In Los Angeles yesterday, the scenes were right out of a movie about the Great Depression 75 years ago--long lines of anxious depositors clamoring to get their money out of failing banks.
The panic was set off by news that the parent of Countrywide Bank, the biggest home-loan company in the nation, was caught in the current credit crunch and might be forced to file for bankruptcy. Despite reassurances to the contrary, crowds overwhelmed branch offices to the point that staff members were serving coffee to long waiting lines and taking names of people, asking them to come back later.
In the black-and-white movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart uses his honeymoon money to calm panicky depositors and stay solvent. Things are different today. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Countrywide Chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo recently exercised options and then sold 672,000 shares of company stock, at a profit of almost $13 million.
With individual accounts insured by the FDIC for up to $100,000, there is less cause for worry today. But many holders of bank Certificates of Deposit are retirees, too risk-adverse to invest in the stock market and mutual funds.
They play the CD Sweepstakes Game on-line or call friends with computers to check on which Internet banks are offering a fraction of a percent more than others. For people who spent their lives dealing with bankers in brick buildings, the prospect of wiring or mailing money into thin air only adds to the anxiety.
While crowds besiege their offices, Countrywide is still running Internet ads to entice us into putting new money into those CDs. The more savvy will be asking why the bank’s executives are pulling their money out of the company stock.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Smart-Stupid Voter Divide
Today the Gallup Poll joins a chorus of gloom-and-doom over Barack Obama’s chances for the Democratic nomination based on his excessive appeal to the college-educated, which historically has resulted in failure.
This is a statistician’s oversimplification of cause and effect.
In rehearsing the history that supports this contention, Gallup cites Michael Dukakis in 1988 as an exception. A closer look at the former Massachusetts Governor who lost to Bush 41 raises other issues.
Dukakis was an earnest man but a terrible politician who answered a question hypothesizing his wife’s rape and murder with an academic analysis of capital punishment and tried to bolster his commander-in-chief credentials by popping out of a tank and ended up looking goofy in an oversized helmet. Moreover, he allowed Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater, to smear him without responding forcefully.
While he clearly outshone him in what Bush 41 called “the vision thing,” Dukakis lost the election.
What he and those who attract the better-educated but fail at the ballot box represent is the gap between intellectual and emotional appeal. All cheap posturing aside, it goes far beyond smart-stupid into the realm of trust, an issue for all voters. In a campaign, candidates are summoned not for a job interview but a performance that reflects their personal style as well as the substance of their beliefs.
Obama’s failure so far is ironic in that he broke into public consciousness with “rock star” qualities that generate mass appeal but is now allowing himself to be maneuvered into spats designed to make him look naïve.
A New Hampshire admirer had a point the other day chiding him for getting involved with rivals “chewing you up.” Obama got a laugh when he answered, "That's what you do when you run for president."
But it’s no laughing matter for him. What Obama has to do is stop treating the campaign as a classroom test and integrate his confidence, competence and hope into a public persona that projects those qualities for voters on all levels of education.
This is a statistician’s oversimplification of cause and effect.
In rehearsing the history that supports this contention, Gallup cites Michael Dukakis in 1988 as an exception. A closer look at the former Massachusetts Governor who lost to Bush 41 raises other issues.
Dukakis was an earnest man but a terrible politician who answered a question hypothesizing his wife’s rape and murder with an academic analysis of capital punishment and tried to bolster his commander-in-chief credentials by popping out of a tank and ended up looking goofy in an oversized helmet. Moreover, he allowed Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater, to smear him without responding forcefully.
While he clearly outshone him in what Bush 41 called “the vision thing,” Dukakis lost the election.
What he and those who attract the better-educated but fail at the ballot box represent is the gap between intellectual and emotional appeal. All cheap posturing aside, it goes far beyond smart-stupid into the realm of trust, an issue for all voters. In a campaign, candidates are summoned not for a job interview but a performance that reflects their personal style as well as the substance of their beliefs.
Obama’s failure so far is ironic in that he broke into public consciousness with “rock star” qualities that generate mass appeal but is now allowing himself to be maneuvered into spats designed to make him look naïve.
A New Hampshire admirer had a point the other day chiding him for getting involved with rivals “chewing you up.” Obama got a laugh when he answered, "That's what you do when you run for president."
But it’s no laughing matter for him. What Obama has to do is stop treating the campaign as a classroom test and integrate his confidence, competence and hope into a public persona that projects those qualities for voters on all levels of education.
Petraeus and Crocker: No Slam Dunk
After phony patriotism failed, the last refuge of the Bush Administration in Iraq has been competence, replacing robot generals and servile ambassadors with two men of substance, David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker.
For months, Bush has kept Congress from taking action to start stopping the war by hiding behind Petraeus’ September progress report. Now, worried about what the General and Crocker will say, the Administration is trying to have them testify in private while Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates do the public cheer-leading.
No dice, the Democrats answer. "Americans deserve an even-handed assessment of conditions in Iraq,“ House Democratic Chairman Rahm Emanuel declared, not “a snapshot from the same people who told us the mission was accomplished and the insurgency was in its last throes."
Administration’s worries are reflected in what the straight-talking Petraeus told reporters yesterday: "We know that the surge has to come to an end. I think everyone understands that, by about a year or so from now, we've got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now.”
Five years ago, Crocker was one of the authors of a State Department memo on the pitfalls of an attack. Based on long experience in Iraq, Crocker warned that an invasion could "unleash long-repressed sectarian and ethnic tensions" and that “the Sunni minority would not easily relinquish power, and that powerful neighbors such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia would try to move in to influence events."
If you’re still trying to sell that war, you don’t want Petraeus and Crocker to do the pitching. You need a toady like George Tenet out there to predict a slam dunk.
For months, Bush has kept Congress from taking action to start stopping the war by hiding behind Petraeus’ September progress report. Now, worried about what the General and Crocker will say, the Administration is trying to have them testify in private while Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates do the public cheer-leading.
No dice, the Democrats answer. "Americans deserve an even-handed assessment of conditions in Iraq,“ House Democratic Chairman Rahm Emanuel declared, not “a snapshot from the same people who told us the mission was accomplished and the insurgency was in its last throes."
Administration’s worries are reflected in what the straight-talking Petraeus told reporters yesterday: "We know that the surge has to come to an end. I think everyone understands that, by about a year or so from now, we've got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now.”
Five years ago, Crocker was one of the authors of a State Department memo on the pitfalls of an attack. Based on long experience in Iraq, Crocker warned that an invasion could "unleash long-repressed sectarian and ethnic tensions" and that “the Sunni minority would not easily relinquish power, and that powerful neighbors such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia would try to move in to influence events."
If you’re still trying to sell that war, you don’t want Petraeus and Crocker to do the pitching. You need a toady like George Tenet out there to predict a slam dunk.
Protected Sex for First Responders
Talk about multi-tasking! A London police officer has been acquitted of improper behavior for having sex with a stranger while on duty because he was wearing his earpiece at the time.
The incident was prompted by the officer’s response to a patriotic web site, Uniform Dating, which matches “those working in professions such as the armed forces, police, law enforcement, health, medical, ambulance, prison, corrections and fire fighters, for friendship, love and romance."
"If there was a call for me I would have answered it and dealt with it,” he told the jury, which took only ten minutes to render its verdict.
In the face of terrorist plots, the British seem reassured to know their first responders are always at the ready.
The incident was prompted by the officer’s response to a patriotic web site, Uniform Dating, which matches “those working in professions such as the armed forces, police, law enforcement, health, medical, ambulance, prison, corrections and fire fighters, for friendship, love and romance."
"If there was a call for me I would have answered it and dealt with it,” he told the jury, which took only ten minutes to render its verdict.
In the face of terrorist plots, the British seem reassured to know their first responders are always at the ready.
Alternate Universe: Rove, Rush on Bush
Being with him is a religious experience. “He walks into that office,” Karl Rove told Rush Limbaugh yesterday, “and lights up that building with --you know, it sounds corny, but it's inspiring to work around him.”
He is talking about George W. Bush? Limbaugh double-checked: “Does it frustrate you with all the attacks on him as brain dead or a frat boy?”
“This,” Rove reassured him, “is one of the best-read people I've ever met. This is a Harvard MBA. This is a Yale undergraduate whose major was history and whose passion is history. Many times the people I see criticizing him are, you know, sort of elite, effete snobs who can't hold a candle to this guy. What they don't like about him is that he is common sense, that he is Middle America.”
“He outsmarts 'em,” Rush summed up.
“Yeah,” Rove explained about the Yale-Harvard Middle American President. “In a way, they ‘misunderestimate’ him, and he likes that.”
Rove disclosed details of their book-reading contest: “I beat him last year, 110 to 94, and I'm ahead this year. I won't give you the total because it would crush you, and again he keeps saying, ‘Look, I'm the leader of the Free World, but, you know, I won the first year.’ In fact, it was almost... It was very funny.
”Wait,” Limbaugh interjected. “He's not reading little pamphlets?”
”No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! In fact, we both agreed upon a Mutually Assured Destruction. When we got too competitive last year, we both started reading John D. MacDonald mysteries, which are really delicious...We were reading them quickly, enjoying them a lot, and then we realized this was being far too competitive. So we limited the number of John D. MacDonald mysteries we were both reading, so we could get back to the serious stuff.”
Who could have guessed the level of intellectual byplay in the Bush White House?
If you want to read the full text, do so soon, since it comes with a note, “Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.” The interview, like the Bush Administration, is programmed to self-destruct.
He is talking about George W. Bush? Limbaugh double-checked: “Does it frustrate you with all the attacks on him as brain dead or a frat boy?”
“This,” Rove reassured him, “is one of the best-read people I've ever met. This is a Harvard MBA. This is a Yale undergraduate whose major was history and whose passion is history. Many times the people I see criticizing him are, you know, sort of elite, effete snobs who can't hold a candle to this guy. What they don't like about him is that he is common sense, that he is Middle America.”
“He outsmarts 'em,” Rush summed up.
“Yeah,” Rove explained about the Yale-Harvard Middle American President. “In a way, they ‘misunderestimate’ him, and he likes that.”
Rove disclosed details of their book-reading contest: “I beat him last year, 110 to 94, and I'm ahead this year. I won't give you the total because it would crush you, and again he keeps saying, ‘Look, I'm the leader of the Free World, but, you know, I won the first year.’ In fact, it was almost... It was very funny.
”Wait,” Limbaugh interjected. “He's not reading little pamphlets?”
”No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! In fact, we both agreed upon a Mutually Assured Destruction. When we got too competitive last year, we both started reading John D. MacDonald mysteries, which are really delicious...We were reading them quickly, enjoying them a lot, and then we realized this was being far too competitive. So we limited the number of John D. MacDonald mysteries we were both reading, so we could get back to the serious stuff.”
Who could have guessed the level of intellectual byplay in the Bush White House?
If you want to read the full text, do so soon, since it comes with a note, “Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.” The interview, like the Bush Administration, is programmed to self-destruct.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Thompson's Reagan Act: Timing is Off
If Fred Thompson’s slow-motion entrance onto the ’08 scene was meant to create suspense and/or keep him out of the political crossfire, it isn’t working out too well.
The suspense is long gone, and the anticipation is beginning to look like impatience as negative stories about his past, his changing staff, his lagging fund-raising and his wife’s undue influence just keeping coming.
Whether spontaneous or spurred by rival candidates, reports about Thompson’s lobbying career are beginning to chip away at the actor-Senator’s down-home can-do resume.
After the revelation that he worked briefly for a pro-abortion group comes the story now of his hefty earnings and campaign contributions from two corporations for pushing what turned out to be a taxpayer-financed $1.7 billion “hole in the ground” for a proposed nuclear breeder reactor in Tennessee.
The Presidential image is being tarnished by what looks like greedy opportunism.
While Giuliani and Romney keep dueling over who can save us from terrorists and illegal immigrants, the competence issue is beginning to bypass Thompson and, when he finally steps out to do his Reagan impersonation, it may be too little and too late.
The suspense is long gone, and the anticipation is beginning to look like impatience as negative stories about his past, his changing staff, his lagging fund-raising and his wife’s undue influence just keeping coming.
Whether spontaneous or spurred by rival candidates, reports about Thompson’s lobbying career are beginning to chip away at the actor-Senator’s down-home can-do resume.
After the revelation that he worked briefly for a pro-abortion group comes the story now of his hefty earnings and campaign contributions from two corporations for pushing what turned out to be a taxpayer-financed $1.7 billion “hole in the ground” for a proposed nuclear breeder reactor in Tennessee.
The Presidential image is being tarnished by what looks like greedy opportunism.
While Giuliani and Romney keep dueling over who can save us from terrorists and illegal immigrants, the competence issue is beginning to bypass Thompson and, when he finally steps out to do his Reagan impersonation, it may be too little and too late.
Gingrich "Sickened" by Killings
The former Speaker of the House wants to stop the war.
"Why,” he asks, “are the August vacations for the president and the Congress more precious than the lives of young Americans who are being killed because of government incompetence and inaction."
Gingrich is talking about Newark, N.J., where three college students were killed by recent immigrants, some of whom may have been in the country illegally.
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
So far this month, 41 “lives of young Americans” have been lost in Iraq while the President and Congress are on vacation. As always, Gingrich has it slightly wrong
"Why,” he asks, “are the August vacations for the president and the Congress more precious than the lives of young Americans who are being killed because of government incompetence and inaction."
Gingrich is talking about Newark, N.J., where three college students were killed by recent immigrants, some of whom may have been in the country illegally.
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
So far this month, 41 “lives of young Americans” have been lost in Iraq while the President and Congress are on vacation. As always, Gingrich has it slightly wrong
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Behind the Obama-Bashing
On the Drudge Report this afternoon, in three successive links, Barack Obama is taken to task by Mitt Romney, Elizabeth Edwards and a New Hampshire voter.
At a campaign stop in Nashua, Obama had said about Afghanistan, "We've got to get the job done there. And that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."
A Romney spokesman jumped on this as being “emblematic of Senator Obama's lack of experience for the job of commander-in-chief.”
In a magazine interview, Mrs. Edwards accused him of lifting speech material from her husband.
“Obama,” she said, “seems to be using a lot of John's 2004 language, which is maybe not surprising since one of his speechwriters was one of our speechwriters, his media guy was our media guy. These people know John's mantra as well as anybody could know it."
The woman in Hanover, N.H. at a restaurant gathering of eight people told Obama, “You can be it. But you've got to stop--excuse me for being blunt--you've got to stop getting involved in the way people are fighting each other, chewing you up a little more."
Aside from the fact that Drudgers are likely to enjoy Obama-bashing, there may be something else here. Obama’s remark about Afghanistan, aside from being to the point, is not remarkable, and the idea that he needs to steal John Edwards’ “mantra” is ludicrous.
But his New Hampshire admirer, Maggie North, may have a point. What bothers Romney, Edwards, Clinton and the other candidates is the appeal of Obama’s freshness to voters like Ms. North. They are under pressure to turn that against him as inexperience.
If he is to run this campaign gauntlet, he is will have to find ways to stop reacting defensively and take the initiative in making the case that experience got us into this mess and that what he will bring to the table is good sense and judgment.
At a campaign stop in Nashua, Obama had said about Afghanistan, "We've got to get the job done there. And that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."
A Romney spokesman jumped on this as being “emblematic of Senator Obama's lack of experience for the job of commander-in-chief.”
In a magazine interview, Mrs. Edwards accused him of lifting speech material from her husband.
“Obama,” she said, “seems to be using a lot of John's 2004 language, which is maybe not surprising since one of his speechwriters was one of our speechwriters, his media guy was our media guy. These people know John's mantra as well as anybody could know it."
The woman in Hanover, N.H. at a restaurant gathering of eight people told Obama, “You can be it. But you've got to stop--excuse me for being blunt--you've got to stop getting involved in the way people are fighting each other, chewing you up a little more."
Aside from the fact that Drudgers are likely to enjoy Obama-bashing, there may be something else here. Obama’s remark about Afghanistan, aside from being to the point, is not remarkable, and the idea that he needs to steal John Edwards’ “mantra” is ludicrous.
But his New Hampshire admirer, Maggie North, may have a point. What bothers Romney, Edwards, Clinton and the other candidates is the appeal of Obama’s freshness to voters like Ms. North. They are under pressure to turn that against him as inexperience.
If he is to run this campaign gauntlet, he is will have to find ways to stop reacting defensively and take the initiative in making the case that experience got us into this mess and that what he will bring to the table is good sense and judgment.
Rove Legacy: Defining Deviancy Down
Trying to find meaning in Karl Rove’s political career, as so many observers are now doing, is like, to borrow Gen. David Petraeus’ expression about Iraq, “putting lipstick on a pig.”
Today the Washington Post asks: “(A)s Karl Rove resigns from the administration, a question lingers over his legacy: What, exactly, did the architect build?”
The answer is nothing. There is no Rove philosophy, doctrine, strategy. The man is the sum of his ugly tactics, a college dropout who spent a working lifetime winning, buying or stealing votes by all possible means--a porcine rooter in the garbage of American politics. His sole accomplishment has been, in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s phrase, to “define deviancy down” in the White House.
Ask John Kerry, John McCain and Max Cleland about his legacy.
Rove’s departure, along with that of his creature, George W. Bush, has meaning only in the question of how much of their fake piety and total disdain for political morality will persist in American life.
The answer to that won’t be long in coming. On the Democrats’ part, the jury is still out. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are still staying within the bounds of civilized contention and serious discourse.
The Republicans, who have to climb out of the Bush wreckage, seem confused. Rudy Giuliani is showing symptoms of Rove Disease, but the others are still in doubt. Much will depend of what Thompson and Romney do when push comes to bare knuckles. How far Mike Huckabee gets will be a clue.
For the moment, it would help if the MSM and blogosphere stopped arguing about the biggest bottom feeder of our time and looked ahead to putting back some semblance of decency into American politics.
Today the Washington Post asks: “(A)s Karl Rove resigns from the administration, a question lingers over his legacy: What, exactly, did the architect build?”
The answer is nothing. There is no Rove philosophy, doctrine, strategy. The man is the sum of his ugly tactics, a college dropout who spent a working lifetime winning, buying or stealing votes by all possible means--a porcine rooter in the garbage of American politics. His sole accomplishment has been, in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s phrase, to “define deviancy down” in the White House.
Ask John Kerry, John McCain and Max Cleland about his legacy.
Rove’s departure, along with that of his creature, George W. Bush, has meaning only in the question of how much of their fake piety and total disdain for political morality will persist in American life.
The answer to that won’t be long in coming. On the Democrats’ part, the jury is still out. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are still staying within the bounds of civilized contention and serious discourse.
The Republicans, who have to climb out of the Bush wreckage, seem confused. Rudy Giuliani is showing symptoms of Rove Disease, but the others are still in doubt. Much will depend of what Thompson and Romney do when push comes to bare knuckles. How far Mike Huckabee gets will be a clue.
For the moment, it would help if the MSM and blogosphere stopped arguing about the biggest bottom feeder of our time and looked ahead to putting back some semblance of decency into American politics.
Giuliani's Base Campaign
America’s Mayor wants to become America’s President in the worst way, and it’s beginning to show.
With Mitt Romney’s money producing results in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, and Fred Thompson’s footsteps getting louder, Rudy Giuliani is pressing his case to the Republican Right with a prosecutor’s zeal.
Exaggerating his 9/11 presence and then having to apologize for it are only the latest signs that he is feeling the heat.
After saluting the Confederate flag in Alabama, taking on a racist adviser in South Carolina and puckering up to Pat Robertson, Giuliani has now turned to out-Bushing Bush on bellicosity by bringing aboard as foreign policy adviser Norman Podhoretz, who wants to bomb Iran yesterday and, just in case the Base should doubt his conservative conversion, adding to his retinue the rabid Admiral who swift-boated John Kerry in the 2004 elections.
When Fred Thompson announces, it is sure to get uglier as the Senator-actor’s new pal Alfonse D’Amato starts slinging 9/11 mud from his firefighter friends at Giuliani.
Up to now, the former Mayor has had Right Field pretty much to himself, but Mike Huckabee is gaining traction and Thompson is set to drive his pickup-truck appeal onto the scene.
Before long, the Republican rumble may make the Clinton-Obama feuding look like a Sunday picnic.
With Mitt Romney’s money producing results in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls, and Fred Thompson’s footsteps getting louder, Rudy Giuliani is pressing his case to the Republican Right with a prosecutor’s zeal.
Exaggerating his 9/11 presence and then having to apologize for it are only the latest signs that he is feeling the heat.
After saluting the Confederate flag in Alabama, taking on a racist adviser in South Carolina and puckering up to Pat Robertson, Giuliani has now turned to out-Bushing Bush on bellicosity by bringing aboard as foreign policy adviser Norman Podhoretz, who wants to bomb Iran yesterday and, just in case the Base should doubt his conservative conversion, adding to his retinue the rabid Admiral who swift-boated John Kerry in the 2004 elections.
When Fred Thompson announces, it is sure to get uglier as the Senator-actor’s new pal Alfonse D’Amato starts slinging 9/11 mud from his firefighter friends at Giuliani.
Up to now, the former Mayor has had Right Field pretty much to himself, but Mike Huckabee is gaining traction and Thompson is set to drive his pickup-truck appeal onto the scene.
Before long, the Republican rumble may make the Clinton-Obama feuding look like a Sunday picnic.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Fred Thompson's Name Value
Political name recognition has gone Nutsy Fagin. This weekend the Washington Post has a disquisition on the power of the name “Fred.”
Anticipating the entry of Thompson into the Presidential race, an onomastician (scholar of the linguistics of names) tells us "The name Fred is basic and homey. It should give people a reassuring image."
Thompson augurs well, too, “a name with natural trochaic rhythm, which replicates a heartbeat and thus starts building appeal in the womb."
In 2004, we learn, there was a book titled "The Fred Factor" to extol the pleasures of hard work, and more promising still, further research reveals that “Fred” is derived from the German, meaning “Peace Ruler.”
In an earlier day, the candidate-to-be would have had to present his full appellation, Frederick Dalton Thompson. But Harry Truman started it all going downhill. Before him, Presidents had stately, sonorous names--Franklin, Herbert, Grover, Woodrow--but Truman was a not a Henry turned folksy, Harry was on his birth certificate.
After that, Dwight David Eisenhower was shortened to “Ike” by headline writers and the floodgates were open to Jimmy and Bill. Now every Tom, Dick or Harry can run for President, although two recent Georges have stemmed the tide temporarily.
Fred should do well against Hillary, which sounds like the name of the victim in an Agatha Christie mystery, but his chances against Barack, which means “blessed,” are etymologically uncertain.
Anticipating the entry of Thompson into the Presidential race, an onomastician (scholar of the linguistics of names) tells us "The name Fred is basic and homey. It should give people a reassuring image."
Thompson augurs well, too, “a name with natural trochaic rhythm, which replicates a heartbeat and thus starts building appeal in the womb."
In 2004, we learn, there was a book titled "The Fred Factor" to extol the pleasures of hard work, and more promising still, further research reveals that “Fred” is derived from the German, meaning “Peace Ruler.”
In an earlier day, the candidate-to-be would have had to present his full appellation, Frederick Dalton Thompson. But Harry Truman started it all going downhill. Before him, Presidents had stately, sonorous names--Franklin, Herbert, Grover, Woodrow--but Truman was a not a Henry turned folksy, Harry was on his birth certificate.
After that, Dwight David Eisenhower was shortened to “Ike” by headline writers and the floodgates were open to Jimmy and Bill. Now every Tom, Dick or Harry can run for President, although two recent Georges have stemmed the tide temporarily.
Fred should do well against Hillary, which sounds like the name of the victim in an Agatha Christie mystery, but his chances against Barack, which means “blessed,” are etymologically uncertain.
Murdoch Retirement Plan for Rove
If Newt Gingrich got $4.5 million and Clarence Thomas $1 million, what will Rupert Murdoch pay for Karl Rove’s memoirs?
In announcing his departure exclusively to Murdoch’s soon-to-be Wall Street Journal, Rove disclosed “no specific job plans, save to write a book on the Bush years, which ‘the boss,’ as in Mr. Bush, ‘has encouraged me to do.’"
To keep his wholly owned franchise, the other boss, Rupert Murdoch, will undoubtedly be the overbidder, even if no other publishing house is holding its nose and competing.
Should the umpteen-million advance not be enough to keep Rove living in high style retirement, there will undoubtedly be a part-time job as a commentator for Fox News.
In announcing his departure exclusively to Murdoch’s soon-to-be Wall Street Journal, Rove disclosed “no specific job plans, save to write a book on the Bush years, which ‘the boss,’ as in Mr. Bush, ‘has encouraged me to do.’"
To keep his wholly owned franchise, the other boss, Rupert Murdoch, will undoubtedly be the overbidder, even if no other publishing house is holding its nose and competing.
Should the umpteen-million advance not be enough to keep Rove living in high style retirement, there will undoubtedly be a part-time job as a commentator for Fox News.
Bush's Brain is Going
They can start disinfecting the White House now. Karl Rove is leaving “for the sake of my family.”
It will take reams of obloquy to write his political obituary, but it’s not too soon to start.
Never the master strategist or shrewd tactician of Bush folklore, he was the greasy mechanic of the White House sleaze machine.
His first significant sighting came on Election Night 2000 just after the networks called Florida for Al Gore. With a knowing smile, Rove told a network reporter to wait for the absentee ballots, which we later learned had been rigged by the Bush people.
Fittingly enough, Rove started his career by stealing letterheads from an opponent’s office to send out fake messages and going on to perfect his craft under the tutelage of Nixon’s dirty trickster Donald Segretti.
Nixon brought shady operators into the fringes of his White House. Bush took it further, putting the man he called “the architect” into the heart of the Oval Office.
From the sliming of John McCain in the 2000 primaries to the outing of Valerie Plame and the firing of the U.S. Attorneys for not being political enough, Rove’s fingerprints have been all over every unethical, immoral and illegal move of the Bush Administration.
He may be leaving the White House, but Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Judiciary Committee will do everything possible to keep him in Washington. The capital wouldn’t be the same without him.
It will take reams of obloquy to write his political obituary, but it’s not too soon to start.
Never the master strategist or shrewd tactician of Bush folklore, he was the greasy mechanic of the White House sleaze machine.
His first significant sighting came on Election Night 2000 just after the networks called Florida for Al Gore. With a knowing smile, Rove told a network reporter to wait for the absentee ballots, which we later learned had been rigged by the Bush people.
Fittingly enough, Rove started his career by stealing letterheads from an opponent’s office to send out fake messages and going on to perfect his craft under the tutelage of Nixon’s dirty trickster Donald Segretti.
Nixon brought shady operators into the fringes of his White House. Bush took it further, putting the man he called “the architect” into the heart of the Oval Office.
From the sliming of John McCain in the 2000 primaries to the outing of Valerie Plame and the firing of the U.S. Attorneys for not being political enough, Rove’s fingerprints have been all over every unethical, immoral and illegal move of the Bush Administration.
He may be leaving the White House, but Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Judiciary Committee will do everything possible to keep him in Washington. The capital wouldn’t be the same without him.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Huckabee: Move Over, Paris and Britney
Two months ago, the former Arkansas Governor, suffering from media neglect, was musing about “accompanying Paris Hilton to jail” to get some attention.
"One of the frustrations,” he said, “is that there is more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than there is about who is going to be the next president."
He can stop complaining. After his surprise second-place showing in Ames yesterday, Huckabee is going to be the flavor of the month. The fellow townsman of Bill Clinton from Hope, Ark. will be the talk of MSM and bloggers.
USA Today is reporting that Huckabee spent only $58 a vote in the Iowa straw poll against Brownback’s $148 and Romney’s who-knows, possibly over $1000. The Washington Post calls his showing “a win.” The preacher-musician is on his way to becoming the Republican rock star.
Fred Thompson may want to think twice about waiting for Labor Day to announce
"One of the frustrations,” he said, “is that there is more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than there is about who is going to be the next president."
He can stop complaining. After his surprise second-place showing in Ames yesterday, Huckabee is going to be the flavor of the month. The fellow townsman of Bill Clinton from Hope, Ark. will be the talk of MSM and bloggers.
USA Today is reporting that Huckabee spent only $58 a vote in the Iowa straw poll against Brownback’s $148 and Romney’s who-knows, possibly over $1000. The Washington Post calls his showing “a win.” The preacher-musician is on his way to becoming the Republican rock star.
Fred Thompson may want to think twice about waiting for Labor Day to announce
A Diet Book You Have to Hide
Trying to be politically correct can be a bitch.
Just as the New York City Council is debating a citywide ban on the use of the word (19 of 54 members have signed on), a diet book titled “Skinny Bitch” has moved up to No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list.
Based on a vegan philosophy, the book encourages women to eat whole grains, fruits and vegetables and urges them to give up dairy products, eggs, meat and fish. The authors also attack meat eaters, calling those who choose to eat meat while attempting to lose weight "morons," which may or may not be coincidental to a new study finding vegans sexually repulsed by meat-eating men.
Sales of “Skinny Bitch” took off when Victoria Beckham, also known as the pop star Posh Spice and wife of soccer star David Beckham, was photographed carrying a copy in a Los Angeles boutique in May.
Will New York book lovers have to conceal their copies in a plain brown wrapper when they carry them on city streets or curl up with a copy at the beach?
Just as the New York City Council is debating a citywide ban on the use of the word (19 of 54 members have signed on), a diet book titled “Skinny Bitch” has moved up to No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list.
Based on a vegan philosophy, the book encourages women to eat whole grains, fruits and vegetables and urges them to give up dairy products, eggs, meat and fish. The authors also attack meat eaters, calling those who choose to eat meat while attempting to lose weight "morons," which may or may not be coincidental to a new study finding vegans sexually repulsed by meat-eating men.
Sales of “Skinny Bitch” took off when Victoria Beckham, also known as the pop star Posh Spice and wife of soccer star David Beckham, was photographed carrying a copy in a Los Angeles boutique in May.
Will New York book lovers have to conceal their copies in a plain brown wrapper when they carry them on city streets or curl up with a copy at the beach?
Obama's New Politics and Old Friends
In all the to-do about Barack Obama as “new,” it’s easy to lose sight of his connections to the Kennedy era that transformed American politics half a century ago.
A lengthy Washington Post profile today is headed, “A Series of Fortunate Events” and summarized: “Barack Obama needed more than talent and ambition to rocket from obscure state senator to presidential contender in three years. He needed serious luck.”
True enough, but what strikes an older reader is the part played in his political ascent by two important figures associated with the Democratic idealism of the 1960s and 1970s.
Before he decided to run for President, Obama consulted those two mentors, Newton Minow and Abner Mikva.
“Shortly before Christmas 2006,” the Post reports, “he met with Minow and Mikva to discuss whether to run. ‘He was very worried about what this was going to do to his family,’ says Minow. ‘I think Michelle at that point was very dubious, not at all enthusiastic about his running.’ The two men, who have six adult daughters between them, said they thought it made more sense to run when Obama's children were young and relatively insulated.”
Obama, who barely knew his own father, was turning for advice to two men who had nurtured his career to that point.
At Harvard Law School in 1988, he had impressed one of his professors, Martha Minow, who recommended him for a summer internship with the Chicago law firm headed by her father, Newton Minow, who had been chairman of the FCC under JFK and is still remembered for his speech describing TV as “a vast wasteland” and helping launch the public television network that is now PBS.
"He was at the firm for only one summer,” Minow recalls, “and when we offered him a job to come back, he came in to see me and told me he was going to go into politics. I think he had that in mind very early."
Minow became a friend and adviser to the young man with "the combination of a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament."
In 1990, he came to the attention of Abner Mikva, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who offered him a clerkship, but Obama turned it down. A Chicago lawyer, Mikva had been a liberal Congressman who opposed the Daley machine, fought with the National Rifle Association over gun control and against racial discrimination. Later, he served briefly as chief counsel to Bill Clinton in the White House.
Mikva encouraged Obama in 2000 after he lost a primary and considered quitting politics. Four years later, when he was running for the Senate, Mikva “gave him more money than I've ever given anyone in my life."
Now Barack Obama is campaigning for a “new politics” in American life, but what he is offering clearly has roots in the best of the old.
A lengthy Washington Post profile today is headed, “A Series of Fortunate Events” and summarized: “Barack Obama needed more than talent and ambition to rocket from obscure state senator to presidential contender in three years. He needed serious luck.”
True enough, but what strikes an older reader is the part played in his political ascent by two important figures associated with the Democratic idealism of the 1960s and 1970s.
Before he decided to run for President, Obama consulted those two mentors, Newton Minow and Abner Mikva.
“Shortly before Christmas 2006,” the Post reports, “he met with Minow and Mikva to discuss whether to run. ‘He was very worried about what this was going to do to his family,’ says Minow. ‘I think Michelle at that point was very dubious, not at all enthusiastic about his running.’ The two men, who have six adult daughters between them, said they thought it made more sense to run when Obama's children were young and relatively insulated.”
Obama, who barely knew his own father, was turning for advice to two men who had nurtured his career to that point.
At Harvard Law School in 1988, he had impressed one of his professors, Martha Minow, who recommended him for a summer internship with the Chicago law firm headed by her father, Newton Minow, who had been chairman of the FCC under JFK and is still remembered for his speech describing TV as “a vast wasteland” and helping launch the public television network that is now PBS.
"He was at the firm for only one summer,” Minow recalls, “and when we offered him a job to come back, he came in to see me and told me he was going to go into politics. I think he had that in mind very early."
Minow became a friend and adviser to the young man with "the combination of a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament."
In 1990, he came to the attention of Abner Mikva, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who offered him a clerkship, but Obama turned it down. A Chicago lawyer, Mikva had been a liberal Congressman who opposed the Daley machine, fought with the National Rifle Association over gun control and against racial discrimination. Later, he served briefly as chief counsel to Bill Clinton in the White House.
Mikva encouraged Obama in 2000 after he lost a primary and considered quitting politics. Four years later, when he was running for the Senate, Mikva “gave him more money than I've ever given anyone in my life."
Now Barack Obama is campaigning for a “new politics” in American life, but what he is offering clearly has roots in the best of the old.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Huckabee, Harry Potter Hound Romney
Mitt Romney won the most votes in Ames today, but he may have come in second in popularity behind Harry Potter carved in butter, who drew long lines waiting to see his refrigerated image.
After spending millions on TV ads, chartering buses and saturating the state with relatives, Romney only managed to draw 31 percent of the vote against former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who ran no commercials and reportedly spent only $150,000.
Huckabee with a surprising 18 percent ran second and is positioned to break into the top tier of Republican candidates, if he can translate his showing into campaign cash, or if fails, to become the running mate of any of the top three contenders, who would be helped by his popularity among Evangelical Republicans.
Although the straw vote was practically pointless, it should at least thin out the crowd at future debates. Tommy Thompson is certain to drop out as is Duncan Hunter.
No word about whether Harry Potter is staying in the race.
After spending millions on TV ads, chartering buses and saturating the state with relatives, Romney only managed to draw 31 percent of the vote against former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who ran no commercials and reportedly spent only $150,000.
Huckabee with a surprising 18 percent ran second and is positioned to break into the top tier of Republican candidates, if he can translate his showing into campaign cash, or if fails, to become the running mate of any of the top three contenders, who would be helped by his popularity among Evangelical Republicans.
Although the straw vote was practically pointless, it should at least thin out the crowd at future debates. Tommy Thompson is certain to drop out as is Duncan Hunter.
No word about whether Harry Potter is staying in the race.
A Titanic Step for Mankind
In a moment akin to U.S. moon landing in 1969, the Russians planted their flag in the waters under the North Pole this week. Reuters thrilled viewers around the world with images of Soviet submersibles at the Polar seabed.
A slight glitch came up for the international news agency when a 13-year-old boy told his local newspaper that the scenes looked familiar. He had seen them in the movie, ”Titanic.”
Reuters issued a correction, but the embarrassment could have been avoided if only Leonardo DiCaprio had shown up in one of the frames.
A slight glitch came up for the international news agency when a 13-year-old boy told his local newspaper that the scenes looked familiar. He had seen them in the movie, ”Titanic.”
Reuters issued a correction, but the embarrassment could have been avoided if only Leonardo DiCaprio had shown up in one of the frames.
Another Draft to Dodge? Not Likely
Talk about political non-starters: The President’s “war czar,” Gen. Douglas Lute, asked yesterday on NPR about a return of the draft to ease pressures on the U.S. military, answered, “I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table.”
Not to worry. According to the AP, the Army is pulling out all the stops to get new volunteers with sign-up rewards that may include up to $45,000 tax-free to help buy a home or build a business as well as money for college and to pay off student loans.
At the same time, recruitment is loosening rules on age and weight limits, education and drug and criminal records.
Before asking today’s privileged young people to emulate George Bush, Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton in finding ways to avoid going to Iraq, the government will try to sign up all the overweight, financially strapped drug users it can find.
Not to worry. According to the AP, the Army is pulling out all the stops to get new volunteers with sign-up rewards that may include up to $45,000 tax-free to help buy a home or build a business as well as money for college and to pay off student loans.
At the same time, recruitment is loosening rules on age and weight limits, education and drug and criminal records.
Before asking today’s privileged young people to emulate George Bush, Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton in finding ways to avoid going to Iraq, the government will try to sign up all the overweight, financially strapped drug users it can find.
Time, the Slow-Motion Terrorist
To get America’s attention, people have to die--in wars, on falling bridges, in coal mine cave-ins. Even then, hearts sink, heads shake and the news moves on to the next disaster.
Now that the catastrophe du jour is infrastructure, some politicians are trying to do something constructive while public emotion is still raw. This week, a Minnesota Congressman proposed a plan to fix the nation's 73,784 bridges rated "structurally deficient" by the Department of Transportation.
Rep. James Oberstar suggested paying for the repairs with a five-cent hike in the gas tax, but the next day President Bush, about to go off on vacation, dismissed the idea of any new taxes, saying Congress should change its priorities when spending highway money.
Bringing the nation's roads and bridges into the 21st century will cost $155.5 billion, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The $75 billion in annual spending by federal, state, and local governments is not even enough to keep their condition from getting worse.
"Maintenance,” says one expert, “is just not sexy.” Politicians like new construction they can brag about to voters while posing for ribbon-cutting pictures.
If a bomb had blown up the Minneapolis bridge, politicians would be scurrying to throw money into something to satisfy their constituents. But time is a slow-motion terrorist, and nobody is eager to pay new taxes or tolls to prevent the disasters waiting to happen.
Now that the catastrophe du jour is infrastructure, some politicians are trying to do something constructive while public emotion is still raw. This week, a Minnesota Congressman proposed a plan to fix the nation's 73,784 bridges rated "structurally deficient" by the Department of Transportation.
Rep. James Oberstar suggested paying for the repairs with a five-cent hike in the gas tax, but the next day President Bush, about to go off on vacation, dismissed the idea of any new taxes, saying Congress should change its priorities when spending highway money.
Bringing the nation's roads and bridges into the 21st century will cost $155.5 billion, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The $75 billion in annual spending by federal, state, and local governments is not even enough to keep their condition from getting worse.
"Maintenance,” says one expert, “is just not sexy.” Politicians like new construction they can brag about to voters while posing for ribbon-cutting pictures.
If a bomb had blown up the Minneapolis bridge, politicians would be scurrying to throw money into something to satisfy their constituents. But time is a slow-motion terrorist, and nobody is eager to pay new taxes or tolls to prevent the disasters waiting to happen.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Getting Blacker and Funnier
Barack Obama is no Chris Rock, but he’s trying. At the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Las Vegas today, he sauntered in late to make a little joke about “colored people time.”
“You guys keep asking if I'm black enough," Obama said, "so I thought I'd just stroll in."
Until now, the issue has been no joke for the Illinois Senator, who has been running behind Hillary Clinton in polling of African-Americans. Starting in January as a 3-1 underdog, he has only recently caught up into a virtual tie.
“We're still locked into the notion,” he told black journalists today, “that somehow if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong," adding, "There's some of that 'Is he keeping it real because he went to Harvard,' which a lot of you in the audience had to deal with...you'd think that we'd be over that by now."
Because his mother is white and he is not descended from African slaves, Obama has had to overcome both the hurdle of trying to become America’s first black president and carping by some African-Americans that he is “too white.”
Keeping a sense of humor about it all can’t be easy, but Obama is working at it. "If I'm outside your building trying to catch a cab," he told Charlie Rose in an interview, "they're not saying, 'Oh, there's a mixed race guy.'"
“You guys keep asking if I'm black enough," Obama said, "so I thought I'd just stroll in."
Until now, the issue has been no joke for the Illinois Senator, who has been running behind Hillary Clinton in polling of African-Americans. Starting in January as a 3-1 underdog, he has only recently caught up into a virtual tie.
“We're still locked into the notion,” he told black journalists today, “that somehow if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong," adding, "There's some of that 'Is he keeping it real because he went to Harvard,' which a lot of you in the audience had to deal with...you'd think that we'd be over that by now."
Because his mother is white and he is not descended from African slaves, Obama has had to overcome both the hurdle of trying to become America’s first black president and carping by some African-Americans that he is “too white.”
Keeping a sense of humor about it all can’t be easy, but Obama is working at it. "If I'm outside your building trying to catch a cab," he told Charlie Rose in an interview, "they're not saying, 'Oh, there's a mixed race guy.'"
Iraq: High Steaks Back Home
Those who resist the idea of an interconnected world may be shocked to learn that the war has raised prices in some of New York’s most popular restaurants.
To ease our dependence on Middle East oil, government subsidies are encouraging farmers to divert corn to ethanol production, which in turn is raising the price of cattle feed, making prime beef more expensive and even creating shortages, according to a cattle market analyst.
Desperate Manhattan restaurateurs are turning to rib eye and buffalo steak, a hardship their customers are stoically enduring. This should answer those cynics who claim that there are no sacrifices on the home front in this war.
To ease our dependence on Middle East oil, government subsidies are encouraging farmers to divert corn to ethanol production, which in turn is raising the price of cattle feed, making prime beef more expensive and even creating shortages, according to a cattle market analyst.
Desperate Manhattan restaurateurs are turning to rib eye and buffalo steak, a hardship their customers are stoically enduring. This should answer those cynics who claim that there are no sacrifices on the home front in this war.
"Freakonomics" Tumult Over Terrorists
Until the New York Times stops making readers pay for “Select” content, which may happen soon, you will have to take my word for this.
In a new blog on the Times web site, Steven D. Levitt, the quirky economist who co-wrote the best seller, “Freakonomics,” asked: “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?”
The post, which cited random sniper shootings as a nifty method, generated almost 600 responses, some with ingenious ideas for mayhem, many with questions and comments about Levitt’s sanity.
Yesterday Levitt responded: “(Y)ou have to believe that terrorists are total idiots if it never occurred to them after the Washington, D.C., sniper shootings that maybe a sniper plot wasn’t a bad idea. The point is this: there is a virtually infinite array of incredibly simple strategies available to terrorists.”
With due respect to Levitt, that’s not the point. It’s one thing to flash your brilliance at a dinner party and quite another to show off in public. The problem is not giving new ideas to terrorists but stirring up the fears we all have to live with since 9/11 for no useful reason.
Levitt’s obtuseness is insignificant compared to that of Michael Chertoff, our Homeland Security honcho, who keeps telling us his gut feelings about imminent attacks while covering his butt and taking bows for the great job he has been doing.
It may be time to amend the old adage, “discretion is the better part of valor” by adding “and vanity as well.”
Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater never was a great idea.
In a new blog on the Times web site, Steven D. Levitt, the quirky economist who co-wrote the best seller, “Freakonomics,” asked: “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?”
The post, which cited random sniper shootings as a nifty method, generated almost 600 responses, some with ingenious ideas for mayhem, many with questions and comments about Levitt’s sanity.
Yesterday Levitt responded: “(Y)ou have to believe that terrorists are total idiots if it never occurred to them after the Washington, D.C., sniper shootings that maybe a sniper plot wasn’t a bad idea. The point is this: there is a virtually infinite array of incredibly simple strategies available to terrorists.”
With due respect to Levitt, that’s not the point. It’s one thing to flash your brilliance at a dinner party and quite another to show off in public. The problem is not giving new ideas to terrorists but stirring up the fears we all have to live with since 9/11 for no useful reason.
Levitt’s obtuseness is insignificant compared to that of Michael Chertoff, our Homeland Security honcho, who keeps telling us his gut feelings about imminent attacks while covering his butt and taking bows for the great job he has been doing.
It may be time to amend the old adage, “discretion is the better part of valor” by adding “and vanity as well.”
Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater never was a great idea.
The Souring of America
Solid majorities of the public criticize them for “political bias, inaccuracy and failing to acknowledge mistakes” with the “harshest indictments...from the growing segment that relies on the internet as its main source for national and international news.”
That’s the conclusion of the Pew Research Center, not about the Bush Administration but the nation’s news organizations. Americans are losing faith not only in the politicians who govern them but the people who report what they are doing.
In the last century we believed truth would be found, as Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand put it, in “a multitude of tongues.” Now that so many voices can be heard, the result is not “truth” but distrust.
George W. Bush and Rupert Murdoch share much of the blame, with those who rely on Fox News as their main source of information leading the way in damning the media, with 63 percent saying news stories are often inaccurate as opposed to less than half of those who cite CNN or network news as their main source.
At the other end of the political spectrum, the report says, “People who rely on the internet as their main news source express relatively unfavorable opinions of mainstream news sources and are among the most critical of press performance.”
In the past five years, this bipartisan divide between press and public has grown much worse, and it reflects a larger loss in American life.
In another Pew poll in 2002, 74 percent felt that "As Americans, we can always find a way to solve our problems and get what we want." Five years later, the number is 58 percent. Other polls show erosion of public confidence in the government's ability to respond to terrorist attacks, natural disasters and health crises over that period.
In all the gabble to come over today’s evidence about growing distrust of the mainstream media, it might help to remember that it may also reflect a loss of faith in ourselves.
That’s the conclusion of the Pew Research Center, not about the Bush Administration but the nation’s news organizations. Americans are losing faith not only in the politicians who govern them but the people who report what they are doing.
In the last century we believed truth would be found, as Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand put it, in “a multitude of tongues.” Now that so many voices can be heard, the result is not “truth” but distrust.
George W. Bush and Rupert Murdoch share much of the blame, with those who rely on Fox News as their main source of information leading the way in damning the media, with 63 percent saying news stories are often inaccurate as opposed to less than half of those who cite CNN or network news as their main source.
At the other end of the political spectrum, the report says, “People who rely on the internet as their main news source express relatively unfavorable opinions of mainstream news sources and are among the most critical of press performance.”
In the past five years, this bipartisan divide between press and public has grown much worse, and it reflects a larger loss in American life.
In another Pew poll in 2002, 74 percent felt that "As Americans, we can always find a way to solve our problems and get what we want." Five years later, the number is 58 percent. Other polls show erosion of public confidence in the government's ability to respond to terrorist attacks, natural disasters and health crises over that period.
In all the gabble to come over today’s evidence about growing distrust of the mainstream media, it might help to remember that it may also reflect a loss of faith in ourselves.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
A Test for Jon Stewart
From today’s USA Today: “First Lady Laura Bush and daughter Jenna Bush are writing a children's book about a boy who doesn't like to read. It is based on their experiences as teachers.”
Teachers? The Daily Show writers must be in a tizzy, but only a cad would comment in print.
Teachers? The Daily Show writers must be in a tizzy, but only a cad would comment in print.
Mitt Strikes Out Again
Outbidding the patriot Nathan Hale by a factor of five, Governor Romney told Iowa voters that he regrets having only five sons to give to his country. Grateful Americans can only hope that none of them comes back from hazardous electioneering, as Jon Stewart fears, as casualties of Post-Campaign Stress Syndrome.
In their first year, the New York Mets had a first baseman nicknamed Marvelous Marv Throneberry who set records for making errors. Marvelous Mitt is on track to becoming the Barry Bonds of boners in the annals of presidential candidates for muffs and miscues.
Yesterday the former governor of Massachusetts added to his string by misstating the number of counties in the state he ran for four years.
In their first year, the New York Mets had a first baseman nicknamed Marvelous Marv Throneberry who set records for making errors. Marvelous Mitt is on track to becoming the Barry Bonds of boners in the annals of presidential candidates for muffs and miscues.
Yesterday the former governor of Massachusetts added to his string by misstating the number of counties in the state he ran for four years.
Google's Man-Bites-Dog-Bites-Back Move
If the job of news is, in the words of the old saw, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, the well-off will soon be able to hit back, thanks to Google.
Starting this week, anyone mentioned on its Google News web site will have a chance to respond. Shrewd move. That should keep Alberto Gonzales too busy to fire more prosecutors, Dick Cheney’s gang too occupied to start new wars and all the ’08 candidates writing e-mails instead of debating.
Interactive news may be our salvation.
Starting this week, anyone mentioned on its Google News web site will have a chance to respond. Shrewd move. That should keep Alberto Gonzales too busy to fire more prosecutors, Dick Cheney’s gang too occupied to start new wars and all the ’08 candidates writing e-mails instead of debating.
Interactive news may be our salvation.
Empty-Calories News
The New York Times is too dignified for silly-season journalism, August fluff when the world slows down. But this year, especially from Washington, there is a lot of fact-free fare.
The other day, there was “Competitors, Once Collegial, Now Seem Cool,” about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Today we get “First Father: Tough Times on Sidelines,” 31 paragraphs of empty-calories reporting about Bush 41 and Bush 43.
Based on “interviews with a broad range of people close to both presidents,” the piece reveals that the elder Bush “finds it tough to watch his son get criticized from the sidelines.”
From a combination of rehash, such as Bob Woodward’s anecdote about Dubya consulting only a “higher father” before invading Iraq, and dribble from new interviewees, that criticism of the elder Bush’s son “wears on his heart and soul,” we get the equivalent of what editors used to call a “thumbsucker,” a rumination devoid of news.
That used to be the province of columnists and commentators but now is disguised as reporting--and tenuous reporting at that. The Hillary-Barack scoop had to be followed by a correction of one of its few anecdotes: that “after the State of the Union address, Mrs. Clinton took a circuitous route past Mr. Obama not to avoid him, but to accommodate a television producer.”
As the old “Front Page” crowd used to say, this stuff is dynamite.
The other day, there was “Competitors, Once Collegial, Now Seem Cool,” about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Today we get “First Father: Tough Times on Sidelines,” 31 paragraphs of empty-calories reporting about Bush 41 and Bush 43.
Based on “interviews with a broad range of people close to both presidents,” the piece reveals that the elder Bush “finds it tough to watch his son get criticized from the sidelines.”
From a combination of rehash, such as Bob Woodward’s anecdote about Dubya consulting only a “higher father” before invading Iraq, and dribble from new interviewees, that criticism of the elder Bush’s son “wears on his heart and soul,” we get the equivalent of what editors used to call a “thumbsucker,” a rumination devoid of news.
That used to be the province of columnists and commentators but now is disguised as reporting--and tenuous reporting at that. The Hillary-Barack scoop had to be followed by a correction of one of its few anecdotes: that “after the State of the Union address, Mrs. Clinton took a circuitous route past Mr. Obama not to avoid him, but to accommodate a television producer.”
As the old “Front Page” crowd used to say, this stuff is dynamite.
Forget Hillary: Obama's Musharraf Matchup
If Barack Obama thought running against the former First Lady was hard, he now finds himself in a tougher contest with the old pro, Pervez Musharraf.
The President of Pakistan, beleaguered to the point of negotiating a power-sharing arrangement with his arch rival, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is hinting at declaring a state of emergency because of “internal and external threats” to his country.
Explaining the “external threats,” his Minister of Information claims that Obama’s statement last week about going after Al Qaeda "has started alarm bells ringing and has upset (the) Pakistani public."
Musharraf himself is so upset that he changed his mind about attending a meeting this week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and tribal leaders to discuss ways of cleaning out extremist strongholds on both sides of their borders.
Today Senator Obama tried to reassure him: "President Musharraf has a very difficult job, and it is important that we are a constructive ally with them in dealing with al-Qaeda."
If Obama thought Hillary Clinton was playing hardball, he may not have been ready for Musharraf, who has played political games with the Bush Administration for years and managed to hold down his own militants, at least until now.
The President of Pakistan, beleaguered to the point of negotiating a power-sharing arrangement with his arch rival, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is hinting at declaring a state of emergency because of “internal and external threats” to his country.
Explaining the “external threats,” his Minister of Information claims that Obama’s statement last week about going after Al Qaeda "has started alarm bells ringing and has upset (the) Pakistani public."
Musharraf himself is so upset that he changed his mind about attending a meeting this week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and tribal leaders to discuss ways of cleaning out extremist strongholds on both sides of their borders.
Today Senator Obama tried to reassure him: "President Musharraf has a very difficult job, and it is important that we are a constructive ally with them in dealing with al-Qaeda."
If Obama thought Hillary Clinton was playing hardball, he may not have been ready for Musharraf, who has played political games with the Bush Administration for years and managed to hold down his own militants, at least until now.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Tony Snow Spinning Cancer
The best cure yet for hyper-political self-importance might be watching the White House Press Secretary’s interview about his colon cancer by NBC’s David Gregory.
The human connection between two men often seen in angry confrontation at White House briefings is moving in itself, but Snow’s courage and optimism in the face of the incurable but treatable disease are a startling reminder that disagreement in politics need not be grounds for personal hatred.
In all the Bush years, putting Snow out there as the face of the Administration has been one of the best moves they made. He is now putting that celebrity to good use in setting an example for other cancer victims of how effective keeping active and maintaining a positive attitude can be.
Tony Snow is not likely to change many minds about Iraq or illegal wiretapping, but he is a constant reminder of what all of us have in common.
The human connection between two men often seen in angry confrontation at White House briefings is moving in itself, but Snow’s courage and optimism in the face of the incurable but treatable disease are a startling reminder that disagreement in politics need not be grounds for personal hatred.
In all the Bush years, putting Snow out there as the face of the Administration has been one of the best moves they made. He is now putting that celebrity to good use in setting an example for other cancer victims of how effective keeping active and maintaining a positive attitude can be.
Tony Snow is not likely to change many minds about Iraq or illegal wiretapping, but he is a constant reminder of what all of us have in common.
Country-Club Health Care
While politicians slobber about democratic principles of universal health care and market competition, an increasing number of Americans are turning back the clock to a me-first, screw-the-poor solution that would not have offended Louis XIV.
To bypass HMOs and managed care insurers, doctors are setting up their own little country clubs for patients who pay dues of at least $1500 a year, much more in many cases, while turning away others they used to treat on a fee-for-service basis.
Revealingly called “concierge medicine,” this kind of exclusion is understandably attractive to physicians who can see a dozen or fewer patients a day rather than the 25 to 35 in a conventional practice. For patients who can afford the tab, it means less waiting and more attention.
But with a nationwide shortage of primary-care doctors, this trend will only exacerbate the health-care crisis in America.
As the candidates push their umpteen-point plans, the market place is working out its own answers that are not politically pretty. Revealingly, soap-selling Procter and Gamble has bought a stake in MDVIP, one of the largest concierge groups.
Marie Antoinette’s philosophy is alive and well.
To bypass HMOs and managed care insurers, doctors are setting up their own little country clubs for patients who pay dues of at least $1500 a year, much more in many cases, while turning away others they used to treat on a fee-for-service basis.
Revealingly called “concierge medicine,” this kind of exclusion is understandably attractive to physicians who can see a dozen or fewer patients a day rather than the 25 to 35 in a conventional practice. For patients who can afford the tab, it means less waiting and more attention.
But with a nationwide shortage of primary-care doctors, this trend will only exacerbate the health-care crisis in America.
As the candidates push their umpteen-point plans, the market place is working out its own answers that are not politically pretty. Revealingly, soap-selling Procter and Gamble has bought a stake in MDVIP, one of the largest concierge groups.
Marie Antoinette’s philosophy is alive and well.
A Sane Re-Start for the Iraq Debate
After all the wishful thinking and political posturing on all sides, a basis for serious discussion makes the “tenuous case” for staying in Iraq while scaling down our presence.
The report urging “strategic patience” is by Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank chaired by former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, with a bipartisan board including Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and William S. Cohen, a former Republican Senator who was Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton.
Some recent advances in Iraq, Cordesman writes, are the result of “sheer luck,” such as Sunni tribesmen turning against Al Qaeda insurgents. He quotes an unnamed U.S. official as describing our situation as "three dimensional chess in the dark while someone is shooting at you."
Rejecting the extremes of staying the course or immediate withdrawal, Cordesman makes a case for phasing down troop levels starting early next year.
His analysis and recommendations will draw fire for being too qualified, too middle-of-the-road and politically unsatisfying. But they have the ring of reality, something so rare in the furor over Iraq that has made Americans unhappy with both the Bush Administration and the Democratic Congress elected to oppose him.
Here, at least, is a starting point for facing the true options and thinking seriously about them.
As Cordesman writes, “The U.S. will ultimately be judged far more by how it leaves Iraq, and what it leaves behind, than how it entered Iraq.”
We’ve lost the war. Can we win the withdrawal?
The report urging “strategic patience” is by Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank chaired by former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, with a bipartisan board including Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and William S. Cohen, a former Republican Senator who was Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton.
Some recent advances in Iraq, Cordesman writes, are the result of “sheer luck,” such as Sunni tribesmen turning against Al Qaeda insurgents. He quotes an unnamed U.S. official as describing our situation as "three dimensional chess in the dark while someone is shooting at you."
Rejecting the extremes of staying the course or immediate withdrawal, Cordesman makes a case for phasing down troop levels starting early next year.
His analysis and recommendations will draw fire for being too qualified, too middle-of-the-road and politically unsatisfying. But they have the ring of reality, something so rare in the furor over Iraq that has made Americans unhappy with both the Bush Administration and the Democratic Congress elected to oppose him.
Here, at least, is a starting point for facing the true options and thinking seriously about them.
As Cordesman writes, “The U.S. will ultimately be judged far more by how it leaves Iraq, and what it leaves behind, than how it entered Iraq.”
We’ve lost the war. Can we win the withdrawal?
Cinderella in the White House
So Mrs. Fred Thompson is not a lawyer, a surprise comparable to the news a while back that Mrs. Rudy Giuliani has two former husbands rather than one.
These unexpected twists only add to the fascination of a First Lady who would embody the American dream of rising out of poverty by sheer will and determination, a Horatio Alger story featuring a Cinderella with erotic power.
As their sagas unfold, the outlines are remarkably similar, two young women from small towns, after struggling through unhappy relationships and money problems, drawn to the lights of big cities where they meet their true loves--Judi in a Manhattan cigar bar, Jeri at a Fourth of July barbecue.
The Giuliani and Thompson campaign staffs are busily airbrushing their stories so as not to offend voters of the Religious Right, but they may be underestimating the appeal of love conquering the barriers of age, social standing and, in Rudy’s case, marital status.
Unlike their handlers, the couples themselves are not being shy. Jeri Thompson is seen with a plunging neck line, and Judi is holding her husband’s face for serious smooching in Harper’s Bazaar. "Rudy's a very, very romantic guy," Mrs. Giuliani told the magazine. "We love watching 'Sleepless in Seattle.' Can you imagine my big testosterone factor husband doing that?"
Well, yes. and if enough voters agree, they could end up snuggling in the White House where the sexual activity would, for a change, be in the master bedroom. In the Thompson case, the fertility rites could go even further with the first baby born there since President Cleveland’s wife, Frances, gave birth in 1893.
In contrast, all the Democrats have to offer in Clinton, Obama and Edwards are long-term first marriages. But if Hillary wins, the Secret Service will have to add spousal extramarital sex to their laundry list of threats against the President.
These unexpected twists only add to the fascination of a First Lady who would embody the American dream of rising out of poverty by sheer will and determination, a Horatio Alger story featuring a Cinderella with erotic power.
As their sagas unfold, the outlines are remarkably similar, two young women from small towns, after struggling through unhappy relationships and money problems, drawn to the lights of big cities where they meet their true loves--Judi in a Manhattan cigar bar, Jeri at a Fourth of July barbecue.
The Giuliani and Thompson campaign staffs are busily airbrushing their stories so as not to offend voters of the Religious Right, but they may be underestimating the appeal of love conquering the barriers of age, social standing and, in Rudy’s case, marital status.
Unlike their handlers, the couples themselves are not being shy. Jeri Thompson is seen with a plunging neck line, and Judi is holding her husband’s face for serious smooching in Harper’s Bazaar. "Rudy's a very, very romantic guy," Mrs. Giuliani told the magazine. "We love watching 'Sleepless in Seattle.' Can you imagine my big testosterone factor husband doing that?"
Well, yes. and if enough voters agree, they could end up snuggling in the White House where the sexual activity would, for a change, be in the master bedroom. In the Thompson case, the fertility rites could go even further with the first baby born there since President Cleveland’s wife, Frances, gave birth in 1893.
In contrast, all the Democrats have to offer in Clinton, Obama and Edwards are long-term first marriages. But if Hillary wins, the Secret Service will have to add spousal extramarital sex to their laundry list of threats against the President.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The Wes Craven School of Journalism
After consulting his gut last month about future terror attacks, Michael Chertoff is now trying to wrench ours.
The voluble Homeland Security Chief teamed up last night with ABC News, the new locus of wet-their-pants journalism, to deliver his latest irrelevant scare story about a year-old threat and his magnificent working in thwarting it.
"I think that the plot, in terms of its intent, was looking at devastation on a scale that would have rivaled 9/11," Chertoff told ABC, commenting on plans discovered by British Intelligence to detonate gel-based explosives on U.S.-bound flights from London last August.
"If they had succeeded in bringing liquid explosives on seven or eight aircraft, there could have been thousands of lives lost and an enormous economic impact with devastating consequences for international air travel."
ABC of late has been juicing up its evening news with such items as a terrorist graduation video supplied by a “Pakistani journalist” and an enthusiastic but pointless report on the resurgence of bank-robbing in the U.S. emphasizing how few perps get caught.
Chertoff’s puffery is a natural fit for this new kind of enterprise journalism to get viewers’ attention at all costs. He prattled for the camera about a “heightened risk” but not “mathematical certainty” of attack based on his reading of news reports from Pakistan and Europe.
If Homeland Security has something to tell Americans that they should do to help avert attacks, let’s hear it by all means. Meanwhile, they and the too-eager media might want cut down on the color-coded self-promotion.
The voluble Homeland Security Chief teamed up last night with ABC News, the new locus of wet-their-pants journalism, to deliver his latest irrelevant scare story about a year-old threat and his magnificent working in thwarting it.
"I think that the plot, in terms of its intent, was looking at devastation on a scale that would have rivaled 9/11," Chertoff told ABC, commenting on plans discovered by British Intelligence to detonate gel-based explosives on U.S.-bound flights from London last August.
"If they had succeeded in bringing liquid explosives on seven or eight aircraft, there could have been thousands of lives lost and an enormous economic impact with devastating consequences for international air travel."
ABC of late has been juicing up its evening news with such items as a terrorist graduation video supplied by a “Pakistani journalist” and an enthusiastic but pointless report on the resurgence of bank-robbing in the U.S. emphasizing how few perps get caught.
Chertoff’s puffery is a natural fit for this new kind of enterprise journalism to get viewers’ attention at all costs. He prattled for the camera about a “heightened risk” but not “mathematical certainty” of attack based on his reading of news reports from Pakistan and Europe.
If Homeland Security has something to tell Americans that they should do to help avert attacks, let’s hear it by all means. Meanwhile, they and the too-eager media might want cut down on the color-coded self-promotion.
Super Scoop
Stop the presses! The New York Times is breaking big news today. “Competitors, Once Collegial, Now Seem Cool” is the headline for the revelation that “Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have barely spoken to each other-—at least in any meaningful way--for months.”
If the cool kids are acting like that, what hope is there for us grinds at the J-School? Pretty soon the whole campus will be a hotbed of hostility. Maybe they’ll kiss and make up at the pep rally on the football field tonight and even go out for a malt together after. Wouldn’t that be keen?
If the cool kids are acting like that, what hope is there for us grinds at the J-School? Pretty soon the whole campus will be a hotbed of hostility. Maybe they’ll kiss and make up at the pep rally on the football field tonight and even go out for a malt together after. Wouldn’t that be keen?
A Preview of the Iraq to Come
In today’s Washington Post we can see the future, and it doesn’t work. The southern city of Basra, where there has been no sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites, once considered a “success story” of the post-Saddam era, is now becoming a different place as British troops prepare to leave.
“Three major Shiite political groups,” the Post reports, “are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by ‘the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors,’ a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.”
There is no ideological winner or loser. The U.S., Britain and Iran, the ISG concludes, are “equally confused” about what’s happening in the city with two-thirds of Iraq’s oil resources.
Our politicians have been arguing over whether Iraq is emblematic of the Middle East and to what extent our staying or going is a test case of our will and accepting responsibility for what has followed the overthrow of Saddam.
Last month, Colin Powell said that troops “can only put a heavier lid on this boiling pot of sectarian stew.” As in Basra, today’s report suggests, there are also boiling non-sectarian stews all over Iraq and that keeping the lids on is not the critical question.
Until the heat is turned down by the emergence of another Saddam or, more likely, a number of regional Saddams, our going or staying is not the answer. The withdrawing British are not leaving behind a “success story” in Basra, but would their staying have made any difference or only postponed the inevitable outcome?
“Three major Shiite political groups,” the Post reports, “are locked in a bloody conflict that has left the city in the hands of militias and criminal gangs, whose control extends to municipal offices and neighborhood streets. The city is plagued by ‘the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors,’ a recent report by the International Crisis Group said.”
There is no ideological winner or loser. The U.S., Britain and Iran, the ISG concludes, are “equally confused” about what’s happening in the city with two-thirds of Iraq’s oil resources.
Our politicians have been arguing over whether Iraq is emblematic of the Middle East and to what extent our staying or going is a test case of our will and accepting responsibility for what has followed the overthrow of Saddam.
Last month, Colin Powell said that troops “can only put a heavier lid on this boiling pot of sectarian stew.” As in Basra, today’s report suggests, there are also boiling non-sectarian stews all over Iraq and that keeping the lids on is not the critical question.
Until the heat is turned down by the emergence of another Saddam or, more likely, a number of regional Saddams, our going or staying is not the answer. The withdrawing British are not leaving behind a “success story” in Basra, but would their staying have made any difference or only postponed the inevitable outcome?
Monday, August 06, 2007
Breaking the Bush-Obama Language Barrier
Ten days ago, Barack Obama said this about Pakistan: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
He was pooh-poohed by Tony Snow and called naïve, dangerous and irresponsible by candidates of both parties. Mitt Romney said, “He’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.”
Today President Bush, asked what he would do in Pakistan, answered: “I'm confident that with actionable intelligence we will be able to bring top Al-Qaeda to justice. We're in constant communications with the Pakistan government...And I'm confident, with real, actionable intelligence, we will get the job done.”
There is no daylight between these two answers except that Bush is taking Musharraf’s acquiescence for granted and is ducking the possibility that he “won’t act.”
But two week ago, his homeland security adviser Frances Townsend didn’t. She told Fox News that, beyond working with Musharraf, we were ready to take additional measures.
"Just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing things you talk about," Townsend said, when asked why the U.S. does not conduct special operations and other measures to cripple Al Qaeda. "Job No. 1 is to protect the American people. There are no options off the table...No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal."
A week earlier she expressed “frustration” with Musharraf to the New York Times, which reported that “there was growing concern that pinprick attacks against Al Qaeda targets are not enough, but that some new American measures might have to remain secret to avoid embarrassing General Musharraf.”
So Bush’s policy, translated from Texan, is that, if Musharraf won’t act, we will. He just uses more words than Obama.
If Jane Fonda won’t explain all this to Mitt Romney, maybe some Administration Dr. Strangelove will.
He was pooh-poohed by Tony Snow and called naïve, dangerous and irresponsible by candidates of both parties. Mitt Romney said, “He’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.”
Today President Bush, asked what he would do in Pakistan, answered: “I'm confident that with actionable intelligence we will be able to bring top Al-Qaeda to justice. We're in constant communications with the Pakistan government...And I'm confident, with real, actionable intelligence, we will get the job done.”
There is no daylight between these two answers except that Bush is taking Musharraf’s acquiescence for granted and is ducking the possibility that he “won’t act.”
But two week ago, his homeland security adviser Frances Townsend didn’t. She told Fox News that, beyond working with Musharraf, we were ready to take additional measures.
"Just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing things you talk about," Townsend said, when asked why the U.S. does not conduct special operations and other measures to cripple Al Qaeda. "Job No. 1 is to protect the American people. There are no options off the table...No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal."
A week earlier she expressed “frustration” with Musharraf to the New York Times, which reported that “there was growing concern that pinprick attacks against Al Qaeda targets are not enough, but that some new American measures might have to remain secret to avoid embarrassing General Musharraf.”
So Bush’s policy, translated from Texan, is that, if Musharraf won’t act, we will. He just uses more words than Obama.
If Jane Fonda won’t explain all this to Mitt Romney, maybe some Administration Dr. Strangelove will.
Drinking Sand in Iraq
I love my country more than I dislike George Bush, so it’s tempting to believe Michael Barone’s contention today that, in Iraq, “instead of accepting defeat and inviting chaos, we may be able to achieve a significant measure of success.”
Tempting but not sustainable--the crumbs we are being fed about local gains by Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon in their New York Times OpEd piece last week and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Meet the Press yesterday are not enough to nourish hope for overall improvement in that shattered nation.
Even in his upbeat assessment, Gates admitted that “the problem when we would go after Al Qaeda and insurgents before is that when we would hit them in one place, they’d squirt to another place. For the first time the commander has enough forces that he can attack all of their basic locations at the same time, so it’s much more difficult for them to squirt out and escape...”
For now. But how long will we have to keep the troops we have there in place and how many more will it take to stop the “squirting” all over Iraq? And how much good will local pacification be if the central government fails, as it has so far, to come together even on the simplest issues?
There is so much Iraq Fatigue in the U.S. that a change in the narrative is like an oasis in the desert, but we can’t let ourselves be sidetracked by another mirage and end up trying to drink the sand.
Tempting but not sustainable--the crumbs we are being fed about local gains by Kenneth Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon in their New York Times OpEd piece last week and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Meet the Press yesterday are not enough to nourish hope for overall improvement in that shattered nation.
Even in his upbeat assessment, Gates admitted that “the problem when we would go after Al Qaeda and insurgents before is that when we would hit them in one place, they’d squirt to another place. For the first time the commander has enough forces that he can attack all of their basic locations at the same time, so it’s much more difficult for them to squirt out and escape...”
For now. But how long will we have to keep the troops we have there in place and how many more will it take to stop the “squirting” all over Iraq? And how much good will local pacification be if the central government fails, as it has so far, to come together even on the simplest issues?
There is so much Iraq Fatigue in the U.S. that a change in the narrative is like an oasis in the desert, but we can’t let ourselves be sidetracked by another mirage and end up trying to drink the sand.
Michael Moore's Ann Coulter
Today’s San Diego Union-Tribune carries a rebuke to the “Sicko” maker for extolling Britain’s National Health Service by Liz Mair, a writer and political consultant who “serves the needs of center-right political organizations, political leaders and candidates.”
Ms. Mair seems to have a thing for Mr. Moore. Her web site recently savaged him for attacking CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta phonetically by pronouncing his name “‘Dr. Saaanjay Guuuupta,’"laying incredible emphasis and vitriol on his foreign name. Without doubt, it was an oblique comment on the reporter-cum-doctor's ethnicity. What a crazy and unacceptable way to discredit a foe.”
A former resident of London, Ms. Mair wants us to know that “no matter how great socialized medicine may sound, the best that it achieves is dishing up very poor care for all, as opposed to good care for all, or even most.”
The main point of Ms. Mair’s indictment is health care for all at times involves longer waiting for services, which is presumably a horror not visited on U.S. patients since so many of the riff-raff have no coverage and are not clogging up the waiting rooms. They go to hospital emergency units.
While Ms. Mair keeps harpooning Michael Moore, elsewhere she has advice for Republican Presidential candidates. Attacking Mitt Romney for attempting universal coverage in Massachusetts, she suggests to the others: “Since excess regulation contributes greatly to skyrocketing costs--which in turn makes it tough to buy insurance if you're among the working poor--rather than proposing more regulation, Republicans might consider pursuing deregulation of the insurance market.”
While Ms. Mair keeps harpooning Michael Moore, she is busy trying to dismantle the pitiful controls that do exist on HMOs and private insurers. It makes one wonder if she consults for clients other than politicians. Or is she just idealistically wrong-headed?
Ms. Mair seems to have a thing for Mr. Moore. Her web site recently savaged him for attacking CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta phonetically by pronouncing his name “‘Dr. Saaanjay Guuuupta,’"laying incredible emphasis and vitriol on his foreign name. Without doubt, it was an oblique comment on the reporter-cum-doctor's ethnicity. What a crazy and unacceptable way to discredit a foe.”
A former resident of London, Ms. Mair wants us to know that “no matter how great socialized medicine may sound, the best that it achieves is dishing up very poor care for all, as opposed to good care for all, or even most.”
The main point of Ms. Mair’s indictment is health care for all at times involves longer waiting for services, which is presumably a horror not visited on U.S. patients since so many of the riff-raff have no coverage and are not clogging up the waiting rooms. They go to hospital emergency units.
While Ms. Mair keeps harpooning Michael Moore, elsewhere she has advice for Republican Presidential candidates. Attacking Mitt Romney for attempting universal coverage in Massachusetts, she suggests to the others: “Since excess regulation contributes greatly to skyrocketing costs--which in turn makes it tough to buy insurance if you're among the working poor--rather than proposing more regulation, Republicans might consider pursuing deregulation of the insurance market.”
While Ms. Mair keeps harpooning Michael Moore, she is busy trying to dismantle the pitiful controls that do exist on HMOs and private insurers. It makes one wonder if she consults for clients other than politicians. Or is she just idealistically wrong-headed?
Di and Buffy: Life Goes On
Mohamed Al Fayed is a grieving father and a businessman.
Ten years after the death of his son Dodi and the Princess of Wales, Al Fayed is still trying to prove they were killed under orders from Buckingham Palace by the British Secret Service with help from the C.I.A.
The lead item on Al Fayed’s web site reports his attendance at a court hearing to challenge the finding that the driver of his son’s limousine was drunk at the time of the accident.
Next to it is a report on the department store Harrods, with a photograph of Mr. Al Fayed, the Chairman, greeting Sarah Michelle Gellar arriving in a horse-drawn carriage to open the Summer Sale. The star of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Scooby Doo” was dressed in “a show-stoppingly sexy hot-pant suit by Jasmine di Milo, teamed with sky-high Louboutin heels.”
Grief is eternal, but life must go on.
Ten years after the death of his son Dodi and the Princess of Wales, Al Fayed is still trying to prove they were killed under orders from Buckingham Palace by the British Secret Service with help from the C.I.A.
The lead item on Al Fayed’s web site reports his attendance at a court hearing to challenge the finding that the driver of his son’s limousine was drunk at the time of the accident.
Next to it is a report on the department store Harrods, with a photograph of Mr. Al Fayed, the Chairman, greeting Sarah Michelle Gellar arriving in a horse-drawn carriage to open the Summer Sale. The star of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Scooby Doo” was dressed in “a show-stoppingly sexy hot-pant suit by Jasmine di Milo, teamed with sky-high Louboutin heels.”
Grief is eternal, but life must go on.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
The Menace of Mr. Smooth
Not only was Robert Gates an Eagle Scout in his youth but he grew up to become president of the National Eagle Scout Association. Unlike his grating predecessor as Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld, Gates is soporific and therein may lie his menace to America.
Today on Meet the Press, Gates lulled us with his uninflected claim of “positive things happening at the local level” in Iraq, “confidence in the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to make in early September” and a reminder he had told the Iraqi parliament that “every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”
All this sounds sane and plausible, but American blood keeps flowing and Gates, by not being cocky and condescending like Rumsfeld, is enabling it. His intelligence and rationality may doing more damage.
In the subtitle of his memoirs was the phrase “the ultimate insider,” and Gates has certainly been that for almost four decades, most of it with the C.I.A., loyal to the point of almost being prosecuted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.
After leaving government to become a college president, Gates in 2005 declined the newly created position of uber-Director of National Intelligence saying he "had nothing to look forward to in D.C.” But he couldn’t refuse the offer to succeed Rumsfeld.
From his demeanor and statements, and as a former member of the Iraq Study Group, Robert Gates clearly understands the futility of the enterprise there. But he has spent his life being a good and loyal servant of those in power, Reagan and both Bushes.
It’s unlikely that he wakes in the middle of the night with pangs over what he is buying with American blood, but it would be comforting to believe he is capable of that.
Today on Meet the Press, Gates lulled us with his uninflected claim of “positive things happening at the local level” in Iraq, “confidence in the evaluation that Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to make in early September” and a reminder he had told the Iraqi parliament that “every day that we buy you, we’re buying it with American blood, and the idea of you going on vacation is unacceptable.”
All this sounds sane and plausible, but American blood keeps flowing and Gates, by not being cocky and condescending like Rumsfeld, is enabling it. His intelligence and rationality may doing more damage.
In the subtitle of his memoirs was the phrase “the ultimate insider,” and Gates has certainly been that for almost four decades, most of it with the C.I.A., loyal to the point of almost being prosecuted for his part in the Iran-Contra scandal.
After leaving government to become a college president, Gates in 2005 declined the newly created position of uber-Director of National Intelligence saying he "had nothing to look forward to in D.C.” But he couldn’t refuse the offer to succeed Rumsfeld.
From his demeanor and statements, and as a former member of the Iraq Study Group, Robert Gates clearly understands the futility of the enterprise there. But he has spent his life being a good and loyal servant of those in power, Reagan and both Bushes.
It’s unlikely that he wakes in the middle of the night with pangs over what he is buying with American blood, but it would be comforting to believe he is capable of that.
Smart People, Dumb Choices
As an antidote to Bush fatuity, we now have the thinking man’s explanation for supporting the war and getting it totally wrong.
A former Harvard professor now a member of the Canadian parliament, Michael Ignatieff writes in the New York Times Magazine today:
“The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us...What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror...
“I went to northern Iraq in 1992. I saw what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds...I let emotion carry me past the hard questions, like: Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror? I should have known that emotions in politics, as in life, tend to be self-justifying...”
Ignatieff is more than a bit glib, but shrewd on the differences between academics and politicians: “Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way.”
But Ignatieff is too easy on himself. Going back to David Halberstam’s dissection of the intellectuals who misled JFK into Vietnam, the ironically titled “The Best and the Brightest,” it has become fashionable to dismiss thinking in favor of instinct in matters of war and peace, life and death. We need both, and we need them in people who admit human fallibility and still have the courage to make the best decisions they can.
Informed emotion may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s our best hope.
A former Harvard professor now a member of the Canadian parliament, Michael Ignatieff writes in the New York Times Magazine today:
“The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us...What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror...
“I went to northern Iraq in 1992. I saw what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds...I let emotion carry me past the hard questions, like: Can Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites hold together in peace what Saddam Hussein held together by terror? I should have known that emotions in politics, as in life, tend to be self-justifying...”
Ignatieff is more than a bit glib, but shrewd on the differences between academics and politicians: “Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way.”
But Ignatieff is too easy on himself. Going back to David Halberstam’s dissection of the intellectuals who misled JFK into Vietnam, the ironically titled “The Best and the Brightest,” it has become fashionable to dismiss thinking in favor of instinct in matters of war and peace, life and death. We need both, and we need them in people who admit human fallibility and still have the courage to make the best decisions they can.
Informed emotion may sound like an oxymoron, but it’s our best hope.
The Judi and Jeri Shows
Now this is new: two leading Presidential candidates trying to sell their second and third wives as First Lady to Republican voters, whose family values embrace “secondary virginity.”
In the New York Times, the Giulianis re-introduce Judith, nee Judi, to offset a Vanity Fair profile that portrays her as a pushy adventuress who insists on an extra airline seat for her Louis Vuitton handbag and who, as the Mayor’s girlfriend, swept into the first 9/11 anniversary memorial ceremony at Ground Zero with a police detail that shoved Hillary Clinton aside.
“I try to remain me,” she told the Times, but to avoid “making myself in any way a distraction from what my husband is trying to do for America.”
The Judi makeover will have to overcome the image of the next First Lady as a twice-married mother meeting her then-married husband at a cigar bar and embarking on a public affair that led to a contentious divorce and alienation from his two grown children. That, along with Mrs. Giuliani’s penchant for high living and tendency to terrorize his staff, might just turn out to be a “distraction.”
But in the interfering-wife department, she is being overshadowed by Mrs. Fred Thompson, whose dominance in the actor-senator’s still unannounced campaign now has a name, the Jeri Factor, to describe her involvement in every detail. The new issue of Newsweek describes her as his "top political adviser and de facto campaign manager."
With disappointing fund-raising figures, Thompson is still running a close second to Giuliani in the polls but among other distractions, his politically savvy but photogenically sexy “trophy wife” is becoming an issue with Republicans who want to see him as the true-conservative alternative to Giuliani.
Mrs. Thompson might benefit from the advice of a former girl friend of her husband’s, country singer Lorrie Morgan, who wrote in her memoir:
“Fred let me know that it was important how I dressed. Sedate was in...with men who had big wallets and insecure wives, wives who were a little older than I was. So get that basic black dress out of the closet. And no cleavage, baby.”
Stay tuned. With the three Democratic front runners still in their first marriages, the Judy and Jeri Shows may draw ratings in the fall TV season to rival “Desperate Housewives.”
In the New York Times, the Giulianis re-introduce Judith, nee Judi, to offset a Vanity Fair profile that portrays her as a pushy adventuress who insists on an extra airline seat for her Louis Vuitton handbag and who, as the Mayor’s girlfriend, swept into the first 9/11 anniversary memorial ceremony at Ground Zero with a police detail that shoved Hillary Clinton aside.
“I try to remain me,” she told the Times, but to avoid “making myself in any way a distraction from what my husband is trying to do for America.”
The Judi makeover will have to overcome the image of the next First Lady as a twice-married mother meeting her then-married husband at a cigar bar and embarking on a public affair that led to a contentious divorce and alienation from his two grown children. That, along with Mrs. Giuliani’s penchant for high living and tendency to terrorize his staff, might just turn out to be a “distraction.”
But in the interfering-wife department, she is being overshadowed by Mrs. Fred Thompson, whose dominance in the actor-senator’s still unannounced campaign now has a name, the Jeri Factor, to describe her involvement in every detail. The new issue of Newsweek describes her as his "top political adviser and de facto campaign manager."
With disappointing fund-raising figures, Thompson is still running a close second to Giuliani in the polls but among other distractions, his politically savvy but photogenically sexy “trophy wife” is becoming an issue with Republicans who want to see him as the true-conservative alternative to Giuliani.
Mrs. Thompson might benefit from the advice of a former girl friend of her husband’s, country singer Lorrie Morgan, who wrote in her memoir:
“Fred let me know that it was important how I dressed. Sedate was in...with men who had big wallets and insecure wives, wives who were a little older than I was. So get that basic black dress out of the closet. And no cleavage, baby.”
Stay tuned. With the three Democratic front runners still in their first marriages, the Judy and Jeri Shows may draw ratings in the fall TV season to rival “Desperate Housewives.”
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Redhead Abuse
If ye have tears, prepare to shed them now for Prince Harry of England and Nicole Kidman, victims of prejudice by an unfeeling society against the ginger-haired.
In Britain, ABC reports a rising tide of discrimination with one family driven from its home by anti-redhead grafitti, vandalism and physical assaults and a waitress awarded $35,000 in a suit for “ginger abuse.”
The U.S. has been spared thus far, possibly because only 2 percent of the population is (pace Clairol) naturally red-headed, while in Scotland and Ireland more than one in ten are subject to ginger-phobia, often expressed by rude remarks from strangers in the streets.
The notion that persons of such color are untrustworthy can been traced as far back as the belief that Judas had red hair.
The plight of carrot tops has not yet resulted in organized resistance, but there has been a revival of interest in the Sherlock Holmes story, “The League of Redheaded Men,” which would now, of course, be “Persons.”
Back here, the American response has been typically defiant--T-shirts with a ketchup bottle labeled “Saucy Redhead.”
In Britain, ABC reports a rising tide of discrimination with one family driven from its home by anti-redhead grafitti, vandalism and physical assaults and a waitress awarded $35,000 in a suit for “ginger abuse.”
The U.S. has been spared thus far, possibly because only 2 percent of the population is (pace Clairol) naturally red-headed, while in Scotland and Ireland more than one in ten are subject to ginger-phobia, often expressed by rude remarks from strangers in the streets.
The notion that persons of such color are untrustworthy can been traced as far back as the belief that Judas had red hair.
The plight of carrot tops has not yet resulted in organized resistance, but there has been a revival of interest in the Sherlock Holmes story, “The League of Redheaded Men,” which would now, of course, be “Persons.”
Back here, the American response has been typically defiant--T-shirts with a ketchup bottle labeled “Saucy Redhead.”
Is Bush Making Absolutists of Us All?
If truth is the first casualty of war, public reason may be the second. In the world this President has created, with the help of terrorists who want to take away our peace of mind, every issue has been infected by their good-or-evil view of the world.
In reporting the Senate debate on wiretapping authority last night, the New York Times cites a White House “victory” over a measure that would temporarily allow more latitude to eavesdrop on foreign communications by suspected terrorists.
The ACLU says “Democrats caved in to the politics of fear,” while the Republican sponsor crows “I can sleep a little safer tonight.”
All this hyperbole is prompted by what in a saner society would be a serious discussion about resolving the conflict between public safety and individual rights.
The vocal defenders of privacy are doing their cause, our cause, no service by reducing every complicated question to right or wrong, black or white, us or them. Bush, Cheney and their ilk may be deaf to arguments on these issues, but shouting louder won’t get through to them.
The questions will still be there after they are gone, and the voices of reason will be needed as much as ever.
By all means, let’s set severe limits on what this paranoid gang can do, but not get pushed into defending doing nothing. If politics no longer ends at the water’s edge, neither should good sense.
In reporting the Senate debate on wiretapping authority last night, the New York Times cites a White House “victory” over a measure that would temporarily allow more latitude to eavesdrop on foreign communications by suspected terrorists.
The ACLU says “Democrats caved in to the politics of fear,” while the Republican sponsor crows “I can sleep a little safer tonight.”
All this hyperbole is prompted by what in a saner society would be a serious discussion about resolving the conflict between public safety and individual rights.
The vocal defenders of privacy are doing their cause, our cause, no service by reducing every complicated question to right or wrong, black or white, us or them. Bush, Cheney and their ilk may be deaf to arguments on these issues, but shouting louder won’t get through to them.
The questions will still be there after they are gone, and the voices of reason will be needed as much as ever.
By all means, let’s set severe limits on what this paranoid gang can do, but not get pushed into defending doing nothing. If politics no longer ends at the water’s edge, neither should good sense.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Is John Edwards Accident-Prone?
On the heels of good news about the Iowa polling, the former Senator can’t resist shooting himself in the foot by trying to score points demanding his Democratic opponents give back contributions from Rupert Murdoch.
Today Murdoch’s New York Post notes that Edwards “himself earned at least $800,000 for a book published by one of the media mogul's companies.” Was he, the Post asked, going to give that back?
This little pickle recalls the hoo-ha about Edwards’ use of money raised to fight poverty for campaign purposes and his tortured explanation for earning almost half a million dollars for a part-time job with a hedge fund involved in sub-prime loans to low-income home owners.
Edwards might be well advised to stop talking about the rich and stick to palaver about the poor.
Today Murdoch’s New York Post notes that Edwards “himself earned at least $800,000 for a book published by one of the media mogul's companies.” Was he, the Post asked, going to give that back?
This little pickle recalls the hoo-ha about Edwards’ use of money raised to fight poverty for campaign purposes and his tortured explanation for earning almost half a million dollars for a part-time job with a hedge fund involved in sub-prime loans to low-income home owners.
Edwards might be well advised to stop talking about the rich and stick to palaver about the poor.
Antonioni
It seems apt to be a few days late in talking about a master of elongated silences and empty spaces.
The eeriness of his death on the same day as Ingmar Bergman’s produces a disorientation fitting to Michelangelo Antonioni. At a time when we were being overwhelmed by the post-war neo-realism of Rossellini, De Sica and Fellini, he stopped us in our tracks with “L’Avventura,” “La Notte” and “L’Eclisse.”
Making an art of dislocation and loose ends, his films drew us into experiences of alienation rather than dramas about it, puzzled sometimes to the point of exasperation but often powerfully moved.
In 1961, Sight and Sound polled 70 leading critics from around the world, and they chose “L’Avventura” as the second-greatest film ever made, after “Citizen Kane.”
But where Bergman’s genius flourished in new directions, Antonioni’s withered. Alienation is not fertile ground for growth. After “Blowup” in 1966, many of his admirers lost interest.
At the Democratic Convention in 1968, there were rumors that Antonioni was there with a camera crew. They turned out not to be true, but it would have been wonderful to have had his vision of American society at a moment when it was breaking apart.
The eeriness of his death on the same day as Ingmar Bergman’s produces a disorientation fitting to Michelangelo Antonioni. At a time when we were being overwhelmed by the post-war neo-realism of Rossellini, De Sica and Fellini, he stopped us in our tracks with “L’Avventura,” “La Notte” and “L’Eclisse.”
Making an art of dislocation and loose ends, his films drew us into experiences of alienation rather than dramas about it, puzzled sometimes to the point of exasperation but often powerfully moved.
In 1961, Sight and Sound polled 70 leading critics from around the world, and they chose “L’Avventura” as the second-greatest film ever made, after “Citizen Kane.”
But where Bergman’s genius flourished in new directions, Antonioni’s withered. Alienation is not fertile ground for growth. After “Blowup” in 1966, many of his admirers lost interest.
At the Democratic Convention in 1968, there were rumors that Antonioni was there with a camera crew. They turned out not to be true, but it would have been wonderful to have had his vision of American society at a moment when it was breaking apart.
Covering the Super-Healthy Only
If Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney or Chief Justice John Roberts applied for private health insurance, they wouldn’t get it.
Neither would Michael Moore for his obesity or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went to the hospital in 2005 for rapid heartbeats.
An organization called the Medical Information Bureau would take a quick look at their histories and tell 470 companies they are hopelessly bad risks. Their work helps health insurers cherry-pick prospects to cover only those who are unlikely to get sick.
So much for universal coverage and the faith that Republicans, including President Bush, have in the marketplace. After the removal of his five polyps last month, he would have trouble getting health insurance himself.
CBS reported recently that a survey by the Commonwealth Fund last year found that 89 percent, or 52 million, of those looking for individual health insurance didn't get it because it was too expensive or they were turned down.
“Insurers are getting double the profit that they make in the group market. Why is it so lucrative? Because they exclude anybody and everybody who has even a remote sense of risk associated with their health care," said Dr. Bryan Liang, who has studied the insurance industry for more than a decade.
Someone should break the news to Rudy Giuliani, who loves the current system. His 2001 treatment for prostate cancer would rule him out for coverage in a New York minute.
Neither would Michael Moore for his obesity or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went to the hospital in 2005 for rapid heartbeats.
An organization called the Medical Information Bureau would take a quick look at their histories and tell 470 companies they are hopelessly bad risks. Their work helps health insurers cherry-pick prospects to cover only those who are unlikely to get sick.
So much for universal coverage and the faith that Republicans, including President Bush, have in the marketplace. After the removal of his five polyps last month, he would have trouble getting health insurance himself.
CBS reported recently that a survey by the Commonwealth Fund last year found that 89 percent, or 52 million, of those looking for individual health insurance didn't get it because it was too expensive or they were turned down.
“Insurers are getting double the profit that they make in the group market. Why is it so lucrative? Because they exclude anybody and everybody who has even a remote sense of risk associated with their health care," said Dr. Bryan Liang, who has studied the insurance industry for more than a decade.
Someone should break the news to Rudy Giuliani, who loves the current system. His 2001 treatment for prostate cancer would rule him out for coverage in a New York minute.
The Sexy Vegan Vote
If Denis Kucinich has any hope of climbing out of single digitdom in the Presidential race, it may be enhanced by a new study that suggests certain voters may find him irresistible.
The research shows that vegans, who don’t eat meat or animal byproducts, are sexually repulsed by people who do. Of all the ’08 candidates, Kucinich is the only vegan, along with his beautiful wife who is half his age.
They may not be a huge voting bloc, but vegetarians, estimated to be 2.5 percent of the U.S. population, are viewed as strong-minded and vocal in their views.
In rejecting meat eaters as sexual partners in the new study, they see their “bodies as being composed of the lives of others" and don’t want to be intimate with them “because of the smells and tastes of their body fluids."
According to a spokesperson for PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, "Sex is a very effective form of outreach and activism.”
The research shows that vegans, who don’t eat meat or animal byproducts, are sexually repulsed by people who do. Of all the ’08 candidates, Kucinich is the only vegan, along with his beautiful wife who is half his age.
They may not be a huge voting bloc, but vegetarians, estimated to be 2.5 percent of the U.S. population, are viewed as strong-minded and vocal in their views.
In rejecting meat eaters as sexual partners in the new study, they see their “bodies as being composed of the lives of others" and don’t want to be intimate with them “because of the smells and tastes of their body fluids."
According to a spokesperson for PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, "Sex is a very effective form of outreach and activism.”
Christmas in August for John Edwards
The ’08 campaign pace in Iowa is as intense as it was a month before Democrats chose John Kerry in 2004 with a new poll showing Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and—-surprise--John Edwards in a virtual tie.
Six months before the January 14th caucuses, Iowans have donated as much money, attended as many campaign events and received as many phone calls as they did in December 2003.
Edwards, who placed second last time, is making an all-out effort there to beat the two national front runners, with a week-long bus tour this month to pound home the message of his poverty campaign: “I want America to join us, all of us, to end the great work Bobby Kennedy started.”
Clinton and Obama are working hard too for a victory in the first ’08 test of strength. The former First Lady’s secret weapon is two-time Governor Tom Vilsack, a possible running mate, who is auditioning by playing surrogate in the spat over meeting with unfriendly foreign leaders.
Vilsack, in expressing “disappointment” with Obama’s attacks on Clinton, told voters, “It’s not the Iowa way.”
Meanwhile, Obama is showing considerable strength with potential caucus-goers expressing interest in his “new ideas and new direction.”
In a state with a reputation for being “contrary,” where caucus members stand in designated areas and yammer at one another and traditionally make up their minds at the last moment, anything can happen. John Edwards, for one, is hoping that it will.
Six months before the January 14th caucuses, Iowans have donated as much money, attended as many campaign events and received as many phone calls as they did in December 2003.
Edwards, who placed second last time, is making an all-out effort there to beat the two national front runners, with a week-long bus tour this month to pound home the message of his poverty campaign: “I want America to join us, all of us, to end the great work Bobby Kennedy started.”
Clinton and Obama are working hard too for a victory in the first ’08 test of strength. The former First Lady’s secret weapon is two-time Governor Tom Vilsack, a possible running mate, who is auditioning by playing surrogate in the spat over meeting with unfriendly foreign leaders.
Vilsack, in expressing “disappointment” with Obama’s attacks on Clinton, told voters, “It’s not the Iowa way.”
Meanwhile, Obama is showing considerable strength with potential caucus-goers expressing interest in his “new ideas and new direction.”
In a state with a reputation for being “contrary,” where caucus members stand in designated areas and yammer at one another and traditionally make up their minds at the last moment, anything can happen. John Edwards, for one, is hoping that it will.
All at Sea in D.C. and Alaska
At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Karl Rove’s aide, J. Scott Jennings, used a maritime metaphor in declining to answer questions:
"I hope that you can appreciate the difficulty of my situation," he said. "It makes Odysseus' voyage between Scylla and Charybdis seem like a pleasure cruise."
Very literary, but Sen. Pat Leahy, the Committee Chairman, was not charmed. "Mr. Jennings, I am not here to play games," he warned.
Jennings’ reference to a “pleasure cruise” may have been the final straw for Leahy’s frustration over not getting answers from the White House about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.
But, while he and others in the political mainstream are sweltering in Washington, denizens of the Far Left and Hard Right are on actual pleasure cruises, enjoying temperate weather off the coast of Alaska.
Devotees of the Nation and the National Review are out there this week on separate but equal Holland America luxury ships, attending seminars and demonizing one another in first-class style at a cost topping out at $9489 for NR and $8657 for the Nation’s plebians.
Their schedules have been cunningly arranged to avert a possible Monitor-Merrimac kind of naval engagement, missing each other by a day in ports of calls such as Sitka, Juneau and Ketchikan.
Stars for the left-leaning sailors are Ralph Nader, actor-activist Richard Dreyfuss and former CBS news producer Mary Mapes, who was terminated after a to-do over a segment about George Bush’s National Guard service in 2004. Regaling the right are such charmers as John Bolton, Robert Bork and Dick Morris.
As they bloviate in cool comfort, no wonder that those like Leahy who are laboring in steamy Washington are getting a little testy. Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and the whole Bush crew are still sailing along, untouched.
"I hope that you can appreciate the difficulty of my situation," he said. "It makes Odysseus' voyage between Scylla and Charybdis seem like a pleasure cruise."
Very literary, but Sen. Pat Leahy, the Committee Chairman, was not charmed. "Mr. Jennings, I am not here to play games," he warned.
Jennings’ reference to a “pleasure cruise” may have been the final straw for Leahy’s frustration over not getting answers from the White House about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys.
But, while he and others in the political mainstream are sweltering in Washington, denizens of the Far Left and Hard Right are on actual pleasure cruises, enjoying temperate weather off the coast of Alaska.
Devotees of the Nation and the National Review are out there this week on separate but equal Holland America luxury ships, attending seminars and demonizing one another in first-class style at a cost topping out at $9489 for NR and $8657 for the Nation’s plebians.
Their schedules have been cunningly arranged to avert a possible Monitor-Merrimac kind of naval engagement, missing each other by a day in ports of calls such as Sitka, Juneau and Ketchikan.
Stars for the left-leaning sailors are Ralph Nader, actor-activist Richard Dreyfuss and former CBS news producer Mary Mapes, who was terminated after a to-do over a segment about George Bush’s National Guard service in 2004. Regaling the right are such charmers as John Bolton, Robert Bork and Dick Morris.
As they bloviate in cool comfort, no wonder that those like Leahy who are laboring in steamy Washington are getting a little testy. Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and the whole Bush crew are still sailing along, untouched.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Mourning in Minnesota
In the Rose Garden today, President Bush said the Federal government “must respond, and respond robustly, to help the people there...recover.”
The First Lady will be in Minneapolis Friday to console the families of those who died.
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said today, “This is a horrible time for the families of those who lost loved ones yesterday, and it's also a very trying time for anybody in public service."
After the uproar over FEMA’s failure in New Orleans, the Administration is now responding with appropriate action and expressions of sympathy to a disaster in the city that will host the Republican National Convention next year.
The official death toll from the collapsed bridge is now four, with as many as 30 others missing.
In Iraq, 54 young men from Minnesota have been lost, 11 of them this year. Unlike yesterday’s victims, they died far from home and officially unmourned.
No one knows yet if the bridge disaster could have been averted and the victims spared. In Iraq, we do. Will the President “respond robustly”?
The First Lady will be in Minneapolis Friday to console the families of those who died.
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said today, “This is a horrible time for the families of those who lost loved ones yesterday, and it's also a very trying time for anybody in public service."
After the uproar over FEMA’s failure in New Orleans, the Administration is now responding with appropriate action and expressions of sympathy to a disaster in the city that will host the Republican National Convention next year.
The official death toll from the collapsed bridge is now four, with as many as 30 others missing.
In Iraq, 54 young men from Minnesota have been lost, 11 of them this year. Unlike yesterday’s victims, they died far from home and officially unmourned.
No one knows yet if the bridge disaster could have been averted and the victims spared. In Iraq, we do. Will the President “respond robustly”?
The Politics of Mock-Outrage
Barack Obama is having his “emperor has no clothes” moment in Presidential politics, being savaged for saying out loud yesterday what is obvious about Pakistan: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."
Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, in an editorial, shrieks, “Naive? Sen. Clinton was too kind. If he's serious, he's dangerous.”
Democratic Presidential rival Chris Dodd calls the statement “dangerous and irresponsible,” while Joe Biden merely labels it “disingenuous” for sounding like a “bold new initiative.”
Tony Snow responds with a platitude about respecting the sovereignty of Pakistan, but the hollowness of that answer has been exposed by White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend.
Last week friendly Fox News summarized an interview with her reporting that “the U.S. was committed first and foremost to working with Pakistan's president...But she indicated the U.S. was ready to take additional measures.
"’Just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing things you talk about,’" Townsend said, when asked in a broadcast interview why the U.S. does not conduct special operations and other measures to cripple Al Qaeda.
"’Job No. 1 is to protect the American people. There are no options off the table,’" she said. Townsend also said, "'No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal' to deal with Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.’”
The bottom line is that Obama is attacked and ridiculed from all sides for the heinous political gaffe of telling a simple truth that even the Bush Administration acknowledges and is prepared to act on.
Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, in an editorial, shrieks, “Naive? Sen. Clinton was too kind. If he's serious, he's dangerous.”
Democratic Presidential rival Chris Dodd calls the statement “dangerous and irresponsible,” while Joe Biden merely labels it “disingenuous” for sounding like a “bold new initiative.”
Tony Snow responds with a platitude about respecting the sovereignty of Pakistan, but the hollowness of that answer has been exposed by White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend.
Last week friendly Fox News summarized an interview with her reporting that “the U.S. was committed first and foremost to working with Pakistan's president...But she indicated the U.S. was ready to take additional measures.
"’Just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing things you talk about,’" Townsend said, when asked in a broadcast interview why the U.S. does not conduct special operations and other measures to cripple Al Qaeda.
"’Job No. 1 is to protect the American people. There are no options off the table,’" she said. Townsend also said, "'No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal' to deal with Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.’”
The bottom line is that Obama is attacked and ridiculed from all sides for the heinous political gaffe of telling a simple truth that even the Bush Administration acknowledges and is prepared to act on.
Health Care: Good vs. Evil
This should be just the kind of battle the President loves, right against wrong, no nasty little nuances to fog the mind, but here he is on the side of darkness, threatening to veto a bill passed by the House that would extend health insurance to five million more children of the working poor.
The proposal, according to the Washington Post, is backed by “Republican and Democratic governors, the American Medical Association, AARP, the March of Dimes, the Catholic Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and even cyclist Lance Armstrong. And the prospects are good in the Senate, where a key Republican, Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), said, ‘It's difficult for me to understand how anyone wouldn't want to do this.’"
George Bush doesn’t--on “philosophical” grounds. "When you expand eligibility,” he argues, “you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."
In his opposition, the President may be opening the wider debate on American health care and what some of his loyal supporters yesterday denounced as the first step toward “socialized medicine.”
If so, it would only be a baby step, but the discussion is long overdue. If “socialized medicine” is the only alternative to lining the pockets of HMOS and health insurance companies at the expense of sick kids, so be it. If “socialized” means humane rather than rapacious, what’s so scary about it? Socialized doesn’t mean Socialist.
Even doctors, the presumed victims, seem to be in favor of scrapping the current system. A recent survey by the Minnesota Medical Association found that “64% favored a single-payer system, 25% HSAs, and 12% managed care. The majority of physicians (86%) also agreed that it is the responsibility of society, through the government, to ensure that everyone has access to good medical care. Less than half (41%) said that the private insurance industry should continue to play a major role in financing health care.” (Source: Sustainable Middle Class blog.)
It’s time to talk frankly about what’s good and what’s evil in our health care system, and President Bush may just be leading the way.
The proposal, according to the Washington Post, is backed by “Republican and Democratic governors, the American Medical Association, AARP, the March of Dimes, the Catholic Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and even cyclist Lance Armstrong. And the prospects are good in the Senate, where a key Republican, Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), said, ‘It's difficult for me to understand how anyone wouldn't want to do this.’"
George Bush doesn’t--on “philosophical” grounds. "When you expand eligibility,” he argues, “you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."
In his opposition, the President may be opening the wider debate on American health care and what some of his loyal supporters yesterday denounced as the first step toward “socialized medicine.”
If so, it would only be a baby step, but the discussion is long overdue. If “socialized medicine” is the only alternative to lining the pockets of HMOS and health insurance companies at the expense of sick kids, so be it. If “socialized” means humane rather than rapacious, what’s so scary about it? Socialized doesn’t mean Socialist.
Even doctors, the presumed victims, seem to be in favor of scrapping the current system. A recent survey by the Minnesota Medical Association found that “64% favored a single-payer system, 25% HSAs, and 12% managed care. The majority of physicians (86%) also agreed that it is the responsibility of society, through the government, to ensure that everyone has access to good medical care. Less than half (41%) said that the private insurance industry should continue to play a major role in financing health care.” (Source: Sustainable Middle Class blog.)
It’s time to talk frankly about what’s good and what’s evil in our health care system, and President Bush may just be leading the way.
Casualties of War
Sudden, violent and unexpected death is horrifying under any circumstances, but the wall-to-wall coverage tonight of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis prompts reflection on the kind of people we have become.
The casualties seem to be far fewer than those in the equally horrifying bombings in far-off Baghdad today, and as we wonder about the safety of thousands of aging structures all over the U.S., there is a connection.
How much safer would we be if some of those billions of dollars underwriting the carnage in Iraq had been devoted to modernizing our aging infrastructure at home?
The casualties seem to be far fewer than those in the equally horrifying bombings in far-off Baghdad today, and as we wonder about the safety of thousands of aging structures all over the U.S., there is a connection.
How much safer would we be if some of those billions of dollars underwriting the carnage in Iraq had been devoted to modernizing our aging infrastructure at home?
SexScience: Doping Out Desire
A new study from the University of Texas has discovered 237 reasons why people have sex. This may come as a revelation to the benighted who always thought there was only one major incentive for people who care for each other--because, to paraphrase Willie Sutton about banks and money, that’s where the mutual pleasure is.
Not so. Turn-ons include the desire to burn calories, express gratitude, enhance one’s reputation, get revenge on a rival, keep a partner from straying, cure headaches and “feel closer to God.”
The last may explain another study that finds evangelical teenagers start sex earlier than their mainline Protestant peers, an upsetting conclusion for Michael Gerson, President Bush’s pious former speech writer, who disputes the headline, “Evangelical Girls Are Easy.”
In any case, all this weighing of motives for what used to be called the act of love may produce new ice-breakers at singles bars and even some insight into a generation born long after the widely heralded death of romance.
But men and women who value the closeness that comes with commitment will find the lists, the self-absorption and the statistics—as well as those who compile them--more than a little silly.
Not so. Turn-ons include the desire to burn calories, express gratitude, enhance one’s reputation, get revenge on a rival, keep a partner from straying, cure headaches and “feel closer to God.”
The last may explain another study that finds evangelical teenagers start sex earlier than their mainline Protestant peers, an upsetting conclusion for Michael Gerson, President Bush’s pious former speech writer, who disputes the headline, “Evangelical Girls Are Easy.”
In any case, all this weighing of motives for what used to be called the act of love may produce new ice-breakers at singles bars and even some insight into a generation born long after the widely heralded death of romance.
But men and women who value the closeness that comes with commitment will find the lists, the self-absorption and the statistics—as well as those who compile them--more than a little silly.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Murdoch to Buy Bush Administration
On the heels of the Dow Jones deal, Rupert Murdoch has made an offer to acquire the assets of the nearly bankrupt Bush Administration, reliable sources reported today.
Insiders speculate that, among other moves, the media baron plans to merge the White House Press Secretary’s Office with Fox News in a 24/7 effort to counter liberal media bias.
The synergy of the proposed merger is intriguing media analysts, who foresee joint efforts by the newly acquired Wall Street Journal and the Treasury Department to ease trade imbalances and stimulate corporate investment as well as initiatives by the State Department to improve relations with the People’s Republic of China where Mr. Murdoch has been making significant progress in advancing U.S interests.
Off the record, Mr. Murdoch has reassured stockholders of continuity of top management in the White House but has not ruled out lower-level changes such as replacing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales with a legal expert of Australian extraction and moving Karl Rove to the New York Post as editor of Page Six, which has lost some of its bite of late.
If negotiations should fail, Mr. Murdoch is prepared to settle for a smaller acquisition, reported to be one or both houses of Congress.
Another possibility is the Supreme Court, where News Corp. has previous ties with a $1 million book advance to Justice Clarence Thomas.
Insiders speculate that, among other moves, the media baron plans to merge the White House Press Secretary’s Office with Fox News in a 24/7 effort to counter liberal media bias.
The synergy of the proposed merger is intriguing media analysts, who foresee joint efforts by the newly acquired Wall Street Journal and the Treasury Department to ease trade imbalances and stimulate corporate investment as well as initiatives by the State Department to improve relations with the People’s Republic of China where Mr. Murdoch has been making significant progress in advancing U.S interests.
Off the record, Mr. Murdoch has reassured stockholders of continuity of top management in the White House but has not ruled out lower-level changes such as replacing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales with a legal expert of Australian extraction and moving Karl Rove to the New York Post as editor of Page Six, which has lost some of its bite of late.
If negotiations should fail, Mr. Murdoch is prepared to settle for a smaller acquisition, reported to be one or both houses of Congress.
Another possibility is the Supreme Court, where News Corp. has previous ties with a $1 million book advance to Justice Clarence Thomas.
Distorting Obama's "Inaugural Address"
At the invitation of Lee Hamilton, one of the nation’s wisest elders, Barack Obama made the speech of his life today, one that presages what he might say as President in January 2009. Typically it was mined for a media headline and reduced to: “Obama Might Send Troops Into Pakistan.”
Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, whose director of Middle East Studies is in a Teheran prison, Obama laid out a foreign policy that projects the use of U.S. military strength and diplomacy in a way that would reverse the bluster and bungling of the Bush-Cheney Administration.
He began with an indictment: “After 9/11, our calling was to write a new chapter in the American story. To devise new strategies and build new alliances, to secure our homeland and safeguard our values, and to serve a just cause abroad. We were ready. Americans were united. Friends around the world stood shoulder to shoulder with us...
”We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We did not develop new capabilities to defeat a new enemy, or launch a comprehensive strategy to dry up the terrorists' base of support. We did not reaffirm our basic values, or secure our homeland.
”Instead, we got a color-coded politics of fear. Patriotism as the possession of one political party. The diplomacy of refusing to talk to other countries. A rigid 20th century ideology that insisted that the 21st century's stateless terrorism could be defeated through the invasion and occupation of a state. A deliberate strategy to misrepresent 9/11 to sell a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.”
From there, Obama proposed in detail a new approach to “stop fighting the war the terrorists want us to fight” and “wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.”
As President, Obama promised to remove troops from Iraq and put them "on the right battlefield," sending at least two more brigades to Afghanistan and increasing nonmilitary aid by $1 billion as well as initiate a three-year, $5 billion program to share intelligence with allies to take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa.
In Pakistan, he said, “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
Obama’s speech is sure to generate criticism from other Presidential contenders and ridicule from commentators and bloggers as a ploy to one-up Hillary Clinton in their squabble about talking to enemies.
But, prepared with the best foreign-policy advice he could get, it is a serious statement by a serious man that should go far to ease voter qualms about his lack of experience or possible softness as Commander-in-Chief.
If the critics have substantive counter-arguments, let’s hear them. Invective won’t cut it.
Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, whose director of Middle East Studies is in a Teheran prison, Obama laid out a foreign policy that projects the use of U.S. military strength and diplomacy in a way that would reverse the bluster and bungling of the Bush-Cheney Administration.
He began with an indictment: “After 9/11, our calling was to write a new chapter in the American story. To devise new strategies and build new alliances, to secure our homeland and safeguard our values, and to serve a just cause abroad. We were ready. Americans were united. Friends around the world stood shoulder to shoulder with us...
”We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We did not develop new capabilities to defeat a new enemy, or launch a comprehensive strategy to dry up the terrorists' base of support. We did not reaffirm our basic values, or secure our homeland.
”Instead, we got a color-coded politics of fear. Patriotism as the possession of one political party. The diplomacy of refusing to talk to other countries. A rigid 20th century ideology that insisted that the 21st century's stateless terrorism could be defeated through the invasion and occupation of a state. A deliberate strategy to misrepresent 9/11 to sell a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.”
From there, Obama proposed in detail a new approach to “stop fighting the war the terrorists want us to fight” and “wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.”
As President, Obama promised to remove troops from Iraq and put them "on the right battlefield," sending at least two more brigades to Afghanistan and increasing nonmilitary aid by $1 billion as well as initiate a three-year, $5 billion program to share intelligence with allies to take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa.
In Pakistan, he said, “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
Obama’s speech is sure to generate criticism from other Presidential contenders and ridicule from commentators and bloggers as a ploy to one-up Hillary Clinton in their squabble about talking to enemies.
But, prepared with the best foreign-policy advice he could get, it is a serious statement by a serious man that should go far to ease voter qualms about his lack of experience or possible softness as Commander-in-Chief.
If the critics have substantive counter-arguments, let’s hear them. Invective won’t cut it.
Caesarian Delivery for Fred Thompson?
"The campaign's been on the vine too long," a Republican strategist is quoted as saying.
All this suggests that the “Waiting for Godot” phase of the Thompson campaign will end sooner rather than later with a formal entrance on the Presidential stage to transform the long-time character actor into a political star.
The burning question for political analysts is whether Thompson’s laid-back style will have enough appeal for the Republican base, which usually favors more fire and brimstone.
His announcement performance may be crucial. Will he evoke Cicero (“How well he speaks”) or Demosthanes (“Let us march”). For a party in search of a hero, that may be the most crucial audition of Thompson’s life.
Bad Bush Movies
If this Administration were a Hollywood studio, it would have been shut down after the “Heaven’s Gate” of wars in Iraq and the “Ishtar” of disasters in New Orleans.
No one wants to watch, but they still keep grinding them out. Alberto Gonzales is starring in an extravagant remake of “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” with a cast of thousands as the bounty hunters.
This week, the cameras roll on a new version of “Into the Mouth of Madness” with Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates as the intrepid couple looking for answers in places where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable.
Meanwhile, in the White House, George Bush himself is doing a final cut on “Battlefield Earth,” while Dick Cheney prepares for his close-ups in “Godzilla, the Musical.”
No one wants to watch, but they still keep grinding them out. Alberto Gonzales is starring in an extravagant remake of “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” with a cast of thousands as the bounty hunters.
This week, the cameras roll on a new version of “Into the Mouth of Madness” with Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates as the intrepid couple looking for answers in places where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable.
Meanwhile, in the White House, George Bush himself is doing a final cut on “Battlefield Earth,” while Dick Cheney prepares for his close-ups in “Godzilla, the Musical.”
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