Airing of the Grievances

Back After a Long Hiatus (Dennis)

2009-04-01T19:24:00.003-04:00

Although it might seem inexplicable to you all that we missed the opportunity by not commenting on the closing days of the presidential election and subsequent inauguration of one Barack H. Obama, I think I can (and should!) explain our absence. Here's my take:

As thrilling as the election was, after the nomination was wrapped up I ceased being an independent rational being and became part of the Democratic group-think. That is, I had this crushing fear that McCain and Ms. Palin would win, which totally colored any opinion I might have had about the various controversies affecting the campaign. And I, like other liberals at the time, kind of subconsciously closed ranks so that my opinions became not much different than just about every other pro Obama person writing about the '08 campaign. Similarly, I think the good feelings that surrounded the win and inauguration made me feel the same wonderful way as everyone else. I sensed this, gradually got less excited to write about things and drifted away.

The other problem was that this blog became 99% about horse racy politics, which really discouraged me. I didn't want that at the beginning, because, as much as I love politics, it can get tedious when you're rehashing the back and forth going on between the parties. I didn't feel like I could meaningfully talk about policies because everything being put out by the two sides was being put out to influence the election, and had to be analyzed in that context. There wasn't a ton to comment on outside of politics because the '08 election just sucked up all of the proverbial oxygen in the room.

But, anyway, let's get this blog moving again! What do you say, Jon?

Exempting Abortion (JM)

2008-09-12T14:10:00.002-04:00

So I am concerned about tackling an issue this controversial, but I think there is an underdiscussed aspect of the abortion issue that deserves discussion. As a quick preamble, I think abortion is a deeply personal decision, one the can only be reached by the potential mother and the other people involved in the matter. I think choice is the right way to deal with such an issue, but it is neither an easy, nor a clear cut choice. That said, a lot of people take issue with Sarah Palin's unwilling to support exemptions in the case of either rape or incest. There are many things I don't like about Palin, many many things, but this is not one of them. Let me explain.

When one takes a position that abortion ought to be outlawed it is already a fairly extreme position in the sense that we are superseding a person's right to make decisions about their body and health. The reason they would take this position is that they genuinely believe that this a question of protecting a life and the rights of that child. Everything that follows is a consequence of that position. Now I recognize just how dreadful a situation might be where one is called upon to make a decision about a child created in either rape or incest. However, at the point that a person thinks that this is a being worth absolute protection I actually think it's morally inconsistent to support any sort of exemption based on the potential future of the child. Once we are willing to do that, then it seems to me that we should revert back to the position of choice.

So to the extent that not having such exemption is unpalatable, I agree and I understand. However, I think such exemptions seems like political expediencies rather than genuinely consistent positions. If the child were born we certainly would never consent to killing him or her, yet for the most part the pro-life position is held up on the conceit that a conceived child is life and that life is simply our highest value. So I don't agree with Palin's position on abortion, but I do think she is at least consistent in the regard and respect that.

As a final aside, I think there needs to be more respect in this debate on both sides. On the pro-life side I think there is a fundamental failure to respect that fact that this is still and always a tremendously difficult decision and that the fight is for real personal choice (something for which Republicans are supposed to be top advocates). At the same time, I think people who are pro-choice need to realize that, for the most part, pro-lifers are not on a personal crusade against women and rights. Many firmly believe that they are trying to save lives, and to the extent one believes that, it is hard not to respect such a fight. These are deeply personal issues and ones that will never be resolved with hectoring, violence, yelling or name calling. I think a dialogue about these issues would do the country some real good, and it's my fervent hope we will have one, but my sincere doubt that we actually will.

Stupid Microsoft Ad (Dennis)

2008-09-10T23:41:00.008-04:00

So you're Microsoft, and you've been getting your ass kicked in the ad wars with Mac (well, OK, they target PCs, but it's really about you isn't it?) and now Google has stepped up with a much hyped browser as a direct challenge to your dominance in that area. So you need to fight back fast.

How do you do it?

You can't really go at your competition too hard, you're the frontrunner after all and are already perceived as a big meanie. The first step is to remake your image. That makes sense. Right now, you're looked at as a fading 90s powerhouse who was once on the cutting edge but now is the very image of the tired boring establishment abhorred by younger consumers you're hoping to attract.

So, to help you change this image you bring in....Jerry Seinfeld?

....

Isn't he the Microsoft of the comedy, sitting on his vast piles of money while not having done anything worth noting since 1998?

OK OK, so maybe these things don't always work according to that kind of logic, I can buy that. But why spend the gazillions of dollars it must have taken to sign Jerry Seinfeld to produce this commercial:

I mean that's atrocious. Jerry still can't act and is tossing out half-hearted lines from Seinfeld (except, bizzarely, he's playing Kramer in this commercial). Bill Gates isn't even that funny, and seems like an old retired guy puttering around a mall in Palm Beach. At the end they say something about the future, but the commercial feels like you're watching two has-beens, away from the exciting places that made them famous, with nothing better to do than screw around in a mall for a few hous.

Look, if they were going to go for nostalgia humor, how much more would it have cost to get George, err, I mean, Jason Alexander and pair him with Jerry for the commercial? (And how much more memorable would that commercial have been?) But really, don't you think they needed to go somewhere different with this?

Look at the hugely successful Mac advertisements. On the one hand there's the cute Mac vs. PC ads, which manage to be vicious without seeming vicious:

And then there's the brilliant ITunes/IPod ads:

How much better are those than the crap Microsoft put out? Microsoft is a company that is worth billions and billions of dollars, and I think what literally happened when they considered remaking their image was a 15 minute board meeting where they talked about golf for 14 minutes, and at the end said, "Hey! Let's pay 5 million dollars to get Jerry Seinfeld, we'll send him and Bill out together. Let's see what happens!"

If they wanted to soften Bill Gates, and, therefore, Microsoft why not just have him tell a story about something important that happened early on at Microsoft, something about the joy of discovery or innovation? If they wanted a nostalgic commercial, why not do something like showing someone someone who is now like 30 using Microsoft over the years as he gets older? If you really wanted to do a "future" commercial, why not do something in the same "cool" vein as Apple's stuff? Their choice just made no sense. Corporations can be so silly sometimes.

What will we do without Tom? (Dennis)

2008-09-08T22:38:00.007-04:00

For those that have lived with watching football without rooting for Tom Brady, it’s difficult to describe the shock that many Patriots fans, especially the recently minted ones, will go through these next few weeks as they realize that all of their old assumptions about how to feel, act, and think during a football game will be shaken. During the Tom Brady era, to watch all but the most important playoff games was a sedate, reassuring activity. Every time Brady dropped back to pass, you knew that if there was way to find the open receiver, he would somehow do it. If there was an important third down to convert, the pass would get to the open man past the yellow line and the drive would go on, until, almost inevitably, a ball would sail into the hands of a receiver in the end zone. It happened so often that success became an expectation. And when the big play wasn’t made, it was jarring. I actually remember thinking, when an important third down wasn’t converted late in the game, “that must not have been the real important one,” as if Brady had some Tralfamadorian ability to see through time and sense which play was really critical for him to convert and which would simply have ruined the suspense.

For this season, at least, things will be different. Our quarterback will be some schlub who will hopefully throw more touchdowns than interceptions. Games will be tense, and whenever the quarterback drops back to pass on a big play, we’ll get that same feeling in our stomach we always used to get during Red Sox playoff games. You know, that tortuous mix of dread and excitement, where you don’t know if something very good or very bad is about to happen.

And I’m not sure that's a bad thing.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t very excited for this upcoming season. The whole air around the team was extremely deflated, and I wasn’t looking forward to another season of them with so much pressure to win on each game, and so many talking heads pontificating about what their success meant to society. Last season was fun for a while, but all the resentment and bitterness at the end from all other corners of the league ruined it for me, and I spent much of the summer dreading the start of the NFL season. How could you possibly top the 19-0 season that they let slip away? Would even a Super Bowl victory feel like an anti-climax?

Now, however, the Patriots suddenly find themselves in the role of underdog once again. Uncertainty and perhaps even dysfunction are on the horizon. Columns on the Patriots, which have recently become tiresome odes to their greatness, will be flush with drama. There will be questioning of the quarterback, of the coach’s strategy, and of whether the Patriots have the juice to get into the postseason. When the Patriots beat a pretty good team the fans will all go crazy again, rather than letting out a muted “yay” as they get back to the Sunday paper.

It will, in short, be kind of like the old days. That long ago time when we had the great Bledsoe at quarterback. He was a true tragic hero, who had a rocket arm but always seemed to make exactly the wrong decision at the wrong time. Strange as it may seem, even as I reveled in their greatness last season, I secretly wished we could give it one more go with Bledsoe. Back when he was around, I at least had someone to defend, and even more importantly, someone who needed defending. The Patriots of Belichick and Brady almost made me feel like they didn’t need me. They attracted the cheap love that rock stars get, where people admire them for their accomplishments and talents. With Bledsoe, I felt like I was on a journey with him, I shared his hopes and dreams and, most importantly, his disappointments. While Brady is an iconic figure, Bledsoe was one of us. And the one real advantage that that long ago unsuccessful era had on this successful one, is that while today fans root for the Patriots, it seemed like back them we rooted with the Patriots.

And so, it is that promise of the return of that familiar foxhole mentality that has me somewhat interested in this season again, despite the bad news. I’m excited for next week’s game against the Jets, where, doubtless, the Patriots will be declared hopeless underdogs by the media, and the fat, loathsome Jets fans will make their reappearance, like front-running swallows returning to Capastrano. I will yell at people to defend the competence of the Patriots and the quarterbacking skills of Matt Cassel, and, if it isn’t as good as thrashing the Jets by 89 points, it will, at least, be fun.

And who knows what will come out of this season? We still have Belichick, a great receiving corps, and at least a few players who have done the impossible before. After all, the last time the Patriots lost their starting quarterback to a horrible injury, they won the Super Bowl. And wouldn’t it be just perfect, if, after being counted out, the Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl just like they won their first? Except this time, the image of the Super Bowl celebration will not be the exuberant Brady raising his arms at the unexpected triumph, but the sly cynical Belichick, smiling like Voltaire, and saying, with a note of condescension: “nobody believed in us but ourselves.”

Dana Milbank Is Hilarious (JM)

2008-09-07T11:04:00.001-04:00

This Is Why I Love Him Folks (JM)

2008-09-06T11:38:00.003-04:00

Now this is some fine stumping:

Debating Life (JM)

2008-09-05T11:40:00.002-04:00

So I wanted to pull out a comment that regular reader and commenter "g thomas" had on my piece about the media and empiricism. He engages me on the issue of whether we can discuss life and abortion empirically in a political setting without reference to values or first premises. He thinks we can, in a well-thoughout line of argumentation, but one I will quarrel a bit with after his comments:

I agree with all of your analysis and conclusions, and feel similarly enraged by the Republican's egregious attempt to disconnect the folk from reality. What's most enraging to me and maybe to all of us is that it works. Like Dennis, i deliberately avoided watching the RNC, but inadvertantly caught a snippet of Palin, which succeeded in zero time to piss me off.

My only issue is with your point that we can't debate whether life begins at conception or not. I believe we can debate this issue, but it requires a more sophisticated set of argumentative tools than those available for public debate and a knowledge of neuroscience to do so.

In a practical sense only, I agree that that argument is not something that could possibly take place in a political forum, but an argument exists, if only in my head at the moment.

The basic structure of the argument is that life ought to measured not only in terms of alive versus dead, and some philosophers of science have pointed out that "life" isn't even well defined still, but also in terms of degrees of consciousness.

I think we all implicitly act on the belief, empirically based, that consciousness increases with experience. For example, male infants are routinely circumsized without asking if this is okay with them, while an adult would never be subjected to such an involuntary procedure in most societies. One could argue that this is because the infant can't answer meaningfully, but I think the reason we think it's okay lies more in the sense that infantile amnesia will remove the consciousness of the deed within a short time.

Since there's almost no possibility that an embryo has consciousness of self, there is a far smaller degree of the aspects of life that we value in any being, which renders it less alive than a newborn or an adult. The lack of any meaningful mental life or awareness I believe is the heart of the issue.

For example, we sympathize with dolphins and find their capture along with tuna to be abhorrent. Why?

Of course, there's a slippery slope here, but then "slippery slope" is the name of a type of fallacy, not that of a valid argument.

There are some gaps in the argument, of course, as I don't want to go on all day about this, and it's somewhat repellent to frame things this way, but life happens and I think most of the objections only stand up if we suppose that we're able to obtain an ideal transcendence of the realities of life at this very moment.

Also, if there isn't some valid argument that makes, say, the morning after pill okay, then we'd all have to agree with the most rabid right-to-lifers, at least implicitly.

Of course, you also say that we can't make the empirical argument, and I admit that would require my additional premise, a more refined definition of life, including degrees of consciousness, to make adequately.

I think the problem here is actually specified in your final paragraph when you mention a "more refined definition of life". I agree completely that as cognitive science gets better we will be able to codify consciousness and awareness to a much more accurate degree. But even as we do, this still leaves us with the Peter Singer problem; the role of the brain-dead or mentally handicapped. Does human life become less valuable because of cognitive capacity? I think intuitive we all feel, to some greater or lesser degree that it doesn't, at least not completely. There is probably no normative reason why this is the case (no more than there is a normative reason for most things). We have a value system where our identities as human has been fundamental to our place in the ecosystem. Even when we criticize our role in the Earth's environment all but the fringiest of activists still couch the problem in terms of future generations of humans. And that's probably alright (though I have a hard time seen the distinction between humanocentrism and ethnocentrism, at least completely).

The point of all of this is that our valuation of life is based entirely on the groups of which we are a part and the values derived from such groups. Thus, no matter how specific our categorizations get, that definition of life will always be debatable. Life is an emergent reality, a social concept, rather than an actual category. Even if science moved to specify its definition, the concept itself has become so socialized and politicized that it would face far more rabid opposition than even evolution or global warming. We live in fascinating times, we have come to the point where we problematize and question what we once considered objective knowledge. And that is great. However, it comes with a deep downside, because now everything can be politicized and idealized, and structures of knowledge become arenas for contestations of power. So now, more than ever, it is important to have empiricism and facts on our side, but merely asserting these things as factually true will never win the day or prove the point. This is where many of our political battles will be fought in the future and it's a ground we have not yet started to defend.

Just Relaxing For A Second...And Giving Money (Dennis)

2008-09-04T23:11:00.004-04:00

I have been telling people that I'm not watching the Republican convention because I don't want a shoe through my new TV. I mean a lot of people who know me don't realize it, but I have a pretty terrible temper if something gets to me. For example, after seeing only a snippet of the Sarah Palin speech I was tempted to write a rant like Jon's except mean spirited and probably offensive. I decided after running 8 miles to vent my frustration that this was probably not advisable and instead gave more of my money to Obama. (This Palin speech, by the way, will be gold for the Obama campaign in terms of getting money out of me, I swear, every YouTube clip I see will be another donation I feel compelled to give.)

Anyway, rather than watching the convention tonight I've watched the Muppet Movie, one can only take so much rage in one day. But, don't worry, I'll watch the recap of McCain's speech tomorrow so I can happily part with more of my money.

Oh, and for those of you that do need calming down tonight (only after you give money!) here's something from the Muppet Movie.

All Hail Joe Klein, All Boo the Media (JM)

2008-09-04T16:15:00.002-04:00

Joe Klein kind of looks like my pop, but that's night the reason he get plaudits today. Rather, it's this post. He points out the obvious, that McCain is getting furious because he is simply not used to hard treatment from the press. Obviously this is all a little silly, if you want to lead the country the press is going to be hard on you. The notable point he makes though is that just because the press is being hit hard doesn't mean they should back down from vetting Sarah Palin.

I don't want collide with my last post, but I think this point requires bearing out a little bit. Politics in general, and the Republicans in specific, have unrooted fact from empiricism. We don't live, according to them, in an empirical reality, but rather an ideological reality. This means things like energy policy, global warming, evolution are not just debatable on the grounds of governmental principle, but on their factual bases. We are not just arguing about how to deal with global warming, but instead whether or not global warming exists. Moreover, everything is open to debate, to question this is not just disagree, but to devalue someone's worldview.

This presents a real problem for politics and the press. Heck, even during this campaign with a significant Democratic advantage, the only person who has stood and said that Republican principles have been wrong is Bill Clinton. Everything has been about how the last eight years have been bad for people, it's only the deeply personal that allows to adjudicate the whether something is true or false, good or bad. This is stupid. I think here are many things that come down to personal values and social conditioning. I honestly don't think we can argue empirically whether life begins at conception, we just can't. But by god we can and should argue about the soundness of free market economics. I just hate that term free, let's call it what it is "unregulated economics. The market isn't some independent actor, it responds to the will of money and capital and that will is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. In fact, we should be arguing about freedom in general, because the government simply isn't the only check on our personal rights and freedoms. I believe in the idea of the self-made man, but for every man or woman who's made it out from under the wretched yoke of poverty there are several who fought just as hard who are there.

Ultimately, we as individuals and the press as a collective entity don't remain objective by simply not touching anything cloaked in ideology. The less apt the media is to explore these issues (or entwine them in partisan attacks, a la Keith Olbermann) the more both parties will stop discussing issues as issues and start disguising policy as values. Not only is this not partisan, it's the responsibility they actively have, but one they run away from the second the phrase "liberal elite media" shows up. Newspapers are dying all over the country, and one of the big reasons why is that no one believes objectivity exists any more (and the internet, obviously). The media, instead of fighting gave in, and now news is partisan news. We ask, "Where did you read that?" before even beginning to decide how we feel about the report. So media, fight back, you don't have to be impartial, just be fair. Oh and even the most partisan outlets can be nice once in a while. Seriously, it would be totally okay if Keith Olbermann were to do a segment talking about Bush's mostly excellent work in Africa (though contraception issues are still a negative there). On a similar note it would be nice if the good people of Fox News could recognize some of the really good work Nancy Pelosi has been up to. But fairness is not tit for tat and it's certainly not acquiescing to the taboos set by either party. Good start Joe Klein, but it's time for the rest of the media to pick up the ball and run with it.

The Angriest Thing I Have Ever Written (JM)

2008-09-04T10:28:00.002-04:00

Hot damn, I though I was cynical, but apparently the GOP has me beat by a freakin' country mile. The RNC last night was notable for many insane things, perhaps the most insane being the media's inability to not be wowed by shiny objects.

Let's start with our good friend Mittmentum, who gave in an awesome speech in some sort of alternative history novel in which Gore won the 2000 election and Washington was dominated by the liberals for the last 8 years. He serious railed against liberal tax and spend Washington, conveniently ignoring the fact the Washington has been in the hands of the GOP for the past two terms. Explicitly more hilarious was Romney attacking East Coast Elites. The head of Bain Capital, from Massachusetts, is attacking east coast elitism, I don't even begin to understand how he thought he could get away with this. The temerity of this speech was amazing, in line with all of the other speeches last night, as the GOP seemed under the impression that if they said it in prime time it would suddenly just become true. And they're right, it might, if the media refuses to challenge this utter nonsense.

Then cameth the Huck. Look, it's hard not to like Huck. He seems nice, he's funny, snarky and pretty smart. I hate the religious side of his politics, but I think in person I would get along with him real well. I appreciated the fact that he was the one person who took a single moment to be gracious to Obama about his accomplishments. That said, two huge quarrels with his speech. The first was all his talk about small government. Who are you fooling Huck? You love government! You want to have government's babies. I saw you and government out back canoodling under the old elm tree. All kidding aside, Huck really is an economic populist, it's why he's gained traction in areas the GOP hasn't, it's his unique strength and he should stick with it. If he wants to win in 2012 he's not going to out market downhome country boy, Mitt Romney. Seriously, I think the two of them, for a larf, switched speeches, Huck talking about small government, Mittmentum about the Eastern Elite. But then Huck made a Madonna joke, so it was definitely him. My other issue with Huckamonster was his flat out lie about Sarah Palin getting more votes for mayor of Wasilla than Biden got for POTUS. Let's assume we are comparing only this time around, not 1988. The most votes Palin ever got in Wasilla was 650, Biden got over 50,000 against a much tougher field of candidates. These are not even comparable, and in so far as they are this analysis of the comparison was a flat out lie.

Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! I don't have too much to say specifically about Rudy's speech. He's a buffoon, pure and simple. The man has jumped the shark so hard that it's comparable to when the Bundy's got that extra kid only to find out it had all been a dream. I would say his the political equivalent of The Golden Palace, but I would never insult the memory of Estelle Getty like that. He's basically the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers post-Kimberly. Anyway, my point is that I am going to take this time to focus on two things that were present throughout all the GOP talking points. The first is this batshit crazy notion that executive experience is the most important. Attempting to ban books in Wasilla, AK is waaaaaaay more important to being a President of the United States than being a Senator for 35 years, meeting with leaders of the world, ushering through critical legislation to protect women, managing critical Supreme Court confirmation hearings and being responsible to voters of your state. I love to strawman, but Rudy and the GOP loves decisionmaking so much that their logic easily extends to the idea that Peter Boyt, manager of the Barnstable, MA Kinko's, is more qualified to be president than Joe Biden. Well, I am sorry I forgot, Peter Boyt is probably a member of the East Coast establishment. Ugh, it's just so stupid and cynical to think that people would believe this, hells I think we are all aware that the other extension of this argument is that Palin is more qualified than McCain. Oh wait! McCain once led in the military. Sigh, I don't know what pisses me off more, the fact that the GOP has the cojones to make these arguments or that fact that they might work.

The second thing I just don't get is the derision that the Republicans seem to have for community organizing. It's amazing, they act like this is the only thing on Obama's resume, rather than the start to a notable and respectable career. I think it's awesome that Obama chose to work in his community helping people, rather than selling out. But here's the bigger reason the Republicans have such utter contempt for community organization, it's their job to tell the people what to think. Community organization is based on the principle of giving voice to the people, and having the bottom control the top. Republican principles are based on telling the people what to think and believe, letting market forces (read as, the will of those with the most money) determine how communities are shaped, and using wedge social issues to get people to vote and act against their local interest. They don't respect community organization because they don't want to see communities get organized. Yet another in a litany of reasons to believe that the Republicans are so insanely out of touch with the American people.

So finally we get to Palin, the "Real Housewife of Juneau County"*. I have never in my life disliked a politician more than I do her. I think putting herself in the spotlight while her daughter is dealing with her personal issues was reprehensible, but using a Down's Syndrome baby as a campaign prop? It's nearly abusive. I mean at one point Cindy McCain was holding the baby. It's flat out disgusting (and I really don't get disgusted by anything). She spoke well, she read off a teleprompter (one that had the word nuclear spelled phonetically "new-clear") and she got off some reasonable funny lines. What she didn't do is talk about policy or give any of us a single reason to believe that she is actually qualified to step in as President of the United States. There is not a single person in this country who cannot imagine any of the three other people in this race sitting in the Oval Office. They may not be your first choice, but Obama, Biden and McCain all make sense sitting behind that desk, but Palin? My God, the unknown of that is simply terrifying. There is no chalking this up to some sort of misogyny, I think Hillary would have been an amazing president (I'd have put her in there before anyone but Biden). No this is simply about the fact that Palin has no clue on national domestic issues or international affairs. She's also a flat out liar. She claims to have said "no thanks" on the "Bridge to Nowhere" when she was demonstrably in favor of it, she hired lobbying firms to get earmarks for her town, she's embroiled in several scandals and is all for small government except for intrusions in to your bedrooms and libraries.

She's mean-spirited and not ready, but with all the press applause for her speech delivery last night you wouldn't know it. This is woman who's voice dripped with derision for the press. And they ate it up. The media often talks about how they're the voice of the people, this is perhaps their biggest opportunity to show it's true. They must demand interviews with Palin now, with serious magazines, papers and shows. She can't get away with interviews with People and Hannity, she has be held accountable by the mainstream media, asked questions that demand knowledge and deep understanding. It's also on Biden, I love Joe, but he can't let the "play nice' attitude of the Obama campaign effect you too much. He has to get out there in the debate and simply womp her in to the ground. He needs to demands specifics and talking about intricate plans both domestically and abroad. The word Afghanistan was mentioned not once last night, the Dems need to talk about that more.

In the end we are left with this. The Republicans have squandered the last eight years, killing a surplus created by Bill Clinton. They have poorly fought wars, mismanaged the economy, eroded civil rights and generally made a mockery of ethical governance. Now they are simply pretend that it didn't happen. They are arguing two people who are political and have done little to create substantive reform (or in McCain's case moved away from the actual good things he has done) are the real standard bearers of change. If we can't win now, we will never win. Sighing about the politics of cynicism won't do it, it's simply not enough. We need to be specific, point out every lie, spin or misnomer they put out there. The American people deserve better than this, but we need to show them what there real choice is. If we can do that and they still opt for this disturbing brand of image-based, elitist domination on the part of the Republicans, well then my God maybe we do deserve McCain/Palin.

*Patent pending, Bravo reality TV coming to a White House near you.

Stop it. (Dennis)

2008-08-27T22:09:00.003-04:00

Perhaps the most distasteful thing opinion on the internets is the endless original opinion competition that generates genuinely asinine thoughts in record time.

Example A is the evolving assessment of Hillary's speech last night. Last night, everyone who watched the speech though it was a great speech under any circumstance and incredibly gracious speech given the rancorous campaign that preceded it. As morning came, people on Internet opinion factories, like Slate, thought it was a very good speech, but, left out some things, like the fact that Obama was "ready to be president." Nevermind that she basically said that fate of Western Civilization depended on his being elected. Now, as I sat down to watch Bill Clinton's speech tonight, it had become conventional wisdom that Hillary had somehow left something out, and Bill needed to fill that void. This was a notion which, a mere 24 hours ago, was dismissed as a ridiculous McCain talking point.

You can't tell me honestly that you saw Hillary's speech last night, and detected an actual opening, so why say it, if you aren't a Republican hack? It's because there's this annoying strain of intellectual masturbation from people hired to write online. For some, truth doesn't matter as much as having something different out there, no matter how much sense it makes. I suspect this has always existed, but with millions of opinions out there acessible via the internet, conventional wisdom now devolves more quickly into nonsense. It turns on its head the idea that greater accessiblity to ideas and information make us more informed.

Awesome Picture and Quick First Night Democratic Convention Thoughts (JM)

2008-08-26T11:01:00.004-04:00

In all seriousness please ignore the picture of McCain. Just look at the picture of Biden. It's hilarious, maybe even beyond hilarious. It's like he's a 70's blacksploitation film. I don't think I am the only one who sincerely believes that he needs to bring that look back for his speech Wednesday night. Okay McCain looks pretty darn earnest in that picture to be fair (though I am pretty sure that he was at the helm of the Monitor). Anyway, just a fun moment of Biden-related fashion talk. Also Michelle Obama's speech was phenomenal last night, the video montage was also quite impressive, I think the campaign hit all the right notes towards the end of the evening. No one will forget the return of Ted Kennedy, a well crafted night all around.

Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1952! (JM)

2008-08-25T11:42:00.006-04:00

Wellity, wellity, wellity, wellity. Let it never be said that the telecom industry doesn't return favors. I don't exactly who will be hosting this party, but you can be that the likely suspects include our good buddy Sen. Jay Rockefeller and long time personal favorite of mine, Sen. Claire "Oh, won't someone please think of the telecoms!" McCaskill. Well even if we don't have the ability to sue telecom companies for wiretapping, at least the Blue Dogs will have a kickin' party. Please don't discuss politics, it makes them uncomfortable.

Snark aside, there's a bigger issue here. Despite the Obama campaign's unwillingness to take corporate or PAC money in to his campaign, certain campaign events (and many parts of the convention) are sponsored by this money. It certainly raises the question of whether or not we can ever have an electoral system that doesn't have corporate influence. I have always thought that publically-funded elections with a complete ban on private funding, were the solution. In the end, however, I wonder if this wouldn't just marginalize corporate money in to other, less-trackable areas of the political playing field. I am aware that this is a criticism that has been leveled before, but it's one that has become clearer and clearer in this election. As political campaigns get bigger, the terrain more expansive and the methods of campaign far more diverse it is becoming tougher and tougher to hold the floodgates of corporate money closed. But that doesn't mean that's not a fight worth having.

Hat Tip: Matt Stoller

Biden! Biden! Biden! Biden! (JM)

2008-08-23T10:14:00.002-04:00

Perhaps later today I will add, you know, content to this post, but until that time let's just say I approve wholeheartedly of this choice (despite the constant feeling this ticket should be flipped). Anyway, by choosing Biden I have actually gained a lot of respect for Obama, who clearly feels comfortable enough giving authority to the most qualified person, despite their senority and the fear of being overshadowed. More on this later, for now I am going to the beach.

My Prediction (Dennis)

2008-08-21T20:41:00.004-04:00

There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about who exactly Obama’s vice presidential pick will be. Generally, this talk has centered around three names: Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, and Delaware Senator Joe Biden. Unfortunately for those men, none of them are the pick. Consider the evidence:

1.) Campaign Style: The Obama campaign has two hallmarks. For one, it loves dramatic political theater. For another, it strives to keep leaks about critical campaign decisions to minimum. Now, knowing this about the campaign, do you really think we’d get a billion stories from reporters about these characters in the weeks leading up to the selection if any one of them was the pick? Why has Obama been visiting Indiana and Virginia, chatting up both Kaine and Bayh? Why is there “buzz” around Biden? Isn’t it possible, probable even that they are using these people as distractions, while the real favorite improbably stays off the radar and out of the wrenching cable news discussion?

Now let’s think about the “splash” part. Are any of these guys particularly exciting? Sure I would love Biden, but I don’t think an announcement including any of them would exactly set the world on fire. Now, obviously, you’re looking for a good pick and a good surrogate first, and if there weren’t anyone out there who was both exciting and solid pick, I would say it was even money between the three, with Biden the slight favorite because he’s so excellent on the attack and on foreign policy. But isn’t there someone else.... someone who wants to be Vice President, who, unlike the other three, would be disciplined, effective, and an exciting choice?

2.) Location: It seems that Obama has scheduled a big rally on Saturday in Springfield, IL to announce his choice. Now if you were Obama, and you wanted to capture either Indiana or Virginia with your VP pick, wouldn’t you announce your selection of the hometown favorite in either Indiana or Virginia? Particularly with Bayh, wouldn’t announcing a Bayh selection in Springfield be a little like announcing you’ve received Ted Kennedy’s endorsement for Governor of Massachusetts in Yankee Stadium?

I guess that leaves Joe Biden, but if what exactly about Springfield screams “Biden?” If I were going to pick Biden, it would be because I wanted people to know that I’m serious about foreign policy, and I’d select somewhere particularly evocative of that, perhaps an aircraft carrier or even the USS Constitution...somewhere where you could tell an appropriate story as a rationale for the pick. The Old Statehouse in Springfield doesn’t make sense as a place to roll out Biden.

The one person people associate with the Old Statehouse is Lincoln, a person Obama clearly models himself after. He, after all, announced his candidacy from Springfield, and has cited “Team of Rivals,” a biography of Lincoln’s political life, as a key book he would take into the White House.

And in Team of Rivals we get our last major clue as to who the choice will be. For Team of Rivals is a book about how Lincoln placed his fiercest rivals for the presidency in the cabinet, including and especiallythe early, overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination, New York Senator William Seward...

By now even the most casual observer of politics knows I’m hinting at Hillary, and indeed, I think it will be her. I’ve thought for some time that Obama has been doing everything necessary to pick her. By courting other people, he doesn’t look like he’s being forced into the choice. By focusing on others he avoids the horrific cable over analysis of the pick. And with Hillary in Springfield he gets a place that draws parallels back to Lincoln (always a good thing), plus he get the added bonus of Hillary’s Illinois roots.

But moreover, it was really the obvious choice all along. She’s the only one that really makes a difference, that gets a sizeable number of non political junkies excited. She and Bill are probably his best attack dogs against McCain. They even give him an excellent decoy to draw Republican fire. She’s the only one thats great for now and great for September and October.

If you still aren’t convinced, I’ll leave you with this from ABC News today:

Obama said he wanted somebody who is "prepared to be president" and who will be "a partner with me in strengthening this economy for the middle class and working families."

He said he was looking for not just a partner but a sparring partner. "I want somebody who's independent, somebody who can push against my preconceived notions and challenge me so we have got a robust debate in the White House."

If not Hillary, who?

Maureen Dowd is an Enron Executive (JM)

2008-08-20T11:16:00.003-04:00

Two Against The One
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 19, 2008
WASHINGTON

Alright, what follows here is a rant of insane speculation the likes of which probably couldn’t be printed in the Enquirer. In fact, I am not entirely positive how this is not straight up libel. This is one of those examples where Maureen has actually gone way too far in to the realm of terribly unethical journalism. The funny thing is I expect that this isn’t even as bad as it originally was before editing. So I shall, for your benefit, add the “original” text in italics.

In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.
They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.

This meeting of the Evil League of Evil will come to order, Hillary intoned, as John McCain and Bad Horse swigged their vodka.
“Our toast to The One,” they say in unison, “is that he’s toast.”

“Obama should have picked you, Hillary,” John McCain tells her. “It isn’t fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him.”
“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”

They chortle with delight.

Joe Lieberman enters and kneels before McCain, “Master, I’ve gotten the lock of Tim Kaine’s hair as you requested.”
Hillary, her head thrown back laughing, says, “Good, good! Now we can control him. Did you bring the eye of Newt?”
::cut to Newt Geingrich running really fast from Lieberman in a bulldozer::

“He’s a bright young man, but he got ahead of himself,” McCain says. “He needs to be taught a lesson, and we’re the ones to do it. Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll? Obama’s dropped and we’re even again. The Bullet’s getting all the credit, but you and I know, Hillary, that it’s these top-secret counseling sessions we’re having. And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence.”

“Oh, John, you know I love you and I’m happy to help,” Hillary says. “The themes you took from me are working great — painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity, when we’re rich celebrities, too. Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws, charging him with playing the race card — that one always cracks me up. And accusing the media, especially NBC, of playing favorites. It’s easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze; they’re so insecure.”

Seriously, let’s just stop for a second a appreciate the fact that the so-called paper of record has allowed their most famous columnist to print an exchange in which Hillary admits to helping John McCain cheat. This is just such a tremendous lapse in journalistic integrity that I am nauseous. Usually I just think Maureen is a bad writer, but seriously this column makes me feel like she is just a terrible person.

“They’re all pinko Commies,” McCain laughs. “Especially since they deserted me for The Messiah. Seriously, Hill, that Paris-Britney ad you came up with was brilliant. I owe you.”
Looking pleased, Hillary expertly downs another shot. “His secret fear is being seen as a dumb blonde,” she says. “He wants to take a short cut to the top and pose on glossy magazine covers, but he doesn’t want to be seen as a glib pretty boy.”
McCain lifts his glass to her admiringly. “If I do say so myself, while the rookie was surfing in Hawaii, I ate his pupus for lunch. Pictures of him pushing around a golf ball while I’m pushing around Putin. Priceless.”
“I have a little secret to tell you about that, John. Bill made it happen. He loves you so much. He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia, he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life.”

Vladimir Putin and Osama bin Laden walk in to the room. Putin places as a bottle of Stoli on the table, and Clinton proceeds to drink all of it with no hands.
“Impressive,” laughs Putin, “you’ll see that I’ve invaded Georgia for you. We agree that once you become President that I can have Poland and Germany.”
“Of course you can, John pour us all another drink.”
Osama sheepishly, “No, no, none for me, it’s kind of against my religion. I’ll tell you what, if I can have the Middle East and France I will create a picture on Photoshop of me and Obama having a catch as brothers.”
“Whoa, that’s a hell of an idea! The Middle East is yours!” exclaims McCain.
“France?”
“Ehhh… sure why not. The look on Sarkozy’s face will be priceless.”

“Wow. Should I call him? I saw your husband’s kind words about me in Las Vegas on Monday, saying I’d be just as good as Obama on climate change.”

Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. Bill explicitly said that McCain is better than most Republicans on the environment and that he prefers Obama’s plan. This is not just what he actually said, but a pretty accurate assessment of the situation.

“I think he’d like that,” Hillary smiles. “He’s still boiling at Obama. And you don’t have to worry about my army of angry women. We’ve spread the word in the feminist underground — as opposed to that wacky Obama Weather Underground — that ‘catharsis’ is code for ‘No surrender.’ My gals know when I say ‘We may have started on two separate paths but we’re on one journey now’ that Skinny’s journey is to the nearest exit.”
“But Obama’s says he’s finally ready to hit back,” McCain says, frowning. “He’s starting a blistering TV campaign and attacking me for attacking his patriotism.”
“Now, John, you know that every time he tries to get tough, he quickly runs out of gas. Sometimes in debates, he’d be exhausted by the third question. He must use up all his energy in the gym. He doesn’t have any stamina, and he certainly doesn’t have our bloodlust. Besides, you can throw that Mark Penn stuff at him that I couldn’t use in a Democratic primary about how he’s not fundamentally American in his thinking and values. While he’s up on his high-minded pedestal, you’ll scoot past him in your Ferragamos.”
“How can I ever thank you, my friend?”

In to the room comes Blackbeard, Hitler, Mao, Charlie Manson, and Richard Nixon.
“Arggh, this is fine conspiracy we have going here.”, Nixon states as he gives Hillary the second creepiest back massage of all time.
Mao and Hitler go over to Joe Lieberman with hugs all around (I suspect this moment was a bit uncomfortable for Joe, but you know anything for the party).
“Arrr, our plan for world domination is neigh completion. Let me ask you this: Does anyone have any gold doubloons they need buried?”
McCain shakes his head with disdain before calling Charlie Manson “a little jerk” and barbecuing for him.

“You can announce that you won’t be running for re-election because you’d be 76, and you can pick somebody really lame to run with, like your pal Lieberman. That means one term for you, and two for me.”
“It’s a deal,” McCain says, sticking out his hand to shake on it. “That was inspired to snatch his convention away — makes him look so weak. Listen, why don’t you stop in Sedona on the way to Denver? Wear a black wig and I’ll spirit you up to the cabin for the night. I’ll catch a catfish in the mill pond and grill it for you. It will be an adventure.” There’s a knock on the door. Jesse Jackson sticks his head into the meeting.

Following Jesse in to the room glides Lord Voldemort, Satan and a living personification of the AIDS virus.
“Tally ho and good day folks, does anyone have any need of a retrovirus this fine summer’s day?”, asks AIDSy.
“Umm… no…” says Hillary, but slowly reconsidering, “Hmm… well let’s wait and see who Obama chooses as VP shall we?” Turning she glances at Voldemort given the first creepiest back massage of all time to John McCain.
“Mmm… thanks Volde, that Imperius curse you taught me was fantastic. Look what a good little servant Joe has become.”
Satan looks around him, “Jesus, this is screwed up even for me! I’m outta here.” Satan zooms off cartoonishly with a little smoke cloud left behind him.
Fin

“Is it over?” he asks his co-conspirators.
“Yes, he’s over,” they respond in unison.

Seriously, I cannot emphasize how bad, absurd, cartoonishly evil, irresponsible, inappropriate and terrible this article is. If I thought it would do any good I would write a letter to the Times. But instead, I choice strawman it death and a makes some decent Harry Potter jokes. We all have our paths I suppose.

Getting Denver Ready (JM)

2008-08-20T10:17:00.002-04:00

Well consider John Edwards a winner. Denver has taken a real step helping the homeless in the run up to the convention. That's right, free haircuts for the homeless. You may not have any where to sleep, but god dammit you will be presentable.

Via Ben Smith.

Your Lesser Known Veep Candidates, Part I (JM)

2008-08-13T11:41:00.005-04:00

In a time of violence and chaos Obama needs a steady hand at his side. He'd ideally like someone who understands international affairs, while not being tied to the politics of the past. Well in Col. Sherman Tecumseh Potter Obama has found his man. A veteran of both World Wars as well as the Korean he has a deep understanding of the history of international conflict, plus he has Eisenhower's endorsement. Col. Potter is a fine family man, but even understands the allure of temptation. Even when facing it in his own family he acted with respect and used it as a fine teaching moment. But beyond his public credentials he also has a fine track record of dealing with youth, teaching Hawkeye and BJ to make their gin still even more efficient. In the end, Potter gives the impression of strength and comfort at the same time, while not overshadowing Obama in terms of political experience. Oh, and of course how great will it be to see him respond to Mitt Romney angry in a debate with classic expression, "Oh, horse hockey!". This is really best of both worlds, making Col. Sherman T. Potter a candidate you ought to know about.

The Great Dane (JM)

2008-08-12T18:08:00.001-04:00

If there’s anything you need to know about me it is that I think Dane Cook is hilarious. Seriously he is the funniest comedian since Ashton Kutcher. Just sit me down with a bottle of red wine and anything in the Dane Cook oeuvre and I will good to go. That’s why it pleased me so much to discover Dane Cook’s super nifty My Space blog (I highly recommend reading the comments too, which are actually totally hilarious). Let’s strap ourselves in and feel the Gs.

10 THINGS THAT...

...NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT ME AND I DIDN'T KNOW EITHER UNTIL I WROTE THIS LIST OUT JUST NOW. EN-FUKIN-JOY.

I will spare you the obvious jokes here, but I mean how’s this for a premise, a top ten list about nothing. It’s a list of ten random things. Also I tot-fukin-ally lo-shite-ve wh-donkey sex-en frat boys place profanities in the middle of words, that is some fine lingual craftsmanship. Also I dig on you misspelling the word “fuck” Dane, way to be inoffensive, yet rebellious, you can be on my Tiger Beat any day.

The First Thing:
I hate the ocean. It's ugly and smells like a salty puddle. It is too damn loud with it's churning and splashing. The people that say they love the ocean are also not pretty to look at. They steal, lie and are not fair or right about most everything. The ocean is a pool filled with awful unattractive creatures that have no business on this planet. We should build a skyscraper-sized toaster, plug it in and drop it in the ocean electrocuting all the varmints in there. After that drain it and build some ballsy skateboard parks!

This is funny because the ocean is a weird thing to hate. No one else has a bit on hating the ocean, thus Dane is an original. I hate the letter Q, it’s always staring at me with it’s one giant eye and it looks like it has a tail! Check it, now I’m Dane Cook. Also, “ballsy skateboard parks”, you’re such a Sk8r Boi (see you later boy).

The Second Thing:
I can only eat egg whites if they are colored with a yellow food dye appearing like they are regular eggs. When I say "these are delicious regular eggs" you respond with "yes they look like tasty regular eggs and NOT egg whites."

Dane is very successful because a large part of his humor is getting us all to imagine that we are sitting down to breakfast with Dane Cook and he’s being quirky. God that just makes me want to eat eggs with Dane Cook, he’s so damned quirky!

The Third Thing:
I've invented a device that mathematically figures out who is the most boring person at a party and shoots a deadly laser at them killing them close to instantly.*1

It’s called a Suicide Machine. ZING!!!

The Fourth Thing:
My biggest regret in life is not having a really big regret.

I wish I had a time machine. The only thing I would use it for is to go in to the future and find out what Dane Cook’s biggest regret is going to be. I bet it involves a remake of Curly Sue.*2

The Fifth Thing:
One time a ghost appeared to me and told me I was going to do great things in this lifetime. I responded by trapping him in my Proton Pack and delivering it to the
Ecto-Containment Unit. You see, Dr. Peter Venkman is a dear friend of mine and some ghost with his tricky horseshit will not persuade me other wise.

Alright, can we all be serious for a second. If you’re going to go to the trouble of making a decent pop culture reference you need to do one of two things, either: a) be much funnier about it or b) make a reference to a much more obscure pop culture reference (see Fourth Thing for an example of a mediocre joke obscured by a reference to Jim Belushi’s second awesomest movie, falling right behind Mr. Destiny).

The Sixth Thing:
There is no better feeling in the whole wide world than when the cop that is following behind your car takes a left. Especially when you DO have a body in your trunk.

That joke is roughly akin to this:

The Seventh Thing:
There is nothing funnier than someone that is not funny trying to convince other people that someone isn't funny.

It’s like Dane Cook went forward in time and found out about this post and tried to preempt me. Nice try Cook, nice try. I’d respond but the temporal grammatics are getting to me here, but way to be defensive. By the way Dane, if you have a time machine, how do you not know your biggest regret, hmm?

The Eighth Thing:
A young boy looked at his mother and asked her, "Mom is there a God?"

The mother looked, smiled and responded, "I really don't think so."

This boy then went to his father and asked, "Dad is there a God?"

The dad looked, grinned and replied, "Yes. I know there is."

Later that night the three of them were driving to grab dinner at a place where lower middle class people eat when a logging truck ran a red light and hit them head on. The mother died the father lived and the boy was badly hurt by a log that bashed into his body.

Oprah called and had the father and son on her popular syndicated talk show and she asked the boy if he believed in God. The boy looked, smirked and replied "I'm on Oprah so what do you think?!"

Later that night the logger that drove the truck in a fit of rage because he was not asked to participate in the panel discussion on Oprah (yet he was invited to sit in the audience which is still pretty prestigious but certainly not as validating as sitting on the actual couch with Oprah) went into a blind white rage and killed the father and son, dug up the mothers body and put the three of them in a tree fort he built for his son Jarvis dressing them in army uniforms wearing wigs, costume jewelry and smart casual footwear.

A year later the logging trucker guy was the LEAD GUEST on Oprah live from prison and his new book "LOGGING, KILLING, CATS and OTHER DAILY STUFF" is a bestseller.

I think we all know that there IS a God but He is very drunk, somewhat troubled and obviously extremely shy hence He doesn't care for the question about him existing or not so let's focus on something else for right now.

I wish I hadn’t used up that cow cartoon earlier. Can I also point out that this is explicitly not something that no one knows about you in as far as it is nothing about you at all. Which is weird since your top ten list was already about nothing and you managed to break theme anyway.

The Ninth Thing:
Nobody can tell you that you won't make it in this world. Yet, if we can rally everyone in the world to tell you that you won't make it than it's true. You really have no shot because all of us don't care for your work and we are the world. Odds are you will be fine but have a back up plan in case all of us come calling with some bad news.

Wait, I think I have finally figured this out. You are Jack Handy, but after you’ve had some sort of severe impairment. "Instead of a trap door, what about a trap window? The guy looks out it, and if he leans too far, he falls out. Wait. I guess that's like a regular window." See how much funnier he is?

The Tenth Thing:
If I went to college I would major in Apology.

It’s like a black fly in my Chardonnay. It’s like a death row pardon, two minutes too late.

*1 - Pending approval with the FCC and people that like coming to my parties.

*2 If you’re going to use the humorous footnote at least say something funny or interesting. For instance, did you that when Mr. Papadopolous kissed Webster it marked the first time in the history of television that a Greek man kissed a black child, at least as far as I know.

Same As It Ever Was, Same As It Ever Was (JM)

2008-08-12T15:54:00.004-04:00

I wish we had a brief rundown of the Georgian conflict in Lost episode recap format, complete with banal Matthew Fox voiceover. Since I don't, here's basically what we know. Georgia, a former section of the Soviet Union is the first non-satellite state to develop even a quasi-democratic government outside the auspices of the Soviet Union. After regaining independence in 1991 almost all of the 90s were spent in turmoil, violence and opportunism being the order of the day. The next momentous period came in 2003 when then President Eduard Shevardnadze was reelected in by a system that was grossly skewed in his favor. This led to a series of mostly non-violent protests which culminated in Mikheil Saakashvilli and other pro-democratic supporters marching on the opening of the Georgian parliament carrying roses. So called the Rose Revolution led eventually to the resignation of Shevardnaze and a new series of elections which came down resoundingly in favor of Saakashvilli.

During this time of transition there were other problems developing. Two key regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia began to erupt in violence. These are both region with substantial non-Georgian ethnic minorities. However, the exact demographic make up of these regions is particularly unclear as the Georgian government created large-scale settlements in these areas with Georgian ethnic to disrupt the balance of power. In turn, violence was fomented in both areas, and Georgian ethnics were largely displaced from these communities by local ethnic groups, warlords, outside groups such as the Chechens and, above all, the support of Russia.

It's this backdrop that leads to the current set of conflicts. Georgia, along with the Ukraine (which is, despite Kramer's insistence, not weak), are interested in becoming members of NATO. However there are serious concerns about offering Georgia NATO membership, the primary being a potential for intense conflict with Russia, but also the fact that Saakashvilli has been far from perfect, going out of his way to antagonize Vladimir Putin and also repressing the speech of major opposition groups. Despite all of these reservations Georgia remains a far more democratic stronghold than its neighbors and is an incredibly close ally of the Western world, the United States in particular. It's status as a Western supporter drives Russia even further to try a destabilize the region (and potential a full-scale invasion with the direct hope of regime change). It also certainly doesn't help that Putin and Saakashvilli loathe each other and either would be happier should the other cease to exist.

This brings us to today. Russia invaded to protect the minority populations of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from being bombarded by the Georgian military. The Georgian military claims to have attacked these areas in response to attacks from Russia supported militias and warlords in this region. In other words, Russia has a thinly veiled excuse to invade and Georgia has thinly veiled excuse to repress. Think Palestine with military support while ignore some of the ancillary issues. In other words, it's a total mess.

We've certainly had a myriad of responses from our government and candidates about this crisis. McCain has taken the hardest line, arguing that we should immediately extend NATO membership to Georgia and demand the removal of Russian troops. It should be noted that McCain has a very close relationship with the Georgian government, his campaign manager Rick Davis is a registered lobbyist on behalf of Georgian interests. Despite all of this, it is certainly in our and the world's interest to keep Russian out of Georgia and certainly prevent them from toppling an even quasi-democratic regime. But there appears that there is just too little to be done. The fact is that we have several players in this, none of whom are completely innocent. Even on an even playing field there is just no way to fairly assess blame (though it does appear that Russia has pushed the most boundaries). Even if the world were to agree that Russia's actions ought to be condemned the U.N. is powerless to do anything due to the Russian Security Council veto. Other international organizations hold little sway in this matter as well. If we were to extend NATO protect to Georgia it would put the entire Atlantic community on the hook to defend Georgia militarily. It's exactly this sort of entanglement that lead us down the path to World War I.

This is, frankly, what Russia is counting on. The United States tired and poor from fighting two separate wars, it's political capital spent and amidst an election that will change the direction of our foreign policy in either case is ill-equipped to take the lead in this situation. Russia is aware that they can essentially call the world's bluff and repress the beginnings of local democracy right before our eyes. Though weakened they still retain a certain amount of power due to an abundance of natural resources and fuel needs. However, Putin has discovered that their greatest power might just lie is simple brazenness and an awareness that no one in the world has any desire to be the one to get in their way.

This leaves our country in quite a quandary, two small ethnic divisions of a relatively small state threaten to disturb the stability of Eastern Europe completely. The simple truth is that something must be done and nothing can be done. This is the greatest advantage Putin has and one he has shown the proclivity to use. If we allow Russia to hold Georgia in abeyance based on flimsy pretense, Ukraine and other former Soviet territories will soon follow. Essentially an ominous Russia will make the expansion of the European and Atlantic community over these states much more difficult and is position itself to feel threatened by any expansion. The truth is we are once again faced with a decision, stand up to the threat as a world and risk violence on a world stage or allow aggression to stand an allow for the creeping spread of authoritarianism throughout Eastern Europe. Neither is a great option, but I would suggest that action has always proved more valuable in the long run than inaction. A show of strength now may prevent Russia from getting the type of strength we'll really have to fear. In the end though either solution will be a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

Free Advertising, Just Act Indignant (JM)

2008-08-11T17:17:00.003-04:00

The most impressive strategy I've seen from the McCain campaign thus far is it's ability to create and spread media without spending any money. The recipe for this has been remarkable simple. Create webads (or low media buy ads) with a little bit of controversy in them. For instance the already famous "Celebrity" ad starring Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. This ad has become so noteworthy that Paris Hilton responded with her own ad, Hilton's mother spoke out (as she is a major McCain donor) and myriad terrible internet parodies were spawned. Out of indignity and attempted mockery came a gazillion dollars worth of free ad time for John McCain.

Now comes this latest web ad:

Already the band is getting ginned up for another round of, "this is racist and disrespectful". Just check out this post on TPM and the comment thread. How much do you want to bet that this hits the mainstream media in the next two days. This is precisely what the McCain campaign wants. I recognize calling any criticism of Obama racist was a pretty effective strategy in the primary, but this is a different situation and entirely different demographic. One which, it is sad to say, is unlikely to be persuaded by such a criticism. But there's a bigger principle at stake here, because in this case the criticisms are simply wrong. Just because this ad mocks Obama love (I mean it shows a girl stating explicitly that she "loves the softness" in Obama's eyes) doesn't mean that this is attempting to play on racism. It is, to sadly quote a legal term, facially neutral, and quite possibly nothing more than an attempt to mock youthful support and irrationality, not try to create a, "Where the white women at?" moment.

Ultimately when it comes to these sorts of ads the best response is simply to ignore them and attack on issues. This isn't swiftboating, it isn't challenging Obama's past or credentials. Simply put, there is no good way to respond to these ads, only a good way to get more people to pay attention. I actually think the campaign itself is doing a pretty good job with this, it's rather Obama's rather passionate internet supporters that drive this story on blogs, which then drives the story in the MSM. So those that are made angry by this ad I would caution outrage and instead suggest that in the long run there is less to be outraged about when fewer people see the "offensive" material.

Welcome Back! (JM)

2008-08-11T13:24:00.003-04:00

Hello my friends, compatriots, well-wishers, and people who hate me, but love Dennis. After a considerable hiatus we have returned. Feel free to rejoice. There may be some differences between the old and the new, but I really couldn't tell you what they are. Feel free to chime in with requests, ideas or not. That said, enough foreplay I am excited to get to some real writing and discussing, so strike up the band and away we go!

By the by, for those of you who don't know, that's a picture of me. I teach in a 70's themed charter school in Brooklyn, Vinnie Barbarino High School. The way we figure it the children of the 70s brought us the joy and prosperity of the 80s, thus we are trying to raise the children of today in much the same manner. In fact, the kids are in for a treat as they are just about to learn about history's greatest monster, Jimmy Carter. Anyway, that's enough filler material so that this post doesn't look weird with the picture included, so now with out further adieu, actual postings.

Food TV Was Way Better Back in the Day (Dennis)

2008-06-13T00:53:00.005-04:00

I watch the Food Network a lot, but I usually find myself cringing at most of their offerings. A lot of their travel shows are terrible and actually just the same show with over and over with different hosts. Rachel Ray is totally unwatchable with her obnoxious accent, annoying nicknames, and gimmicky recipes. Then there's Sandra Lee. I actually think she just steals recipes off of the back of Kraft products. She makes the type of food your mother would cook when she was very tired, except Sandra does it on an actual cooking show. (For a better takedown of Rachel and Sandra, see Bourdain, Anthony).

The saving grace of the network is Alton Brown, who hosts both Good Eats and Iron Chef America. Iron Chef, is pretty watchable, though not nearly as fun as its Japanese predecessor, which, sadly, is not aired anymore. Good Eats is an amazing show that actually teaches you a lot and is funny in a nerdy sort of way (my favorite way).

But really all that was just an excuse to show you this video of Julia Child. After seeing some of her stuff on youtube, I really wish she was still in her prime. Whereas Rachel would waste our time with "Garlickly Butter Pasta, with Eggplant Slammers" as if she was making a menu item at Friday's, Julia here actually teaches you the correct way to do the simplest of French dishes: the omelette. It was with programs like this one that she quite literally changed the way America cooks. Who knows what the state of cooking in the US would be today without her?

Not only that but she did it by being entertaining in way that TV stars just couldn't be anymore. She had the demeanor of that wacky professor you had in college who clearly knew what he was talking about, but was sort of disorganized and had bizarre mannerisms. Anyway, enough of me, enjoy:

Hillary Clinton (Dennis)

2008-06-12T01:29:00.005-04:00

Hillary Clinton, the resilient presidential candidate, exited the campaign this week at age 60.

When are we most ourselves? Of the many styles and personalities we present to the world, which one is the real us? I suppose these questions are even more troubling for women, who, because of social norms, are required to be diplomatic hostesses, fashion-conscious dressers, and accommodating wives and mothers. While men are expected to not compromise themselves, to speak their mind, and to dress in roughly the same business suit their fathers wore, it is a woman's job to adjust.

Hillary Clinton, when she was young, fought this bitterly. Rather than meekly accepting the Republican Party of her parents, she decided to become a Democrat in college. While giving the commencement address at Wellesley College, she criticized Sen. Edward Brooke (incidentally, the last African American man to be a Senator before Barack Obama) rather than ignoring her disagreements as a courtesy to a guest speaker. In that speech she challenged us to find “deeper more ecstatic, penetrating modes of living” than what society traditionally offered. Even her clothes at the time show us an individual rather than someone trying to fit into the pack.

Eventually though, this Hillary changed. She followed Bill to Arkansas, taking the path of a traditional wife rather than one of a crusading career woman. She had a child with him as well, and eventually her career and her strong voice had to be moderated to fulfill her duties as mother and as the First Lady of a traditional state. Back when she and Bill married, she stubbornly kept her last name, but eventually she even had to change that. There was more than a little Norma Jean Baker in the compromises Hillary Rodham had to make.

Now and again, the old Hillary would pop up. Somewhere, the members of the Wellesley College class of 1969 must have been smiling when they heard that their old classmate had told off a reporter by saying she wasn't going to apologize for not staying home and “baking cookies.” Maybe, despite the hardship, they even smiled when she vigorously asserted that she wasn't going to just “stand by her man like Tammy Wynette” in response to a question about Bill's alleged affairs.

But those would be just temporary victories for the independent Hillary. She did end up standing by her man, and being embarrassed along with him for his mistakes. And she had to apologize for the cookie remark, like it was some temporary moment of hysteria rather than legitimate pride at eeking out a successful career despite domestic pressures.

All this seemed to slip into her political career as well. When she ran for Senator, she changed her appearance to accommodate what most people thought a politician should look like. When she became a Senator, she attempted to fit in to the Senate's culture and work behind the scenes. She staked out moderate positions that favored her state, once voting for a bankruptcy bill that would harm poor debtors, but would be a boon to financial companies based in New York. That 22 year old who spoke so passionately about civil rights in college was now telling us that marriage was strictly between a man and a woman. Then, in what was, to some, the most unforgivable sin of all, she voted for the authorization of the Iraq War.

All those years of compromise were but a prelude to the campaign that has just been completed. For most of it, Hillary seemed to be willing to change what was necessary to complete the task, to move to the next step. She listened to consultants and changed her message and image as many times as it took to whatever image they thought it would take to achieve the prize that really mattered to her: a chance to accomplish all the positive changes she dreamed about.

She was hammered by many for these compromises and for her past ones. But women stuck by her. Women of Hillary's age understood that you couldn't always be yourself, you couldn't afford to be an idealist. You might love to ditch the husband you hate, but how could you afford to feed the kids on your own? There's a great job waiting for you in New York, but if you leave, who is going to take care of mom and dad? Women of that age, who had to feel the full weight of society's burdens and expectations, who had given up so much and were appreciated so little, knew in their hearts that only a man would call his book something as ridiculous as “The Audacity of Hope.” They respected and loved a woman like Hillary, who didn't care if she wasn't loved adoringly, who didn't mind humoring the boys by throwing back a shot with them, and who took some objectionable positions because she thought it might mean she would be around for the fights where she could make a difference.

Despite that empathy, it eventually became clear that she was going to lose. But instead of meekly surrendering, Hillary, this time, decided to hang on, and it was then that her supporters rallied around her more fervently than ever before. “She has compromised so much,” they thought “WE have accommodated you for so long, why can't we play this out without you telling us to sit down and shut up?”

In this stage of the campaign it was, for once, about Hillary. She made sarcastic jabs at Obama in speeches, and took every remaining debate as an opportunity to demonstrate her superior skills at sparring on policy and politics. She took the time to demonstrate that she really did understand what people were going through, and, for the first time in her political career, she was genuinely loved by a broad audience of people. She did all this not because she thought it was tactically smart, and not because it was easy, but because she wanted to fight for something she believed in without thinking of the consequences, without calculating the chances of success. She wanted to be an idealist again. It must have been thrilling.

When the end finally came, she dutifully mounted a podium and gave a gracious, wonderful endorsement of her rival. She even gritted her teeth and uttered that phrase that must now haunt her nightmares: “Yes we can.” It was just the latest example of Hillary changing everything on a dime to accommodate the needs of a cause she really cares about. I must confess, I was glad that she finally did this, because it means the Democrats will have a better chance of winning in November.

I hope, though, that some day she'll become that idealist with the long hair and the crazy pants again, that she'll once and for all break out of that political mask we, until recently, were so used to seeing. If I thought this would happen if she were elected, I would have supported her. In the past it may have been admirable and unselfish of her to hide the real Hillary, but now I think we need her more than ever.

Get Out of My Head Jake Tapper! (JM)

2008-05-22T14:30:00.003-04:00

I am pretty sure Jake Tapper at ABC and I have a telepathic link. Perhaps I will sit down and explain it to you all at some point, it's a fascinating story. However, this was just too much:

For a scene where Joe Lieberman's voice can be heard on a conference call, I recommended that the producers get the guy who played the dad on "Alf," since he and Lieberman have the same voice. Alas, it was not to be.)

I have, for years, been suggesting that Max Wright should be the voice of Joe Lieberman in a new cartoon: The Joe Lieberman Action Rangers. Anyway Tapper, get out of my mind, it freaks me out. The column itself is about the new HBO movie Recount, about Florida in the 2000 election, which I am quite psyched for. Anyway, regular updating to recommence soon. I miss y'all.

Another Israel Post (Dennis)

2008-05-19T00:34:00.003-04:00

I thought this article by Jeffery Goldberg on Israel's relationship with America was a very good one. In it, he basically argues that the leaders of the groups like AIPAC and their supporters have been stifling a reasonable debate on Israel by being more extremist on Israel than the Israelis. Here is a quote that I think illustrates the core of the piece:

These Jewish leaders, who live in Chicago and New York and behind the gates of Boca Raton country clubs, loathe the idea that Mr. Olmert, or a prime minister yet elected, might one day cede the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to the latent state of Palestine. These are neighborhoods — places like Sur Baher, Beit Hanina and Abu Dis — that the Conference of Presidents could not find with a forked stick and Ari Ben Canaan as a guide. And yet many Jewish leaders believe that an Israeli compromise on the boundaries of greater Jerusalem — or on nearly any other point of disagreement — is an axiomatic invitation to catastrophe.

One leader, Joshua Katzen, of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, told me, “I think that Israelis don’t have the big view of global jihad that American Jews do, because Israelis are caught up in their daily emergencies.” When I asked him how his Israeli friends responded to this, he answered: “They say, ‘When your son has to fight, you can have an opinion.’ But I tell them that it is precisely because your son has to fight that you have a harder time seeing the larger picture.”

By the latter part of the 20th century Irish Americans had a similar relationship with the troubles in Northern Ireland. That is, the most radical factions in the conflict were funded by ill informed nationalist Irish Americans, while the vast majority of people in the Republic of Ireland and even the Catholics of Northern Ireland were far more ambivalent about (and even disgusted by) the actions of the IRA.

This comparison made me think about some similarities between the Irish and Israeli situations.

Ireland, like Israel, was a nation founded in response to the hard realities oppression and the sweeping poetry of idealistic nationalism. Ireland, for its first 60 or 70 years, was an insular backward and poor country. It was plagued by a troubled relationship with Britain, embarrassing terrorism on its behalf in the North and in England, and restrictive economic, and cultural regulations that stunted growth and creativity. Its presidency was always won by the radically nationalist Fianna Fail party, which was started to oppose the very compromise that brought Ireland into existence.

Then, perhaps in response to the troubles of Northern Ireland of the 1980s, or perhaps in disgust at being considered Western Europe's only third world nation, the attitudes of people changed. They elected as president Mary Robinson, the first woman, as well as the first person not from Fianna Fail, to ever hold the post. She was someone who had built a career around campaigning for liberal principles that ran counter to the strict Catholic traditionalism that had strangled the country for so long, and who was known for reaching out to the British and to Unionists.

The act of electing Robinson showed a desire for change on the part of the Irish, but Robinson also pushed the Irish in many ways. Most notably, she became the first Irish president to meet with Queen Elizabeth in England. A professor of Irish history told me that only after her presidency was it possible to conceive of an Irish identity that was not Catholic, white, and traditional.

This change it attitude made it possible for Ireland to achieve all it has today. Could the protectionist, reactionary Ireland from the 1970s and before have accepted the waves immigration that went along with membership in the EU? Could such an Ireland have achieved a sufficiently educated populace if going to some of the best (Protestant) universities still required special dispensation from the local bishop? I doubt it.

Indeed, it's reasonable to ask whether the situation in Northern Ireland would continue to challenge Israel and Palestine for ferocity without the change in attitude of the Irish and Robinson's leadership. If the Irish Catholics on both sides of the border didn't embrace the idea that a Protestants were fellow citizens and not just "The Enemy", wouldn't Belfast be the same horrible mess it was in the 1980s?

I think that the experience of Ireland tells us that Israel cannot be both at peace with its neighbors and exclusively Jewish in identity. Yes, there are Arab/Muslim citizens in Israel, but how can one be a full citizen if the identity of your country stridently and officially excludes you? How can you and others feel welcome if it's the stated policy of a country to keep you in the minority? We know precisely why it would be (and was) a bad idea to define America as a "Anglo-Christian nation." So how exactly is it a good idea to define Israel as a Jewish state? It is arguably even worse, since sets up an inevitable, intractable conflict where on one side stands Israeli Jews and on the other side stands all of its neighbors.

I think the end of the Israeli-Arab conflict will finally come when Israel ceases to be the "homeland of the Jews" and becomes simply a democracy with no pre-concieved notions on what the ethnic character of its body politic should be. I suppose a lot of people would regard this as a tragedy, since he dream of a restored romantic vision of ancient Israel would be lost.

I would not.

Jews would not be losing their homeland any more than Irish Catholics are losing theirs or any more than the decedents of the Puritans in America have lost theirs. They would, instead, deal a final crushing rebuke to the Nazis that drove them there. An Israel where a Muslim could be elected president, or where it would pass relatively unnoticed that Jews were in the minority was exactly the type of society that the Nazis attempted to banish from the Earth.

Obama's Response (Dennis)

2008-05-16T18:46:00.002-04:00

I thought Obama's response (shown below) today to the Bush calling Democats "appeasers" was particularly good. This attack by Bush and his two chief goons, Lieberman and McCain, needed a response that put into perspective exactly who was saying it.

Awwwwwkward! (JM)

2008-05-15T12:15:00.002-04:00

You know that moment when you accidentally accuse a girl of being pregnant and you see her reaction and know you're in trouble because: a) she's not pregnant, she's just fat and b) she's not a woman at all, just a terribly effeminate man? Well I am pretty sure this is more awkward. Terry McAullife referred to Tim Russert's father, Big Russ, as "in heaven right now...probably having a scotch." Tim Russert could have replied, "Big Russ is way less dead than your candidate.", could have, but didn't, that's just the kind of class act Russert is. Moral of the story, if you don't know if someone is dead, don't bring them up.

The Line in the Sand (Dennis)

2008-05-14T22:10:00.003-04:00

Arlen Specter, who almost conducted life saving oversight on the Iraq war, who very nearly stood up to Bush on right wing judges, and who wet himself during the FISA battle, has finally decided to stand up to a devious scheming administration:

(Duh duh duuuh)

The New England Patriots.

Though apparently too busy masturbating to the sight of Andy Reid's mustache to press for a thorough investigation into whether Sadaam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Arlen Specter has now found the political courage to press on into how extensive the Patriots sign stealing was.

Now regardless of how you feel about the sports issue (go ahead you can say the Patriots don't deserve their championship if you like), exactly how does it warrant getting Congress involved? Sign stealing might be schemey and against the rules, but its not illegal (as with steroids), nor does it involve a billionaire extorting a community for money to subsidize his stadium (as with many teams, most recently, the Sonics). It's probably a little worse than Gaylord Perry throwing a "spitter," not as bad as Sammy Sosa corking his bat, and about the same as the NY Giants stealing signs during the '51 pennant race (take that NY Baseball Giants fans!).

But is there more to this story? Could Arlen Specter be needling the NFL on behalf of say...his largest donors?

From the Philadelphia Inquirer :

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that details contributions to political campaigns, Specter has received more money from political action committees of Blank Rome and Comcast than from any other business.

Blank Rome has donated $358,483 to Specter, and Comcast $153,600, since 1989, according to the Center's Web site. (Comcast chairman Brian Roberts donated the maximum personal amount, $2,300, to Specter last year, according to newsmeat.com, a Web site that tracks individual donations to candidates for federal office.)

The league sued Comcast in October after Comcast decided to move the NFL Network, owned and operated by the league, from its digital tier of channels seen by approximately seven million viewers to a special sports tier seen by only 750,000. Comcast claims that there is little general interest in the NFL Network and that most subscribers don't want to pay extra for it.

The league stands to lose millions of dollars in potential revenue if the switch stands because it has an arrangement with Comcast in which it is paid per subscriber.

Perhaps it's nothing, but if this whole thing goes away after a deal is reached between the cable giant and the NFL, you'll know why Specter has been raising this.

Endorsements Galore (JM)

2008-05-14T17:31:00.004-04:00

Senator Obama is being endorsed all over today: this morning by NARAL and now tonight, by John Edwards. If nothing else is the nail in the coffin, it is this tandem the day after Hillary pulled of a 45 percent victory. Unless Obama uses the word "honkys" or to a less extent "suckers" in the next two weeks it is just over.

Paddington the Economist (JM)

2008-05-14T16:41:00.000-04:00

If you're richer, you're happier

People tell you that wealth does not lead to happiness. New research shows they're wrong

I thought, just from the title of this article, that it had so very much potential. But I was wrong, so very wrong. It was like looking at treasure chest only to realize that it is standing straight in front of Scrooge McDuck’s money bin. I will comment a lot less than usual because I think there’s going to be beauty in letting a lot of this speak for itself.

Daniel Finkelstein

To mark the first anniversary of Paddington Bear residing with the Browns, a small party is held at which Paddington performs conjuring tricks. Carefully reading from his conjuring book, the bear places Mr Curry's watch inside a handkerchief and smashes it with a hammer.

This is the most adorable opening to an opinion column ever. Who needs money to be happy, so long as we have Paddington Bear.

Unfortunately, Paddington has turned two pages at once. They were stuck together with marmalade. So he misses the words that follow the advice to bring down the hammer on the handkerchief - “having first removed the watch”.

Aww… I think I will rechristen you Finkelton Bear. I imagine you’ve had some marmalade problems of your own in your time.

I have been patient. For my entire adult life, I have been looking out to see Paddington's trick performed for real. But now I have. As my mother always told me: “Everything comes to he who waits.”

You were waiting to see a stuffed bear perform a magic trick? You actually saw a stuffed bear perform a magic trick?!

The production of literature about happiness has become an industry. Earlier this week a cross-party group of Christian MPs produced a report on the topic and were able to begin with a long list of books on the subject published in the last two years. Perhaps the most successful are Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard and Affluenza by Oliver James but there has been a host of others.

“Ahem… excuse me chaps, but perhaps you’ve heard of a little bear named Paddington? Also, do you have any marmalade?”

The starting point for this work is something called the Easterlin Paradox. In a 1974 paper, the economist Richard Easterlin presented empirical evidence on income and happiness that was pretty puzzling. Using surveys of how happy people say that they are, the paper seemed to show that within countries, the richer people are, the happier they are, but that between countries the same didn't hold.

This is not a paradox at all, instead it is something that makes total sense. After a certain point competition for goods and services is a matter of status as much as anything else. Moreover, you are competing in the same pricing market. Yes, perhaps it is better to be working class in America than upper middle class in, say, Ghana, however not that much better in terms of standard of living and way the heck worse in terms of social standing.

What this suggests is that being relatively rich compared to your fellow countrymen makes you happier, but that your absolute wealth doesn't matter. Once a minimum income level is reached, an amount necessary for a country's residents to subsist, all that extra economic growth doesn't appear to be improving life satisfaction.

I suspect this depends on how you define subsistence. If one were to do a really good, comparative study of this subject I imagine the line for subsistence would be socially relative. In America, subsisting probably requires far more than simply having food, clothing and shelter. But again, that would go back to the original argument the Easterlin paper would make.

The implications of Easterlin's discovery are pretty strong. It suggests that all this consumption is doing us no good. That is what the Christian MPs suggest, questioning whether we haven't sacrificed family life on the altar of capitalism. Indeed, some authors go farther and suggest that the very act of shopping is actually making us unhappy. The Easterlin Paradox certainly means that we shouldn't be organising our economies to maximise economic growth. Happiness, not income, should be our guide.

The problem is that I am not quite sure how one studies happiness in some sort of objective, quantifiable manner. This becomes particularly problematic when doing cross-cultural studies. Concepts of happiness probably range quite widely amongst different nations and backgrounds. I imagine it is nearly impossible to control these sorts of studies for income. I miss Paddington Bear, where did he go?

The leading happiness authors suggest that we should concentrate on reducing inequality. This might lead to lower national income, but who cares about that? It isn't making us happier. Increased equality would stop us all worrying about our relative positions and thus remove a source of unhappiness.

This is plausible, but I am not sure it’s unflawed. I think status differential is one of the very real sources of happiness, sadly, and removing wealth as a standard for status will just shift the battle in some other direction. This is not to say that redistributing wealth isn’t a good idea, it is as a way of helping to forge equal opportunity, however I am not sure it is the path to our universal happiness. Not to be too pessimistic, I suspect we live in a world where happiness is always going to be a function of a person’s place in society as well as their particular psyches. My point is that you can maximize happiness within an individual, but I think it’s a logical impossibility to universalize it.

And all this stuff has caught the mood. It's the intellectual vogue topic. David Cameron is talking about improving General Wellbeing not just Gross National Product. It's everywhere.

This is incredibly smart politics on Cameron’s part. This is leading to the rise of the new Right in Britain. It holds forth an ethos that the public can really buy in to, starkly different and more sympathetic than Thatcherism. It’s a model the American Right is going to be looking to after the bloodbath they’re going to face in the coming general election. (Seriously, it’s going be quite a disaster for them, their loss in the Mississippi-01 is, as Ambinder puts it, similar to a Democrat losing in Los Angeles County. Insane.)

There is just one teeny, tiny problem. It seems as if Easterlin wasn't correct.

It appears that before picking up their hammers to smash down on the handkerchief of economic growth, the happiness authors had an accident with the marmalade. They turned over two sticky pages at once and missed the reassessment of Easterlin's work that has been taking place.

Oh Finkelton Bear! How could you?! This was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to make a bad analogy. Somewhere Paddington is crying, and you owe him an apology. This doesn’t even make any sense. It would, if say people had not read part of Easterlin’s work, but not reading responses? That’s no marmalade-encrusted page. I miss the happier time when I thought this column was going to be about how all we need is Paddington.

Easterlin's original paper was based on fairly limited data. Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, have been looking at the vast amount of data that has become available since then. And guess what? The two economists show that there is “a clear and positive link between average levels of subjective wellbeing across countries with no evidence of a satiation point beyond which wealthier countries have no further increases in subjective wellbeing”.

Whoa there, first of all I would need to know way way more about this before I would just conclude that Easterlin is wrong. But this misses the real question any way: Is the difference between the subjective happiness of people who live in the same country lesser or greater than the difference between people who occupy relatively similar positions in different countries, with different overall GDPs. In other words, all this shows is that countries with more money may have happier people. Duh. Moreover, countries with greater wealth (except for the United States) tend to have much fairer income distribution, there is no way to control for this.

In other words they show that it's not just relative wealth that matters, it is absolute wealth too - on average, the richer you are, the happier you are. And this isn't true just for the first slug of income, just until we can subsist, it is true all the way up and as economies keep growing.

Maybe, but it’s a question of prioritization. You cannot concentrate on growth and equality at the same time. The real issue is which is more critical to happiness.

The Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman is sufficiently important in this area of economics that Richard Layard dedicated his happiness book to him. Kahneman now believes the new evidence from the Wharton academics is “quite compelling” and adds that “there is just a vast amount of accumulating evidence that the Easterlin Paradox may not exist”.

This is just hearsay. See I’m like totally a lawyer.

Now this doesn't, of course, prove by itself that higher income causes greater happiness. Let's not make that mistake. In the academic literature on psychology you will find plenty of reason to believe, for instance, that the relationship might be the other way round - that greater happiness might cause higher income.

This would make total sense on a relative income level. Individuals who are happier may be more productive. This is weird and crazy on a state-actor level. It’s not like the country filled with the happiest people are the most prosperous. If that were the case Canada would have the second highest GDP, right behind The Netherlands.

At the very least, however, it shows that higher income is consistent with greater happiness and isn't actually making us unhappy. It also means, again at the very least, that if the happiness authors want to advance the faintly counterintuitive idea that more income doesn't increase life satisfaction, they have a lot of work to do finding an entirely new way of making their point.

None of this evidence disproves that point as far as I can see. It just presents an already obvious counter-consideration.

The Easterlin Paradox seemed to offer a way out for those unhappy with capitalism. After spending decades advancing methods of increasing growth that didn't work, much of the Left has moved on. Now they are arguing that growth doesn't matter or might actually be harmful. And the happiness literature helped make this point.

It sure is still a persuasive argument. Ask all of those people in rural Pennsylvania who are bitter and clinging to their guns. I imagine if you did a cross-strata study there would still be distinct levels of unhappiness amongst the lower-class. This new study would only argue against this if “growth” were some amorphous concept that would could just enhance. Instead, it means tending towards a more unfettered free market. As we have seen, long-term growth also tends to mean long-term class division. Extra dollops of happiness from those on top, taken straight from the plates of the least fortunate.

So what will happen now with these critics? Will they ignore the data? Will they walk away from the happiness idea and forget they ever mentioned it? Or will they turn their work on its head and use the new evidence to start arguing that capitalism might be the route to happiness after all?

What data, what new evidence?

I don't somehow think they'll choose this last option. Do you?

It would seem pretty foolish based on the no argument that has been provided thus far. But I know the answer my friend, more Paddington Bear, because I, for one, was way way happier when this was a discussion of that adorably mischievous bear than when you were asserting nonsense about Wharton studies.

97 Senators on the Veepstakes (Dennis)

2008-05-13T21:09:00.005-04:00

The Hill had the excellent idea of asking 97 Senators: “If you were asked, would you accept an offer to be the VP nominee?”

Here I commented on my favorites.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)
“I know already who it will be: the man in charge of the search. There’s no need for me to respond. That’s how you get to be vice president.”

Fact: The man in charge of the VP search for Obama is Tom Daschle. Although, I'm pretty sure if he selected himself, David Axelrod would begin laughing and say "No, seriously...who is it? Sebelius?"

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.)
“You got your answer — a laugh. The president’s going to make that choice. You can see how much I’ve thought about it.”

Do you think Bush was reading this and thought: "Oh man, I get to pick the Vice President!"

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)
“We already have a vice president from Wyoming. So we’ll have to see if Sen. McCain asks me to chair his selection committee. That seems to work well. It certainly seemed to work well for the last guy from Wyoming.”

Quick joketelling tip John Barrasso (if that is your real name), after three sentences this was a witty, sarcastic, friendly dig at Cheney. The fourth sentence ruined it. It made the whole thing seem too needy, like when you repeat a joke a second time, thinking people didn't hear you.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
“No. I love my job. I’ve got the best job in the world, representing Montana in the U.S. Senate. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

As Victor Lazlo said, "You sound like a man trying to convince himself of something he doesn't really believe. "

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.)
“It’s presumptuous to even speculate about that kind of thing. But I suspect that’s not the sort of thing you say no to.”

I suspect thats not the sort of thing you would say no to, Evan Bayh....

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah)
“Of course. Big house, big car, not much to do. Why not?”

Sadly this was actually George Bush's rationale for running for President.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.)
“I’m happy being called ‘Mr. Chairman.’ ”

Well played, Biden....well played.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.)
“Obviously, anybody who’s asked would consider it very seriously, but I’m not worried about it. I had the pleasure of being on Gerald Ford’s short list in ’76, but a lot of things have changed since then.”

Yes, that's right, in 1976, when Barack Obama was 15 and attending the Punahou School in Hawaii, Missouri Governor Kit Bond was on Gerald Ford's shortlist for Vice President. Kit Bond is old.

But do you know who is almost 3 years older than Kit Bond? You guessed it....John McCain.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)
“I would be honored to be asked. I’ve got to appraise the position in considering it. But I haven’t gone to the step of saying whether I would or wouldn’t at this point … I’d probably take away from the ticket, too. There’s always pros and cons. I’m strong pro-life, pro-marriage, and some people would say, ‘Well, I don’t like that.’ But really, people vote for president. Not vice president. I think vice president can hurt you more than it can help you. I can’t remember any time in my lifetime where I voted for a president because of the vice presidential nominee.”

If Joe Morgan ever became a Senator, this is what he would sound like.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.)
“No, I can already preside over the Senate, and I do not enjoy spending a lot of time at ‘undisclosed locations.’ ”

Uh oh, you know someone's getting senile when they start breaking out jokes from 2002.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)
“Does that include any sports picks or anything like that? … I would certainly consider it.”

In Sen. Cantwell's defense, she made a bet that she could out-drink Ted Kennedy and had just polished off her 9th vodka tonic when she answered this question.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.)
“Yes. Sign me up. I’ve been kidding people for years: The hours are better, the wages are just as good — whoever heard of a vice president getting shot at? — and it’s a great opportunity to travel. And actually since time has gone by, the job is robust … So sure. Anybody here would, if they’re going to be honest. The chances are slim to none. But I promise you, I would deliver all three of Delaware’s electoral votes.”

I like Tom! Enthusiasm! A sense of humor! And why not Tom Carper? He is a 6 term Congressman, two term Governor, and in his second term as a Senator. He is a Vietnam veteran (rising to the rank of captain), an economist, a former Eugene McCarthy supporter, and a reformer by reputation. I want Tom!

Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.)
“I think the Democratic Party is full of strong candidates for vice president. But I don’t think I’ll be on that list.”

Uh oh, I really think we should keep sharp objects away from Sen. Casey. You're a good candidate too, Bob! Pennsylvania is a swing state! It could be you!

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)
“When I was much younger I would have probably said, ‘Sure, I’ll be glad to accept it,’ but I’m 70 years [old] and they need a younger person for the job. I would probably tell them, ‘Look for somebody else.’ ”

People older than Thad Cochran: John McCain.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
“I would say ‘No, Hillary.’ ”

Oh Larry, you are quite the card. Now I know why you get all the guys.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)
“No. I like serving in the Senate and I have no aspirations to be vice president. Hasn’t crossed my mind. Never really thought about it.”

I mean seriously.....McCain/Crapo?

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)
“Never say no. You always have to give it some thought. It depends who asks you, too.”

When did Chris Dodd turn into a Hollywood agent from the the 40s?

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.)
“No. I’m too old.”

Come on! You're only 4 years older than....oh forget it...

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)
“Are you kidding? Every senator would accept that offer. My guess is that almost every senator looks at themselves in the mirror in the morning and sees either a future president or vice president.”

Cut to Byron Dorgan giving the State of the Union address in his bathrobe.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
“I have said that John needs to pick someone that he feels comfortable with and will help him win in the fall. I like him and I feel comfortable with him. But I think there are other portfolios that help more than I do. There are people that would bring a different portfolio to the table than I would and that would help us win in the fall.”

Lindsey sounds like he is trying to talk himself down.

"Don't get yourself too excited, Lindsey!" he says after McCain invites him out for dinner shortly after clinching the nomination.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
“I’m too old to be vice president. But I am young enough to be reelected to the Senate.”

Charles Ernest "Chuck" Grassley, born September 17, 1933
John Sidney McCain III, born August 29, 1936

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.)
“I’m not here to talk about that.”

Oh...chilly.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)
“No, I’d have Jon Stewart stand in for me. Jon Stewart. That’s my guy.”

Someone please check if Tom Harkin is actually a 22 year old undergrad at the University of Iowa.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
“No. I enjoy life too much.”

Ohh come on....talk to Tom Carper! He thinks it'll be fun!

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)
“If I were asked, I would say, ‘You’re out of your mind.’ ”

The sad part is that Robert Byrd asks him to be his Vice President every week.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)
“I would not be so presumptuous as to think I’d even thought about that. And I’d have to talk to my wife. Hey, that’s an honest answer.”

As in, "Hey, that's an honest answer..for once!"

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.)
“I plan to stick with my current job until I get the hang of it.”

he said, with just a touch of bitterness. With that, those familiar regrets drifted into his mind: "If only I were younger. If only there hadn't been that terrible night so long ago." Then, in an exercise developed long ago to bear the pain of lost dreams, he caused the tormenting thoughts to dissolve, like a fog on a summer day, and he returned to work.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
“I don’t get into hypotheticals. No, I haven’t considered it. I don’t have a clue, honestly.”

Aww, John thinks he has a chance...isn't that cute?

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
“I’ve been waiting for someone to come up and propose it. I already told my wife to get ready to move. It has a beautiful living facility. But I like what I do. Frankly, it’s a more important job. You’re asked to respond to things in a more basic way than defending bad policy. I don’t like defending bad policy.”

"I don't like defending bad policy"? Way to show some confidence in your nominee there, Senator.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
“No. I’d like to see somebody from a large, diverse state.”

I think Vermont is going to make Leahy sleep on the couch tonight.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)
“Once is enough. I already have the T-shirt and I’m proud of it. I yield to my colleagues.”

Oh God, what do you think that shirt says? "I Received 51 Million Votes and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt"? "I'm With Sleepy"?

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.)
“I’d say, ‘Please read the Constitution.’ I wasn’t born in America; I can’t be VP.”

Ahem... most constitutional scholars don't think this is a problem, but you know who also wasn't born in America? I think you can guess...to quote Wikipedia:

"McCain was born at Coco Solo Naval Air Station^[2] in Panama to Navy officer John S. McCain, Jr. (1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain (b. 1912)."

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)
“If I were asked, I would ask some mental health professionals to visit Barack Obama. I just think Sen. Obama is way too smart to pick me. I’m not a good pick, and he’s smarter than that. That’s why he’s going to make such a good president.”

If Jonathan's PAC gives McCaskill a 1% rating this year, you'll know how she earned the 1%.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)
“Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I would be great. First of all, I know how to behave at weddings and funerals. And I know how to be commander in chief. I’d bring a lot of fun to the job. We would rock the Naval Observatory.”

I am inviting Barbara Mikulski to my next party, along with Tom Carper.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
“My name has been discussed partly because I’m a female and it’s always nice to balance things in gender … I’ve discussed it with my kids. My 16-year-old thinks it’s a fabulous idea because he thinks we probably couldn’t find any better residence in Washington, D.C., than the Naval Observatory. That’s the fun part of the question, but I think anybody, if you were seriously asked, I think you have to give it very real and genuine consideration. I don’t expect to be asked, but if I were I would give it real and genuine consideration.”

Blah blah blah, ok yappy, we didn't really want a novel.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)
“Any American citizen, large or small, would be honored to be asked. But I totally expect any of our candidates to have a tremendous list of people. I don’t expect to be asked.

Yes "large or small" from the tiniest Kucinich to the biggest Bill Bradley.

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)
“They can do a lot better than me. I just don’t see it happening. I don’t know what I’d bring to the ticket. I’d have to think about it. I don’t see how I would add much to the ticket. To give you an honest answer, I don’t know what I’d do.

Eeyore(D-Ark.)

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.)
“No. I’m too deeply ingrained in the culture of the people of West Virginia. It wouldn’t even be a choice for me. I want to stay where I am and do what I do. That’s non-debatable.”

Too ingrained in the culture of West Virginia? I'm sure they'll allow you a banjo and the occasional hootenanny, Senator.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
“I have not yet been asked. Furthermore, I expect I will not be asked.”

Unfortunately for Bernie, I believe Obama has already wrapped up the hippie, socialist vote.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
“I like where I am in the United States Senate. Obviously, you would always consider something like that, but I’m happy where I am.”

Ooh Olympia would like to be VP...it wouldn't be the worst choice for McCain...

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.)
“Absolutely not.”

"I have much more important matters to attend to, like finding out who is responsible for Spy Gate!"

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
“No. I’ve got too many things that I still want to do as a senator. And I don’t like the idea of a job where you sit around and wait for someone to die.”

1.) What's the over/under on how many felonies those "too many things" involve?

2.) How creepy would Ted Stevens be as VP, when he thinks his job is to "wait for someone to die"?

Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.)
“I am focused on my election. And frankly, I don’t think John McCain should pick any member of Congress or the United States Senate.”

Ahem...don't start spouting off this pearl of wisdom in front of Voinovich...

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio)
“Honestly, if John McCain came to me and said, ‘George, I think that you would help me and should be part of my team,’ I’d have to say, ‘Yes, I’d be glad to help.’ The fact of the matter is, I’m worried about our country. I’m really worried. And I want to run again for only one reason, that things are so screwed up, I’m just worried about my kids. So if somebody came to me and said, ‘We really think you could help us do this,’ I couldn’t say no because maybe it’s another way of serving my country and it’s maybe even more important than being a senator. The first question I’d ask is, ‘What role would you want me to play? If you want me to give a bunch of speeches, I’m not the guy. Get somebody else. If you want me to roll up the shirtsleeves, get up early in the morning, dot the I’s and cross the T’s, do substantive stuff? OK.’ ”

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.)
“I’m not really interested. That’s all I want to say.”

Not "really" interested eh?

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)
“The chances of that are so remote that I’m more likely to be hit by an asteroid.”

Great, Wicker, we don't have enough problems without you jinxing us into getting hit by an asteroid.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
“I have a unique perspective on this. I am the only senator to have announced I am not running for president because there should be someone here to serve as the Senate’s designated driver. I intend to stay in that position. The Senate needs a designated driver to stay behind and work on healthcare.”

Do you think before that last sentence he thought "oh shit, I really should not be sharing that inside tidbit of information"?

We All Make Sacrifices (JM)

2008-05-13T18:23:00.003-04:00

Hey everybody, we need to tighten our belts and realize there's a war going on. We need our metal for bullets, our corn meal for feeding the troops and our saltpeter for whatever one uses saltpeter for (creating Revolutionary War ammunition I think). Anyway even our Commander-in-Chief understands that we need to make sacrifices, just like the boys overseas:

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf.

“I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

I am not going to go off on some sort of anti-war rant here, but this is just absolutely hilarious. I am not going to disagree that keeping pictures of the president playing golf out of the paper during a war he caused is a bad idea. No, it's a really good idea. However, bragging about this like it's some kind of noble sacrifice is like giving up brussel sprouts for Lent. What up, Catholic folk?! Look who can bring the papist humor. Also take that National Association for the Advancement of Brussel Sprouts (NAABS), I've had it with your BS for long enough. Anyway, the point is this is just another, in a litany, of silly things our president has said.

Maureen Dowd is Like Playing Mad Libs with Someone Who Has Tourette's (Actually Strike That, That Sounds Pretty Awesome) (JM)

2008-05-12T14:50:00.002-04:00

Is She a Trojan Rabbit?

The thing about Maureen’s titles is that they rarely make any more sense after reading the column than they do at the beginning. Let’s go ahead and see if this holds true this week. (SPOILER ALERT: It does.)

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton.

Yes, this really should be his focus. I say a lifetime of labor in the gulag for trying to win an election.

After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place.

This is definitely the recipe for reunifying the party, concentrating on putting Hillary in her place. I think the mere fact that she lost has put her in her place. By the way, how misogynistic would this be if written by anyone other than a woman. Hell, screw it, still weird and misogynistic as Dowd usually is. Also “vesuvian”? There are like a billion better adjectives for Bill and if you’re trying to impress us with your vocabulary, well it’s a bit too late for that I am afraid.

Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana slide, that she has a broader base, citing an Associated Press article “that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

This is a totally legitimate criticism and a major concern for the general election. Race is a touchy issue, but demographic bases is a legitimate discussion and should not be construed as mere race baiting.

So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black? Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate, or by choosing her?

How about making a decision on what’s best for the party. The answer is probably she would not be an ideal running mate, but then again she does very much excite her base. Someone who appeals to that base is necessary.

It is, verily, a sticky wicket.

You are, verily, a Lemony Snicket.

One top Hillary supporter who is black warns that, despite the giddy dreams of some punch-drunk Democrats, a fusion ticket could backfire because “Americans can’t handle too much change at once.”

I actually think this analysis is profoundly stupid. I suspect that people who are deterred by either gender or race are likely to be deterred one way or another. I doubt there is someone out there who is thinking, “I am okay with either a black man or a woman as president, but both? That’s just too much change for me!” This is both inane and offensive. The fact is that it is time to just get over this shit and act like this is not a big deal, because when we can treat this like it’s no big deal, well that’s the real victory.

But should Obama ignore that caution and appease Hillary fans by putting her on the ticket?

As president, he could announce that, because Dick Cheney abused the powers of his office so grievously, taking the title “Vice” literally, he intends to shrink the vice presidency back to its “bucket of warm spit” Constitutional prerogatives — presiding over the Senate and taking over if the president goes under anesthesia.

See how that might not appease Hillary fans. Why do you assume punishment is the ultimate goal here. That seems like a pretty stupid goal. Also Obama knows Hillary is a pretty good resource, if he makes her VP it will be with a fairly significant portfolio, probably health care. Anything less would be a debacle.

He might also neglect to give Bill (whose acronym would be SLOTUS, Second Lad of the United States) full White House access.

Another awesome plan, a bitter, pissed off former POTUS running around the world. Maureen, I want you to be in charge of all my life’s decisions from now on.

Aside from the delight Bill would get from living at the Naval Observatory and having a huge telescope to window-peep with, there wouldn’t be much joy in Hillaryland.

Jokes, I like them.

The lady-in-waiting would be surrounded by Obama disciples who disdained her for fighting dirty. And she would be miserable holding up the train of the young prince who usurped her dream, derailing the post-nup she had with Bill to trade places.

The first part of this paragraph is true. I am not sure what a post-nup is, but yes I buy that it would be uncomfortable for her.

As de facto veep for Bill, she had enough leverage over him, due to his shenanigans, to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions.

Does Maureen just hate being female. Does she really believe that the only reason Hillary had any policy influence was because she had dirt on Bill. This is just preposterous. Not only is it offensive to her, it is also offense to the millions of people who are certain Hillary would be an incredibly competent world leader.

But in a return engagement with Obama at the top, could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well, or would she just be plotting? (Fourteen vice presidents have ascended, after all.) Wouldn’t she be, in Monty Python parlance, the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates?

See, look, her title came back. It still makes no sense, just another silly pop culture reference to cover up for a weak, weak argument. Plotting what?! If she’s VP her only goal would be a successful Obama administration. She cannot run until he leaves office, so either way, if he wins it’s another eight years, so they better be good ones. If she’s his VP candidate and they lose that damages her terminally. If she really wants to plot, it wouldn’t be from instead the White House.

On a positive note, maybe she could bring back all that stuff she pilfered on her way out.

Umm… did Dowd just accuse Hillary of being a klepto?

Obama’s other option, laid out by Teddy Kennedy on Friday, is to go with someone who wouldn’t be a big dark cloud over his sunshiny new politics.

Teddy told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Obama should choose a partner “in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people.”

Yeah, this was a obnoxious comment, especially given that Hillary is in tune with almost exactly fifty percent of Democratic voters.

That would be smart for another reason: Hillary has a strange, unnerving effect on Obama, and whenever he is around her, he’s unable to do his best. Probably, it’s because she’s furious, always shaking his hand off her arm, ignoring him, giving him the evil eye and emasculating him, and the Golden One is not used to such rough treatment.

Hillary as enemy and Hillary as teammate are two very different things. But essentially you’re correct, if Obama is uncomfortable with her, he shouldn’t choose her. However, it’s difficult to imaging that she is like some sort of competence sucking Dementor.

In the last few days, as Hillary has deflated and Obama and the Democrats have dashed for daylight, he has been more like his old self, flashing his all-is-right-with-the-world smile on the cover of Time, joshing and charming Democrats and Republicans as he wooed superdelegates on the House floor, taking on James Carville for insulting his manhood.

“James Carville is well known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he’s talking about,” he told Terry Moran on “Nightline.”

James Carville will survive, this is irrelevant to the question at hand.

Obama will never be at his best around Hillary; she drains him of his magical powers. She’s Jane Jinx to him. It’s a similar syndrome to the one Katharine Hepburn’s star athlete and her supercilious fiancé have in “Pat and Mike.”

What a stupid assertion structured merely to lead in to a pop culture reference. Most people use the pop culture references to emphasize their point. Not Maureen, she uses her point to emphasize her pop culture references. She’s kind of like Rose Nyland, with stories from St. Olaf, but way less charming and way more evil.

The fiancé is always belittling Hepburn, so whenever he’s in the stands, her tennis and golf go kerflooey. Finally, her manager, played by Spencer Tracy, asks the fiancé to stay away from big matches, explaining, “You are the wrong jockey for this chick.”

“You know, except when you’re around, we got a very valuable piece of property here,” he says, later adding, “When you’re around, she’s no good, she’s dead, see?”

Movie quotations are not persuasive evidence. Thus far you have made a blanket assertion about Obama being unable to perform when Hillary is around and supported it be quoting a Tracy and Hepburn movie.

“Oh, god, he’s Hepburn.” See I can randomly quote television shows too, and to one up Maureen I am not even giving you any context or relevance at all.

The best way Obama can punish Hillary is to reward himself. He’s no good around her, see?

The best way Obama can be president is not to think like a twelve year-old girl snipping at a lunch table. Just how bad was your childhood Maureen? Really miserable I bet, you are a pretty unlikable person.

The West Wing Gets Involved (JM)

2008-05-09T16:23:00.003-04:00

I love it, I love it, I love it! So all y'all who've been paying attention know that Arianna Huffington has accused McCain of claiming that he did not vote for Bush in 2000. Apparently this took place at a Hollywood party. The New York Times interviewed some witnesses to this event. Guess who they were:

“McCain was just sort of going off on how much he disliked Bush and the horrible things that the Bush campaign had done to his family in South Carolina, and his exasperation with Bush about his ridiculous tax cuts and he really wanted to talk to him about it, but he said the guy doesn’t have the concentration, and you talk for 10 minutes and then the guy wants to talk about baseball,” Mr. Whitford said.
Another guest then asked Mr. McCain, Mr. Whitford recalled, whether he had voted for Mr. Bush. “And he put his finger in front of his mouth and mouthed, ‘No way,’ ” Mr. Whitford said.
Mr. Schiff, who played Toby Ziegler, the White House communications director on “The West Wing,” said he was listening to Mr. McCain from the other of the two tables in the room.
“Someone asked, ‘What do you think of Bush?’ ” Mr. Schiff recalled. “My recollection, and I have to qualify this, because I’m not 100 percent sure he used this word, but my recollection is that McCain said that Bush was dangerous and he didn’t trust him. Then this person said, ‘Why did you support him?’ And McCain said, ‘It was my obligation as a Republican to support the Republican candidate.’ And the person said, ‘Did you vote for him?’ And McCain said, ‘No.’ ”

Man, it would be funnier if Bradley Whitford were more sarcastic and Richard Schiff were more bitter and throwing a ball against a window, but what are you going to do. In real life there are no President Bartlet's and despite the fact that my high school science teacher used to refer to me as Josh Lyman, people that cool just don't really exist. Either way, a fun tidbit for fans of political scandal and The West Wing.

Actually, while we're on this subject, I am not so clear how this even remotely hurts McCain. He's being attacked by the media and Hollywood liberals, which will help him secure his base, while being accused of repudiating a man not supported by almost eighty percent of the country. So on second thought... way to screw up guys, you better avoid Leo for the rest of the day.

Who's the Eleventh Most Influential Jew in All of Brittania and the Veepstakes (JM)

2008-05-09T13:43:00.002-04:00

Why, if you said our good buddy Lord Finkelton, you'd be correct. Of course, if you can name one other Jew on the list of most influential Jews in Great Britain, I'd be impressed (Save uberfamous Man U football star Reb Ronaldowitz, obviously he is number one). Anyhow, congrats old friend please use this power wisely.

Now on to Daniel Finkelstein ranks the Veep candidates (which, by the by, will allow me to make some of my own comments on the matter at hand:

So it's Obama. But who's going to fill the second slot on the Democratic ticket?

I am not going to spend much time on this here, but I still wonder why now is the time everyone has decided it’s over. I mean, because Russert said so? Russert says lots of really inane things. The point is that Clinton’s situation is ostensibly no different than it was last week, she is tasked with convincing the automatic delegates that Obama simply can’t win. By the by, ARG has Obama at 23% in West Virginia.

1) Hillary Clinton

Many believe Obama will have to offer the VP slot to Clinton. Andrew Sullivan called it the hate-filled dream ticket. But will she accept it? If Obama loses, she may see a 2012 race opening up before her.

I think ranking Hillary first is both lazy and inaccurate. I agree that she’s on this list somewhere, probably third, but definitely not the most likely choice (she definitely would be, however, if Obama knew she’d turn it down). People have been explaining why this won’t happen for profoundly silly reasons, like she undercuts the message of change. That’s distinctly not why she is unlikely to get the nod. There are two excellent reasons. The first is that there are about 321847908062134609 video clips of Hillary cutting down Obama, this would make for some pretty damaging commercials. The second is simply a matter of Hillary thinks (and probably would be) a far more competent administrator, she would never accept a role as a mere functionary, add Bill Clinton to the mix as Second Laddie and you’ve got a bad situation all together.

2) Al Gore

He's certainly got the experience. But the eco-warrior probably has no desire to return to Pennsylvania Avenue. Winning his endorsement would have set Obama up for the nomination. Does he need Gore any more?

Awww… good times. This is how we met Danny, don’t you recall? You posted about how Al Gore would be an excellent VP for Obama? It was insane then, it is insaner now. If Gore wanted the nomination it was his. Literally, he could have just stood up and said, “Hrmm… excuuuse me, but I think I’d like to be President.” And so it would have been. There is just no reason he’d be Vice President to someone less experienced than him. Let’s all face it, Gore is done with politics, instead it the Earth now.

3) John Edwards

A serious contender. The North Carolina Senator ran with John Kerry in 2004 and would bring the Southern link currently missing in Obama's campaign. But would he want to do it again? And would Obama feel Edwards should have been with him earlier?

Edwards wasn’t a great running mate for Kerry and not a terribly good attack dog. However, this is irrelevant because Edwards has made it quite clear that he has no interest in being the Vice President. He wants to become to poverty, what Gore is to the environment. It’s an odd age we’re starting to see, where politicians are starting to become the leaders of particular causes, I think it’s effective and interesting. Certainly something to talk more about in the coming days, but the chances of this are nil. Thus far, if we were playing Mastermind, Lord Finkelton would have one right in the wrong position.

4) Kathleen Sebelius

Sebelius's name has been cropping up more and more frequently. The two-term Governor of Kansas fills in many of the gaps in Obama's support base. She may not have much foreign policy experience but she'll bring a red state with her. And a female Vice-President might help soothe Clinton's supporters. One to watch.

Alright, is it just me or does the whole Sebelius thing seem like a product of the silly grassroots internets and the punditry? A few things, there is zero statistical evidence that VP candidates from swing or red states bring their states with them. Heck, eight years ago Al Gore lost the presidency because he couldn’t win Tennessee from the President slot, so forget about Kansas. Being a two-term governor of Kansas doesn’t ameliorate any of Obama’s weaknesses, it’s not like California, Texas or New York, where you are essentially the executive of a small country. To say that her response to the State of the Union was a debacle is to put it mildly.

There is, however, a much more salient issue to address here. Having the same gender as Hillary does not pacify the supporters of Hillary Clinton. To suggest that Hillary had female supporters who only cared about her internal organs is to simplify an awfully complex dynamic and, at risk of saying something that is about to make me ill, is slightly misogynistic. I think Hillary’s pro-feminist supports liked her because of her strength, what she could do for the movement and her particular role in history. Dennis and I seems to be big fans of using cutting-edge baseball statistical terms to explaining things, but Hillary’s VORFC (Value of Replacement Female Candidate) is quite high. Simply placing a female on the ticket fixes very little in terms of bringing back the base.

That said, Sebelius belongs on the list because of the buzz, but I wouldn’t put her above many of the candidates yet to be mentioned. On a personal note, this is one of the few pairings that would leave me pause voting Democrat this year.

5) Bill Richardson

Also extremely likely. Pundits state that he's been running for VP since the beginning. He brings foreign policy experience and the Hispanic vote with him.

First of all, awesome analysis. I am not sure how the fifth-ranked person on your list can also be “extremely likely”. Unless, Obama is going to go for a unity ticket and make all the American people Vice President.

Richardson probably has a good shot, I don’t love the idea, but he comes from a winnable swing state, has pull with Hispanic voters and seems to have experience despite appearing to be an eminently silly individual. He’d probably be number two on my likelihood rankings as of right now.

6) Wesley Clark

A former four-star general, Wes Clark served in Kosovo and studied PPE at Oxford. He would lend Obama military clout and cross party-lines in his appeal.

Number six, with a bullet. This is the winner. I think Wesley Clark has a better than thirty percent chance of being the VP nominee. As a hardcore Clinton supporter he helps bridge the divide a bit, he’s obviously credible on issues military and international, he’s smart and is not a Washington insider. In my list of potential VPs, Wesley Clark is first.

7) Jim Webb

The junior Virginia senator since 2006. He could provide the machismo that Obama needs. A military man with a son in Iraq, he's regarded as one of the most authorative Democratic voices on the conflict. Known to carry a loaded pistol on occasion. As a former Reagan man he would add to Obama's cross party appeal and make it slightly harder to paint the candidate as an unrepentant liberal.

I like Webb, though I am often unclear precisely what to make of him. I think this is a non-starter despite his pundit appeal. He’s been in the Senate for far too short an amount of time, he’s a leading voice on some critical issues in the legislature, but most critically he has a strong position for a Senate seat in a weakish state. If the Dems want to continue to control the Senate (and eventually get to the magic number of 60) Webb stays where he is for now. He’s got national politics in his future, just not yet. (Though who knows, that’s what I thought about Obama, that’s what you all should have thought about Obama, I hate you all so much sometimes).

8) Robert Casey

The Pennsylvania senator has already endorsed Obama. As VP, he would help out in the white working-class states. And his Catholic faith would reach out to an important voting bloc.

Now you’re just listing people you’ve read about recently. Casey’s pro-life, it’s a total non-starter in national, Democratic politics. If anyone is coming out of Pennsylvania it’ll be Ed Rendell. I’d love it, we’d all love it. I like to think of Ed Rendell as a funnier version of Gov. Eric Baker (Ed O’Neill’s character from The West Wing). Either way, no chance on Casey.

9) Oprah Winfrey

She's already one of America's most powerful women. Could DC be next on her world-domination agenda? Just a thought.

Was this really a thought? It’s either an unfunny joke or really really supersilly political analysis. Sometimes I cannot tell how far inside your cheek your tongue is Daniel Finkelstein, honestly I cannot. I will tell you this now, I’ll let Obama pick Oprah, if McCain gets to pick Brimley. But I swear to God, if I know anyone who votes against McCain/Brimley we are just never ever talking again.

10) Joe Biden

Might he be the first Biden in a thousand generations to run for President? A senator since 1972, his presidential runs have never taken off. But his international experience might make him a good choice and he'd appeal to the white male vote. His description of Obama as 'clean' didn't do him any favours though. And some think he is more likely to be Secretary of State.

So I honestly don’t get that first question. Does anyone? Seriously. Anyway, Biden should be running for President right now, we all know it. By all I mean me and maybe Dennis. This election would be over already if he’d gotten the nod. I think this is possible, but not super likely, I would suggest maybe fifth or sixth most likely with low odds. He didn’t endorse, which gives him neither loyality or bridge dividing appeal and occasionally he needs to extricate his foot from his mouth. He is, however, brilliant, authoritative and strong in all the areas Obama is weak. He’d be a great choice, just not one I am sure the Obama camp will make.

So all in all it’s not a ridiculous list, no more ridiculous than some of the others I have seen (though there were some crazy bad choices). Congrats again on your hard work being Jewish moderately influential Daniel, we here at AOTG wish you well.

Just in case your interested here are my two sets of Veep Rankings, one for likelihood and one for actually being a good idea:

Likelihood: 1) Wesley Clark; 2) Kathleen Sebelius; 3) Bill Richardson; 4) Hillary Clinton; 5) Tim Kaine; 6) Ed Rendell

Good Idea: 1) Joseph Biden; 2) Wesley Clark; 3) Hillary Clinton; 4) Ed Rendell; 5) Mike Bloomberg

I am hoping this is not just wishful thinking on my part, but I suspect that there is a reasonable chance that Clark ends up being an excellent compromise pick. It’s interesting because last time Clark seriously ran for President I was staunchly opposed. I like to see growth in politics. He has grown well, just as I bet Obama would have been a force to be reckoned with 4-8 years from now. As it is, it’ll be a tough general, a coin flip at this point, but here’s hoping for Obama/Biden or Obama/Clark.

P.S. If it’s Obama/McCaskill I am moving to Korea.

Great Blog Post Titles That I Don't Want Ruined For Me (JM)

2008-05-09T10:50:00.003-04:00

Often the existence of ESPN Insider is a source of frustration for me, rather than mystery and delight. But today, in the course of my daily rummaging, I came across this amazing blog post title: Drafting Negro Leaguers good idea by Rob Neyer. I cannot see the content because I am too cheap to pay for Rob Neyer's brilliance and rumors from Buster Olney that are true about fifteen percent of the time, if only John Kruk blogged, then then I would pay. So if you have Insider, feel free to read it, but do not tell me what it means, because in my imagination, it is just soooooooooo much better than it ever could be in real life.

Mr. Burns: Smithers, put together the best team money can buy, get the best players from the National League, the American League, the Negro League!

Also a quick shout out to Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, who if alive today would be a 138, and quite possibly still the second best pitcher on the Washington Nationals pitching staff.

The Veepstakes (Dennis)

2008-05-09T00:03:00.004-04:00

Alright, I finally feel safe enough to talk about Obama's Vice Presidential pick. Here are my thoughts on several candidates who may or may not get the nod:

Hillary Clinton: I actually think Obama really wants to make her the pick. Back in the fall of 2007, I read a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called Team of Rivals about Lincoln the politician . The theme of this book was how an inexperienced, frequently underestimated politician became president, filled his cabinet with his (much more experienced) rivals for the Republican nomination, and ended up skillfully manipulating all of them to successful ends. I thought at the time that Lincoln's as a candidate in 1860 reminded me a lot of Obama at the time. And lo and behold, when he was asked what book he would take into the White House Obama said...you guessed it...Team of Rivals.

So what does this all mean? I think Obama likes the idea of taking on the challenge of picking Hillary. His Hopementum side has to be thinking "I can unify the party, I can bridge the divide..." Meanwhile his Ego is telling him "she probably thinks she can push you around, you'll show her! Be like Lincoln, pick her and use her talents to further your goals and your presidency and someday Doris Kearns Goodwin III will write a book about you."

As for me, I think Hillary certainly brings some good things to the table. The VP slot will be a nice consolation prize for the Hillary supporters, and that would make the uniting of the party a whole lot easier. Also, Hillary, to be a little cliche, really hit her stride in the past month or so as a candidate. She tapped into a visceral passion that a lot of people (including me) thought she had lost for good sometime in the late 1970s. The idea of her and Bill barnstorming the country attacking McCain like tag team wrestling heels really appeals to me; it would be a two person Left Wing Noise Machine that could more than counter any "independent" underhanded efforts McCain has going for him.

The downside is that Hillary and Bill could become to the Obama campaign what Bill became to the Hillary campaign: an enormous distraction. There's a danger that the media would be so tied up with the Clinton melodrama that it would be unclear who was the nominee, who was the Vice Presidential candidate, and who was the Vice Presidential candidate's spouse.

Clinton is a high risk, high reward VP pick. And I think if Obama believes he can control her, she'll get the nod.

Kathleen Sebelius: Ewww....I'm sure I'll get used to her as a VP candidate, and she is apparently a pretty good governor, but anyone who saw the Democratic response to the State of the Union address has to be apprehensive. The VP needs to be a kind of Prime Surrogate, and as a surrogate, I think Obama could do better with a potato. Christ, she would need to bring Reverend Wright along to her campaign events so that people wouldn't fall asleep. No no no please not her.

Claire McCaskill: Unlike Jon I do not hate Claire McCaskill, I'm just sort of meh on her. She is a moderate Democrat from a state we want to win, but she just got into the Senate two years ago by a razor thin margin, so I doubt she has that much institutional pull there. She has also capitulated on votes that I thought were pretty important. So I would be pretty unenthusiastic about this pick.

Mike Bloomberg: Ah Obama/Bloomberg, a ticket the media can believe in! Seriously how many adoring pieces would David Broder write about this ticket? He would actually kidnap Charles Krauthammer so he could forge extra columns for the Post. But seriously, I do like Bloomberg, and he would be better than the Replacement Level VP Candidate (Tom Daschle).

How likely is this, though? It does kind of make sense; they both have sounded similar themes in their recent years. But, then again, this feels a little too gimicky, a little too parlorgameish to be the pick. It's the kind of out of the blue VP pick that you suspect will get a lot of gossip time over the summer, but won't happen in the end (like McCain for Kerry in '04 or Ford for Reagan in '80).

Bill Richardson: Yes he reminds you of a used car salesman/ your dad's tedious friend from work ("You know Bob, you should really try dees new foot inserts, dey do a great jahb protectin yer feet."). Yes you roll your eyes at him constantly. But, then again, he just might be corrupt enough to swing New Mexico for us, which would give him a pretty good VORVP (Value Over Replacement VP).

Ed Rendell: Ed Rendell is really my dark horse pick for Obama's VP spot right now. Doesn't this just make way too much sense to not be considered? Rendell is a real Regular Guy, he has a political machine in a state that Obama will probably need to win, he is a key Clinton supporter, and he's been a great surrogate these past few months. Check, check, and check. Also think of the metaphors that would come out of the feverish mind of Chris Matthews concerning this ticket....

Chris Matthews: Keith, doesn't this remind you of Casablanca?

Keith Olbermann (visibly horrified): ....what?

Chris: Keith I mean this is like...this is like Humphrey Bogart, the hardened cynic coming down on the side of Victor Lazlo, going off with the French resistence...I love it. And Hillary...

Keith: Oh God....

Chris (unfazed): Hillary is like Ugarte, she thought she was getting those Letters of Transit...but she ended up getting whacked! HAAH!.........I mean politically of course...I don't want to get myself in trouble...

Governor X Who Can Carry Swing State Y: To finish up, I just want to say something about this generic class of VP picks. I think there are just a whole class of politicians...Tim Kaine, Ted Strickland etc. who we don't know a ton about except for the fact that they are governors of certain important states. We don't know if they'd be good surrogates, they certainly haven't distinguished themselves on the national stage yet, and we're really just kind of hoping their voters are idiots and will vote for the ticket that nominates their governor. This just seems like small ball to me, trying to bunt a guy over to 2nd when you have 1 out so you can maybe squeeze out that one run with a lucky hit. With so many quality politicians out there beyond who I've mentioned here (people like Joe Biden, Chris Dodd etc.), why waste your VP selection on a chance that's so unlikely to pan out?

A Home At The End of the World (JM)

2008-05-08T12:00:00.003-04:00

Humanity, in all of its forms, never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think they're going to zig, they zag like nobody's business. Paulville is an organization dedicated to creating gated communities of Ron Paul supporters where, if you join them, you can be "free to live your life the way you want and not be forced to do or pay for other people's life styles you may not agree with." I am not sure there are appropriate words in the English language to allow me to comment on this. I think I will invent a new word, "gastrogasmitronic", which means that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when something so absurdly funny exists that you don't really believe it exists, and that makes it all the more amusing. This is gastrogasmitronic in its implications. In fact, it gets even better:

These communities are not for the faint at heard they will start as undeveloped land in non city locals, as this is the way to secure large tracts of land needed for these efforts.

I want y'all to parse out the implications of this please. This is a collection of people, moving to a desolate wasteland, with no intention of paying taxes, whose most basic ethos is opposition to any form of collective action. This is going to go well, maybe even super well. I am really pretty unclear how this is much different than Waco. In fact, doesn't Ron Paul resemble Marshall Applewhite from Heaven's Gate, just a little.

Anyway, I really hope we get frequent updates from the community where people spend their time fighting over whose tract of land the aqueduct gets built on. I will tell you this much, if somehow I destroy my career and personal life in one fell swoop (this would not be an impossible feat for me) I am going to move on a setup shop in Paulville. Remember my motto folks: Liberte, Liberte, Fraternite (unless it gets in the way of my liberte).

I Can Always Depend on Stossel to Cure What Ails Me (JM)

2008-05-07T14:08:00.002-04:00

Unless the government watches closely, the airlines will kill you.

As I read this, I picturing a giant, cartoon JetBlue plane tiptoeing up behind me, brandishing a knife. Only to be stopped by a British bobby wearing a hat that says “Government Regulation” on it. Then John Stossel shows up wearing a fedora with a little slip of paper on it that reads “Press”. But perhaps I’ve said too much…

That seems to be what many reporters and politicians believe.

Not, like literally, but yeah inspections seems like a pretty nifty idea.

"The result of inspection failures and enforcement failure [by the Federal Aviation Administration] has meant that aircraft have flown unsafe, un-airworthy and at risk of lives," says Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

"The FAA has clearly displayed a dangerous and cavalier lack of regard for tough safety enforcement," says Sen. Hillary Clinton.

And Lou Dobbs of CNN wondered "whether airlines are putting profit ahead of passenger safety."

I mean this seems likely. Look, I don’t think airlines ever want their planes to crash, bad PR, dead employees and lawsuits and whatnot, but their bottom line is still profit maximization and they are less specifically interested in safety than a balance between safety risks and profits. It’s not a choice between all safety and no safety for these airlines, it’s a balance and government regulation clearly helps shift the balance in the direction of greater safety.

Let me get this straight. The only reason airlines care about safety is because of the FAA? So without government, multibillion-dollar companies would jeopardize millions of passengers by unsafely flying $50-million airplanes?

Uhh, no Commander Strawman from the planet Exaggertron Prime, it is one of many reasons.

The media and politicians suggest that airlines would cut corners to make money, but how would that work exactly? Crashing airliners is a route to bankruptcy, not profits.

To be persuaded by this argument, I would actually have to stick my head in an elevator while Delta Burke repeatedly pressed the door close button over and over for a period of three weeks in which I did not eat, sleep or drink anything. Don’t ask me why it has to be Delta Burke, it just has to, okay? Or Gerald McRaney.

But air-travel safety has joined mortgage defaults and global warming as "crises" of the month.

What are all really bad things that deserve to be called crises?

Populists in politics and the media get attention by scaring people into thinking the skies are dangerous. The politicians want more power and attention; the clueless media are genuinely scared.

Yes, keeping airplanes safe, just another step down the road to tyranny. Thank you John Stossel for preventing us from making such a horrible mistake. First they come for the airlines, then they come for the environments, and then the Jews…

The latest "crisis" was launched when the FAA fined Southwest Airlines, which has an excellent safety record, $10.2 million for missing inspection deadlines. When Rep. Oberstar criticized the FAA for being too close to the airlines, the agency sprung into overreaction. "An industry-wide 'audit' commenced, and FAA inspectors set about finding something -- anything -- to show Mr. Oberstar and other Congressional overseers that the agency was up to the job of enforcing federal maintenance requirements to the letter," said The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Steet Journal!!! Turn this ship around, my argument has run aground against an iceberg of objectivity! Yes, sometimes governmental regulators act politically, but they still have the goal of general safety, they don’t actually decrease the level of safety at all.

One result was the cancellation of 3,300 American Airlines flights and the stranding of 250,000 passengers over several days while 300 MD-80s were grounded so their wiring could be inspected.

Yes, I found this disconcerting too…

American Airlines then did something rare and even heroic. It criticized the agency that regulates it for suddenly changing inspection procedures in ways that have little to do with safety. "We don't know what the rules are," said an American technical crew chief for avionics. Some rules contradict each other, the airline said.

Why yes, they are our greatest heros! Why we need to add a new chapter to Profiles in Courage. American Airlines for complaining about FAA inspections. They are Aeneas, Superman, the Green Lantern, John McCain and Jared from Subway combined. So in sum, very heroic.

The FAA disputes American's claims, but The New York Times reports that "John Goglia, a maintenance expert and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the rules had, in fact, changed. ... The differences in American's work, he said, were so small that 'those airplanes could have flown for the rest of their careers and those wires would not have been a problem.'"

Look, I obviously do not know the technical details of these regulations. I know I don’t trust you, John Stossel, to not cherry-pick only the most advantageous quotes. But here’s where I stand on this: Any mistake maybe erring against regulation could lead to a lot of dead individuals. There is often no middle ground in airline accidents. I would rather over than under reach and I am certainly not willing to wait and let the market solve.

What about alarmist claims that the FAA has been lax in enforcing its own procedures? If the claims are true, then where are the bodies? The best evidence that FAA enforcement is unnecessary is to assume it's been lax -- and then to note that airline travel, though busier than ever, has never been safer (http://tinyurl.com/6yfm4x).

How is this possible the “best evidence”? Assume it’s not doing its job and then we can assume it’s ineffectual. You, sir, are silly. Also how about massive advances in technology explaining an increase in safety? However, we can still make it safer.

We need to rethink the premise that government inspections keep us safe.

Based entirely on the no evidence you have provided us with.

Clifford Winston and Robert W. Crandall of the Brookings Institution write: "[T]he fundamental problem with most regulation is that the regulatory agency does not have sufficient information, flexibility and immunity from political pressure to regulate firms' behavior effectively. Fortunately, the market, and in some cases the liability system, provide sufficient incentives for firms to behave in a socially beneficial manner."

This is the most generic and stupid sentence I have ever seen. It’s not like these are mutual exclusive propositions, right? The market still exists too, they might have slightly better information, but not as strong motivation. For the FAA the ultimate goal is safety, for the market the ultimate goal is profit maximization. I would prefer to have both in place. Also I am not sure why the FAA doesn’t have adequate information, it’s not like they hire some guy named Ron off the street to inspect these planes. It’s usually, you know, aviation engineers and the like.

To see who really regulates air safety, do a thought experiment suggested by George Mason University economist Donald Boudreaux, who blogs at Cafe Hayek:

Ooh George Mason University AND a blogger for Café Hayek… I have never heard of Café Hayek, but we can all safely assume the delightful island of rationality that is. So, anyway, prepare for some objective truth people.

"Suppose that all government regulation of airlines were abolished today. Does ... Congressman [Oberstar] suppose that airline executives would tomorrow fire all inspectors and maintenance crews, indifferent to the prospect of losing multimillion-dollar assets in fiery crashes? Does he not see that airlines with poor safety records would have difficulty attracting customers? Is he unaware that airlines' insurers have ample incentives to work closely with airlines at keeping air-travel safety at optimal levels? In short, is Mr. Oberstar really so dimwitted to think that airlines will be safe only if they are regulated by government?"

Look, I don’t think that if the FAA went away that airlines would start flying double-decker planes a la the Wright Brothers. I can safely say that there won’t be pedaling involved. But many more fly-by-night (pun absolutely intended) airlines would pop up, willing to risk a whole lot more in exchange for some quick profit. Hell, remember ValuJet, which is now AirTran, some of these airlines just change their names. Some consumers are aware of safety records, most are aware of the cheapest flights on Expedia. We would see an influx of much cheaper, more risky airlines. Regulation merely doubles down, it catches that which the market doesn’t solve for. Even one accident is too much a of a price to pay for deregulation.

Yes, I think he is.

And sadly, most of his colleagues, and mine, agree with him.

One person’s definition of sad is another person’s definition of sheer relief.

It's Over (Dennis)

2008-05-06T22:34:00.002-04:00

There comes a time in most baseball seasons when despite the fact that, mathematically, your team is still in it, you come to the slow numbing conclusion that it's just not going to happen this year. Sure the whole month of September is still left, but you trail the Yankees by 6 games, and you just split the four game series at Fenway, your biggest chance this month to get back in it. Derek Lowe just went on the DL, and Brian Daubach isn't hitting like he was in April. Despite all the hopes and expectations, the visions you had of trotting out Pedro once again in the playoffs, you get the feeling that it's just not going to happen this year.

Well, if I were a Clinton booster, this is exactly how I would feel tonight. Sure you have West Virginia and Kentucky left (6 games with the old time Devil Rays), but Obama still has Montana and Oregon (six games with Baltimore). And as for tonight, it was the chance to drive a serious blow to the Obama campaign. Jon outlined the scenarios by which Clinton could do this. It didn't happen, if anything Obama may have beaten expectations, with independents going for Obama in Indiana; Obama coming very close to victory (the networks still haven't called it as this is being written) in Indiana; and Obama getting a large victory in North Carolina.

I have never called for Hillary Clinton to drop out, and I won't now. But, for the first time since those heady, irrational days between Iowa and New Hampshire, I feel like we're at the end.

Even My Cynicism Is Too Much For This (JM)

2008-05-06T17:51:00.002-04:00

John Challis, an 18 year-old kid from Pennsylvania has terminal cancer. He will probably die within the next two months. He loves baseball and just wanted a single at-bat in a high school baseball game. A couple of days ago he got his wish and drove an line drive RBI single in to right field. Upon getting to first base the opposing team all took off their mitts and applauded John.

Normally things this saccharin annoy me passionately, but this is real, this is genuine. So stop reading atrocious Mitch Albom books and other fodder for the USA Today bestseller list, but feel free every now and again to be moved by something real, something tragic and something pretty touching. The article by Mike White in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a totally worthwhile read. And John, if somehow you should come across this, you've managed to crack even this hardened cynic.

And now I am going to go try to find something written by John Stossel or Daniel Finkelstein so I can get back to my old self.

The Sweet Smell of Desperation (JM)

2008-05-06T14:38:00.004-04:00

"It's over! Why does anyone even care?!"

"Look at the Delegate Calculator, she needs to win over eighty percent of the remaining delegates to win!"

"Hillary should just drop out! She cannot possibly win!"

For people who are so sure of victory, Obama supporters are feeling more and more like people desperately clinging to a conviction slowly slipping away. It's like a game of Risk, where one opponent is about to do something that will really screw you and you insist that this is a bad move for them. The more urgently that you insist, the more sure they become that it is precisely the move that ought to be taken. Until you're screaming and yelling and threatening absurd consequences that you cannot possibly follow through on (Author's Note: Don't play Risk with me, I am unpleasant to play with).

Anyway, here's my take on tonight. This is Hillary's shot to game change, she has to win Indiana pretty well and come close or win North Carolina. There are two scenarios that work for her: 1) Huge Indiana win, tiny North Carolina loss; 2) Moderate Indiana win; North Carolina effect tie or win. Either of these scenarios really put a knife in to Obama, especially with a predicted 20 point possible drubbing coming up in West Virginia (which is basically all the parts of Pennsylvania that loved Hillary, with none of the metropolitan areas). Anything else and despite momentum I suspect Hillary is done. But then, I have thought this before.

"Jonathan, superdelegates will never allow Hillary to steal this election."

Please, hypothetical Obama-supporting strawman, you are ridiculous. The same inane group of people who think Florida and Michigan should be outright disenfranchised because "rules are rules" cannot stand that other rules will get in the way of Obama's ascendancy. But let's take this one further, oh worshipers of the might principle of democratic representation. Obama's entire delegate lead is on the back of incredibly unrepresentative caucuses. I've explained this before, but once more with feeling. Caucuses drive down turnout insane amounts and are most likely to suppress the votes of poorer working-class individuals as well as the elderly. They are often much more representative of the loudest, pushiest voters (ie. Obama supporters). Superdelegates are, for the most part, people elected by way more votes than people who actually vote in caucuses. So do me a favor and stop using the word "steal" as your last ditch effort to stop people from realizing if Hillary gets to McCain that she will flatout steamroller him.

Oh, just one more thing... (said like Columbo). I am tired of people referring to Obama as the candidate of the educated elite. Having a college degree does not make you a member of the educated elite, my god I know some encephalitic Obama supporters who count, statically, as members of the educated crowd. There are obviously exceptions of both sides of the table (very noted ones so if you are my friend and an Obama supporter I am probably not talking about you), but the truth is amongst my most educated friends it has always been the ones whom I have considered the smartest who support Hillary, not Obama. They are the people who rail for Obama with some sort of crazy belief that he'll actually change politics, make candy grow from trees, and turn international war crimes in to some magical, delicious form of frozen yogurt that tastes better than ice cream, but has no calories, that I lack any sense of intellectual respect for, and this usually began before they even started supporting him.

In fact, let me end with this hierarchical theory. The first plateau is working class folk, who have no time to indulge in the dream of a better world, and thus largely support Hillary. Then there are the well-to-do suckers who think that magically politics will change over night. Finally, there are the cynics who are aware that politics will always be a ground fight because it involves groups of people who very very much disagree over issues. Compromise is possible, but it's the Hillary-type, not the Obama-type that gets compromises hammered out. Obviously there are exceptions to these rules (interest groups come to mind) and not all people support either candidate for such reasons, but most do and it's pretty silly how it has been categorized.

So tonight will mean a lot in the grand scheme of things. For what it's worth I expect a tie in the sense that Hillary will get a slightly favorable outcome. I suspect a decent Indiana win and a pretty close showing in North Carolina. It probably won't matter in the long run, but I will allow myself, just for tonight, the audacity of hope.

The Temples of Modernity (JM)

2008-05-05T14:02:00.003-04:00

Well ladies and gentleman of the blogateria, have you missed me nearly as much as I have missed you? Paris was fantastic with a couple of debaclesque footnotes. I also have contracted some form of 18th century lung disease that is usually found in coal miners, but we have a job to do so I am going to walk it off and deal with this nonsense. The Grey Lady has seen fit to do reviews of all of the finest chain restaurants in existence (with one notably large snub ignoring the finest of these establishments, Pizzeria Uno). A lot of the blagoverse (or rather two of my favorites from the Atlantic) got up in arms about the condescension of this piece, but I am not fussed, most of the reviews are pretty good. I just think most people understand these sorts of places the wrong way.

You see, I love chain restaurants. Not always or often, but certainly on occassion. If someone came to me and said, you can go to either Per Se or the OG (The Olive Garden for those not in the know) I would almost certainly choose Per Se if someone else were paying. That said, there is very clear case to be made for the OG in the long run. Is the food great at the OG or Friday's or Chili's, not especially, but it's definitely not terrible. But they provide something different and more important. A sense of place and community and commonality. In many ways, chain restaurants (along with chain bookstores and malls, which I will get to in a moment) are our modern temples. As we live in a secular, corporatized world we lose one of the very important things that institutionalized religion brought to the table, a sense of common living. In other words, religions bring us together with shared rituals, values and stories. "Hey Jesus, I've heard of him too." is the kind quote that let's us all know that despite living a million miles apart, with different lifestyles and maybe even worldviews, we have some semblance of commonality. So too do we get this out of chain restaurants and their ilk, "Hey Blooming Onion, I've eaten that."

Now obviously this is seemingly a banal connection, but I actually don't think it's any worse or any better than religion or other value systems. It's not just chain restaurants, it's summer blockbuster movies, it's shows like Friends and Sex and the City, it's Borders Books, it's the mall and, yes, it's the freakin' Cheesecake Factory. Admit it, for the most part there is something very comforting about being inside on of these places. When I am stressed or feel alone I will often wander in to a Borders (this also because I am obsessed with books) and find some sense of relief. Not because there are people there, but because we are all sharing some sense of a common experience. Heck, I can walk in to any of these places anywhere I am and feel the exact same experience I would half way across the country. Here's why these types of experiences might be more valid unifiers than religion or nationalism: they are value neutral. The Outback Steakhouse doesn't really care what you believe, you can be a Neo-Nazi so long as you enjoy a decent tasting piece of steak. Borders requires nothing more than a love of pretty decent iced tea and browsing a fairly generic history section. None of these are places or deepness, specificity or perfection, but they do bring us as a people together and ask so very little in return.

Now I suspect many of your objections to this might lie in the fact that this is an implicit celebration of crass, commercial capitalism, so it is in fact unity with a particular value structure. Alright, by many of you I really just mean me and maybe four of you, but that's fine. I think that's probably true in its way, but not overtly and perhaps not as insidiously as the other ways in which corporate commercialism rules our lives. So sure, people wearing GAP t-shirts are not exactly modern day Dalai Lamas, but they do fulfill the similar role of knowing that we are not so different from each other that we cannot have the same day to day experiences. So when I sit down to my next set of unlimited breadsticks at the OG, I will be thinking of all the rest of y'all who have, at one time or another, bitten in to the same generically delicious garlicky goodness and feel a little less alone in this world.

Paris Je T'aime (JM)

2008-04-25T16:41:00.002-04:00

Well cowpokes, I am off to Paris for the week. Consequently, you will almost certainly not be hearing from me (okay, maybe one wine-sodden post from an internet cafe). Hopefully Dennis will keep you sated over the next week or so. I promise the following things:

1. I will offend French people, I am Jewish, I like America and I am, unshockingly, partial to saying whatever pops in to my head with little or no filter. I fully intend to try and discuss politics, American, French and world while there. I will report back, with hopefully humorous stories.

2. I am going to go to some of my favorite historical sites and will probably be inspired to write about French history, you will all be very pleased to read such exciting posts.

3. I am going to London for a couple of days as well. I have e-mailed Daniel Finkelstein and challenged him a game of chess. We shall see if he responds. Failing that I offered to buy him a drink. I really, really hope he writes back. I suspect he won't, but you know... maybe.

I suspect I will miss writing as much if not way more than y'all miss reading, so enjoy your weeks and I will speak to you on Thursday!

This Is a Dreadful Idea (JM)

2008-04-24T20:21:00.003-04:00

Dear Bunch of People From Other Countries Who Are Calling Here to Convince Us to Vote For Obama,

I know you really like Barack Obama, he's exotic and liberal, he is just like you! He is basically a European's European. That's fine, you have a right to like people, I like foreigners. I would, for instance, vote for Dame Maggie Smith to run Britain, with the assistance of Lord Alan Rickman (I know he is not a Lord, but he should be). Anyway, let's say I even agreed that you have a right to try and influence our election, which I don't, but it's pretty irrelevant. You can't. I mean seriously, if you're calling a Hillary or swing voter this little script of yours probably won't be all that successful. To prove my point, a play:

Indiana Joe: Ach, who is this? It's four o'clock in the morning!

British Obama Supporter (for sake of convenience, let's just call him Daniel): Well, jolly good day sir, my watcherola says it's nine AM here. Anyhoo, if you can spare a minute I would like to tell you just how Barack Obama can improve the world.

Indiana Joe: Are you kidding me, it's four AM?!

Daniel: Sir, please don't be so Amerocentric, I said it was nine AM, so nine AM it is. You see sir, hope for the international community is so important. Are you aware that America's standing in the world has been declining steadily due to your arrogant foreign policies?

Indiana Joe: Is this Mickey?! Are you drunk? I have to fucking work in the morning. This isn't funny!

Daniel: Golly gee sir, no I am Daniel, and this isn't funny. It's dreadfully important. You see, I feel that Barack Obama would be a good influence on our government and make us a whole lot cheerier with you?

Indiana Joe: Are you serious? Is this really some British person telling me who I should vote for at 4 AM?! Why would I care who you want me to vote for, I work at a factory part time and make 22 thousand dollars a year! I have three kids to support.

Daniel: Well I don't think you understand our perspective here. There is more than just America to consider. Think of it this way, Barack Obama inspires thoughts of Britain's greatest Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.

Indiana Joe: Lord Palmerston?! Try, Pitt the Elder!

Daniel: Lord Palmerston!!

Indiana Joe: Pitt the Elder!!

Lawyer: Excuse me gentlemen, I represent the estate of Matt Groening, you are quite guilty of copyright infringement.

Daniel: See, yet another reason to support Barack Obama.

Indiana Joe: This is insane, how did that lawyer even get on my phone? Also I am a Hillary supporter.

Daniel: Well one of the positives of Barack Obama is he is not a lying, cheating monster like Hillary Clinton. Also did I mention that Muslims in Holland love him?

Indiana Joe: Muslims love him?

Daniel: Oh yes, in all international polls he is by far the preferred candidate. In Europe, Africa and the Middle East!

Indiana Joe: Oh... I see.

Daniel: Yes, well I do rightfully hope I have helped you make a sensible decision today.

Indiana Joe: I dare say you have old chap.

Fin

Note that this play followed the script provided pretty accurately. I think we can all agree that even without my strawman portrayal, this is just a terrible idea for Obama's supporters.

I Still Hate Claire McCaskill (JM)

2008-04-23T15:40:00.003-04:00

I'll make a deal with all Obama supporters. I will start supporting him if you will join me in drumming Claire McCaskill out of the Democratic Party. Today she claimed the Clintons "keep throwing nails in front of the bus" as a justification for bringing up things like Whitewater and Clinton land deals for which they were long ago exonerated. I mean go negative if you want, I hope everyone enjoys a heaping dose of the "new politics" and "hope" we are getting. But there are two quick things I want to address here:

1. If you cannot beat Hillary and "unify" the Democratic party then how in the world are we supposed to believe that you can "unify" red and blue states. On face such a claim is absurdist, if you have to roll in the mud to beat someone with almost exactly the same positions as you then you are not going win against the GOP in any other way. In fact, if this is what it takes to win then why not nominate Hillary instead, she is much better at it and more competent.

2. I wish Obama supporters would understand the weird, disingenuous nature of phrases like "throwing nails in front of the bus". Essentially, since he won Iowa, his supporters are treating Hillary like a felon for trying to win the nomination. This is the presidency and quite frankly it deserves to be contested, especially between two very strong candidates. This weird notion that Obama's politics and negative campaigning somehow legitimate, but Hillary's is not is actually one of the slimier tactics used by Obama and his supporters.

Anyway, I still hate Claire McCaskill and I definitely hate self-righteousness. We are about to see how genuine is the Obama campaign's commitment to a "new politics". My guess is that they will have surrogates go negative and deny responsibility and when they go negative themselves they will blame Hillary. New politics, just like the old, but looks more like an iPhone.

(Hat tip: Ben Smith)

My Second Ever Celebrity Crush (JM)

2008-04-23T10:56:00.004-04:00

So the last time I had a legit celebrity crush was when I was about eight years old. For some reason, eight year old Jonathan had a huge crush on the character Violet Beauregarde from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I recall pulling my friend Dan aside and sheepishly admitting to him my secret shame.* Well it's been a long, hard slog between then and now, but I am fully prepared to admit to a new celebrity enchantment: Zooey Deschanel.

I went to go see She & Him last night, the band she co-anchors with M. Ward, and it was a pretty excellent show. Their music has a very 1950s feel to it, but with a slight edge. She was adorable, having lost her voice she held up signs of greeting and waved a lot, also she wore a really cute 50sish dress. So anyway, the music is great and I am totally crushing on Zooey Deschanel. I am sure something will come of this.**

Also apropos of nothing, for those of you who live in New York you may have noticed subway ads for This American Life. In love the show and I love Ira Glass, but does anyone else think he looks disappointingly toolish? Sigh, our heroes are never what we think they are... At least Carl Kassel doesn't disappoint, he looks precisely like I imagined.***

*I thought I was the only one with weird childhood crush shame until my best friend and college roommate informed me he used to have a thing for Penny from Inspector Gadget. Touche, sir, touche.

**Actually maybe it'll be like that episode of My Two Dads where Nicole's uncle shows up and promises that he can help her meet George Michael. But then Joey (as played by the esteemed Greg Evigan) has to warn her that her uncle is notoriously unreliable, explaining that the uncle had once promised him that he would get to meet Willie Mays and never came through on it. So Nicole got disappointed, but at the end of the episode the uncle brought in Willie Mays to meet Joey. The moral was that eventually he gets around to the things he promises. Anyway, so maybe, just maybe, I will start dating Violet Beauregarde soon, followed up by Zooey Deschanel when I am about 50.

***I decided that every paragraph needed a footnote, so how about a picture of Soterios Johnson, the man with the greatest name on radio. He looks nothing like I imagined, but it a much more palatable way than Ira Glass.

The Best Columnist Out There (JM)

2008-04-22T14:04:00.002-04:00

Normally I write to deride, not praise; to mock, not compliment; to be utterly unproductive, not helpful. But this morning I read David Brooks column and was once again reminded how just totally superior he is to pretty much all other columnists out there these days. He's intriguing without being glib and he is interesting without artifice. This morning he wrote a column about an essay he had read about how the night's sky looked to people in the Middle Ages. It was fascinating and a refreshing breather from the total banality that has infected the current political landscape.

There are times that I don't agree with Brooks. I strenuously disagreed when months ago he argued that Reagan's speech in Philadelphia, MS wasn't race baiting-it pretty clearly was. However, he writes well and engages arguments in a fresh a new way. So David Brooks, I salute you for actually doing a job worthy of the paper you're printed in.

McCain's Secret Weapon (JM)

2008-04-22T09:03:00.004-04:00

McCain has unleashed his secret weapon and woe unto Barillary Obinton. Senator Orrin Hatch has crafted a song for the McCain campaign, and it's awesome:

By Senator Orrin G. Hatch & Philip Springer

Together forever
America is the country we all love
We believe our destiny
Comes from god above
Let's link our hands for all to see
Our country's majesty

Forever together
America is the land we're fighting for
There's a time in history
For a hero's destiny
Together forever more

Hey John
Say John
They're gonna hit you hard with ev'ry thing they've got

Hey John
Come on
They'll be calling you
Everything you're not!

But sure as heaven
We're gonna win
Start celebrating
Now let's begin

Together forever
America is the country we all love
Let's link our hands for all to see
Our country's majesty

Forever together
America is the land we're fighting for
There's a time in history
For a hero's destiny
Together for evermore

See awesome. Anyway, not only is the song a powerful tool in the fight against liberalism it has sparked some strong (and entertaining) debate amongst the conservative movement. For instance a McCain spokesman was quoted as saying, "We'll see Barack Obama's Bruce Springsteen endorsement and raise them an Orrin Hatch." High praise indeed, but not all GOPers were quite as fond of the song. Jason Mattera, a representative of a conservative youth organization exclaimed, "Hatch's heart is in the right place, but he has the wrong decade." Oh man, Jason Mattera you did not just go there...

Either way, Jason is just wrong. This song is awesome and made easily more awesome, here's how: keep the lyrics, but sing them to the tune of Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Let's all try this together, shall we?

See what I mean? Even if you don't, you did get to listen to Crowded House. In fact, I am going to listen again... on repeat... for the next couple of hours. So if you need me, I'll be in heaven.

Ooh... Sorry Case Number 17 Has Another Stop-Loss In It (JM)

2008-04-21T16:17:00.003-04:00

Well in the mother of all cross-promotions Howie Mandel will have a special guest star: Our right and honorable President, George W. Bush. You see they are having special contestants who are members of the military currently in Iraq and George is going to pop on by. Anyway, a few observations:

1. I have to imagine that the segment of the population who are still watching Deal or No Deal is congruent to the population of people who still support GWB, so this kind of makes sense.

2. Sgt. J. T. Snodgrass of Oklahoma, or whatever your name (the name is Capt. Kobes and GWB is one of his heroes, sometimes I should bother reading the articles I find, instead of just the headline. Either way, we'll stick with this) will be, please under no circumstances except the advice of the decider. And please, folks at NBC, please don't have our President say, "Deal or no deal?" Seriously, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" is one thing, this would just be the end of all dignity.

3. Deal or No Deal is about the most banal game ever. The strategy is generally blindingly obvious and often unheeded. Either way, it's just a silly phenomenon. Well that's what I thought anyway, until I saw this. Meal or No Meal is just totally addictive, I dare you to play it once, an hour later you will wonder if humanity has any chance of surviving for another hundred or so years.

P.S. For all of our readers who care tonight marks the return of Gossip Girl and Thursday is the return of Lost. Get excited, get very excited.

SWMP seeks SWFSS (JM)

2008-04-18T10:08:00.005-04:00

I am turning this blog in to a celebrity personal ad site. Basically if you're a celebrity and you want to meet another celebrity, shoot us an e-mail. We'll make it happen. Our inaugural attempt:

Single 27 year old pitcher with decent stuff and an ERA+ over 100 in the last two years seeks star of amazing movie Along Came Polly. Loves to travel, has steady job and good sense of humor. Must love dogs.

So, anyway, I am basically just stealing this from Matt Cerrone over at MetsBlog, but it's really too good not to share with y'all. In an interview with Hollyscoop, which I can only assume is weblog devoted to all things Holly Hunter, Mets' pitcher John Maine expounds on his lifelong crush on Jennifer Aniston. When asked what he would do if he met her he said, "I guess I would take some pictures with her and give her a hug." Right there, that's too adorable for words. So if anyone out there can get John Maine her digits let me know, I think God would want this to happen.

P.S. I am totally serious about celebrity matchmaking, feel free to contact us over here at AOTG and Dennis and I will do our best to get you that special someone. We're looking at you Peter Frampton, we see how you've been making eyes at Helen Hunt. Call us.

Notes From an Obama Supporter About Last Night's Debate (JM)

2008-04-17T18:45:00.003-04:00

Consider, if you will, a world in which a man has been born whose mere existence defies logic. A man who shines so very bright that the sun itself turns red with shame. A man whose very goodness makes faith a knowable thing. Consider, if you will, such a man that defines all the words in the dictionary and gave names to all of the animals. A man who, alone, conquered the entire Sahara Desert and through his sincerity and charm created a series of lakes and irrigating streams throughout the Sahara and then, by the power of his forthright honesty sped the erosion process to such a speed that within two months it was like living in South Carolina. A man who invented the envelope.

This man is Barack Obama and what those terrorists last night did to him was unconscionable. This was worse than when the Israelis were kidnapped in that movie Munich. This was more horrible than any experiment Dr. Mengele ever performed. Charles Gibson was Hitler and George Stephanopoulos was Super Dracula! The violated the Geneva Conventions, the Golden Rules, the Magna Carta, the 1812 Overture, the Brown University Honor Code, the Advice of Bazooka Joe on the Bazooka Joe comics and every single principle set forth in Nell Carter's diary. They are scum and slime and ought to be put in Guantanamo Bay and executed.

Perhaps... just perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration. But how much really.... (From DailyKos):

You know, as I watched the "debate" last night (which was nothing more than a coordinated ambush), I started to cry. My tears were not from an emotion of anger nor were they from feeling sorry for Barack, as he had to defend himself against bogus, trivial, and already answered queries questioning every facet of his character. Rather, they were tears of realization. The way he rose above such filth in a calm and determined manner, appearing like a phoenix rising from the ashes - ashes that represented the sewage of the moderators and hillary. Never before in my lifetime had I seen a "politician" refute attack after personal attack and still when the opportunity presented itself - not demean himself by targeting his opponent in the same manner. It only reinforced my feeling that he is a once in a lifetime - nay - once in many centuries type leader - someone who could radically change the face of not only this nation but this world. Most amazingly - I don't think he even fully realizes his potential impact. So my tears were for our ridiculous luck in having such a man that wants to show us a better way - we, a people who are wholly ungrateful and truly ignorant of this moment. We, most certainly, do not deserve such a leader.

Yes, that's right, someone really believes that. There needs to be a little perspective on the questions in last night's debate. Honestly, they were pretty fair game questions with some tendency towards the petty politics. But Obama's the front runner now and this balances the history of targeting in the debates. Recall how brutal these debates were to Hillary in the past. It seems only fair play at this point. Moreover, Obama has to handle this stuff better, he has to stop complaining about politics (particularly politics he also engages in) and start defending himself more directly. I think he can beat most of this, but seems to just not try. If he can't take this McCain is going to eviscerate him. So, in short, Obama supporters quit the whining. Please, seriously, enough.

The World of Tomorrow, Today (JM)

2008-04-16T15:33:00.004-04:00

We are truly entering a brave new world. One where we have a new generation of 90210, a New Kids on the Block Reunion Tour and, my new personal favorite, Bill Cosby's first rap album. That's right, the Cos, had went in to the studio to lay down some tracks and ill rhymes (actually, and sadly, he doesn't rap, but instead speaks around others rapping). Either way, this is assuredly going to be hilarious.

Here's the thing, I very much respect Dr. Cosby for his work, and generally agree with a lot of what he has to say about race relations. He is quite concerned with African-American culture and promoting a sense of personal responsibility. I have a problem with this type of venture, because it's simply never going to sell. It's kind of like Christian rock, the fact is that if you're inclined to listen to Crock in the first place, then you probably don't need the message it's sending. I am sorry Jars of Clay, you probably haven't saved too many souls with your delightful mid-90's Christian pop, even if Flood certainly has managed to at least soothe mine. The same goes for a rap album produced by Bill Cosby. I suspect it will be owned by two types of people: 1. People who had it bought for them by their parents; 2. Lovers of irony. In the first case these kids will learn that lesson very quickly when they bring up the latest Cosby album around their schoolyard chums. As for the second case, I will let you know how it is.

Gchat Proves That We're Taking This Election Too Seriously (JM)

2008-04-16T01:14:00.001-04:00

Dennis: i am very tired i saw i got an email from barack saying "dissapointed" and i was for a moment scared that he was dissapointed in me

Q.E.D.

Great Blog Searches Throughout History (JM)

2008-04-15T15:15:00.002-04:00

There have been a lot of entertaining ways people have found this blog. I truly appreciate the fact that this blog is most often found by Wilford Brimley aficionados. For you guys I have a special treat in store in the next day or so. However, in the last two days our blog was found by someone search for the answer to the question, "Why are Jews so neurotic?" Well my friend, inadvertently you have come to the right place. Here's the deal: Our mom's are crazy, our women also crazy, years of oppression and high expectations of success. Also controlling the media is a tough and demanding job. So next time you're wondering about this, there you are.

Bitter-gate (Dennis)

2008-04-14T23:50:00.000-04:00

This is the first time I've seen Obama in full mock mode, and the shots he's able to lay on Hillary here shows us why (in both directions), misstatements and all we're better of with Obama the politician rather than Hillary Clinton the politician. Yes Obama showed a penchant for a novice mistake, but he's also pretty clever and has been able to wriggle himself out of things before. Some Democrat was going to have to shed the liberal elite label and I think we're better off with his skill.

Hillary, on the other hand is an enormous phony, and (worse) doesn't hide it very well. Another reason why both Gore and Kerry lost was that they were perceived as exaggerators who would do anything to get elected. Gore had all those incidents you've now forgotten from people believing he said he invented the internet to that horrendous fake kiss of Tipper at the DNC. With Kerry, it was the perception that he made up his Vietnam service record which gained traction because he was such a weasel in his political career.

On this whole bitter-gate, as Josh Marshall from TPM pointed out, most of the people we've heard saying this was an enormous error that will kill Obama are liberal supporters of Hillary Clinton, and "elite" John McCain fans. So, while I'm a little worried, forgive me if I'm not jumping out the window in a state of panic. Most of these geniuses were also the ones who told us that John Kerry was electable, that Democrats should support the Iraq war, that Hillary Clinton's money made her inevitable, and that her organization would outclass the bumbling Obama idealists and on and on and on. There's a tendency among people who watch politics to stereotype the race and the electorate so that they can make predictions (I'm including myself here). No surprise then that those predictions usually aren't accurate or are right for the wrong reasons.

So on this whole affair I'm taking a wait and see mode about what the effects will be, but I'm certainly not having second thoughts about my original pick. I've been swayed away too many times from the right choice via the kind of worry that's taking hold among liberals now.

A Tactical Mistake? Why Obama Should Face Clinggate Head On. (JM)

2008-04-14T17:55:00.003-04:00

Greg Sargent over at TPM has a recording a robocall going out in PA, from the mayor of York. Essentially it is a push back over the bitterness comments, which you can read in the post below. However, the tactic seems to focus on the "bitter" portion of his remarks, rather than the idea of "clinging to religion and guns". This seems like a really poor decision on the part of the Obama camp. Obama supporters seem to be getting indignant and dismissive, saying that Obama misspoke but the "bitterness" is real. This is just not going to fly.

No one, no one in the world thinks that rural Pennsylvanians are not bitter. Of course they are. The question the Obama raised, and the one that is going to be constantly repeated by the GOP, is how Obama really sees both religious belief and gun-ownership. I think it is rather unambiguous that these comments tied their belief-systems to their social position and desperation and no amount of spin is going to make this disappear. Mickey Kaus, at Slate, had a very effective explanation of the real issues behind these remarks. What this leaves me with is the fear that at this point it won't be enough to turn things around for Hillary, but it'll be just enough to help McCain drub Obama in the general.

Let's take a quick look at a few key swing states:

1. Florida- Obama is already polling poorly against McCain here. McCain has strength amongst older voters, Jewish voters and Hispanic voters. These are all groups amongst which Obama runs quite weakly. But let's not forget Obama's weakness doesn't end here, because of the debacle with not allowing a revote in Florida. I am not excited to rehash the "Who Killed the Florida Relection Debate", though I suppose if you really want to do this throw it down in the comment section and bring it on, but either way Obama is clearly perceived as one of the key figures in preventing a revote. All of this spells a lot of bad news for the Dems in Florida.

2. Michigan- Obama appears to be running even with McCain here, though the fall out of not seating the delegates may impact him at some point in the future. Regarding his recent comments he is probably okay here. If the Dems are going to win Michigan it will be on the back of economic progress, not social issues.

3. Ohio- Very similar demographics to Pennsylvania with a little bit of Michigan on the side. This is not a disaster scenario for the Democrats, but this certainly hurts Obama amongst the Huckabee populists, a group he had hopes of courting before this debacle occurred. This is yet another state in which Hillary is running much stronger than Obama.

4. Pennsylvania- I honestly think that if things stand as they do now, this literally kills any chance Obama had of taking PA. We'll need to wait to see new polls, but there was already a dearth of support amongst the working class in Pennsylvania. Obama's PA base will stay with the party regardless of the nominee, Hillary's is far less likely to do so. It's hard to imagine Obama winning PA, but impossible if he doesn't address this issue head on, instead of pretend there is much ado about nothing.

5. The New Map- One of the cornerstone arguments amongst friends of mine regarding the ascendancy of Barack Obama, is that he redraws the electoral map for the Democrats. I very much look forward to this day, but I am more skeptical than others. Let's take one example of this kind of state, perhaps the most favorable one, Virginia. Certainly the demographics of Virginia have become more and more conduced to electing a Democratic candidate. As the northern suburbs fill out with D.C. commuters and traditional liberal households, Democrats gain strength. However, these very comments, ones that can easily be perceived as denigrating those that believe in both religion and guns, are likely to provoke resentment in the very swing voters we'd require to win the state. Religion and guns are not just core beliefs, but part of a fundamental identity of many of these individuals. If this is true, and these comments stick, there will be no new map and we will be listening to States of the Union from President McCain while Wilford Brimley stares sternly out at the television audience from his seat next to Nancy Pelosi (that's right, Vice President Brimley, you heard it here first).

This is not to say that I think superdelegates need to take a second look at Hillary. Well, I mean, I do, but I think it is pointless at this time. I think the Dems (the ones who are not me at least) are about to reap what they've sewed. If Obama's team and supporters continue to just pretend that this was no big deal this will never die. If this never dies then the Rascal Scooter ready for the White House, because John McCain is coming to stay.

The Wisdom of "Bitterness" (JM)

2008-04-12T19:21:00.003-04:00

I've been puzzling about what to think about the Obama comments in San Francisco. For those of you that are not aware, Obama essentially made a connection between the "bitterness" of rural Pennsylvanians and their love of guns and religion. Here is the relevant portion of the speech:

You go into 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 toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

At first blush I was surprised and maybe a bit impressed with the boldness of a remark like this. But then I was blown away by the political inanity of this remark. Sure, no one is going to disagree with truth that a good portion of this population is quite bitter, they have every reason to be. However, to connect deeply held values to their social position is quite likely to be perceived as condescending. This harms Obama's "one of the people" image; one to which he has a right. I have never really bought in to this whole elitist Obama meme, one of his really impressive characteristics is that he really seems to understand most people, and can make pop culture references to boot. No, for me it has always been the experience question and the "unity" theme that drive me away from Obama. I think this statement is quite divisive to the particular Republican community that he had he best opportunity of co-opting: Huckabee Republicans. The populist, religious conservatives that simply don't believe in McCain would be a good group for Obama to court. Unfortunately, by appearing to denigrate the sincerity of religious ideals, he has probably burned a bridge to this community. Whether or not it is a correct sentiment.

But is it a correct sentiment? I certainly believe that social context largely determines our ideological perspective. In other words, it seems pretty clear that what we believe is very much a function of the places and lives we live. But I suspect that maybe the roots of religious belief and gun culture are tied up in longer standing history and tradition. I agree that anti-immigration beliefs have something to do with this "bitterness", there is pretty clearly a perceived economic effect of illegal immigration to particular communities, and thus a sensible link between the two. However, in the case of religion and guns, these have always been long standing beliefs in the South. Even some of these midwesterny, Pennsylvania-like areas are more a part of the southern community (geographically-speaking). These types of ideals very much grow out of the political history and Southern nationalism of these communities.

Perhaps I will post more on the idea of Southern nationalism in the future, there are a lot of very interesting connections between the historical trials of the South and its ideological formation. But for the purposes of this conversation, that it's enough to observe that very similar political perspectives rose from a particular region and region whose only other major correlation is happening to share Confederate roots. Though that implies that devastation resulted in these particular beliefs it makes no mention of why these particular beliefs arose from such devastation. This is why Obama was missing the point in attaching these beliefs to the "bitterness" of the rural Pennsylvanians. Sure, beliefs did spring out of their history and position in society, but it is the question of why these particular beliefs that matters. If you believe in agency then you can conclude that it was the choice and interests of this community the particular types of beliefs they would have. Either way, Obama's idea doesn't dig deep enough analytically, but does an effective (but not positive) job of digging quite deep psychologically in to the voters of Pennsylvania.

Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (JM)

2008-04-11T15:29:00.002-04:00

Ice, apparently, is back with a brand new edition of prison time. Poor Vanilla, no luck since the Turtle movies... In other news, I may spend too much time reading celebrity gossip websites.

An Open Letter to New York Mets Fans, Willie Randolph and the Shea Stadium Media Operator (JM)

2008-04-11T10:43:00.003-04:00

Dear Mets fans, Willie Randolph and Shea Stadium Media Operator,

I was at the game last night and I cannot say I was pleased with any of your performances. I am writing you all at the same time because, well, this is not really a letter I am send but rather a conceit to complain about and mock you all.

Mets fans: It's nine games in to the season, no one on the team deserves to be booed. In fact, why would you ever boo your own player. Scott Schowenweis was called in with two runners on in a tie ball game. He hadn't pitched yet in this game. Why in the world would you boo him before he ever throws the ball. Do you want him to fail? Are you guys actually Mets fans because you like the team or because you have a psychological addiction to failure and depression? Because I swear, there are better ways to get this fix. Lying in the dark in your room listening to Mazzy Star and Elliot Smith is way way more effective and doesn't screw with my life. So on this point, boo Jimmy Rollins, shut up when our players are around. The only case in which it is ever remotely acceptable to boo is if you're ready for a player to be off the team. But even then, keep quiet because I don't trust your judgment.

One other point guys. When Phillies fans show up at Shea Stadium and wander around yelling things at the crowd booing them and insulting them probably doesn't upset them. They are doing for the attention, the same way you would do it if you went down to Philly. Ignore them, it's much funnier. This is especially true when you're busy booing a Phillies fan when the Mets have two on in the bottom of the 10th inning. I assume you're all from New Jersey, because that just seems right, you would probably be much happier as Yankees fans. I know I would be happier if you were.

Willie Randolph: Jose Reyes is on first base, it's a tie game in the 9th inning and Angel Pagan, the guy who has been our best hitter thus far this year and through Spring Training, is up, what do you do? Your answer: give up an out for no reason. Sacrifice bunts are dumb. It wastes an out when there are so many better ways to move the inning along. But it is particularly dumb when Jose Reyes is the one first base (for those who are not familiar with baseball, Jose Reyes is the fastest human being alive, he once ran around the Earth so fast that he turned us back to yesterday and prevented Lex Luthor from conquering Earth). The statistical chances of this pair of incredibly fast runners getting in to a double play is negligible compared to the waste of an out in this inning. By the by, guess who eventually got the game winning hit in the 12th inning, Angel Pagan (this of course proves my point and should be seen as totally compelling evidence, rather than a random coincidence).

The second issue I have is not just for you, but all managers. There is nothing special about the 9th inning. I repeat, there is nothing special about the 9th inning. It is an inning, just like any other. When, in the 8th inning, you have Chase Utley and Ryan Howard coming up, two of the best left handed hitters in baseball coming up and in your bullpen you have the absolute best left handed closer in baseball, well this seems like a no-brainer. But instead you put in righty Aaron Heilman who proceeds to give up the lead. Look, Billy Wagner might have given up the runs, but he would have been way less likely to do so, and then Heilman could have safely pitched the 9th. It makes zero, nill, no sense whatsoever to save your best bullpen pitcher for an arbitrary inning, you throw him in at the highest leverage, most difficult moment in the game. Yes, at first the closer might grumble, but if you as team recognize that his value actually skyrockets in this situation (rather than gauge value on the totally arbitrary stat: the save) then he (and eventually the rest of baseball) will come aboard. Just because it's always how things have been done, doesn't make it a good idea.

Shea Stadium Media Operator: I just don't need hear Blur that much... ever. Stop inundating with music. When Jose Reyes gets a hit, let us do the Jose chant, don't play Rock n' Roll, Part II. P.S., perhaps we should stop playing that song at sporting events altogether, I know it's fun, but Gary Glitter was allegedly part of a child pornography ring, and I am not sure giving him royalties is all that awesome.

We don't need singalongs. If I wanted to hear sketchy Italian guys singing badly there are about a billion karaoke bars in NYC for me to attend. Sometimes it's okay to let other teams have their traditions and invent our own. I love Sweet Caroline as much as the next guy, but that's a Boston thing. Also, white rally towels?! I know that's not your fault media lady (I have decided you are a woman, and your name is Joan. You have two sons, one's named Hank, and you live in Bayside. You also have a dog.) but still this is just totally wretched. White rally towels are a Philly thing, they are our closest rivals these days. They also happened to be the team we were playing against last night. It looks cool, but it's just the height of lame to steal.

So anyway y'all, I am looking forward to a good season of baseball, but for god sakes shape up, because thus far you've been pretty mediocre.

End rant.

Chris Matthews: Portrait of a Truly Odd Man (JM)

2008-04-10T14:02:00.002-04:00

In the New York Times Magazine this weekend Marc Leibovich has a nine page profile of Chris Matthews. Chris Matthews is a man who once referred to Barack Obama as Lawrence of Arabia, and that was a mild Matthews compliment. He is a fascinating man and this is one of the most fascinating psychological profiles of a media personality I have ever seen.

Matthews appears to be driving by a massive inferiority complex and an absolute love of politics. Which makes him more like most people I know than I would have imagined, but he is also something different. Sometimes it's deplorably different and sometimes laudably different, but always unique and interesting.

The best tidbit in this piece is that if NBC drops Matthews when his contact ends this year, he may run for Arlen Specter's seat in Pennsylvania. Could you even imagine those debates or that campaign. I actually think Chris Matthews for Senate would blow the craziness of Al Franken, Arnold Schwarzenegger and even Jesse Ventura straight out of the water.

Either way, do yourself a favor and read this profile. If Matthews were reviewing it he might say that is in many ways a portrait of a Shakespearian character, perhaps Falstaff, but with more wisdom and better looks. I might say it is a picture of man who is fascinating, you can't help but like a little and maybe can't help but feel a little sorry for.

Stossel the Apostle (JM)

2008-04-09T15:09:00.000-04:00

Small Victories for Tort Reform

Just who decided to let Stossel write for the Wall Street Journal? I am serious about this. This is just crazy. Stop letting this man think he’s a legitimate journalist.

By JOHN STOSSEL
April 4, 2008; Page A12

Foes of lawsuit abuse have been writing gleefully about the fall of Dickie Scruggs, Bill Lerach and Melvyn Weiss. All three lawyers are likely to spend time in jail for plotting to bribe a judge (Scruggs) or paying kickbacks (Lerach and Weiss).

Good riddance.

Alright, for the first time we agree. Corrupt bad lawyers deserve to be punished, let’s just stop here and call it a day.

Locking them up will stop them from further damaging America – at least for a few years. But it's a small victory for reformers.

I call shenanigans on the word “reformers”. Jane Addams=reformer, Ralph Nader=reformer, Martin Luther=reform, John Stossel=selfish jackass.

New members of the parasite circus will just step forward to take their place. And what these aggressive class-action and securities lawyers do legally is more damaging to America than the crimes that Scruggs, Lerach and Weiss committed. They broke laws to cheat other lawyers out of some loot, but at least that barely hurt the public.

Ye gads, let’s begin with “parasite circus”. What in the world does this even mean. I suppose I would like to see a “parasite circus” it might be an interesting adventure involving a shrinking ray and Rick Moranis. I imagine this is very similar to what I imagined a “flea market” to be as a kid. Also, class action and securities lawyers are not a distinct type of people. Some class action suits are totally legitimate, like the ones against tobacco and that one in the book a “Civil Action” (Yes, I am aware that those were pretty obvious or silly examples, but Stossel does not deserve intensive research).

An editorial in this newspaper justifiably mocked Lerach for declaring his lawbreaking a mere "foot fault" ("I stepped over the line," he said). But at least paying off plaintiffs honestly reflects how such lawyers get rich. Often, they are less "officers of the court seeking justice" than businessmen colluding with plaintiffs in a lucrative extortion business. Legal extortion. But still extortion. Companies pay the lawyers to go away even when it's unclear that they did anything wrong.

I wish I could add a .wav file to this post with me saying “Whaaaaaaaaaaat?” in an incredulously cartoonish way. Not yelling “What?!” in anger, but more of a long, drawn out, deep voiced, sarcastic confusion.

A lot, and I mean a lot, of these companies are simply guilty. Just calling it “extortion” doesn’t mean it’s simply blackmail. They are forced to pay for having committed actions that harmed people. Yes, the system is not perfect, but the hell if you think I am going to start feeling bad for companies as opposed to the many people who had their life cut short because of, say, Vioxx.

Once companies pay, it's logical that the plaintiff/partner who helped the lawyers enrich themselves should get a cut of that loot. That's a fairer deal than what typical plaintiffs in class actions get: coupons or a check for perhaps $1.26.

What I appreciate about John Stossel is that he never exaggerates or strawmans. Nothing but straight talk from the man so bold he doesn’t believe in global warming.

A federal judge will soon decide whether to award Lerach his cut of what may be the biggest class-action legal fee ever. Lerach extorted – I mean persuaded – J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and a Canadian bank to give $695 million to him and other lawyers who claimed the banks were culpable in the Enron debacle. On March 19, 2007 an appellate court ruled that the banks were not culpable. But so what? Fairness doesn't necessarily govern this game. The game is more about rounding up lots of complainants and using America's one-sided legal system to terrorize businesses into settling.

Yes, one appellate court rules that these banks weren’t culpable, thus they were not. Q.E.D. Why did these banks settle? Is it because they were pretty certain a jury might hit them hard with a judgment? Yes. Here’s the thing, there are problems with tort law, but again “Woe is Citigroup and JPM!” is just not going to fly. Better that corporation get hurt than the people injured by said corporations, the deck is already completely stacked in their favor, so when corporations settle you can be pretty sure that most of time it is because they’ve done something questionable.

Companies could fight and win, but that distracts managers from what they ought to be doing. And they might get a bad jury and lose the entire company. It's safer to settle.

Companies balance these risks, they will often offer nuisance payments, but if there is no merit to the charge they usually fight it. What is your solution? Get rid of lawsuits?

Our legal system invites lawyers to act like bullies. For "20/20" tonight, I report on a class-action lawyer who's suing his neighbor for smoking in her own apartment. Toxins are "being breathed every day by our 4-year-old," says Jonathan Selbin of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein. His frightened neighbor had the apartment manager seal off air ducts between the two apartments, but Mr. Selbin sued anyway, claiming smoke was in the hallway. Mr. Selbin's neighbor was unusually feisty in going to the media to fight back, at least for a while. But last night, she decided to settle. After all, Mr. Selbin had written her that he had a legal advantage, because he and his wife "are both lawyers, and both litigators, for whom the usual barriers to litigation are minimal." Right. Mr. Selbin wrote ABC, "I have recovered more than $2 billion in cash for consumers defrauded by companies. I am proud of what I do." He wouldn't tell us how much of the $2 billion he kept.

Way to plug your show there Stossel. Also cherry-picking stories is very very persuasive. Are you sure you couldn’t find a more frivolous lawsuit to profile?

What do we get from this kind of "private law enforcement"? Very little. James Copland of the Manhattan Institute points out, "The small, diversified investor is as likely to be a buyer as a seller and thus a payer in a class action settlement. The 'little guy' pays money to himself." Actually, it's worse than that: Little guys come out behind because the lawyers pocket so much.

Ahh, The Manhattan Institute, a place that promotes “economic choice” and “individual responsibility”, thus totally unbiased. Also I have no idea what in the world that above paragraph meant. Somehow, I think Stossel was trying to claim that the “little guy” was hurt by big business having to give these payouts. He doesn’t give any evidence, he just cites a vague study from a totally objective organization.

If securities class actions really deterred fraud, their high cost might be justified. But research from St. John's Law School Prof. Michael Perino shows that most of these lawsuits follow SEC investigations. The lawyers don't unearth frauds. They come in like vultures after the problem is already revealed. We pay for that.

Lawsuits aren’t supposed to unearth fraud, they deter fraud. I mean is this really that difficult of a concept. If I know that I can be hit with nearly unlimited legal penalties should I commit securities fraud I am less apt to take that risk. Financial experts are very good at risk calculation, if you take away the possibility of limitless penalties they will be able to game the system and determine when major fraud is worth the risk. This is very very bad.

Onerous as the legal fees are, the nastier cost is the loss of so many good things. Weiss's former firm got companies to pay $45 billion in damages. That's $45 billion that will not create new jobs or life-saving drugs.

Hah hah hah hah hah, this is the most disingenuous argument I have ever seen. I want people to just guess how much of that 45 billion would have been used to produce new jobs or drugs. Also in the Stossel world several suffering people would still be suffering with no compensation.

The fear also reduces options. After Dickie Scruggs filed his post-Katrina class action against insurance companies, State Farm, citing an "untenable legal environment," stopped insuring homes in Mississippi.

But having tons of options with no regulation or legal recourse is awesome. I can select between seven companies that can screw me at will. Yes, Mr. Stossel, may I please sign up to live in your Utopian society?

America needs judges willing to say "no" to legal bullies. America also needs the legal standard that works in most of the world: "loser pays." Without reform, the parasites will take away your money and your choices.

I am not even sure what Stossel is advocating for here. “Saying ‘no’”?! I mean, judges are free to throw out frivolous lawsuits. Are you just advocating to get rid of lawsuits altogether, I am confused. Why is this printed in the WSJ? Also, “loser pays” is a terrible system that deters poor people from suing companies and deters important class action suits from being filed. It’s just another statutory way to advantage the rich over the poor in the legal system. We already have a semblance of “loser pays”, judges and juries can award legal fees in the case of truly frivolous lawsuits. This is a much better system than a systematic rule that only advantages corporations and Stosselian crazies.

Why Do You Hate The Democratic Party So Much? (JM)

2008-04-09T14:11:00.003-04:00

Me: Alright Obama fans, I don't like you and you don't like me.

Generic Obama Fan (GOF): I like you.

Me: Well, I don't like you.

GOF: Maybe you'd like me if you got to know me?

Me: Alright, fine, we can get drinks on Thursday.

GOF: I can't, I have to post comments on a blog about what a terrible person Hillary is and why Obama should run with Chuck Hagel for president, talk about unity!

Me: You're not serious?

GOF: Of course I am, we want to bring American together. We are sick of political infighting.

Me: Ummm.... okay I mean I like Chuck Hagel just fine, much like I am a fan of Arlen Specter. In fact, by all accounts Chuck Hagel seems to have a pretty good sense of humor. Apparently he dresses up for Halloween every year. One year he went as Joe Biden, another John McCain and perhaps my favorite Colin Powell. I kind of wonder how he pulled that last one off... Anyway, other than on the war and immigration he is a Republican through and through. For instance, he doesn't believe in abortion rights, affirmative action, most forms of welfare or labor rights. He is a Republican, why in the world would we want our leader-in-waiting to be a Republican.

GOF: Because it will bring us all together and help us win the election.

Me: I don't know what that means. Maybe it's because you're a fiction character created by me and I don't believe in any of your arguments thus you're just sort making weird strawman claims, but I fail to see why this unifies us. It's not like Republican will start believing that we should nominate liberal judges to the Supreme Court, is it? Also winning is not an end to itself, there are better ways to win and a more complete victory is worth it.

GOF: You just don't get it, politics are changing.

Me: No, no, a million times no they are not. Yes, internet donations have changed the influence big money will have on elections, but Republicans are still Republicans and they won't start agreeing with us just because we nominate one of their own as Vice President. The truth is that Obama's politics of change is simply brilliant politics and, I assume, he is simply hoping to get a massive title wave of support and new Democratic mandate which he'll use push a liberal agenda. Unity is for the losers, they can unify under our flag.

GOF: You're a bitter cynic.

Me: It's true. And you're the worst character ever.

GOF: I know.

The Decline of News and Knowledge (JM)

2008-04-09T11:02:00.003-04:00

Do we read the news to be more informed or to feel more correct? Tony Blankley, loveable curmudgeon or pompous ass depending on your perspective (for instance, if you have a correct perspective you'd be more inclined towards the latter), has a fairly interesting op-ed piece this week. He brings forth two points, both ostensibly about how we have totally unreliable information about the events in Basra, Iraq this previous week and how that's played out rhetorically amongst this country's talking heads and politicos.

Rather than spend much time on details (you can read the column for that) let's discuss his major points. First, he claims that news organizations are slowly but surely getting rid of their incredibly expensive news gathering mechanism. CBS, for instance, is talking about farming out its investigative journalism to CNN's newswire. This type of change, Blankley argues, has lead to an increase in spin and opinion over the legitimate reporting of news. It's an interesting take, one I think has an aire of truth about it, but seems to be missing one bigger part of the picture. Yes, traditional news gathering organizations are falling apart. However, with the rise of the internet community amateur and primary source reporting has gone up about a million fold. We see clips from speeches throughout the country, transcripts of events to which we would never have had access in the past.

The real concern is that as news has been decentralized we face two very real consequences: a) much journalism is being done by people simply not trained to actually do journalism; b) traditional media outlets have trouble competing and no longer have critical resources. As for the first of these issues, I think it is largely a misguided notion. Sites like Talking Points Memo are an excellent (and occasionally my primary) source for news. There is a sense of ethics and legitimacy there that rivals any news organization. However, there is another side to this coin, certain Kos diarists, MyDD posters, rightwing nutbars and people of many different stripes will often post stories of questionable legitimacy or with very obvious spin. One of the values of big corporate news organizations is that they have a lot to lose when they get something wrong. By taking some semblance of risk with every story they publish it helps guarantee a high bar of accuracy. We gain a lot by having a lot of information out in the public sphere, but that information is often set loose on a sea of informational chaos leaving readers with little or no way to judge the merits of these stories. This brings us directly to Blankley's second point: people use this vague information to support their preconditioned ideology either way, instead of letting fact dictate ideology.

Now I want to avoid an epistemological debate here, because my beliefs about knowledge are bit off the beaten path. For instance, I don't think there's any such things as real truth, but all knowledge is conditioned and created by ideology, which in and of itself is conditioned and created by our social and material surroundings. Anyhoo, let's pretend real things are real. I think Blankley makes a small point in the search of a larger point. With this scattershot news gathering system, people tend to take news and spin it how they want. Sure. But the bigger problem is that news has become a part of an insidious division of labor and specialization that will make garnering anything that resembles the truth harder and harder. No longer are there news organization, but conservative news organization and liberal news organizations. The division has gone even further on the internets, for instance I can rarely bring myself to read DailyKos anymore because of how blatantly they are in the tank for Obama (I am sure there are sites, like MyDD, that have the same problem in reverse). At the point where news is marketed to segments of the population we are not just operating on different ideologies, but different sets of premises and facts.

The challenge of have a national dialogue between people of different ideologies is daunting. The challenge of have a national dialogue between people who ostensibly live in different factual realities is insurmountable. This is one of the primary reasons I have often been so cynical about Obama's claim that he can unify America. In becoming more connected we have become more segregated than ever before. Sure I can talk to almost anyone I want over the internet, but we believe different things about the world and learn different facts, the reality we see is so easily the reality we want to see that we can avoid ever having to question our beliefs so longer as we are careful. The decline of big news has some positives, but in the end it is more a decline of a common community. Sure, the world may be flat, but it's just made it easier for us to see all the people in the world we agree with and go huddle up with them for warmth.

Disgrace (JM)

2008-04-08T18:38:00.004-04:00

Books for me are often metaphorical "one-night stands", I take what I can from the book and move on to the next one (BTW this is not an implicit endorsement of "one-night stands", if you prefer a more savory and nerdy analogy feel free to think of the Borg instead; Leon Uris will be assimilated.) However, I am having a good deal of trouble letting Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee, go. The unfortunate thing about books, unlike relationships, is that even when you find the right fit you don't really have a choice about continuing the relationship. Books are transient.

Disgrace chronicles Prof. David Lurie's fall from a position as an esteemed literary academic, in Capetown, South Africa, after he is caught sleeping with one of his students. He then retires to a farm owned by his daughter. It is the story of his relationship with his daughter, society and life. It is an once powerful and yet strangely distant and removed.

There is no one particular thing that struck me about Disgrace. It's writing is both rigorous and tense, Coetzee has a felicity of expression that is remarkable, especially given the moralistic undertones of his writing. When an author is writing a "message" often the writing itself begins to lack (see Ayn Rand, but then her message was also lacking). However, Coetzee is an excellent communicator and thus can write novels substantial shorter than many of his compatriots, yet create worlds far greater.

His characters are strong, actually his male characters are strong. His female characters seem awfully one dimensional, the best of them showing no more life than their role in reflecting David Lurie's life and personality. However, I am not sure this was unintentional. I am not sure this didn't roll in to the greater tragedy of the book. Ultimately we see Lurie interact with and try to understand many people around him, from his young student to his daughter to a local native farmer. Throughout we see how vibrant and thoughtful Lurie can be, while he fails to persuade any of these other characters of his correctness and he ultimately fails to either understand them or protect them as they need protecting.

It's a tricky thing to write a book about a living being amongst characters. It requires a careful balance between the writer and reader, letting them in on the little secret while not destroying the play. Coetzee does this admirably, all the time we see through Lurie's eyes and mind, but we are always aware that something greater is missing, some lack of perspective and empathy.

Its sharp effect lies in its ability to unmask a very painful part of reality. Life is, in many ways, just like this sort of novel. To each and everyone of us all other people are no more than a cast of characters. This is not to be simple or solipsistic, nor does it imply that others have no actual worth to people. Rather, it is simple true that the people we know, even the people most close to us, are in our minds a collections of the things we know and think about them. We are constantly creating and recreating the people we know and love. Coetzee, in showing us the relationship between Lurie and his daughter plays with this notion at its extremes.

I suppose that this does not have to be a truly sad realization. It makes our realities rather less static and allows for us grow with the people we know and change. But there is something deeply untethering about such an idea. If none of us are any one thing, but rather the many different perceptions of us and our roles in those peoples' lives, we are less apart of a community. If a community is a set of shared values and expectations, but our individual identities are nothing more than shifting and ethereal, we are rather more alone than we think.

So, anyway, read Disgrace or don't if you like certain things such as being happy.

Mark Penn (Dennis)

2008-04-07T18:44:00.011-04:00

Mark Penn, slithering Clinton strategist, exited the campaign today at age 53.

The Clinton campaign, like many defeated superpowers, appears to have lost this war of a campaign without ever losing a major battle. About a year ago today, the hosts of Clinton stood gleaming in the plains of Iowa and New Hamshire. At the front was Clinton herself, with the national political machine built up by herself and her husband over fifteen years as national figures in her party. At her side was Mark Penn, perhaps her closest campaign adviser, and the chief architect of her strategy.

The punditocracy depicted him then as a kind of evil genius, a Democratic version of Karl Rove, who would outflank and crush the pathetic forces of other Democrats. The other campaigns, they calculated, could not withstand the pure brute force of the Hillary divisions with their limitless funding and unprecedented cache (for a non incumbent). Other campaign advisers might not be cynical and calculating enough to exploit these innate advantages to their fullest extent, but Mark Penn was just the type to keep his candidate's eye fully focused on gaining the nomination and not on airy concepts like fairness.

It was at first unclear whether Mark Penn lived up to the tales the press spun, but he always seemed to exceed everyone's worst expectations. While it is certainly true that all campaigns borrow some from Machiavelli, none seemed more open and comfortable with that fact than the Clinton campaign under Penn.* On a political talk show he casually brought up Obama's use of cocaine, and smilingly denied that he had any ill intent. In a time when other candidates were talking about the promise of unity and the appeal of someone who fought for the poor, Penn was happy to let us know that he believed in identifying certain swing segments of the electorate and crafting policies to target them. It may not have been official Clinton gospel, but when voters saw a thousand tax deductions for a thousand different groups in the Clinton plans, Penn's previous statements left little doubt as to the purpose of the proposed policies.

At first the tactics seemed to work, and Clinton was far ahead in every poll, but a snowy caucus in Iowa in January put an end to Penn's initial strategy. Commanders at the head of impressive armies at times imagine themselves invincible and are able to be drawn into battles where they have a disadvantage. For Penn and team Clinton, Iowa was one of those battles. Had Clinton run as a normal candidate competing for the nomination, Clinton could have skipped Iowa, as John McCain and Bill Clinton had, and put all the emphasis on New Hamshire, where they had and advantage.

But it was not to be, they badly exposed themselves in a state where it was easy for less entrenched campaigns to organize quickly. They embarrassed themselves by somehow being the "inevitable" candidate and losing. They then quickly found themselves in an even fight for the nomination.

Penn (and Clinton) did not take this defeat as a chance to recalibrate their strategy. Amazingly, they believed that an even more hard edged campaign was needed. This determination alienated African Americans (who they had previously been winning) and deprived them of any chance of building an unstoppable coalition that would win the vast majority of primary states. They won some battles and they lost others, but they were never able to deliver the crushing blow they needed, especially on Super Tuesday where they had been counting to win an overwhelming victory.

It was about that time that Penn's menacing air became almost comical, like the failed assistant of a villain in a comedy. His tactics became so transparent and guileless that they ceased to be threatening. Penn himself became to perfect bogeyman for Obama supporters to bring up even when legitimate attacks were lobbed at their candidate. The final straw for Penn was his negotiating with a foreign government concerning a trade deal his candidate supposedly opposed. It was the sort of cartoonish villainy that eventually rendered Penn a caricature of himself, and made it necessary for him to shuffle off the scene as a visible campaign operative. I suspect this is the last time a campaign will employ him in such a capacity.

*With the possible exception of our dear friend Mittens.

RIP MLK (Dennis)

2008-04-04T23:30:00.002-04:00

Here are the poignant closing moments of the last speech Martin Luther King gave before being gunned down 40 years ago, April 4, 1968:

An Important Question (JM)

2008-04-03T23:20:00.002-04:00

Does anyone think that the Berenstain Bears ever mauled anyone? I think we have a right to know.

Random Facts and Apologies (JM)

2008-04-03T16:19:00.002-04:00

Hey all, mostly I just wanted to apologize for a lack of consistent updates over the past few days. It's been a slow news week combined with a substantial amount of personal and professional life tumult. We'll be up and rolling again soon. There are two longer pieces in the works, one on the pitfalls of home schooling, the other in defense of the medium of television. Both a guaranteed good time.

Now I promised you random facts, so here they are: Today is Amanda Bynes' birthday, it is also Jennie Garth's birthday. For those of you who are fans of What I Like About You, and I expect all of you are, you'll realize that it is weird that both co-stars, who played younger and older sister respectively, are born on the same day. Also, former Georgia crazy, Rep. Bob Barr is running for President on the Libertarian ticket. It is difficult to find someone who cares. But look I mentioned Jennie Garth and Bob Barr in the same paragraph, two points for me. Additional points for mentioning 90210 or its cast members two posts in a row.

Hamilton's Legacy (Dennis)

2008-04-02T22:07:00.003-04:00

I just finished Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. It was an excellent book, and I would certainly recommend reading it if you are either interested in the early history of the United States or if you have little knowledge of said early history. Hamilton's life has made me reflect on two issues regarding the early history of the United States and its effect on us today.

On the economy, Hamilton was an unquestioned visionary. While Adam Smith and many economists of the day said that America should focus on agriculture given its large tracts of land, Hamilton saw a different destiny. America, he thought, would be a place where commerce would enrich the country, where industry would flourish, and where the opportunities created by both would attract immigrants from Europe to build the population and settle the continent.

He didn't just predict it, though; he crafted policy and institutions that made it possible. The Bank of the United States was his idea, and he outlined the world's first infant industry strategy to encourage what he, with his 18th century vocabulary, called "manufactures." Perhaps most importantly he bound the country together in a single financial and economic system through his assumption of state debts by the federal government, and through his overall promotion of a stronger federal branch of government.

While reading the book, I couldn't help but wonder where we would be without Hamilton. Was our eventual development inevitable? Were our natural advantages so great that we were destined to develop industry so quickly? Certainly, we would not have so quickly become an industrial nation, and that time lost would have changed the country's history.

But I think a more concrete point worth noting is that, well, Alexander Hamilton was one of those finance ministers who definitely wouldn't have gotten a loan from the IMF. I know that there is much theory to back up the proposition that countries develop best when allowed to exploit their comparative advantage, but I think the fact that virtually every industrialized country, from the United States all the way to Korea and Japan, became what it was today in part because of an infant industry strategy.

I know the world is vastly different than it was when Hamilton was forming his plans, but even today one of the more successful developing countries, China, is using a modified version of the Hamiltonian strategy to succeed rather than the IMF model. Given this information, is it really wise to pursue such a high handed approach toward developing countries when it comes to opening up their markets? Shouldn't we allow that, at least some of the time, the free trade and free capital market strategy just doesn't work for some countries? (For an excellent discussion of this, I suggest Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz.)

As much of a visionary as Hamilton was on the economy, the book convinced me, despite the pro-Hamilton leaning of the author (no criticism on Chernow, once you get to know a subject so intimately, it is hard to not feel sympathy for them), that it was a good thing that he never became president and that his faction eventually lost to the Jefferson's in 1800.

Hamilton certainly comes across as one of the more principled characters in early American history, and he sincerely believed in a republican form of government. However, he had a deep distrust in democracy, and seemed perfectly willing, once things began to move against him, to use un-democratic means, like the Alien and Sedition Acts, to quash the "mob." His disregard for public opinion (he was faithful to his beliefs in a way that was admirable but stubborn) combined with that willingness, might have led to a civil war years before the country had become powerful enough to endure it, and before the North had gained an insurmountable advantage over the South. Even worse, he may have enshrined greater executive powers that, while good when entrusted to Washington and Hamilton, would be totally ruinous when given to crass men like Aaron Burr or Richard Nixon.

90210 Spinoff Spectacular!!! (JM)

2008-04-02T12:18:00.002-04:00

I just cannot even conceive of how this slipped past me. I honestly just may have rollback my social calendar and spend more time on the internet, because my god, I did not know that producer Rob Thomas (of Veronica Mars fame) has now penned the pilot of a new 90210 spinoff. I am amazed, astounded and astonished all at the same time. They just casted their first person and there is talk of several old characters reappearing. Almost assuredly Tori Spelling has nothing better to do. I, for one, am simply excited that we'll be returning to The Peach Pit next fall.

(Hat tip: Pink Is The New Blog)

The Perils of Corporate Sponsorship (JM)

2008-04-01T16:45:00.003-04:00

So some exciting news and some bad news. AOTG has received corporate sponsorship from a consortium that includes American Apparel. This is great because it will allow us to have more resources for blogging and to do more full scale research. However, posting will be lighter as the corporate communications department has to vett our posts to make sure they are appropriate.

We don't expect too much in the way of censorship. In fact, in the next few weeks I have a pretty interesting post on the controversial history of cotton to share with y'all. So please forgive the slower posting as we get adjusted to this new scenario. We look forward to what should be a great month here at AOTG.

Maureen Dowd is Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (JM)

2008-03-31T13:59:00.001-04:00

Surrender Already, Dorothy

Ooh! I am excited, this is already a bad and somewhat surprising metaphor. I mean maybe there’s a chance Maureen hasn’t seen The Wizard of Oz, but probably not since I am pretty sure watching movies is the extent of her research, but Dorothy, you know, wins in the end. Also I would have expect a Wicked Witch of the West reference instead from Maureen, but Dorothy… fine… I guess that makes Maureen the Wicked Witch… in which case get me a bucket of water.

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

It’s all about the magic, really.

Ummmmmm…. I can think of several things it is about. None of them are “the magic”. Magic, I believe falls well behind competence in foreign policy and perhaps directly after “the Benjamins”. In fact, strike that, reverse it.

And whether we can take a flier on this skinny guy with the strange name and braided ancestry to help us get it back.

Whoa! Time out. Does anyone else think the phrase “braided ancestry” is just a tinsy bit racist. And by “tinsy” I mean a lot and by “racist” I mean, get your coat.

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a strong supporter of the United States, recently observed that President Bush has done such a number on our image in the world that no one will be able to restore the luster.

“I think the magic is over,” he said.

Well gee willikers, the magic is over. The French foreign minister thinks so? Well, the French would never prognosticate the doom of U.S. hegemony without being absolutely sure of it. Well, I am just going to write my new book The Rise of Multilateral World, and sit back and wait for the royalties.

Pas si vite, mon vieux. In terms of style, the Obamas could give Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a run for her euros. And at least Obama is not in a fantasy world on Iraq, as W. and John McCain are, insisting it’s improving while we see it exploding.

“God people, paragraphs aren’t boxes where one thought actually follows another thought. We live in a postmodern world people! Just because the first sentence is nonsensical point about vapid topic A doesn’t me the second sentence has to be about those same things. Look, I mentioned the same people twice. I think that’s enough, don’t you?” –Maureen Dowd

Many voters decided last week to stick with Obama despite his less-than-convincing explanations about the Rev. Wright — even as many soured on Hillary, casting her as Lady Voldemort.

Alright, I am all for gratuitous Harry Potter references you poor man’s Rita Skeeter, but this is just nonsense. Lady Voldemort?! Why no go with Lady MacBeth, a more analogous character went trying to attack Hillary and one that actually existed. I am also pretty sure no one but Dennis really believe she is trying to tear her own soul in to pieces by killing people in order to gain immortality. Maybe power, but not immortality.

Democrats are coming around to the point Jay Rockefeller made 10 days ago after introducing Obama in West Virginia: “Democrats always make a mistake by nominating people who know everything on earth there is to know about public policy. I introduced both Al Gore and John Kerry at their rallies. They knew all the policies, but people didn’t connect with them. You don’t get elected president if people don’t like you.”

Ohh awesome! That’s exactly the attitude I like to hear from the Democratic party. Screw it, the people don’t want some who knows what’s going on, let’s get someone likeable elected. That is both condescending and just awful. Thank you Sen. Jay “Let’s Compromise Everything Because the Only Thing That Matters Is That The Name Democrat Comes After The President” Rockefeller, thank you so very much.

Also, not to get too George Carlin here, but how could Jay Rockefella have said that “after” introducing Obama. It seems like Obama would have been talking at the time, and that would just be rude.

Despite Bill Clinton’s saying it was “a bunch of bull” that his wife should drop out, Democrats are trying to sneak up on Hillary, throw a burlap sack over her head, carry her off the field and stick her in a Saddam spider hole until after the Denver convention.

Enjoy President McCain once you alienate a good portion of the base suckers… Seriously, if they push Hillary out before she is ready to go every single Dorothy Zbornak in the Democratic Party is voting for John McCain. P.S. Blanche onced dated McCain, and it was steamy.

One Obama adviser moaned that the race was “beginning to feel like a hostage crisis” and would probably go on for another month to six weeks. And Obama said that the “God, when will this be over?” primary season was like “a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long.”

Aww… poor Obama, democracy just a bit too long for you. No wonder you didn’t want to be trouble with Florida and Michigan voting again, gets in the way of your schedule.

Hillary sunnily riposted that she likes long movies. Her favorite as a girl was “The Wizard of Oz,” so surely she spots the “Surrender Dorothy” sign in the sky and the bad portent of the ladies of “The View” burbling to Obama about how sexy he is.

“Ladies of ‘The View’”=modern day equivalent of reading bird entrails.

But who knows? Obama and Bob Casey talking March Madness to the patrons of Sharky’s sports cafe in Latrobe, Pa., on Friday night seemed demographically clever. But it is always when Hillary is pushed back by the boys that women help hoist her up.

Obama, like the preternaturally gifted young heroes in mythical tales, is still learning to channel his force. He can ensorcell when he has to, and he has viral appeal. Who else could alchemize a nuanced 40-minute speech on race into must-see YouTube viewing for 20-year-olds?

Yes we get it. He is Luke Skywalker. He is Garion. He is Achilles. Blah, blah, blah…

But at several crucial points in the last year, he held back when he should have poured on, leaving his nemesis around to damage him further.

Obama has social engineering plans as ambitious, in their own way, as the Bush administration’s failed social engineering plans to change the psyche of America and the Middle East.

Ambitiously vague. Social engineer is largely insane and never works. Change is about time and generational overhauls, not talking. But screw it, let’s elect Obama, listen to Kermit sing, “It’s Not Easy Being Green” and watch Bill Frist and Nancy Pelosi wander down the street arm in arm exchanging long-protein strands. Might I add, don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.

“I think the president needs to use the bully pulpit to change our culture,” he said Thursday, talking energy at a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Manhattan. “We are a wasteful culture. It’s always been that way because of our history. We do everything big.”

He wants to make government “cool” again. He wants to banish the red-blue culture of conflict on TV and in Washington. And he wants to make the country healthier, thinner and smarter. “I want our students learning art and music and science and poetry,” he says, in a crowd-pleasing line.

AGGGGGGH! Seriously, do ANY of you really believe this can happen. Let’s all sit down and seriously think about what this means. Right now, Obama is going to appoint someone to the Supreme Court, do you really think he is going to convince the pro-life public that it’s really okay to be pro-choice? Do you really think that Americans who love the second amendment will suddenly stop (though to be fair no one seems to want to limit gun usage anymore, we lost that battle. Why did we lose it? It was the right wing’s rhetoric of unity and hope, right? No it was their insanely entrenched, unyielding, unmoving position. Good luck making government “cool” again*, I can’t wait.

Using his preacher voice, he urged a black audience in Beaumont, Tex., to be better parents, to put away chips and cold Popeyes for breakfast, and to turn off the TV and video games. “Buy a little desk or put that child at the kitchen table,” he instructed. “Watch them do their homework.”

It’s not certain that Obama could bring about an American renaissance. As the L.A. entertainment lawyer Nancy McCullough, who was on the Harvard Law Review with Obama, told Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, he tended to wallow in words. She said he was so intent on letting everyone have a say that “I actually would have been happier for him to say sometimes, ‘This is how we’re doing this, and shut up!’ ”

Ooh what a good source. I asked Chip, a guy Maureen Dowd went to kindergarten with, what he thought of Maureen. He said, “She was great, teachers would ask math problems and she would reference some episode of Scooby Doo she watched last night.”

The pollster Peter Hart says the central questions are: “Is Hillary honest?” and “Is Obama safe?”

Her foreign affairs plumping-up has hurt her, while his exotic and unorthodox narrative stirs doubt.

Why, why is this what people don’t like about Obama. This doesn’t bother me even slightly. There are soooooooo many good reasons to be wary of Barack Obama. This is not at all one of them.

“If I were to produce a spot for Obama,” Hart said, “I would take 100 photographs of everything that he does with his children and wife — that could range from Halloween to a picnic to everything we identify with as part of American life — so people could say, ‘I relate to that, I understand it.’ ”

“Boy, pollsters give great strategic advise”, said Mark Penn.

But, for now, Obama might want to leave the Trinity church photos out of the montage.

Ooh… score.

*I assume by “again” Maureen is referring to the incredibly hip administration of Rutherford B. Hayes. He used to throw parties that would last three days. Samuel Tilden was caught doing opium from the navel of a burlesque house girl. Carazzzzzy!

The Pinnacle of My Life (JM)

2008-03-31T01:29:00.002-04:00

Is pretty much this:

That is all.

Yaaaaaagggggggh!!! (JM)

2008-03-30T23:08:00.002-04:00

So when you read this title I want you to picture Yosemite Sam. I want you to picture that Bugs Bunny has somehow tricked Sam in to accidentally setting himself on fire. Further to the point, I want you to picture the fire building slowly, while Sam fails to realize that this fire exists. Finally, I want you to picture Sam's sudden realization that he is on fire, followed by the scream of "Yaaaaaagggggggh!!!" as he jumps, ass-first, in to the punch bowl in order to extinguish said flame.

So the feeling of that moment is precisely how every single minute of the movie The Bank Job felt. At this point I feel I must make clear that I did not choose to see this movie willingly. Dennis was in town for this weekend (which is also why there have been no updates in a while) and we had a couple of hours before his train left. This was literally the only thing playing at the time, we had no idea what it was about but the title suggested some sort of crime movie, so we figured it couldn't be so terrible. Anyhoo, as we were riding up the escalator to the theater I noticed the poster for The Bank Job and noticed a picture of Jason Statham, that was my first Yosemite moment. I turned to Dennis and whispered, "The apocalypse is nigh...", he shrugged it off and went onward like David in to the lion's den. Sigh...

Anyway, this was a truly, terrible, vapid, horrible crime movie based loosely on a true story, but seemed to have the same basic plot as Small Time Crooks but with more violence and less class-warfare commentary (but like all good films still had a secret hidden amount of fine class-warfare). The action was totally uninteresting, the twists quite predictable and the acting on par with an average performance of Andrew Koenig (for those not in the know, TV's Boner from Growing Pains).* This was a totally dreadful and execrable movie thats single enjoyable moment was a cameo by Lord Mountbatten. Anyway, in short please, please for the love of God, don't see this, unless I don't like you in which case please see this film, immediately.

*I kid, Richard Stabone is one of the finest characters ever created. He is actually number 42, right in front of Rastignac and directly behind Stone Phillips.

An Open Letter to Obama Supporters (JM)

2008-03-28T13:52:00.001-04:00

It’s over. We Clinton supporters know this, because most of us are pretty smart. We get that Obama is going to be the nominee and the truth is that, for the most part, we’re okay with this. Barack Obama is a smart man with good advisors who clearly has a talent for politics. So yes, we’ll live, but the ball is totally in your court now.

What I mean by this is that polls have shown almost 28 percent of Hillary’s Democratic supporters are ready to peel off and vote for John McCain. This is obviously insane and those numbers will decrease, but how much they decrease is entirely up to you. So with that in mind as a fairly cerebral Clinton supporter let me give you some advice on how to not alienate former supporters of Hillary.

1. Don’t gloat: Seriously, I swear if I see any Facebook statuses, away messages or get any e-mails proclaiming how happy you are that Hillary is gone or the Saint Barack of Assisi has been anointed I will be far more likely to vote McCain. Your prize is that you get to have Barack Obama is the next president, you don’t get anything else. Remember, most of us simply don’t agree with you that Hillary is a terrible person or that Obama was the better candidate. Just because there are more of you doesn’t prove you’re right or more wise. So cut the crap and attack McCain.

2. Quit it with the pep rally crap: Most of us are glad we are no longer in high school. We don’t need to yell out, “Yes we can!” or hear that “We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.” It is silly and comports to the exact sort of image that the McCain people will use to attack Obama in the general. I am happy if Barack Obama makes you feel good, but keep it on the inside or make arguments about policy and politics. I am fine with these, there are many good ones. For instance, I hear somewhere that John McCain knows next to nothing about the economy and that he’s eleventy billion years old. A lot of us don’t want to be part of a movement, we want to be part of a party with a candidate. Obama hasn’t changed the way politics is done, he’s politics as usual with a lot of charm. Start acting that way, because we’re definitely not going to get swept up and if you want us aboard (and you need us) stop with the alienating, weird behavior.

3. Stop equating McCain with Bush: This is a generalist thing I suppose, but it seems like one of Obama’s main assaults on McCain will be equating him with Bush. He’s not Bush, though he is a bit of a war-mongerer he eminently more practical. Actually see David Brooks column for some good distinctions in terms of foreign policy. He is also way more likable and a war hero. The fact is though, if you’re going to make him in to Bush III and he simply proves he isn’t, it’s game over. Personality and image is sadly what politics has been about this election cycle, but it won’t win against McCain. Issues and character can and will, attack McCain, don’t attack by analogy.

So in sum, I still think this is a mistake, but you win. Now act like real winners and bring together the party instead of enjoying what will assured by a Pyrrhic victory if you continue with this nonsense.

Things Just Too Insane to Be True (JM)

2008-03-27T13:40:00.002-04:00

Hey there Jewish parents, proud your kid's interning on the Hill this summer? Maybe they've got a nice summer job at an i-bank? Perhaps they're paralegaling Wachtell? Wellity, wellity, impressive, but not that impressive. You see, 22 year old Efraim Diveroli has an awesome company named AEY, they were given a 300 million dollar defense contract to supply our troops in Afghanistan with arms.

It's not like this is a smaller branch of some corporation his dad owns or anything, according to Paul Kiel over at TPM (via NYT reporting) it is run out of an unmarked building somewhere in Miami. Unsurprisingly, the quality of materials they shipped to Afghanistan were less than inspiring. For instance, one shipment was apparently Albanian cartridges from 1950. When hearing about this, John McCain probably though that 1950s military technology was a bit too cutting edge and wondered aloud, "Why we couldn't just use catapults and trebuchets, like in a normal siege."

Anyway, I am not sure what I am more impressed with, the fact that this just seems totally banal with the administration or that even for Team Bush this seems pretty weird. Seriously, where's the benefit here, I mean I could understand horrible corporate corruption, but these are 22 year old kids and generally they kind of like the military. I guess they just ran out of money padding Halliburton's profit margins, so they went to the BJ's wholesale club for arms.

But honestly, this is just totally enraging. Securing Afghanistan is clearly one of the top priorities we have in the international arena. In the long run an unstable Afghani state might be even worse than instability in Iraq. Yet here we are, seven years later, paying 22 year olds millions of dollars to purchase arms from ALBANIA to give to our troops. This isn't America, this isn't even Mexico...

Also, just a final addendum, how is this filed only under the Asia Pacific desk at the NYT. Why would a story of this seeming importance be buried. I agree that the election is important, but it feels like Bush is just running out the clock and getting away with it. I think there are a lot of interesting (you know interesting as in, "she's really nice and has a really interesting facial deformity that I am sure you'll find unique") choices being made by major newspapers these days. Ones that continually affirm my stance of getting news only from the internet and listening to people yelling outside my apartment.

McCampaign Promises (JM)

2008-03-27T11:08:00.000-04:00

It’s my birthday, therefore I have decided that it is perfectly acceptable to indulge myself. Thus all morning, while working, I have in passing listed every issue on the McCain campaign roster. So without further ado, McCain for President Campaign Promises:

1) A nickel’s allowance for every kid under 12; good, hard work in a cannery for those over 12.

2) A cure for polio.

3) Government investment in building the first ever steam-based rocketship.

4) Werther’s Original subsidies.

5) Wilford Brimley, Postmaster General.

6) 5 PM=mandatory Wheel of Fortune; 6 PM=bedtime.

7) More cod liver oil; Less of those frightening automatic doors at supermarkets.

8) Save the Dauphin!

9) A promise to fight the Kaiser to the ends of the Earth (which is flat) for sinking the Lusitania.

10) A remake of Encino Man, starring the incomparable Barbara Mandrell.

11) Where’d I put that damned remote?

12) Let anyone who wants in to America, in and then bomb the rest.

13) A commission to determine new synonyms for the word “crotchety” because the “crotch” part kind of makes us feel uncomfortable (much like Daniel Finkelstein and his “youth bulge”.

14) New flag colors: argyle.

15) A promise to solve our energy crisis by investing in alternative energy, like coal and lumber.

Alright, this is really just about enough of this nonsense. It’s not even particularly funny, but really when it comes to things like this does it matter. Let’s just all revel in the fact that John McCain is about 987 years old, is crazy militarist and knows almost nothing about economics. Also, you may not laugh now, but when 47 year old English teacher Edna Johnston of Des Moines, IA who lives mainly with her cats and pretty friendly television from 1989 forwards this to her 279 closest friends and then your Uncle Lenny gets it and forwards it to you with the subject line RE: FUNNY JOKE, well then who will be laughing then…

Before the Shroud (Dennis)

2008-03-26T21:26:00.007-04:00

I am a lover of history and have the propensity to feel events that happened far in the past with the emotional immediacy of today. So, with all the discussion of the upcoming Olympics in China and the various controversies surrounding it, I felt drawn back to the 1936 games in Berlin, Nazi Germany to get some understanding of the situation today.

The 1936 Games were one of those events in history that makes you think that history is not a random sequence of events, but a novel written by a brilliant celestial author. Because if there was ever a perfect prologue to the tragedies that ensued over the next decade, the Games of the 11th Olympiad was it. There we saw the seemingly normal and even triumphant Olympics overshadowed by strong hints of the darkness to come.

There was the obvious ominous foreshadowing there for anyone to see. First was the restrictions placed on Jews, gypsies and other minorities that barred them from competing in the Olympics for Germany. For some reason, whenever I read a retelling of the history of the Third Reich, it is these restrictions in those Olympics that stick out at me over all of the other pre-Holocaust actions of Germany against various minority groups. I suppose it is because, more than employment restrictions and legal segregation, it hints at Germany's ultimate intent with regards to these people. Sure, in the United States we denied a lot of rights to African Americans, we placed a ton of obstacles in their way, but I don't believe, by that point in our history, there was a campaign to erase African Americans from our national story. The government held a racist view of them, but sill recognized them as Americans. What Nazi Germany was saying was “it is not possible to view you as Germans.” When it becomes clear to a government that a group doesn't have a place in society, there is only one way to deal with that group: to get rid of them.

This chilling realization of the path on which Germany was headed coupled with the realization of where the world was headed. The German acts barring Jews and others from competing were clear violations of the spirit of the Olympics, but despite this, the world did nothing. Only one country (Ireland) boycotted the Olympics, and even worse, it seemed that the world wasn't willing to stand up for those being oppressed in any way at all. This same pattern would, of course, be repeated in the coming years. Perhaps it was in those Olympics that Hitler learned that despite the wailing his actions could cause, the western world was far too weak willed to actually do anything about it.

He was able to get what he wanted, a dramatic public relations coup, without giving up his essential principles of anti-Semitism and fascism. Few realize that it was here that the Nazis got their reputation as being efficient administrators, which is a myth (they were actually terrible at running the government) that hangs around to this day. Hitler himself gained the equally false reputation of being an intimidating, intelligent, and effective statesman, so that while he was threatening the world, people remembered this image of Hitler rather than the ridiculous thug that he was.

So what lessons can we learn from this? Well, first, I think its useful to consider Mark Twain's words: “History doesn't repeat itself; at best it sometimes rhymes.” Yes China and Nazi Germany are both oppressive governments, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that the two are exactly analogous. Those who are saying so forget how bad Nazi Germany was in the 1930s, not only absolutely, but relative to where it had been. Germany in the 1920s had been an extremely open and free society, Berlin in particular was considered one of the great centers of culture in the world. Its transfer from the open 1920s to the repressive 30s was breathtaking, and it was rapidly stepping deeper into darkness at the time of the Olympics. Contrast that with China, which, while certainly oppressive, has been relatively stable in its level of oppressiveness over the past 20 years, and has even improved over the Mao Cultural Revolution years. The danger of Nazi Germany going over the edge was much greater than the danger of China somehow going over the edge now.

Another difference (not really relevant to how we should react, but perhaps relevant to how much you should worry) is the image of the country coming out of these games. As I said before, Germany's 1936 games were an unqualified success for Germany. The grandness with which Germany put on the games was unparalleled in the history of the Olympics. There was even a propaganda documentary called Olympia (from the same people who brought you Triumph of the Will) which spectacularly portrayed the Olympics to the rest of the world, and was so groundbreaking that it is said that those who film athletics continue to use techniques invented in that documentary. China, on the other hand, appears at this point to be making a fool of itself on many levels with its pollution and hastily constructed venues. With any luck, we'll get to hear a ton of embarrassing stories about China between now and the summer.

So how should we respond? I do agree with Jon that some form of protest at the games would be the most effective way to get the right message across. I'm not in agreement with those who say we should boycott for many reasons, but the snarkiest one I can think of is that I can't stand people who call on others (athletes) to sacrifice tremendously for this cause when most of us have bought at least one product this week that started its journey to our shelves in China.