse, Wright's purpose now seems quite clear: to aggrandize himself--the guy is going to be a go-to mainstream media source for racial extremist spew, the next iteration of Al Sharpton--and destroy Barack Obama. I love the way Klein says this, as if the media has absolutely no choice in this matter -- as if, even long after Barack Obama (in all likelihood) loses this election, the press will just have to put Wright's bloviations in print and on the air every few weeks or months. The press doesn't need a go-to racial provocateur any more than it needs a go-to believer in the flat-earth theory; the only reason the press even wants one is that Two Minutes' Hates are exciting television (and/or are useful to right-wing moguls who use their media properties to advance their political agendas). Maybe Klein would acknowledge all this if you pressed him on it, but he had a chance in this post to make the point that giving provocateurs the floor regardless of whether they contribute to the debate is bad for America, and he blew that chance. posted by Steve M. | 3:49 PM | RUINING PEOPLE IS CONSIDERED SPORT In the current freak-show culture, it was probably naive of the city of New York to think that it could get away with establishing a school where students would learn the Arabic language but would otherwise be taught the standard public-school curriculum, especially when the school was named after a gentleman of the Middle Eastern persuasion (even if Kahlil Gibran was actually a Lebanese Christian) and the principal was a headscarf-wearing Muslim (even if she was well regarded outside the Arab-Muslim community), but (as reported in today's New York Times) that doesn't mean the people who ruined the principal's life and career aren't the worst people in the world: ...Then in April, she [Debbie Almontaser, the principal of the school] read an op-ed article by Mr. [Daniel] Pipes in The New York Sun. Conceptually, such a school could be "marvelous," Mr. Pipes wrote, but in practice, it was certain to be problematic. "Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with Pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage," he wrote, referring to the school as a madrassa, which means school in Arabic but, in the West, carries the implication of Islamic teaching. Given how little Mr. Pipes knew about the school at the time, the word was "a bit of a stretch," he said in a recent interview. He defended its use as a way to "get attention" for the cause. It got the attention of Ms. [Irene] Alter, 60, who contacted Mr. Pipes and, with his encouragement, helped form a grass-roots organization in response to the school project. Mr. Pipes joined the advisory board of the group, which called itself the Stop the Madrassa Coalition.... Gee, you know, I never should have gone to Daniel Pipes's neighborhood and distributed leaflets to all his neighbors that said, "Daniel Pipes likes little boys." But, hey, I didn't know at the time that he wasn't a pedophile. I'm sorry he was beaten to within an inch of his life by his neighbors and forced to leave town -- my bad! More about the sleaziness of Pipes: He cited an article in which she was quoted as saying about 9/11, "I don't recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims." (As The Jewish Week later reported, Mr. Pipes left out the second half of the quote: "Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and have stolen my religion.") **** Of course, that was just the beginning of the right-wing jihad against the school. Read the article for the details, but here's the incident that forced Almontaser to resign. Notice that, as with, say, Barack Obama and William Ayers, tenuousness of connection doesn't reduce guilt when the trial is being conducted by a wingnut lynch mob (emphasis mine): The Stop the Madrassa Coalition pressed its campaign. In July, one of its members, Pamela Hall, made a discovery that would elevate the controversy. At an Arab-American festival in Brooklyn, she spotted T-shirts on a table bearing the words "Intifada NYC." The organization distributing them, Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, trains young women in community organizing and media production. The group sometimes uses the office of a Yemeni-American association in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Ms. Almontaser sits on the association’s board. Ms. Hall took a photograph, and a few weeks later, the coalition announced on its blog that Ms. Almontaser was linked to the T-shirts. On Aug. 3, Ms. Almontaser received a call from Melody Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. “What does ‘Intifada NYC’ mean?” Ms. Almontaser recalled Ms. Meyer asking. Ms. Almontaser was stumped, she said. She knew of the group. But she had never heard about the T-shirts.... Most reporters lost interest in the T-shirts after Ms. Meyer explained that neither Ms. Almontaser nor the school was linked to them, but The [New York] Post persisted.... During the Post interview, ... the reporter, Chuck Bennett, ... asked her for the origins of the word intifada, she said. "The educator in me responded," Ms. Almontaser said. She explained... that the root of the word means "shaking off." Ms. Almontaser then offered what she described as a lengthy explanation about the evolution of the word and the "negative connotation" it had developed because of the Arab-Israeli struggle. "The thought went across my mind to be extremely careful with my words -- not to offend the Jewish community and not to offend the Arab-American community," she said. "I was feeling pressure from all sides." ...The next day, The Post ran the article under the headline "City Principal Is 'Revolting' -- Tied to ‘Intifada NYC’ Shirts.” The article quoted Ms. Almontaser as saying that the girls in the organization were “shaking off oppression,” words that The Post, according to a ruling by federal appellate judges, attributed to Ms. Almontaser "incorrectly and misleadingly." But it didn't matter that her words were distorted. Almontaser had to resign immediately. ***** "Here ruining people is considered sport"? That line, from the Vinbce Foster suicide note, referred to Washington. Now it refers to anywhere right-wingers feel they can score cheap political points, no matter who suffers. posted by Steve M. | 2:29 PM | WILLIAM KRISTOL JOINS OPERATION CHAOS Every time I mention Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos, I'm told that Limbaugh is either soaking the rubes or deluding both himself and the rubes into believing that they can sustain the agony on the Democratic side by helping to keep Hillary Clinton's campaign alive. And, yes, it's unlikely that the Limbaughnistas alone have much influence -- there probably aren't enough wingnut crossover voters to tip any Democratic primary. But I continue to see evidence that the GOP is joining with Limbaugh in this effort. Last week the party prepared an ad, ostensibly aimed at Democratic gubernatorial candidates in North Carolina, that focused on Jeremiah Wright. That was clearly meant to increase the North Carolina turnout for Clinton. And today we have GOP apparatchik William Kristol, in The New York Times, singing Hillary Clinton's praises, in words that could come from a Clinton campaign press release or a Clinton cultist's blog post: Hillary Gets No Respect ...The fact is Hillary Clinton has turned out to be an impressive candidate. She has consistently defeated Barack Obama when her back was to the wall -- first in New Hampshire, then in several big primaries on Super Tuesday, on March 4 in Ohio and Texas, and then last week in Pennsylvania, where she was outspent by almost 3 to 1, yet won handily. ...Hillary may well be the better candidate. After all, for all the talk of Obama's extraordinary ability to draw voters to the polls, Clinton has defeated him in the big states, including California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Obama won his home state of Illinois, but she won Florida, where both were on the ballot but didn’t campaign. Furthermore, if you add up the votes in all the primaries and caucuses -- excluding Michigan (where only Hillary was on the ballot), and imputing the likely actual totals in the four caucus states, where only percentages were reported -- Clinton now trails in overall votes by only about 300,000, or about 1 percent of the total. By the end of the nominating contest, she may well be ahead on this benchmark -- one not entirely to be scorned in a democracy.... Limbaugh is trying (or, as a ratings stunt, is pretending to try) to affect the vote in primaries. Here's Kristol with a subtler version of that strategy -- he's trying to flip superdelegates. Oh, and the media, too -- he's playing on elite journalists' eagerness to believe anyone who accuses them of being biased liberals: Hillary has achieved this despite much disparagement of her candidacy by liberal commentators, and in the face of the media's crush on Obama. Even those who started out being well disposed to Clinton have moved toward Obama, if only out of concern that the prolonged race is damaging Democratic prospects in the fall. I particularly enjoy this tortured misreading of a somewhat garbled Obama sentence: Obama understands his advantage with the media, as he perhaps inadvertently demonstrated over the weekend on "Fox News Sunday." In the course of dismissing much pundit commentary for typically overreacting to events, good or bad, Obama explained, "Well, look, after you lose, then everybody writes these anguished columns about, why did you lose?" Obama chose a nice word: "anguished." You're only anguished by an Obama defeat if you’re rooting for an Obama victory. Obama was tacitly acknowledging that much of the liberal media has been hoping he'd win. Now, they're rooting for him to close the deal. That's fine. If I were on the left I might be rooting for that too.... Instead, Kristol's on the right, rooting for more chaos. He doesn't admire Hillary. He doesn't believe a word he's typed here. This isn't a radio blowhard's stunt anymore -- it's party strategy. posted by Steve M. | 9:13 AM | Sunday, April 27, 2008 WHY WON'T AL SHARPTON USE HIS SUPERPOWERS FOR GOOD INSTEAD OF EVIL? I almost missed Michelle Malkin's thoughtful, measured reaction to the aftermath of the Sean Bell verdict: Disgusting demagogue Sharpton leads "Kill the Police" rally: When will media and politicos disavow this agent of hate? It was not my understanding that Sharpton is actually planning a "'Kill the Police' rally," but Malkin sets me straight by quoting an AP story: Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to "close this city down" to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends.... The rally at Sharpton's office was followed by a 20-block march down Malcolm X Boulevard and then across 125th Street, Harlem's main business thoroughfare, where some bystanders yelled out "Kill the police!" ... Bystanders? Now, I know what you're thinking, but Malkin is too quick for you: Watch how quickly Sharpton's apologists argue that he can't control what a few "bystanders" say. She's right. After all, everyone knows Al Sharpton has superpowers that allow him to reverse time and make bystanders un-say inflammatory things they've said -- but, typically, he refused to use his powers to silence these bystanders! Or -- wait, no, that's not it. Actually, what everyone knows is that Al Sharpton is the totalitarian dictator of all black people, and no African American ever dares to utter a word in public without submitting the remark for his pre-approval. Yeah, that's it. And he didn't reject this remark! Either way, anything a passerby says is all Sharpton's fault. Or Barack Obama's. One or the other. posted by Steve M. | 11:13 PM | THERE'LL BE SOME SUBSTANCE ANY MINUTE NOW, REALLY In today's column, Frank Rich makes a more persuasive case for optimism about the Democrats' chances than I would have expected -- no, Frank, I admit I didn't pay much attention to the 200,000+ Pennsylvania Republicans who still aren't with the program and therefore cast votes for Ron Paul or Mike Huckabee in the state's GOP primary (and who thus may not vote for McCain in the fall), and, yes, it's good to be reminded of what Ross Douthat of The Atlantic has noted, that McCain can't seem to get past 45% in polling of head-to-head matchups with named Democrats. But this doesn't impress me: Mr. McCain ... must show he can think and speak fluently about the domestic issues that are gripping the country. Picture him debating either Democrat about health care, the mortgage crisis, stagnant middle-class wages, rice rationing at Costco. It's not pretty. Real issues? In a debate? You're joking, right, Frank? You obvious didn't get the memo. Debates aren't about issues -- they're about whatever non-issue campaign spinners have succeeded in making the Distraction Du Jour concerning whichever candidate (I should probably say whichever Democratic candidate, because this doesn't seem to apply to Republicans) has been designated by the media this week to play the goat. Last fall the goat was Hillary Clinton and the issue was driver's licenses for undocumented aliens; now it's Obama and flag pins. By the fall it will be something else. It won't be the war or the economy. A round of appluase to Elizabeth Edwards for noting the sorry state of the political press in a terrific op-ed, also in The New York Times. ... every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture. ...Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden's health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama's bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties. What's more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. ... Indeed, the Biden campaign was covered more for its missteps than anything else. Chris Dodd, also a serious candidate with a distinguished record, received much the same treatment. I suspect that there was more coverage of the burglary at his campaign office in Hartford than of any other single event during his run other than his entering and leaving the campaign.... In the print Times, this op-ed appears on the same page as Maureen Dowd's latest column -- and in a just world, the very presence of the Edwards column would make Dowd's column crawl off the page in shame. But that's not to be. Dowd is the proud embodiment of everything Elizabeth Edwards quite rightly despises: ...The Nixonian Hillary has a ravenous hunger that Obama lacks. Literally -- at a birthday party in Philly for her photographer, she was devouring the chips and dip with two hands -- and viscerally. At Joe's Junction gas station in Indianapolis, Obama did his best to shoo away the pesky elitist label. Accused by an Indianapolis reporter of looking like a GQ cover, he said he has only four pairs of shoes and buys "five of the same suit and then I patch them up and wear them repeatedly." But his campaign refused to reveal the brand, presumably because it's not J. C. Penney.... ARGH!!! I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE! But, much as I admire Elizabeth Edwards for dreaming of the possibility that this idiotic trivia can be deemphasized, I don't expect that day ever to come. But can we at least have a single standard? If you're going to ask about freaking flag pins, can we at least ascertain whether every candidate wears one, or whether the media louts who press the issue do? If Obama is unworthy of our vote because he doesn't buy his suits at Penney's, can we at least be told where the extraordinarily wealthy John McCain buys his? We lefties have long talked about "the Clinton rules" -- the fact that one or both Clintons are regularly criticized for things they say and do that aren't considered objectionable from other politicians. Well, we're now getting "the Obama rules." And I'm not singling out Obama -- if John Edwards were the nominee (or, say, Joe Biden or Chris Dodd), I'm sure we'd now have the Edwards/Biden/Dodd rules. If we can't de-trivialize our press, can't we at least be equitably trivial? posted by Steve M. | 12:07 PM | Saturday, April 26, 2008 HOW WE COULD REALLY MAKE BUSH JOHN McCAIN'S RUNNING MATE, IN A REPTILE-BRAIN WAY Last Christmas I got a copy of Destined for Destiny, a parody "unauthorized autobiography" of George W. Bush coauthored by Scott Dikkers of The Onion. The book's introduction is credited to Dick Cheney, and everything we've ever loathed about Cheney is in there -- this Cheney is the sinister, diseased Halliburton-check-cashing fearmonger who thinks totalitarianism and widespread surveillance were the Founders' most fervent wish for America, and he signs off with "Go fuck yourself." Heavy-handed? Yeah, maybe. But it reminds me that even our side's best efforts to tie John McCain to the current administration have been the opposite of heavy-handed. Look, I'm quite fond of this ad by David Brock's group showing McCain and Bush uttering nearly identical Pollyannaish platitudes about the economy -- but I wonder if we're making a mistake by limiting ourselves to assertions of solid connections between Bush and McCain. If we wanted to do this on a visceral, reptile-brain level, we'd just find the most infuriating, appalling clips of Bush and Cheney ever -- regardless of whether we can literally link McCain to those moments -- and intercut the clips with images of McCain alongside Cheney and Bush. No need to prove a link between McCain and those specific Bush-Cheney moments. Just assert the link. And do so over and over. Republicans don't care that Barack Obama was an eight-year-old playing kickball in Hawaii when the Weather Underground was planning bombings. Republicans don't care that Obama never heard the "God damn America" sermon. Republicans don't care that Obama doesn't endorse any idea remotely comparable to the most inflammatory notions of William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright (and don't care about the tenuousness of Obama's ties to Ayers). Republicans just take the most button-pushing moments from these men, hang them around Obama's neck, and go their merry way. Why not do that to McCain? What words and images from Bush and Cheney do people absolutely despise? What makes people's blood boil? "Bring 'em on"? "Mission accomplished"? "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job"? What Cheney moments? Link enough of these to images of McCain with Bush and/or Cheney and you can make a lot of ads. Don't be too nerdy about this -- don't worry about demonstrating a link of any specific moment to McCain. The Republicans wouldn't, if the shoe were on the other foot. posted by Steve M. | 11:36 AM | Friday, April 25, 2008 I HATE THESE PEOPLE Did I mention the fact that I hate these people? Countrywide's Mozilo reaped $132 million as mortgage lender got hammered Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of Countrywide Financial Corp., earned $10.8 million and cashed out $121.5 million in stock gains as his company got hammered by losses on sub-prime loans last year.... The company reported that Mozilo enjoyed perks worth $176,513, including $44,454 in rides on the company's jet; $23,755 in automobile use; $8,581 in country club dues; and $31,238 in company-paid tax and investment advice.... Calabasas-based Countrywide lost $704 million in 2007, while laying off 11,000 employees... And Mozilo did it the old-fashioned way -- he (allegedly) cooked the books. The stock gains were earned when Mozilo exercised stock options and immediately sold them through so-called automatic trading plans, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing released Thursday. As previously reported in The Times, these plans usually allow executives to sell shares in a regular pattern without worrying about insider trading allegations. However, in what experts called highly unusual moves, Mozilo executed two plans and amended one in the months before the sub-prime market's implosion. The moves allowed him to vastly increase the number of shares he sold before Countrywide's stock tanked last fall. The SEC launched an investigation into stock trading at Countrywide late last year.... The Guardian adds: Mozilo will leave if Bank of America's takeover [of Countrywide] is approved. BoA's chief executive, Ken Lewis, said he expected the mortgage mogul would want to "go have some fun". Oh, yes, I'm sure. Ah, but somewhere in a major metropolitan area right now, two white-collar liberals with a combined six-figure income are at Whole Foods buying arugula -- and wine! Not beer in a can! Without wearing flag pins! Those people are the true enemies of the white working class! posted by Steve M. | 3:45 PM | THE PRESS: NOW IN THE TANK FOR HILLARY CLINTON That's my headline. Thomas Edsall's, at the Huffington Post, is a bit milder: "Media Jump Ship From Obama To Clinton." Either way, it's accurate. In a blink of an eye, the media has jumped ship from the Obama campaign and become a crucial Clinton ally, pressing just the message -- that Obama is a likely loser in the general election -- that Hillary and her allies have been promoting for the past six weeks. The new tenor of media coverage is visible almost everywhere, from Politico, Time and The New Republic to The Washington Post and The New York Times.... He's right; read his piece for the evidence and the pull quotes. The Clinton campaign's reading of poll numbers is now regarded as gospel truth, and her new champions -- the white working class -- are now regarded as The Only Voting Bloc That Matters. And that helps explain why this is happening. We call George W. Bush "Bubble Boy," but most Beltway journalists are Bubble Boys and Girls -- they don't live among ordinary people, they don't socialize with ordinary people, and they mostly rely on polls and campaign spinners' e-mails sent to their BlackBerrys to help them figure out what ordinary people think, or even who ordinary people are. So they thought Barack Obama was winning over everybody (because he was winning over people like themselves, or at least like their kids) -- and then Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire and they began showing a bit of interest in older women. That interest flagged during Obama's subsequent winning streak. But then Clinton started winning again, and her voting blocs now stood for every person in America reporters don't meet at parties in Georgetown. Remember, years ago, when the press suddenly decided that everyone in flyover America must be a "values voter" -- based on one poll? Well, white working-class Democrats are the new values voters. Yes, attention must certainly be paid to them -- but they're not the entire electorate. (Nor do we know what they'll actually be thinking once this nomination fight is over, as Patrick Healy of The New York Times, breaking from the herd, pointed out yesterday.) A little balance would have been helpful in the Obamania days, and a little balance would be helpful now. posted by Steve M. | 12:41 PM | IF PEGGY NOONAN IS OUR "ANCESTRAL ARBITER," THEN OUR SPECIES IS DOOMED Because two full columns on the subject in 2006 apparently weren't enough, Peggy Noonan has given us another half a column on the horrors of airport security and why, specifically, it should exempt women of a certain age, who are, apparently, America, as well as Civilization (or something like that): America is in line at the airport. America has its shoes off, is carrying a rubberized bin, is going through a magnetometer. America is worried there is fungus on the floor after a million stockinged feet have walked on it. But America knows not to ask. America is guilty until proved innocent, and no one wants to draw undue attention.... It reduces the status of that ancestral arbiter and leader of society, the middle-aged woman. In the new fairness, she is treated like everyone, without respect, like the loud ruffian and the vulgar girl on the phone. The middle-aged woman is the one spread-eagled over there in the delicate shell beneath the removed jacket, praying nothing on her body goes beep and makes people look.... "Spread-eagled" -- yeah, it's Abu frickin' Ghraib for you, isn't it, Peggy? And it's particularly horrifying because you're a middle-aged woman; as you put it two years ago, "America has become creepy for women who think of themselves as ladies. It has in fact become assaultive." That was the column in which you promised to walk among us for forty days and, whenever you saw "someone who is hurting the culture, hurting human dignity, denying the stature of a human being," march up to that person and say, "You are embarrassing the angels." But you weren't referring to, say, torture -- you were talking about sexually frank daytime TV or having to take your shoes off at the airport. But that only applies to you; as far as you're concerned, they can take the teenager next to you in a back room and do a cavity search, because she's annoying you by talking on a cell phone. Noonan tells us in the current column that her terminal has a TV tuned to CNN, but no one's watching: America knows what Samuel Johnson knew. "How small of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure." Right-wingers love quoting this and attributing it to Samuel Johnson. (It was actually Oliver Goldsmith.) The point of the couplet is that the things governments do don't really have much effect on our happiness. Er, Peggy, if that's true, why does airport security -- a government program -- drive you up the wall? Noonan says: We are a nation of Willie Lomans, dragging our rollies through acres of airport, going through life with a suitcase and a slack jaw, trying to get home after a long day of meetings, of moving product. Hey, Peggy, some of us never fly at all, or fly a couple of times a year. Not everyone is, like you, paid large amounts of money to bop around the country on a media billionaire's dime to find inspiration for gaseous missives. Your frequent travel doesn't make you America -- because of the reasons you do it, it makes you an elitist. ***** Noonan moves on to Barack Obama -- and tells us (yes, she's on the distribution list for the talking points) that he's not patriotic enough: ... has he ever gotten misty-eyed over ... the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter's Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? D-Day excepted, does anyone ever get "misty-eyed" about any of these things? Leaving the anti-Semitism out of the mix, it seems to me that getting "misty-eyed" about Henry Ford would be an American version of the Communist bloc as it was always portrayed during the Cold War, as a nightmare world where people were forced to sing hymns to collective factories and threshing combines. (And, hey, where did I put my copy of Brave New World?) ***** Then we move on to Bush. Newsflash -- he's unpopular! Even among people who voted for him! Peggy just found this out. (She didn't know it, even though she is our ancestral arbiter and leader of our society.) But don't worry, she understand why people, or at least right-wingers, don't like him: I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma's hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. Yes, your memory does not deceive you -- this is the same woman who told us this just after the 2004 election: I think Mr. Bush, the better man in terms of character, was also the more normal man. And we like normal. He loves sports and business and politics, and speaks their language. Normal. His wife is important to him, and his kids seem a bit of a mystery to him, and perhaps even to some degree intimidating. Normal. He thinks if bad guys attack New York City and the Pentagon, we go after them and kill them--normal. He thinks marriage is between a man and a woman--normal. He thinks if Baptist preachers in a suburb of Louisville have an after-school plan that has an excellent record of turning kids from juvenile delinquency to thinking about college, those Baptist preachers should be helped and encouraged every way we can, and it has nothing to do with "church and state." Normal. He thinks if there's an old plaque bearing the Ten Commandments on the wall of the courthouse you should leave it alone--it can't hurt, and it might help. Normal. But now his photograph has been removed from the Book of Normal Men; he is an unperson. All right, class, let's all gather round and sing our hymn to Henry Ford and his beloved conveyor belts. posted by Steve M. | 8:36 AM | Thursday, April 24, 2008 WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT CLASS Although he doesn't say it in so many words, I see from Anthony Lane's review in The New Yorker that the new Tina Fey-Amy Poehler movie is about the Clinton-Obama campaign: ...what fuels "Baby Mama" is not the eternal quest for motherhood, or the topical conflict between parenting and careers, but an old-fashioned scuffle over class. Nothing places us on the social scale as accurately as our child-rearing, and one shot of kids being called across a sunlit playground -- "Time for your playdate with Wingspan and Banjo!" -- summons a world of liberal cuteness. Clean-living and high-earning, Kate [Tina Fey] markets gloopy green soup and other organic treasures to the discerning. Angie [Amy Poehler]: "That crap is for rich people who hate themselves." Oof. ... If you want to see scene-stealing turned into grand larceny, watch ... Steve Martin, as the presiding genius of [the organic food company Kate works for,] Round Earth. Hand the guy a thick hank of ponytail, relieve him of the burden of a central role, aim him squarely at the bull's-eye of eco-smugness ("I've toasted pine nuts on the edge of an active volcano"), and you find him happier onscreen than I have seen him in years. Who cares whose baby is inside which mother, when the laughs come from the grown man doing business with his inner child? This is practically the only way we ever talk about class in America. We don't discuss economic haves versus have-nots in any serious way, and even our pop culture is rarely about the little guy battling entrenched power. We do, however, laugh at comedy that mocks upscale lifestyle quirks. Those quirks aren't what's bleeding the less well off dry, but nobody wants to talk about what is, so we channel that discussion into this kind of humor. The odd thing is that the people who make this kind of comedy usually do some of the very things they're making fun of. They think they're poking gentle fun at their own kind. But then -- and this is a point I garbled when I first posted this -- the general sense that culturally sophisticated people (who are presumed to all be liberal) are laughable buffoons (while we seem to have nothing bad to say about plain old rich people, many of whom don't seem culturally frou-frou) helps get George Bush and his son elected president three times (because, even though they're rich, they reassure voters that they're not culturally sophisticated), and might help elect John McCain, too (ditto), while undermining any momentum for reversing right-wing policies -- after all, if those people who eat breakfast cereal made of organic spelt want national health care, say, how good an idea can it be? We should mock greed; instead, we mock spelt. In an odd way, it almost works like gangsta rap -- people take the material of their own lives and the lives around them, exaggerate it (for comedy rather than, in gangsta's case, melodrama), and think they're just making popular art. Then a lot of people declare that the end products are documentaries, not art. What's meant as entertainment becomes self-indictment. (Edited hours after I originally posted it, because the original post seemed to say something very different from what I meant.) posted by Steve M. | 6:04 PM | ALMOST FIGURING IT OUT The New Republic's Jazon Zengerle looks at that North Carolina ad and nearly grasps what's going on: Is That NC GOP Ad Really That Hard to Figure Out? ... the North Carolina GOP ad is intended to help Hillary in the May 6 primary. I mean, if the NC GOP really wanted the ad to help McCain, wouldn't they be running this ad in October or November? This is clearly an attempt to play the race and the Wright card against Obama in the hopes of hurting him in the Democratic Primary. Which suggests that there are at least some Republicans out there who still think Obama is the more formidable general election candidate.... I don't think the GOP is making any judgment about who is the more formidable candidate. I think the GOP just wants to keep this thing going as long as possible, by motivating crossover voters and the people Zengerle calls "Jessecrats" ("conservative[s] in the eastern part of the state ... who are still nominally Democrats") to come out for Hillary. The GOP, in other words, is letting Rush Limbaugh play party chairman; it's participating in his Operation Chaos. (And I say "the GOP," not "the North Carolina GOP," because any idiot knows this is coming straight from the top, and it's high time the press called bullshit on the shocked, shocked reactions from McCain and the national party to this ad.) Incidentally, Rush literally wants all this to lead to bloodshed: ...The dream end... I mean, if people say what's your exit strategery, the dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention and that we have a replay of Chicago 1968, with burning cars, protests, fires, literal riots, and all of that. That's the objective here.... And note that he's not trying to guess which Democratic nominee will be easier to beat because he thinks he and the process can help decide that: We need [Obama] to limp across the finish line with his meager little lead in delegates. We need this guy having not won a significant primary since February 22nd. I know what many of you are saying, "No. That's the guy we want to get the nomination, Rush." They're both bloodied. They're both weakened. Mrs. Clinton, as I said, is already hated by half the country. We're on the way here now with Obama.... The purpose of Operation Chaos is not to secure the nomination for either of these two candidates. That's not the point. The point of Operation Chaos is chaos.... That's the GOP's point, too. **** UPDATE: Via Memeorandum, I see that Limbaugh's blood lust is making the news in Denver: Talk show host Rush Limbaugh is sparking controversy again after he made comments calling for riots in Denver during the Democratic National Convention this summer.... "Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don't elect Democrats," Limbaugh said during Wednesday's radio broadcast. He then went on to say that's the best thing that could happen to the country.... Several callers called in to the radio show to denounce Limbaugh's comments, when he later stated, "I am not inspiring or inciting riots, I am dreaming of riots in Denver."... Next time a right-winger dies and two random commenters at Democratic Underground or Daily Kos or the Huffington Post say something less than sympathetic, please remember this. MORE: Crooks and Liars has audio of the call for riots, and much more on this. posted by Steve M. | 12:43 PM | YES, YOU CAN LOSE STATES IN PRIMARY SEASON AND WIN THEM IN NOVEMBER In today's New York Times, Patrick Healy does a fairly good job of debunking the notion that primary losses equal fall electoral losses. But I want to add to that a bit of recent electoral history. The last time a candidate actually won a presidential election after a protracted nomination contest was 1976. The map of Democratic primary results is here, and the map of general election results is here. Here's the list of states Carter lost in the primaries and won in the general election: New York -- 41 electoral votes Massachusetts -- 14 electoral votes Maryland -- 10 electoral votes Minnesota -- 10 electoral votes Alabama -- 9 electoral votes South Carolina -- 8 electoral votes Mississippi -- 7 electoral votes West Virginia -- 6 electoral votes Hawaii -- 4 electoral votes Those states gave Carter 109 electoral votes. He won by 57. In The New York Observer a while back, Steve Kornacki discussed this. Some of what happened to Carter sounds rather similar to what's happening to Obama now: ...[Carter's] worst moments of the '76 primary campaign came not at the beginning, when he was largely unknown, but toward the end, when the likelihood of his nomination became apparent. In the spring, two new candidates -- Idaho's Frank Church and California's [Jerry] Brown -- suddenly jumped in the race. And they started winning. Church took Nebraska in early May, then Montana, Idaho and Oregon. Brown grabbed Maryland, then Nevada, California, New Jersey and Rhode Island ("uncommitted" slates aligned with Brown actually won the latter two). When the primary process concluded in early June, it was obvious that there were widespread concerns with Carter among Democrats. And yet Carter won in the fall, too. His race with Gerald Ford turned into a squeaker, but that had more to do with Carter's general-election miscues than with lingering bitterness from the primary season. After the Democratic convention in New York, Carter opened a 33-point lead over Ford. There weren't many people talking about Frank Church and Jerry Brown then. So there's no hard-and-fast link between primary results and results in November. posted by Steve M. | 10:30 AM | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 DISPUTING LANNY DAVIS'S "FACTS" It gets tiresome having to make the same argument over and over, but let me try again, in response to Clinton flack Lanny Davis's Top Ten List of Undisputed Facts Showing Barack Obama's Weakness in the General Election Against John McCain": Effectively, no one is running against John McCain right now. Furthermore, no one in the Republican Party is running against Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama's anti-Clinton talking points aren't the ones the GOP would use against her. By contrast, the Clinton and GOP talking points about Obama are virtually identical. So Obama is getting a double dose of a fall-style campaign. Clinton is taking flak, but none of it is coming from the low-blow masters in the GOP. McCain is getting no flak at all. There's the grain of salt you should take Davis's numbers with. **** ADDING: Yeah, Hillary still gets a lot of grief online and from the press. But the press coverage she's getting is better and better, and that's especially true since Tuesday night -- the press right now is mostly just seconding her indictment of Obama and her recasting of herself as a proletarian champion. She's getting much better press right now than Obama. **** Oh, and it's a minor point, but Davis is wrong about this: The last time a Democrat did not win Massachusetts by a substantial margin was 1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter. No. The last time a Democrat did not win Massachusetts by a substantial margin was 1984, when Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale. It's really not hard to get that kind of thing right, Lanny. posted by Steve M. | 11:46 PM | FUN WITH DELEGATE MATH Well, I should have known this was coming. From a blog that's on our side: Obama took seven, count 'em, seven of Pennsylvania's 50-odd counties. If I'm the Clinton campaign, I'm asking superdelegates as well as convention rules committees to take a closer look at even states Obama has won hands down for the county breakdown. My sense is, if you broke the entire nation down, county-by-county, Hillary wins the lion's share of the counties across the nation. Oh yes, let's do that. Let's reexamine the race by counties -- regardless of population. And after we've done that, we can all get down on our knees before the Republicans and beg their forgiveness, given the fact that, in order to be consistent in following this new standard, we're obliged to acknowledge that Bush won the 2000 race in a landslide, as Republicans greatly enjoyed arguing at the time.  Yes, let's concede that point. In fact, let's propose replacing a state-by-state Electoral College with a county-by-county one. That ought to work out beautifully for the Democratic Party going forward. At least, as far as I know, the people who are actually connected to the Clinton campaign haven't said anything like this -- yet. If they do, please shoot me. posted by Steve M. | 5:29 PM | A COUNTERNARRATIVE While we're wringing our hands about the resistance of white working-class voters and older voters to Barack Obama, and aboutdefections to McCain if he's the nominee, let's not forget this statistic (from page 5 of the CNN exit poll for Pennsylvania):  One out of every voters in this primary registered as a Democrat within the past three months. And 62% of those newbies voted for Obama. And that's after Reverend Wright and "bitter" and a bad debate. Even in a loss, he still brings people into the fold and gets them to the polls. Does that offset defections by traditional Democrats? I don't know, but the narrative right now is all about those defections and nothing else -- and that's not the whole story. posted by Steve M. | 2:24 PM | EVERY VOTE ALWAYS COUNTS Melissa at Shakesville writes: Dear Editors of the New York Times, In this morning's editorial, "The Low Road to Victory," you assert that "voters are getting tired" of what you deem a mean, vacuous, desperate, and pandering primary contest. My question to you is: Which voters, exactly, are getting tired? They wouldn't, by any chance, be voters who have already voted, would they? You see, some of us, out here in flyover country, haven't had our chance to vote yet.... What we are tired of, however, is a bunch of fucking uppity wankstains trying to force an end to this primary before we get our chance to vote.... Let the primary run its course. Let us vote. And shut the fuck up about it. Yeah, let everybody vote. After all, we've never, ever had a Democratic nomination battle in which every last vote didn't count -- even in '96, when the "inevitable" nominee was a sitting president, didn't we force him into a bruising primary battle, full of negative scare ads, just to ensure that not a single voter would feel left out? Everyone remember that? In fact, Republicans are jealous of us because they wish they could have an exhausting fifteen-round donnybrook that results in one combatant emerging victorious -- battered, bruised, and possibly fatally weakened, but victorious. Because they know that would be so much better for the Republican Party. So, yeah, let's drag this out as long as possible. Hell, if one of these candidates drops dead, let's bring back Edwards, or Kucinich, or get Jerry Brown to jump in as a late entry, or raise Paul Tsongas from the dead -- anything to make sure the contest doesn't end too soon. And let's make sure we do this every four years. The voters deserve no less. posted by Steve M. | 11:58 AM | TOUGHER AGAINST McCAIN? SHOW ME The argument of the Clinton campaign is that she'd be the tougher opponent against John McCain. That's meant demographically (she'd run better than Obama with traditional Democratic voters), but also stylistically (Obama's a wuss, while, bruiser that she is, Clinton would maul McCain). I think the first argument is a wash (Obama loses traditional Dems but gains crossovers and new voters). But as the for the second? I'm thinking: Show me. I'd like Hillary Clinton to really show how tough she is -- by turning that toughness on McCain, right now. We know that, even with a money deficit, Clinton can bruise Obama with attack ads and harsh, provocative talking points. So I want to see her do it to Saint John. In other words, Hillary (and Bill): Use your talents for good. You really know how to hit below the belt, so hit John McCain below the belt, immediately. Make him the subject of your next does-this-go-too-far? attack ad. Frame him in a way that significantly tarnishes his image. That is the promise, right? That in a fight you know is going to be down and dirty, you're the ones who can not only take the low blows but dish them out? Well dish some out now. And maybe then I'll start thinking you really would be the better party standard-bearer. I see that Obama plans to shift his emphasis to McCain. I know he and I want to pull oars in the same direction. Please show me that you do, too. posted by Steve M. | 9:57 AM | Tuesday, April 22, 2008 IN WHICH I DEFEND WHITE WORKING-CLASS VOTERS (SORT OF) Before Pennsylvania was called for Hillary Clinton, John Riley of Newsday critiqued her spin, and Jake Tapper's seconding of it: Everyone expects Obama to lose in Pennsylvania. The conventional wisdom seems to be congealing that "how much" is the important question -- less than double-digits is good for him, more than 10 is good for Hillary. Hillary, however, is rebelling at the idea that Obama shouldn't be expected to outright win: "Why can't he close the deal?...With his extraordinary financial advantage, why can't he win a state like this one if that's the way it turns out?" And some in the media are buying. ABC's Jake Tapper: "What's so crazy about the idea that the Democratic frontrunner -- flush with cash and outspending Clinton 3-to-1, running against a candidate with such high unfavorable ratings -- should be able to win a blue state primary?...Why can't the frontrunner win working class voters?" As Riley notes: ...Tapper apparently didn't notice that Obama is having no problem at all with black working class voters. The problem is with white working class voters -- especially women -- who have suddenly, inexplicably become attached to Hillary Rodham Clinton of Park Ridge, the White House and Chappaqua just at the very moment she runs against a black guy. What an incredible coincidence!!!! Does it occur to him that part of the problem -- not the whole problem, just part -- is race? And that Pennsylvania is a state that has a lot of white working class voters for whom race may be an issue? I think Riley's right and wrong. I think the white working class has been sold a line of BS in virtually every presidential election since 1968: I'm just like you. Maybe they believe it every four years, or maybe they're just flattered that rich, privileged guys would pretend to want to be just like them. But they generally buy one rich, privileged guy's act, even if that guy is, say, a successful Hollywood actor or an old-money Connecticut preppie. This year, one guy just can't pretend to be just like them. He looks in the mirror and he knows that, so he rarely tries. And a lot of them react to that. Maybe it's not that they don't like the color of his skin; maybe it's just that he can't possibly convincingly sell them the BS they want to have sold to them. (The rich, privileged woman, on the other hand, can.) So, yes, there's a barrier there, and it's racial. But maybe it's not truly racist. These people don't get much out of the political system -- the most they get is completely phony imitation. But they want it. It's a form of flattery. posted by Steve M. | 9:51 PM | RESISTANCE IS FUTILE I know all we're supposed to care about right now is Pennsylvania, but I'm a bit creeped out by what Rupert Murdoch is up to around these parts. As Newsweek discusses his plan to use his big money to wage war on The New York Times, he's now showing who's boss at The Wall Street Journal by micromanaging an overhaul of the paper and firing its managing editor, who's been on the job less than a year -- and he's putting the finishing touches on a deal to buy Long Island's Newsday, which he plans to run as a joint venture with his New York Post. If you worry about media concentration in general, then it's worrisome to have one guy owning three papers in and around the media capital of the United States. To have that guy be Rupert Murdoch is especially worrisome. Whatever you think of the Times or the mainstream media in general, Murdoch, phony flirtations with Democrats notwithstanding, is the vast right-wing conspiracy these days. He's always used his papers to push his political agenda in the past, and now he has three potential propaganda organs here in the Big Apple. Murdoch, Newsweek reminds us, is 77. So he can't hang on much longer, right? I don't know about that -- Sumner Redstone of Viacom and CBS will turn 85 next month and is still going strong. Being fabulously wealthy and the master of your universe keeps you young, I hear. So Murdoch could be a menace for years to come -- and his little anti-Times pincers movement has the potential to make him even more influential in the next few years. Politics may be entering a post-Bush era, but the Murdoch era isn't going to end for a long time. **** MORE: Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine also sees this as a "pincer movement" around the Times: Add the New York Post, of course, and Fox News -- not to mention the Times of London -- and you have the New York Times cornered. Murdoch can attack from above -- national and international -- and below -- local -- and the the right flank -- ideological -- and the future -- TV and digital. Ah yes, digital. I forgot to mention that he's not ruling out a joint bid (with Microsoft) for Yahoo. posted by Steve M. | 5:43 PM | BUSH DANCES AGAIN Yes, again -- this time in New Orleans. I haven't seen it on YouTube yet, so I think you'll have to go to ABC to watch the clip. Here's a screen shot:  This is in addition to his dances in Liberia in February, in Riyadh in January, on the White House lawn last April, and in Sao Paolo a month before that, not to mention his soft shoe last month before his endorsement of John McCain. One Drop at Too Sense says the right thing: ...It's not wrong because Bush does the Stiff White Man Dance. Almost all tourists do that dance when they come to New Orleans. It's wrong because it's a slap in the face to New Orleans. Here we have a President who utterly failed in his duties when responding to the aftermath of Katrina (with most of the disaster having been caused not by nature but by the incompetence of the Federal Government); a President who has repeatedly made promises about rebuilding the city, but hasn't done anything; a President whose administration spent more time trying to blame Kathleen Blanco for the lack of military troops in the disaster area than it did actually helping people affected by the crisis. Bush has failed New Orleans in every way that a leader can fail, and he has the nerve to come here...and dance? Get his White Guy Groove on, as if everything is good? As if nothing happened? HOW...DARE...HE?!?... I agree, and yet I also find myself disgusted by the dances in the abstract -- or not the dances so much as the emotionally desperate way he steps front and center every time, seemingly begging the camera to follow him as he shakes his groove thing. He's demanding that the world say, "Yes, you're a very engaging and fun-loving man!" As One Drop says, he doesn't care enough to do what needs to be done. Beyond that, he sometimes seems to want to treat the last two years of his presidency as one long Senior Skip Day. But it's more than that: he wants people to love him for it. (And when he's not dancing, he's cracking jokes at inappropriate occasions.) And you know what? He'll be like this for the rest of his life. We'll get him out of office at long last, but he's not going to go away. He's going to spend the rest of his life chasing the approval he craves. posted by Steve M. | 2:11 PM | THE HYSTERIA CARD? NO THANKS  Click to enlarge There's not much I can add to what Jill at Feministe and Jeff at Shakesville have said, among others -- this cover plays into hysterical-woman stereotypes ("The Voices in Her Head") and doesn't represent how I feel about Hillary Clinton, however exasperating I find her these days. When your criticism of Clinton veers into braying sexism, you're putting an albatross around the Obama campaign's neck, much the same way Ward Churchill put an albatross around the anti-war movement's neck by asserting that the victims of 9/11 "formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" and thus weren't "innocent." The rest of us have to defend our anti-war or pro-Obama position against charges that it's inextricably linked to someone else's ignorant idiocy. It's hateful and counterproductive, and I'm sick of it. posted by Steve M. | 1:24 PM | SOMEWHERE, RALPH NADER IS SMILING Hillary Clinton decided to use her Election Day Good Morning America interview to say that if Iran nuked Israel "we will attack Iran" and "we would be able to totally obliterate them." As Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo notes, the promise to protect Israel is a standard one for U.S. administrations. The language, however, has a bellicose self-satisfaction about it. And there's the problem. I know this is calculated for the moment: Clinton is trying to portray herself as the tough broad running against an effete girly-man. I know that she would presumably run a different kind of campaign against McCain if she managed to win the nomination. But if Obama of late hasn't seemed very good at protecting his right flank, the Clintons have been known to be too good at that. At the very least, if Clinton does get the nomination, the video clip of this quote will never die. And I think she'd be more likely to try to overcorrect for the Democratic stereotype of being "Kumbaya" singers by overdoing the bellicosity all through the fall. And that's where she'd start losing members of the base -- hardcore Democrats for whom the desperate need for a new foreign-policy approach is the #1 issue -- as well as many of the voters who've newly registered during this campaign, a lot of whom feel the same way. I don't expect Ralph Nader to do much as a third-party candidate this year -- his vote totals declined a lot between 2000 and 2004 -- but I don't think it's inevitable that his vote will decline even more this time, not with the Iraq War dragging on. He'll certainly run harder, and win at least a few more converts, against a Hillary Clinton who saber-rattles like this than against a Barack Obama who doesn't. But the bigger risk is that some war-weary voters will just stay home. Right now the conventional wisdom is that Obama will lose the white working-class boilermaker drinkers but Clinton might not lose anybody in the party's coalition. This is one reason I don't buy that. posted by Steve M. | 8:16 AM | Monday, April 21, 2008 MORE EVIDENCE OF RUPERT MURDOCH'S IMPECCABLY HIGH JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS Yes, thank you, Rupert Murdoch, for realizing what cable business news needed more of -- ex-pro wrestler business analysts who now moonlight as snake-oil salesmen: By day, John C. Layfield is an investment banker and professional pontificator for Fox Business Network. By night, he peddles a love potion. Mamajuana Energy, a berry-flavored liquid that Mr. Layfield developed, sells for $4.99 or less. He bills the two-ounce shots as an all-natural "sexual endurance drink" for men. A minister's son, Mr. Layfield says he first sampled the concoction in a dive bar in the Dominican Republic while on vacation and was hooked. "It's more of a sex potion," said Mr. Layfield, who enjoyed a successful run as a professional wrestler before reinventing himself as a financial whiz and beverage impresario. "Think of it as liquid Viagra." ... "Marketing hocus pocus" is how Dr. Andrew McCullough, director of sexual health and male infertility at New York University, describes the product. Dr. McCullough, who also served as a clinical investigator for Viagra, said herbal remedies were unlikely to have a significant impact on the libido and they certainly would have no impact on erectile dysfunction. "It's a bogus promise," he said.... But maybe the guy really does belong on the air -- after all, he knows enough about marketing to get his potion into the Vitamin Shoppe chain: ..."A lot of products come across my desk, but I saw a huge opportunity here," said Michael Carrubba, the category manager of Vitamin Shoppe.... Mr. Carrubba ... described Mamajuana Energy as "a great grab-and-go item." ... I'm not going to touch that line with a ten-foot ... oh, never mind. posted by Steve M. | 11:46 PM | SHORT-TERM MEMORY LOSS I've watched the new Hillary Clinton ad, and what strikes me is not what it says about Clinton or Obama now, but what it suggests about Obama's chances in the fall. Here's the ad: I watch this, with its suggestion that Hillary is the Democrat who won't wilt under pressure, the boilermaker-drinking tough dame, and I think: Was it really only three months ago that she was very publicly tearing up? People had different reactions to that moment, but they fell into three categories: (1) She's really under a lot of pressure, so I don't blame her for getting emotional; (2) when the pressure hits, she can't handle it and gets emotional; (3) when the pressure hits, she fakes emotion. I don't recall anyone saying, as the Philadelphia voter I quoted Saturday said, that "that woman's got balls." But it's a whopping three months later; now Hillary Clinton can put out an ad like this and it taps perfectly into her new image, as the tough one in the race. The watery-eyed moment is completely forgotten, apparently. Which tells me that a lot of Obama moments that now seem indelible -- the bowling, the "bitter" remarks -- really might not be. The Republicans are hell-bent on keeping this race focused on anything but the issues -- they can't possibly win otherwise -- but some bad moments for Obama don't have to be bad for him forever. There's a lot more of this race to go, and the script is going to keep changing. Notice how much it's changed for Hillary Clinton. posted by Steve M. | 3:26 PM | FACT-FUDGING, WILLIAM KRISTOL STYLE In today's New York Times, Republican apparatchik William Kristol wrings an entire column out of the pro forma commemorations of Passover on the Web sites of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. After sneering at the Clinton statement ("The trouble is that, as so often in her campaign, her greater experience hasn't given her anything interesting or distinctive to say"), Kristol moves on to Obama's statement. Naturally, he sneers again: It's "talkier than Clinton's." And, yes, the numbers bear that out: Clinton's statement is 139 words; Obama's is 215 words. Know how many words McCain's is? 208. Kristol, naturally, does not call McCain's statement "talky." ***** He then turns to a different commemoration in his last paragraph: I might add that both Democratic campaigns missed an opportunity last week. They seem not to have noticed that the date of the first Seder, April 19, was also the 233rd anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord. So, a few days before Pennsylvanians vote, the candidates could have commemorated not just the Exodus from Egypt but also "the shot heard round the world," thus identifying themselves all at once with political liberation, religious freedom and -- yes! -- the right to bear arms. Anyone hear McCain utter a word about this? Me either. But it's only bad if Democrats don't. posted by Steve M. | 11:45 AM | ON TALK AND ITS STRAIGHTNESS Yeah, nothing but verbal straightitude here: McCain Admits Hagee Endorsement Was A Mistake ABC News' Mary Bruce Reports: Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., admitted this morning that it was a mistake to accept the endorsement of Evangelical pastor Rev. John Hagee. When asked in an exclusive "This Week" interview with George Stephanopoulos if it was "a mistake to solicit and accept his endorsement", McCain replied "oh, probably, sure." Despite admitting his error, McCain made clear he's still "glad to have his endorsement." ... Follow that? It was a mistake to solicit it, it was a mistake to accept it, but he's glad to have it. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm reminded of the time a McCain spokesman said that McCain would have signed a state law banning all abortions, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother -- but he would also "take the appropriate steps" to see that those exceptions were in place. (Even though, in the bill, they clearly weren't in place.) Basically, on controversial subjects, either over time or in a single sentence, McCain just keeps talking until he says whatever it is every particular group of people wants him to say. Then everyone walks away and thinks he said only what they wanted to hear. Coming from other people, this is called "double talk." From McCain it's called -- well, you know. posted by Steve M. | 8:25 AM | Sunday, April 20, 2008 THE OCTOPUS I recognized a name that was mentioned in passing in today's big New York Times article about the Pentagon's program to turn retired military officers into on-air propagandists for the Iraq War: ... an internal Pentagon strategy memorandum ... led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush's request for $87 billion in emergency war financing. ... if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president's $87 billion would be spent.... Information and access of this nature had undeniable value for trip participants like William V. Cowan and Carlton A. Sherwood. Mr. Cowan, a Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, was the chief executive of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Mr. Sherwood was its executive vice president.... Carlton Sherwood -- anybody else recognize that name? He was a sometime journalist, sometime propagandist, and sometime GOP bureaucrat who, the year after this trip took place, would release Stolen Honor, the anti-Kerry film he produced, which claimed that the words of Kerry and other anti-war veterans harmed U.S. POWs in Vietnam. This was the documentary that was scheduled to be broadcast nationwide on Sinclair stations just before the 2004 election (a program that largely focused on charges made in the film was aired instead). In September 2004, his group merged with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to release the film. Sherwood, worked for The Washington Times in the 1980s and would go on to write a book called Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon; he has lied about the fact that the Unification Church exercised editorial control over the book. Later he did media work for Tom Ridge when Ridge was governor of Pennsylvania. Ridge, as Homeland Security secretary, would reward Sherwood by putting him in charge of developing the Web site FirstResponder.gov. It was noted in 2005 that Sherwood's boss at wvc3, CEO William Cowan, in addition to being a Fox News analyst, was an adviser to the Lincoln Group, which paid to plant stories in the Iraqi media that had been written by U.S. military personnel. Wheels within wheels.... posted by Steve M. | 11:02 PM | IS IT REALLY A NEW DAY? In his latest column, Frank Rich insists that, yes, it's a new day: ...Not the least of the reasons that the Beltway has gotten so much wrong this year is that it believes that 2008 is still 1988. It sees the country in its own image -- static -- instead of as a dynamic society whose culture and demographics are changing by the day. In this one-size-fits-all analysis, Mr. Obama must be the new Dukakis, sure to be rejected by white guys easily manipulated by Lee Atwater-style campaigns exploiting race and class. But some voters who lived through 1988 have changed, and quite a few others are dead. In 2008, they are supplanted in part by an energized African-American electorate and the young voters of all economic strata who fueled the Obama movement that many pundits didn't take seriously before Iowa. And that some still don't.... This is what I can't figure out -- is Rich right? I see Obama remaining competitive in the polls, despite multiple setbacks and the persistent framing of him as an "elitist," and I think, well, maybe Rich has a point -- maybe there simply aren't as many old-school Reagan Democrat blue-collar voters anymore, maybe "ordinary Americans" look more like the the employees on The Office than the guys on The Honeymooners, and the current media obsession with boliermaker-drinkers is just the press deciding that a once-overlooked voting bloc is suddenly The Only Voting Bloc That Matters (remember the obsession with "values voters" just after the '04 exit polls came in?). I'd like to believe Rich when he says this: The video of Mrs. Clinton knocking back drinks in an Indiana bar drowned out the scratchy audio of Mr. Obama's wispy words in San Francisco. Her campaign didn't seem to recognize that among the many consequences of the Bush backlash is a revulsion against such play acting. ButI'm not sure I can when I read something like this Nation article, about expected Clinton strongholds in Pennsylvania, where I read this: At a cafe [in South Philadelphia], a regular asked about Obama replied: "Who is he? Where did he come from? What was he? In South Carolina, picking cotton?" A construction contractor who gave the name Mike Giordano said he did not watch Obama's speech on race after the Wright controversy broke because "I don't listen to those people. They don't make sense when they talk." And he summed up the presidential contest this way: "They put a senior citizen for President, a woman and a black man. What do you got? Nothing. But that woman's got balls." Obviously some people are buying the notion of Clinton as working-class hero -- and obviously there are still some people to whom this matters. I get the feeling that Obama could win, but more or less exactly the way Bill Clinton did in '92. Remember, Clinton tapped into an energized wave of young first-time voters (MTV was the Pied Piper than, not YouTube) and won over some skeptics, but he really alienated some other voters because he was painted (along with his women's-libber lawyer wife) as a guy with weird, alien values. I'm worried that even an Obama win might be just a rerun of that movie, with a Democrat on the defensive for his entire term. I'll take it -- better that than a loss -- but it would be nice to have more. posted by Steve M. | 11:38 AM | HE INVENTED THE REMIX Maureen Dowd today: ...Barack Obama, who says he listens to Jay-Z along with his "old school guy" favorites like Earth, Wind & Fire and the Temptations, alluded to the rapper's 2003 hit "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" on Thursday to sweep away concerns about his pugnacity. After conceding that the Philly debate was tough, he brushed the imaginary lint of Hillary, George and Charlie from his shoulders, in a wordless reference to Jay-Z’s lyrics.... She says: It had to be the first time in history that a presidential candidate had a hip-hop moment. What?! "The first"?! Dowd wouldn't give that honor to Mitt Romney singing "Who Let the Dogs Out?" on Martin Luther King Day? I'm appalled. posted by Steve M. | 10:59 AM | Saturday, April 19, 2008 THE POLITICO REWRITES THE PAST Today at the Politico, John Harris and Jim VandeHei argue that press criticism of this week's debate proves that the press is in the tank for Obama -- absolutely no one apart from "Clinton supporters," Harris and VandeHei insist, uttered a word of criticism when Hillary Clinton was subjected to similar treatment by Tim Russert and Brian Williams in a debate last fall. Certainly no one in the press. Further, Harris and VandeHei suggest that "the liberal echo chamber" is driving press coverage -- which seems to be their way of implying that new-media liberals were silent in the fall. Er, sorry, but not quite. The evidence is below. Here's what Harris and VandeHei have to say: ...The shower of indignation on Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos over the last few days is the clearest evidence yet that the Clintonites are fundamentally correct in their complaint that she has been flying throughout this campaign into a headwind of media favoritism for Obama. Last fall, when NBC's Tim Russert hazed Clinton with a bunch of similar questions -- a mix of fair and impertinent -- he got lots of gripes from Clinton supporters. But there was nothing like the piling on from journalists ... denouncing ABC's performance as journalistically unsound.... There wasn't? As Media Matters noted at the time, there was all this: ...In writing about the October 30 debate, numerous media figures noted the conduct of the moderators, and Russert's in particular: * An October 31 New York Times article on the debate reported: "Mrs. Clinton walked into the debate expecting to be the target of attacks but as the night went on, she appeared surprised by the intensity as she was challenged not only by her opponents but by the moderators, Brian Williams and Tim Russert of NBC." The article later described Russert as "arguably" Clinton's "third toughest opponent on the stage." * In an October 31 Washington Post "Media Notes" column, media critic Howard Kurtz wrote: "At times, it seemed like 4 against 1, with Brian [Williams] and Tim [Russert] repeatedly pressing Hillary as well." ... * In an October 30 entry on the washingtonpost.com blog The Fix, Chris Cillizza wrote: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) spent the first hour of the debate fending off shots from her opponents and parrying pointed questions from the moderators." He also asserted that Clinton "for the majority of the debate ... acquitted herself well despite having the deck stacked heavily against her. In the first hour, nearly every question and response started and ended with Clinton." ... There was also this, from Nicholas Von Hoffman in The New York Observer: A couple of weeks ago, during a Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC, two men claiming to be journalists threw wilted lettuce and decomposed organic material at the candidates. Judging from the questions aimed at the candidate/victims, the purpose of the networks sponsoring these debates is to bait, bully and embarrass while giving the news celebrities a chance to make themselves appear superior to the dumbkins running for president. If the people putting on this show treated their pets thusly, they would be arrested. ... Tim Russert cast himself as a political Jerry Springer, posing questions that had no other purpose than to get these politicians fighting each other as they do in those daytime television spectacles. Mr. Russert left the viewer with the impression that he believes he should be running for president. His intention was plain. He was to be the superior one, the poised person with the correct answers while the candidates were made to look like a clutch of clumsy, ox-brained tangle-foots. ... Tim Russert abandon[ed] the role of debate moderator for that of Crusader Rabbit or Tribune of the People... And even this from a right-winger, Jay Cost, at Real Clear Politics: In the first two segments, I counted thirty-three questions. Twenty-two of them were designed to facilitate either another candidate attacking Hillary Clinton, or Clinton responding to attacks (either from another candidate or from Russert). Indeed, all of the major subjects were structured around attacks on Clinton....Afterwards, I could only stomach so much post-debate "analysis." Before I had to walk away from the TV to find the Tums, I watched in amazement as Chris Matthews interviewed Joe Biden and Chris Dodd -- and talked about nothing more than Hillary Clinton. Yet Harris and VandeHei say that no one apart from her advocates stuck up for Clinton. And if Obama's being defended now, they say, here's one reason: The rise of the liberal echo chamber. It used to be that if a reporter received a letter that started, "You biased S.O.B.," it was almost certainly coming from someone on the right.... But it has only been in this campaign cycle that we have seen the liberal echo chamber -- from websites like The Huffington Post and cable commentators like Keith Olbermann -- be able consistently to drive a campaign story line... This is a huge shift. But, er, there was plenty of outrage at Russert in "the liberal echo chamber" back in the fall. The Daily Howler: On Tuesday night, Russert and Williams staged a public auto-da-fe the likes of which we've never seen. But then, no one else has seen such a thing either; simply put, there has never been a presidential debate like the one the two high peacocks staged. And let's get real here: For anyone who has followed their work, it is impossible to imagine the pair doing such things to a leading Republican. The American Prospect: Tim Russert: Stop the Inanity ...I have a fantasy that at one of these moments, a candidate will say, "You know what, Tim, I'm not going to answer that question. This is serious business. And you, sir, are a disgrace. You have in front of you a group of accomplished, talented leaders, one of whom will in all likelihood be the next president of the United States. You can ask them whatever you want. And you choose to engage in this ridiculous gotcha game, thinking up inane questions you hope will trick us into saying something controversial or stupid. Your fondest hope is that the answer to your question will destroy someone's campaign. You're not a journalist, you're the worst kind of hack, someone whose efforts not only don't contribute to a better informed electorate, they make everyone dumber. So no, I'm not going to stand here and try to come up with the most politically safe Bible verse to cite. Is that the best you can do?" And this is in addition to Hillary advocates in the blogosphere such as Taylor Marsh ("Russert Leads Boys in Hillary Hit Job") and Jane Hamsher ("As John Amato said last night when we were watching the debate, 'why doesn't he just ask her if she killed Vince Foster?'"). So if Harris and VandeHei think there wasn't enough backlash against Russert and Williams, why not, given their sense that the press asks "How high?" when angry online liberals say "Jump!"? posted by Steve M. | 12:27 PM | Friday, April 18, 2008 DO JOURNALISTS FOLLOW SURROGATES' LEADS? YES, BUT ONLY AGAINST DEMOCRATS A couple of days ago we saw that when Sean Hannity suggested a line of attack against Barack Obama, George Stephanopoulos literally took dictation ("Well, I'm taking notes right now"). So the lesson to be learned from this is that Democrats should also try to drive press coverage, right? Ah, but that's where the problem lies. The press, desperate not to be called liberal, eagerly overcorrects by absorbing and retransmitting GOP spin, particularly in election years -- but when Democrats try to dish the dirt, the press suddenly rediscovers skepticism. See, for instance, this New York Observer review of two books that try to knock off John McCain's halo: ...neither [Cliff Schecter's The Real McCain] nor the eerily similar Free Ride [by David Brock and Paul Waldman] will convert someone who believes in Mr. McCain. These are tools for the already converted. Mr. Schecter's book ...[is] full of passion and unconcealed bias.... Messrs. Brock and Waldman are essentially debunking a caricature. It's not a terrible story, but neither is it a revelation. Making caricatures of politicians is how journalists, and readers, organize loyalties.... Caricatures, unfair or otherwise, are the result of accumulated profiles written on deadline; they’re an inevitable by-product of a career in politics.... The argument comes up a little thin, then. The profusion of anecdotes about the "real" McCain give the impression of a vendetta, as though the authors harbor the bitter suspicion that Mr. McCain is getting away with something. Like Cliff Schecter, David Brock and Paul Waldman are unreliable narrators.... Sean Hannity, by contrast, is just a humble truth-teller, Diogenes with a blow dryer. But you would think attention must be paid to these books -- after all, the Observer review reminds us that Shortly after it was published last month, it became clear that Free Ride would literally be the blueprint for the assault on Mr. McCain. On April 10, Ben Smith reported in Politico that David Brock is leading a group of wealthy Democrats in a $40 million media campaign against the Republican nominee. So why isn't it being quoted and paraphrased throughout the media? Wasn't that Stephanopoulos's defense of all the gotcha questions aimed at Obama in Wednesday's debate -- "If you look at the fall campaign, there are some clear signals from Senator Obama's opponents that all of these issues are going to be put together in a general argument"? Well, the Democratic "general argument" is in these books. So it's time to start taking notes -- right, George? On Sunday when Stephanopoulos interviews McCain, we'll find out whether he applies the same standard. If so, here's a handy list of questions, courtesy of Cliff Schecter. My guess is that #2 and #10 will actually be asked, in a mild form -- but none of the others. posted by Steve M. | 3:04 PM | FINGER-GATE DEBUNKED A side-angle shot posted by John Cole shows Obama was using two fingers to scratch.  Satisfied? (Via Kevin Hayden.) posted by Steve M. | 1:48 PM | JUST KEEP ON USING ME UNTIL YOU USE ME UP  Fig. 1. Artist's depiction of the relationship between the media and the GOP spin machine. There's something almost Escheresque or Borgesian about the way this Politico story from yesterday works -- it is what it describes: For reasons of financial necessity, personal preference and plain politics, John McCain is gearing up to run one of the least traditional presidential campaigns in recent history.... McCain will lean heavily on the well-funded Republican National Committee. He will merge key functions of his campaign hierarchy with the RNC while also relying on an unconventional structure of 10 regional campaign mangers. And finally -- and perhaps most importantly -- McCain will rely on free media to an unprecedented degree to get out his message in a fashion that aims to not only minimize his financial disadvantage but also drive a triangulated contrast among himself, the Democratic nominee and President Bush. Emphasis mine -- and, in fact, the process of both describing and participating in McCain's campaign strategy is seen in that very sentence, in which the Politico helpfully tells us just what the McCain camp wants us to hear: "McCain isn't like Bush! Really! There's a notable contrast!" The participation in the McCain strategy gets more explicit as the article continues: ...aides ... argue that by facing tough questions from reporters on his bus each day and potentially even tougher ones from audience members at frequent town hall meetings, McCain will demonstrate how he's different from two politicians who are far less accessible. ...Mark Salter, [a] top aide to McCain, says Obama is running "one buttoned-up, conventional campaign." "Is new politics just stadium-sized crowds and lots of money?" he asks. ...McCain aides also want to paint their guy as different from an unpopular administration that prefers secrecy to transparency and friendly crowds to unpredictable ones. "Sen. McCain believes every American should participate in the arena, and that includes people that don't agree with him," Schmidt says, taking care to note that such unscripted exchanges have waned "in the last decade." ...Differences between Bush and McCain will be "discussed at great length," promises one aide. "He'll be direct about it. He's never gratuitous, never disrespectful, but there are going to be policy breaks where it couldn’t be clearer." Two areas of difference McCain will highlight: global warming and spending.... So it's one-stop shopping -- you get to learn how McCain will count on the press to relay his message for him at no charge ... and then you get to see the press do it! Don't you just love the efficiency and convenience of modern media life? posted by Steve M. | 11:45 AM | EVEN I -- A DEMOCRAT -- AM APPALLED THAT A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WOULD GIVE THE FINGER! Shocking. Simply shocking. (I'm told here that this incident took place "at an Austin production facility during the later months of Bush's term as Texas governor.") ...Oh, I'm sorry -- you're looking for the video of Barack Obama scratching his face first with his pinky, then with either his middle finger or his middle and index finger, clearly because he (a) has a mild itch or (b) semi-consciously uses scratching to send the body-language signal "Rattled? Not me, Jack." That video is here. As I type, this is the lead blog story in America, according to Memeorandum. Kevin Hayden, recognizing the video's status as the new Zapruder film, links to another angle on the incident (blown up to full screen size) here. There's nothing untoward going on here. The bloggers who say they think he's giving the finger are lying to you or lying to themselves. Our political culture is appalling, and the blogosphere is now obviously part of the problem, not part of the solution. If this is the best we can do, we're no better than Gibson and Stephanopoulos or (insert media enemy of your choice). By the way, this is how you give the finger at a public appearance, if you're a (Republican) politician. (Story in the penultimate paragraph here.) ***** UPDATE: I reproduce a rather definitive debunking photo here. posted by Steve M. | 7:45 AM | Thursday, April 17, 2008 STEPHANOPOULOS: WE'RE JUST THE GOP'S ADVANCE TEAM From an interview with George Stephanopoulos by Greg Sargent of Talking Points Memo: ...When I asked him whether asking about Obama's derelict approach to his flag lapel pin risked making it look like right-wing frames were dictating the line of questioning, Stephanopoulos said: "Sure, there's a risk." But he added: "If you look at the fall campaign, there are some clear signals from Senator Obama's opponents that all of these issues are going to be put together in a general argument. They all go back to that same theme." ... In other words, it doesn't matter how irrelevant the issue is, or how low the blows are going to be -- if the Republicans are planning to aim low in the fall, the press simply has to reinforce their efforts by doing the same thing first. This is, I think, a new low for the mainstream press. Even in recent elections, the press wasn't this bad. By this Stephanopoulos standard, there should have a ten-minute inquisition in a 2004 debate about whether John Kerry really shot himself to get a Purple Heart; Bill Clinton, back in '96, should have been asked if he and his wife were responsible for killing Ron Brown, Vincent Foster, and dozens of other people; and in '88 Michael Dukakis should have been asked whether his wife had onced an American flag. After all, each of these stories, was part of what was "put together in a general argument" by the people campaigning against those Democrats, if only under the radar in some cases. Hell, even though he'd already answered it, I suppose JFK should have been asked a debate question in 1960 about whether he planned to suspend the Constitution and hand the reins of the U.S. government over to the Vatican. Why not, if scurrilousness isn't a disqualifier? posted by Steve M. | 11:52 PM | NOW WE'LL NEVER GET TO KNOCK BACK BREWSKIS WITH W.F.B. Good point made today by a New York Times letter writer, on the Barack Obama "elitism" question: ...have the conservatives succumbed to amnesia as to forget that their movement was singlehandedly crafted by the blue blood William F. Buckley Jr.? Yes, how good was Buckley's bowling anyway? How often did he wander into bars and drink boilermakers with guys from the steel mills? Would any of the folks who damned the "elitist" Obama within weeks of penning gushing Buckley eulogies (I'm talking to people like you, George Will) care to respond? **** Meanwhile, I see that this shirt is being advertised on the Drudge Report:  I wonder if the check for that ad buy goes to Drudge's $1.4 million Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island in Miami or his $1-million-plus condominium in Miami's Four Seasons hotel. posted by Steve M. | 4:41 PM | SELLING THE "CURE" FOR THE CONDITION THEY'VE DIAGNOSED We all know that the right has "worked the refs" for a generation, persistently decrying "liberal media bias" so a guilt-ridden press will feel compelled to give Republicans a break and slam Democrats. But the right does more than that. Like a sleazy fortune teller who not only "discovers" that a bad spell has been placed on the customer but (for the right price) knows just how to lift it, the right diagnoses liberal bias and provides the remedy. Thus, we had George Stephanopoulos, a day before the debate, appearing on Sean Hannity's radio show -- hoping, no dopubt, that Hannity would absolve him of bias. And what do you know? In fact, Sean had the cure: Hannity, who for months has been aggressively pushing a story about Barack Obama's connections to a former member of a radical anti-Vietnam 1970s organization called the Weather Underground, interviewed Stephanopoulos on his radio show on Tuesday, where he pressed the ABC host to ask Obama about this: HANNITY: There are two questions that I don't think anybody has asked Barack Obama, and I don't know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is -- the only time he's ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground who on 9/11 of all days in the New York Times was saying "I don't regret setting bombs. I don't think we did enough." When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said that they have a friendly relationship, and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask? Meanwhile, Charlie Gibson struggles to compensate for the frou-frou Northeast Corridor elitism he's surely been told by right-wingers is his fatal flaw, so he goes out to hear the voice of "the people" -- and what "the people" are saying is what they're picking up from the right-wing media: MR. GIBSON: Just to add to that, I noticed you put [an American flag pin] on yesterday. But -- you've talked about this before, but it comes up again and again when we talk to voters. And as you may know, it is all over the Internet. This is how it works -- the right says the mainstream press is out of touch with ordinary Americans, while feeding the press and ordinary Americans a steady diet of phony talking points that it then portrays as genuine populist concerns. It's a great scam. posted by Steve M. | 2:31 PM | BROOKS: IT'S OK AS LONG AS YOU DON'T DO IT TO A REPUBLICAN In a debate post-mortem last night, David Brooks went contrarian on us and said that ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos asked brilliant, thoroughly relevant questions -- because it's a good thing to ask about issues that seem insignificant or tangential. Funny thing, though -- Brooks didn't always feel that way. Here's Brooks just after last night's debate: ...Democrats, and especially Obama supporters, are going to jump all over ABC for the choice of topics: too many gaffe questions, not enough policy questions. I understand the complaints, but I thought the questions were excellent. The journalist's job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities. Almost every question tonight did that.... We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It's legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.... Now here's Brooks in a sneering review he published last August of The Political Brain by Drew Westen, a psychology professor at Emory University: ...Westen urges Democratic candidates to go for the gut, and includes a number of speeches that he wishes Democratic candidates had given. He wishes, for example, Al Gore had hit George Bush harder for being a drunk. He wishes Gore had interrupted a presidential debate and barked at Bush, "If someone is going to restore dignity to the Oval Office, it isn't a man who drank his way through three decades of his life and got investigated by his father's own Securities and Exchange Commission for swindling people out of their retirement savings." At another point, he imagines Gore exploding: "Why don't you tell us how many times you got behind the wheel of a car with a few drinks under your belt, endangering your neighbors' kids? Where I come from, we call that a drunk." If Democrats would go for people's primitive passions in this way, Westen argues, they'd win elections. This thesis raises some interesting questions. First, why did someone with so little faith in rational inquiry go into academia, and what does he do to those who disagree with him at Emory faculty meetings, especially recovering alcoholics? ...Finally, if voter decisions are driven by the sort of crude emotional outbursts Westen recommends, ... then shouldn't we abandon this whole democracy thing? Shouldn't we have a coup, led perhaps by the Emory psychology department, which could prevent the brutish and hate-filled from ever gaining control? ... So, let's sum up. It's OK for reporters to hammer Obama on flag pins and incidental contact with '60s radicals. It's OK for Poppy Bush to run an Atwater campaign based on Michael Dukakis's alleged attitude toward the flag. Reporters and Republicans can always attack Democrats. But a Democrat (or a pro-Democratic college professor) attacking a Republican in a similar way? Heaven forfend. posted by Steve M. | 8:17 AM | Wednesday, April 16, 2008 THE REPUBLICAN TALKING-POINT DUMP, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE DEMOCRATIC DEBATE Going into tonight's debate, it seemed unlikely that ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos could top Brian Williams and Tim Russert for sheer godawfulness in debate moderation. In several debates in the past few months, they've set the bar pretty high. But tonight, at least for the first hour, Gibson and Stephanopoulos cleared the bar. After a January debate, Steve Benen chided Williams and Russert: The first question of any substance came 40 minutes into the event. 40. The entire debate was two hours long, which means Tim Russert, Brian Williams, and NBC's Natalie Morales (who was relegated to reading emails to the candidates) spent the first third of the debate covering nothing but process, politics, and horserace. First third? Tonight it was closer to the first half. The debate began at 8:00 P.M. Eastern and was scheduled for ninety minutes (it ran long), but the first question of any substance didn't come until 8:53 -- nearly an hour in. And were you appalled in February when Russert repeatedly asked Obama about Louis Farrakhan? Well, tonight Obama had to answer questions about Farrakhan and William Ayers, two people no one claims have real ties to Obama. Take that, Russert! The debate was lousy with right-wing talking points. Jeremiah Wright. Tuzla. Supposed lack of respect for the flag. (One reason Gibson said it was legitimate to ask Obama about this -- the question came from an ordinary citizen, on videotape -- was that "it is all over the Internet.") Past pledges to ban handguns. Alleged ignorance of right-wing "laws" of economics. ("But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up," Gibson said flatly at one point.) Most GOP attacks right now are aimed at Obama; most of these attacks were ... aimed at Obama. The Tuzla quetioning was brief; the "bitter" questioning and Wright questioning were endless. People say, "Can Obama really withstand the attacks he'll face from the GOP in the general election?" But that's not the right question. The right question is: Can Obama withstand the attacks he'll face from the mainstream press parroting the GOP? That should be his biggest concern. He struggled tonight, as if he didn't realize he was facing any Democratic presidential candidate's real enemy. He needs to learn where the true threat lies. He needs to learn that, in a presidential election year, the press always wants Republican Daddy. posted by Steve M. | 11:30 PM | IS THE LONG RACE VINDICATING OBAMA'S ARGUMENT ABOUT OUR POLITICS? When it became clear that the Democratic race would go on far longer than anyone expected, some people argued that it was actually good for the party. They said it was good because it drew attention away from John McCain, and because it would either toughen Barack Obama up or (the Clinton campaign's line) generate an Obama stumble that would allow Hillary to wrest the nomination from him. But if something's happening that's good for the Democrats, I don't think it's one of those things. It's something else: The campaign has essentially turned into what Barack Obama says is wrong with American politics. I think it's making his message resonate; we're experiences just the sort of mud wrestling Obama says he wants to get beyond. When he says "hope," this is a big part of what he's talking about: hope that we can actually get something done because our politics won't suck in this precisely this way. I wonder if that's why he's holding up much better than expected -- well ahead of Clinton nationwide among Democrats, according to Gallup, far ahead of her on electability according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll, and within striking distance in Pennsylvania (and beating McCain in both national polls). The ABC/WaPo results hint at that: The number of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who describe the tone of the contest as "mostly negative" has risen by 14 points since February, from 27 percent then to 41 percent now. Those who say so mainly blame Clinton over Obama, by nearly a 4-1 margin, 52 percent to 14 percent. (An additional 25 percent blame both equally.) In a similar result, half of Democrats say their candidates are "arguing about things that really aren't that important" rather than discussing real issues. So maybe he'll actually benefit from even more Clinton "kitchen sink" campaigning, or a few more days of pundits and operatives parsing the word "bitter" -- he's the candidate who doesn't think that's endlessly amusing or relevant to the state of the nation, which puts him in agreement with the public. posted by Steve M. | 4:47 PM | TOLD YA (AND I'M SURE YOU'RE SICK OF HEARING ME SAY THAT) From The Hill: Lieberman willing to star at Republican convention Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the Democratic Party's 2000 vice presidential nominee, is leaving open the possibility of giving a keynote address on behalf of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) at the Republican National Convention in September. Republicans close to the McCain campaign say Lieberman's appearance at the convention, possibly before a national primetime audience, could help make the case that the presumptive GOP nominee has a record of crossing the aisle.... "Possibility"? "Possibly"? Oh, give me a break -- this will happen, as I've predicted over and over and over again for almost two years. Why wouldn't it happen? Because Lieberman fears the wrath and fury of the take-no-prisoners Democrats? ...If Democrats pick up more seats as expected in November, and Lieberman angers Democrats along the campaign trail, some privately expect there might be an attempt to deny him his bid to retain his chairmanship. One Democratic leadership aide said losing his chairmanship could happen in that scenario, but "the bar would have to be very high." Endorsing the other party's presidential candidate? Pondering a high-profile appearance at the other party's convention? Red-baiting the likely nominee of the party you caucus with, who's a fellow senator? All that put together still doesn't clear the bar? Oh, but there are more important matters than, y'know, actually taking one's own side in a dispute: ...Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has a close relationship with Lieberman. Unlike a number of Democratic colleagues who backed Lieberman's challenger Ned Lamont after the 2006 primary, Reid offered words of praise for the senator, saying he would not "turn on Joe." Reid called Lieberman and promised him a chairmanship if he won reelection, a move that angered some Lamont supporters. Even though Reid may not need Lieberman next Congress to claim a Senate majority, he told Lieberman in private conversations that he would protect his seniority.... When asked Tuesday if Lieberman's chairmanship was at risk next Congress, Reid said succinctly: "No." "We have one difference of opinion, maybe two with Sen. Lieberman," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a prominent supporter of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) presidential candidacy. "As a whip, I can tell you time and again, he's been there when we’ve needed him." ... Not good enough. You people are pathetic. This is bad because the speech won't be Zell Miller, it will be Zell Miller plus. The plus is the fact that the press -- still -- treats Lieberman as the cuddly, adorable, highly appealing independent (I almost typed "maverick") who'll make swing voters sit up and take notice. Here's the Hill story with the conventional wisdom: Republicans close to the McCain campaign say Lieberman's appearance at the convention, possibly before a national primetime audience, could help make the case that the presumptive GOP nominee has a record of crossing the aisle. That could appeal to much-needed independent voters. Endless repetition of the notion that support from Lieberman equals support from a Democrat makes it seem true. That's why, well before this speech happens, the Obama campaign needs to neutralize Lieberman. Obama needs to make sure that everyone in American realizes that that elfin, soft-spoken, apparently nice guy is possibly the biggest apologist in America for a war the vast majority of the country hates. Obama needs to portray him as a dishonest faux-naif who acts shocked, shocked, when anyone dares to suggest that he's exactly what he is, a Republican apparatchik still pretending not to be one. Will that happen? I doubt it. But if it doesn't, this speech will do real damage. The press will see to that. posted by Steve M. | 11:23 AM | WE THINK YOU'RE STUPID, ELITIST, AMERICA-HATING IDIOTS, BUT WE SAY THAT IN A COMPLETELY NON-ANGRY, NON-BITTER WAY Maureen Dowd today: I'm not bitter. I'm not writing this just because I grew up in a house with a gun, a strong Catholic faith, an immigrant father, brothers with anti-illegal immigrant sentiments.... My family morphed from Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Republicans not because they were angry, but because they felt more comfortable with conservative values. Members of my clan sometimes were overly cloistered. But they weren't bitter; they were bonding.... Yeah, I remember MoDo's brothers. In particular, I remember a column from just after the 2004 election that was essentially written by one of them, after Dowd introduced them: ...This year [at Thanksgiving], my brothers were on the warpath about news reports that Maryland public schools did not teach about Thanksgiving from a religious perspective. "Who do they think the Pilgrims thanked?" demanded Martin. "God." There are moments -- when my brothers are sharing some snarky thing Rush Limbaugh said about me, or the latest bon mot from Pat Buchanan, with whom they grew up -- that I'm tempted to stuff my ears with my mom's potato stuffing, or go off and read a book by David Sedaris about normal family life. People often ask me why President Bush inspires such passionate support. My brother Kevin, a salesman who lives in Montgomery County, Md., can answer that; here is a recent e-mail message, trimmed for space, he sent to friends: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Now, just as four years ago, I breathe a huge sigh of relief and rejoice in the common sense of the American voting public. Congratulations to President Bush for winning re-election in a poker game played with a stacked deck. No candidate, including Richard Nixon, ever had to endure the biased and unfair tactics of our major media in their attempt to influence the outcome of an election. ... He never complained, just systematically set about delivering the same consistent message. You may remember that four years ago, I felt physically ill watching the Democrats try to legislate their way to the presidency. ... A very big thank you to Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Rob Reiner, Bill Maher, Barbra Streisand, Alec Baldwin, Al Franken and Jon Stewart for your involvement. You certainly energized the base. Now, please have the courage of your convictions and leave the country.... To The New York Times and The Washington Post -- If Bush and Reagan were so stupid, how did they both go four for four in elections involving two of our biggest states and the presidency without your endorsement? ... To Gavin Newsom -- Thanks for all of the great shots of the San Francisco couples embracing their mates at City Hall in direct defiance of the law.... And on and on. Nope, nothing angry or bitter there, right? Christ, the guy still thinks Nixon was mistreated. posted by Steve M. | 8:28 AM | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, I TAKE IT ALL BACK I've criticized Saturday Night Live recently, but I'm starting to realize that I was just (understandably) confused about what the show was trying to do. Look at the sketch excerpt below, from the February 23 show. I thought it was SNL's idea of how the Democratic race was going at the time. In fact, it was a prediction of how the general election race would unfold -- and it's a remarkably accurate prediction. I was confused because the actor playing John McCain had short black hair, while Barack Obama was played by a blond woman; also, they were called by the wrong names. (I guess you get glitches like that on live TV.) Now that I understand that the sketch was really a general election prognostication, I can see its brilliance. Just watch how the press reacts to Fred Armisen, playing McCain, while Amy Poehler (playing Obama) gets the short end of the stick: Spot on! It's just like real life: ...John McCain and Barack Obama both appeared before the nation's newspaper editors yesterday. The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a box of doughnuts and a standing ovation. The likely Democratic nominee was likened to a terrorist. At a luncheon for the editors hosted by the Associated Press, AP Chairman Dean Singleton quizzed Obama about whether he would send more troops to Afghanistan, where "Obama bin Laden is still at large?" "I think that was Osama bin Laden," the candidate answered.... McCain's moderators, the AP's Ron Fournier and Liz Sidoti, greeted McCain with a box of Dunkin' Donuts. "We spend quite a bit of time with you on the back of the Straight Talk Express asking you questions, and what we've decided to do today was invite everyone else along on the ride," Sidoti explained. "We even brought you your favorite treat." McCain opened the offering. "Oh, yes, with sprinkles!" he said.... ***** Seriously, was it less than two months ago that we were all fixated on the press's "love affair" with Obama? Anyone remember that "love affair"? I barely do either. Yeah, maybe there was an affair, but that's all it was -- an affair. The reporters thought the sex was great, but we were crazy if we thought they'd ever end their long and successful plural marriage with the Daddy Party and John McCain. posted by Steve M. | 9:10 PM | THEY LAUGH ALIKE, THEY WALK ALIKE, AT TIMES THEY EVEN TALK ALIKE... May I just say that I really like this? It's a good, solid ad. I actually like the fact that it's not clever -- indie political ads from lefties sometimes try way too hard to be "different." It's clean and direct, and the matching quotes from Bush and McCain are quite damning. And I don't agree with Matt Yglesias that the first ad should have dealt with foreign policy. This is the subject area in which McCain looks not just wrong but weak; this kind of attack is the most efficient way to get him down off his pedestal. Attacks on his foreign policy can come later. This is the first ad from Progressive Media USA under its new chair, David Brock -- and, alas, we're told that it will be running on cable beginning tomorrow and can be seen in D.C. on CNN and MSNBC -- which is to say, it's a small buy aimed at an insider audience of potential future donors, political operatives, and the like. Because, y'know, it's not as if George Soros and his acquaintances are wealthy guys or anything. Ah, but I'm sure that, after they hold a few spaghetti suppers at the Grange Hall, they'll have the money to run a couple more ads in five or six cities -- maybe seven! No doubt the full ad campaign will be up and running by, oh, the end of the year. Seriously, though: If they're going to run this ad on a limited basis, they should run it in Pennsylvania, or Indiana -- anywhere where the stench of the endless Democratic nomination fight is at its worst. That's where a countermessage is needed the most. posted by Steve M. | 3:53 PM | TEFLON JOHN Chris Cillizza, blogging for The Washington Post: "Bitter" and "cling" will forever be tied to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the same way that "Tuzla" and "the laugh" will always evoke Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) when a political junkie thinks of the 2008 Democratic race. And what negative words and phrases will "forever be tied" to John McCain from the GOP race, or from the general election? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. Nothing negative will cling to him. Ever. That's the law. If you think he said something dumb, or indicative of a possible weakness if he becomes president, or even just annoying, then that's your problem, you latte-swilling hippie. If a candidate makes a gaffe and the political establishment doesn't snicker at it, it never happened. And with McCain, it never happens. posted by Steve M. | 10:29 AM | TWO MORE THINGS McCAIN IS GOING TO GET AWAY WITH 1. The Army Times reveals that McCain doesn't quite understand what General Petraeus does for a living: Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona may not have been paying the closest of attention last week during hearings on the Bush administration's Iraq policy. Speaking Monday at the annual meeting of the Associated Press, McCain was asked whether he, if elected, would shift combat troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to intensify the search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. "I would not do that unless Gen. [David] Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that," McCain said, referring to the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Petraeus, however, made clear last week that he has nothing to do with the decision. Testifying last week before four congressional committees, including the Senate Armed Services Committee on which McCain is the ranking Republican, Petraeus said the decision about whether troops could be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan was not his responsibility because his portfolio is limited to the multi-national force in Iraq. Decisions about Afghanistan would be made by others, he said.... Years ago, I was involved with a woman who knew her classical music and whose sister played in a big-city symphony orchestra. I'd come late to classical, but I'd gotten to the point where I more or less knew the canon, knew what I really liked and didn't like, and was eager to hear more. My girlfriend surprised me once by saying that I actually knew more about music than most of the classical musicians she'd met. I thought that was absurd. But she insisted that most of the musicians of her acquaintance didn't know music -- they knew what they'd learned to play. I don't know if that's true. There probably are at least some musicians for whom it's true. In any case, it's something I think about when I think of McCain and foreign policy. Most people just assume he's an expert, given his military background. But it seems likely that he didn't enter Congress with any special overarching understanding of military and foreign-policy matters -- in terms of the military, he just knew about the things he used to do. And yet nobody in the political establishment can conceive of the possibility that he might not know what he's talking about. ***** 2. This is trivia -- but it wouldn't be if McCain had a D next to his name rather than an R: ...This past Sunday, Lauren Handel, an eagle-eyed attorney from New York, was searching for a specific recipe from Giada DeLaurentis, a chef on the Food Network. Yet whenever she Googled the different ingredients in the recipe, the oddest thing happened: not only did the Food Network's site come up, as expected, but so did John McCain's campaign site. On a section of McCain's site called "Cindy's Recipes," you can find seven recipes attributed to Cindy McCain, each with the heading "McCain Family Recipe." Ms. Handel quickly realized that some of the "McCain Family Recipes," were in fact, word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site. At least three of the "McCain Family Recipes" appear to be lifted directly from the Food Network, while at least one is a Rachael Ray recipe with minor changes.... That's from the Huffington Post. Go to the link and you can see the other purloined recipes. Let's count the ways this would play out if the plagiarism were on the Obama or Clinton site. "Elitist"? Check. (The recipes aren't particularly fancy, but any hint of the frou-frou -- not tuna but ahi tuna? -- would be seized upon by the usual bloviators, and contrasted with the real-Amurrican hot dogs served when McCain went to the White House for President Bush's endorsement.) In either Clinton or Obama's case, the woman in the couple would be accused of inadequately representing her gender. Hillary would be called a "phony." The Obamas would be accused of having an unearned sense of "entitlement" -- of feeling they had a right to these recipes. This would be a low-level but persistent drone; we'd hear about it for days. But it's McCain, so you'll never hear about it again. posted by Steve M. | 8:39 AM | Monday, April 14, 2008 INDIRECTLY ACKNOWLEDGING THE TRUTH? A few pages into New York magazine's cover story about John McCain, we get a brief peek at the truth, as an unnamed GOP operative talks about Barack Obama: "Our strategy will look a fair amount like the one that Hillary is running against him now," a party official says. "It'll build on two things: first, that he's way too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief, which not only polls incredibly well but has the virtue of being true; and, second, that he's way too liberal." Which doesn't, and doesn't? The rest of the paragraph is provocative, but I'm struck by that last part -- by the fact that the party official didn't finish off with "which is also true." II'd like to believe that it's because the official knows "way too liberal" is nothing but the same load of crap Republicans throw out there every election cycle to fool the rubes. The official also doesn't say that calling Obama a liberal polls well. If it doesn't now, there's a very good chance it will eventually, after the usual months and months of hearing Republicans using "liberal" as a slur and reporters dutifully recounting the use of it as a slur. But maybe, just maybe, this is the presidential year when it won't work, or maybe this is the candidate who's found the formula to beat the whammy. We'll see. posted by Steve M. | 11:29 PM | BREAKING NEWS! HEALTH CARE IS PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE FOR SOME PEOPLE! This is actually a significant article, and I'm glad it's on page one of The New York Times today: Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs, asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for prescriptions for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases. With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug's actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month. But I really don't like the sentence that follows: The system means that the burden of expensive health care can now affect insured people, too. Uh, "now"? What do you mean "now"? This has been a problem for a while. The article, by Gina Kolata, tells us this started in the Medicare prescription drug program: The system, often called Tier 4, began in earnest with Medicare drug plans and spread rapidly. It is now incorporated into 86 percent of those plans.... Now Tier 4 is also showing up in insurance that people buy on their own or acquire through employers.... But we were told in 2005 that half of personal bankruptcies were traceable to high medical bills -- and that the majority of those bankruptcy filers had medical insurance. (The Medicare prescription drug plan didn't begin until 2006.) So this isn't the first huge hole in the insurance safety net -- it's just one more huge hole. What are we talking about? An MS drug that now costs the patient $3,900 a year out of pocket, up from $240. A leukemia drug that now costs the patient $16,000 a year. A cancer drug that costs $3480 for what might be a 21-day supply. This is with insurance -- or maybe I should say this is with "insurance." posted by Steve M. | 3:44 PM | WEIRD LILY-GILDING FROM BILL KRISTOL I'm not surprised to see William Kristol, in today's New York Times, comparing Barack Obama's remarks at that fund-raiser to a passage from Marx -- hell, his fellow GOP propagandist Mickey Kaus beat him to the commie-baiting punch by several days. But I'm puzzled by one aspect of the Kristol riff: Why does he go into the original German? ...Obama was explaining his trouble winning over small-town, working-class voters: "It's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." This sent me to Marx's famous statement about religion in the introduction to his "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right": "Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition. It is the opium of the people." Or, more succinctly, and in the original German in which Marx somehow always sounds better: "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes." ... it's one thing for a German thinker to assert that "religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature." It’s another thing for an American presidential candidate to claim that we "cling to ... religion" out of economic frustration.... Why is the German in there at all? It doesn't advance Kristol's argument. (The statement is just as memorable and succinct in English.) Is Kristol just trying to pad his column to get up to a minimum word count? Is he acting like a showoffy, grade-grubbing undergraduate? The obvious answer is that he thinks this could have the same impact that calling John Kerry "French" had four years ago. But America is full of people with German ancestry, and we don't mock contemporary Germans the way we mock the French. Not that I want to give the guy advice, but I think Kristol should have left it at "commie." And then we get "it's one thing for a German thinker to assert..." -- and I really might be overthinking this now, but it almost seems as if Kristol wishes he could stir up the anger of the citizenry the way a demagogue of an earlier time might, by comparing Obama's words to the words of "a Jewish thinker." Of course, Marx was Jewish, but Kristol, obviously, isn't going that route. Still, I can't help imagine he wants that kind of impact with the rubes (who, I know, don't read the Times but might see the column at Free Republic or herar it quoted by Rush), so he's aiming as close to that target as he can. posted by Steve M. | 10:11 AM | A GREAT HISTORICAL WRONG IS FINALLY RIGHTED David Boaz, blogging for the Cato Institute, David Boaz reports on a landmark victory for the forces of good: I just talked to Brad Stevens, who runs the customized card programs and much else at Starbucks, about how the company came to reject customers' request for customized cards featuring the call to arms "Laissez Faire." In my Wall Street Journal article on Monday, I noted that customers had had requests for "Laissez Faire" rejected, while "People Not Profits" and "Si Se Puede" were approved. I wondered "just what the company’s standards were. If 'laissez-faire' is unacceptably political, how could the socialist slogan 'people not profits' be acceptable?" Stevens assures me that the company has no intention of approving or rejecting personal messages on the basis of ideology. Only a very small number of requests are rejected by the review team at the contractor who actually fulfills the orders, mostly because they are obscene, are insulting to the company or to a specific person, infringe on trademarks, are overtly political, or in some other way associate the Starbucks brand with images the company doesn't want.... Stevens says the rejection of "Laissez Faire" was just an unintended outcome of the instructions that the company gave its supplier. And indeed, Jonathan Adler reports today on the Volokh Conspiracy that a VC reader inspired by my op-ed has received his Starbucks Customized Card proudly carrying the message "Laissez Faire." ... There are tears of joy streaming down my cheeks as I read that last sentence. The Magna Carta ... Brown v. Board of Education ... and now this. The People have stood up to The Powerful, and freedom is on the march. What Brown, say, was for African-Americans, this is for another oppressed class: everyone who chooses to subsume a personal identity in corporate branding. Don't those people deserve rights, too? Seriously -- I agree with Boaz that banning "Laissez Faire" wasn't really fair, but why the hell does anyone feel the driving urge to personalize a freaking Starbucks card? posted by Steve M. | 7:21 AM | Sunday, April 13, 2008 ARE THE CLINTONS (AND THE PRESS) CONCENTRATING ON THE NON-DAMAGING WORD? I think Barack Obama is catching a break because talk about that statement he made at a San Francisco fund-raiser has boiled down to one word: "bitter." "Bitter-gate" already gets nearly three thousand Google hits; at ABC News, for instance, there are blog posts titled "Clinton Says Obama's 'Bitter' Remark Could Cost Party General Election" and "Bill Clinton on Obama's 'Bitter' Comment." The latter quotes Bill Clinton addressing a Pennsylvania campaign rally: "Folks, I was shaking hands and taking a few pictures backstage. This fellow looked at me and he said, 'I just want you to know, the people you're about to see are not bitter. They're proud,'" Clinton told an applauding audience. But bitterness at the word "bitter" doesn't seem to be universal, according to NBC's Carrie Dann: ...at the first two events of the day, ... Tom Hendrickson, a Clinton supporter and former Democratic Party chairman, included a reading of Obama's comments in his introduction of Clinton. "Senator Obama, don't pity us and think that we're bitter and frustrated," he said in Winterville this morning. "We are hard-working family folks who are smart, and we get it. We don't need pundits to tell us what to think." Hendrickson repeated the sentiment at a later stop in Winston.... In both instances, Hendrickson's speech evidenced little reaction from the crowd.... Obama included religion and an interest in guns in a list of what he seemed to be saying were inappropriate responses to hard times. He put them on the same level as bigotry. It seems to me that all this really could hurt him -- but that's less likely if the word people take away, especially those who never heard or read the remarks, is "bitter." I'm not sure I believe all that many working-class whites mind being called "bitter" -- not when they think the country is on the wrong track on so many levels. "Bitter" is only a condescending word sometimes; I don't think it instantly sounds like a slur -- and I think a lot of working-class whites would say, "I lost my job, I have no health insurance, gas is $3.50 a gallon and hell yes I'm bitter." If this incident is recounted in the future as "Barack Obama called working-class whites 'bitter,'" it's possible he will have dodged a bullet. **** OBVIOUSLY, this is is in addition to the fact that Hillary Clinton is not quite the living embodiment of the values and mores that have allegedly been besmirched by Obama (she won't say when she last fired a gun or went to church, and yet her campaign is hammering away at this, which gives Obama an opening to mock her). But I still say that he might not have been able to bounce back quickly if the best-known quote weren't that one relatively innocuous word, "bitter." He needed. The best known Reverend Wright quote was "God damn America," and it took the best American political speech in forty years to (more or less) neutralize that. In this case, there's no one memorable, deeply damaging soundbite -- and the closest thing we have to a memorable soundbite isn't deeply damaging. So this seems to be requiring a lot less effort. posted by Steve M. | 10:08 PM | FRANK RICH MAKES A FUNNY Here's a real kneeslapper from the new Frank Rich column, about what's likely to happen with regard to Iraq starting in 2009, even if John McCain wins: A Republican president intent on staying the Bush course will find his vetoes unsustainable after the Democrats increase their majorities in Congress in November. No war can be fought indefinitely if the public has irrevocably turned against it. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! No, wait -- I think he's serious. I think he really believes the Democratic Party would have the intestinal fortitude to rebuff an Iraq Forever policy on the part of a McCain administration. And I think he really believes that sooner or later public opinion would be so difficult to ignore that even a war-happy Republican White House would have to to sit up and take notice. Apparently Frank Rich has been in a coma for the past two years. Rich comes so close to understanding what's going on that it's frustrating to watch him completely miss the point. Here he quotes Senator George Voinovich at the Petraeus-Crocker hearings -- after which he draws precisely the wrong conclusion: "The truth of the matter," Mr. Voinovich said, is that "we haven't sacrificed one darn bit in this war, not one. Never been asked to pay for a dime, except for the people that we lost." This is how the war planners wanted it, of course. No new taxes, no draft, no photos of coffins, no inconveniences that might compel voters to ask tough questions. This strategy would have worked if the war had been the promised cakewalk. But now it has backfired. A home front that has not been asked to invest directly in a war, that has subcontracted it to a relatively small group of volunteers, can hardly be expected to feel it has a stake in the outcome five stalemated years on. But that's not a bug, that's a feature. The strategy is working; it hasn't backfired at all. There's no draft and no war tax, so even though the public is overwhelmingly against the war, people still aren't angry enough to become true one-issue voters (we know this is true because McCain really can win), much less take to the streets to scare the crap out of the political class. The likely result of the November elections will be a McCain win accompanied by a slight uptick in Democratic representation in Congress. The latter "victory" will be tempered by the fact that far too many of the Democrats will be timid centrists, and by the fact that the McCain win, even if it's by an eyelash, will be portrayed as a stunning rebuke to those who said the country had utterly rejected the Bush foreign policy (whereas, in fact, it will actually be a repudiation of the Democratic nominee based on GOP character assassination centered on tangential, trivial issues, and probably coded racism or sexism). Making sure that a lot of Americans don't have any skin in the Iraq game was a well-crafted strategy to keep discontent from boiling over even if things went very, very badly. The strategy worked. I'd say it's still working. posted by Steve M. | 10:45 AM | Saturday, April 12, 2008 ARGH Despite all my chest-thumping atheism and snark about certain religious pronouncements and practices, for all my criticisms of the practicioners of hardball gun politics, I groan when I read these now-notorious remarks by Barack Obama at a San Francisco fund-raiser: ...You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.... I guess it's because, unlike Obama, I grew up practicing a religion in much the same way the people he's talking about practice one -- I was raised in my parents' faith, and nearly all my neighbors shared the same faith -- that I have hard time speaking of "religion" as the problem. That's true even though I've been an atheist for thirty-plus years and even though I don't like a lot of the earthly byproducts of many religious traditions, and am not shy about saying so, here in this blog and in real life. Nevertheless, I can't see "religion" as nothing but a disease of the desperate -- quite a few religious traditions, yes, but not religion per se. Money got tight at times in my household and in my neighbors', but religion wasn't just a crutch, it was a meaningful part of who they were, and are. Regarding guns, though you might not know it, I've changed my perspective somewhat over the years, not because of direct experience, but to a considerable extent because of the Internet. Online, I've encountered so many people who talk an NRA-style line on guns but place that point of view in a progressive context that I've had to rethink the stereotypes of my youth. I still disagree with the notion that widespread gun ownership is our best defense against tyranny, and I don't agree that more guns equal less crime, or (especially because I live in an increasingly safer New York City) that gun control equals high crime, but I want to argue these points, not condescend to those who believe them. I do deeply resent the ability of gun groups to exercise veto power over gun laws that have broad-based popular support and would be constitutional, but I admire the political skills of these groups -- they win because they work harder and really do their homework on the issue that matters to them most. I'm all for loud, nasty arguments on these subjects, but I just don't see being fond of guns as an unhealthy response to hard times. This is bad. I think John McCain can probably start measuring the White House drapes now. posted by Steve M. | 11:06 AM | Friday, April 11, 2008 PAY ATTENTION TO ME! ME!!! Earlier this week, John Dickerson of Slate told us about John McCain's next attempt to grab headlines: ...at the end of the month [McCain will travel] to venues where Republicans don't usually campaign. McCain is planning to speak in inner cities, heavily African-American sections of the South, and poor sections of Appalachia. Most of his stops will be in areas where voters have traditionally supported Democrats. Today, blogging for The Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes tells us why he thinks this is risky. Is it because the policies McCain favors actually aren't in the best interests of such groups? No. Is it because McCain hasn't done much campaigning before such groups? Yes, but that's not what's bugging Hayes. Here's why Hayes thinks it could be a bad idea: It's risky for another reason, too. Although McCain has quietly sought to mend fences with some conservatives who did not support him in the primaries, he has done little of substance to ease their concerns. The risk is not that these conservatives oppose reaching out to voters (and non-voters) who don't normally vote Republicans. They don't. It's that in a campaign with limited time and limited resources, McCain is choosing to spend time with people unlikely to vote for him rather than, say, giving a speech on the importance of missile defense or stopping in at a successful charter school or visiting a pro-adoption crisis pregnancy center. The risk is that such a tour could reinforce the perception among conservatives that McCain cares much less about winning their approval than he does about the approval of his opponents and the news media. HEY! WHAT ABOUT ME? WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS? What Hayes is suggesting is just silly. Crisis pregnancy centers? Missile defense? George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan didn't even campaign on these issues. But this is what upsets right-wingers about John McCain -- not his positions on the issues (he's on their side a hell of a lot more than, say, Rudy Giuliani, whom they like a lot better, and even their beloved Joe Lieberman is still a domestic-issues moderate), but the fact that he doesn't show them enough respect. He doesn't kiss the right-wing ring. How dare he waste limited campaigning time not talking to us? McCain is suspect, so, unlike W. and the Gipper, he needs to go the extra mile. This is really the core emotional wound of the right, the hole in the right-wing soul: These people feel disrespected; attention must be paid, dammit. They have one criterion for voting, and one only: Do you want to make us feel good and make Democrats, that motley crew of latte-swillers and throwback New Dealers and non-whites, feel bad? McCain is betting that he can ignore the tantrums of these coddled babies and they'll vote for him anyway. We'll see if he's right. ***** Here's Dickerson on why McCain is doing this: ...the McCain tour is not aimed at winning a host of black votes. Nor is it primarily about the next obvious play: showing independents that he cares about minorities and the underprivileged, a traditional bank shot candidates take in order to make themselves appealing to moderate voters. The tour, which will include lots of freewheeling town halls, is more like performance art, an attempt to show off authenticity and the unfiltered McCain. "People can come in and do what they want," says McCain's top adviser, Mark Salter. "They can praise, chastise, and argue with him. This isn't just his style. It's a part of his message." McCain's strategists are mapping the tour -- and his campaign -- on the theory that even if voters disagree with McCain, they come away with a favorable gut-level sense of his character when they get to see him up close.... I think there's one more aspect to this. I think McCain's people may be hoping that he faces real hostility from people (union workers, nonwhites) the campaign (and the GOP noise machine) can portray as uncouth -- and in that way, maybe he is trying to tap right-wingers' pleasure centers. Think back to the opening chapter of The Bonfire of the Vanities, in which a white New York mayor (read: Ed Koch) catches flak at a community meeting in an African-American neighborhood, his nemesis being Reverend Bacon (read: Al Sharpton). In a city that was very racially polarized, the real Ed Koch loved for white New York to see him being heckled that way. And he won three terms as mayor. posted by Steve M. | 4:51 PM | LIMITED PERSPECTIVE Paul Krugman in today's New York Times: Look, I know that many progressives have their hearts set on seeing Barack Obama get the Democratic nomination. But politics is supposed to be about more than cheering your team and jeering the other side. It's supposed to be about changing the country for the better. And if being a progressive means anything, it means believing that we need universal health care, so that terrible stories like those of Monique White, Trina Bachtel and the thousands of other Americans who die each year from lack of insurance become a thing of the past. You know what I have my heart set on, Paul? Seeing a Democrat win the presidency. Seeing Reaganism, Atwaterism, Limbaughism, and Bush/Cheney/Roveism repudiated. Right now, that means focusing on beating the disturbingly popular John McCain, either with Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee following a bearable amount of additional intraparty fighting -- or with Hillary Clinton, after an utter bloodbath. Some of us have been thinking, and continue to think, that Obama can bring new voters into the Deocratic fold. Some of us worry that Hillary Clinton would be more bellicose in foreign affairs than Obama -- the last thing we need. And some of us think Hillary Clinton, like her husband, might sound a lot more progressive in campaign speeches than she'd be in office, where we expect her to backpedal and triangulate as much as, in your eyes, Obama triangulates by backing away from real adocacy of universal coverage. Look, I'm disappointed with both health care plans -- but frankly, I don't expect any Democrat to win on this, even with a Democratic Congress. After all, I lived through the first two years of Clinton's presidency. But, overall, a compromised Democrat is still going to do a hell of a lot less harm, and will do more good, than a Republican -- and we can't possibly have Hillary Clinton as the Democratic standard-bearer now without tremendous damage to the party's chances in November, without even more ugliness on our eventual nominee's part and without even more time wasted on internecine struggle. You say that what inspires your outrage is the fact that "a number of Obama supporters (though not the Obama campaign itself) join[ed] enthusiastically in the catcalls against Mrs. Clinton's good-faith effort to put a human face on the cruelty and injustice of the American health care system" -- that good-faith effort being her statements about Trina Bachtel, whose story Clinton garbled but didn't truly misstate. But these weren't catcalls against the assertion that our health care system is cruel to millions of people -- they were catcalls against the (yes, mistaken, but widely reported) notion that the specific story was invented, by a candidate who's not going to win. And yes, I'd be saying the same thing if the situation were reversed. This damn thing has to end. If Obama supporters took pleasure in an apparent gaffe on Clinton's part, it's because that apparent gaffe looked as if it might help bring this damn thing to an end. posted by Steve M. | 11:39 AM | THE EQUILIBRIUM MYTH I don't have anything intelligent to say about whatever's roiling the blogosphere right now, so let me go back to an op-ed in Wednesday's USA Today, in which David Frum offered advice to the GOP on how to win back the youth vote. Here's one of his recommendations: On abortion ... it is important that Americans understand that the end of Roe v. Wade does not mean a national abortion ban. Ending Roe means that individual states recover the power to make their own decisions on abortion. We as Republicans need to make it very clear: If California and New York vote to retain abortion rights after Roe, national Republicans won't interfere. Is it really imaginable that national Republicans would ever make a pledge of this kind? And if they did, why should those of us who are pro-choice believe that would be the last word on the subject? I've never understood the argument that overturning Roe would bring us to peace at last, in a "states' rights" equilibrium that allows abortion in some states while banning it in others, with everybody perfectly comfortable with that outcome. I've always assumed that this would be a tremendous shot in the arm for the anti-abortion movement -- so many swing states, so many victories to be won, so many local legislative and electoral fights to organize and fund-raise around. The right-to-lifers already think they're the modern-day Abolitionists or Civil Rights Era campaigners; now they'd be able to divide the map into the equivalent of free and slave states, or Jim Crow and non-Jim Crow states. The money would pour in. The fights would never end. And do you really think the national GOP would sit idly by if, say, Ohio or Oregon had a local election in which a few legislative or judicial candidates, or a referendum, might tip the state's balance on reproductive rights -- especially if that was happening during a national election year? Even when I get myself to believe Frum's fantasy of the national Republican Party striking right-to-life language from its platform and agreeing that abortion is a state issue, I also imagine national Republicans, for all their pious words of non-interference, choosing state candidates and plotting state referendum campaigns to drive national turnout. The battles wouldn't end -- there'd just be more of them. And remember, the right-to-life movement believes in a "long war" strategy. Even in seemingly safe pro-choice states, anti-abortion groups will wait patiently for changes that might tip the balance -- increases in the Hispanic population? changes in youth attitudes brought about by abstinence education in schools, extracurricular virginity programs, and so on? Sorry, David, this wouldn't be a formula for peace even if it could actually happen. (Frum link via If I Ran the Zoo and Alicublog.) posted by Steve M. | 9:07 AM | Thursday, April 10, 2008 WAR + MORE WAR = A BIG WIN IN AN ANTI-WAR STATE I'm the guy who said last June, at a time when predicting anything short of a Democratic blowout could get you carted off to the loony bin, "I guarantee the next president will be a Republican." So I find this depressing, but not really surprising: This WNBC/Marist Poll of New York State reports: · A McCain/Rice ticket would edge out both a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket for New York’s 31, usually true blue, electoral votes: 49% of registered voters in New York State support a John McCain/Condoleezza Rice ticket compared with 46% who support Hillary Clinton as president and Barack Obama as vice president. The Democrats don’t fare any better in New York with Obama at the top of the ticket as president and Clinton as vice president. McCain/Rice receives 49%, and Obama/Clinton has 44%. Although an Obama led Democratic ticket does better against McCain/Rice among non-enrolled voters than a Clinton/Obama ticket, Clinton/Obama is stronger with women against the Republicans.... You'll be told that this is happening because the Republicans, almost by accident, nominated the one candidate who would be even remotely competitive in the general election. You'll be told that this is a temporary state of affairs that will be reversed as soon as the Democrats have a real nominee, who will get a big bounce in the polls as soon as the nomination is secured. Sorry, I don't buy any of that. Democrats went into this race assuming that whoever they nominated would have a huge advantage over the Republican nominee because he would be, well, a Republican. But polls using the names of real candidates have shown for months that the Republicans were going to be competitive, and not just with McCain as the nominee -- Giuliani beat Clinton and Obama in some polls; hell, even Mike Huckabee got within a few percentage points of Clinton. I do agree that both Democratic candidates have been tarnished in this long nomination fight -- but the bigger problem goes back way before this contest started. Republicans attack every Democrat who so much as approaches real power, relentlessly and in a huge number of forums. Democrats don't do that. The public hates the war, hates Bush, and doesn't like the GOP, but the public hasn't heard over and over and over again that McCain and Rice are among the biggest enablers of the war, that they're Bushies, and that they're Republicans. I don't care if all this is self-evident -- say it. I've said this before and I'll say it again: When Democrats talk about McCain, the way they should speak is: "The Republican policies of my Republican opponent, Republican John McCain..." America should think McCain's first name is "Republican," the way they used to think every Democrat's first name was "Liberal." But this isn't happening -- and I think Democrats wouldn't have figured out that it needed to happen even if they'd had a nominee by February or March. Maybe the Dems will eke out a win this year, but this poll just confirms my sense that John McCain is the favorite in this race -- and could even, like Poppy Bush in '88, win an electoral-vote landslide. posted by Steve M. | 2:05 PM | DOES THE GOP SECRETLY WANT THESE TORTURE STORIES OUT THERE NOW? That's what I was asking myself last week when the Pentagon released the Yoo memo, and that's what I'm asking myself about the ABC story "Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation.'" In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News. ...At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. ... this is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them.... Why are the "sources" talking now? If you're a Republican, you might actually want them to blab, because you might actually believe you can run on this, not run away from it. It gets us talking not about the botched Iraq War but, rather, about EVIL EVIL EVIL al-Qaeda terrorists. It evokes 24. It gets certain juices flowing. The country is utterly fed up with the war -- but there simply hasn't been a solid majority in this country against torture. I think Karl Rove knows that. I think it's possible that this strategy is being driven by Rove (who, as we know, recently alluded in an interview to "some things I'm doing in politics under the radar"). We know he has repeatedly declared that terrorism is a winning GOP issue, even when it seemed that that wasn't the case. If nothing else, righties can rally the base by saying, "Those evil Democrat America-haters will start impeachment proceedings/war crimes tribunals, which will weaken America and we're all gonna die!!!!" And, right on schedule, righty blogger AJ Strata is saying just that, in a post titled "Best Reason I've Seen for McCain as President and the GOP In Congress." Admittedly, some of you are, in fact, talking about impeachment and war crimes trials. I think the time for impeachment was the very beginning of the current Congress, i.e., starting in January 2007 -- but it would have been pointless if convictions weren't possible, and they weren't, and aren't. Period. As for war crimes trials, I agree with every word of Jack Balkin's post "War Crimes Prosecutions in the U.S.? Dream On." It just ain't gonna happen. **** AND: Yes, I know the GOP is running a candidate who declares himself an opponent of torture. But Rove, of course, served a president who has insisted that "we do not torture." posted by Steve M. | 10:28 AM | MCCAIN: I'LL BE YOUR OBAMA (WITH UNIFORMS) Yesterday MSNBC's Chuck Todd wrote: ...The first thing McCain needs is for the Democrats to find a nominee. ...he needs an opponent, badly. Why? For several reasons, Todd says, among which is this: ...From a message standpoint, [there] are big differences.... McCain is trying, but ultimately, being able to refine one line of attack is a must, and that can't happen without a clear opponent.... Except that, to judge from his new Web ad, "Tolerance," McCain has figured out a solution to that: He's running as Barack Obama. He's running as the guy who says, "Can't we all get along?" If his opponent is Obama, he's beating him to the punch in advance of the general election campaign; if, somehow, he runs against Clinton, he's the Obama substitute. Watch the ad. McCain is selling Obamaism, but it's a jingoistic, militaristic Obamaism: The script is here. One one level, it's a lovely message: We have a right to disagree politically and it's good for us to do so. But there are unsettling juxtapositions. When the announcer says, It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of crisis, especially in times of crisis, we fight among ourselves for the things we believe in we watch troops in formation. That's jarring -- we hear about the right to dissent while watching young people who've chosen a life path in which they're expected to obey orders and not dissent. And then there's this segue: Let us exercise our responsibilities as free people. But let us remember, we are not enemies. We are compatriots defending ourselves from a real enemy. Freedom of speech is wonderful, but remember, there are Islamomuslofascists under the bed. Although the text of this ad is about how we as citizens get along with one another, the ad is saturated with military images, and there are flags waving nearly every second of the ad. (Compare, say, Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" paintings from 1943 -- the middle of a war -- in which there's not a uniform or flag in sight.) I know what this is trying to say to more conservative viewers: that we have the freedom to disagree because our troops are fighting for that freedom (in a war McCain wants to drag on indefinitely). You and I would say, obviously, that that might be true if we hadn't sent the troops to a war that isn't doing anything to keep us free. But McCain thinks this message, linked to Obamaism, is a winner -- and he may be right. **** Andrew Sullivan watches the ad and says of the can't-we-get-along message, It's an encouraging sign that McCain is not going to pull a Rove this fall. I wouldn't say that. Rove has always piously insisted that George W. Bush would love to make nice with his political opponents and never, ever makes personal attacks. And, yes, it's true that Bush doesn't make personal attacks -- that's what the help is for. He always has surrogates around (including Rove at times) to launch attacks for him. No doubt that's going to be McCain's strategy as well. posted by Steve M. | 7:10 AM | Wednesday, April 09, 2008 WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO WIN A CARTOONING PULITZER This year the winner was Michael Ramirez of Investor's Business Daily, which meant that all you apparently had to do on a typical day was parrot the creakiest wingnut talking points, with no wit whatsoever. Click to enlarge:     The last one, by the way, is actually one of the cartoons that appear on the Pulitzer site as an example of what made his work prize-worthy. See the collected works here. Ramirez won in '94, too; two wins puts him even with Bill Maudlin, for heaven's sake. IBD, by the way, has an editorial page that may be to the right of The Wall Street Journal's. (Here, for instance, is the page praising Joe McCarthy and agreeing with GOP congressman Steve King that al-Qaeda wants Obama to win.) **** UPDATE: Dave Neiwert of Orcinus notes that IBD's editorial page is favorably citing immigration "research" by a guy with ties to the white supremacy movement. posted by Steve M. | 6:21 PM | THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN IS JUST IMITATING THE (BUSHIE) EXPERTS Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard and Marc Armbinder of The Atlantic are flagging this story from Carnegie-Mellon University's school newspaper, which describes a campaign event featuring Michelle Obama: ...While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama's event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan's correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, "Get me more white people, we need more white people." To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, "We're moving you, sorry. It's going to look so pretty, though." "I didn't know they would say, 'We need a white person here," said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. "I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn't know it would be so outright." ... Maybe not a smart move -- but it's a mirror image of what the Bush people would have done. Stagecraft is practically the only thing the Bushies know how to do, as this story from the St. Petersburg Times about an October '04 campaign event makes clear. The relevant detail: By 7:30 a.m., several hundred Bush supporters with blue tickets are crowded around the stage. They are a demographic mix: retirees, yuppies, a soldier, students, a mom with her daughter on her hip. Black people get prime seats behind the president. There's also this from Newsweek in June '04: Bush repeatedly staged events in schools during the 2000 campaign, where his handlers would almost always manage to position an African-American or Latino student to the side of the then-Texas governor. (Emphasis mine.) **** That Newsweek article, by Richard Wolffe, is called "Yes, Backdrops Do Matter." It chides John Kerry for not understanding how vitally important all this stagecraft is: Yes, presidential campaigns are first and foremost about ideas, candidates and the nation's mood. But they're also about pictures, settings and image. A good picture is worth a hundred stump speeches, and a good TV ad is worth a thousand. Does that trivialize the serious work of electing a leader of the free world? Maybe. Is it part of how the real world learns its news and shapes its views? You bet. ...that's one of the enduring mysteries of the Kerry campaign. How an ultra-careful candidate could be so careless with the set-pieces of his own race. How a candidate who admires the original JFK could have learned so little about the visuals of the presidency. And how a man with so many handlers and advisers cannot see his campaign as the rest of the world might. This was a critically important election that was a referendum on a ruinous war and absurd domestic policies -- but it really, really mattered whether Kerry staged his campaign events properly. According to Wolffe, knowing enough to move non-whites into the camera shot is how you get elected. It's how you become the Leader of the Free World. Alas, he's right. posted by Steve M. | 12:37 PM | IN WHICH I TAKE A SILLY STORY WAY TOO SERIOUSLY A sensible person would probably ignore this Politico story by a Fordham poli sci professor named Costas Panagopoulos, but it's getting more attention than it deserves, so I'm going to point out that its conclusions are way too neat, and that all the pieces simply don't fit: Obama supporter Oprah takes a big dive Much hay was made nearly a year ago when Oprah Winfrey announced that she would support -- and campaign for -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. ... what has received far less attention is the impact Oprah's endorsement has had on her own popularity.... Oprah's favorability ratings also remained consistently -- and unusually -- high. In November 2003, Gallup found that 73 percent of Americans held favorable views about Oprah. Seventy-four percent of Americans reported favorable impressions of Oprah in a January 2007 Gallup/USA Today poll. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Oprah announced on CNN's "Larry King Live" on May 1, 2007, that she would officially endorse her longtime friend Barack Obama for the presidency..... Almost instantly, Oprah's popularity in America plummeted.... Some of the evidence Panagopoulos presents does suggest that there's been a real decline in Oprah's popularity and that the endorsement is part of the reason -- although the only direct comparison (i.e., pre- and post-endorsement numbers from the same polling outfit, in this case Gallup) shows something less than a "plummet," a drop from a stratospheric 74% approval rating in January '07 to a still extremely high 66% in October. Then Panagopoulos tells us this: The results of a March 26, 2008, AOL Television popularity poll of television hosts reveal Americans may now embrace Ellen DeGeneres over Oprah by a wide margin. Forty-six percent of the 1.35 million people who participated in the poll said the daytime talk show host that “made their day” was Ellen, compared with only 19 percent who chose Oprah. Nearly half (47 percent) said they would rather dine with Ellen, compared with 14 percent who preferred Oprah. That's true -- and a December '07 Harris poll also lists Ellen as America's favorite TV performer, a title held for the last five years by Oprah. But let's look at that '07 Harris poll. In that poll, Oprah "plummets" from #1 to #2 -- among all TV performers in America. So she's still doing extremely well. But Ellen does beat her. And how does she do that? Men, for example, cite Jay Leno as their favorite television star while women say it's Ellen DeGeneres. Even among women there is a difference of opinion as single women say Ellen is their favorite while married women pick Oprah. ...Oprah Winfrey is tops among Baby Boomers (those aged 43-61) and she's tied with Bill O'Reilly for the top spot among Matures (those aged 62 and older). ... Liberals cite Ellen DeGeneres and Jon Stewart as their favorite while Oprah Winfrey is number one among Moderates. Somehow this is not fitting Panagopoulos's template. Oprah's popularity seems to be enduring among older moderate married women. The people who are sticking with Oprah sound like Hillary Clinton's base, not Barack Obama's. And Ellen is doing better among young single liberal women. Doesn't that seem like a cohort that would approve of an Obama endorsement? One more bit of information: In the previous Harris poll, in December '06, Oprah was the #1 TV performer in America and #1 among Baby Boomers -- but she was #2 (behind Bill O'Reilly) among "Matures." Now she's #1 among "Matures," even though she's dropped overall. Let me throw out a wild, wacky theory: Maybe her audience is just getting older? Maybe Oprah's the established, stodgy brand in this category and Ellen (who leaped on the Harris chart from #8 to #1) is the brand that's seen as young and hot? Maybe Oprah is seen as more serious-minded and earnest, with her causes and book groups, while Ellen is simply seen as more fun? And, given the fact that Oprah's base still looks a lot more like Clinton's than like Obama's, maybe TV viewers are paying little or no attention to politics when they make these judgments? posted by Steve M. | 10:36 AM | WE'RE JUST SOULS WHOSE INTENTIONS ARE GOOD Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, in his opening statement yesterday (PDF): Mr. Chairman, as monumental as the events of the last five years have been in Iraq, Iraqis, Americans and the world ultimately will judge us far more on the basis of what will happen than what has happened. In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came. Wow, that's so deep, isn't it? But it's just absurd -- it's absurd to suggest that history or public opinion will ever separate the leaving from the arriving, sorting the consequences into two piles marked "Result of the Invasion" and "Result of the Withdrawal." The record will show that we made the country into a new kind of hell for years, and if it becomes yet another kind of hell after we withdraw, no one is going to say, "Well, yes, but that's entirely a result of the hasty, precipitous [presumably Democratic] withdrawal and has absolutely nothing to do with what the country was was like from the fall of Baghdad to the end of Bush's term." I think this statement is based, in part, on the belief that, as a foreign policy actor, America is good, full stop -- or at least it's good as long as it's aggressively pursuing a "freedom agenda" -- and whatever we do with what we insist are the best of intentions can't really be that bad. According to this view, it's only when we question our pursuit of "freedom" that we can do harm. So withdrawal could be a disaster, but the last five years haven't been, because we're the good guys. posted by Steve M. | 8:35 AM | Tuesday, April 08, 2008 GENERAL PETRAEUS IS YOUR NEW FLIGHTSUIT Michelle Malkin links to a page at the site for Mitch McConnell's reelection campaign where you can send an e-thank-you note to General Petraeus. Lindsey Graham's praise for Petraeus is gushing. And Freedom's Watch may as well change its name to General Petraeus Is Awesome Watch. Aren't these the same people who call Barack Obama's supporters a cult? posted by Steve M. | 4:14 PM | DON'T BE SO SURE CONDI RICE ISN'T INTERESTED Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post says there's no reason to think Condoleezza Rice would want to be McCain's running mate: ...Rice has NEVER expressed even a passing interest in elected office. Before serving as National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State, Rice was the provost of Stanford University -- a far cry from the positions in the House, Senate and governors office that many of her Cabinet colleagues held. Her oft-stated dream job is not to serve as president but rather as commissioner of the National Football League. Given her background and past public statements, it's hard to see Rice with even a passing interest in elected office.... Er, that's not what Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times says in her biography of Condi: Rice ... talked about running for the United States Senate from Colorado while she was still a graduate student in the 1970s. On election night of 2004, rather than remaining home alone in her quiet Watergate apartment, Rice sat in the White House "war room" literally at the side of Karl Rove, the president’s powerful political adviser, and served as an impromptu aide helping to sift through election returns. In more recent years, Rice has toyed with the idea of a race for governor of California, and her staff has said she would be interested in running when Arnold Schwarzenegger's term expires in 2011. In this election cycle, she has adamantly rejected any talk of running for president, but she has never ruled out accepting a spot as the vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket. Her staff members have pushed her hard in that direction.... (pp. xxvii-xxviii) [Jim] Wilkinson [a senior adviser at the time] had made no secret that he wanted Rice to run for something someday -- president or vice president or governor of California.... (p. 272) In mid-2007, some friends said that Rice was still interested in a future gubernatorial race in California or that she would be tempted by an offer of the vice presidential spot on the GOP ticket.... (p. 312) There are a lot of reasons why Rice might not be McCain's running mate, but a distaste for electoral politics is not one of them. posted by Steve M. | 1:43 PM | INCREASED VIOLENCE IN IRAQ -- IT'S OBAMA AND CLINTON'S FAULT You may have seen the story "Attacks in Baghdad Spiked in March, U.S. Data Show" in today's New York Times, which includes this graph:  Well, over at the wingnut site Cybercast News Service we see the de-mothballing of a right-wing talking point, presumably in response to this: Iraq Violence Peaked Just Before U.S. Election, Data Shows Data from the Defense Intelligence Agency indicates that enemy-initiated attacks on U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians peaked in October 2006, the month leading up to the U.S. midterm elections. At the time, Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgents were "very sensitive to the fact that we've got an election scheduled" and were trying to "break the will of the American people." ... The graph of DIA data, printed on page 5 of the testimony, ... shows that the overall number of enemy-initiated attacks during the entire course of the war peaked in October 2006 at more than 5,000. It also shows that the number of enemy-initiated attacks see-sawed for the next seven months, but never again reached the level recorded in the month before the U.S. midterm elections.... The report cited is here (PDF). Here's the chart (click to enlarge):  If you can see a real difference between October 2006 and, say, May and June 2007, your eyesight is way better than mine. (In fact, it appears that, in terms of attacks on coalition forces alone, May and June '07 were actually worse than October '06.) The graph isn't reproduced in the CNS article because anyone looking at it would see that the pre-election "peak" was barely a peak. The article does acknowledge that attacks were also extremely high after the election -- presumably because that was the period after "Democrats, who cast the 2006 midterm election as a referendum on Iraq, ended up taking control of both the House and the Senate" but before " the surge in U.S. forces in Iraq reached full strength." (There's no mention of Sadr's cease-fire.) But the key point you're supposed to take away is that the peak was just before the election. So -- even though no Democrats' names are mentioned in the article -- presumably if there's an increase in violence now, and if that increase is sustained (or worsens) in the next few months, it's not a sign of a failed Bush administration policy. Heavens no! It just means those Democrats are so damn unpatriotic that they feel they have a right to criticize the war, and even to run for office on that criticism. posted by Steve M. | 11:43 AM | IDENTITY POLITICS ... FROM THE GIPPER Sadly, No! and Atrios direct us to "Obama vs. McCain Bumper Stickers," a post by "Dr. Helen" Smith, wife of Instapundit. She's taken aback after seeing a minivan with "Latinos for Obama" and "Women for Obama" bumper stickers. Oh, these Democrats and their identity politics -- especially that Negro candidate! Thank goodness our guys don't do anything like that! ... Except, as she later acknowledges, McCain does exactly the same thing. Excuse me -- this woman is roughly my age. Has she lived here all this time completely oblivious to how Americans conduct political campaigns? You want identity politics? I got identity politics. Ladies and gentlemen, here's identity politics till you could plotz -- from that great postmodern multiculturalist, Ronald Wilson Reagan:         All of these buttons, and buttons for many more hyphenated-American Gipper fans, are on sale here. It wasn't just Reagan -- wanna buy a "Poles for Ford" button? (I actually have one of these, despite not being Polish or a Ford supporter.) In fact, this is an American political tradition that goes back a long, long time. How is it possible that Dr. Mrs. Instapundit doesn't know that? **** Oh, and did I forget to mention the more recent "Viva Bush" buttons, or the "W Stands for Women" campaign in 2000 and 2004? posted by Steve M. | 8:38 AM | Monday, April 07, 2008 THE PONY IS THERE, REALLY A tiny story in The Jerusalem Post: 'Report on Sept. 6 strike to show Saddam transferred WMDs to Syria' An upcoming joint US-Israel report on the September 6 IAF strike on a Syrian facility will claim that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein transferred weapons of mass destruction to the country, Channel 2 stated Monday.... I don't believe there'll actually be such a report, but I think there are some people who feel there's real value in keeping alive the notion that this might be true. Maybe, if they succeed in electing McCain, they'll finally give it a rest. posted by Steve M. | 6:54 PM | BECAUSE NO DEAD HORSE SHOULD GO UNFLOGGED Hillary Clinton bowled on Ellen DeGeneres's show today. Story here. Video (non-embeddable) here. This is how we pick our president. This is how our pundits actually believe we should pick our president. We're just a backward nation that isn't ready for democracy. Spoiler: Hill throws gutter balls. I'm guessing she decided to do that on the basis of a Mark Penn poll. posted by Steve M. | 4:48 PM | IT'S THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, STUPID Writing for The Guardian, Michael Tomasky says he sees the end of an era. I hope so, though I'm not sure: ...there are two people who appear ready to stand by [Mark] Penn, hell or high water, and they are the two who matter: Bill and Hillary Clinton. Penn joined Bill Clinton in the mid-90s, after the early woes (gays in the military, healthcare), and he kept the president on the ideological middle ground. He did the same for Hillary while overseeing her 2000 Senate campaign. In the course of these experiences, both Clintons came to swear by Penn's advice. They saw his gift for numbers and demographic analysis, but they failed to grasp his obvious weak point. Pennism is a kind of Democratic politics that one could argue was right for an era of conservative dominance: take few risks, and move as far to the centre and even right as possible so you couldn't be labelled soft on defence or wobbly on support for the free market. But George Bush and Karl Rove have seen to it that, after Iraq and Katrina and the US attorneys scandal and now a real-life recession, we are no longer in an era of conservative dominance. We're not in an era of liberal dominance either, of course, but we are in a place where, for the first time in a very long time, conservatism has discredited itself, and more Americans are open to progressive alternatives.... That's close to the truth -- right-wing dominance is somewhat in decline (though, in my opinion, less than Tomasky thinks). And, yes, obviously the ascent of the left hasn't happened yet. The problem is, even after Iraq and Katrina and a financial meltdown spread by underregulated plutocrats, too much of the public still doesn't understand that conservatism/Republicanism is the problem. To paraphrase James Carville, the right is drowning, but no one has thrown it an anvil -- no one has done a good job of pointing the finger at the right and saying, "You don't like the status quo? There's the source of your problem." I'm saying this and yet I voted for Barack Obama, who says he wants to bring us all together, not assess blame. Why? Well, I threw in my lot with Obama when it became a two-person race -- and with regard to the other person, I essentially agree with Barbara O'Brien, who says in response to the Tomasky piece: Tomasky's column sums up my biggest concern about Senator Clinton. If Clinton becomes president, I fear she will continue the famous "triangulation" pattern that assumes the Right still controls public opinion, and progressivism will have missed a huge opportunity. That's it. I'm afraid Clinton would tack to the right as president, reinforcing the notion that liberals are evil. (And it wouldn't placate the right, of course.) Hell, I'm not sure she wouldn't tack to the right as a general-election candidate. Obama doesn't see the problem the way I see it -- but maybe his approach is the one that would be most effective now. When he calls for an end to politics based on attacks and character assassination, he's trying to rally the country against a style of politics the Repuiblican Party has practiced much, much more successfully than Democrats have. If a pox-on-both-your-houses message makes the country less receptive to Limbaughism/Rovism/Atwaterism, well, I'll take that. And if Obama really can get across the message "Don't pay attention to the haters -- let's try this," and "this" is an essentially progressive agenda, that's a pretty big advance. But it's a big if. posted by Steve M. | 2:31 PM | RICE AS VP? FREEPERS NOT THRILLED ABC reported yesterday that Condoleezza Rice is "actively courting the vice presidential nomination." (The New York Times says McCain claims to know nothing about this.) In response to all this news, someone at Free Republic almost instantly posted a 2005 article that quoted Rice describing herself as "mildly pro-choice." A couple of responses: ... I used to admire Condi as Secretary of State, before she went over to the dark side and started playing footsie with the Palestinian terrorists and the Kosovo terrorists. But I never would have accepted her as a V.P. candidate, precisely because she is pro abortion. She says she is only mildly pro-abortion. What on earth does that mean? That she’d only cut the babies in half, instead of quarters? ***** Condi the Jooo-hating dingbat, now 'pro-choice' is a perfect running mate for the stinkin' commie Obama. And in this FR thread: Pro Palestinian, pro abortion... I vote NO. ***** A vote for Rice is a vote for a Rev. Wright cool-aid drinker. ***** Her meddling in Israel's matters is dissing the Lord. There's some enthusiasm for her, especially in this thread -- they like the notion that putting a black woman on the ticket would confound Democrats (would it?), they like Bush's wars -- and she's referred to as a strong supporter of gun rights. (I'm trying to figure out where that comes from; all I've got is one Larry King interview in 2005, but, yeah, she's pushing all the right buttons for the folks who think the Constitution consists of the Second Amendment plus a bunch of window dressing.) Of course, a lot of Freepers still aren't with the McCain program -- one insists in all seriousness that McCain is a socialist -- so I don't know how representative they are. It's the rest of the country, obviously, that really matters. But she wouldn't solidify the base. ***** AND: I've assumed that the main reason Condi wouldn't be on the ticket is that without an overt tie to the Bush administration, McCain can pretend to be an agent of change and the media will play along. But I'm not sure anymore that sharing a ticket with a Bushie would even be a problem, now that I've seen Cokie Roberts parroting the McCain/Lieberman/Lindsey Graham line that "Americans would prefer to win" in Iraq. (Anyone read the article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine about the white blue-collar residents of Levittown, Pennsylvania? They may not be coming around to Barack Obama, but these non-latte drinkers are just sick and tired of the war. Even if Cokie didn't read the article before going on the air, can't she read a poll?) Maybe McCain thinks he can B.S. his way past America's anti-war mood, just like Bush in '04, in the belief that, if he as a Republican says Americans want "victory" often enough, the press will make that conventional wisdom. If Karl Rove really is more involved in McCain's campaign than we're being told, then I think McCain really might have started thinking this way. posted by Steve M. | 7:59 AM | Sunday, April 06, 2008 I HATE THESE PEOPLE Merrill Lynch, after an $8.4 billion writedown on subprime mortgages, let CEO Stanley O'Neal retire rather than resign, so he could walk away from the job with $161.5 million. And that left Merrill flat broke when it came to paying a new CEO, right? Er, no: It is too soon to know whether John A. Thain, who now has the top spot, can restore Merrill's former glory. But thanks in large part to a hefty sign-on bonus, he was the highest-paid executive in [a recent executive compensation] survey, with a compensation package that totaled almost $83.8 million. Whew! For a minute there I thought Merrill might respond to a multi-billion-dollar loss by forcing its new CEO to settle for a measly $20 or $30 million. But I guess that would be un-American! So, not to worry. Oh, but I'm being too negative, as usual. This comes from an article in today's New York Times that says CEO pay packages are actually becoming more realistic, with real penalties if goals aren't met. Here's an example, at a formerly high-flying home-building company: Robert Toll, the chief at Toll Brothers, received no bonus in 2007 Good for Toll Brothers! A round of applause! Er... -- but the company has rewritten the compensation plan so that he will probably get one this year even if home building does not recover. OK, let's try another example -- David Steiner of Waste Management, Inc.: ... Last year, 75 percent of Mr. Steiner's long-term incentive plan was tied to specific targets for earnings growth and return on invested capital.... Mr. Steiner's pay is now linked entirely to achieving those targets. And some perks he used to get -- about $35,000 worth of items like car allowances and country club dues — are gone... Bravo! ...though their value will be added to his base salary or bonus. Oh. Read the article. There actually do seem to be a few signs of hope. (For instance, last year, "only 73 percent of the chiefs got performance bonuses, down from 78.6 percent in 2006." Feel better now? I know I do!) posted by Steve M. | 9:36 PM | FAT GUY FOR PRESIDENT Don Van Natta, in the Week in Review section of today's New York Times: ...Mr. Obama failed to bowl a single strike; several lanes away, a man wearing a T-shirt that said "Beer Hunter" fell on his backside as he bowled and still managed to throw a strike. I'm not even fifty and I frequently think I'll never see another Democratic president as long as I live. I used to get nasty comments when I looked toward November '08 and saw gloom, but I was just a Democratic pessimist before Democratic pessimism was cool. Sometimes I think the ideal Democratic candidate would be a fat guy. I don't mean someone like Bill Richardson, a man who tries to maintain gravitas while struggling with a weight problem. I mean a fat guy. I mean a guy who goes to football games in subzero weather and waves his belly at the TV cameras when they pan the stands. I mean a guy who drinks domestic beer in quantity and plays "Mustang Sally" badly in a band with other middle-aged fat guys. I mean someone who'd never, ever face questions of "authenticity" or "genuineness." Remember that the only two Democrats who've won the White House by more than an eyelash in the past 64 years are the McDonald's-scarfing Bill Clinton and Lyndon "Beagles Don't Mind Being Lifted by the Ears" Johnson. Democrats don't have anybody like this. Republicans don't either, but they fake it better (or, rather, their fakery is graded on the curve by the media). I'm only being about 30% serious, but I do think Dems need a few candidates who seem prepared to scratch where it itches. And I intend no disrespect to fat guys -- if anything, I intend disrespect to people like our actual candidates, or like me (though I was a fat kid) -- people who practice moderation and watch their weight. Moderation is frou-frou -- this is America, dammit. posted by Steve M. | 11:35 AM | Saturday, April 05, 2008 GENERAL BETRAY-US-TO-CHENEY'S-(OR-ROVE'S)-AGENDA? The British press thinks General Petraeus is going to declare Iran the real enemy. Here's what The Times of London says: IRANIAN forces were involved in the recent battle for Basra, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is expected to tell Congress this week.... Petraeus intends to use the evidence of Iranian involvement to argue against any reductions in US forces.... And the story in The Telegraph is even more alarming: British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government. A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies.... "Petraeus is going to go very hard on Iran as the source of attacks on the American effort in Iraq," a British official said. "Iran is waging a war in Iraq. The idea that America can't fight a war on two fronts is wrong, there can be airstrikes and other moves," he said.... In remarks interpreted as signalling a change in his approach to Iran, Gen Petraeus last week hit out at the Iranian leadership. "The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said. "All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts." ... And here's a disturbing paragraph from the Telegraph story: There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians across the bitter divide on Iraq. "Iran is the bull in the china shop," said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi'ite groups, whether they be political or military." This is obviously, at least in part, about diminishing the political power of the Democrats' call for an end to the Iraq in this election year -- the Bushies want to compel Clinton and Obama to say Iran is unspeakably evil, and to tie that to this war. The previous round of Petraeus testimony got much more attention, but this round could be more politically motivated, and more politically useful to the GOP. posted by Steve M. | 8:15 PM | RADAR Marc Ambinder and Steve Benen have noted that John McCain embarked on a biography tour not long after Karl Rove made a speech in which he recommended that McCain ... embark on a biography tour. I don't have much to add to that strong hint that Rove is significantly involved in McCain's campaign except to note that Rove, in his recent GQ interview, mentioned "some things I'm doing in politics under the radar." It would be nice if it simply weren't possible for a guy like Karl Rove to do anything "under the radar." It would be nice if we had a press that cared to find out what he's up to and cared to inform us -- so we'd know, say, if a McCain victory really is going to mean a third Bush term. But I guess that's probably too much to ask. posted by Steve M. | 11:20 AM | Friday, April 04, 2008 JUAN WILLIAMS'S FALSE M.L.K. DICHOTOMY Juan Williams, in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled "Obama and King": King ... did not paint black people as victims. To the contrary, he spoke about black people as American patriots who believed in the democratic ideals of the country, in nonviolence and the Judeo-Christian ethic, even as they overcame slavery, discrimination and disadvantage. Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream" speech, August 28, 1963: There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter 25, "Malcolm X": But I think one must understand that Malcolm X was a victim of the despair that came into being as a result of a society that gives so many Negroes the nagging sense of "nobody-ness." Just as one condemns the philosophy, which I did constantly, one must be as vigorous in condemning the continued existence in our society of the conditions of racist injustice, depression, and man's inhumanity to man. Martin Luther King, "Speech at the Great March on Detroit," June 23, 1963: We've been pushed around so long; we've been the victims of lynching mobs so long; we've been the victims of economic injustice so long -- still the last hired and the first fired all over this nation. And I know the temptation. I can understand from a psychological point of view why some caught up in the clutches of the injustices surrounding them almost respond with bitterness and come to the conclusion that the problem can't be solved within, and they talk about getting away from it in terms of racial separation. But even though I can understand it psychologically, I must say to you this afternoon that this isn't the way. Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. To Williams, it's not enough that King encouraged blacks to resist succumbing to a sense of injustice -- King (or, rather, Williams's fantasy version of King) had to leave that recognition of injustice out of his speeches and writings completely. This isn't aimed at King, of course. This is aimed at Barack Obama and any African American who (unlike Juan Williams) dares to talk about this society in ways that would be inappropriate for a paid commentator on Fox News. So it's not enough that Obama speaks of working to transcend racial divisions -- Obama can't even have entertained the notion that blacks have ever been victims of anything in this country. And if King ever entertained such notions, Williams has to write it out of the historical record. posted by Steve M. | 3:23 PM | GOD APPARENTLY CHANGES HIS MIND You might have seen this Washington Times story, which reminds us that Republicans can do the self-sabotage thing too: More than 20 social-conservative leaders purchased a full-page ad in an Arizona paper warning Sen. John McCain against picking Mitt Romney as his running mate, calling the former Massachusetts governor a "deal breaker" and an "utterly unacceptable" choice for social conservatives. The open letter to Mr. McCain ... focuses on Mr. Romney's record on abortion and gay marriage and calls him "unfit to be a 'heartbeat away' " from the presidency.... Now, here's the weird part: Most prominent among the ad's over two dozen signers is Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, a founder of both the economically conservative Heritage Foundation and the socially conservative Moral Majority, and a national leader among conservative activists for nearly four decades. Weyrich's is indisputably the most striking signature on the ad because of the dramatic change of heart it signals. Six months ago, Weyrich endorsed Romney's presidential candidacy. I'm sure God personally told Weyrich to endorse Romney for president. And I'm sure God told Weyrich to un-endorse Romney as VP. I'm confused, but, hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways. The text of the ad is at the link directly above. It says in part: Governor Romney got no traction during the primaries simply because his recent "conversion" to conservative and pro-life principles is not credible. Hmmm -- apparently it was credible enough for Mr. Weyrich, who said in a press release last fall, As he travels across the country, Governor Romney has outlined a blueprint to build a stronger America rooted in our common conservative principles. With a clear conservative vision to move America forward, he will strengthen our economy, our military and our families. More importantly, he already has an exceptional record of putting conservative values to work. Maybe Satan was involved. Maybe Satan was blinding Weyrich to the truth. The group behind all this is a lesser-known organization, Government Is Not God. It's headed by William J. Murray, the born-again son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the famous atheist activist. And while I'm rooting for these folks -- I'm rooting for anything that divides the GOP base -- I should point out that many of the signatures on the group's online petition express support for a McCain/Romney ticket. Still, members of the media, I urge you to ignore that fact and play this dissension up for all it's worth -- just as you would if these were Democrats. **** UPDATE: The point seems to be to create a push for a McCain/Huckabee ticket, to judge from what the Politico's Jonathan Martin says. posted by Steve M. | 1:16 PM | THE MOST POWERFUL NAME IN NEWS Nice to see that the most influential news operation in the English-speaking world is keeping up its high standards. This is from Rupert Murdoch's Melbourne Herald-Sun: Sonny Bono 'assassinated' by hitmen SONNY Bono, former husband and singing partner of superstar Cher, was clubbed to death by hitmen on the orders of drug and weapons dealers who feared he was going to expose them, a former FBI agent claims. Ted Gunderson, now a private investigator, has told the US Globe tabloid that Bono, who served as mayor of Palm Springs for four years, did not die after hitting a tree on a Nevada ski slope in January 1998 as everyone believed. ..."This was an evil plot that was carried out to almost perfection by ruthless assassins," Mr Gunderson told the paper. ...Bono, an experienced skiier, was ambushed on the slopes by hired hitmen, who beat him to death and then staged a tree collision, Mr Gunderson said.... Google Ted Gunderson. He's a hardcore nutjob who, for instance, was deeply involved in the witch hunt surrounding the McMartin Preschool, which means he helped send innocent people to prison for unspeakable crimes that never actually took place. Gunderson helped spread the utterly false theory that there were secret tunnels under the school in which depraved acts took place; Gunderson ... speculat[ed] that the tunnel evidence was suppressed because, "Among the people [the children say molested them outside the school grounds] were household names: actors, sports figures, politicians." ... among the prominent people who were accused without substantiation, were a Los Angeles city attorney and Kung-Fu movie star Chuck Norris.... Wikipedia also notes that Gunderson believes that Satanic cults engage in widespread child kidnapping for the purpose of child sexual abuse and ritual murder, and that these activities involve high-ranking government officials (e.g., he has named George H.W. Bush as having committed sex acts with children) and/or the Illuminati. Oh, and Gunderson thinks the CIA is deeply involved in all this child molesting, too. You're a class act, Rupert. Thanks for moving this nut's lunacy up the media food chain. Hey, how's that Wall Street Journal thing going for you? posted by Steve M. | 10:57 AM | Thursday, April 03, 2008 LATEST THREAT TO CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT: PASTEL COLORS ON MONEY Every time I think I've fully absorbed the list of things right-wingers consider to be threats to Western civilization, another wingnut comes along and adds something new to the list. This time it's Richard Poe, now of NewsMax and formerly of David Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine.com, a guy who collaborated with Horowitz on the book The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party (hmmm ... parts of that don't seem to be working out all that well these days). Poe thinks our moral fiber is being weakened by ... big purple numbers on our money. Hide the children! HAVE YOU seen the new five-dollar bill? It looks like someone spilled grape juice on it. A violet stain obscures Abraham Lincoln's face. On the back, an oversized numeral five appears in purple. Enough is enough. We must stop the desecration of our currency. ... The fact is, we are being hoodwinked. The redesign of our currency has nothing to do with fighting counterfeiters or helping people with weak eyesight. It has everything to do with catering to the perverse canons of postmodernist art. Yes, he's serious: The U.S. Treasury has allowed a cabal of avant-garde designers to pull off one of the most audacious practical jokes in art history; the "subversion" and "deconstruction" of the U.S. dollar. We the taxpayers must demand an end to this cultural vandalism. ... For PoMo's apostles, art is a weapon of revolution. Its purpose is to mock, degrade and undermine the cherished beliefs of Western civilization.... Photographer Andres Serrano famously deconstructed Christianity in 1989 by snapping a picture of a crucifix submerged in Serrano's own urine. In 1999, the Brooklyn Museum showcased an image of the Virgin Mary which artist Chris Ofili had splattered with elephant dung. And that's exactly like putting a large, hard-to-counterfeit pastel number in one corner of a $5 bill. Meanwhile PoMo designers have been doing to national currencies what Serrano and Ofili did to Christianity. Er, sniping ineffectually, but in an aesthetically arresting way? Their first target was the Dutch guilder.... Poe goes into the story of Ootje Oxenaar, who redesigned Dutch banknotes from 1966 to 1985. Oxenaar does seem to have been a tad irreverent -- he replaced an admiral on the 100-guilder note with a seabird, and he embedded ex-girlfriends' names in the 250-guilder note. But here's the thing -- the bills he designed are kinda awesome:   Is this horrible, decadent, will-sapping, civilization-destroying play money, as Poe insists? If so, give me more -- if we have to put some color on our bills anyway, I wish we'd go all the way and do stuff like this. Yeah, I did like the old bills, with their rich webs of spidery lines, but I like these, too -- and I find that, somehow, I can look at them without deciding that there's no such thing as absolute truth and without concluding that bourgeois morality is a sham. I guess I'm just made of sterner stuff than Richard Poe. **** (Links updated 10/14/09.) posted by Steve M. | 11:40 PM | BLOGROLL UPDATE A few new additions to the blogroll (and I should have added them a long time ago): Comments from Left Field, distributorcap NY, Jack and Jill Politics, Ron Chusid's Liberal Values, The Reaction, and Whiskey Fire. Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, Newshoggers has moved and Fafblog is back.... posted by Steve M. | 5:39 PM | HILLARY CLINTON, EVIL PRESCHOOLER I find the Clintons exasperating right now, but it's still a fact that supposedly intelligent people turn themselves into gibbering idiots trying to describe how evil they are. Today we have Vanity Fair's Sally Bedell Smith with a piece in the Financial Times (also available here) that, among other things, demonstrates sick evil Hillary's sick twisted evilness by ... going back to her earliest years: For decades Mrs Clinton has thought of herself as a woman of destiny. Even as a little girl she would stand "in a patch of sunlight" pretending "there were heavenly movie cameras watching my every move". My God -- can you imagine? A very young child who fantasizes about being special? SHE MUST BE SATAN'S HELLSPAWN!!!! (I guess all those times I played baseball as a kid with a play-by-play track running through my head were evidence of my evilness, too.) And I also like this: To reach her goals, she long ago learnt to embrace any tactic, however destructive. As her mother noted, Hillary does "everything she has to do to get along and get ahead". Yes, I'm sure that when her own mother said she does "everything she has to do to get along and get ahead," that's how she meant it -- that she "embrace[s] any tactic, however destructive." posted by Steve M. | 3:09 PM | I THINK SOME PEOPLE ARE MISSING THE POINT The New Republic's Jason Zengerle writes: The back-and-forth between the Clinton camp and Bill Richardson over his Obama endorsement is getting pretty ridiculous. Here's the latest from Mark Halperin: New Mexico Governor, in talks with both Clintons about his endorsement, is said to have been the one to argue that Obama did not have the experience necessary to beat McCain. You'd have thought that the Clinton people would have wanted to downplay the Richardson's endorsement of Obama. And, if they hadn't sqwuaked so much, I bet it would have been a one- or two-day story. But here we are, nearly two weeks after Richardson did the deed, and the press is still talking about it--because the Clintons won't shut up about it. I don't see how this helps Hillary. Seriously, the Clinton people should just let it go.... Newsday's John Riley says the same thing: ...However justified the Clintons may be in feeling betrayed based on the actual dynamics of what happened, how do they do themselves any good by obsessing over it? But the news in the current news cycle isn't what the Clintons are saying. It's what "a Clinton associate" (per Halperin) and "a source with direct knowledge of Richardson's conversations with the Clintons" (per ABC) are saying: that Richardson once agreed that Obama can't win. (Oh, and Greg Sargent of Talking Points Memo has been told the same thing by "a top Hillary adviser.") The Clintons want this to stay in the press because they want to keep hammering home the Obama-can't-win meme. They want the story to be: The Clintons think he can't win, the sage political veteran Bill Richardson used to agree ... so isn't there a very good chance that it's true? So this is just a continuation of the Clinton camp's attempted slow-motion fragging of Obama. posted by Steve M. | 11:50 AM | JANE FONDA SECRETLY TRYING TO HELP HILLARY? I don't really believe this theory, but I'll throw it out there because I'm tired of taking this damn horserace seriously: You know (because it's rapidly becoming The Most Important Story In America, more important even than the candidates' skill at bowling) that, according to the L.A. Times, Jane Fonda has said she supports Barack Obama: ...Fonda was eating out last night and exited the restaurant, ignoring as celebrities often do the assembled press contingent. But a video camera was rolling as she approached the street and someone, perhaps just trying to get her to turn around for a picture, shouted out at her back, "Who are you going to vote for?" There was a moment of silence. Then, the actress did turn around toward the cameras, paused and with a smile said simply, "Obama!" Then she got into a car and drove away.... But what about this NewsMax article from 2005? 'Hanoi' Jane Fonda, whose anti-U.S. activities during the Vietnam war remain an anathema to most Americans, is helping to bankroll New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's reelection campaign. The woman who sat behind a North Vietnamese gun installation and pretended to shoot down American pilots donated the maximum -- $2,000 -- to Hillary's campaign coffers, the New York Daily News reports in Wednesday's edition. Earlier this year Fonda told Time magazine that she "hopes for a Hillary Clinton presidency." The politically radioactive actress had also been a sleepover guest at the Clinton White House.... (Yes, it's NewsMax, but that quote is accurate, and she was on the sleepover list.) So does she really still support Hillary? Did she lie? Why is this happening now -- just before a critical contest that's being treated in the press as essentially the Deer Hunter primary, one in which Hillary Clinton is trying to hold off Barack Obama with the help of pro-military working-class Democrats? Is that evil Jane Fonda -- using the L.A. Times, the hometown paper of the Clintons' beloved movie industry -- working hand in glove with the sinister Clintons to create bad press for Obama? Er, I doubt it -- entertainers (left, center, or right) are rarely all that clever. I imagine she just changed her mind. But, hey, it's a theory. posted by Steve M. | 8:06 AM | Wednesday, April 02, 2008 THE POT MAKER SNEERS AT THE KETTLE Apart from the blatant hypocrisy of criticizing Barack Obama for not wearing a flag lapel pin while not wearing one himself, Karl Rove, in his GQ interview, has a curious way of going on the attack: Obama is coolly detached and very arrogant.... [He] doesn't do his homework.... Take a look at the footage. Turn the sound off and look at it. You can tell that he is arrogant, and you can tell that he's a little bit angry, and you can tell he's very dismissive. He takes his hands and he sort of, you know, waves his hand like, "I'm dismissing something." ... Arrogant? Doesn't do homework? Angry? Dismissive? Hey, Karl, you have the gall to criticize someone that way after you foisted George W. Bush on the world? posted by Steve M. | 11:01 PM | PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS, BY MAUREEN DOWD No one, left, center, or right, has been nastier to Hillary Clinton than Maureen Dowd. This campaign season, in particular, Dowd has been relentless in attacking the senator. So at first I was surprised to read today's Dowd column. Why so admiring all of a sudden? ...Hillary is cruelly misunderstood, and she deserves more credit for her benevolence.... Without Hillary, [Barack Obama] never would have learned to be a good debater. He never would have understood how to robustly answer distorted and personal attacks. He never would have been warned about how harmful an unplugged spouse can be. He never would have realized how a luminous speech can be effective damage control. ...Besides coaching Obama, Hillary is also shielding him. If she had not fibbed about the Tuzla airport landing, and then fibbed to get out of a fib, the press would have stayed focused on Wright. She has been an invaluable lightning rod.... I tell myself this is snark, then I read on and realize that no, it really isn't. What's up? After all this time, has Maureen Dowd suddenly concluded that Hillary Clinton is benevolent? This change of heart seems awfully familiar. And then I suddenly realize why. It's the plot of every romantic novel and chick flick ever. The woman finds the man boorish, if not brutish; she tells everyone what a jerk (or even lunatic) he seems to be -- and then, at the end, she realizes he's The One, in part because of what she saw at first as boorish or brutish. In this plot template, Maureen Dowd is the woman. Hillary Clinton is the guy. ***** Dowd is so confused about her unexpected attraction to the Hillary of her own imaginings, the saloon brawler Hillary, that she can't quite tell how the fights are going. She tells two different stories in two consecutive sentences, and doesn't seem to realize she's contradicting herself: ... the ultimate favor Hillary can do for the Illinois freshman is to fight him full-out until the finale and then gracefully release him so he can find happiness with another. Hillary’s work is done only when she is done, because the best way for Obama to prove he's ready to stare down Ahmadinejad is by putting away someone even tougher. So which is it, Maureen? Is Obama "putting [Hillary] away," or does the fight end only when Macho Man Hillary deigns to "gracefully release him"? I think this is painful for Dowd either way. She wants Obama to be a two-fisted he-man, capable of "putting away" Hillary; if he does so, he'll be her dreamboat. But that will mean she's misjudged the current man of her dreams, Hillary -- he ain't so tough! Of course, it's only a matter of time before Dowd starts crushing on John McCain, compared with whom either Obama or Clinton will be a big girl. Life will be simpler for Dowd then. But for now, her fantasy life is complicated -- and twisted. posted by Steve M. | 3:08 PM | YES, THE "OLD PEOPLE STRATEGY" CAN WORK Matt Yglesias thinks John McCain's current personal-nostalgia tour is lousy strategy -- but then he shows signs that he's starting to grasp the point of it all: What I'll say on behalf of this strategy is that it's the best way I can think of to try to take advantage of older people's potential discomfort with the idea of a woman or a black man in the White House that doesn't involve exploiting racism or sexism in a discreditable way. McCain's putting together an identity politics counter-narrative steeped in nostalgia; it didn't work [for Bob Dole in 1996] against a white southerner running on a very cautious agenda, but 2008 is going to see the Democrats nominating an unorthodox candidate running on a more liberal agenda. That's absolutely right -- McCain's saying (without saying it) that he's a white male whose forbears represented an overwhelmingly white and male military tradition. But there's much more to McCain's emphasis on biography. A presidential candidate has to make voters able to imagine him or her as part of a ruling elite, but (usually) without appearing like a member of the dreaded yuppie-scum caste. Republicans generally accomplish this by pulling on a pair of cowboy boots and turning themselves into members of a Southern or Western leadership class in which the leaders are seen as macho wild men. (Dole, it should be noted, never did this.) Bill Clinton, the one Democrat who's won a presidential election in recent years, didn't wear boots, but he did drop his g's and he loved greasy food, so we forgave him his hoity-toity education. McCain, right now, is telling people he's part of three non-yuppie subgroups: Southerners, old men, and the military. So he's qualified to be a leader of the elite, but he's not a latte-swilling yuppie elitist. One more thing: Matt sneers that McCain's people are running a "campaign emphasizing the idea that their candidate is genetically programmed to monger war through his jingoistic heritage (or something)" -- but what we hear from the media isn't that, it's this: McCain, who has always described himself as an indifferent student who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, calls himself "a pretty rambunctious boy, with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder." Translation: He's part of a hereditary military elite, but he rebelled against that elite. (And by the way, can you imagine circumstances under which Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would want to boast about doing poorly in school? It would be a sign that they were unworthy affirmative-action cases. McCain doesn't have to worry about anything like that.) There's more: McCain's campaign, far from running away from the anger issue, is clearly making sure that the media knows he was known as "Punk" and "McNasty" at his high school -- and the press is lapping it up. ABC: McCain the 'Punk' Goes Back to School Once 'McNasty', Presumed Republican Nominee Praises Teacher's Influence The New York Times: 'McNasty' Goes Back to School Translation: He may look old and frail now, but he had manly animal vigor. (Don't worry about the temper, though -- he jokes about it now, in a soft, mellow deadpan, which comes off as the exact opposite of a bad temper, so you're supposed to feel he won't fly off the handle now.) Also see this morning's NPR story, which walks through everything I've just mentioned and says the result is: Being a punk rebel kid turned McCain into a bipartisan! Sen. John McCain returns Wednesday to the Naval Academy, where he proudly graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. It doesn't seem to have hurt him any. After all, he's speaking as the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for the White House. All this week, McCain is visiting old stomping grounds as a way to "reintroduce" himself to voters. On Tuesday, he was at Episcopal High School outside Washington, where in the 1950s he earned the nickname "Punk." "I arrived here a pretty rambunctious boy, with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder," McCain said. "I was always the new kid and was accustomed to proving myself quickly at each new school as someone not to be challenged lightly." McCain insisted that he has mellowed in the years since, although he joked that some detractors might not see it that way. As a lawmaker, McCain has shown a notable ability to work with colleagues from across the political spectrum.... That last leap is so breathtaking that you miss it if you blink. But these are powerful messages -- the press is falling for them and voters may fall for them as well. So be afraid. Be very afraid. **** In the long post that inspired Matt's post, Ed Kilgore says, Maybe this is all emphemeral, and at some point John McCain will abandon the biographical message to focus on policy issues. Here's a simple answer to this stupid question: No, he won't. Not if he's smart, and his campaign so far suggests that he is. Americans don't cast presidential votes based on policy issues (otherwise Democrats would regularly win) -- they cast presidential votes based on biography and gut reactions to the candidates and whatever horrible impressions of the evilness and weirdness of one (usually Democratic) candidate they've been bombarded with in the media. McCain is the candidate of the party that knows how to win under these conditions, the party that's won seven of the last ten times, so he's not going to run on issues. He and his people (and his party) simply know better. And that brings us back to Matt: To me, though, one primary issue in a McCain-Obama race is going to be how successful McCain can be at obscuring his enormous hostility to America's public sector retirement infrastructure. McCain's record, and that of his key economic advisors, is pretty clear -- these are people who want to gut Social Security and Medicare in order to clear budgetary space for an agenda of low taxes and many wars. "[O]bscuring his enormous hostility to America's public sector retirement infrastructure"? Matt, stop dreaming -- Americans don't read position papers or voting records. They vote for the candidate who seems to stand for what they believe. posted by Steve M. | 10:10 AM | Tuesday, April 01, 2008 M.C. ROVE HAS COMPETITION I wish this were an April Fool's joke, but it appears that the guy responsible for the painfully chirpy campaign song "Hillary4U&Me" is back, and probably making his kids cringe even more than before: Gene Wang, a three-time Silicon Valley chief executive and musically inclined Hillary Clinton supporter, has penned another pro-Clinton ditty.... a jazzy rap tune called "Hillary in the House" (here's the MP3). Wait, it gets worse. It begins with the line, "Hey pretty mama, don't you vote for Obama." Ouch. Actually, the song lacks the insufferable peppiness of the first effort, which helps, but it's hip-hop as interpreted by a middle-aged guy who's clearly never actually listened to hip-hop for pleasure (and hasn't really heard any since, oh, about 1985). And the brief detour into deep-bass singing a la "12:45" in the Spinners' "Games People Play" is, well, just embarrassing. Wang's an impressive guy -- he helped develop the C++ programming language, introduced virus protection "live update" at Symantec, and founded a company that developed surgical robots. As a musician, well, he's a great scientist. If you disagree, CD Baby has his CD (By the way, it has a pre-Hillary version of "Hillary4U&Me" called "MVP is H-O-T." Yes, you can actually pay to listen to that song.) posted by Steve M. | 11:39 PM | WE'RE NOT TRYING TO BE BRAVE, JONAH. WE'RE JUST TRYING TO TELL YOUR POLITICAL ALLIES THAT THEY'RE FULL OF IT. I thought I was familiar with the vast majority of right-wing indictments of us evil liberals, but until now I've somehow missed one that shows up in a Jonah Goldberg column in today's L.A. Times -- that the "Darwin fish" (a parody of the "Jesus fish") is both bigoted and cowardly: I find Darwin fish offensive. First, there's the smugness. The undeniable message: Those Jesus fish people are less evolved, less sophisticated than we Darwin fishers. I think what's being argued is that evolution itself is a more sophisticated creation story than the one in the Christian Bible. Is Goldberg arguing that it isn't? Is he arguing in favor of creationism and/or intelligent design? If he isn't -- if he believes Darwinism is solid science but thinks saying so out loud is bigotry -- then isn't he just being a cultural relativist? Isn't he arguing that everyone's version of the truth is equally valid and that "objective reality" doesn't exist? Rather odd, that, for a right-winger. The hypocrisy is even more glaring. Darwin fish are often stuck next to bumper stickers promoting tolerance or admonishing random motorists that "hate is not a family value." But the whole point of the Darwin fish is intolerance; similar mockery of a cherished symbol would rightly be condemned as bigoted if aimed at blacks or women or, yes, Muslims. As Christopher Caldwell once observed in the Weekly Standard, Darwin fish flout the agreed-on etiquette of identity politics. "Namely: It's acceptable to assert identity and abhorrent to attack it. A plaque with 'Shalom' written inside a Star of David would hardly attract notice; a plaque with 'Usury' written inside the same symbol would be an outrage." But a piece of paper with a Star of David accompanied by proselytizing words about Christianity wouldn't be an outrage -- it would be a Jews for Jesus flyer, and if you got one walking down the street and didn't agree with it, you'd just toss it out and forget about it instantly. Why is one item that uses the symbol of one belief system to proselytize for another an outrage, while the other is, at worst, a minor nuisance? And is the Darwin fish really "Christian-baiting"? Back when I was a Catholic child, I was a Christian and a believer in evolution -- which my church didn't reject. And despite a nod or two to the creationists, the Catholic church still supports evolution -- as do the majority of mainline Christian denominations. The people who don't accept evolution are a subset of Christians, who claim oppressed status while working to pack school boards with people who want to substitute dogma for science in everyone's public schools. So a defense of evolution is political. The other meaning of the Darwin fish, of course, is a nonbeliever's rejection of the dominant strain of religious belief in America, i.e., Christianity. Goldberg, I guess, is arguing that Christians are an oppressed majority, under the thumb of a ruling minority caste of atheists. (You say a majority of Americans categorically reject the notion of an atheist president? That just proves our point! Your neck is oppressively planted under our foot!) But the most annoying aspect of the Darwin fish is the false bravado it represents. It's a courageous pose without consequence. Like so much other Christian-baiting in American popular culture, sporting your Darwin fish is a way to speak truth to power on the cheap. Jonah, it's not meant to be courageous. Plenty of political speech isn't courageous. Your column isn't. Your book isn't. This blog isn't. We engage in political speech because we have a constitutional right to do so, and because it's good to argue political points. ***** All of this is in the service of a boilerplate right-wing argument I am familiar with, because I've heard it incessantly since 9/11: that liberals have a moral responsibility to tell Islamicists that they're poopyheads. Goldberg brings this up in the context of the Geert Wilders film "Fitna," which has inspired some death threats. The Darwin fish ostensibly symbolizes the superiority of progressive-minded science over backward-looking faith. I think this is a false juxtaposition, but I would have a lot more respect for the folks who believe it if they aimed their brave contempt for religion at those who might behead them for it. See, there's a war on, and for the duration we're not allowed to have a political argument with our fellow citizens, because attacking the ragheads is a much higher priority. (Right-wingers, however, are free to attack us without being accused of detracting from the war effort, an example being Goldberg's column.) Ah, but I understand. All the scolding of Islamicists by right-wingers isn't working, but it would work if we lefties joined in, right? After all, even though we avoid church and have all that non-marital (and frequently non-heterosexual) sex and drink all that Chardonnay, jihadists are really, really sensitive to our opinions. Right? posted by Steve M. | 4:32 PM | DEPARTMENT OF UNFORTUNATE ANALOGIES Hillary Clinton, in a speech she's giving today in Philadelphia, plays the card you just knew she was going to play in Pennsylvania if you gave it even the slightest thought: ...Now, this is one of the most important elections we've ever had. There is so much at stake. But just as it's getting time to vote here in Pennsylvania, Senator Obama says he’s getting tired of it. His supporters say they want it to end. Well, could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten half way up those Art Museum steps and said, "Well, I guess that's about far enough?" ... OK, I didn't see any of the sequels. But in the first movie -- the one that made that scene famous -- wasn't the whole point that Rocky proved his mettle and became a hero by going fifteen rounds ... but he lost the fight? posted by Steve M. | 11:34 AM | OH CHRIST, NOT ANOTHER GEORGE WILL... More on sports (see also my last post): I opened today's New York Times and discovered that David Brooks had devoted an entire column to The Mental ABC's of Pitching, a book by H.A. Dorfman. Brooks praises the book for its "moral tone." No, really, he does. This jumped out at me: In Dorfman's description of pitching, batters barely exist. They are vague, generic abstractions that hover out there in the land beyond the pitcher's control. A pitcher shouldn't judge himself by how the batters hit his pitches, but instead by whether he threw the pitch he wanted to throw. Hmmm ... doesn't this seem awfully similar to Bush's Iraq policy? The war didn't help smoke out bin Laden, didn't reduce the global influence of al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, didn't bring true freedom or democracy or stability to Iraq, didn't ensure a steady supply of energy from the Middle East, didn't create a "reverse domino effect" in favor of genial pro-U.S., pro-Israel democracies in the region, and, ultimately, didn't make anyone safer or more secure except al-Qaeda -- but it's OK because Bush threw the pitch he wanted to throw. So what if the Evildoers hit it out of the ballpark? ***** You read through the entire Brooks column and wonder what the hell he's getting at, then finally you come to The Moral Of The Story: Not long ago, Americans saw the rise of a therapeutic culture that placed great emphasis on self-discovery, self-awareness and self-expression. But somehow the tide seems to have turned from the worship of self, and today's message is: transcend yourself in your job -- or get shelled. Hunh? I thought we were supposed to be in an era of unprecedented wallowing in the sense of self, accompanied by relentless self-expression (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, blogs, yadda yadda yadda). You mean that's over already? I wish somebody would cc me on these memos. ***** UPDATE: I just want to remind you that this isn't the first time Brooks has found morality in baseball instruction -- here he is in 2005 singing the praises of the yuppified youth baseball his son played ("Those of us involved in this sort of life can see why people object to the over-the-topness of it all: the $200 bats, the professional coaches... [but it] has turned them into remarkable young men"). And I imagine the junior Brooks really won't grow up to be a crack dealer -- instead, he'll be a well-groomed hack screwing things up somewhere in the administration of, say, President George P. Bush, or a pompous pundit apologist for the same. posted by Steve M. | 11:22 AM | |
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