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Tuesday, July 22, 2008 JONAH GOLDBERG: STILL AN IDIOT Jonah in the L.A. Times today: ...the tragic Catch-22 for [John McCain] is that the more the surge succeeds, the more politically advantageous it is for Obama. ... If [the war] were going worse, McCain's Churchillian rhetoric would match reality more. But with sectarian violence nearly gone, Al Qaeda in Iraq almost totally routed and even Shiite Sadrist militias seemingly neutralized, the stakes of withdrawal seem low enough for Americans to feel comfortable voting for Obama.... Is Goldberg serious? Is he actually arguing that voters would be less impatient with the war, and thus less inclined to kick the GOP out of the White House, if everything were going exactly the way it was two years ago, and the Republican nominee was still saying, "Stay the course"? Here's your Catch-22, Jonah: Voters want out when Iraq looks as if it's not improving and voters want out when there's improvement. Voters just want out. Americans are dying. Money is being squandered. We didn't find weapons and bin Laden's still on the loose and gas is more expensive than ever. Out. That's the key word. Voters don't give a good goddamn about Churchillian rhetoric when it's in defense of a war that isn't accomplishing anything and never will. posted by Steve M. | 5:38 PM | THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL OF DAVID BROOKS Today David Brooks looks at indebtedness in America and says that one of the causes is our atrophied sense of sin: ...Some of the toxins were economic. Rising house prices gave people the impression that they could take on more risk. Some were cultural. We entered a period of mass luxury, in which people down the income scale expect to own designer goods. Some were moral. Schools and other institutions used to talk the language of sin and temptation to alert people to the seductions that could ruin their lives. They no longer do.... (Emphasis mine.) So Madalyn Murray O'Hair is more responsible for the bankrupting of America than the CEO of Countrywide Financial. Got it? But surely there are some institutions in America that still talk about sin and temptation -- y'know, churches? And if that kind of talk keeps people from financial trouble, surely it stands to reason that there'd be less bankruptcy among churchgoers than among non-churchgoers -- right? Um, apparently not. A 2006 ranking of states by weekly or near-weekly church or synagogue attendance is here. The top ten states are as follows: Alabama 58% Louisiana 58% South Carolina 58% Mississippi 57% Utah 55% Arkansas 55% Nebraska 53% North Carolina 53% Tennessee 52% Georgia 52% Now here's the top ten from a 2006 list of bankruptcy filings per capita: #1 Tennessee: 1.099 per 1,000 people #2 Georgia: 0.953 per 1,000 people #3 Alabama: 0.809 per 1,000 people #4 Michigan: 0.661 per 1,000 people #5 Arkansas: 0.643 per 1,000 people #6 Indiana: 0.609 per 1,000 people #7 Kentucky: 0.542 per 1,000 people #8 Mississippi: 0.538 per 1,000 people #9 Missouri: 0.534 per 1,000 people #10 Ohio: 0.512 per 1,000 people I've highlighted the states that overlap. Similar correspondences appear at the other end as well: Maine and Vermont, for instance, have the lowest rates of church attendance among the 50 states -- and the 3rd- and 7th-lowest rates of bankruptcy. (The bankruptcy numbers for 2007 are here; they're not very different.) Maybe churches have just gotten more liberal and relativistic in ... um ... Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Georgia. No that doesn't sound right, does it? OK, I'll try again: Maybe these churches would get around to talking about the sinful temptations of materialism if they weren't too busy talking about the evils of gay marriage and the Democratic Party. Yeah, that's a bit more plausible. posted by Steve M. | 1:59 PM | OFF THE RESERVATION, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT HE'S ON IT -- WELL, NOT EXACTLY ON IT, MORE LIKE NEAR IT... You know the classic definition of a liberal or a Democrat -- someone who's too polite (or broad-minded) to take his own side in argument? Well, as The Washington Times has just learned, the problem with getting a disaffected old-school Democrat to try to undermine his party's nominee (as that nominee makes an apparently quite successful overseas tour) is that the Democratic turncoat is going to be just too polite (or broad-minded) to fully adopt the anti-Democratic side in the argument. I'm talking, of course, about Lanny Davis. Here's Davis's latest Washington Times column: I remember the exact moment I had my first serious doubts about whether I was 100 percent right that the U.S. pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the take-out of Saddam Hussein was a serious mistake. I had been strongly opposed to the U.S. intervention from the start. ...why risk the uncertainties of a pre-emptive invasion, loss of life and treasure, and diverting our attention from 9/11 and the war against terrorism, which most U.S. intelligence indicated had nothing to do with Saddam? Of course, all these remain good reasons for opposing starting the war, even as I look back now. Damn, he's setting us up for a really melodramatic Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment -- and then he wimps out by saying he was probably right in the first place! No, wait -- But ... then came my first moment of doubt. ... there was that indelible image -- an older woman shrouded in a carpetlike cape, smiling gleefully and holding her purple finger in the air for the TV cameras, purple with ink showing that she had voted.... Wow, I thought. Is it possible I was wrong? This does lead Lanny to spout every right-wing talking point from the purple-finger era ever.... Is it possible, I wondered, that Iraqis truly did want democracy and freedom and the right to vote and government of the people, just as we Americans do? And were willing to fight for it, with our help? ... Maybe another democracy, however imperfect, other than Israel in the Middle East could lead to more moderation, possibly other democracies? Democracies that could serve as bulwarks against al Qaeda-type of terrorist states? BUSH WAS RIGHT!!! No, wait -- ...Then in 2005-06 came the increased violence from the Sunni insurgents against American kids, then the sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites, with young Americans caught in the crossfire. My certainty in opposing the war and supporting a deadline for getting out re-emerged. So the war was a bad idea, hunh, Lanny? No, wait again -- And then in early 2007 came the surge, which so many of us in the antiwar left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong.... So this op-ed is, at long last, a stinging rebuke to the Defeat-o-crats and their defeat-obsessed message of defeat? So BUSH WAS RIGHT!!!? Er -- I think there are a lot of antiwar Democrats who, like me, are impressed by these facts and who now see a moral obligation, after all the carnage and destruction wrought by our military intervention, not just to pick up and leave without looking over our shoulders. Surely we owe the Iraqis who helped us, whose lives are in danger, immediate immigration rights to the U.S. Yet the shameful fact is that most are still not even close to having such rights.... Dude! Why are you talking about the refugees, fer crissake? WE'RE WINNING!!! U-S-A! U-S-A! Surely we owe the al-Maliki government and the Shi'ite and Sunni soldiers who put their lives on the line against Shi'ite and Sunni extremists and terrorists at our behest some continuing presence.... The only question is, for how long? Forever? No. 100 years? No. But for how long? I don't know.... Damn! You're almost making the case for McCain ... and then you make the case against McCain! Lanny, what is your problem? And what do you mean, you "don't know" how long? Everybody knows the answer to that -- until VICTORY!!! So it appears that Lanny Davis (unlike, say, Dick Morris or Tammy Bruce) is a real Democrat after all -- as a traitor, he doesn't even have the courage of his enemies' convictions. posted by Steve M. | 10:50 AM | Monday, July 21, 2008 IS IT JINDAL? ABC NEWS ALL BUT SAYS SO The clip isn't online, but ABC's Ron Claiborne reported this tonight: McCain will travel this week to several key swing states -- Maine today, New Hampshire tomorrow, Pennsylvania and Colorado. He will also stop in solidly Republican Louisiana on Thursday. The campaign says it has an event it won't reveal that is supposed to capture some of the spotlight the same day Obama delivers a major speech in Berlin. Rod Dreher watched the same story and says, "Yep, it's Jindal." I think that may be right. On the other hand, Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post says McCain plans to meet with Jindal Wednesday, not Thursday. ("McCain's trip to Louisiana on Wednesday was the cause of much head scratching in the political world as it was not in keeping with a week of planned stops in battleground states," Cillizza adds.) And Robert Novak claims insiders are saying McCain will announce his VP pick this week, but Novak suggests it will be Mitt Romney. I think Jindal would be a really problematic choice for McCain. As Cillizza says, McCain would essentially cede one of the main pillars of his argument against Obama: experience. Jindal is a nearly a decade younger than Obama and, although he served in Congress before being elected governor, his foreign policy resume is at least as thin as Obama's. And that really matters when much of the electorate imagines that you might not live through your term in office. And, to be frank, Jindal would also mitigate the race issue for Obama -- if you think voters who shun Obama because he's African-American will simply shrug off Jindal's lineage, you've obviously never seen an AMERICAN OWNED sign at a motel. But I think the McCain campaign really may not be ready for the reaction to the story of the exorcism Jindal participated in in his youth. And his doubts about evolution and the separation of church and state wouldn't help McCain with moderates, either. posted by Steve M. | 10:24 PM | TIMES SAVES McCAIN FROM SELF-INFLICTED EMBARRASSMENT, HANDS HIM OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY VICTIM CARD Is David Shipley, the op-ed page editor of The New York Times, secretly working for the McCain campaign? By rejecting McCain's op-ed on Iraq, he just handed McCain a double gift. First, thanks to the Drudge story on the rejection, McCain gets to whine about victimization by the liberal media. Beyond that, McCain now gets to avoid having these embarrassing words appear on the most prestigious op-ed page in America: He [Obama] makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future. (Headline at Mark Halperin's Page right now: "Iraqi Government Agrees With Obama, Hopes for U.S. Withdrawal By 2010." I guess it depends on what the definition of "unspecified point in the future" is.) No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. (A million years isn't forever, is it? It's less than a million and one, right?) The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops. (He wants just what two-thirds of the country wants! How off-putting that will seem to the electorate!) Hey, Times, you would have been doing Obama (and America) a favor if you'd complied with McCain's wishes and run this damn thing. Instead, you helped McCain just when he's more desperate for help than ever. Thanks a lot. posted by Steve M. | 4:45 PM | WHY ARE WE EVEN LISTENING TO THIS PERSON? Iraq War shill Michael O'Hanlon was quoted with delight yesterday by Sarah Baxter in Rupert Murdoch's Times of London: ...Michael O'Hanlon, an expert on Iraq at the Brookings Institution, said Obama must beware of a "Tony Blair effect" by appearing more beloved abroad than at home. The more popular Blair was in America during the Iraq war, the more ferociously criticised he was in Britain. "If Obama becomes the world’s poodle in the eyes of some voters and in Republican attack ads, that’s a downside...." Er, Mike? What made Blair a poodle wasn't being in sync with U.S. policy. What made Blair a poodle was being in sync with U.S. policy while being completely out of sync with his own country: Tuesday February 18, 2003 The rift between Tony Blair and the British public over war against Iraq is today confirmed by an opinion poll which shows for the first time that a clear majority of British voters now oppose a military attack. The survey, taken over the weekend, reveals that Mr Blair has sustained significant political damage from the debate over Iraq. His personal rating has dropped through the floor to minus 20 points.... This month's Guardian/ICM poll also shows that at least one person from 1.25 million households in Britain went on Saturday's anti-war march in London, confirming estimates that between one million and two million people went on the march.... Opposition to the war has risen five points in the past month to 52%, with support for the war falling to 29%, the lowest level since the Guardian's tracker poll started last August.... Obama's take on the #1 foreign policy issue of our time is, needless to say, very much in sync with what his fellow citizens think. GOP flacks will, of course, declare that Americans don't like politicians who are popular in Europe, and the "liberal media" will dutifully transmit that argument, which will take on a life of its own. But, of course, the last president we had who was popular in Europe actually had very high job approval ratings back home. posted by Steve M. | 1:05 PM | NO MORE MISTER SILICONE BLOG As I type this, more than half the hits I'm getting are because a long time ago I posted a tiny photo of racist ballplayer John Rocker standing next to two bags of silicone attached to a woman who goes by the name of Alicia Marie. (I'm told that that human/silicone hybrid is involved in the Alex Rodriguez sex daisy chain.) Maybe I should stop all this boring prattle about politics and just post cheesecake pictures of Z-list fitness models. I'd certainly get more hits that way, and I really don't think I'd have less impact on our political discourse. (I seem to be inspiring a lot of yawns with what I'm actually writing these days.) posted by Steve M. | 10:24 AM | REPEATEDLY MOCKED FOR HIS TIMES COLUMNS, BILL KRISTOL TRIES ... ER, WHAT EXACTLY? I can't figure out what Bill Kristol is up to in his latest New York Times column, which is about Barack Obama's upcoming speech in Germany: ...I'm wondering if Obama chose the Victory Column as his speech venue because he intends to make the case for ... victory. There's a precedent for this. As Obama knows, he's been widely compared, especially in Europe, to another young, charismatic Democrat -- John F. Kennedy. Perhaps Obama will choose to follow in Kennedy's footsteps in Berlin. ... Kennedy ... chastised the "many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world." ... Perhaps Obama -- with the Victory Column at his back -- will also challenge those who think it impossible to imagine victory today. Perhaps Obama will also warn of the temptation of assuming we can somehow avoid confronting the terrorists and jihadists, and those who support them.... You wait for the sneer, the back of Kristol's hand, and it never comes. What's his game here? Is the column meant to be something like Antony's speech after the assassination in Julius Caesar -- i.e., Kristol is damning his enemy by ostensibly praising him? Is Kristol trying to get liberals to believe that Obama is on the verge of some sort of move to the right (as if we'd ever think of turning to a Bill Kristol column for reliable information on what Obama is thinking)? Is Kristol trying to set (in right-wing terms) a high bar for what Obama is going to say, so he can respond afterward, "Tut-tut -- Obama didn't call for victory" (as if, after the speech, anyone will care what Bill Kristol thinks)? It's like that damn New Yorker cover, except I'm the rube who doesn't get it. What the hell are you up to, Bill? The reality, of course, is that Obama wants to get Osama bin Laden (and, of course, he horrified some right-wingers by suggesting that he'd go after bin Laden in Pakistan). And Obama just reaffirmed his belief in combating terrorism: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to Afghanistan in talks with its Western-backed leader Sunday and vowed to pursue the war on terror "with vigor" if he is elected, an Afghan official said.... The Afghan presidency said Obama's message was positive. "Sen. Obama conveyed ... that he is committed to supporting Afghanistan and to continue the war against terrorism with vigor," said Humayun Hamidzada, Karzai's spokesman. Obama has made Afghanistan a centerpiece of his proposed strategy for dealing with terrorism threats.... But, see, Obama doesn't believe in victory. That's because victory is a shibboleth, a right-wing gang sign, that means "endless pursuit of the Iraq War." Or maybe that's not a good metaphor. Maybe Bill Kristol sees the believers in victory as the AV Club geeks of contemporary politics, and Obama is someone cool he naively thinks might, just might, be able to look past the pocket protectors and be willing to hang out with them. Er, I don't think so. posted by Steve M. | 8:49 AM | Sunday, July 20, 2008 OBAMA: POSSIBLY EVEN SHREWDER THAN I THOUGHT A Berlin-based journalist announces in The Washington Post that Barack Obama is making him grumpy: Barack Obama is on his way to Europe, where an adoring public awaits. But I wonder if the reception would be quite so enthusiastic if Obama's fans across the Atlantic knew a dirty little secret of his remarkable presidential campaign: ... so far he has almost completely refused to answer questions from foreign journalists. When the press plane leaves tonight for his trip, there will be, as far as I know, no foreign media aboard. The Obama campaign has refused multiple requests from international reporters to travel with the candidate.... Is that true? If so, it's brilliant. Why? Well, let's turn to Heather #1, Maureen Dowd, for her gloss on Obama's European trip: ...he must bedazzle three European countries without causing Middle America to begrudge his popularity with a bunch of foreigners. Exactly -- on balance he wants to be well received, but if he gets nothing but good notices in Europe, people back here in America who don't like him (very much including Dowd) will say he reminds them of Jean Francois Kerry, who, you know, speaks French. So of course he's snubbing the European press -- he wants them to write a few bad articles about him. Not a lot -- but just enough to make it look as if he's not some Manchurian candidate from Foreignistan. It's genius. My hat's off to him. **** UPDATE: Embarrassing typo in the last paragraph corrected. I really do know how to spell. posted by Steve M. | 10:10 PM | NEIL BUSH + 9/11 = GIULIANI Yesterday we learned that Mr. Noun Plus Verb Plus 9/11 isn't quite dead politically: Rudy Giuliani is launching a new fund-raising committee to dole out cash to New York GOP candidates -- a move that could help him collect political chits as he weighs a run for governor, The Post has learned. ...Sources close to Giuliani said the state fund-raising venture is simply "him keeping his options open" for his future. But several sources say the former mayor is eyeing a gubernatorial run in 2010.... Today we learn that he's not exactly accompanying this return to politics with a deeper focus on effective political governance: Entering the real estate market at a time of profound turmoil, Rudolph W. Giuliani's company is planning an investment fund based on commercial and residential properties in New York and Washington, members of the venture said last week. ...The people involved in the real estate venture said the fund would focus much of its energy luring foreign investors who see an opportunity in the continuing weakness of the dollar. ... Mr. Giuliani's company is going to form a partnership with Berman Enterprises, a family-owned company based in Rockville, Md., said Jeffrey E. Berman, one of the company's partners. ...The minimum threshold for an investor to take part in the fund, which will formally be called the Berman Enterprises Opportunity Fund, will be $25 million, Mr. Berman said. ..."When we decided to put the fund together in my family, the money we wanted to go for was overseas money, and Rudy has a lot of traction overseas," he said. Mr. Giuliani's firm has done significant amounts of business overseas, advising clients in countries from the Middle East to East Asia. In addition, Mr. Giuliani's law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, has an office in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan! Mr. Berman first met Mr. Giuliani four years ago when he accompanied the former mayor on a fact-finding trip to Russia.... So clearly this is how Rudy prepared for a run for president -- by making friends in the epicenters of gangster capitalism. He obvious thought that plus saying "9/11!" every few minutes was enough to get him elected. It probably wouldn't have taken very much expertise on top of the 9/11 invocations to get the nomination -- look at John McCain now -- but he couldn't be bothered to establish even minimal competence. He was clearly much more interested in popping Cristal with guys named Yuri and Boris. And rolling with the international playaz is clearly how he plans to prepare for a possible gig as governor. (Don't laugh off the possibility that he'd be elected -- a recent poll shows he'd blow Mike Bloomberg away in a GOP primary for governor, and that he's trailing David Paterson, the incumbent Democrat, by only 7 points, with 13% undecided.) Oh, and I see Rudy's still surrounding himself with experts: At Giuliani Partners, the real estate investment fund will be overseen by Mr. Carbonetti and Geoffrey N. Hess, another managing partner.... Yup, that's the same Anthony Carbonetti who masterminded -- I don't think that's quite the word I'm looking for -- Giuliani's presidential bid, a college dropout who was working as a bartender when Rudy gave him the first of several jobs in and out of government (including delicate negotiations involving Rudy's estranged second wife and his third-wife-to-be). Please, voters, don't let this guy make a comeback. Republicans bitch about Obama's ties to Tony Rezko? Giuliani is Tony Rezko. Or Neil Bush. posted by Steve M. | 12:35 PM | Saturday, July 19, 2008 IS THIS IT? NAHHHH. Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft: Barack Obama is in Afghanistan but the big political news imo is that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki told the German magazine Der Speigel that he agrees with Barack Obama's plan for Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.... ... I believe this is devastating to John McCain. Devastating? No way. I mean, it should be devastating -- but I'm sure at some point on this trip Obama will call Ahmadinejad Iran's "prime minister" rather than its "president," or make a public appearance with a bit of spinach in his teeth, and that will be deemed a massive gaffe from the massive gaffe machine that is Obama and we'll be back to hearing what a seasoned, expert commander-in-chief McCain would make and what a dangerous naif Obama is and it'll still be a neck-and-neck race. So think nothing of this. posted by Steve M. | 11:15 AM | ONE MORE WORD ABOUT THAT DAMN MAGAZINE COVER I wonder what the reaction would have been if, one September or other in the past couple of years, the cover of The New Yorker featured a cartoon in which Dick Cheney in a hard hat oversaw the wiring of the Twin Towers with explosives, while out on the WTC plaza Ariel Sharon handed out flyers to yarmulke-wearing office workers that said STAY HOME FROM WORK ON TUESDAY! and, in a cutaway, George W. Bush sat down in the Situation Room with Osama bin Laden over artist's simulations of planes flying into buildings, as a calendar on the wall read SEPT. 10, 2001. I'm sure the reaction would be that anyone who didn't think it was funny was just a snotty elitist who contemptuously assumed other people wouldn't recognize a joke as a joke. Don't you agree? **** Sorry -- I know it's a played-out subject and I should drop it. I will note, however, that The New York Times had yet another column about the cover yesterday, this one in the Metro section -- Clyde Haberman, the "NYC" columnist, informed us that, yes, the cover was understood by people in Dubuque, his evidence being an interview with one (1) resident of that city. Much as we grumble about the A-section op-ed columnists in the Times and other big papers, the commentary in the Metro section of the Times, particularly the work of Haberman, is really just awful -- there are probably more astute opinion pieces in your local Pennysaver. **** UPDATE: Oh, crap -- I agree with Lee Siegel and NewsBusters. Just shoot me. Well, Siegel (writing in The New York Times) isn't in attack mode -- he's talking about satire, and he's making sense: The problem is that the cartoon accurately portrays a ridiculous real-life caricature that exists as literal fact in the minds of some people, and it portrays it in terms that are absolutely true to that caricature. An analogous instance would have been a cartoon without commentary appearing in a liberal Northern newspaper in the 1920s -- a time when Southern violence against blacks was unabated -- that showed a black man raping a white woman while eating a watermelon. The effect of accurately reproducing such a ridiculous image that dwelled unridiculously in the minds of some people would have been merely to broaden its vicious reach. That's basically correct. And NewsBusters, Lord help us, is at least partly correct for objecting to this McCain cartoon in Rolling Stone:  Tom Blumer of NewBusters (before going off the rails and arguing that it's unconscionable of Rolling Stone to -- gasp! -- favor Obama editorially) understandably writes this: You might think that a tidal wave of denunciation would ensue if a cartoon depicting John McCain being tortured in a bamboo cage by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and another person (who might be George W. Bush) were to appear in a supposedly respectable or trendy publication. You might further think that giving McCain's three torturers stereotypically exaggerated Asian features would only further fuel the outrage. I'm on the fence about the use of torture in this cartoon -- McCain as a senator hasn't been consistent in recognizing present-day torture for what it is, and he's using his brutalization in Hanoi to propel his campaign. Moreover, the image isn't suggesting that his being tortured makes him a lesser person (and it could -- quite a few people argue that it made him unstable and thus unfit to be president). But what the hell is up with the yellow-peril slanted eyes of his tormentors in the cartoon? And who the hell is that supposed to be at the top of the drawing? I can't tell either. For those reasons alone, this is an offensive and incompetent piece of work, and yeah, I'll condemn it. posted by Steve M. | 10:34 AM | Friday, July 18, 2008 OH, AND... The guy who put this up? Mike Meehan?  Well, guess what? ... Meehan said the billboard will remain in place through the November election. He won't be voting in that election -- he's a citizen of Canada.... Idiot. (Via Cursor yesterday.) **** And I'd like to point out that Meehan's "Republican Song" shares a title with an earlier -- and better -- "Republican Song." It's here (The song itself starts at about 2:00.) posted by Steve M. | 7:00 PM | IT'S A SQUEAKER! IT'S A LANDSLIDE! I've been puzzling over the fact that every poll showing Obama and McCain in a tight national race seems to be followed by another poll, sometimes from the same polling outfit, in which Obama greatly exceeds expectations for a Democrat in an individual state. Does it make sense that he's doing better than expected in state after state, but the national race is still close? Steve Kornacki of The New York Observer, says yes, it does: ...if we take the average result from recent polls in each state and weight each state according to its share of the national population, we get an overall national result that's entirely consistent with current national polling: Obama 46.2 percent, McCain 42.7 -- a 3½-point race. So there really is no inconsistency between the close national horse race and Obama's clearly superior position in individual state polls.... Kornacki doesn't really offer a good explanation for the paradox, but it might have to do with the fact that the red states where Obama is doing surprisingly well are so damn small in terms of population. What this means is that Obama might just win decisively in the Electoral College -- based on current polls, Electoral-vote.com has him up 325-199 -- but the popular vote will be a squeaker. And you know what that means, if it happens: The same people who, eight years ago, brandished the Bush electoral map as if we pick presidents by the square mile will suddenly be declaring that Obama is an illegitimate president-elect because he beat McCain by only a couple of percentage points in the popular vote. That's no big deal, but we have to be prepared to tell these people to take a flying leap. **** (By the way, I guarantee that, if the numbers turn out this way, at least one right-winger will declare that, yes, Obama won the popular vote, but, given Bush's unpopularity, he won it by so much less than he should have that, in effect, he actually lost. I'm serious -- someone will say that, and mean it.) posted by Steve M. | 2:22 PM | PURE EVIL In case you missed it, yesterday's New York Times told us what happens to rent-stabilized residents of Harlem's Lenox Terrace who aren't named Charlie Rangel. Rangel does seem to be oblivious to the fact that his landlords are scum: ...One longtime tenant, Edward Torrence, began feeling pressure from the landlord several years ago when, at age 90, failing eyesight left him unable to write his monthly rent check, so his daughter began doing it for him, drawing on a joint account they shared. In 2004, Lenox Terrace began refusing to accept the $371 monthly check for his one-bedroom apartment, according to company documents, because his daughter's name was on the check but not on the lease for the apartment. After several months, Lenox Terrace said it was going to evict Mr. Torrence for nonpayment, even though his daughter continued to send the rent. Mr. Torrence died in January 2006 and his relatives moved his belongings out of the apartment and turned in the key when his lease expired that April. So they were startled 15 months later, when they received a bill from a collection agency Olnick had hired, demanding more than $19,000. That money was in part to cover rent for the months when Lenox Terrace refused to accept the checks written by the daughter. But even more surprising, Lenox Terrace demanded the family pay the legal fees the development said it incurred while evicting Mr. Torrence in the spring and fall of 2006 -- after he had died. "First they try to drive him out, when he's old and trying to live out his life with a little dignity, then they tried to evict a dead person," said his granddaughter, Robbin Moore.... There isn't a circle in hell low enough for these people. Yes, I know that the solution a lot of people would recommend -- not only right-wingers and libertarians but also Atrios -- would be phasing out rent control and rent stabilization altogether. (Just build higher, Atrios would say, even though that's exactly what's going on in my once-semi-affordable neighborhood, and it's not helping.) And yes, I suppose that the massive wave of evictions would at least end the problem in a hurry, if only by driving a hell of a lot of people out of the city (or, in many cases, onto the streets). There just isn't any way to alleviate the scarcity of housing convenient to jobs in New York City, where the work is all clustered in a few spots on one narrow island and transportation is never truly efficient once you get far enough away from the office buildings. The supply of housing simply can't meet demand at a reasonable price when that supply is constricted by geography the way it is here. Overturning the rent laws would send much of the non-elite work force packing -- you know, the people who actually do the things the capitalist Lords of the Universe dream up. Maybe Atrios or John Stossel (my neighbor, apparently) can explain to me why that would be a good thing for the city. posted by Steve M. | 11:38 AM | MY STATUE! MY PRECIOUS STATUE! Charles Krauthammer, a self-satisfied egomaniac who had no relevant work experience when he began writing about politics for a living, declares today in The Washington Post that Barack Obama is, er, a self-satisfied egomaniac who has no work experience relevant to the job he seeks. Projection much, Chuck? And as for this... Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. ... what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? ... It's as if a German pol took a campaign trip to America and demanded the Statue of Liberty as a venue for a campaign speech.... You know what? In New York, unless the pol was a notorious tyrant, we'd say: knock yourself out. We don't care. Nobody but tourists ever goes to the Statue of Liberty anyway. Not there's anywhere at the statue to give a speech to a big crowd, and security would be a huge freakin' nightmare -- but at least it wouldn't screw up traffic in Midtown. Hey, we didn't complain about the Sri Chinmoy fun run, did we? And maybe the guy giving the speech will buy a dumb foam hat. And as for the rest of America, I'm sure the reaction would be: Who's that guy at the Statue of Liberty? From where? Remind me again: Where is that on a map? posted by Steve M. | 8:28 AM | Thursday, July 17, 2008 McCAIN ATE TACO BELL AND YOU DIDN'T SEND BRIAN WILLIAMS TO COVER THAT, DID YA, YA DAMN LIBERALS! Salon's Alex Koppelman tells us that Brent Bozell of the Media Research Council thinks the press is being unfair to John McCain: ...a release from the MRC ... complained, "Arizona Senator John McCain has made three trips overseas since March. No anchor has travelled with him on any of them and they provided little if any coverage of any of them." Yeah, one of those trips was the Iraq trip, but as for the others, well, it depends on what the definition of "overseas" is: ...one of the three trips McCain made was to Canada. Another was to Colombia. Hey, Brent: What sea did McCain have to go over to get to Canada? **** And while right-wing kvetchers and the McCain campaign are grumbling about the star reporters who'll be covering Obama's trip, it turns out that, according to Newsweek's Holly Bailey, McCain's failure to get the same kind of coverage for his Iraq trip in March is his own campaign's damn fault: ... the McCain campaign chose not to take reporters along for the ride, forcing media outlets who wanted to cover the newly elected GOP nominee to travel on their own without any guarantee of getting anywhere near the senator. The small group of scribes who made the trek (Newsweek chose not to) faced a logistical nightmare, from arranging last-minute foreign visas to struggling to keep up with McCain as they flew commercially from stop to stop. (McCain traveled by a military aircraft.) In contrast, the Obama campaign is inviting reporters on its tour, handling all the logistics--including transportation--for what will certainly be a much larger press corps than usual.... So stop whining. **** Oh, and to Tad Devine: Gee, thanks a lot. From Jake Tapper at ABC: ...In order to win the White House, [Obama] must not only seem diplomatic, but also presidential. "On a trip like this, on a stage like this, there is no room for error, no margin of error. So every bit of this trip needs to be choreographed. He needs to make sure every word is right, every setting is proper, and that he makes absolutely no mistakes," Tad Devine, a Democratic analyst, told ABC News.... Yup, we all know that if you're a presidential candidate and you make a mistake on an overseas trip, that's the end of your campaign ... right? posted by Steve M. | 11:29 PM | AS OPPOSED TO ALL THOSE UNAMERICAN SOLUTIONS THAT ARE LIKELY TO COME FROM THAT SWARTHY ILLEGAL ALIEN B. HUSSEIN OSAMA The new, allegedly nonpartisan but obviously right-leaning organization chaired by Newt Gingrich, which is advocating, among other things, immediate coastal drilling and an optional single-rate tax system, is called ... American Solutions. The insurance industry's new Astroturf campaign to persuade the American public that the current health insurance system is basically just fine and dandy (endorsed, disgracefully, by Donna Shalala) is called ... the Campaign for an American Solution. Discuss. posted by Steve M. | 4:30 PM | THE PARANOID STYLE IN WINGNUT POLITICS Right-wingers, including "respectable" ones, are freaking out about a sentence in a speech Barack Obama gave on July 2. Here's National Review's Jim Geraghty: ...what is Barack Obama talking about when he says we need a "civilian national security force" that is "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the U.S. military? Ed Morrissey at Hot Air says it sounds like a reference to "a quasi-military organization operating within the US under the control of the federal government." Wind Rider at Silent Running titles his post about this "So, Does He Mean, Like, Actual Brownshirts?" and invokes not only the Brownshirts but Robert Mugabe's thugs. World Net Daily refers to "Obama's 'Big Brother'" -- and notes, ominously, that the reference to the "civilian national security force" didn't appear in the prepared text of the speech on the sites of The Denver Post and Wall Street Journal. And in a separate commentary, WND's Joseph Farah calls what Obama said "chilling" and speculates that he "is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together....Are we talking about creating a police state here?" ZOMG!! What exactly is the MarxoNazi B. Hussein talking about? Excuse me, but it's perfectly obvious what he's talking about -- just listen to what he actually says, starting at about 16:32 of this video, which the Obama campaign fiendishly tried to conceal from the public by posting it on YouTube: And we're going to grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered, and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded. Any idiot can figure out what "civilian national security force" refers to -- it refers to what he said in the previous sentence. But, you say (or, rather, Morrissey says), that can't possibly be right -- "the costs associated with reopening consulates and doubling the Peace Corps ... wouldn’t come close to matching what we spend at the Pentagon." Well, duh. But, as any reasonably intelligent person with a command of the English language knows, "just as well funded" doesn't necessarily mean "funded identically." Clearly, it can also mean "having its funding needs met in a similarly satisfactory manner." And "powerful" and "strong" mean -- to a guy like Obama who believes in "soft power" (as do I) -- that a few good diplomats can sometimes accomplish as much as a billion-dollar piece of military equipment. This has gone viral in Wingnuttia -- check Google, and note, for instance, that it was cited by one of the Freepers who was responding to the Ohio op-ed comparing Obama to Hitler (see my earlier post). So it's probably only a matter of time before this nonsense moves up the news food chain and "liberal media" journalists are asking Obama or his surrogates about it. posted by Steve M. | 2:06 PM | A GUY IN OHIO GOES THERE A couple of weeks ago, a guy named Joseph Benning from Lawrence Township, Ohio, got a few words onto the Web site of his local paper, The Ironton Tribune, in response to an editorial entitled "Bus System Vital to Region." Joseph Benning wrote on Jul 6, 2008 7:27 AM: ...It would be nice if one could get from Ironton to the Amtrak-Greyhound station in Ashland without hailing a cab or car ride. If there was any chance of this being a realistic and successful enterprise, private companies would step up.... The Tribune has now given him a byline of his own, for an op-ed that's, well, a tad more inflammatory. Watch as he makes the leap from public transportation to Hitler: I'm throwing the "bogus" flag upon the presidential bid of Marxist-Socialist turned Democrat Senator from Illinois, Barack Hussein Obama. Somewhere around 75 or so years ago, from out of nowhere a stealth politician arose. He too sought the nomination for his nation's highest office; refreshingly different from other politicians of the era. This Austrian born wallpaper hanger's background is too much like our Illinois lawyer's. Both reared in single parent households; neither brought much of a resume on the campaign trail. The one hung wallpaper the other hung "present" votes. ...in both cases "change" means free health care for everyone, increased equal rights, a retirement income, guaranteed wages, unemployment benefits, free child care, and more gun control. ... The German people had to "believe." They wanted "change." And through "hope," they only had to "believe" what Adolph Hitler and the Nazis said; without questioning what Hitler and his Marxist-Socialists pals had really designed behind the scenes.... Wow. And yeah, it's all like that -- it doesn't let up for a sentence. This op-ed is inspiring some hosannas at Free Republic and Lucianne.com: very insightful post there,,gave words to what has been tickling around in my brain. **** A MUST READ! This is scary stuff and we have to get the word out. Barry Hussain Obama is a Communist and they are saying he is the one that they have been waiting for. Maybe the editors at the New York Magazine did us all a favor. At least they made people start looking into the Obama's backgrounds to see if there is any truth to the "cartoon". But there are some quibbles: Except the failed artist, the failed architect, the paperhanger, was a veteran, had received at least one Iron Cross, and was wounded in action. He was not a coward. **** The big difference in my mind is that Hitler loved Germany and wanted Germant Uber Alles while Obama loves something other than the USA and wants the USA to cow to all others. **** I don't see the parallel. Hitler commanded a thug army willing to go into the streets and physically attack his enemies. Will obama sent a brigade of metrosexuals out to hit us over the head with their purses? Leftists in today's America are cowards. So Hitler was actually more admirable than Obama. I'm surprised there hasn't been more of a concerted effort among wingnuts to make this argument -- that Hitler was awful, but he was only a 9 on an awfulness scale of 10. I'm not saying this because I think wingnuts admire Nazism; they really don't seem to (it's European, for one thing, and they all think it's purely socialist -- congratulations, Jonah Goldberg, your work is done!). I'm saying this because they clearly have a desperate need to believe that the contemporary Antichrists they fight every day, from the comfort of their rumpus-room couches and computer chairs, are so unspeakably evil that it's impossible to grasp the totality of the evil. Recall, for instance, that when the New York Post conducted asked online respondents in 1999 to pick the 25 most evil people of the millennium, Bill Clinton was #2 and Hillary Clinton was #6, both as write-ins. Bill beat Stalin, Pol Pot, and Josef Mengele -- but, darn it, he couldn't knock Hitler out of the #1 slot. Especially now that wingnuts are making common cause with the Clintons and Obama has taken Bill and Hill's place as the source of all evil in the world, you'd think there'd be more effort to tote up Hitler's virtues, so the boilerplate argument would be that, while he was awful, he's no Barack Hussein. Who knows -- maybe that and not and not fear of violating Godwin's Law is what prevents most right-wing pundits (O'Reilly and Coulter being the notable exceptions) from regularly playing the Nazi card. Maybe they're not afraid that, as an insult, it's too much. Maybe they're afraid that, to their core audience, it's not enough. posted by Steve M. | 10:32 AM | Wednesday, July 16, 2008 NOT FIT FOR DOWD TO PRINT This isn't a particularly significant incident -- but under different circumstances, it might have become one: As noted in the clip, an interview with John McCain in St. Louis almost didn't take place because reporters clashed with senior members of McCain's campaign staff over whether the campaign would have approval of camera angles -- including, bizarrely, the angles for shots of the reporters. There's more, including more video of the confrontation, at the Huffington Post. The reporters say that no candidate gets this kind of control over camera angles. The campaign staffers seem surprised to hear that. I'm no McCain fan, but I don't think it's horrible and deceitful of them to try to control the angles, especially given the damage cancer has done to one side of McCain's face. But imagine how many columns Maureen Dowd would squeeze out of this incident if this were Barack Obama's staff demanding control. Imagine how Mike Barnicle would snicker about it. You'd never hear the end of it. But it's McCain. We all "know" he's unpretentious and unassuming, just as we "know" Obama is egotistical and self-regarding. So when McCain's staff does this, it doesn't count. posted by Steve M. | 11:43 PM | MATTER AND ANTIMATTER MEET Jon Stewart, starting at approximately 3:11 in this clip: Obama's camp initially agreed that the cartoon was, quote, "tasteless and offensive." Really? You know what your response should have been? It's very easy. Here, let me put the statement out for you: "Barack Obama is in no way upset about the cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist, because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists...." Rush Limbaugh: The Obama campaign, they continue to be in a tizzy over this New Yorker cartoon.... Who is it that gets upset over stupid cartoons? Muslims, intolerant Muslims. Stewart and Limbaugh are exactly in sync. The universe is about to tilt off its axis and we're all going to die. I have seen the Number of the Beast. **** (Stevwart link via Steve Benen.) posted by Steve M. | 7:07 PM | THEY'RE RUBBER, WE'RE GLUE Some scandals and gaffes stick. Others don't. Matt Bai of The New York Times has a theory about this, which he explained a few months ago under the title "Krazy Glue Moments": ...Here's a political postulate for you: whether or not a bad moment sticks to the candidate depends on how closely related it is to the core rationale of that candidate or his opponent. In other words, if your gaffe goes directly to the main argument you are trying to make about yourself with the electorate, or if it substantiates the most relevant thing that your rival would have us believe about you, then it has the potential to become a serious problem. If, on the other hand, you do something completely idiotic that is tangential to what voters most hope or fear about you, then you tend to get a pass.... So how's that working out these days? Well, we know that "what voters most hope" about John McCain is that he's a foreign policy expert -- yet twice recently he referred to Czechoslovakia, a country that hasn't existed in fifteen years, as a nation that currently exists. That would seem like a Krazy Glue Moment, according to Bai's theory. But nobody other than lefty bloggers is paying any attention, and McCain continues to poll extremely well as a potential commander-in-chief. Prior to that, of course, he repeatedly confused Sunnis and Shiites. Again, seemingly relevant, and Bai himself thought he "undermine[d] his own narrative as the one candidate who gets the world." But, judging from that commander-in-chief poll result, nothing of the sort happened. Another thing that "voters most hope" about McCain is that he's a straight talker. So you'd think his 61 flip-flops would stick. Nope. As for Barack Obama, well, all kinds of things seem to be sticking to him. The belief that he's a bomb-thrower. And a Muslim. And a preppie. ...And, er, a guy with no sense of humor? Hunh? Why does that seem to be sticking? Is being funny relevant to "the main argument [he's] trying to make about [him]self with the electorate"? ("Change? I know where we need change -- airline food! Hey, what the deal with that?") Is a humor deficiency "the most relevant thing that [his] rival would have us believe about [him]"? (I thought the most relevant thing the GOP wants us to believe is that he's a Muslim preppie bomb-thrower.) Is it central to "what voters most hope or fear about [him]"? ("My house is in foreclosure, my kid might die in Iraq, I can't afford the gas to drive to work -- God, please give us a president with a relaxed, easygoing wit.") No. The explanation is much simpler: Bai's theory is a crock. What sticks to Democrats is pretty much everything, simply because Republicans have an infinitely more sophisticated message machine and do nothing but crank it 24/7 during campaigns, throwing everything at the wall, to the delight of the mainstream press, whose reporters and pundits are always exceeding grateful to learn precisely what they need to say to relieve their own guilt about being members of the "liberal media" (though parroting the GOP line never prevents Republicans from calling these journalists liberal). And hardly anything is sticking to McCain except the age issue, and that's sticking only because late-night comics (who are beyond being guilt-tripped by the GOP) have found that it's the one surefire topic for McCain mockery. The public is capable of coming to negative conclusions about a Republican on its own, but usually only after the Republican has been in the national spotlight on a daily basis for years, which means we have to elect the SOBs before they can lose their luster. That wouldn't be true if political journalists paid even half as much attention to Democratic critiques of Republicans as they do to the reverse. But that isn't happening, and it won't anytime soon. posted by Steve M. | 3:10 PM | THAT GUY OVER THERE IS OBSESSED. THAT GUY OVER THERE IS OBSESSED. THAT GUY OVER THERE IS OBSESSED. THAT GUY OVER THERE IS ... If Obama offers only eat-your-arugula chiding and chilly earnestness, he becomes an otherworldly type, not the regular guy he needs to be. He's already in danger of seeming too prissy about food.... --Maureen Dowd today Let's see: This is Dowd's 26th column since April 16, and this is the 6th of those columns in which she's accused Obama of being neurotic about eating. (Here are #5, #4, #3, #2, and #1.) So this has come up in 23% of her columns in that period. Um, somebody here has a psychologically unhealthy obsession with food, but I'm thinking it ain’t the tall guy. posted by Steve M. | 11:01 AM | YOU'RE MISSING THE SUBTLE SATIRE An Arizona blogger notes that, according to a 1986 article in the Tucson Citizen, John McCain made the following joke at a speech in D.C.: Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, "Where is that marvelous ape?" The 1986 article is here (PDF). The reporter who wrote the story, contacted by the Huffington Post, stands by it ("...something was said. Some joke involving a rape and ape was said. Enough women repeated it to me at the time and the McCain campaign had a non-denial denial"). The left blogosphere is incensed. **** But hey, where's your sense of humor, left blogosphere? It's satire. What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings of rapists and apes. The idea that John McCain would say these things literally, I think, is just not in the vocabulary of what he does and who he is. As my close personal friend Rush Limbaugh was saying the other day, liberals have lost their sense of humor. Vast swaths of the left have apparently been so traumatized by rapists that they have come to regard all images or texts that contain snickering references to rape as too politically dangerous to run. If you satirically depict rape, in this view, you are only reinforcing and giving broader currency to the deeds of rapists. Since the essence of satire is exaggerating negative stereotypes, this means that satire itself is off limits. Or, at least, all satire except that which the cowering -- but oh so semiotically sophisticated -- left-wing commentariat deems to be sufficiently broad-brush and polemical to pass its funny test. So now that I've declared the joke to be satire, you're required to find it funny. If you don't, you're a Prius-driving prig, and irony is dead because you killed it. posted by Steve M. | 8:35 AM | |
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