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Friday, October 19, 2001, at 6:39 PM ET
technology
Meet Your New Personal Trainer
television
Meet My Talking Dog
the chat room
Sizing Up McCain
books
Whose Values Are They, Anyway?
The peculiar politics of moral passion.
By K. Anthony Appiah
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 7:21 AM ET
the green lantern
Is an Idle Car the Devil's Workshop?
the has-been
The Romney Bubble
today's blogs
Al-Qaida's End?
today's blogs
Scott Free
If you're a philosopher, the easiest way to introduce yourself is
not by elaborating a doctrine, but by telling a story. That's
because philosophical views are always arguments with previous
views, and so they arise within a historical narrative. Susan
Neiman is a masterly storyteller; her new book Moral Clarity
offers retellings of the Odyssey and the Book of Job that are
themselves worth the price of admission. But she also has stories
about the origins of her own position that place her in both larger
intellectual narratives and more local political ones.
today's blogs
Obama's Forgettable Memorial Day
today's papers
Clean Break
today's papers
You Can Take It With You
Neiman, an American philosopher who runs the Einstein Forum
in Potsdam, Germany, worries that American progressives have
drifted away from the values and intellectual traditions of the
West, stretching from classical antiquity to the Enlightenment
(this is the larger narrative). She is vexed that contemporary
conservatism has staked an uncontested claim to these traditions.
When George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004 (this is the more
local narrative), she recalls, "I was stunned by the claim that
voters chose George Bush because they cared about moral
values. Either they had been bamboozled or the left had
dramatically failed."
religion's demands. If you acknowledge with Abraham, she
writes, "that serious religion and serious ethics are thus separate
matters, you must believe things are good or evil independent of
divine authority."
Why have moral values become the property of the right? Her
diagnosis, in part, is that "Western secular culture has no clear
place for moral language, and its use makes many profoundly
uncomfortable." She also connects the "rightward turn in
American culture" to the reshaping of American conservatism as
an intellectual rather than an anti-intellectual movement. As the
principle-driven progressive politics of the '60s petered out, the
American right discovered the power of ideas.
Liberals who grasp this shouldn't be abashed, Neiman thinks,
about exploring religious texts as sources of moral insight. She
thinks there's plenty that liberals can learn from the ancient
Greeks, too. It has been conventional at least since Plato's time
to contrast brash, fearless, confident Achilles—hero of the
Iliad—with the wily, careful, uncertain Odysseus. For Neiman,
Odysseus teaches us something about the possibilities of
heroism in our own age. If, like him, "heroes can tremble and cry
and falter, you could also become one," she writes.
"Through organizations like the Olin Foundation, Midwestern
businessmen who made their fortunes producing chemicals and
telephones were sponsoring seminars in the mountains of
Hungary on the nature of evil, or flying scholars to Chicago to
discuss law and virtue," she writes. "As the right was completing
its study of the classics, the left was facing conceptual collapse."
The political successes of the right, she argues, were against a
left that had abandoned high principle for identity politics—a
bad idea in a world in which "everyone, everywhere, was
running on moral passion." The Bush era, for her, is the
culmination of a trend. In 2004, "whether voters were moved by
their views about terrorism, or the war in Iraq, or abortion, what
did not decide the most significant election in decades was the
bottom line." Accordingly, she urges progressives to reclaim
"concepts that have been abandoned to the right: good and evil,
hero and dignity and nobility."
Reclamation, for Neiman, starts with rereading. She draws her
first lessons from the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah,
and Abraham's response when Yahweh tells him that He plans to
destroy the cities of the plain. "Wilt thou indeed destroy the
righteous with the wicked?" the patriarch protests. "Far be it
from thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the
wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from
thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" When the
Lord agrees to spare Sodom if 50 righteous men can be found
there, Abraham presses his case: " 'Suppose five of the fifty
righteous are lacking? Wilt thou destroy the whole city because
of five?' And he said, "I will not destroy it if I find forty-five
there.' "
And so the bargaining starts. Neiman's heart is stirred by
Abraham's universalism (these are not his people); by his
resoluteness (this is God he is challenging); and by his insistence
that the details matter (exactly how many just men are there in
Sodom?). And because God seems to acknowledge the force of
Abraham's moral reasons, the story allows her to assert, on the
basis of the Old Testament itself, that we do not "need religious
authority to maintain morality." It is an elegant rhetorical move
to take a favorite story of the Christian right and extract a
progressive lesson: the obligation of human reason to evaluate
Yet Neiman may be a cannier reader of the canonical texts than
she is of the contemporary political situation. Are progressives
truly reluctant to heroize people? A million T-shirts say
otherwise. Nor is it clear just how her detailed exploration of
Odysseus' journey actually connects with the modern heroes she
commends to us, who are distinctly in the fearless, selfsacrificing mold: Daniel Ellsberg, the Harvard-educated Marine
with a Ph.D., a defense department insider whose conscience led
him to leak the Pentagon Papers; David Shulman, an Israeli
professor of Sanskrit and army veteran who risks injury to work
with a group of Israeli and Palestinian peaceniks devoted to
nonviolent resistance; Robert Moses, fearless leader of SNCC's
voting rights work in the '60s, who went on to teach algebra in
the inner city; and her cousin, Sarah Chayes, a former NPR
correspondent who is helping Afghan women make soap in a
collective in Kandahar. (A fellow as crafty and pragmatic as
Odysseus would definitely have high-tailed it out of there.) Do
we really need Homer's wily wanderer to inspire the relevant
virtues?
When it comes to using the language of good and evil, too, it's
unclear to me who really needs persuading. The treatment of
prisoners by American soldiers and operatives at Abu Ghraib,
which she offers as one of her paradigms of evil, is not an event
that progressives (or most others) have been inclined to discuss
in value-neutral terms. Neiman can leave you unconvinced that
the things that horrify her in the Bush administration are really
connected with a loss of moral clarity on the left.
If you are a humanist, there is something gratifying about the
idea of claiming a rhetoric that resonates with the grandest of our
texts and thereby moving our country in progressive directions.
(It is also an idea congenial to the creators of the Einstein
Forum, which describes itself as "an institutional context for
intellectual innovation outside the university.") But I found
myself wondering, as I read, whether Neiman had granted a little
too much to the self-promotional claims of the Olin Foundation
and its ilk. And I wondered, too, whether she might not be
overly credulous toward conservative depictions of how liberals
think. Though she doesn't discuss Allan Bloom, her project can
be seen as a progressive alternative to his Closing of the
American Mind. But she may be too quick to accept something
like his vision of a liberal culture overtaken by mindless
relativism.
It's true that the academy has been host to plenty of radical
skepticism, not to mention postmodern posturing. And because
the wilder ideas of academics have always attracted
disproportionate attention—at least since Aristophanes mocked
Socrates in The Clouds—it may have appeared to some that this
was all there was. But even in the academy, not to mention the
world rumored to be outside it, the ideal of moral clarity seems
to be faring rather well. Consider just the field of ethics in our
philosophy departments. There are more "virtue ethicists"—
devoted to elaborating Aristotle's ideas of the virtuous and the
vicious—than you can shake a stick at. (Not that a virtuous
person would do such a thing.) Many other ethicists insist on
Kant's stern regard for duty and oppose those who claim that the
true morality is a matter of a subtle attention to the multiple
values at stake in particular cases. Along with the Aristotelian
virtue ethicists and Kantian deontologists, there are a slew of
Thomists, Realists, and contractualists, all of whom believe in
something like the universality of moral values. And that's
before we have even come to discussing a single actual moral
issue.
So far as applied ethics goes, there are large debates about the
morality of abortion or physician-assisted suicide or stem-cell
research, polemics about what we owe to the poor at home or
abroad, arguments over whether corporations have moral
obligations and about which rights, if any, are universal. Neiman
suggests that "those whose business is to think about morality
have been remiss" in various respects, but a great many ethicists
are working on the very tasks she says have been ignored.
Not that any of this much matters on the hustings. Elections
aren't final exams, and they aren't referendums on moral theory,
either. Neiman's readings of the canon are inventive and
illuminating in their own right, but, for better or worse, they
don't amount to a political strategy. Maybe the real lesson that
Democrats at the advent of the Bush era should have taken from
Abraham's argument with God was simply this: Demand a
recount.
chatterbox
The press is inundating Hillary Clinton with advice to forget
about the presidency, not just this year but for all time, just like
Ted Kennedy did after he failed to wrest the nomination from
Jimmy Carter in 1980. Kennedy, it is said, hunkered down in the
Senate to craft (and, given his current robustness despite recently
being diagnosed with a brain tumor, may well continue to craft)
the legislation that became his true lasting legacy. This might or
might not be good advice. It's terrible history.
I'm not sure exactly where the post-1980 Camelot meme began,
but in the May 21 Chicago Tribune, Michael Tackett wrote:
There is another model of a candidate who lost
in a close primary, Sen. Edward Kennedy, who
on Tuesday revealed he has a malignant brain
tumor. He challenged incumbent President
Jimmy Carter in 1980 and took his fight to the
convention. He was criticized at the time and
to a degree marginalized as the rare Kennedy
who lost a political race. But over time, he
built an impressive record of accomplishment
in the Senate.
That same day, John Farmer wrote in the Newark, N.J., StarLedger that after 1980 Kennedy dedicated himself to "the most
successful rehabilitation of an American political career in recent
American history." Five days later, Carl Hulse suggested in the
New York Times, "Mrs. Clinton could adopt the model of
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, after he lost the
nomination to Jimmy Carter in 1980, and try to become a
superior legislator, an approach that could play to her policy
strengths."
The following day, Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane wrote in the
Washington Post:
In August 1980, with no hope left of winning
the nomination, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
conceded defeat to Jimmy Carter in the
Democratic presidential race. … And with
that, at age 48, Kennedy returned to the
Senate, where he committed himself to a
career as a legislator, crafting landmark bills
on health care, education and immigration.
Many Democrats are now pointing to the
Kennedy model as a path for Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton. …
Camelot After 1980
Psst, Hillary: Ted Kennedy did not renounce the presidency and achieve his
greatest legislative deeds after he lost to Jimmy Carter.
By Timothy Noah
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 7:07 PM ET
In the June 2 Newsweek, Jonathan Alter wrote,
In 1980, Kennedy launched an ill-conceived
challenge to Carter for the Democratic
nomination. Despite trailing by 700 delegates,
he took the struggle all the way to the
convention, where he snubbed Carter on the
podium and helped doom Carter's campaign
against Ronald Reagan that fall. … Kennedy
remarried and, happy at last, devoted himself
to the Senate, working across the aisle to
amass an astonishing legislative record,
particularly on health and education issues.
There are two problems with this Kennedy narrative.
The first problem is that all these accounts either state or imply
that after his 1980 defeat, Kennedy abandoned instantly all
thought of ever becoming president. In fact, Kennedy strongly
considered running in 1984. He decided in December 1982
against running, partly because he thought (correctly) that the
incumbent, Ronald Reagan, would be too hard to beat and partly
because his children had urged him not to run. Next Kennedy
considered, somewhat less strongly, a presidential run in 1988.
He decided against that in December 1985. Not until then did
Kennedy conclude definitively that his future lay in the Senate,
not the Oval Office. In a prepared statement (drafted by Bob
Shrum), Kennedy said, "I know this decision means that I may
never be president. But the pursuit of the presidency is not my
life. Public service is."
airline and trucking industries. Nothing Kennedy achieved after
1980 can match the long-term impact of those five laws.
Since 1980, Kennedy has logged many fine achievements, both
as legislator and as leader of the loyal opposition. He fought
Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, he
introduced the Americans With Disabilities Act, he cosponsored the State Children's Health Insurance Program, he
helped Bush pass No Child Left Behind, and so forth. If
Kennedy had done nothing before 1980, he would still be
considered a highly productive and effective senator. One might
also argue that for Kennedy, achieving anything after 1980 was
so much more difficult, due to the changed political climate, that
this period of his life ought to be singled out for special praise.
But to suggest that Kennedy became an important and highly
effective legislator only after 1980 is not only a willful
misreading of history; it's also, weirdly, a disservice to Kennedy,
who learned the Senate ropes fast and put them to good use.
Which, come to think of it, Hillary seems likely to do as well.
Convictions
Perjury, Schmerjury
Why it's high time for the feds to give perjury prosecutions a rest.
In sum, Kennedy did give up all thoughts of running for
president, but not until more than five years after the post-1980
Camelot meme has him doing so.
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 7:49 PM ET
The second problem with these accounts is that they either state
or imply that the stellar legislative record Kennedy has racked
up in the Senate is somehow the product of his post-1980
redemption. In fact, while Kennedy achieved quite a lot in the
Senate during the past 28 years, he achieved even more during
the 18 years before that. That isn't because Kennedy slowed
down but because, during the earlier period, change was easier
to achieve—partly because the Democrats held a comfortable
and longstanding majority in the Senate and partly because
Kennedy-style liberalism stood at high tide during most of the
1960s and 1970s. (The Democrats lost the Senate majority in
1980, regained it narrowly in 1986, lost it again in 1994, and
passed it back and forth with the Republicans during most of the
current decade. Sean Wilentz has labeled this entire era, with
some justice, "the age of Reagan.")
corrections
In 1965, Kennedy was floor manager for an immigration-reform
bill that ended a system dating back to the 1920s that favored
Northern European immigrants at the expense of others,
particularly Asians. In 1972, Kennedy sponsored Title IX, the
law that required schools to devote equivalent resources to girls'
and boys' sports. In 1974, Kennedy sponsored the campaign
finance bill that limited the size of political donations and
established public financing in presidential elections. In 1978
and 1979, Kennedy was a crucial player in deregulating the
Corrections
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 7:12 AM ET
In the May 29 "Movies," Dana Stevens wrote that Sex and the
City, the TV series, ended in 2005. It ended in 2004.
In the May 28 "Hollywoodland," Kim Masters misspelled Ari
Emanuel's last name.
In the May 23 "Politics," Jeff Greenfield incorrectly spelled the
name of singer Crystal Gayle.
In the May 22 "DVD Extras," David Zax misspelled Carrie
Fisher's last name.
In the May 21 "Explainer," Chris Wilson mistakenly stated that
Aron Ralston amputated his own arm in 2005. The incident
occurred in 2003.
In the May 20 "Dispatches," Joshua Kucera originally stated that
Azerbaijan suffered the loss of nearly 20 percent of its territory.
Most analysts estimate the loss at closer to 14 percent.
If you believe you have found an inaccuracy in a
Slate story, please send an e-mail to
[email protected], and we will investigate. General
comments should be posted in "The Fray," our reader discussion
forum.
mystery, which in turn was developed in the first minutes of
subsequent episodes. Consider "All the Best Cowboys Have
Daddy Issues," an episode from Season 1. In the first act, Jack
discovers that one of the Others has taken Claire, a demure
blonde from Australia, hostage. Throughout the long middle act,
Jack, while looking for Claire, has flashbacks to the day his
father cut a patient's artery during surgery. In a brief final act,
Locke finds a mysterious object buried in the forest …
culturebox
Even from a seasonal, rather than episodic, perspective, Lost was
fairly simple. Here's a breakdown of the first three years: 1) Are
there other people on this island? 2) There are other people on
this island. 3) Oh, my God, the other people on this island are
way mean!
We Don't Know Jack
The clever narrative trick that has made this season of Lost the best one yet.
By Juliet Lapidos
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 3:05 PM ET
When Lost made its immensely successful debut in 2004, it
averaged 16 million viewers per episode. Critics routinely called
it the best show on television, using terms like "intricate" and
"complex" to describe its narrative structure and its seemingly
high-concept subject matter. But ratings have been declining
steadily, and this year, despite ABC's massive advertising
campaign, nearly 5 million people have abandoned the show.
That's a shame, because only in the current season, which ends
Thursday night, has Lost achieved complexity and intricacy
worthy of the critical attention it's been receiving all along.
Throughout the first three seasons, the Lost writers took a "more
is more" approach to thematic layering. They dabbled in
postcolonial theory, pitting the attractive, tank-top-clad plane
crash survivors against island natives, an unkempt group in
flannel and polyester called "the Others." Allusions to socialcontract theory popped up regularly. When Jack, the survivors'
de facto leader, sees that his companions are reluctant to unite,
he warns "If we don't live together, we're gonna die alone." And
judging from names alone, you'd be excused for thinking Lost
was a show about Enlightenment philosophes: There's a bald guy
named John Locke and a mysterious French woman named
Rousseau.
Lost was dense with allusions and knotty with themes, but none
was particularly deep or meaningful. The mumbo-jumbo may
have given the show a pleasing patina of sophistication, but
viewers kept tuning in because they were hooked on the mystery
of the island, not because they wanted a refresher course on Two
Treatises of Government. Nor were the early seasons' vaunted
narrative techniques actually all that innovative. Each episode
followed an obvious structure reminiscent of a three-panel comic
strip. The first few minutes advanced the central plot (the
survivors vs. the Others). The next 30 minutes were filled with
character-developing flashbacks to the survivors' pre-crash lives
and with soapy romantic tension: Jack loves Kate, Kate loves
Jack and Sawyer, Sawyer loves Kate. The last few minutes
returned to big, arc-advancing events and introduced a new
But in the last episode of the third season, something unexpected
happened. Instead of flashbacks, the show flashed forward to a
time when six characters—called the Oceanic Six—have
somehow managed to get off the island. The flash-forwards,
which in Season 4 have largely replaced the flashbacks, may
seem like more of the same—an opportunity for character
development to fill the space between cliffhangers. In fact,
however, the writers have shaken themselves out of the old
formula—and are finally attempting a truly high-wire narrative
move.
In the flash-forwards, the camera acts like an unreliable narrator.
Not in the Wayne Booth sense, in which a first-person narrator
deceives his audience by relaying false information. Lost isn't
The Usual Suspects. It's more like Muriel Spark's novella The
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which uses an irregular time
sequence to disorient the reader: We're told in a prolepsis that
the title character has been dismissed from her job as a teacher;
only much later do we learn the circumstances of her firing. In
Lost, the viewer doesn't know how many years have elapsed
since the Oceanic Six left the island, or what happened in the
meantime. Did the other crash survivors die? Are they stuck as
they were before? Or have they managed to escape off-camera?
Without these vital plot points, viewers don't know whether to
think of the Oceanic Six as heroes or as Judases who have
somehow betrayed their comrades.
Throughout the first three seasons, Lost viewers knew more
about the characters than the characters knew about one another.
We knew that Jack and Claire were half-siblings; we knew that
Kate was a fugitive, having torched her father's house. This
season, the Lost writers have changed the game: It's unclear how
much the characters have learned by the time depicted in the
flash-forwards. We no longer have a leg up on the characters, or
at least we're no longer sure that we do.
Take, for example, the episode "Something Nice Back Home,"
in which we see Jack and Kate raising Claire's baby, Aaron,
together. During a fight, Jack snaps, "you're not even related to
him!" In the past, Jack has treated the boy with relative
indifference, not realizing that he is, in fact, a blood relation. Has
Jack learned, at some point during the ellipsis, that he is Aaron's
uncle? If so, he seems to be asserting his natural rights to the
child and calling Kate's into question. If he hasn't, then it's a
classic example of dramatic irony, in which the audience can
find more meaning in a character's words than the character
knows are there. (Only in a later episode, after weeks of
uncertainty, do we learn that Jack had indeed discovered his
connection to Claire and that his comment was a slight.)
Uncertainty has, of course, always been a part of Lost. From the
beginning, the show's writers have masterfully deployed two
conventional techniques for getting the viewer's heart rate up:
surprise and suspense. A polar bear jumps out of the forest.
Surprise! If Locke doesn't enter the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and
42 into a computer every 108 minutes, the whole island might
blow up. Suspense! Alfred Hitchcock thought suspense was the
more effective technique, because it lasts longer. But what Lost
has accomplished through its flash-forwards is even more nerveracking. Instead of waiting for a bomb to go off or not go off, it's
as if the viewers have been transported to a time after the bomb
has or has not exploded—only we don't know which. Without a
frame of reference, the viewers experience epistemological
anxiety, doubting even their most basic assumptions about the
world the characters live in.
There's a debate currently raging among Losties over whether
the show's writers are making things up as they go along, like
ordinary TV scribes, or have always had a master plan—a rarer,
more impressive feat. Perhaps the most cunning result of the
flash-forwards is that they seem to support the latter argument: If
the writers are showing us the future, they must have a damn
good idea of how to get us there. But that's just an illusion. The
flash-forwards work like a zoom lens, revealing a detail that
doesn't make a whole lot of sense without the big picture. The
writers can still fill in that big picture as they wish. Previews
indicate that Thursday's finale will take a step toward connecting
the present and the future. Here's hoping the writers don't get
their soldering irons out too quickly—they'd be abandoning their
most impressive trick yet.
dear prudence
He Likes To Pamper Himself
My boyfriend's kinky fetish might doom our relationship.
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 6:57 AM ET
Get "Dear Prudence" delivered to your inbox each week; click
here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to
[email protected]. (Questions may be edited.)
Dear Prudence,
My boyfriend of four years recently told me about an odd fetish
he's dealt with all his life: He is fascinated by adult diapers and
would like to wear them occasionally. If he had told me about
this years ago, it probably would have been enough for me to
end the relationship, because it genuinely bothers me. Though I
love him and find it hard to imagine life without him, I'm having
a difficult time thinking of him sexually, or even talking to him,
now that I know about his strange fantasy. It's like his confession
has transformed him into a different person. It was very difficult
for him to tell me about this, and when he saw my reaction, he
apologized for bringing it up. I know he feels awkward and
ashamed, but I can't bring myself to comfort him or to say it's all
right. I can't accept it, don't want to hear him speak of it, and
don't want to think about it. But I don't know how to explain to
him how deeply his fetish disturbs me without really hurting our
relationship. I am worried that if I ask him not to speak of it
anymore, he will be afraid to open up to me in the future. What
should I do?
—Wiped Out
Dear Wiped,
Now we know there is at least one person in the world actually
looking forward to the day he loses control of his bodily
functions and ends up wearing nappies. Actually, your boyfriend
is not alone—here's the Wikipedia entry about people with
paraphilic infantilism and the one about people who call
themselves D.L.s, or diaper lovers. I know it's hard to absorb this
news, but try to imagine the anguish your boyfriend has felt over
the last four years wanting to tell you and wondering whether he
would lose you if he did. While there are some women who can
explore the deep kinks in their partner's psyche (think of the
stories about couples who stay together after the husband has
undergone a sex change), you clearly are not one of them. I
understand that the image of your boyfriend looking like Baby
Huey is killing your libido, but remember that the man you love
is not a different person; he's the same man who harbored these
fantasies all along. And now that the diaper's out of the bag, you
two simply can't pretend he's never mentioned his fixation. For
one thing, you've got the little problem of the fact that you can't
bring yourself to speak to him. You could try to get past this
impasse with some humor. Perhaps tell him you two need to
talk, but you definitely don't want to know whether he prefers
cloth or disposable. Ultimately, his confession may have so
shattered your conception of the two of you that you won't be
able to go on. But since you say you can't imagine life without
him, consider seeing a counselor together to at least make sure
you don't come to a rash conclusion.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence Video: Hair in My Food
Dear Prudie,
My partner of three years and I are not married by choice. We
own a home together, share our lives in every way that a married
couple does, are legally recognized as common-law, and are now
expecting a baby together. So what is the problem? My partner's
brother is getting married in a few weeks, and his fiancee's
family has a "tradition" that I am very uncomfortable with. If a
younger sibling marries before an older sibling in this family, the
older sibling is expected to perform a dance during the reception
during which he is jeered at and teased for not yet tying the knot.
My partner is expected to do this dance, and because he is the
type of guy who hates to "rock the boat," he is going through
with it. I can't stand this ridiculous "tradition." I don't want to
make a fuss, but I also don't want to feel slighted by people I
consider to be my family on what should be a lovely day for
everyone. Should I make a strong objection to the dance or just
smile and put up a good front?
—Sit This One Out
Dear Sit,
If the older sibling is gay, does the family stone him or her
during the finale? Every family has its special customs that
outsiders may find ridiculous or perplexing but go along with
just to be polite (think of Garrison Keillor on the seasonal
Scandinavian delicacy lutefisk). But surely one can draw the line
at ritual humiliation. In addition, this is not your partner's
family's appalling tradition; it's your partner's brother's fiancee's
family's appalling tradition. Your partner should simply say
thanks for the lovely opportunity but that he's not much of a
dancer, so he'll take a pass. If he won't, you can find yourself
having an extended stay in the ladies' room during the fun.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence,
I'm in my early 20s and live far away from my family. I don't get
to see them as often as I'd like to, which leaves me feeling
especially guilty, as my grandparents are getting older and, in
their own words, "don't have much time left." I'll be moving
back to my hometown in a few months, just for a short while,
and I'm planning on spending some much-needed quality time
with everyone. While I have the chance, I'd like to tape-record
an interview with my grandparents—there are so many things I
don't know or won't remember, and this could be a chance to talk
about what their lives have been like, what they remember about
their families, and so on. Partly, though, the idea sounds a little
morbid, and I'd hate for them to think I'm dwelling on their
deaths. My parents, for their part, don't really see why I should
be interested in this in the first place. Should I drop it?
—Sentimental
Dear Sentimental,
Don't let your parents' indifference talk you out of this wonderful
idea. Your grandparents will likely be thrilled that their beloved
granddaughter wants to hear their stories. And the project is not
morbid; it's a celebration of their lives. I'm sure you'll find out
many things you've never heard before—that even your parents
have probably never heard. How great it will be when you have
your own children to have this record of their greatgrandparents. And don't be surprised if when they get older, your
parents suggest that maybe you would like to sit down with them
and bring out the camcorder.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence,
A good friend and I both have toddlers and are now pregnant
with our second children. Our daughters both have first names
that are unusual but not exotic. My friend recently told me that if
her second-born is a girl, she would like to give her the same
name as my daughter. Though, rationally, I know I have no
claim of exclusivity on my daughter's name, my friend's
intention irritates me. Am I wrong to think that this is a breach
of unspoken baby-naming etiquette among family and good
friends? Does such etiquette really exist? If so, what would be a
diplomatic way to object? Would it be sneaky to involve an
intermediary to point out the unspoken rule?
—Knocked Up and Bent Out of Shape
Dear Knocked Up,
I understand your irritation, and there's one thing you can do
about it: nothing. You acknowledge you have no special claim
on this name, so let it go. Try to turn your thinking around and
see this as a flattering tribute to your taste and your daughter's
lovely personality (no one chooses a name they associate with
someone they don't like). If your friend ultimately uses the same
name, on the occasions you are all together, your daughter will
likely be thrilled to be known as "Big Edna" while the baby is
"Little Edna." And there's a 50-50 chance she'll have a boy and
all this will be moot.
—Prudie
Deathwatch
The Hillary Deathwatch
Clinton cranks the electability argument up to 11.
By Christopher Beam
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 6:16 PM ET
As the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting looms,
Hillary Clinton cranks her electability argument up to 11. But
Obama continues to woo superdelegates. Odds of survival hover
at 0.5 percent.
Clinton is now fighting tooth and nail to see that the DNC's rules
committee seats the delegates from Florida and Michigan at the
convention in August. She continues to push for full seating, but
that scenario remains extremely unlikely. Obama campaign
manager David Plouffe suggests they're willing to compromise.
The reason: They can afford to. Even the best-case scenarios
don't have Clinton closing Obama's 195-delegate lead.
So Clinton is pushing her "popular vote" argument harder than
ever. In a letter to superdelegates today, she wrote that "when the
primaries are finished, I expect to lead in the popular vote and in
delegates earned through primaries." The popular vote is within
reach, assuming huge turnout in Puerto Rico. (Her claim that
she's currently winning it is disingenuous, though, since that
count includes Michigan, where Obama wasn't on the ballot.)
The pledged-delegate count—or whatever she means by
"delegates earned through primaries"—not so much.
Clinton also argues she isn't hurting the party by staying in the
race; she's helping it. "I believe that if Senator Obama and I both
make our case—and all Democrats have the chance to make
their voices heard—everyone will be more likely to rally around
the nominee," she writes.
But the crux of her argument is that she will win in the general,
as opposed to Obama, who merely can win. Propping up her
case today was a Gallup survey showing that Clinton
outperforms Obama against John McCain in states whose
primaries she won. In states Obama won, Clinton and Obama
perform about the same against McCain. The poll bolsters her
argument that her primary victories have some bearing on her
strength in the general election (although polls in May have little
bearing on the outcome in November). That her victories include
swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania gives her a solid talking
point.
Still, Obama picks up three more superdelegates today. The
campaign says it's now 46 delegates away from securing the
nomination.
For a full list of our Deathwatches, click here. For a primer on
Hillary's sinking ship, visit our first Deathwatch entry. Send
your own prognostications to [email protected].
Deathwatch
The Hillary Deathwatch
Clinton's RFK comment won't do lasting damage because there's not much left
to damage.
By Christopher Beam
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 1:54 PM ET
Hillary Clinton's ill-advised invoking of RFK's assassination
might have damaged her campaign if there were anything left to
damage. Meanwhile, Obama closes in on the current magic
number of 2,026, bringing Clinton's odds of winning the
nomination to 0.5 percent.
On the list of campaign no-nos, hinting at the possibility of your
opponent being shot is up there. Yet that's what some people
thought Hillary meant when she told the editorial board of the
Sioux Falls, S.D., Argus-Leader that Democratic nominations
often extend into June: "My husband did not wrap up the
nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary
somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember
Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't
understand it."
The New York Post led the way, blaring, "Hillary Raises
Assassination Issue." Drudge quickly followed. The Washington
Post fronted the story, albeit less sensationally. But little
consideration was given to what Clinton meant. (Watch the
video and draw your own conclusions.) Never mind that she had
said the same thing to Time back in March and no one noticed.
Never mind that her calendar argument is misleading in the first
place: Her husband may not have mathematically secured the
nomination until June, but he was the presumptive nominee in
March; RFK was still campaigning in June because the primary
calendar started so late. The focus was on the "assassination"
comparison. "We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul,"
opined the Daily News' Michael Goodwin. That or a very clickhungry media.
Luckily for Clinton, the "news" broke late Friday and appears to
have run its course. The downside: She's nowhere to be found in
today's top stories.
Meanwhile, the delegate count is the closest thing Clinton has to
a death clock. Obama picked up six more superdelegates over
the weekend, mostly add-ons from state conventions. Clinton got
one. Today Obama nabs a Wyoming super, bringing his total
count to 1,975.5, according to NBC, or 50.5 delegates away
from the 2,026 needed to win the nomination. (Hence the 0.5
percent, according to our new formula.) But that magic number
is likely to shift after this weekend, when the DNC's Rules and
Bylaws Committee decides whether—or, more likely, how—to
seat the Florida and Michigan delegations. If the outcome
heavily favors Clinton (as this proposal would), it could turn
Puerto Rico into Clinton's Last Stand.
For a full list of our Deathwatches, click here. For a primer on
Hillary's sinking ship, visit our first Deathwatch entry. Send
your own prognostications to [email protected].
did you see this?
Go Gay for Barack Obama
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 4:46 PM ET
dispatches
Talking to Hamas
The group's exiled leader on Syria, Palestinian politics, and Vanity Fair.
By Deborah Amos
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 12:28 PM ET
DAMASCUS, Syria—Khalid Mishaal, the exiled leader of
Hamas, isn't packing his bags just yet, but his comfortable
headquarters in a Damascus suburb could be closed down soon.
In a surprise announcement last week, Israel and Syria
confirmed indirect peace talks for the first time in eight years.
Israel has long demanded that Syria cut ties with groups like
Hezbollah and Hamas, but now the Golan Heights are on the
negotiating table once again, and the stakes have changed
dramatically.
In a late-night meeting, Mishaal was relaxed and smiling. He
offered me green tea with ginger and a plate of semolina
cookies. Mishaal recited a Quranic verse to open the hourlong
interview, but that was his only reference to religion. Mishaal
was all about divining the recent momentous events in the
region: Israeli-Syria peace talks brokered by Turkey and an
agreement, mediated by Qatar, to avert a new Lebanese civil
war. The agreement confirmed Hezbollah's power and Syria's
regional influence. It was a surprisingly peaceful conclusion to
an 18-month confrontation that had escalated into a street war in
West Beirut. Both deals, seemingly concluded without U.S.
involvement and counter to the Bush administration's policies,
will affect Palestinian politics.
"The question has been asked," says Mishaal, "why did the
Arabs move because of Lebanon, but they can't do this for the
Palestinians?" He was referring to the successful compromises
that sealed the Lebanon deal, a model of what Mishaal called a
"no-win, no-lose" formula where local adversaries agree to share
power. "This is what we want internally—reconciliation on the
Palestinian side."
In January 2006, Hamas defeated the corrupt and ineffective
Fattah movement in parliamentary elections; by 2007, a
Palestinian civil war drove Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas and his administration out of the Gaza Strip, leaving rival
governments operating in the West Bank, under Abbas, with
Gaza under Hamas control. Negotiations over a unity
government have stalled.
When I ask him why he believes the no-win, no-loss model
didn't work in Palestinian negotiations, he said, "The United
States and, more precisely, the Bush administration prevent
Palestinian reconciliation."
While the administration was mostly absent from last week's
major breakthroughs, President George W. Bush has staked
much of what is left of his foreign-policy political capital on a
peace track between Israel and the Palestinians. The
administration has been adamant that it is opposed to any
openings or dialogue with Hamas.
As for the latest announcement that Syria and Israel are prepared
to open peace talks again, Mishaal said that he supports Syria's
decision but that he believes these talks will come at the expense
of the more difficult and complicated Palestinian negotiations.
He did not make these views public in Damascus in the days
following the announcement, only talking about his reservations
in a news conference a few days later in Tehran, where his views
were more in line with Iran's leadership and are likely to cause
tensions in the close alliance between Syria and Iran.
When I asked whether Hamas' position in Damascus could be at
risk if Israel and Syria reach a settlement, Mishaal's response left
the question unanswered. "We are not a card in any hand, we are
a liberation movement. Hamas is capable [of working] under
different circumstances. Our real battle is inside Palestine."
The Syrian regime has moved against Palestinian groups in
Damascus before, most recently when it shuttered the media
offices of Islamic Jihad and Hamas in 2003. After the SyriaIsrael talks were confirmed last week, former Syrian Information
Minister Mahdi Dahlallah was quoted as saying that if there is a
peace agreement, "There will no longer be any need for
resistance," a reference to Hezbollah in Lebanon but also to
Hamas.
In a sign of the importance of peace talks with Israel, Syrian
President Bashar Assad took a personal role in the Lebanon
negotiations, pressing Hezbollah to make last-minute
concessions to seal the deal—the election of a compromise
candidate for president, a power-sharing agreement in the
Cabinet, and a formula for parliamentary elections in 2009. If
negotiations for Lebanon had failed, that news would have
overshadowed Syria's success in opening serious, though
indirect, talks with Israel.
But Hamas has cards to play, too. Despite the Bush
administration's warning against "appeasing extremists" through
dialogue, Hamas has had a flurry of contacts in the waning
months of the Bush administration. Mishaal confirmed that the
French government has opened a political dialogue with Hamas,
despite a rebuke from Washington. There is also
"communication" with other European countries, he said.
Mishaal joined diplomats at Norway's National Day reception in
Damascus this month. It is recognition that Hamas has support
among Palestinians and will have to be engaged for the peace
process to move forward.
Even Israel is talking to Hamas, with Egypt serving as the gobetween in indirect negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza.
Opinion polls show a majority of Israelis want the government
to go further, supporting direct talks with Hamas about Gaza and
the release of Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was seized
inside Israel near the Gaza Strip in July 2006.
In April, former President Jimmy Carter visited Damascus for
talks with Hamas. Carter spoke of a breakthrough, saying Hamas
was prepared to accept Israel's right to "live as a neighbor next
door in peace." The former president insisted that Hamas would
not undermine Palestinian President Abbas' efforts to reach a
peace deal with Israel, although Hamas insists that a referendum
must be held to confirm any deal Abbas makes. Carter was
criticized by the Bush administration and by Israeli officials, but
for Hamas, Carter's visit opened the door for others to consider
engagement. It was the beginning of a shift from the black-andwhite polarization of the Bush years to a recognition that the
power players in the region come in varying shades of gray.
Mishaal acknowledged that the Carter visit was "fruitful," and he
repeated his pledge to Carter that Shalit would be allowed to
write a letter to his family. "The president requested the letter,
and it's out of respect for Carter we have agreed to that. We
requested from our brothers in Gaza that they allow that letter,
and it will be coming soon."
Mishaal dismissed the prospects of progress on Palestinian
issues during the remainder of Bush's term. The PalestinianIsraeli peace track has shown little progress so far. Mishaal is
waiting for the U.S. election to change the political landscape,
and this seems to be the Syrian posture as well. They are eager
to engage in indirect talks with the Israelis for the next few
months, but they insist that serious U.S. involvement will be
necessary to guarantee a final deal.
signified that the long rule of the Bush administration was
finally coming to a close.
election scorecard
Lady of the Island
Clinton holds the lead in a new Puerto Rico poll.
By Tony Romm
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 5:03 PM ET
Ahead of Sunday's primary, Hillary Clinton is up by 13 points in
Puerto Rico, maintaining a 51 percent to 38 percent lead over
Barack Obama, according to a new Vocero/Univision poll
released this week (in Spanish).
The poll, taken from May 8 through May 20, also provides some
insight into how Puerto Rico would sway in the general election
if its votes counted. According to the poll, 72 percent of
respondents indicate they would favor the Democratic candidate
in November, regardless of who won the nomination. By
comparison, only 10 percent of Puerto Ricans say they would
vote for John McCain. The rest are either undecided or chose not
to answer the question. However, we should reiterate: Puerto
Rico's votes do not count in the general election.
Regardless, more than 60 percent of Puerto Ricans still believe
their commonwealth can play some role in deciding the
Democratic contest.
Election Scorecard uses data supplied by Mark Blumenthal and
Charles Franklin at Pollster.com.
Delegates at stake:
Mishaal insists that the Bush administration will never allow
reconciliation between the feuding Palestinians factions as long
as this president is in office. "The American administration is
supporting a corrupt party to topple Palestinian democracy with
arsenals and weapons. And that was shown in Vanity Fair
magazine."
This was a surprising reference for a militant Islamist leader.
Vanity Fair published an article in the April 2008 issue alleging
that the Bush administration conspired with a Palestinian
warlord and his militia men to engineer a Palestinian civil war to
reverse Hamas' election victory. For Khalid Mishaal, this was
proof that the American media had finally taken the Palestinian
side in this long conflict. More important for him, it also
Democrats
Republicans
Total delegates:
4,049
Total delegates
needed to win:
2,025
Total delegates:
2,380
Total delegates
needed to win: 1,191
Pledged delegates won
by each candidate:
Obama: 1,661; Clinton:
1,499
Delegates won by each
candidate:
McCain: 1,500
Source: CNN
Source: CNN
Want more Slate election coverage? Check
out Map the Candidates, Political Futures,
Trailhead, XX Factor, and our Campaign
Junkie page!
.
.
explainer
Space Plumbing 101
When an astronaut pees, where does it go?
By Jacob Leibenluft
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 6:26 PM ET
The crew on the International Space Station had to make
emergency repairs to its toilet—and use an emergency urinal—
after a part responsible for collecting liquid waste
malfunctioned. What do astronauts do with all the sewage that
gets collected?
Send it back to Earth or eject it into outer space. Space toilets
separate solid and liquid waste, and the solid waste is tightly
bagged until it can be removed. (For detailed accounts of how
you go to the bathroom in space in the first place, check out
these descriptions by astronauts.) On a space shuttle, solid waste
is compressed, stored, and then brought back to Earth. The space
station, on the other hand, deposits the solid waste onto an
unmanned vehicle (known as a "Progress module") that is
eventually released toward Earth, burning up on its re-entry into
the atmosphere.
Historically, space vehicles have released urine overboard.
Because of the low temperatures outside, the wastewater quickly
freezes into small crystals. (Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty
Schweickart once described a urine dump at sunset as "the most
beautiful sight in orbit.") But urine, like just about anything else
humans leave in space, can turn into orbital debris. A study
conducted off the Mir space station in the mid-1990s identified
"flake depressions" suspected to be caused by human waste. And
even tiny objects can cause damage if they are orbiting at high
velocity: In one 1983 mission, a paint flake created a crack in the
space shuttle Challenger's window, and wastewater was initially
suspected as a possible cause of the 2003 Columbia disaster. In
fact, the risks posed by frozen pee are limited: Orbital-debris
experts say it is likely to sublimate from a solid form directly
into gas within an orbit or two. In addition, waste that is released
from the shuttle should be moving in the same direction as the
spacecraft, limiting the possibility of a collision.
Although NASA technology has improved markedly since the
days of urine collection and transfer assemblies and "Apollo
bags" (which are still used as backup in case of a toilet
malfunction), the space shuttle still has a system that dumps
wastewater (PDF) during orbit. On the space station—which
currently uses Russian technology—urine is instead sent back to
Earth along with the solid waste, on a Progress module.
In the near future, astronauts may begin to recycle their waste
products. Later this year, NASA will send up a new system that
should be able to convert urine—along with humidity in the
air—into clean water. Once it is up and running, the system
should be able to recover about 90 percent of the water in the
urine and provide much of the water supply needed for the space
station. (The rest of the urine becomes a concentrated brine
disposed of as usual.) And in the future, the feces created in
space may not go to waste, either: NASA is funding research on
a fuel cell that would convert human waste into electricity.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters and Gene Stansbery
at NASA's Johnson Space Center and Bob Bagdigian at NASA's
Marshall Space Center.
explainer
Peacekeepers on Trial
How U.N. blue-helmets get disciplined.
By Nina Shen Rastogi
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 5:07 PM ET
A British nonprofit released a report Tuesday on the widespread
sexual abuse of children by international peacekeeping troops
and humanitarian aid workers. Twenty-three organizations were
linked to such cases, with United Nations forces making up a
disproportionate number of alleged offenders. Who's responsible
for the bad behavior of U.N. peacekeepers in the field?
Troop-contributing nations. U.N. member countries are expected
to volunteer portions of their armed forces to serve in
peacekeeping missions; currently there are nearly 75,000 troops
on active duty, the vast majority of whom come from developing
nations in Africa and South Asia. Contributing nations maintain
exclusive jurisdiction over their military troops, which means
that neither the United Nations nor the host country can take
legal action against soldiers. Though the United Nations has a
zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sexual exploitation and
abuse, the most severe action it can take is repatriation of the
accused—at the contributing nation's expense—and, if the
accused is eventually found guilty, a block on future service in
U.N. missions. Investigations into serious violations of U.N.
rules, which include sexual exploitation, are conducted by
members of the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services, and
the final decision to repatriate is made by the New York
headquarters of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. In
2007, large numbers of Moroccan peacekeepers in Ivory Coast
and Sri Lankan troops in Haiti were sent home for sexual
offenses.
civilians who have been sent home often escape further
punishment, and for similar reasons. In addition, many countries
claim that they lack the extraterritorial jurisdiction to prosecute
civilian crimes committed outside their boundaries. Problems
may also arise when U.N. rules conflict with the contributing
nation's laws. For example, a 2003 bulletin from the secretarygeneral stipulates that sex with children under the age of 18 is
strictly prohibited for all peacekeepers, but the age of consent
may be lower in a given peacekeeper's home country.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Katherine Andrews of the Henry L. Stimson
Center and Dominic Nutt of Save the Children UK.
explainer
How To Look for Life on Mars
Repatriated military offenders rarely face criminal prosecution in
their home nations, however, largely because of a lack of
political will and reluctance on the governments' part to publicly
admit to acts of wrongdoing. In addition, cases are often thrown
out because evidence gathered on the ground by U.N.
investigators fails to meet the nation's own criminal-procedure
standards. Sufficient evidence can be difficult to collect in
unstable conflict zones, particularly in communities where issues
of sexual abuse carry heavy social stigma. In recent years, the
OIOS has taken steps to streamline and professionalize its
investigative procedures, and the DPKO has established a
Conduct and Discipline Unit with eight field offices. (The report
released Tuesday noted that the United Nations' commitment to
investigate and publicize allegations of abuse probably
contributed to the high number of reported cases within its
ranks.)
Military personnel are only one category of U.N. peacekeepers,
however. There are also large numbers of civilians in the field,
including U.N. officials, non-U.N. specialists known as "experts
on mission," and civilian police units. These staffers have legal
immunity regarding acts performed in their official capacity,
with the highest-ranking officials enjoying the same privileges
as diplomatic envoys. The secretary-general can waive this
immunity—and therefore allow a case to be brought to trial in
the host country—if he determines that the accused was acting in
a nonofficial capacity and that the local government has
sufficient legal systems in place to conduct such a trial. Since
most conflict zones lack proper judicial and police organizations,
immunity is rarely waived.
Civilian personnel found to have committed offenses can be
fined, demoted, suspended, or—most drastically—summarily
dismissed and repatriated. As with military peacekeepers,
Sorting through the extraterrestrial dust.
By Chris Wilson
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 6:12 PM ET
Humankind's latest envoy to Mars, the spacecraft Phoenix,
touched down near the planet's north pole on Sunday. If all goes
as planned, Phoenix will begin collecting soil samples next week
in a search for evidence that basic organisms could survive on
the planet. What is Phoenix looking for?
Carbon, of course—and all sorts of other things. Phoenix is
equipped with a pair of onboard mini laboratories that can
develop a detailed picture of the soil's chemical content. First of
all, scientists are looking for traces of organic molecules—the
fundamental building blocks of life. But Phoenix is also
measuring things like the acidity of the soil, the presence of
nitrogen, and the amount of water attached to minerals in the
soil, to name a few. Together, all these data will help researchers
determine whether the conditions on the planet were ever
favorable for the development of life as we know it.
While scientists are interested in just about anything we can find
in the Martian soil, many of their measurements will focus on
carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur—a
set of life's essential elements known to biologists as
"CHNOPS."
To assemble the data, Phoenix will collect soil samples with its
robotic arm and feed them into the two onboard laboratories. In
the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer, the sample is gradually
heated in a miniature oven up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Because different molecules become liquids and gases at
different temperatures, this slowly separates the different
components of the soil. The separated gases are then fed into a
device known as a mass spectrometer, which detects the
presence of isotopes—aberrant versions of an element with an
unusually heavy or light nucleus. The prevalence of isotopes in
the soil samples is an important clue in determining the chemical
history of the soil and the behavior of water on the planet. For
example, the presence of enough "heavy" water molecules—i.e.,
those that carry extra neutrons—might suggest that liquid water
flowed across the surface of the planet.
The second lab, known as the Microscopy, Electrochemistry,
and Conductivity Analyzer, measures the pH of the soil and
detects minerals and salts that wouldn't show up in the oven.
Using its onboard chemistry set, Phoenix mixes the soil with a
variety of reagents to learn more about its chemical properties.
The MECA lab also contains two microscopes that are capable
of analyzing the structure of the soil and how water has shaped it
in the past. Researchers have already tested the MECA lab in
Antarctica and will use the results from that expedition as a
reference for what they find on Mars—a process one scientist
referred to as "comparative planetology."
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks William V. Boynton of the University of
Arizona, Mike Gross of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and
Samuel P. Kounaves of Tufts University.
fashion
Fashion Roadkill
When did Carrie Bradshaw become a label whore?
By Julia Turner
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 3:37 PM ET
The Sex and the City movie begins, of course, with a voiceover:
Sarah Jessica Parker, as a pensive Carrie Bradshaw, intones that
women come to New York looking for two things: "love and
labels." If the phrase rings a bell, you may be thinking of "Love
or Labels," the heavily promoted song that Fergie contributed to
the film's soundtrack. The sentiment, though—the idea that
acquiring designer goods is an aspiration on par with matrimony
for young female New Yorkers—is new. Although TV Carrie
was a sucker for Manolo Blahnik and an ostentatious dresser,
she wasn't a label whore. The movie, on the other hand, can't get
enough.
Consider, for example, the scene in which Carrie suffers through
an awkward phone call and then stands forlorn ... and perfectly
framed in the window of a Diane von Fürstenberg store. Or the
one where a sex-starved Samantha fills her Mercedes with boxes
from Gucci. Or the one where Carrie gives her assistant—so
destitute she has to rent a Louis Vuitton bag, the poor thing—her
very own Vuitton. Or the endless scene in which Carrie tries on
a succession of wedding dresses—sorry, reader: I'm not telling
you whether she marries him—breathlessly panting the name of
each designer as she poses and preens: "Vera Wang … Carolina
Herrera … Lanvin … Dior … Vivienne Westwood." As the
montage trudges on, you begin to consider the negotiations
required to amass these garments. Did Herrera decree that her
first name be used? Did each designer demand a certain quantum
of screen time? What did Vivienne Westwood do to assure her
gown would come out on top?
Although this labelmania is hardly surprising—why shouldn't a
series known for its fantastical clothing recruit and then flatter
such heavy hitters?—I found it disappointing. This is not to say
the clothes in the film are bad. Many of the outfits are glorious.
(I'll take two of the Miranda-in-therapy suits and one Carriebuys-a-copy-of-Vogue fedora.) But there are fewer vintage
pieces, fewer off-kilter touches, and the movie, with its emphasis
on big-name designers, seems to ignore what the show got right
about clothes: that dressing up is a way to invent different
versions of yourself.
Why, after all, did Carrie dress like such a kook? Take her nowiconic tutu, besmirched each week in the TV show's opening
credits. (I will reveal that the tutu has a cameo in the film—and
looks spotless! Forget Carrie's unrealistically nice apartment.
Who does her dry cleaning?) Initially, I suspect, such outfits
served as a sort of shorthand, marking Carrie as a "creative type"
distinct from preppy Charlotte, businesslike Miranda, and
sophisticatedly slutty Samantha.
Eventually, though, the clothes became something more than
just shorthand. Although television Carrie was ostensibly a
writer—tap-tap-tapping at that Mac in ballerina-hued tanktops—
her hokey prose always strained the credibility of the premise.
Her real genius, we came to see, lay in the closet: Her creative
outlet was getting dressed. Television Carrie was a woman who
took a costume designer's approach to her own life, plotting
oddball outfits for brunches and ball games alike. When she
briefly dated a politician in Season 3, Carrie channeled Jackie O.
in big sunglasses and vintage Halston (trying on, and eventually
rejecting, both the man and the look). When she ran a few
errands in Season 4, she adopted this post-apocalyptic vaudeville
newsboy vibe—because why not be a badass from an alternate
dimension when picking up some flowers and the paper?
There were labels throughout, of course—that post-apocalyptic
newsboy is wearing Fendi mules—but Carrie mixed it up,
combining dime-store finds with high-end pieces, wearing fur to
Yankee stadium and a white tuxedo jacket over a threadbare
Mickey Mouse T on a date. Above all, she valued looks that
showcased the unexpected. (That and her great legs.) Some of
these were beautiful, and some were pure disasters, but,
regardless, Carrie offered an admirable model of how a woman
should relate to her wardrobe: She should not unthinkingly adopt
the latest thing; she can admire high-end designers without
worshipping them; she should use her clothes as a means to
express who she is and to become who she wants to be.
leaned right over my shoulder and into the middle of the
conversation, seized my knife and fork, and started to cut up my
food for me. Not content with this bizarre behavior, and without
so much as a by-your-leave, he proceeded to distribute pieces of
my entree onto the plates of the other diners.
At first, America didn't get the message: Women seemed to
think dressing like Carrie meant dressing like Carrie, and a
thousand fake flower corsages bloomed. The character also did
wonders for the brands she loved, making the formerly rarified
wares of Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo must-haves for
women across the country. Eventually, however, women found
more subtle ways to pay homage to their favorite newspaper
columnist, running out to buy her latest pair of shoes, yes, but
also channeling her mix-and-match spirit. Indeed, the current
emphasis on "the mix"—on combining high and low with élan,
on serving as your own stylist—can be attributed, in part, to the
Carrie aesthetic. (The citizens featured in New York's Look
Book, the cover girls of Lucky, the elegant sophisticates anointed
by the Sartorialist: You're more likely to hear them bragging
about unexpected combinations than name-dropping Fendi and
Chanel.)
No, he didn't, actually. What he did instead was to interrupt the
feast of reason and flow of soul that was our chat, lean across
me, pick up the bottle of wine that was in the middle of the table,
and pour it into everyone's glass. And what I want to know is
this: How did such a barbaric custom get itself established, and
why on earth do we put up with it?
Which is why it's disconcerting, in this movie, to find labels
playing such a prominent role. For TV Carrie, labels were one
way to get from point A to point B. For movie Carrie, they are
point B. (It's true that a vintage suit plays a small and valiant role
in the film. But it gets a lot more mockery than reverence.)
In another movie, this labelpalooza wouldn't be so depressing.
But on Sex and the City, clothes have always served as a
metaphor. Carrie's sartorial creativity symbolizes what's most
appealing about her character: her openness to life and her belief
that there are countless good ways to live it. The film shows us a
Carrie with narrowed horizons—both sartorially and
romantically. Television Carrie created her own fantasies; movie
Carrie gets hers off the rack. Labels or no labels, there's nothing
to love about that.
fighting words
Wine Drinkers of the World, Unite
You have nothing to lose but inflated bills and interrupted anecdotes.
By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, May 26, 2008, at 7:26 AM ET
The other night, I was having dinner with some friends in a
fairly decent restaurant and was at the very peak of my form as a
wit and raconteur. But just as, with infinite and exquisite
tantalizations, I was approaching my punch line, the most
incredible thing happened. A waiter appeared from nowhere,
There are two main ways in which a restaurant can inflict bad
service on a customer. The first is to keep you hanging about and
make it hard to catch the eye of the staff. ("Why are they called
waiters?" inquired my son when he was about 5. "It's we who are
doing all the waiting.") The second way is to be too intrusive,
with overlong recitations of the "specials" and too many
oversolicitous inquiries. A cartoon in The New Yorker once
showed a couple getting ready for bed, with the husband taking a
call and keeping his hand over the receiver. "It's the maitre d'
from the place we had dinner. He wants to know if everything is
still all right."
The vile practice of butting in and pouring wine without being
asked is the very height of the second kind of bad manners. Not
only is it a breathtaking act of rudeness in itself, but it conveys a
none-too-subtle and mercenary message: Hurry up and order
another bottle. Indeed, so dulled have we become to the shame
and disgrace of all this that I have actually seen waiters, having
broken into the private conversation and emptied the flagon, ask
insolently whether they should now bring another one. Again,
imagine this same tactic being applied to the food.
Not everybody likes wine as much as I do. Many females, for
example, confine themselves to one glass per meal or even half a
glass. It pains me to see good wine being sloshed into the glasses
of those who have not asked for it and may not want it and then
be left standing there barely tasted when the dinner is over. Mr.
Coleman, it was said, made his fortune not from the mustard that
was consumed but from the mustard that was left on the plate.
Restaurants ought not to inflict waste and extravagance on their
patrons for the sake of padding out the bill. This, too, is a very
extreme form of rudeness.
The expense of the thing, in other words, is only an aspect of the
presumption of it. It completely usurps my prerogative if I am a
host. ("Can I refill your glass? Try this wine—I think you may
care for it.") It also tends to undermine me as a guest, since at
any moment when I try to sing for my supper, I may find an
unwanted person lunging carelessly into the middle of my
sentence. If this person fills glasses unasked, he is a boor as
described above. If he asks permission of each guest in turn—as
he really ought to do, when you think about it—then he might as
well pull up a chair and join the party. The nerve of it!
To return to the question of why we endure this: I think it must
have something to do with the snobbery and insecurity that
frequently accompany the wine business. A wine waiter is or can
be a bit of a grandee, putting on considerable airs that may
intimidate those who know little of the subject. If you go into a
liquor store in a poor part of town, you will quite often notice
that the wine is surprisingly expensive, because it is vaguely
assumed that somehow it ought to cost more. And then there is
simple force of custom and habit—people somehow grant
restaurants the right to push their customers around in this
outrageous way.
Well, all it takes is a bit of resistance. Until relatively recently in
Washington, it was the custom at diplomatic and Georgetown
dinners for the hostess to invite the ladies to withdraw, leaving
the men to port and cigars and high matters of state. And then
one evening in the 1970s, at the British Embassy, the late
Katharine Graham refused to get up and go. There was nobody
who felt like making her, and within a day, the news was all over
town. Within a very short time, everybody had abandoned the
silly practice. I am perfectly well aware that there are many
graver problems facing civilization, and many grosser violations
of human rights being perpetrated as we speak. But this is
something that we can all change at a stroke. Next time anyone
offers to interrupt your conversation and assist in the digestion
of your meal and the inflation of your check, be very polite but
very firm and say that you would really rather not.
foreigners
Will the International Community
Abandon Lebanon?
That's for the Lebanese people to decide.
By Shmuel Rosner
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 10:18 AM ET
Why Washington welcomed the Doha agreement—the deal that
put an end to the political stalemate in Lebanon—is anyone's
guess. You can take Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at her
word and believe that she believes the agreement is a "positive
step toward resolving the current crisis." Or you can assume that
was the only option if the United States wanted to see a deal
done. The agreement was signed, and Washington had no choice
but to pretend that it was a good one.
So much so that Rice's assistant for Middle East affairs, David
Welch, felt the need to praise even the most unlikely regimes: "If
Syria and Iran have supported that," he said, "then perhaps they
will continue to exercise a more constructive role in Lebanon." If
he had his fingers crossed behind his back, no one saw. If he
winked as he suggested such an improbable outcome, nobody
noticed. But Welch knows, as do all the others, that neither Syria
nor Iran are suddenly planning to play a "constructive" role in
Lebanon. If they support the agreement and the United States
also supports it, pretty soon one party is going to look stupid.
The Doha agreement is a series of mostly bureaucratic
measures—necessary in the most complex of systems that is
Lebanese politics. One such step was completed Sunday with the
elevation of Gen. Michel Suleiman—a Christian relatively close
to Syria—to the presidency. A more important component will
be tested in the future: There's an understanding that Lebanon
will hold elections in 2009—that's assumed to be the main
achievement of Lebanon's pro-democracy factions.
So the agreement has achieved its short-term goal—after weeks
of clashes in which more than a hundred Lebanese citizens died,
a full-fledged civil war was averted. And as for the long term?
Maybe there's no such thing in the Middle East—especially
when discussing the future of Lebanon.
The Lebanese understand this painful truth better than anyone
else. Their deep-rooted mistrust of all the other players in the
region—and beyond—is justified, considering circumstances
and history. They fear that Lebanon will be the one to pay the
price for a regional grand deal. And last week they had an even
stronger reason to worry: As Syria and Israel announced the
resumption of peace negotiations, the Lebanese could easily
foresee that their sovereignty would again be compromised in
return for a change in Syria's behavior.
That's one of the reasons the Bush administration was so
reluctant to see a resumption of the Syria-Israel talks. In the last
couple of years, Washington has changed its attitude toward
Lebanon. A country that was mainly seen as a minor player—a
chip on the regional trading table—is now a just cause.
President Bush and Secretary Rice have publicly committed
themselves to a more democratic Lebanon. (During the 2006
Lebanon War, Rice was ridiculed for stating that the conflict
represented "the birth pangs of a new Middle East.") They try to
treat Lebanon not as a playing field on which Israel, Syria, and
Iran can war with one another in a contained fashion but, rather,
as a real country. Sometimes, they seem to believe this even
more than the Lebanese themselves do.
President Bush has praised Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad
Siniora on many occasions. "He's a good guy; he's tough, and
he's in a really tough situation. I admire him," the president told
me in an interview two weeks ago. And Washington even
backed its new commitment with action. Over the last two years,
it has provided Lebanon with more than $300 million worth of
equipment and training.
But in recent weeks, the Lebanese military—which is supported
by the United States—decided to stay on the sidelines rather
than clash with Hezbollah militants when Hezbollah
demonstrated its power by taking over parts of Beirut. Hezbollah
was willing to cave on many political components of the Doha
deal. Its main interest and achievement was not in the shuffling
of Cabinet seats but, rather, in avoiding any attempt at
disarmament of Lebanese factions by the Lebanese state. The
international community, knowing full well that Hezbollah will
be the most challenging roadblock on the way to a peaceful,
democratic Lebanon, was suddenly silenced. A deal is a deal—
and if this is what the Lebanese people want, no one will be able
to stop them.
This, essentially, is what Jeffrey Feltman, principal deputy
assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and until
recently the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, said even before the
recent crisis was resolved at the Doha talks. About two months
ago, Feltman was a guest at the Saban Center for Middle East
Policy at the Brookings Institution. "The international
community," he said there, "has been supporting an agenda
defined by the Lebanese themselves and not imposed from the
outside with the combination of the broad Lebanese domestic
desire and the international backing that leads to success." In
other words: The Lebanese have to lead—the world will follow.
That is, unless the Lebanese people decide to take matters into
their own hands. In his Saban Center talk, Feltman described a
cable he sent from Beirut just one day before the "March 14"
demonstrations swept Lebanon, leading to the withdrawal of
Syrian forces and to the most hopeful period in Lebanon's recent
history. "So there was nothing at all in my cable of March 13,
2005, about the fact that the following day more than a third of
Lebanon's population would turn out in a mass demonstration
that changed Lebanon's history," he confessed. Feltman and the
international community did not help initiate these
demonstrations, nor did they understand the impact they would
have.
The one thing the international community could do was to
support Lebanon after the fact. That was the case in 2005—and
it's the case today. So will Lebanon eventually be abandoned?
That's for the Lebanese people to decide.
foreigners
All Work and No Play Still Might Not Get
Jack Into Harvard
High-school seniors are more stressed out than ever—just like the rest of us.
This might be the realistic, perhaps even the noble, way of
handling a country. The problem is that the decisions the
Lebanese have recently made only increase the likelihood that
they will eventually be abandoned by the international
community. "There is no contradiction between having a foreign
policy that looks at Lebanon as Lebanon and also sees how
Lebanon fits into our regional calculations," said Feltman. That
is true, unless "Lebanon as Lebanon" makes decisions that
render it easier for regional forces to meddle in its affairs.
Choosing a pro-Syrian president might be such a decision.
Avoiding the question of disarmament might be another such
decision.
"Hezbollah does not want power over Lebanon, nor does it want
to control Lebanon or govern the country," Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Monday. Why would he want such a
thing? He already has the power he wants—the power of arms.
As long as no one tries to confront him, he has no problem
letting the government take care of the less important aspects of
daily life.
If the Doha agreement proved anything, it is that regional forces
are now taking things into their hands, brokering a deal that is
far from ideal but that buys some quiet for the time being. The
Bush administration will be gone pretty soon; the Israelis and the
Syrians have started to talk; Hezbollah can quietly get more
arms from Iran via Damascus. All the components for a future
that is not much different from the past are in place.
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 8:44 AM ET
Ah, the rituals of American spring: the unpacking of the flipflops, the exchanging of leaf-blowers for lawn mowers, the first
traffic jams on the highway to the beach—and the annual spate
of reports on the stressful lives of high-school seniors. Last year,
in the months between winter college-application deadlines and
spring college-acceptance letters, the New York Times
infamously ran what amounted to a multipart series on the
subject, printing columns and letters with titles like "Young,
Gifted, and Not Getting into Harvard," as well as meditations
such as the one on the Massachusetts high school that requires
its overworked students to do yoga.
But this year is no different. Only days ago, the Times again ran
a piece on the Westchester high school that now requires its
overworked students to eat lunch, while the Washington Post
described, with a certain amount of awe, a Maryland couple who
track their five children's complex school and sports schedules
on a color-coded spreadsheet. This sort of thing is not unique to
New York and Washington, of course, you can find the same
kinds of articles in USA Today, Time, or Newsweek. I know this
for a fact, because a lot of these stories invariably turn up in the
"Most Popular Article" lists, where, just as invariably, I click on
them.
There is nothing strange about these stories. Since the university
admissions process really is unbelievably fraught, readers of
newspapers, many of whom might have college-bound children,
naturally find them engrossing. But there is also a weird way in
which these stories, and the very real national conversation that
inspires them, reflect a kind of schizophrenia in American ideas
about education, one that I didn't fully appreciate until I moved
abroad.
Without question, Americans, whether wealthy or just upwardly
mobile, are nowadays obsessed with preparing their children for
a supercompetitive, globalized job market. They will therefore
go a long way—switch neighborhoods, borrow money, create
color-coded spreadsheets—to get their children into high schools
that force them to study and test them regularly. Those who play
the game most intensively are often rewarded: The child who
takes 15 AP courses, plays the clarinet in three orchestras, runs a
Cambodian refugee camp in the summer, and eschews lunch all
winter really does have a better chance of getting into college
than the child who plays kickball after school in the empty lot
next door.
Yet at the same time, the parents of many driven children, raised
on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Little House on the
Prairie, retain a kind of nostalgia for a pre-industrial America,
one in which childhood involved breaking horses and building
rafts, in which "schooling" was optional, and in which dropping
out was a romantic option. Layered on top of this collective
memory is often a rose-colored recollection of their own highschool experience, a Happy Days whirl of sports, proms, and
dates. Today's children always seem to be working harder than
yesterday's children, having less fun, and taking more tests, at
least according to everyone I know.
It's notable, this nostalgia, because it isn't necessarily shared by
other countries. Certainly not by the British, some of whose
children start taking serious, life-changing exams at age 11, nor
by the Koreans whose children declare they can't let themselves
"waste even a second" during their 15-hours-a-day, seven-days-a
week quest to get into college, preferably Harvard. In fact, any
country committed to meritocracy has to impose exams on its
high-school seniors. Otherwise, university admissions will
necessarily depend upon wealth, access, and parental
connections.
More strangely, our nostalgia also clashes oddly with the other
important American education narrative, the one that focuses on
the 46 percent of high-school seniors who test below the "basic"
level in science (only 2 percent qualify as "advanced"), the
"Dumbest Generation" of semi-literates glued to their cell
phones, and the enormous number of teenagers—a stunning onethird of the total—who fail to graduate from high school on
time. Since 38 percent of these teenagers recently told one
survey that they dropped out because "I had too much freedom
and not enough rules in my life," it's no surprise that solutions to
the drop-out crisis often involve the imposition of stricter school
regimes, with more organized hours of teaching, more pressure,
and, yes, more testing.
Thus are our kids both stupider than we were and harder
working—though perhaps this makes sense. America is, after all,
the industrialized country with the fewest paid vacations, as well
as the only nation, as far as I know, that considers the "pursuit of
happiness" a fundamental right. We invented the assembly line,
and we invented the modern notion of "leisure." So, welcome
back to work today, if you even bothered to take Monday off.
Spring is here, the beaches beckon—and you've only got a few
weeks left to find an impressive summer job for your highschool junior.
green room
The Sea Lion and the Salmon
Should we murder one to save the other?
By Brendan Borrell
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 1:20 PM ET
On May 4, the blubbery carcasses of six sea lions were
discovered inside a trap at Bonneville Dam in Oregon. Animal
rights advocates suspected they'd been murdered as part of a
long-standing dispute over the complicated ethics of wildlife
management.
It began in the late 1990s, when hungry sea lions from the coast
started traveling 145 miles up the Columbia River and
decimating a local population of endangered Chinook salmon.
Fearful that the fish would go extinct, an unlikely alliance
formed between commercial fishermen and conservationists.
They pressured local wildlife managers to take action, and in
March, the federal government granted permission to kill or
transplant up to 85 California sea lions per year. But the Humane
Society opposed the plan and filed a series of injunctions in
district and federal courts to block it. So when sea lion bodies
showed up earlier this month, the animal lovers wondered if
someone had ordered a hit.
The question of how to balance the lives of a few pinnipeds
against the continuing existence of an entire species reflects an
important question: At what point do the rights of an individual
animal trump the welfare of an entire ecosystem? Should we
murder a few sea lions to save a whole bunch of salmon? For a
fish-friendly conservation group like the Wild Salmon Center,
support for the cull seems like a no-brainer. But what about
broader-based organizations like the Sierra Club? Do the folks
who respond to their polar bear cub campaigns understand that
species preservation can be cruel—and that saving the
environment has little to do with animal rights?
diversity of life on Earth. Screw the Beluga whale (No. 272); we
need to save the Cuban solenodon (No. 2)!
The dream of conservation is to restore the natural world to a
time before forests were felled, rivers were poisoned, and
species were exterminated. American naturalist Aldo Leopold
wrote that "the land is one organism," implying that Mother
Earth has a dignity all her own. But to preserve these
ecosystems, conservationists must trample the rights of
individual animals. An avid hunter, Leopold himself saw no
conflict between killing and conservation. Today, wildlife
managers prop up species in decline while mandating population
control among those that have become too successful.
Totalitarian measures that would be shunned in human society—
hazing, mass sterilization, forced relocation, and sometimes
genocide—are all part of the conservationist's toolbox. I consider
myself green-minded, but I can't accept the idea that we should
sacrifice compassion to save every single species on the planet.
While humans may find much to appreciate in Earth's
menagerie, it is hard to argue that preserving DNA can justify
the murder of a sentient being. Sea lions are remarkable
creatures. Some believe their cognitive abilities rival those of
chimpanzees: In 1993, a female sea lion at the University of
Santa Cruz named Rio became famous for being the first
nonhuman animal to understand the transitive property—if A
equals B, and B equals C, then C equals A. Single females are
known to baby-sit young pups while their mothers go fishing.
And with social animals, the murder of one may well traumatize
the entire group, as has been documented in elephants. Salmon,
on the other hand, have a brain that looks like a knotted
shoelace, and some scientists argue that the absence of a
neocortex means the fish lack a psychological experience of
pain.
First off, the public—and the legal system—are not so quick to
dismiss animal rights. Last year, James Stevenson, founder of
the Galveston Ornithological Society, faced up to two years of
jail time on charges of animal cruelty after shooting a cat that he
believed was killing endangered piping plovers. Indeed,
according to the National Audubon Society, feral cats kill
hundreds of millions of native birds and small animals in the
United States each year and are second only to the loss of
wilderness in causing species extinctions. Does that mean the
cat's painful death was worth less than its incremental
contribution to the loss of bird species? Apparently flummoxed
by this question of environmental ethics, the jury deadlocked—
and prosecutors have decided not to retry the case.
We may have a sense of what it means to kill an innocent sea
lion, but it's hard to anticipate the moral consequences of an
ecosystem's downward spiral. If we take a consequentialist view
of ethics, we cannot distinguish between an action and a lack of
action. If the only way to stop a mass murderer were to kill him,
and I refused because of my belief that it is wrong to kill, then I
would no doubt be responsible for the murderer's future victims.
Even if this murderer were severely intellectually disabled—the
cognitive equivalent of a pinniped—I would still be compelled
to kill him.
The picture is just as fuzzy when it comes to those who try to
prevent the murder of animals. In 2002, the National Park
Service bombed California's Anacapa Island with a rodentkilling poison to wipe out nonnative black rats, which were
scarfing down the eggs of local seabirds. Outraged by this
indiscriminate killing, activist Rob Puddicombe and a
companion traveled to the island to administer an antidote to the
poison. They were arrested and charged with "feeding wildlife"
and "interfering with a federal function." Puddicombe was
cleared in 2003, but his companion pleaded guilty and was fined
$200. (Their efforts didn't pay off: The rats were exterminated.)
The conservationist accepts death and suffering as a natural
product of the competition for resources. But faith in free-market
biology doesn't always lead to laissez faire environmental
policies. In order to preserve biodiversity, the conservationist
might intervene to promote the welfare of one species over
another, on the grounds that not all animals are created equal.
The EDGE of Existence program of the Zoological Society of
London combines two scores—extinction risk and evolutionary
distinctness—to prioritize species that will maximize the genetic
Taking this tack, ecologists may argue that it's worth killing sea
lions to save the salmon. Salmon eat smaller fish in marine
estuaries and carry key nutrients up river systems, where the
salmon themselves become food for other fish, birds, and
mammals. According to one study, more than 40 species of
mammals and birds in Alaska feed—at least some of the time—
on salmon and their eggs. Bears and eagles fertilize evergreens
with the salmon carcasses they dump onshore. If salmon
vanished tomorrow, some animals would find other places to
live and other things to eat, but the net effect might be an
increase in the number of deaths due to starvation—and a
curtailment of whatever pleasure human and nonhuman animals
derive from the presence of salmon.
The tricky part is figuring out what those effects would be. A
sound conservation ethic cannot be based exclusively on a vague
principle of biodiversity or the sanctity of the natural world.
Instead, it must respect the interests of sentient beings. We have
to ask ourselves if saving salmon will lead to the greatest good
for the greatest number, or if the pain inflicted by trapping and
killing sea lions year after year will overwhelm whatever greater
good is done for our planet.
The truth is that thorny ethical questions like this one can
sometimes be avoided altogether. In the dispute over the
Columbia River, conservationists and animal rights advocates
alike believe that the real problem at Bonneville Dam is the
existence of Bonneville Dam. Without that man-made structure,
the salmon would not face the bottlenecks that prevent many
from getting to their spawning grounds, and sea lions would not
find themselves perishing inside a metal trap. So, the one thing
we can all agree on is our own misanthropy: We shouldn't be
holding animals accountable for the damage humans have
wrought.
history lesson
The Greatest Manhunt of World War II
How a black soldier killed an officer, disappeared into the Burmese jungle, and
joined a tribe of headhunters.
By Brendan I. Koerner
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 12:33 PM ET
In his new book, Now the Hell Will Start, Brendan I. Koerner
tells the story of an epic World War II manhunt: the quest to find
Herman Perry, a black soldier who shot and killed a white
commanding officer, then disappeared into the jungles of
Burma, where he joined a tribe of headhunters and eluded
capture for months. The book is an amazing piece of reporting—
part thriller, part history—that got its start as a Slate
"Explainer." When Koerner wrote the column back in 2003, he
came across an account of an Air Force translator who'd been
charged with spying for Syria. "If convicted of the spying
charges," noted the New York Times, "he could face the death
penalty." As Koerner researched this "Explainer" (detailing
which offenses, when committed by military personnel, are
punishable by death), he encountered the following tidbit: "Pvt.
Herman Perry, murderer who long evaded capture by living
with Burmese tribe, 1944-1945." Koerner's curiosity was
piqued—it sounded so very Kurtz. Five years later, Koerner
presents Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight From the
Greatest Manhunt of World War II, which tells Perry's story in
full.
Click here for a slide show about Herman Perry.
.
By Kim Masters
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 4:46 PM ET
Cafeteria contretemps: They may have hugged it out, bitch, but
that doesn't mean that Ben Silverman and Ari Emanuel* have
made peace.
Silverman has a reputation for being a flamboyant guy who likes
a good party. Those invited to his late-night upfront soiree
earlier this month at the Empire Hotel were greeted by bikiniclad models. (That might not quite compare to the tiger at his
Emmy party a few months back, but still.) In January, he was
living it up at the Super Bowl in the box of the Giants' owners—
effusively praising fellow guest Michael Bloomberg and
suggesting that the mayor would make an awesome subject for a
reality show.
But it hasn't all been good times. In recent months, Silverman
has clashed with high-profile agent Ari Emanuel, famous not
only for his own outrageous persona but for being the inspiration
for Ari Gold of Entourage.
A few weeks back, Silverman missed a meeting with David
Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios (which just brought you a
little movie called Iron Man). Maisel apparently was arriving at
the NBC offices when he was told that Silverman would not be
there for an 11 a.m. meeting. The agent seething on the scene
was Emanuel, who represents Marvel in the television arena and
who, as it turns out, was already irked with Silverman.
In fact, Emanuel had already blown up at Silverman for a slight
involving another client, Peter Berg (executive producer of
Friday Night Lights). We're told it was a missed meeting, though
Berg tells us that there was no missed meeting, adding for the
record that he's very grateful to Silverman for coming up with a
way to keep his ratings-challenged show on NBC's air.
While still simmering about the Berg incident, Emanuel arrived
at the executive dining room at Universal, where he was to have
lunch with film studio chairman Marc Shmuger. As fate would
have it, Shmuger's boss—Universal Studios chief Ron Meyer—
was meeting Silverman there that day. In fact, the two couples
were in adjoining booths. When Emanuel spied Silverman, he
delivered a tongue-lashing, touching on Silverman's lifestyle and
its impact on NBC-Universal's business. He didn't whisper.
.
We're told that Emanuel expressed similar negative thoughts to
Silverman's boss, Jeff Zucker, which naturally did not endear
Emanuel to Silverman. (Silverman declined to comment, as did
Emanuel.)
hollywoodland
Hugging It Out
Ben Silverman's clashes with Ari Emanuel.
At the lunch, the almost-always-affable Ron Meyer tried to keep
out of the line of fire. But we're told that afterward he advised
Silverman to mend fences with Emanuel. Eventually, the two
met and at least nominally made up.
A source says that later the very same day, however, Silverman
attended a party where he was overheard expressing some
negative opinions about Emanuel. And another guest promptly
relayed that information to Emanuel. (link)
In front or upfront?: This evening, NBC's "experience" will be
taking the place of the usual upfront presentation. Recall that the
network said it would forgo all of that this year, opting for the
"in-front" session several weeks ago. So instead of filling Radio
City Music Hall with advertisers and the press, as usual, the
network will instead have reporters walk through some sort of
display that will expose us to the many facets of NBC—
including its mighty cable properties and the Internet stuff that
CEO Jeff Zucker bored us with in upfronts past.
This is a weird year for the upfronts. The writers' strike
converged with ongoing digital-revolution-related problems
plaguing the industry to throw everything out of kilter. The
networks have said they wanted to cut back on the hoopla,
anyway, though some think that's not such a great idea. If you're
going to brag about being the greatest aggregator of eyeballs,
this thinking goes, you gotta keep the show in show business.
But it's not going to happen so much this year. Only Fox is going
for the full-on upfront presentation. The others are austere—no
Tavern on the Green party for CBS, no rousing Dancing With
the Stars turn at Lincoln Center from ABC entertainment
president Steve McPherson. (That was two years ago now, but
that was a show. We've never looked at McPherson quite the
same way.)
look like The Brady Bunch," she says. (To be clear, that is not a
good thing in her mind, though Married With Children had quite
a run and it may be a great thing in Silverman's mind.) All in all,
Brill seems unimpressed with Silverman's progress to date.
"Everything that he's done has been an acquisition," she says.
And she says talk of an Office spinoff has gone on for so long
that she's beginning to doubt that the project will jell. "He
doesn't have an Office spinoff," she says tartly. "He has spin."
Well, we'll see, won't we?
NBC is also poised to announce today that Jimmy Fallon will
replace Conan O'Brien when the latter takes over Jay Leno on
The Tonight Show next year. In time, that ought to set off an
interesting round of musical chairs. Leno won't be able to make
a new deal for six months, per his NBC contract, but he isn't
likely to take a break longer than he has to. He will be coveted
by both ABC and Fox. New York Times reporter Bill Carter, who
wrote The Late Shift (the book about the last changing of the
late-night guard in the early '90s, when Johnny Carson retired),
thinks Leno will go for ABC, which would give him an 11:30
p.m. time slot (Fox's news lead-in ends at 11 p.m.). That would
allow Leno to go head-to-head with O'Brien and David
Letterman and prove that he's the real king of late night.
Carter doesn't think ABC would hesitate to kill off Nightline to
make room for Leno. In that scenario, Jimmy Kimmel's show
would be pushed back 30 minutes, which might not sit well with
him. So maybe Fox could chase him to fill its late-night void.
With all that Leno's seemingly premature forced retirement sets
in motion, the drama around late night might be more
compelling than anything on the networks' fall schedule. (link)
May 8, 2008
Shari Anne Brill, who analyzes programming for advertisers,
says she's concerned that this year's upfront won't provide her
with the usual dose of clips from upcoming shows. That's partly
due to the strike, though in some cases NBC is boasting of going
straight to greenlighting shows without a pilot. Brill thinks that
idea is rubbish, by the way. "If you don't have a pilot, that's
going to hurt your success rate," she warns. "Pilots allow you to
make adjustments."
Brill seems piqued with NBC generally. She wanted to take a
look at Kath and Kim, an upcoming remake of an Australian
sitcom. (Like so much of NBC programming—The Office, the
planned Office spinoff, American Gladiator, The Biggest
Loser—the show comes from Reveille, NBC Entertainment cochairman Ben Silverman's former company. Happily for him, the
fact that he gets paid for getting his own shows on his network
doesn't bother parent company GE.)
Brill, concerned that she won't get to see clips from NBC's
version of Kath and Kim, got hold of an episode of the
Australian original. "That thing makes Married With Children
Don't dream it's over: Steven Spielberg finally allowed the
folks at Paramount to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull on Tuesday afternoon, less than two weeks before
the film's premiere at Cannes on May 18. That's nice,
considering that Paramount sunk a few pfennigs into this little
romp. We're told that no one at the studio had been permitted to
see it before, and we have no word on how it played.
It's safe to assume that the Paramount executives clapped pretty
loudly, though. May is supposedly when DreamWorks can start
shopping for a new deal, and Paramount might not be ready to
say goodbye to Steven Spielberg just yet.
Speculation about the fate of DreamWorks has gone on for quite
some time, as the studio has used the press to lay the
groundwork for a negotiation over its future. There have been a
number of stories about the DreamWorks team's suffering under
the supposedly heavy hand of Paramount; partner David Geffen
even went on the record a few months back to tell Vanity Fair
that the people running Paramount are "a nightmare."
studio set the film to open in June against the presumably more
commercial Get Smart as payback.)
That's why many observers expect Geffen and Spielberg and
Stacy Snider to leave in the coming months. But the speculation
about which studio will win over DreamWorks seems misplaced.
To us, there seem to be only a couple of possibilities. Option A:
DreamWorks raises a bunch of money and makes a deal with
Universal to distribute its movies. Option B: DreamWorks raises
a bunch of money and makes a deal with Paramount to distribute
its movies. We lean toward A, though B probably makes more
sense. That's because we tend to believe that animus trumps
logic.
And Paramount should have its attractions for the DreamWorks
crew. At this point, our observer notes, Paramount is largely
staffed with DreamWorks alumni, and they seem to be doing a
bit better at marketing movies than their counterparts at
Universal. "The question is, what does Steven get out of going
back to Universal?" he asks. To him, the answer is: not much.
We checked in with a favorite DreamWorks observer to see if he
agreed with us. He did, kind of. First, he said, everyone should
be clear that what began as DreamWorks—David Geffen,
Steven Spielberg, and Jeffrey Katzenberg—now is only about
Spielberg.
Katzenberg is bound to DreamWorks Animation, which is
obligated to remain with Paramount for quite some time. Geffen
is negotiating his way out of the movie business. Yes, he'll want
to make some noise as he settles the company's fate, but that
should be simple enough. He'll just have to raise a mindboggling sum to finance the DreamWorks slate. If Tom Cruise
can raise $500 million, Geffen should be able to bring in about a
trillion for a company with Spielberg's name on it.
So the question is: Where will Spielberg want to make his deal?
We lean toward Universal, because Spielberg has always been
attached to the place—he's never left the lot notwithstanding the
fact that his company belongs to Paramount. Of course, this isn't
necessarily the most logical move. If he were to leave
Paramount, he would hypothetically also leave behind many
projects in development there. But that's what negotiations are
for. The reasonable deal would be for Spielberg to take the
projects he wants as long as Paramount can opt in as a partner
when it wants.
Our DreamWorks watcher leans toward Option B, staying at
Paramount. "There's still a lot of hope at Paramount that
Spielberg's not leaving—at the highest levels," he says. And why
shouldn't they hope? Paramount is looking at a great summer,
but not because of movies that the current regime has developed.
"They have Iron Man, which they didn't make; Indiana Jones,
which they didn't make; Kung Fu Panda, which they didn't
make; and Tropic Thunder, which they didn't make," says our
observer. "They made Love Guru." (That's a dismissive
reference to the upcoming Mike Myers comedy, which is being
written off as DOA in Hollywood. In spite or because of that, the
impossibly difficult Myers is said to be driving the folks at
Paramount so crazy that some say—jokingly, we think—that the
As for the idea that there's some bidding contest for
DreamWorks involving a bunch of studios, that strikes our
observer as foolish. The deal goes to Universal or Paramount.
Surprise us, David. (link)
Correction, May 29, 2008: This piece originally misspelled Ari
Emanuel's last name. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
hot document
Cindy McCain's Tax Return
The candidate's wife contributed $1.7 million to the treasury for 2006.
By Bonnie Goldstein
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 2:00 PM ET
From: Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 2:00 PM ET
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential
nominee, released his 2006-07 tax information in April, but
Cindy Hensley McCain, his wife of 19 years and heiress to a
lucrative beer-distributor fortune, did not. (The couple files its
tax returns separately.) Cindy refused to make public her tax
returns "in the interest of protecting the privacy of her children."
Last week she relented a bit and the McCain campaign released
a two-page 1040 form from her 2006 return (below and on the
following page), showing that she paid $1.7 million in federal
taxes. The candidate's wife requested and was granted an
extension to complete her 2007 return.
Cindy's annual income for 2006 was more than $6 million,
including $4.5 million from "rental real estate, royalties,
partnerships, S corporations, [or] trusts" plus over $1 million in
capital gains and dividends. Her Schedule B, D, and E forms
would shed light on the latter but were not included in the
disclosure. Clearly, though, Cindy would benefit from her
husband's tax-cut plan, which includes lowering taxes on
dividends and capital gains to "promote saving" and to "channel
investment dollars to innovative, high-value uses."
Send ideas for Hot Document to [email protected]. Please
indicate whether you wish to remain anonymous.
Posted Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 2:00 PM ET
White, and better educated samples as well as
a precursor to intercourse (Billy & Tanfer,
1993; Michael et al., 1994; Prinstein, Meade,
& Cohen, 2003; Schwartz, 1999). … [S]tudies
indicated a rise in oral sex among adolescents
(Newcomer & Udry, 1985), university
students (Woody et al., 2000; Grunseit,
Richters, Crawford, Song, & Kippax, 2005),
and adults in general (Laumann, Gagnon,
Michael, & Michaels, 1994).
The 1994 study by Laumann et al. surveyed 3,432 Americans
aged 18 to 59. According to a Kinsey summary, the survey
found that "90% of men and 86% of women have had sex in the
past year," whereas "27% of men and 19% of women have had
oral sex in the past year."
human nature
Open-Mouthed Wonder
Was oral sex always normal?
By William Saletan
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 8:04 AM ET
Human Nature Home | News | Hot Topics | Blog | Essays | Discussions |
Links
Two days ago, I wrote that oral sex was becoming destigmatized
and normalized, thwarting parents who had hoped they could
"stick to the basics" in talking to their kids about sex. Many of
you wrote back, dismissing my assumptions as prude,
antiquated, and out of touch. You argued that oral sex has
always been more basic and common than vaginal sex and that
the idea of recent stigma against it is a myth.
When I said "basics," I meant the facts of life from a parental
perspective. In other words, procreation: teaching your daughter
how babies are made, not how to go down on the kid next door.
But let's set aside semantics and morals. Let's look at the data,
starting with a review of the scholarly literature, published last
year in the Journal of Sex Research by Wendy Chambers of the
University of Georgia.
Historically, fellatio or cunnilingus, hereto
referred to as oral sex, were perceived among
heterosexual couples as not only more intimate
than intercourse but also to be reserved for
those who were married (Michael, Gagnon,
Laumann, & Kolata, 1994). It took Kinsey's
studies to reveal the greater prevalence of oral
sex; though it was not until the 1970s that
societal attitudes began to perceive it as
acceptable for unmarried couples as well
(Michael et al., 1994). Thus it is a historical
reversal that oral sex has become more
common than intercourse among heterosexual,
In 2002, the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed 505 teens aged
15 to 17. One question asked: "Please tell me how often each of
these are part of a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend …
almost always, most of the time, rarely, or almost never?"
Among sexually active teens, 49 percent said intercourse was
part of a relationship almost always or most of the time; 43
percent said the same about oral sex. When the question was
changed to a "casual relationship such as a hook-up," the gap
disappeared: Forty percent said oral was part of the relationship
almost always or most of the time; 39 percent said the same
about intercourse.
In 2004, AARP surveyed 1,682 Americans aged 45 and older.
The survey found, "Compared to 1999, there is … a higher
incidence of oral sex among men." Still, the trend was no match
for intercourse. The survey asked respondents how often they
had engaged in various sex acts in the previous six months. In
every age bracket, among both genders, at least twice as many
respondents said they had engaged in intercourse once a week or
more often as said they had engaged in oral sex with similar
frequency.
In 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics analyzed data
from its 2002 survey of 12,571 Americans. Among teens aged
15 to 19, 55 percent said they'd ever had oral sex; 50 percent
said they'd had vaginal sex. In every other age group, the balance
was reversed: Vaginal experience was slightly more universal
than oral experience.
One final note, posted by Tim Harford in Slate two years ago:
Johns Hopkins University Professor Jonathan
Zenilman, an expert in sexually transmitted
infections … reports that both the adults and
the teenagers who come to his clinic are
engaging in much more oral sex than in 1990.
For men and boys as recipients it's up from
about half to 75 to 80 percent; for women and
girls, it's risen from about 25 percent to 75 to
80 percent.
That's a pretty good variety of samples and age groups. Let's
recap the overall patterns: Oral sex was stigmatized. The stigma
has faded. Oral sex is becoming more commonly reported,
through some combination of increased activity and decreased
stigma. Nevertheless, vaginal experience remains more
universal, and vaginal sex is far more frequent. Furthermore, as
we learned from the timing data in Wednesday's piece, teens
aren't starting with a "basic" oral stage followed by an
"advanced" vaginal stage. They're losing both kinds of virginity
around the same time.
So, this notion that everybody's been going down on everybody
all along, and that nobody's been embarrassed or secretive about
it, and that it's obviously elementary and vanilla, is baloney. Yes,
oral sex is common, and strikingly so among adolescents. But
that trend is a novelty, and a story.
(For the latest Human Nature updates and blog items,
bookmark humannature.us.com.)
human nature
Oral Is Normal
The normalization of oral sex.
By William Saletan
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 7:45 AM ET
Human Nature Home | News | Hot Topics | Blog | Essays | Discussions |
Links
Every day, thousands of parents sit down with their children to
talk about the facts of life. They want their kids to know how
babies are made, how serious sex is, and how they can protect
themselves. For most of us, the topic is awkward enough without
getting into advanced stuff. That's why the coverage of President
Clinton's blow jobs felt like such a cultural assault. We just want
to stick to the basics.
Well, you can kiss that era of innocence goodbye. I'm not talking
about your kids' innocence. I'm talking about yours. For your
information, Mom and Dad, oral sex is now more basic than
vaginal sex. That may not be part of God's or nature's plan. But
according to survey data, it's a fact of life.
The latest evidence comes from "Noncoital Sexual Activities
Among Adolescents," a study published in the July issue of the
Journal of Adolescent Health. The study analyzed the U.S.
government's first survey of such practices, conducted in 2002
and released three years later. When the data first came out, I
chided the media for ignoring the findings of widespread anal
sex. Don't worry: I'll spare you that topic today. What's
interesting in the new analysis is the correlation between oral
and vaginal sex. If your kid is doing one, he or she is almost
certainly doing the other.
The raw numbers indicate that 50 percent of teenagers aged 15
to 19 have had vaginal sex. Fifty-five percent have had
heterosexual oral sex. Are kids substituting oral for vaginal?
Nope. Among technical virgins—teens who have never had
vaginal sex—23 percent have had oral sex. That number sounds
high until you notice that among nonvirgins, the oral-sex figure
is 87 percent. If your teenager has had "basic" sex without
somebody's mouth being involved, congratulations. You're
probably the only such household on your block.
The data on timing underscore this connection. Among teens
whose first vaginal sex happened less than six months before the
survey, 82 percent admit to oral sex. That figure barely increases
for teens who began vaginal sex three years before the survey. In
other words, teens lost their oral virginity at around the same
time they lost their vaginal virginity. If you think your daughter
is going to learn the basics now and the advanced stuff later,
you've got another thing coming.
Look at the data for older adults, and you'll see similar patterns.
At ages 20 to 24, the percentage who admit to oral sex trails the
percentage who admit to vaginal sex by around five points. (A
study of Georgia college students, published last year, produced
similar numbers: 96 percent of those who had lost their vaginal
virginity had also lost their oral virginity.) At ages 25 to 44, the
gap is around eight points. If anything, these numbers understate
the prevalence of oral sex, since they're based on self-reporting.
The discomfort most of us feel around this topic surely affects
some survey responses, even with guaranteed anonymity.
The near-disappearance of lifetime oral virginity makes sodomy
laws fairly ridiculous. The percentage of Americans aged 25 to
44 who deny ever having had oral sex now barely exceeds the
percentage who admit to same-sex activity. By empirical
standards, if gay sex is deviant, so is chastity of the mouth.
Indeed, there's some evidence that what's vanishing isn't oral
abstinence—which perhaps never really existed—but stigma.
That's the implication of a decadelong Australian college study,
published three years ago, which showed a significant increase
in female, but not male, admission of oral activity.
So cheer up, Mom and Dad. You don't have to be embarrassed
any more about discussing the facts of life with your child. She'll
be happy to explain them to you.
(For the latest Human Nature updates and blog items,
bookmark humannature.us.com.)
were. In an ICE operation in Willmar, Minn., Latino residents
were handcuffed and interrogated while white residents, some
even in the same home, went unquestioned.
jurisprudence
Operation Return to Sender
The government's immigration enforcers run amok.
By Jennifer Bennett
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 7:15 AM ET
May has been an embattled month for the Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE, a division of the
Department of Homeland Security, faced inquiries from House
and Senate members about the inhumane treatment of people
detained for violating immigration laws. This congressional
scrutiny followed a special report in the Washington Post (and a
rash of articles elsewhere) detailing stomach-turning—and
sometimes deadly—mistreatment in immigrant detention
centers.
A bill to improve detention center conditions has recently been
introduced in Congress, but this legislation would do nothing to
address the abuses committed by ICE officers well before the
people they pick up reach a detention center. Nor would it alter
the framework of immigration enforcement that has led to the
mistreatment. Congress should be thinking about these
problems, too—and so should the courts.
Since 2006, ICE has been dispatching teams of agents into
neighborhoods throughout the country as part of a ramped-up
enforcement effort called "Operation Return to Sender." Each
team must apprehend an annual quota, currently set at 1,000, of
fugitive aliens. These are immigrants who remain in the United
States despite outstanding orders to leave.
Unsurprisingly, people who've been ordered deported are not
always easy to find. This is not just because undocumented
immigrants flee deportation (although, of course, some do). It's
also because, according to a 2006 Department of Homeland
Security report, about half of the information in ICE's
"Deportable Alien Control System"—a database of immigrants
to be deported—is incorrect or incomplete. This means that
many immigrants never receive a deportation notice and so don't
know they've been ordered to leave. It also means that ICE
officers, relying on faulty information, don't know where to find
them.
And so, to meet their quotas, enforcement teams carry out largescale sweeps, raiding homes in neighborhoods with a lot of
immigrants just after sunrise. Without an accurate list of which
homes actually harbor undocumented immigrants, agents often
rely on race to figure out who's here legally and who isn't. For
example, in Fair Haven, Conn., several residents reported that
during a raid last summer, ICE officers went door to door asking
how many people were inside each house—and what race they
Race, in fact, is not a very good indicator of whether someone is
in the United States illegally. Up to two-thirds of the people ICE
arrests have never received deportation orders, frequently
because their presence here is lawful. By ICE's own admission,
the bureau has mistakenly detained, arrested, and even deported
not only legal immigrants but also U.S. citizens. Those caught
up in recent home raids include Adriana Aguilar, a citizen living
in East Hampton, N.Y., who was sound asleep with her 4-yearold son when ICE officers stormed into her bedroom, pulled the
covers off the bed, and shined flashlights into her face before
interrogating her. In San Rafael, Calif., ICE detained 6-year-old
Kebin Reyes, a citizen from birth, holding him in a locked office
for 12 hours after immigration agents, pretending to be police,
stormed into the apartment he shared with his father and forcibly
removed him from his home.
Aguilar and Kebin are suing ICE for violating their Fourth
Amendment rights; in all, civil rights lawsuits against ICE are
pending in at least 10 states. The government may not
constitutionally detain anyone without a reasonable suspicion
that they have violated the law. Suspicion founded on race alone,
the Supreme Court has emphasized, can never be "reasonable."
The Fourth Amendment also prohibits government agents from
entering a home without a warrant unless they have the
occupant's consent. Shoving the occupant into the door to get
him to open it—as ICE agents did in a New Jersey raid last
month—doesn't count. Nor does bursting into a home while
claiming to be the local police.
The agency's failure to abide by basic procedural rules threatens
not only individual rights but also public safety. During a recent
raid in Nassau County, N.Y., ICE agents twice drew their guns
on local police officers by mistake. More generally, in the
aftermath of raids in which ICE agents pretend to be local
police, immigrant communities become fearful of law
enforcement, making the work of actual police officers more
difficult. Some cities, including Richmond, Calif., and
Hightstown, N.J., have even passed resolutions calling for ICE
agents to identify themselves as federal immigration officers
rather than police.
The government's guidelines for immigration enforcement
prohibit these kinds of abuses. Why aren't they being enforced?
Theories abound. ICE attorneys have suggested that because
most of the rules governing officer conduct were instituted
before the Department of Homeland Security took over
immigration enforcement, they don't apply to ICE at all. Another
explanation is that in the wake of Sept. 11, stepped-up
immigration enforcement may have taken priority over careful
procedures. Whatever the reason, it's clear that rampant abuses
continue So what's to be done? Although Congress could enact
legislation to rein in ICE's conduct, it's unlikely to do so anytime
soon. Lawmakers have been deadlocked on immigration reform
for years.
But courts, too, have tremendous power. The rules judges set for
immigration proceedings largely determine how ICE officers do
their work. In a criminal trial, the government can't use evidence
obtained from an unreasonable search or seizure, and this means
that an officer who enters a home without a warrant or detains a
defendant because of her race risks the entire case being thrown
out. But illegal immigration is a civil, not a criminal, violation,
so while immigration judges occasionally exclude evidence
obtained through particularly egregious searches, in general
these rules don't apply. This lax judicial treatment combined
with their stringent arrest quota leaves ICE agents with little
incentive to reform.
Twenty-five years ago, in the case of INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, the
Supreme Court declined to extend the Fourth Amendment's
guarantees to immigration proceedings. But Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor recognized that if in the future there were "good
reason to believe" that constitutional violations in immigration
enforcement were "widespread," the way judges handled these
cases would have to change. That time has come. If Congress
won't, the courts should force ICE to follow the standard rules of
American law enforcement.
jurisprudence
Disarming Our Demons
The self-fulfilling prophecy of election-stealing.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Saturday, May 24, 2008, at 6:44 AM ET
Just as some sizable fraction of American children firmly believe
in the boogeyman in the closet, many adult Americans cling to a
paranoid fear of the election-fraud monster. Too many of us
believe in the epidemic of pervasive Democratic vote fraud, and
others believe in the specter of systematic Republican vote
suppression. The notion that present-day Democrats regularly
steal elections by engaging in concerted efforts to vote multiple
times in funny mustaches is a myth, unsupported by data or fact.
Historically, it's true that conservatives have used voter
intimidation, poll taxes, and other skeezy tactics to
disenfranchise minority voters. It's also true that some of Karl
Rove's flying monkeys have attempted to revive that proud
tradition with schemes such as "vote caging" (getting transient
students and folks in the military bounced off the voter rolls) and
pressuring U.S. attorneys to prosecute vote fraud where none
exists. But for the most part, modern polling-place electionstealing has just not been pervasive or systemic.
The more we believe the other side steals elections, the easier it
becomes to devalue their votes. And I'm not sure that's a road
anyone wants to travel. A recent Rasmussen poll showed 17
percent of voters believing that large numbers of legitimate
voters are prevented from voting and 23 percent convinced that a
large number of ineligible people are allowed to vote. That's a
lot of people certain that the other side is cheating. That's a lot of
reasons to cheat first.
The seeds of our current hysteria over election fraud were sown
during the 2000 election when the nation watched, slack-jawed,
as Florida became a still life in Voting Gone Awry. But in a
piece for the Atlantic in 2004, Joshua Green explained that the
provenance of this anxiety predated Florida 2000. Describing a
1994 judicial race in Alabama, in which Karl Rove advised one
candidate, Green reports that in the midst of a tense re-count,
unsubstantiated whispers circulated that the election had been
stolen by—among other things—a Democratic strategy of "votes
being cast in absentia for comatose nursing-home patients; and
Democrats caught in a cemetery writing down the names of the
dead in order to put them on absentee ballots."
Paranoia about such tactics by Democrats—especially minority
Democrats—morphed from a Bush administration
extracurricular activity to its college major during the last eight
years. Helped along by bogus think tanks and sketchy research,
the boogeyman started to look real. This neatly explains last
year's firing of at least two U.S. attorneys for their inability to
find genuine vote-fraud cases to prosecute. It also accounts for
the takeover of the Justice Department's Voting Rights
Division—once devoted to expanding rather than contracting the
right to vote—by a handful of myopic vote-fraud crusaders.
And yet a brand-new Justice Department initiative to smoke out
rampant liberal vote fraud, with 120 federal prosecutions
between 2002 and 2006, resulted in only 86 convictions—mostly
of Democrats, and mainly for either filling out forms wrongly or
misunderstanding their eligibility. A major bipartisan draft fraud
report similarly concluded that there's little polling-place fraud
in America and no large-scale systematic fraud. Of course,
occasional instances of vote fraud occur. But the claim of
massive concerted efforts to organize voters to risk felony
convictions at the polls is absurd. As professor Richard Hasen
has pointed out in Slate, while there is "a fair amount of
registration fraud in this country," it just doesn't translate to
mischief at the polls in numbers that swing elections, even close
ones.
Why persist in believing in a phantom epidemic? The benefits of
a widespread campaign to stamp out fraud pretty much speak for
themselves: Voter-ID laws to counter vote fraud disenfranchise
minorities, the poor, and the elderly. As former Texas
Republican Party political director Royal Masset told the
Houston Chronicle last year, while he believed the vote-fraud
epidemic to be overblown and opposed Texas' then-pending
photo-ID law, the bill "could cause enough of a drop-off in
legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican
vote." Score! That bill collapsed last year, but only after debate
degenerated into a psychodrama they'll be talking about in
Austin for years.
Unfortunately for Texas Republicans, it's just now come to light
that despite a zealous two-year, $1.4 million vote-fraud crusade,
Texas' Attorney General Greg Abbott's office has managed to
prosecute only 26 cases—all against Democrats, and almost all
involving minorities. Most were prosecuted for walking absentee
ballots to the mailbox for sick or elderly voters, without
following the protocol for doing so.
That's why it's doubly tragic that the Supreme Court
demonstrated last month what happens when you arm an
imaginary boogeyman with a real machine gun: Your pretend
problem quickly turns real. Opponents of voter-ID laws say they
have the practical effect of suppressing some votes, votes that
tend to skew Democratic. Writing for the plurality in Crawford
v. Marion County Election Board, Justice John Paul Stevens
nevertheless upheld an Indiana voter-ID law requiring voters to
have government-issued photo ID. Let's grant that voter-ID laws
are popular. The question was supposed to be whether they are
necessary. Stevens found that even with no evidence of inperson vote fraud in Indiana, "flagrant examples of such fraud in
other parts of the country have been documented throughout this
nation's history." As examples, he cited only an 1868 mayoral
election in New York City and a single 2004 incident from
Washington. Stevens was not concerned by the fact of rampant
vote fraud but the fear of it. Propping up wobbly "voter
confidence" became more urgent than protecting the right to
vote. This was so even though voter confidence went wobbly
only after partisans started peddling a mythical epidemic in the
first place. (This new Harvard Law Review study shows that
voter-ID laws do not increase voter confidence anyhow.)
Justice Stevens decided Crawford as he did because he found no
good evidence that poor, disabled, and minority voters had yet
been disenfranchised by the voter-ID law. Stevens left open the
door to such voters to show in future elections that the voter-ID
system actually barred them from the polls. At which time the
circle is complete, and the crusade to end imaginary vote fraud
will result in real vote suppression. Already in the Democratic
primary in Indiana earlier this month, a flock of elderly nuns
were denied the vote because they lacked the proper
documentation.
The seeds of the modern Supreme Court's elevation of rooting
out vote dilution over preventing vote suppression were sown in
the court's opinions in Bush v. Gore. According to Jeffrey
Toobin's book The Nine, when it became clear that the majority
of the court planned to halt the Florida re-count via the equal
protection doctrine—traditionally invoked to protect minorities
from unequal treatment—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dropped
a footnote in her draft dissent. She suggested that if anyone
needed protecting, it might be black Florida voters whose ballots
were being disputed by state and local authorities. Toobin writes
that Justice Antonin Scalia flew into a "rage" and accused
Ginsburg of using "Al Sharpton tactics." She removed the
footnote. And the modern judicial principle that it's better to
suppress minority votes than sanction the appearance of unfair
elections was born.
If I am correct that voter mistrust only fosters more voter
mistrust, and that the appearance of unfairness on one side
simply fuels unfairness on the other, perhaps it's still not too late
to disarm bilaterally, before both vote fraud and vote
suppression calcify into serious campaign strategies. If
Republicans and Democrats can agree that it's not particularly
smart or effective to try to steal elections, it may be easier to
concede that the other side probably isn't doing it, either.
A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of
Newsweek.
map the candidates
Island Getaway
Clinton is in Puerto Rico two days before the commonwealth votes, Obama is
in Montana, McCain is in Minnesota, and Ron Paul is in Missouri.
By E.J. Kalafarski and Chadwick Matlin
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 11:39 AM ET
medical examiner
Sex and the Country
Forget New York. Samantha should move to the sticks.
By Emily Anthes
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 12:34 PM ET
Sex and the City, which, as it's hard not to know by now, comes
to the big screen this weekend, rarely ventured beyond the island
of Manhattan in its six years on television. When the women did
find themselves elsewhere, they weren't usually happy about it.
This was especially the case in Season 4, when Carrie's
boyfriend, Aidan, hamstrings her into a trek to his rustic cabin
upstate. Carrie, in turn, pressures Samantha into tagging along,
and urban-misfit misadventures ensue—until Samantha spots a
hunky, half-naked farmer and seduces him out of his overalls.
And thus the show discovers what researchers have been
documenting over the last decade or more: It's the country, rather
than the city, where more of the sex is.
Several studies have shown that rural teens are more likely to
have sex than their urban counterparts, that they lose their
virginity earlier, and that they have more sexual partners. This
and other research also reveals that country dwellers, both teens
and adults, are less likely to use condoms during their rolls in the
hay (sorry, couldn't resist). A survey of college students in
Indiana, for instance, revealed that students who had grown up
in the country were more likely than city natives to skip the love
glove when they rendezvous. (The paper doesn't define its terms,
but presumably most of the students were from rural or urban
Indiana.)
Many factors could contribute to this discrepancy, including
rural poverty, limited education, and higher marriage rates for
young people in the country. But the city-country gap can't be
entirely explained away by these other variables. One study from
2000 controlled for many of these demographic factors and still
found that rural high-school males were more likely to have had
sex than their urban peers. A 2002 investigation compared the
sexual practices of low-income African-American women living
in Missouri cities with those living in the Missouri countryside.
The groups were relatively well-matched in age (the average in
both groups was 26), income, marital status, and other
demographic factors. Still, the rural women were twice as likely
to report that they never used condoms. And among women in
this group, rural women were less likely to say this was because
their partners had actually tested negative for HIV. Instead, the
country women tended to believe their partners were HIVnegative, without proof.
So, what remains to explain these differences? Maybe boredom.
Rural teens may not have the same cornucopia of activities to
occupy their free time that their urban counterparts do, experts
say. So, researchers suspect that while city teens pack their
schedules, their country brethren strip down to their farmers'
tans. There's no hard evidence that rural youth are pairing off
because of wide-open afternoons, but that's the rationale that
researchers tend to mention.
In addition, rural residents seem to believe that their
communities are shielded from sexual scourges, maybe because
they're geographically isolated. Adolescents have told
researchers, for example, that sexually transmitted disease isn't a
problem that affects small towns. It doesn't help that many
provincial schools offer abstinence-only education, which
studies have shown just doesn't work and neither prevents nor
delays teens from having sex. Abstinence-only ed may spare
students the embarrassment of listening to their gym teachers
explain how to put a condom on—but it also means they don't
learn how to put a condom on.
All this coupling sans condoms has consequences—teen
pregnancy, for one, which is more common among rural girls.
(Birth rates, a different category, are also high in the country,
where girls are less likely to get abortions.) A high rate of
sexually transmitted diseases might also seem inevitable, though
the data here are a bit less definitive. National comparisons of
STD rates in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas are hard to
come by. Some researchers, however, have done the analysis at a
local level, finding, for instance, that syphilis is more common in
rural North Carolina than in urban parts of the state. The same
holds true of chlamydia in Georgia.
Cities still have the highest prevalence of HIV—they are home
to large populations of gay men and intravenous drug users, the
communities in which the epidemic first emerged. However,
even these numbers are complicated by the fact that many
people who live in the countryside get tested, and potentially
treated, for HIV in cities. Since the early 1990s, epidemiologists
have been documenting the diffusion of HIV from the cities to
the countryside, and HIV infection rates grew far faster in the
1990s in small communities than large ones. Despite this trend,
studies conducted at the time found that rural adults were far less
likely to report that they'd changed their sexual habits as a result
of the AIDS epidemic.
If you do contract an STD in the country, you're generally worse
off. Because the itchy and afflicted who live in the sticks
struggle to get medical care, are forced to travel farther for
treatment, and make do with fewer doctors, especially
specialists. Country-dwellers with HIV report more
discrimination and more fear of being outed as HIV-positive
than their urban counterparts. There's even "patient spotting," in
which people who live within sight of STD clinics take photos of
and gossip about people who go in. Rural patients also have
more reason to fear that among the medical staff treating them
might be someone they know socially. And whether for these
reasons or others that researchers haven't yet identified, their
health can suffer in significant ways: One study revealed that
though Atlanta had twice the prevalence of AIDS as less
populous regions of Georgia, AIDS patients in the city lived
significantly longer.
Maybe Carrie had some unconscious sense of the perils of rural
sex when she decided that Aidan's rough-hewn cabin wasn't the
place for her. When she returns to the streets of New York, she
tries to make a tentative statement of solidarity with her rural
sisters, proclaiming, "City girls are just country girls—with cuter
outfits." As far as epiphanies go, it's a little pat and not entirely
true. Unless, of course, Carrie is talking about condom chic.
moneybox
First Housing Bust, Now Baby Bust
Is the recession causing a birth dearth?
By Daniel Gross
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 6:10 PM ET
Smart journalists should never mistake a single data point for a
meaningful development. Data isn't the plural of anecdote, as the
saying goes. But every so often you have to go with your gut.
And so I'm suggesting—not declaring—that the recent results
from Pediatrix Medical Group may indicate that the slower
economy is causing a decline in births.
Pediatrix owns group practices of neonatal specialists and
employs 1,070 physicians and 400 nurse practitioners in 32
states and Puerto Rico. Its teams staff some 257 neonatal
intensive care units, about one-sixth of the nation's total.
Pediatrix has a market capitalization of $2.5 billion. (Here's the
company's history and its 2007 annual report.) The company
says that about 12 percent of births require NICU admissions.
By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, Pediatrix winds up
caring for about 2 percent of the babies born in the United States
each year.
In recent years, the birthing industry and Pediatrix have been on
a roll. According to the National Center for Health Statistics,
births rose 1 percent in 2005 and another 3 percent in 2006 to
4.265 million, the highest number of births since at least 1960.
(Page 3 of this portion of the statistical abstract of the United
States has birth data going back to 1960.) As the Washington
Post reported, in 2006 the U.S. fertility rate rose to 2.1 babies
per woman—a rate "high enough to sustain a stable
population"—for the first time since 1971. The rising number of
newborns has meant more business for Pediatrix, whose stock
has doubled in the last five years. While government data aren't
available, it seems that 2007 was another good year for births.
The company reported that in the 2007 fourth quarter, same-unit
volume at its NICUs rose 4 percent from the 2006 fourth quarter.
But this year, things are going poorly for Pediatrix. And that
suggests one of two things: 1) Either significantly more babies
are being born without need of neonatal care or 2) as the housing
slump began to take a bite out of economic growth last year,
Americans began to cut back on their fruitful reproductive
activity. "Our results are being affected by lower neonatal
volume, which is related to a lower rate of growth of births at
our hospitals throughout this year," said Dr. Roger J. Medel,
chief executive officer of Pediatrix, when Pediatrix reported its
2008 first-quarter results on May 8. Factoring out the extra day
in February for the leap year, same-unit NICU patient volume
for the 2008 first quarter grew by only 0.7 percent from the 2007
first quarter—well below the 3 percent to 5 percent growth rate
the company was expecting for all of 2008. On Tuesday, the
company announced it would scale back expectations for the
second quarter and the whole year. Why? "Through the first six
weeks of the 2008 second quarter Pediatrix's same-unit NICU
volume declined by approximately 2 percent when compared to
the same period of 2007." In other words, the expected volume
of April and May babies, who would have been conceived amid
the credit crunch of last July and August, hasn't materialized.
Pediatrix's stock (here's the one-year price chart) is off almost 30
percent in the past month.
Pediatrix's numbers may have declined because the hospitals it
works with are losing market share. But it could also be that in
the areas that Pediatrix serves, people are feeling less inclined to
have children. The company generates more than half its
revenue in five states—Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, and
Washington—with Texas alone accounting for 28 percent. The
economies of the first three have been hit especially hard by the
housing meltdown. Florida Hospital Orlando, the flagship of the
state's biggest hospital system, saw 227 births in April,
compared with 263 in April 2007, a decrease of 13.6 percent.
It's hard to isolate the effect of the economy on the rate of child
birth since so many other factors (immigration, demographic
trends, birth-control use) come into play. But the
macroeconomic climate definitely has an impact. Many couples,
including my paternal grandparents, waited out the Depression
before having children. According to the U.S. Census, both the
number of births and the birth rate fell sharply during the
Depression, from 2.9 million and 25.1 per 1,000 people in 1925
to 2.618 million and 21.3 per 1,000 in 1930, and to 2.377 million
and 18.7 per 1,000 in 1935. A big baby bust preceded the Baby
Boom. 2001 and 2002—the years in which babies conceived
during the last recession were delivered—were the only two
years in the decade from 1997-2006 in which the number of
births fell.
For many parents, the decision to have a child is an emotional
choice, a biological imperative, or a fulfillment of a religious
obligation—and hence one in which dollars and cents don't
matter. But for some prospective parents, and certainly for many
of those at the margin, concern over whether they can afford to
support an additional child or start having children can influence
the decision to procreate. And it's a safe bet that as the creditmarket and housing tremors shook the economy, as the pace of
job creation began to ebb and inflation rose, some people who
were on the fence last summer decided to wait. Babies, like
corporate earnings, are a lagging indicator. After all, they're
produced nine months before they arrive in the marketplace.
When Pediatrix reports its second-quarter earnings in August,
we'll know whether this single data point is growing from its
embryonic stage into a bouncing baby trend.
Slate intern Lucy Morrow Caldwell contributed to this article.
moneybox
Sex and the Cash Register
Retailers hope to piggyback on the Sex and the City movie, but it won't work.
By Lesley M.M. Blume
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 1:40 PM ET
"Find Your Inner Carrie," urges the sign in the window of Plaza
Too, an elite accessories boutique on Hudson Street in
Manhattan. Evidently you can unleash this spirit by buying a
$298 Beirn "Jenna Hobo" handbag inside the shop, conveniently
located across the street from a stop on the popular Sex and the
City bus tour in New York City.
A shameless, derivative promotion? Of course, but you can't
blame Plaza Too for trying to tap into the glitzy consumption
that always defined HBO's series Sex and the City. After all,
SATC was renowned for bringing product placement to giddy
new heights, enticing countless women to gulp down saccharine
cosmopolitans and stuff their closets with Manolo Blahnik
shoes. If Carrie Bradshaw wore it, retailers bought it, and
consumers consumed it—in spades.
Will SATC the movie have the same therapeutic effect for
America's ailing retailers? Unlikely. But it won't be for lack of
trying. If SATC the series was promotions-heavy, SATC the
movie is positively heaving. The film's opening voice-over says
it all: New York women crave "the two Ls: labels and love."
Costumed by flamboyant designer Patricia Field, the film's overthe-top wardrobe made even Women's Wear Daily queasy.
"They went for visual overload," said a WWD reviewer. "Chanel,
Prada, Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Lacroix,
Vivienne Westwood … [It was] intense." Sarah Jessica Parker,
who plays Carrie Bradshaw, has a reported 81 costume changes,
which included millions of dollars of jewelry.
Retailers on all levels are hoping this designer parade will help
them revive flat-lining sales. From New York to Dallas to
Seattle, Sex and the City-inspired clothing and (of course) shoe
sales, spa treatments, and sweepstakes are popping up like
desperate little daisies. Burberry is quick to point out that Parker
wore a Burberry Prorsum coat in the film; Vogue urges you to
subscribe to the magazine and win a chance to "Dress like the
Women from Sex and the City," courtesy a $3,700 shopping
spree at Neiman Marcus.
"Tons of pitches have been coming in," says Jeralyn Gerba, New
York City editor of trends sourcing Web site Daily Candy. "Sex
and the City-themed charm bracelets. Sex and the City-themed
scavenger hunts. Sex and the City hotel promotions."
Of course, some people stand to make a great deal of money
from SATC the movie; advance ticket sales alone predict a
blockbuster for New Line Cinema, a division of Time Warner
that is now being consolidated into Warner Bros. Yet the
prognosis for SATC-inspired spending on the luxury goodies
showcased in the movie is grim.
While the film's characters seem to have spent the last four years
gorging themselves on designer wares, much of the rest of the
nation has been forced to slim down. According to Pam
Danziger, a consumer-insights expert at Unity Marketing, luxury
consumer confidence hit an all-time low in the first quarter of
2008.
"The movie might sell magazines, but probably not clothes,"
says Danziger. She points out that not only are consumers cash
poor at present, but the price of high-end designer goods has
skyrocketed becaues of the decline of the dollar against the euro
and luxury companies' strategies to move upmarket.
"A few years ago, you could buy a pair of Manolos for $400, and
today they're $800 or even $1,000," she says. "That price
inflation hits hard at this time."
In fact, it virtually excludes most aspirational consumers from
buying a sliver of the Bradshaw dream, downgrading
materialistic participation in SATC to mere voyeurism. And the
issue's not just diminished resources of would-be customers. In
the fashion world, a quieter aesthetic has replaced the ostentation
peddled by the Carrie Bradshaw franchise. Today's chic relies on
simplicity, not tutu skirts. For several seasons, designers and
magazine editors have eschewed the label-heavy exhibitionism
embodied by SATC at its zenith of cultural relevance; the
overpowering bling-bling aesthetic of the film almost makes it
feel like a time capsule.
"There's definitely been a move away from logo bags and headto-toe looks off the runway," says Elisa Lipsky-Karasz, an editor
at W magazine. "To dress that way today is seen as a faux pas."
Moreover, the fashion industry itself has changed dramatically
since the series' launch 10 years ago. The sweeping proliferation
of outlets such as H&M, which can replicate runway looks
within weeks at a fraction of the price of the designer version,
further reduces the allure of throwing rent money on an "it"
handbag or dress. Ironically, Sarah Jessica Parker herself has
become the public face of this phenomenon; last year, she
launched Bitten, a clothing line for discount retailers Steve &
Barry's in which all items sell for $20 or less.
Still, luxury retailers may get a small, somewhat surprising boost
from the movie. As the owner of one Greenwich Village luxury
accessories boutique confesses, not many New Yorkers are
shopping in his store these days anyway, but thanks to the
anemic dollar, his European customers are flush with cash and
"obsessed with Sex and the City."
Maybe Carrie should have stayed in Paris after all.
moneybox
Honey, I Ate the Rebate
spent on nondurable goods: That comes out to $48 billion. Since
food and energy inflation is costing us $50 billion (just in the
current quarter!), it looks like the rebate could be a bust for
clothing and electronics retailers. Americans won't have any
extra rebate cash to spend with them.
You've already spent your tax windfall on gas and bread.
By Daniel Gross
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 6:00 PM ET
As we speak, economic stimulus, in the form of about $120
billion in tax rebates, is working its way into America's financial
bloodstream. Those taxpayers set up for electronic deposit have
already received their cash while those relying on snail mail
have started to get checks and will continue to do so through
mid-July. For America's retailers, struggling with rising
unemployment, inflation, and sluggish sales, this booster shot
couldn't have come at a better time. Companies such as Kroger
grocery stores have set up programs that permit people to
exchange stimulus checks for gift cards with a 10 percent bonus.
Other discretionary retailers—apparel, sporting goods,
restaurants—are holding out hope that the money will find its
way into their registers. After all, when the American consumer
has cash, he tends to spend it.
But David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch's straight-talking chief
economist for North America, says it might be different this
time. The reason: The chunk of the stimulus package likely to
get spent is roughly equivalent to the amount Americans are
paying for higher food and gas prices because of inflation. Put
another way, you've already spent your stimulus at ExxonMobil.
Here are the numbers. When the president signed the fiscal
stimulus into law, gasoline prices were hovering near $3 a
gallon. Now they're close to $4 a gallon. Rosenberg says the old
rule of thumb is that every penny increase in the price of gas
takes $1.3 billion out of the pockets of American households. So
he concludes that the higher price of energy is draining about
$25 billion out of the discretionary spending pool in this quarter
alone. Next, factor in food inflation, which is running at a 9
percent annual rate, compared with the normal 2 percent. Food
already eats up about 14 percent of the typical American's
household budget. By Rosenberg's reckoning, Americans
sticking to their regular diets are paying an extra $25 billion per
quarter compared with last year. "The combination of energy
and food is draining discretionary spending at a $50 billion
quarterly rate," he says.
There is contradictory evidence, but most economists believe
Americans spend around 40 percent of their rebates and use the
rest to save or pay off debt. Rosenberg believes it's likely that a
lot of the rebate cash will be spent simply to keep current on
existing debt bills: "We have a record number of Americans
behind on their bills, their mortgages, auto loans, and credit
cards." So let's assume 40 percent of the $120 billion rebate is
Since the stimulus is staggered—checks will continue to arrive
through mid-July—we won't be able to draw any conclusions for
a few more months. But with between 30 percent and 40 percent
of the stimulus already disbursed, the early signs aren't
encouraging, says Rosenberg. The cash injection hasn't done
much to bolster consumer confidence, which slipped to a 16year low on Tuesday. And the International Council of Shopping
Centers reported that chain sales for April were up 3.6 percent
year over year—essentially keeping pace with inflation. Data on
car sales and early soundings from other retailers have similarly
failed to detect a sharp uptick in consumer activity. It's possible
that the rolling stimulus may take longer to make its way to the
shopping malls than the 2001 stimulus did. It's also possible that
the cash may be deployed by many Americans to keep current
on car payments and cope with mortgages whose interest rates
are adjusting higher. As Rosenberg notes, "We've never had a
fiscal stimulus through a credit crunch and a real estate deflation
before."
moneybox
Market Botch
The folly of political portfolios.
By Daniel Gross
Saturday, May 24, 2008, at 6:43 AM ET
It's that time of the leap year. Personal-finance magazines and
investment analysts are constructing political portfolios: market
sectors or stocks that will thrive, or dive, should a particular
candidate take the White House. Like party conventions, these
portfolios are a storied component of the campaign season. Like
party conventions, they're not very useful or illuminating. Trust
me. I know from experience. In October 1992, a younger, svelter
version of this columnist called analysts to find out which stocks
would do well if Bill Clinton were to beat George H.W. Bush.
The response: Clinton's proposals for a stimulus package and a
Rooseveltian Rebuild America Fund would be a gold mine for
construction-equipment makers like Caterpillar. A Salomon
Brothers analyst said Clinton's universal health care plan, a pet
project of his wife (plus ça change), would be great news for
HMOs. But the stimulus package and universal health care were
among the early casualties of the tumultuous Clinton first term.
Likewise, analysts argued in the fall of 2000 that a George W.
Bush victory would light a fire under the already soaring stocks
of Microsoft and MCI WorldCom. Why? Bush would likely be
more lenient on antitrust policy. As CNBC's James Cramer
would say: "Wrong!" (Microsoft's stock is below its level of
January 2001) and "Wrong!" (MCI WorldCom went bankrupt in
July 2002).
Political market calls are conceived in sin, since most are based
on the false premise that the stock market prefers Republicans to
Democrats. According to Sam Stovall, chief investment
strategist at Standard & Poor's Equity Research, between 1945
and 2007 the S&P 500 rose 10.7 percent annually when
Democrats occupied the White House, compared with a 7.6
percent annual increase under Republicans. Those who, fearing
higher taxes, sold stocks after Bill Clinton's inaugural missed out
on a great rally. And those who, anticipating lower taxes,
plunged into the market in January 2001 entered what has been a
lost decade for U.S. stocks; since 2000, the markets of countries
like Brazil and China have lapped their American cousins.
Political portfolios also rely on a similarly simplistic
understanding of how Washington works. Analysts seem to
believe that political platforms are fail-safe guides to What Will
Happen. Bill Clinton's 1992 platform said there would be no
capital-gains tax cut for the wealthy on his watch. (He signed
one in 1997.) Bush's 2000 platform vowed that "the Social
Security surplus is off-limits, off budget, and will not be
touched." OK, then. The portfolio makers also seem to assume
that once presidents take the oath of office, they remove a magic
wand from a special case in the Oval Office and conjure
campaign promises into policy instantaneously—without
congressional input.
Wall Street types might be forgiven for not comprehending the
byzantine path that legislation treads on Capitol Hill. Less
forgivable is the way political portfolio construction
misunderstands markets. Ultimately, megatrends far beyond the
control of government—like the Internet or the growth of
China—influence stocks more than small-bore policies. The
Medicare prescription-drug benefit, passed in 2003, was seen as
a huge boon to Big Pharma. But since the benefit was signed
into law in December 2003, the Amex Pharmaceutical Index has
woefully underperformed the S&P 500. "Pharma is in the midst
of a bad research and development cycle, and Pfizer hasn't had a
major new drug," said Les Funtleyder, health care strategist at
Miller Tabak.
Even when they're right, politically inspired stock
recommendations are often right for the wrong reasons. Oil
stocks have done well under the Bush-Cheney administration, as
analysts suggested in 2000, but not because the former oilmen
made good on campaign promises to open up the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge for drilling. Instead, ExxonMobil has soared
because breakneck growth in China, tensions in the Middle East,
the weak dollar, and speculators have pushed oil higher.
This year, Dan Clifton, the Washington-based head of policy
research at Strategas Research, is taking political/stock analysis
to a new level by looking at the makeup of Congress. "Reps.
Charlie Rangel and Barney Frank will have a say in tax bills, no
matter who is elected president," he says. Clifton's Democratic
Sweep portfolio, which assumes Democrats win the White
House and 60 seats in the Senate, suggests buying an alternativeenergy fund and shorting utilities stocks (since increasing the
dividend tax, as a President Obama might do, would eat into the
value of these dividend-paying stalwarts). Sam Stovall of S&P
argues, counterintuitively, that a Democratic president would be
better for oil stocks. Why? If a Republican president advocates
drilling in ANWR, Congress will accuse him of helping oil-rich
friends. "But if the proposal comes from a Democrat, Congress
might be more likely to go along."
That's plausible. But it's just as plausible that a massive new find
in Canada or a recession in China will roil the oil markets more
than anything President Obama or President McCain will do.
Still not convinced of the folly of political portfolios? Consider
this: In the fall of 2000, the Platonic ideal of a Bush-era stock
would have been based in Texas and involved in energy
distribution and trading, would benefit from deregulation in
power markets, and would have a CEO with a Bush-bestowed
nickname, say "Kenny Boy." And that would have been Enron.
A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of
Newsweek.
movies
Sex and the City
A guilty pleasure that's truly guilty.
By Dana Stevens
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 6:28 PM ET
Sex and the City (New Line), written and directed by Michael
Patrick King, opens with a voice-over paean from Carrie
Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) to the supposed twin
aspirations of all New York women, "labels and love." Over the
course of the movie's two and a half hours, the central female
foursome will wax cynical, then hopeful, then ambivalent, then
tentatively hopeful again about the possibility of finding love.
But their faith in labels will never budge. No real-life
relationship, Carrie and her cohorts reluctantly concede, can live
up to the impossible expectations our culture places on romantic
love. But luxury commodities? Those are more than capable of
fulfilling every fantasy. The right Louis Vuitton bag—hell, any
Louis Vuitton bag—can change your life.
Drop the title Sex and the City into a conversation, especially
among women, and you're unlikely to elicit a neutral shrug.
During the show's six-year run on HBO, people I knew either
attended reverently irreverent Sunday-night viewing parties, or
felt for the remote at the first notes of that vibraphone theme
song. For me, the series functioned as a guilty pleasure that was
truly guilty: I would rent a few episodes on DVD on nights when
I was home alone and not up to the intellectual challenge of
watching a good movie. The show's values are reprehensible, its
view of gender relations cartoonish, its puns execrable. I
honestly believe, as I wrote when the series finale aired in
2004*, that Sex and the City is singlehandedly responsible for a
measurable uptick in the number of materialistic twits in New
York City and perhaps the world. And yet … and yet … there's a
core truth to the show's depiction of female friendship that had
me awaiting the big-screen version with exactly the kind of
cream-puff nostalgia the movie's marketers are bargaining for. I
want to know how the girls are doing, what's happened to them
in the four years since I last joined them at brunch, and what in
the name of God they're wearing.
Addressing the wardrobe question would require a separate
cross-referenced concordance; let me just note that along the
way there are toeless hose, rubber epaulets, pasties made of
sushi, and a headdress shaped like a bird. But here's an update on
the ladies' whereabouts: Sexually voracious Samantha (Kim
Cattrall) is living in Los Angeles managing the career of her
model/boyfriend, Smith (Jason Lewis), and chafing under the
strain of monogamy. Perpetually cranky lawyer Miranda
(Cynthia Nixon) lives in Brooklyn (anachronistically treated as a
backwater, rather than the real-estate hot spot it's become) with
her nerdy husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), and their son.
Perky Charlotte (Kristin Davis, in top screwball form) is almost
laughably happy with her husband, Harry (Evan Handler), and
their adopted daughter. None of these women are hurting for
either money or male attention, but Carrie has hit the jackpot:
She's landed her long-elusive lover, superrich financier Mr. Big
(Chris Noth) and published three best-sellers with titles like
Menhattan. (The movie is mercifully light on those selfsearching Carrie-at-the-computer scenes that were one of the
series' recurring disappointments: Why did she have to be such a
bad writer?)
Big effortlessly picks up the tab for a vast Fifth Avenue
penthouse and makes plans to move in with Carrie. But sensing
the fragility of their union—this is the man who made her his
personal yo-yo for six years—she pushes, tentatively, for
marriage. I don't think it's giving away too much to say that what
follows includes a shopping montage to end all shopping
montages, as Carrie poses in one couture wedding gown after
another for a Vogue photographer, (In one of the movie's crasser
concessions to product placement, she names each designer in a
voice-over.) And—tiptoeing gingerly around further possibilities
for spoilage—I'll also add that what happens when she finally
dons the winning gown on the big day is genuinely, and
believably, awful (even if the director milks it for pathos in an
unforgivably corny slo-mo shot).
It's impossible to address the movie's principal failing—the way
it insists on both having and eating the Cinderella-themed cake
of romantic fulfillment—without revealing more than that. So I'll
stick to the good bits: Carrie camping it up in a succession of
outfits as her friends help her winnow down her wardrobe for a
move by holding up signs that read "take" or "toss." (In real life,
Carrie's narcissism would make her a terrible friend, but Sarah
Jessica Parker makes bottomless self-absorption look like such
fun.) Miranda wrecking the rehearsal dinner in a moment of illtimed honesty. Charlotte's righteous transformation into a
protective lioness when her friend is mistreated—a moment
whose high drama Davis skillfully leavens by proceeding to
prance offscreen with a ridiculous mincing gait.
The movie's initially brisk pacing slackens when the girls spend
a holiday in Mexico that's long enough for them to cycle through
an entire resort-wear collection. Samantha disappears entirely
for stretches, and her story arc contains some of the movie's
most painfully unfeminist jokes (in which we learn, for example,
that vigilant pubic grooming and toned abs are essential to
female self-esteem). And an attempt to address the series'
endemic whiteness by adding a subaltern black character—
Jennifer Hudson as Carrie's designer-bag-toting Girl Friday—is
a major misfire that only underscores our heroine's oblivious
entitlement. But if you bear even a grudging affection for the
show's utopic vision of female bonding as the greatest love of
all, you may get choked up when Carrie appears at Miranda's
door one shitty New Year's Eve (clad only in pajamas, a
sequined cloche, a full-length fur, and what appear to be patentleather spats) and reassures her friend, "You're not alone."
Correction, May 30, 2008: This article originally
stated that Sex and the City, the TV series, ended
in 2005. It ended in 2004. (Return to the corrected
sentence.)
obit
Sydney Pollack, RIP
Hollywood's greatest mensch remembered.
By Dana Stevens
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 11:17 AM ET
With the death of Sydney Pollack on Monday, Hollywood loses
its greatest mensch. The presence of the gruff-voiced, gentlefaced Jew raised in South Bend, Ind.—whether behind or in
front of the camera—always reassured audiences that they were
in the presence of something warm and real. That anchoring
presence could be felt in sweeping romantic epics (Out of
Africa), paranoid political thrillers (Three Days of the Condor),
and what many argue is the greatest of all American film
comedies (Tootsie). Every DVD library should have a copy of
Tootsie (preferably the excellent 25th-anniversary edition
released earlier this year), but lesser Pollack deserves a look as
well. Look past the dated trappings and check out the keenly
intelligent Absence of Malice or Jane Fonda's career-making
performance in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Slate's Bryan Curtis wasn't wrong, in a 2005 assessment, to call
Pollack a "journeyman" director; over a 40-plus-year career, he
tried his hand at virtually every genre (with the notable
exception of the special-effects blockbuster) and churned out his
share of competent schlock (The Firm, The Interpreter, The
Electric Horseman). But I can't agree with Curtis' contention that
Pollack could "take any scenario … and mold it into benign
mush." More often, he took mushy scripts and shaped them into
films that were surprisingly sophisticated and adult. I'm sure I'm
not the only one who remembers the scene midway through The
Way We Were in which Katie (Barbra Streisand), having just
been dumped by her boyfriend Hubbell (Robert Redford), calls
him up and begs him to come back to her apartment, "just to see
me through till morning." So much is at play in this encounter:
Katie's raw need for Hubbell, his guilt over the part her Jewish
ethnicity (coded as a beauty "of the wrong type") played in the
breakup, and the knowledge, shared by both, that she's not above
manipulating that guilt to get him back. Pollack films the scene
quietly, directly, with a bare minimum of music or teary closeups. Though The Way We Were is best remembered for its sappy
theme song, at the movie's heart is an unidealized portrait of a
love affair that's a painful, and ultimately unwinnable, struggle
for power.
Sydney Pollack's best movies tended to share this polemical
element, the crossing of swords between evenly matched equals.
Take, for example, an early scene in Tootsie where Pollack,
playing Dustin Hoffman's beleaguered agent George Fields,
gravely informs his client that "no one will work with you."
Hoffman's character, the unemployable Michael Dorsey, truly is
(as Fields believes) an insufferable pain in the ass, and also (as
Dorsey himself insists) a brilliant actor who deserves the role of
a lifetime. (The fact that Hoffman and Pollack famously butted
heads during the filming of Tootsie, with Hoffman wanting to
play the character for broader farce than Pollack would allow, no
doubt adds to the dialogue's satisfying crackle.) "The essence to
me of all good drama is argument. I can't say that either side is a
thousand percent right," Pollack once said. In another interview,
he elaborated: "Even if it's a thriller or a comedy, it's always a
love story for me and that's what I concentrate on, because the
love stories are my surrogates for the argument; two people in
conflict that see life differently."
Pollack's career as an actor was no crossover stunt, like
Hitchcock's cameos in his own films or the motormouthed self-
caricatures Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino occasionally
pop up to play onscreen. In fact, Pollack originally left Indiana
and moved to New York with the intention of becoming an
actor. He studied theater with legendary Stanislavsky disciple
Sanford Meisner, launched his career as a film actor in the same
movie as Robert Redford (1962's War Hunt), and hoped to teach
acting himself someday, until Burt Lancaster called him over on
the set of The Scalphunters and advised him to go into directing.
As an actor, Pollack was often cast as a representative of the
Hollywood establishment, the dryly funny pragmatist willing to
voice blunt truths about the crass economics of the industry. Last
year's Michael Clayton, which he also co-produced, gave him a
chance to put a darker twist on that type. As the head of a law
firm neck-deep in collusion with an environmentally
irresponsible agribusiness client, he dismisses the concerns of
the morally conflicted Michael (George Clooney) with chilling
cynicism: "This case reeked from day one. Fifteen years in I've
gotta tell you how we pay the rent?"
The last film Pollack directed, Sketches of Frank Gehry (2007),
was his first-ever documentary, inspired by a longtime
friendship with the architect and by Pollack's heart-stopping first
viewing of the Bilbao Guggenheim during a demoralizing
European publicity tour for his 1999 flop, Random Hearts. In a
2007 interview, Pollack describes his fascination with the
playfulness of Gehry's style, "like Don Quixote got stoned and
made a building … a crazy dream of a building." Talking to
Charlie Rose about the Gehry doc, he connected this dreamlike
artistic process to his own: "I've got to know what lenses to use
… how to design the set so that it's right. What lights to use and
what's going to happen to the film if I mix blue light and yellow
light. All of those things which are—which are technical and
craft. But it's a combination of craft and kind of daydreaming."
Pollack was open to making more documentaries, he told Rose,
but was waiting for the right subject to come along, something
he truly cared about investigating. (In order to undertake a
project, he once said, "I have to be able to be curious for two
years.") What a shame we'll never know what would have
sparked Pollack's curiosity next.
other magazines
Rethinking Jihad
The New Republic and The New Yorker on recent blows to al-Qaida in the
Muslim world.
By Morgan Smith
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 3:45 PM ET
New Republic, June 11
The cover story investigates the growing number of high-profile
jihadists who are "alarmed by the targeting of civilians in the
West, the senseless killings in Muslim countries, and … barbaric
tactics in Iraq" perpetrated by al-Qaida's brand of militancy.
They haven't "suddenly switched to particularly progressive
forms of Islam or fallen in love with the United States," but they
reject the bloodshed by al-Qaida's attacks on civilians, including
Muslims in Arab countries. Regardless, "their anti-Al Qaeda
positions are making Americans safer" because they have the
legitimacy to "effectively debate Al Qaeda's leaders." … A
profile of Nancy Pelosi argues that "for now," the speaker of the
House "has quieted the speculation that she lacks the skill, the
smarts, and, most importantly, the cojones to lead her caucus."
She owes her "newly fearsome stature" in part to Hillary
Clinton. Democratic activists, who previously "trash[ed] [her]
leadership as timid and pathetic," began to view her as "a
bulwark against an out-of-control Clinton machine" when she
stood up to the Clinton campaign's attempts to strong-arm the
party into revotes in Florida and Michigan.
The New Yorker, June 2
A piece by Lawrence Wright considers the ideological defection
of the jihadist thinker known as "Dr. Fadl," who was part of "the
original core of Al Qaeda" and whose writings the terrorist
group used to "indoctrinate recruits and justify killing." A year
ago Fadl, who is also featured in TNR's jidhadist piece,
published a book from prison that repudiated the terrorist group
for its violence. As current al-Qaida leaders struggle to respond
to Fadl's attack, the piece suggests, "Al Qaeda's popularity [has]
decline[d] in places where it formerly enjoyed great support." …
In a profile of Republican consultant Roger Stone (who sports a
tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back), Jeffery Toobin reveals
why Stone wanted to go after Eliot Spitzer. Stone says, "I
thought [he] was punk, and I wanted to fuck with him any way I
could," … In a review of ... the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,
David Denby declares "it was a mistake for Spielberg and
George Lucas … to revive 'Indiana Jones' after so many years."
New York, June 2
An article explores the autistic community's emerging
"neurodiversity movement," which holds that people with autism
or Asperger's do not need to be "cured," only accepted. One
neurodiversity proponent says he was inspired "to do for
neurologically different people what feminism and gay rights
had done for their constituencies." The activists' beliefs conflict
with more-traditionally minded branches of the community, and
all groups are "blatantly hostile to one another," explains the
piece: "There are in reality three sides to this debate: those who
believe autism is caused by environmental toxins (especially
vaccines) and should be cured by addressing those pollutants;
those who believe it is genetic and should be addressed through
the genome; and the neurodiverse, who believe that it is genetic
and should be left alone." … A column examines why John
McCain and Barack Obama are both eyeing Michael Bloomberg
as a running mate. The New York City mayor appeals not just
because of his high net worth but also because "voters are
yearning for a radical departure from the brain-dead, polarizing,
base-driven stratagems that have turned the past several
presidential cycles into object lessons in democratic
dysfunction."
Harper's, June 2008
An essay reflects on the widespread reports of "magical penis
loss" in Nigeria and Benin, in which sufferers claim their
genitals were snatched or shrunken by thieves. Crowds have
lynched accused penis thieves in the street. During one 1990
outbreak, "[m]en could be seen in the streets of Lagos holding
on to their genitalia either openly or discreetly with their hand in
their pockets." Social scientists have yet to identify what causes
this mass fear but suspect it is what is referred to as a "culturebound syndrome," a catchall term for a psychological affliction
that affects people within certain ethnic groups. … A piece
details the history of the U.S. government's treatment of buffalo,
concluding with the conflict between the last wild herds in
Montana and ranchers desperate to protect their cattle from a
virus carried by the animals.
Weekly Standard, June 2
A feature dispatches from a medievalist conference, where one
of the hot topics of conversation was the emerging field of
"waste studies." Earlier historians avoided a scatological focus,
in the phrase of one academic, because of a "repressive Western
bourgeois hand-up." Now, argues the piece, "the one thing in
which waste-studies scholars seem not to be interested is
medieval history." They want to know not "so much how people
disposed of waste as what they thought about it—or if you're a
cultural-studies type, what 'society' thought about it." … An
article observes that the California state Supreme Court's ruling
on same-sex marriage has ensured that gay marriage will
become an issue in the November election. It will "prompt the
long-awaited challenge in federal courts to the Defense of
Marriage Act of 1996," which is "the only (very shaky) legal
barrier standing in the path of nationally mandated recognition
of same-sex marriage."
Newsweek, June 2
In the cover package on Obama's race, an op-ed declares that the
Democratic campaign has divided white and black women. The
separation that has always existed is now "a chasm of
resentment," partly because Clinton "appealed to [white
women's] most base racial fears and resentments." … In another
op-ed, Richard Rodriguez proposes acknowledging Barack
Obama's biracial background by calling him "brown." Rodriguez
writes: "I wonder, after centuries of slavery and injury, after
illicit eroticism between black and white, after lynchings, and
children who had to choose between one parent or another … is
it possible to say brown?" … A piece refutes the argument of a
new book that claims the digital age has made Gen Y the
dumbest generation yet: "The old have been wringing their
hands about the young's cultural wastelands and ignorance of
history at least since admirers of Sophocles and Aeschylus
bemoaned the popularity of Aristophanes … as leading to the
end of (Greek) civilization as they knew it."
poem
"Memory"
By Judith Harris
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 11:00 AM ET
Listen to Judith Harris read .
Those years, after dogwoods
and purple phlox
the color of dyed Easter eggs,
the screen door rattling like a nerve …
On the porch, a cardboard box
for the stray cats
who stayed just long enough
to swell and litter.
So simple,
my mother, home
from the stenographer's pool,
starlings dangling like keys
over the rooftops,
the late hour pulling us in
like a magnet,
the moon baying,
the solitaire train of cards.
politics
Slate's Delegate Calculator
Obama can clinch the nomination with solid performances in the last three
contests.
By Chadwick Matlin and Chris Wilson
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 7:12 AM ET
Primary season is in the home stretch, with just three contests
and 86 pledged delegates left. Barack Obama currently leads
Hillary Clinton by a margin of 156 in the pledged race. As of
Thursday afternoon, DemConWatch reports that Obama has won
the endorsements of 320.5 superdelegates, compared with
Clinton's 281.5. (Remember, the half delegates come from
Democrats Abroad.)
Including superdelegates, this tally puts Obama at 46 delegates
shy of clinching the nomination, meaning a solid performance in
the remaining three contests could push him over the edge.
(Though as reader "kathy in nc" points out in "The Fray," this is
based on the assumption that all the superdelegates vote
according to their stated endorsements. Nothing prevents them
from changing their minds between now and the convention.)
And a programming note: We plan to update the Delegate
Calculator after the Democratic Party's rules committee meets
this weekend to decide the fate of Florida and Michigan to
reflect the party's decision on the two states.
Methodology


Nothing could budge us
from our own little island,
our own little cushions,
where we stayed,
eating tuna sandwiches,
just her and me,
floating on TV laughter,
her hand clasped over mine
like a first date's.

The current number of pledged delegates comes from
NBC News' tally. The delegate count prior to March 4
includes the 14 pledged delegates from the Democrats
Abroad Global Primary and subsequent convention,
who count for half as much as their domestic
counterparts'.
We estimate the number of delegates based on the
overall state vote, even though delegates are awarded
by congressional district as well. We felt comfortable
making this approximation because in the primaries
through Mississippi, there was only a 2.9 percent
deviation between the percentage of the overall vote
and the percentage of delegates awarded in primaries.
The proportion of delegates awarded by congressional
district, therefore, does not differ greatly from the
statewide breakdown.
The calculator now includes options to enable Florida
and Michigan. When you check the boxes next to either
or both states, you'll notice that the overall number of
delegates needed for the nomination changes. With
Florida and/or Michigan involved, there are more total
delegates to go around, so the number needed for a
majority rises. Our calculator assumes that the DNC


will allow both states to retain their entire pledged
delegation, and not punish the states by halving their
delegate totals like the RNC did.
The calculator does not incorporate superdelegates into
its calculations. Superdelegates are unpledged and
uncommitted and therefore can change their
endorsements and convention votes at any time. As a
result, we've simply noted at the bottom of the
calculator how many superdelegates the leading
candidate needs to win the nomination in a given
scenario.
All of the calculator's formulas and data come from
Jason Furman, the director of the Hamilton Project at
the Brookings Institution.
politics
Flack Attack
Scott McClellan burns the Bush administration.
By John Dickerson
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 8:07 PM ET
Now he tells us. Scott McClellan's memoir offers more candor in
a chapter than he let loose during his three years as the
president's spokesman. Often kept in the dark by his boss and, at
least in one case, deliberately sent out to mislead the public by
his superiors, McClellan writes as if he went home after he left
the White House in 2006 and purged. Disgorged onto the pages
of What Happened, due out next week, are all of the emotions,
regret, and doubt that apparently bottled up even as he eternally
presented a sunny, largely unflappable demeanor while on the
job selling the president's policies.
Because McClellan was such a team player, the book comes as a
bit of a shock to those of us who covered the White House
during his tenure. Yes, I knew he was angry at Karl Rove and
Scooter Libby for using him to spread the falsehood that they
had no role in the CIA leak case. That's in the book: "Top White
House officials who knew the truth—including Rove, Libby, and
possibly Vice President Cheney—allowed me, even encouraged
me, to repeat a lie." But the denunciation expands from there,
and it's that breadth I never thought that his memoir would offer.
McClellan outlines the "obfuscation, dissembling, and lack of
intellectual honesty that helped take our country into the war in
Iraq." He suggests the president and his aides were in permanent
campaign mode, putting politics above principle, and chronicles
how a "state of denial" led to the mishandling of the response to
Hurricane Katrina. (He also includes a critique of the press,
which he says acted as "deferential, complicit enablers" of Bush
administration "propaganda.")
Slate V Video: McClellan scolds an earlier turncoat
In small ways, McClellan still seems at times like he's working
for Bush, correcting misperceptions about the president's smarts
and absolving him of intentional wrongdoing in the leak matter.
But on all the major fronts, the president is still his biggest
target. McClellan had worked for Bush since the president was
Texas governor, and so he can show us how the scales gradually
fell from his eyes over time. In one bizarre episode, during the
period of Bush's presidential campaign when the press was
constantly chasing rumors about his possible cocaine use,
McClellan hears a conversation in which Bush tells a friend that
he can't remember if he tried cocaine when he was younger. At
the time, McClellan wonders how the then-governor could not
remember such a thing but portrays it now as the first inkling of
Bush's penchant for self-deception.
In general, McClellan describes the president as someone who
lacks inquisitiveness and is also deceitfully self-delusional. Long
money quote: "As I worked closely with President Bush, I would
come to believe that sometimes he convinces himself to believe
what suits his needs at the moment. It is not unlike a witness in
court who does not want to implicate himself in wrongdoing, but
is also concerned about perjuring himself. So he says, 'I do not
recall.' The witness knows no one can get into his head and
prove it is not true, so this seems like a much safer course than
actually lying. Bush, similarly, has a way of falling back on the
hazy memory defense to protect himself from potential political
embarrassment. Bush rationalizes it as being acceptable because
he is not stating unequivocally anything that could be proven
false. If something later is uncovered to show what he knew,
then he can deny lying in his own mind."
McClellan's account adds another set of insider anecdotes to the
already heaping stack built by previous Bush officials and
advisers. Paul O'Neill first described the president's blindness to
inconvenient facts six years ago when he talked about Bush's
lack of appetite for "analytical rigor, sound informationgathering techniques and real, cost-benefit analysis." The list of
administration officials turned bashers includes John Dilulio,
Larry Wilkerson, Rand Beers, Richard Clarke, David Kuo, Paul
Pillar, and Matthew Dowd.
The volume of defections from the party line—enough to form a
choral group!—makes it harder to knock McClellan down. That
has not stopped his colleagues, both past and present, from
trying. The response has been withering and coordinated.
Several made the case that he'd raised no objections while in the
White House and that he was not in a position to know about
some policies he assailed. "I think his view is limited and some
of this may be misunderstanding on his part of what he saw and
heard," said former Homeland Security adviser Frances
Townsend on CNN. Karl Rove compared McClellan to a left-
wing blogger. White House spokesperson Dana Perino called
McClellan "disgruntled."
McClellan's predecessor, Ari Fleischer, suggested that
McClellan had told him privately that the publisher had
"tweaked" the book. This passing on of a private conversation, if
it happened, is dirty pool and the kind of thing Fleischer would
never have countenanced from a reporter. But Fleischer's
ghostwritten charge has been picked up by other critics who
have all said a version of something like, "It just doesn't sound
like Scott." Said one former senior Bush official, "It sounds like
his publisher was ticking off a punch list making sure to hit all of
the liberal complaints against the administration."
middle of the CIA leak scandal, he would have given an
enormous gift to the president's political opponents. It would
have been the right thing to do. But I can imagine when you're in
the thick of political combat, your bosses are keeping you in the
dark, and you are constantly being praised for your loyalty, it
can be hard to find your way to the right thing. In the end,
though, that the author of this book stayed, given his strong
views, still seems as puzzling as Bush's claims that he couldn't
remember whether he'd once used cocaine.
politics
McClellan's publisher, Peter Osnos, denies that a ghostwriter
worked over McClellan's draft (though an extra editor, Karl
Weber, was brought in to meet the fast publishing deadline).
Since McClellan signed off on the work, the point is moot
anyway. The other criticisms don't really undermine McClellan's
case either. The attacks on his character tend to reinforce the
heart of McClellan's account of the CIA leak case—that the
White House smears its critics. And even if McClellan was out
of the loop on the response to Katrina (it appears lots of people
were) and may not have been in on Iraq planning (er, neither was
then-Secretary of State Colin Powell very much), that doesn't
undermine his central and most damning critique about the
administration's utter lack of candor. He describes the
administration as one "that, too often, chose in defining moments
to employ obfuscation and secrecy rather than honesty and
candor." As the press secretary who transmitted the president's
message, McClellan has standing to talk about whether the
messages he was transmitting and shaping had truth behind
them.
McCain at Rock Bottom
It's hard to feel great sympathy for McClellan. If he felt strongly
that the president was deceiving the country, or that he had been
deceived by Karl Rove, he should have left his job. That's what
former press secretary Jerald terHorst did when he disagreed
with Ford's pardon of Nixon, a minor offense compared with
what McClellan says are the deceptions that led to an
unnecessary war. It's also hard to feel bad for the treatment
McClellan is getting when he said this about Richard Clarke's
tell-all book in 2006: "Why, all of a sudden, if he had all these
grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one-and-ahalf years after he left the administration. And now, all of a
sudden, he's raising these grave concerns that he claims he had.
And I think you have to look at some of the facts. One, he is
bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign. He has
written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and
promote that book."
But the book, at that moment, seemed rather beside the point.
While Salter was hard at work on Hard Call, McCain's
presidential campaign had fallen apart. Instead of breaking away
from the Republican pack, McCain was loping after it from a
considerable distance. At that point, McCain was trailing
Rancorous Rudy, Mutable Mitt, and possibly even droopy-eyed
Fred Thompson in the polls. McCain had raised a pitiful amount
of money and quickly run through it. He'd just fired his longtime
campaign manager and laid off three-quarters of his feuding and
divided staff. Esquire reported that he was personally
scrutinizing the campaign's daily doughnut order as a cost
center. Unlike his first book, Faith of My Fathers, the Salterabetted autobiography that had launched his 2000 bid, Hard
Call, was looking like a tough sell.
And yet, I do feel a certain compassion for McClellan after
reading a book that is full of regret, soul-searching, and shame.
McClellan certainly isn't presenting himself as a hero for finally
coming out against policies he once advocated. If he'd left in the
When his campaign was a mess last summer, he was at his best.
By Jacob Weisberg
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 1:12 PM ET
In August 2007, John McCain came through New York to
promote his latest book, Hard Call: The Art of Great Decisions.
McCain's editor, Jonathan Karp, was kind enough to offer me
one of the hourlong slots set aside for back-to-back interviews in
his office. The new book, written with (all right, by) McCain's
literary alter ego, Mark Salter, was evidently meant to serve as a
kind of Profiles in Courage for the Arizona Republican's
presidential campaign. It recounted moments in which wise
leaders made brave choices: Lincoln's issuing of the
Emancipation Proclamation, Branch Rickey's hiring of Jackie
Robinson to break baseball's color barrier, etc. I sampled a few
of these vignettes just before our meeting and found them
characteristically well-done.
I hadn't seen much of McCain since his famous insurgency in the
Republican primaries that year, which I covered for Slate. Like
most other reporters who spent time trailing his campaign, I
retained fond memories—of the candidate's unprecedented
candor, his gleeful mischief-making, and the sheer fun of
hanging around with him. In the intervening years, however, the
spirited maverick had seemed to turn into a weary dray.
Preparing his presidential bid, he had mended fences—albeit
with evident insincerity—with the Christian evangelicals,
corporate lobbyists, and anti-tax ideologues who composed his
party's power base. Worst of all, McCain was making nice to his
2000 nemesis George W. Bush. With a few exceptions, his
idiosyncratic conservatism had turned ordinary.
Yet I held out hope that McCain might not really have changed,
and that proximity to defeat might put him in the subversive
frame of mind I remembered so fondly. So when we sat down, I
prodded the senator politely but as obnoxiously as I could. I was
just back from a book-writing leave myself, I told him, and
hadn't been following the Republican primaries very closely
(which was true). But from a distance, his campaign sure as hell
looked like a train wreck.
"Jacob," he answered with a sigh, "you don't know the half of
it." Where another politician would have been spinning madly to
disabuse me of the erroneous assumption that he was somehow
not on the verge of victory, McCain launched into his own epic
kvetch about how screwed-up his campaign was. He hadn't been
able to raise the money that his aides said would pour in, he'd
been wildly overspending, he'd been too inaccessible, and he
wasn't connecting with voters. He sounded as if he was
criticizing his opponent. I don't think Mark Salter, who was
sitting in a corner of the room, disagreed with anything McCain
said. But he was beginning to look a bit queasy.
I apologized that I'd only had a chance to read a little of his book
in preparation for the interview.
"I don't expect you to read every part of it," McCain replied with
a gesture that suggested he might not have gotten all the way
through this one himself. And here Salter, who was no longer
drawing a salary from the insolvent campaign and who derives
the bulk of his income from McCain book royalties, began to
look more seriously dismayed.
The conversation continued in that vein for a spell. I'd riffled
enough pages of Hard Call to recognize that McCain was trying
to bolster his tenuous credentials as an executive by associating
himself with heroic figures like Churchill, Reagan, and Truman.
Some of the leaders he considered in the book cast a spell
through charisma, others through domineering energy, still
others through a broad vision of change. But McCain himself
didn't seem like any of those leaders, I pointed out. He wasn't
charismatic, had little vision of the future, and was more satirist
than autocrat. No argument from the author here, either.
"Whether I'm a leader in the category of people I was just talking
about I think is doubtful," he said.
At this point, I glanced over at Salter, whose face was now
buried in his hands.
Off, off message, McCain merrily went. What, I asked, did he
think about his new best friend George W. Bush as a leader?
Why wasn't he in the book? "I think that the very significant
failing was to not question the course of the war in Iraq for too
long," he said. "I'm told that the president would say to the
generals on the teleconference, 'Do you have everything you
need?' 'Yes sir!' End of conversation! I think General
Eisenhower would have said, 'Well, what about the casualties in
Anbar Province? What about the suicide bombers?' He'd go
down the list of challenges we were facing. 'How's it going with
the de-Ba'athificaiton? What's happening with the oil revenues?'
"
I noted Bush's curious quality of taking strenuous opposition as
proof that he must be right. McCain concurred. "I really feel that
to somehow be encouraged by opposition is not a productive
exercise," McCain replied. "Because if you continue to have
American public opinion opposed to our involvement in Iraq—
no matter what I think the consequences of failure are—we're
not going to be able to sustain it, period." When I got back to my
office, there was a message from Salter saying he hoped I hadn't
misconstrued any of those comments as, ahem, critical of the
president.
press box
Michael Crichton, Vindicated
His 1993 prediction of mass-media extinction now looks on target.
By Jack Shafer
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 6:55 PM ET
In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with
a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he
prophesied the death of the mass media—specifically the New
York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a
trace," he wrote.
The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before
technological advances—"artificial intelligence agents roaming
the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and
assembling for me a front page"—swept them under. Shedding
no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its
deadly fate.
"[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality,"
he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much
chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost
immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's
basically junk."
Had Crichton's prediction been on track, by 2002 the New York
Times should have been half-fossilized. But the newspaper's vital
signs were so positive that its parent company commissioned a
1,046-foot Modernist tower, which now stands in Midtown
Manhattan. Other trends predicted by Crichton in 1993 hadn't
materialized in 2002, either. Customized news turned out to be
harder to create than hypothesize; news consumers weren't
switching to unfiltered sources such as C-SPAN; and the
mainstream media weren't on anyone's endangered species list.
When I interviewed Crichton in 2002 about his failed predictions
for Slate, he was anything but defensive.
"I assume that nobody can predict the future well. But in this
particular case, I doubt I'm wrong; it's just too early," Crichton
said via e-mail.
As we pass his prediction's 15-year anniversary, I've got to
declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry,
which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It's gotten so
bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the
Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership
continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren't going
extinct tomorrow, Crichton's original observations about the
media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.
So with white flag in hand, I approached Crichton to chat him up
once more. Magnanimous in victory, he said he had often
thought about our 2002 discussion and was happy to revisit it.
(Read the uncut e-mail interview in this sidebar.)
Although Crichton still subscribes to the New York Times and
Wall Street Journal, he dropped the Los Angeles Times a year
ago—"with no discernable loss." He skims those two dailies but
spends 95 percent of his "information-gathering time" on the
Web.
He concedes with a shrug that the personalized infotopia he
crystal-balled in 1993 has yet to arrive. When we talked in 2002,
Crichton scoffed at the Web. Too slow. Its page metaphor, too
limiting. Design, awful. Excessive hypertexting, too distracting.
Noise-to-signal ratio, too high.
Today he's more positive about the medium. He notes with
satisfaction that the Web has made it far easier for the inquisitive
to find unmediated information, such as congressional hearings.
It's much faster than it used to be, and more of its pages are
professionally assembled. His general bitch is advertisements in
the middle of stories, and he's irritated by animation and sounds
in ads. "That, at least, can often be blocked by your browser," he
says.
In 1993, Crichton predicted that future consumers would crave
high-quality information instead of the junk they were being fed
and that they'd be willing to pay for it. He's perplexed about that
part of his prediction not panning out, but he has a few theories
about why it hasn't.
"Senior scientists running labs don't read journals; they say the
younger people will tell them about anything important that gets
published—if they haven't heard about it beforehand anyway,"
he says. "So there may be other networks to transmit
information, and it may be that 'media' was never as important as
we who work in it imagine it was. That's an argument that says
maybe nobody really needs a high-end service."
It will take a media visionary, he believes—somebody like Ted
Turner—to create the high-quality information service he
foresaw in his 1993 essay. In addition to building the service, the
visionary will also have to convince news consumers that they
need it.
Sounding like a press critic, Crichton criticizes much of the news
fed to consumers as "repetitive, simplistic, and insulting" and
produced on the cheap. Cable TV news is mostly "talking heads
and food fights" and newspaper reporting mostly "rewritten
press releases," he says.
Crichton suggests that readers and viewers could more
objectively measure the quality of the news they consume by
pulling themselves "out of the narcotizing flow of what passes
for daily news." Look at a newspaper from last month or a news
broadcast.
"Look at how many stories are unsourced or have unnamed
sources. Look at how many stories are about what 'may' or
'might' or 'could' happen," he says. "Might and could means the
story is speculation. Framing as I described means the story is
opinion. And opinion is not factual content."
"The biggest change is that contemporary media has shifted from
fact to opinion and speculation. You can watch cable news all
day and never hear anything except questions like, 'How much
will the Rev. Wright hurt Obama's chances?' 'Is Hillary now
looking toward 2012?' 'How will McCain overcome the age
argument?' These are questions for which there are endless
answers. Contentious hosts on cable shows keep the arguments
rolling," he says.
Crichton believes that we live in an age of conformity much
more confining than the 1950s in which he grew up. Instead of
showing news consumers how to approach controversy coolly
and intelligently, the media partake of the zealotry and
intolerance of many of the advocates they cover. He attributes
the public's interest in Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright to its hunger for a wider range of viewpoints
than the mass media provide.
He tosses out a basket of questions he'd like to see the press
tackle, some of which I've seen covered. "What happened at
Bear Stearns?" got major play this week, after Crichton
answered my questions, in a Wall Street Journal series. And I
know I've seen "How much of the current price of gas can be
attributed to the weak dollar?" answered a couple of times but
can't remember where. (Answer: a lot.) But such Crichton
questions as "Why have hedge funds evaded government
regulation?" and what specific lifestyle changes will every
American have to make "to reduce CO2 emissions by 60
percent?" would be great assignments for news desks.
changes to come on the ad side of the mass media. Last year,
the Web ad-sales passed those on radio.
"I want a news service that tells me what no one knows but is
true nonetheless," he says.
Surely you jest. Factual content approaches zero, and accuracy is
not even a consideration. I think many younger reporters aren't
really sure what it means, beyond spell-checking. And in any
case, when the factual content approaches zero, accuracy
becomes meaningless.
******
Me, too. What do you want? Send your requests to
[email protected]. (E-mail may be quoted by name in
"The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a future article, or
elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent
disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.) Track
my errors: This hand-built RSS feed will ring every time Slate
runs a "Press Box" correction. For e-mail notification of errors in
this specific column, type the word mediasaurus in the subject
head of an e-mail message and send it to
[email protected].
sidebar
Return to article
Interview With Michael Crichton
Crichton's answers were received May 23, 2008
How do you cull your news these days? If it's not too much of
a bother, describe how you consume news each day.
I long subscribed to three newspapers, the L.A. Times, the N.Y.
Times, and the WSJ. I canceled the L.A. Times a year ago, with
no discernable loss. I skim the other papers. The rest of my time
is spent on the Web. I would say 95 percent of my informationgathering time is spent on the Web.
Has the collapse of the classified-ad market at the hands of
Craigslist surprised you? Or the massive migration of ads to
the Web? Your '93 essay didn't really talk much about
Sorry, I don't think about ads much. I do think it is interesting
how much of the real-estate market, for example, has moved
onto the Web. You will recall that I argued the Web was the true
home-shopping channel, and it certainly is proving to be that.
Do you think the media's factual content and accuracy is up
or down from 2002 (when we last corresponded)? Do you
still think it's flashy but junk?
Why do I say factual content approaches zero? The easiest way
is to record a news show and look at it in a month, or to look at
last month's newspaper. That pulls you out of the narcotizing
flow of what passes for daily news, and you can see more
objectively what is actually being presented. Look at how many
stories are unsourced or have unnamed sources. Look at how
many stories are about what "may" or "might" or "could"
happen. Look at how many news stories have opinion frames,
i.e., "Obama faced his most challenging personal test today,"
because in the body you probably won't be told much about what
the personal test was, or why it was most challenging (which in
any case is opinion). In summary, reliance on unnamed sources
means the story is opinion. Might and could means the story is
speculation. Framing as I described means the story is opinion.
And opinion is not factual content.
Have you noted any news-industry innovations since last we
talked?
No.
You had very negative notions about Web-page design and
implementation when last we talked. Do you still feel that
way? RSS feeds have really changed the way I get news,
especially RSS feeds of Google News alerts.
I no longer feel so critical. Web pages are more professional
now, and we've established some conventions. And connection
speeds are faster. It's all better. I personally dislike ads in the
middle of stories, and I loathe animation and sound in ads
anywhere, but that, at least, can often be blocked by your
browser.
In your essay, you wrote: "As the link between payment and
information becomes more explicit, consumers will naturally
want better information. They'll demand it, and they'll be
willing to pay for it. There is going to be—I would argue
there already is—a market for extremely high-quality
information, what quality experts would call 'six-sigma
information.' "
I don't think there has been the emergence of much of a
market for six-sigma info outside of the data manipulations
you can do on a Bloomberg terminal. What do you think?
I agree, and I must say I am perplexed. Several thoughts come to
mind. Senior scientists running labs don't read journals; they say
the younger people will tell them about anything important that
gets published—if they haven't heard about it beforehand
anyway. So, there may be other networks to transmit
information, and it may be that "media" was never as important
as we who work in it imagine it was. That's an argument that
says maybe nobody really needs a high-end service.
A second thought concerns Ted Turner. It may be that instead of
waiting for audience demand, we are waiting for a visionary
entrepreneur to create a service that most people think can't be
done. As Ted Turner once did.
A third thought concerns changes in our society. I have been
very interested in the differences between how scientists and
engineers treat information, for example. The fact is, engineers
are much more rigorous about information, and it has legal
consequences for them. In contrast, scientists (and politicians)
are just playing with information. Broadly speaking, they have
no responsibility for what they say at all. Now, as our society
shifts away from manufacturing (now something like 15 percent
of workers are engaged in making something), I speculate that
this is having an effect on what we regard as information. I
speculate we are moving from the rigor of engineers to the freefor-all of politicians. In which case, nobody is interested in highquality information. It only gets in the way.
Arguably, contemporary media has made that shift away from
hard information toward free-for-all opinion and speculation.
This shouldn't cost a lot, and indeed modern media peddles an
inexpensive product. Most cable television "news" is just talking
heads and food fights; they don't even change the heads very
often—they hire regulars who appear week after week. Most
newspaper reporting consists of rewritten press releases and
faxes. Many reporters don't go after stories, they wait for the
stories to be fed [to] them by publicists and flacks. Now if you
set aside this cheap model and instead start staffing bureaus
around the world, putting reporters and cameras on the ground,
assembling smart teams to do real investigative work in
business, high tech, and so on, that costs a lot of money. I remain
convinced that plenty of people would pay for a good news
service—who stayed with a daisy wheel printer once laser
printers arrived? We didn't know we wanted laser printers, as we
didn't know we wanted digital cameras, but it turns out we did.
In any case, what we are now being fed as news is repetitive,
simplistic, and insulting.
The biggest change is that contemporary media has shifted from
fact to opinion and speculation. You can watch cable news all
day and never hear anything except questions like, "How much
will the Rev. Wright hurt Obama's chances?" "Is Hillary now
looking toward 2012?" "How will McCain overcome the age
argument?" These are questions for which there are endless
answers. Contentious hosts on cable shows keep the arguments
rolling.
Here are some important questions that I don't hear [being]
asked: "Why has the dollar been allowed to fall so far?" "Why
have hedge funds evaded government regulation?" "How much
of the current price of gas can be attributed to the weak dollar?"
"Does the Fed control the price of the dollar?" "What happened
at Bear Stearns?" "How exactly are you going to reduce CO 2
emissions by 60 percent? What specific lifestyle changes does
that require for every American? What nation in the world now
has per capita emissions at 60 percent less than the US?"
No one hears the answers to these questions, and if they did,
they would start a mini revolution.
Maybe the questions are too sophisticated and difficult for
television? Then it ought to suit the sophisticated N.Y. Times.
The notion that we have no source in any media for and
extended and detailed discussion of economics is frankly
astonishing. (A special note of appreciation to Robert Samuelson
of the WaPo, always excellent, frequently prescient.)
How many years do you think we are from the futurism
predicted by your essay?
Intelligence agents roaming the Web, televised congressional
hearings on demand, etc.
People are having second thoughts about Web-roaming agents,
and they'll probably have second thoughts about congressional
hearings, too, if they watch a lot of them. But actually an awful
lot of hearings are already televised and already available online.
Just hard to find, sometimes. (This is not new. When I gave my
Senate testimony two years ago, it was on the Web.)
Do you think the media are more entertainment oriented
today than they were in 1993 or less?
Far more.
Just as you were slammed as a Japan-basher, you've been
called a denialist (and worse) for your climate-change views.
Do you think that stands as another example of how the
media stifle debate?
The truth is, we live in an age of astonishing conformity. I grew
up in the 1950s, supposedly the heyday of conformity, but there
was much more freedom of opinion back then. And as a result,
you knew that your neighbors might hold different views from
you on politics or religion. Today, the notion that men of good
will can disagree has disappeared. Can you imagine! Today, if I
disagree with you, you conclude there is something wrong with
me. This is a childish, parochial view. And of course
stupefyingly intolerant. It's truly anti-American. Much of it can
be laid at the feet of the environmental movement, which has
unfortunately frequently been led by ill-educated and intolerant
spokespersons—often with no more than a high-school
education, sometimes not even that. Or they are lawyers trained
to win at any cost and to say anything about their opponents to
win. But you find the same intolerant tone around considerations
of defense, taxation, free markets, universal medical care, and so
on. There's plenty of zealotry to go around. And it's hardly new
in human history.
The media might stand as a corrective, cool and a bit detached,
showing by example how to approach information and
controversy. Instead, the media has clearly caught the fever of
our intolerant times. Formerly, news people would never openly
state their allegiance; young reporters understood it was poor
form, and a senior person would carry the caution born of the
experience that at least some of what one believes in the course
of one's life turns out to be wrong. But it's a new era. Now,
media reporters are proud to pound the table and declare their
advocacy. Since so few of them have any training in science,
they don't really know what they are pounding about, when it
comes to global warming. They couldn't tell you even in general
terms how the global mean temperature is calculated, for
example. But it doesn't matter anyway. They just want to declare
they believe what "everyone" believes. Who values such a news
source?
I want a news service that tells me what no one knows, but is
true nonetheless. That's what I would value.
Second, the media narrows the expression of viewpoints to an
extraordinary degree. We've already discussed the small
population of talking heads on cable shows. At the same time,
the interest aroused by figures like Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul
occurred because, in my view, the American public had never
heard people talk that way. Similarly, the Rev. Wright is
espousing views that are hardly rare, but people react with shock
and awe. People should take it as a sign that something is
wrong—the media isn't giving them the full story. By a long
shot.
How much has the ability to surf foreign news sources upset
the monopoly on news that the U.S. media had over news
consumers?
I don't think it's really foreign sources; the BBC has had scandal
after scandal of late, which has greatly tarnished its former
splendid image. But I do think that in essence, anybody on the
Internet can get the equivalent of a wire service feed, and that
means you are not waiting for the news. By the time 6 o'clock
rolls around, or you open the paper the next morning, you
already know the headlines and the talking points. The problem
is that the TV and the newspaper don't give you much more than
you already have. Hence the endless decline.
I might add as a personal note that we have been talking about
the quality of the media and the quality of information they pass
on, but from a broader perspective, the present situation scares
the hell out of me. A democracy needs good information. A
rapidly changing, highly technological society in a global
economy really needs good information. We don't have it. We
don't have anything remotely approaching it. On the contrary, we
have an increasingly constricted media run by increasingly
partisan forces, to the detriment of our society. For example, the
tendency of media to lock in a single story day after day, like the
Hillary [Clinton in] Bosnia story, effectively prevents a leader
from getting any other message out. Even in its decline, the
media is all we have, and thanks to Sullivan, it operates entirely
free from litigation, or other forms of regulation that might make
it more responsive to public needs. Not good.
press box
Bloggy Tuesday
A McCain-New York Times Feud?; Fishy Friday; JFK on speed; what the hell is
"affordable housing"?
By Jack Shafer
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 6:46 PM ET
In what I interpret as retaliation, the McCain campaign froze the
New York Times out of direct access to the candidate's medical
records last week.
The campaign picked a "pool" of news outlets—including ABC
News, the Arizona Republic, the Associated Press, Bloomberg,
CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, Reuters, and the
Washington Post, but not the Times—to take notes from the
records for three hours on Friday, May 23. No photocopying was
allowed, and nonpool news organizations had to rely on the
pool's reports for their stories.
I rarely feel sympathy for Times reporters, and if you've ever met
one, you know why: They whine whenever the world dares to
stop revolving around them. The clearest demonstration of Times
egomania comes from a friend who served as a foreign-service
officer in Saigon during the Vietnam War. One afternoon his
phone at the Embassy rang, and the voice on the other end said,
"Please hold for the New York Times."
Obviously, I don't think the Times deserves an automatic
invitation to every party. But the campaign has some explaining
to do if it lets five TV news outlets inspect McCain's medical
records but excludes the Times. This looks like payback for the
Times' Feb. 21 story about McCain and the female lobbyist,
which had him and his campaign spitting nails (and even
outraged the Times public editor).
The McCain campaign is free to talk to whomever it wants,
whenever it wants, to share medical records selectively, and to
punish the Times for ripping its candidate. (I thought the Times
story was good and fair.) But it's not in McCain's short- or longterm interests to retaliate against a news organization, even if he
has a good case. A reporter denied is a vengeful force. He'll only
dig deeper, perhaps dislodging information that would have
otherwise gone unnoticed. (See also the Richard Nixon
administration.)
"Fishy Friday." Over at the Politico, Ryan Grim tracks what he
calls "Fishy Friday" stories. When potentially damaging news is
dumped to the press on Friday, the first assumption among
reporters is that the dumpers chose the day so the articles would
appear on Saturday newspapers, the least-read edition of the
week. An expertly deposited Friday news dump can often limit a
contentious story's play to just one day.
The McCain dump came at the cusp of a three-day weekend,
when most Americans were occupied with something other than
the campaign, making it a "Super Fishy Friday" story.
As awful as the McCain campaign's treatment of the Times may
be, the candidate and the campaign are still a million times more
open than the zipped-lip, locked-down, maximum-security,
unapproachable Obama campaign. Why isn't the press
complaining about Obama's lack of transparency?
The Economist Style. Scholar Mark Falcoff cracks the British
newsweekly's code in his recent review of a book by the
Economist's Michael Reid. The magazine's house style, Falcoff
writes, is a
… conflation of condescension, hard economic
data, and on-one-hand-but-on-the-other-hand
pronouncements which seem always somehow
to come down (just barely) on the side of
optimism.
JFK, Speed Freak. Last week, a journalist and a scholar argued
in a May 22 New York Times op-ed that President John F.
Kennedy made a mistake by meeting with archrival Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev so early (June 1961) in his
administration. Khrushchev took advantage of the green
president, the authors write. If Obama really wants to follow in
Kennedy's footsteps, he should realize that "sometimes there is
good reason to fear to negotiate"—namely inexperience.
Former Times reporter Boyce Rensberger (a friend of mine)
published a letter in the May 24 Times suggesting that Kennedy's
performance at the summit may have been inhibited by
something other than inexperience. Rensberger writes:
… Kennedy may well have been high on
amphetamines.
As Lawrence K. Altman and I reported in The
New York Times on Dec. 4, 1972, [PDF;
purchase required] Kennedy was accompanied
to the summit by Dr. Max Jacobson, a
physician who routinely injected the stimulant
into many prominent figures.
Dr. Jacobson told us that he injected Kennedy
there. White House records confirm that the
doctor was on that trip. It is not certain that the
shots contained "speed," but Dr. Feelgood, as
patients called him, is known routinely to have
mixed amphetamines into his potions.
The drug causes not only feelings of euphoria
but also an exaggerated sense of power and
superiority.
Affordable Housing. Where do I go to register my annoyance
over the appearance of the phrase affordable housing in the
news?
In most newspaper stories, affordable housing is code for
"subsidized housing," with either the government or somebody
else (a nonprofit; a coerced developer) covering the difference
between the market price and what the resident pays.
The earliest newspaper mention of affordable housing I found
this afternoon was an Aug. 23, 1970, New York Times letter to
the editor (PDF; purchase required), although I'm sure it's not the
first. The euphemism is so common that Nexis dredges up more
than 1,800 examples of it from the nation's top six dailies in the
past year. Over the same period, the phrase subsidized housing
scores only about 160 hits.
In his book Unspeak, Steven Poole explains that phrases like
affordable housing are usually created and popularized by
advocates as a linguistic dodge. Such phrases allow a speaker or
writer to say something without saying it, to express a view
without getting into an argument, and to make a point without
having to justify that point. (Other prime examples of unspeak:
pro-choice, pro-life, tax relief, tax burden, community, reform,
intelligent design, regime change, and sharpshooters.)
Affordable housing, like other virulent forms of unspeak,
disarms its critics before they have a chance to argue. Anybody
against affordable housing must be for unaffordable housing,
i.e., homelessness, and hence a real shit.
When the Japanese conquered Burma in 1942, they were largely
greeted as liberators—"Asia for the Asiatics," the invaders
promised. The fleeing British, meanwhile, burned the nation's oil
fields as they retreated to India, leaving the economy a
shambles. It wouldn't take long for the Burmese to realize that
their new colonial masters were every bit as cruel as the Brits.
Burma's suffering under the Japanese yoke is expertly recounted
in Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941-1945.
Editors of the world, delete this phrase from the lexicon!
******
Run into any unspeakable unspeak lately? Here are examples
culled by my readers last year. Send your new discoveries to
[email protected]. (E-mail may be quoted by name in
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The pseudonymous Emma Larkin, an American journalist fluent
in Burmese, looks back on the ravages of British imperialism
and World War II in her masterful Finding George Orwell in
Burma. Traveling through the tea houses of Yangon and
Moulmein, she finds a nation living in constant fear of the
omnipresent secret police, whose mission is to sniff out the
plots—more imagined than real—of foreign spies and ethnic
militants. Yet Larkin also discovers a clandestine network of
intellectuals who traffic in books, ideas, and other "dangerous"
materials.
Larkin's book is best read in conjunction with From the Land of
Green Ghosts, Pascal Khoo Thwe's account of growing up in
Burma's remote Shan State as a member of the Kayan tribe
(celebrated for its practice of using brass rings to elongate
female necks). Khoo Thwe eventually became a student activist,
then an armed insurgent after the Burmese army raped and killed
his girlfriend. He was able to tell his harrowing tale after
escaping to Thailand and, through a fantastic stroke of luck,
earning a place at Cambridge University.
reading list
Burmese Daze
The best books, magazines, and Web sites about Burma and its tragedies.
By Brendan I. Koerner
Saturday, May 24, 2008, at 6:40 AM ET
The depth of Burma's misery is difficult to fathom. The
destruction wrought by Cyclone Nargis—with an unofficial
death toll already exceeding 100,000 people—has been
compounded by the ruling junta's incompetence and paranoia.
The tragedy comes just months after the brutal suppression of
Burma's "Saffron Revolution," the latest in a long series of failed
pro-democracy efforts. How did this gorgeous land, so rich in
culture and natural resources, end up an impoverished,
totalitarian nightmare?
George Orwell would place a good deal of blame on Britain,
Burma's colonial overlord from the mid-19th century until 1948.
In his 20s, Orwell (né Eric Arthur Blair) served as a policeman
in Burma for five years. The experience soured him on British
imperialism and inspired both his classic novel Burmese Days
and the haunting essay "Shooting an Elephant." Both works
reflect Orwell's dismay at the callousness of British rule, which
helped sow the anti-Western sentiment that Burma's junta now
exploits to such great effect.
Thailand is home to an enormous community of Burmese
expatriates, many of whom, like Khoo Thwe, are members of
ethnic minorities who risked their lives to flee. These exiles are
responsible for such indispensable information sources as the
Irrawaddy, an independent newsmagazine, and ALTSEAN
Burma, which pressures the Southeast Asian economic
community to ostracize the junta. Given the tight state control of
news media in Burma, little would be known of the nation's
plight without the exiles' efforts.
There is also a sizeable expatriate community in London, and it
has been instrumental in organizing the Burma Campaign U.K.
The "News & Reports" section of the group's Web site is a mustvisit, especially the compendium of rare videos. (There is a sister
organization in the United States, the U.S. Campaign for Burma,
but its Web site is less essential as a news source.)
Burma has a rich artistic tradition, and examples of its finest
ancient sculptures and manuscripts can be viewed on the website
for the Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University.
The most famous Burmese artist working today is Htein Lin,
who honed his painting technique while jailed for prodemocracy activism. His "prison paintings," made on the cotton
inmate uniforms he was forced to wear, are among the most
powerful artworks of recent decades. If such beauty can emerge
from such despair, then surely there is hope for Burma itself.
me? No. I suddenly feel I have some kind of duty to tell the
truth. Well, excuuuuuse me!
A version of this article also appears in the Washington Post's
"Outlook" section.
People have asked: Is this a permanent breach? Will I ever be
able to work with myself again? Will I ever trust myself to
betray the truth as I did for so many years? Or were those years
of deception nothing but a lie? And the honest answer (or
dishonest answer, as the case may be) is: I'll have to get back to
you on that. However, once a person has started telling the truth,
it is very hard to trust his lies completely ever again. I'm sure
that when the wounds have been given time to heal, I will work
with myself again. But there will always be that small shred of
doubt: Am I truly following the line that has been so carefully
crafted by people much smarter than myself, or am I just saying
whatever comes into my head for no better reason than it
happens to be the case?
readme
I Hardly Know Me Anymore
The Scott McClellan story.
By Michael Kinsley
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 12:17 PM ET
It's sad. It's just sad. In all my years of public service, I am one
of the finest people I have ever had the privilege to know and
work with. I cannot imagine why I have chosen this moment to
turn against everything I have always stood for—lies, deception,
secrets, double talk—unless it was for a six-figure book advance.
But the me I knew believed that some things, such as duty, are
more important than money. That me saw misleading the public
as the highest of missions. That me would never betray me the
way this me has done. Frankly, it's a puzzle. But I will be talking
with me later this afternoon, on Oprah, and maybe then I will get
some answers. Until then, all I can say is that it's just very, very
sad.
Frankly, I don't recognize the me I describe in my book. This
isn't me. This is some other me that I have conjured up for
reasons I can only imagine. In fact, I don't think that I could even
explain them myself. I have known me for almost my entire life,
and I thought I knew me pretty well. And I always assumed the
opposite was true, too. But apparently I harbored some kind of
bitterness against me that I never told me about. I don't know
what other explanation there could be.
And another thing: If I did not support the policies that I
advocated—important policies, vital to my entire philosophy of
government, such as making things up and challenging the
patriotism of opponents—why didn't I say something at the
time? As I used to tell me, my door was always open to myself.
But as far as I know, I never uttered a peep of complaint or
disagreement. And I ask you: Who would know if I didn't?
Actually, as I think about it, I start to get really angry. Who the
hell do I think I am? Some pipsqueak from nowhere who was
hired to tell lies and suddenly thinks he has some sort of mission
to tell the truth? I mean, who cares what I think the real reason
was for the invasion of Iraq? I wasn't hired to figure out the real
reason. I was hired to put out the phony reason, which I did
without objection. But all of a sudden I'm too good to lie. Condi
Rice will. Dick Cheney will and loves it. Absolutely loves it. But
And if my sudden eruption of truth-telling means that my career
as a professional liar is over, I will have no one to blame but
myself.
recycled
The Grown-Up
Sydney Pollack's alternative cinema for the old.
By Bryan Curtis
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 10:57 AM ET
Director and producer Sydney Pollack died Monday at his Los
Angeles home at age 73. Pollack, who referred to himself as
"Mr. Mainstream," is best remembered for the 1982 comedy
Tootsie and the 1985 romance Out of Africa, for which he won
an Oscar. In a 2005 "Middlebrow" column, Bryan Curtis
dissected Pollack's ability to "take any scenario—from the
ridiculous to the horrific, from Streep to strife—and mold it into
benign mush." The article is reprinted below.
Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter begins in Africa about seven
decades after the director last left us there, with Meryl Streep
holding a bullwhip. That picture was called Out of Africa, and it
also contained the unnerving sight of Robert Redford
participating in a world war. In The Interpreter, Pollack lets the
continent off easy: It's merely being ravaged by a genocidal
lunatic. Whether this represents a leap forward in artistry is
debatable, but it does point out Pollack's great talent. He can take
any scenario—from the ridiculous to the horrific, from Streep to
strife—and mold it into benign mush. This is the source of
Pollack's enduring popularity and why some of us find his recent
pictures so maddening.
Pollack was born in Lafayette, Ind., in 1934—raised around a
"suspiciousness of sophistication," he says, by a father who
wanted him to become a dentist. He lit out for New York, where
he fell in with Method students at the Neighborhood Playhouse;
then he studied at the knee of John Frankenheimer and began
directing for TV. Before he was 35, Pollack had helmed
episodes of Ben Casey, The Fugitive, and the Bob Hope Chrysler
Theater (where he directed Claude Rains' final performance). He
jumped ship for the movies in 1965, and a year later the
journalist Peter Bart quoted Pollack deriding the "horizontal"
storytelling favored by American directors and offering paeans
to Fellini and Truffaut. But by then it was too late. Pollack's
rough edges had been shorn off by television. He had become a
dedicated middlebrow artist, suspicious of sophistication and
concerned with nothing so much as being an entertainer.
Pollack's admirers often find themselves unable to describe the
trajectory of his career. Like a TV journeyman, he slips from
genre to genre, rarely leaving his fingerprints on any of them.
"He can do a Western and he has," Cliff Robertson said, in the
DVD series The Directors. "He can do an urban thing like
Tootsie and he has. He can do a political thing or a business
thing like The Firm or the cowboy thing, Electric Horseman, or
the thing, Jeremiah Johnson. … He has what I call an 'omni'
talent."
What moves Pollack? Well, for one, stars. Pollack's casts bulge
with big-timers whose personalities often stand in for character
and motivation. Witness his 1993 film The Firm, which
accommodates Tom Cruise, Holly Hunter, Ed Harris, David
Strathairn, Gary Busey, and Paul Sorvino by more or less asking
them to play themselves. For the heavies, Pollack recruited Gene
Hackman, Hal Holbrook, and Wilford Brimley—enough
superannuated horsepower to shoot another Cocoon sequel.
Pollack's title cards often sag so heavy with stars that the films
themselves seem to melt away. All that remains of 1973's soapy
The Way We Were is its marquee: "Redford and Streisand." The
same goes for Out of Africa ("Redford and Streep") and The
Electric Horseman ("Redford and Fonda"). One of the reasons
Pollack's films feel so reassuring is that they pander to our basest
moviegoing instinct: "Well, if it's a turkey, at least it's got…"
That this is also the base instinct of studio executives explains a
bit about why Pollack is a Hollywood treasure.
Another key to Pollack's genius is his leading men, who often
take the form of Redford, Cruise, or Harrison Ford. The Pollack
hero undergoes a ritualized breaking-in: He begins as a
handsome loner, self-sufficient and set in his ways. Then he
meets a she. She (Streep, Fonda, Streisand) is overly idealistic or
else overly prim. He is smitten. He opens himself up. Together,
he and she overcome a hostage crisis, evil lawyers, or African
colonization. Two and a half hours later, he is a slightly better
he. If you think I'm oversimplifying things, listen to Pollack: "It's
usually the same guy in a different place," he told The Directors.
"Sometimes he's in Africa, sometimes he's in the West. ... And
often it's Redford."
It's often suggested that Pollack has an unrivaled knack for
wringing great performances out of his actors. On the set of
Tootsie, his best film, he butted heads with Dustin Hoffman, and
the battles lent Hoffman's performance an electricity, a great
unease. (And for once Pollack juggled the embarrassment of
talent, with bit parts for Terri Garr, Bill Murray, Charles
Durning, and Pollack himself.) Pollack's later work rarely
betrays the notion that his leading men have been given any
direction at all. How else to account for Redford's All-American
gauziness in Out of Africa—he "looks as if he'd been blow-dried
away," quipped Pauline Kael—or Ford's low-decibel mumbling
in Sabrina? As Pollack has retreated as a director, he seems to
bring out the very worst in Redford and Ford and Cruise. They
revert to their virgin states: elusive, grinning blanks.
Hollywood has a word for people who join big stars with big
literary properties and then leave the film to make itself—
producers. Indeed, Pollack spends most of his time away from
the camera these days; The Interpreter is his first directorial
effort in six years. In his capacity as a frontman, Pollack has lent
his name to some fine movies (The Talented Mr. Ripley) and
acted in others (Husbands and Wives), but what does one make
of Pollack's languid directorial efforts? I'm sorry to report that
the real star of The Interpreter is not Nicole Kidman or Sean
Penn but the United Nations building. Pollack's camera treats the
General Assembly Hall with the same quiet reverence it used to
lavish on Redford's sun-kissed cheeks. "There's music the U.N.
makes just by being there," Pollack told Entertainment Weekly,
adding, "I don't have to do much except photograph it properly
so that it sings along with them."
Even committed multilateralists might find this a little tough to
swallow, but I think I see what Pollack is up to. The high-end
stars, the soupy thrillers, the multinational institutions—Pollack,
who is about to turn 71, is creating an alternative cinema for the
old. (A not-unreasonable strategy, given the demographics at the
screening I attended for The Interpreter.) In that most major
directors set out to honor their audiences' inner 13-year-olds, it
may well be the most revolutionary thing Sydney Pollack has
ever done.
slate v
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A daily video from Slate V.
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 1:20 PM ET
slate v
Getting the Lead Out
A daily video from Slate V.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 2:37 PM ET
slate v
Dear Prudence: Hair in My Food!
A daily video from Slate V.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 11:42 AM ET
sports nut
Junior Mint
The enduring popularity (and ubiquity) of the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr.
card.
By Darren Rovell
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 6:58 AM ET
The most famous card in the history of pictures on cardboard is
the T206 Honus Wagner, so rare that one of them sold for more
than $2 million last year. The most well-known card of the
modern era is the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr., the No. 1
card in the company's inaugural set. As Griffey nears the 600home-run landmark, sales of the Upper Deck No. 1 are as brisk
as always, with buyers snapping up a couple of dozen every day
on eBay at prices ranging from $15 to $300. These two cards,
the bookends of the collecting phenomenon, are exact opposites.
The Wagner is the white whale of the card trade: elusive, highly
coveted, and known to drive men to madness. The Griffey is the
childhood lust object that everyone's mother saved, arguably the
most popular, most widely held baseball card of all time.
When Griffey welcomed collectors to the very first Upper Deck
set, investment was just about to trump fun in the card world.
Kids had started putting their collections in plastic sheets and
hard cases rather than bicycle spokes and shoe boxes, and
investors would cross-check every card picked from a pack
against the latest issue of Beckett's price guide. It was in this
environment that Upper Deck launched in 1989 as the first
premium baseball card, protected from the threat of
counterfeiting with a hologram on each card, protected from the
stain of the wax pack thanks to its unprecedented foil wrappers.
There was no gum included, and packs cost an industry-high $1.
Baseball cards were serious business.
The Griffey card was the perfect piece of memorabilia at the
perfect time. The number the card was given only furthered the
prospect of his cardboard IPO. Junior was chosen to be card No.
1 by an Upper Deck employee named Tom Geideman, a college
student known for his keen eye for talent. Geideman earned his
rep by consistently clueing in the founders of The Upper Deck,
the card shop where the business was hatched, on which players
would be future stars. Geideman took the task of naming the
player for the first card very seriously. Using an issue of
Baseball America as his guide, Geideman knew that card No. 1
would belong to Gregg Jefferies, Sandy Alomar Jr., Gary
Sheffield, or a long-shot candidate, the phenom they called "The
Kid." It's probably the most thinking Geideman ever did
compiling a checklist, save for the 1992 Upper Deck set when he
assigned numbers that ended in 69 to players with porn-starsounding names. (Dick Schofield at No. 269, Heathcliff
Slocumb at No. 569, and Dickie Thon at No. 769.)
Despite the fact that Griffey had yet to crack the majors,
Geideman had the confidence that the top pick in the 1987 draft
would live up to his pedigree. It goes without saying that this
was a genius selection. You could imagine how the people at
Topps felt when Junior became an instant superstar—and they
hadn't even included him in their 792-card set.
From the very beginning, card buffs saw the Upper Deck No. 1
as not just a collectible, but as an investment. Baseball card fans,
who had once traded away duplicate cards in a quest to compile
a complete set, started hoarding as many Griffeys as they could.
Collectors' hands would shake when they saw Griffey's face in
their pack, confident that this card would be the key to financing
a college education.
But the truth was that even though Upper Deck printed fewer
cards than its contemporaries—Donruss, Fleer, Topps, and
Score—in this case, supply came close to meeting demand.
Today, many people face the reality of unloading their Griffeys
at a heavy discount on eBay. On May 4, for example, you could
find two people selling two separate lots of 11 Upper Deck card
No. 1s. One guy was selling a lot of 26, which eventually went
for $760.
It comes as no surprise that the Griffey card is the most-graded
piece of cardboard in the history of the hobby. (Card grading, if
you're unaware, is done by services that slap a card in between
plastic and evaluate exactly how pristine it really is.)
Professional Sports Authenticator has graded 51,800 Griffeys,
while Beckett has graded about 25,400. (PSA's second-place
card is the 1985 Topps Mark McGwire Olympic rookie card,
with 46,000 grades. Beckett's No. 2 is the 2001 Upper Deck
Tiger Woods card, which has been graded about 21,500 times.)
A Griffey that was graded a perfect 10 once sold for north of
$1,000. Now it would go for closer to $275. "Raw," ungraded
Griffeys sell for $15 to $50. (By comparison, Donruss and Fleer
versions of the Griffey rookie, from graded to ungraded, usually
range in price from $1 to $20.)
Despite Griffey's illustrious career—some might call it
disappointing relative to all the hype—it's amazing that the card
could even command a couple hundred bucks, given how
common it is and how many of them seem to be in great
condition.
More than 1 million Griffey cards were printed. In Upper Deck's
original mailing to dealers, the company said it would sell
65,000 cases of card packs. With 20 boxes in a case, 520 cards
in a box, and 700 different cards in the set, there would be about
965,000 of each card produced for the boxes. Combine that
number with the amount of Griffeys in the untold number of
"factory sets," and you'd have your production run.
Given the number of Griffey cards in circulation, there have long
been rumors of an illicit reason for the card's ubiquity. Upper
Deck, the legend goes, knew that printing the cards was just like
printing money. As such, there was a sheet the company could
run with 100 Griffey cards on it, instead of the standard sheet
that had just one Griffey in the top corner along with 99 pictures
of other players.
"If that existed, I never saw it," says Buzz Rasmussen, Upper
Deck's plant manager at the time. Rob Veres of Burbank
Sportscards, a memorabilia dealership with a warehouse of 30
million cards, says that if Griffeys were produced in greater
quantity than other cards, he would've expected to come across
larger collections of the card.
If there was no funny business, why are the Griffey cards so
abundant? The most natural explanation is that more were saved.
Figure that about 95 percent of Frank DiPinos, Henry Cottos,
and Steve Lombardozzis have hit the garbage can, while a huge
percentage of the Griffeys have survived. Some dealers also
swore to me that, although Upper Deck claims its packs were
sequenced randomly, there was in fact a predictable pattern in
the company's boxes that became valuable to learn. Therefore,
the unopened Upper Deck packs that remain are less likely to
have Griffey cards stashed inside them.
There's one more reason for the Griffey profusion. While the
card might not have received an extra production run, there was
extra attention paid to its condition coming out of packs and
factory sets. Because the Griffey was card No. 1, it resided in the
upper-left-hand corner of the printing sheet. It was therefore
more susceptible to miscuts and corner bends. Being the first
card in the factory set also turned some of the Griffeys blue, the
color of the box.
Card collectors and dealers who received less-than-perfect
Griffeys would write in to complain to Upper Deck. The nascent
company—surely understanding that its products would be seen
as investments—couldn't afford any bad PR at that early stage.
According to Jay McCracken, then the company's vice president
of marketing and sales, the customer service desk was the place
to find stacks of new Griffeys. The company was more than
happy to exchange the bad card for a pristine one to keep its
customers happy. That came in handy a decade later when the
value of a Griffey would be determined by the card graders.
When Griffey hits home run No. 600, don't look for the value of
Upper Deck No. 1 to skyrocket. After all, there's likely a card in
circulation for every person living in the city centers of
Cincinnati and Seattle. That sheer quantity, though, does mean
that the lasting image of Ken Griffey Jr. won't be anything he
does on the baseball field. It will be a picture of an overjoyed
teenager in an airbrushed Mariners hat.
technology
Meet Your New Personal Trainer
Can Wii Fit get your sorry, lazy ass in shape?
By Seth Stevenson
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 7:16 AM ET
I remember my first visit, several years ago, to a video game
arcade in Tokyo. I was amazed at the popularity of games that
seemed to function not just as entertainment, but as training aids
for various physical and mental skills. There were dancing
games for coordination, drumming games for rhythm, and
puzzle games for math and spatial relations. The mainstream
American video game formats of the time (first-person shooters,
sports, driving) may have honed reaction times and finger
dexterity, but they rarely tested other skills and were almost
never explicitly about self-improvement.
I became certain that Japan would soon produce a generation of
highly athletic, rhythmically attuned, mentally acute
uberchildren—while America would produce kids with lumpy
bodies, cloudy minds, and lightning-fast thumbs. In the past few
years, though—thanks in large part to the success of Nintendo's
Wii console and DS handheld—those Japanese-style enrichment
games have begun to invade American living rooms. Titles like
Brain Age (full of timed quizzes aimed at stimulating mental
activity) and Endless Ocean (basically a low-level marine
biology course) have found an audience here alongside the Halos
and Maddens.
Now comes the release of Nintendo's Wii Fit, the latest and
perhaps most ambitious effort yet in a category I'll term "didactic
gaming." Wii Fit is less a video game than a solicitous personal
trainer. It offers yoga, strength training, aerobics, and balance
drills. It tracks your weight and body mass index, and records
the frequency and duration of your exercise sessions. (It does not
charge by the hour, show up late for appointments, or gossip
with other personal trainers when it should be paying attention to
you.)
At the heart of Wii Fit is a "balance board" that comes packaged
with the game. This small, white, rectangular platform senses
subtle weight shifts in any direction. It can measure how steadily
you're holding that one-legged yoga pose, or it can mimic a
snowboard and let you lean fore and aft to carve turns down a
slalom course. (Here's a short video that covers most of the
functions.)
The Wii Fit experience begins with a weigh-in, the balance
board serving as an accurate scale. Once you've created your
profile, you choose a trainer (male or female—both are hot).
Then it's on to the workouts.
I'm in pretty good shape, and I found the initial aerobic exercises
much too easy. The basic step routine (you hop on and off the
balance board in time to an up-tempo beat) seems tailored for
folks who've been sedentary for decades, and it didn't manage to
make me breathe hard or break a sweat. When I'd finished, the
game unlocked a more challenging level—but this "advanced"
step routine was still not as demanding as I'd have liked. I'm
hoping future, yet-to-be-unlocked levels will ramp up the
intensity.
Likewise, the introductory strength-training exercises are very
low-key. Only the push-ups had me feeling any burn. Of course,
Nintendo is understandably terrified of pushing too hard. (It's
just a matter of time before people wearing neck braces start
showing up at plaintiff-side law firms, balance boards in hand.)
But the result is that those of us who are already physically
active will wish Wii Fit's training wheels would come off much
faster.
I did very much enjoy the yoga section of the game. I've taken a
couple of yoga classes, and I found Nintendo's version quite
acceptable. The poses are demonstrated clearly by the virtual
trainers, and the game even tells you how fast to breathe.
The other night, a friend came fresh from her yoga class, and I
asked her to try out a few poses. As she extended into "tree,"
rising up on one leg, I could see her balance was rock steady
because the onscreen dot that measures weight shifts barely
moved from its target spot. She got terrific scores on everything
she tried, which suggests to me that the game does a decent job
of gauging actual yoga proficiency. She did, however, warn me
that the Wii can't tell if my body is in proper alignment, and that
I could easily injure myself with an incorrect pose. She also
noted that the game completely ignores yoga's spiritual
components. To which I say: Meh.
Wii Fit's final section, the balance games, will be the biggest hit
with kids and at social gatherings. These quick challenges
include ski jumping, tightrope walking, and snowboarding.
Some of the games are terrific fun (particularly the
snowboarding slalom, for which you stand on the balance board
sideways, as you would on an actual snowboard), and they really
do put your balance abilities to the test.
Balance is an oft-overlooked skill that's a vital asset in any sport.
The Japanese are obsessive about it: It's at the heart of sumo, for
instance, and it's the secret to Ichiro's unorthodox hitting
approach. Sadly, I discovered—after trying out several of these
games—my balance sort of sucks. The good news: My failures
drove me back to the yoga and strength-training sections of Wii
Fit, where many of the drills are designed to address this
shortcoming. After doing a round of the more balance-focused
exercises, I played the games again to see if I'd notice a
difference. I did.
This is perhaps Wii Fit's best selling point: It keeps you coming
back. Like a real personal trainer, it graphs your progress, giving
lots of positive feedback along the way. It knows how often
you've been playing and gently chides you if it thinks too many
days have passed since your last session. Should you step off the
balance board in the middle of a routine, your trainer needles,
"Hey, your muscles aren't going to train themselves!" Since the
game keeps a history of your scores in each exercise, you can
track exactly how much you've improved. Your effort is
constantly refueled by your desire to post a new high score.
Wii Fit will not disappoint those who are fans, as I am, of
Nintendo's patented brew of cuteness and whimsy. One of the
balance games turns you into a penguin sliding on your belly to
catch fish. During the jogging exercises, adorable puppies
scamper by you, yapping down the road. Miis, the characters
you design to serve as your Wii avatars, also play a big role,
their cartoon faces popping up everywhere you look. The only
cuteness-quotient misstep: One of the games has you heading
soccer balls while avoiding airborne panda heads. Yes, severed
panda heads—mouths open, frozen in rictus—come flying
through the air at you. I imagine it's because their black-andwhite color scheme is easy to confuse with that of a soccer ball.
But I also suspect this may be a subtle swipe at China. If
subsequent games involve severed Mao heads, I'll know I'm
right.
Will I keep using Wii Fit as a regular workout? I'd definitely like
to keep plugging away at the balance exercises, since I feel like I
could make some valuable improvement with a little more
practice. I'm unlikely to stick with the aerobics stuff, though,
unless the exercises get significantly harder. As it is, they aren't
enough of a challenge, and I'll soon revert to visiting my local
JCC gym when I want to raise my heartbeat.
If you're out of shape and won't join a gym—due to cost,
distance, or time constraints—the Wii Fit is a very reasonable
alternative. It'll get you off the couch and into some mild aerobic
activity. Likewise, if you have a chubby kid who doesn't like
sports, this may be what the doctor ordered. But better get
cracking, kid: Those Japanese uberchildren are way ahead of
you.
television
Meet My Talking Dog
Wilfred and other gems from the IFC.
By Troy Patterson
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 12:53 PM ET
The Independent Film Channel—the network that brings you the
scattershot sketch comedy of The Whitest Kids U'Know, the
brawny chatter of The Henry Rollins Show, and, as I type this,
yet another airing of Slingblade—has a Web site that has
recently upped its commitment to serving video series of a very
particular flavor. Once you set aside the site's triumphant hosting
of "Trapped in the Closet," R. Kelly's epically strange multichapter R&B video, you'll notice a uniformity of thematic
concerns and goofy haircuts addressed in the two-to-seven
installments of its signature minishows. I imagine that the
IFC.com viewer is found wherever American Apparel unitards
are sold, but while these Web series unquestionably function as
lifestyle accessories, they're also trying to pose, in their
studiously disheveled way, some questions about young love in
pseudo-bohemia.
New to the scene is Young American Bodies, which moved to
the site this week after debuting on Nerve.com. It hails from the
school of "mumblecore," a subgenre marked by nonprofessional
actors delivering naturalistic performances, earnest directors
employing low-fi production values, and cameramen suffering
from the shakes. "Mumblecore narratives hinge less on plot
points than on the tipping points in interpersonal relationships,"
Dennis Lim wrote in the New York Times awhile back, his
analysis happening to capture in a nutshell the texture of this
cashew-sized show.
On Young American Bodies, people with names like Kelly and
Dia and Maggie talk, in person or via webcam, about
relationships. The substance of these conversations—about
pending engagements and promised homecomings—is not worth
relating, but it does seem noteworthy that the tone is upbeat even
when the talks are Serious. Where characters in similar shows
natter on about love and sex in a brooding and melancholy
fashion, the mouths on these bodies natter on in a cheerful and
sunny way, as if the director, Joe Swanberg, knows that this is
just a racy little comic strip. This constitutes an advance. When
these people have finished talking, they take off their clothes and
they do it. The sex here is neither artistic nor pornographic, but
it's pretty enough and mildly arousing in a way that suggests
episodes are being used as an overture to foreplay in
neighborhoods from Greenpoint to the Mission.
Meanwhile, hinging less on interpersonal tipping points than on
wry mayhem and post-Tarantino banter, Getting Away With
Murder represents the perhaps-inevitable synthesis of Say
Anything ... and Grosse Point Blank, the John Cusack role
falling to one John Gilbert, who looks like a slightly darker,
earthier version of indie actor James Urbaniak. Gilbert's
character, Seth Silver, is a shaggy-haired professional killer, a
hipster hit man.
At 25, Seth still lives at home with his mom, an absurdly overmothering mother in the grand tradition of Jewish mothers, a
kind of Sophie Portnoy in zebra print. His best friend, having
learned of Seth's secret job after popping the trunk of his car and
discovering the corpse of a hooker, cannot understand why the
guy has such trouble asking women on dates. ("You know, for a
hit man, you're a huge pussy.") When Seth finally does take a
woman out, the dinner is interrupted by a work obligation. He
kills four gangsters, one of whom barfs on his pants leg, which
he describes to the lady as his own vomit, regurgitated in a panic
attack. With Seth's situation requiring him to be a sensitive man
and a stone-cold killer, Murder emerges as a quick-cutting
parable of the artistic yuppie's divided self. He's an American
psycho in Elvis Costello glasses.
The show's rival in drollery is Wilfred, an Australian import
about a talking dog. To be precise, Wilfred is about a man
dribbling dirty gems of passive aggression and fatalistic
philosophy while wearing a dog suit. One night, after seeing a
band, soignée Sarah brings fine young Adam back to her place,
where he meets her pet, who's seated in an armchair with his legs
crossed politely. The dog offers Adam a rip from his homemade
bong. Adam and Sarah disappear into the bedroom for a while,
and then Wilfred taunts Adam into staying up late doing dude
stuff—eating nachos, watching Face/Off, literally talking about
bitches. "I hooked up with this little piece outside of the 7Eleven a while back and that was all right," Wilfred remembers.
This is the beginning of a beautifully uneasy friendship, with the
dog as the man's rival, double, mentor, and id, not to mention a
sort of floppy-eared ghost of boyfriends past. Despite its
existence as a stoner comedy—great plumes of ganja waft
through the episodes, which come online daily at 4:20 p.m.—the
absurdism of Wilfred is actually quite clearheaded. Actor Jason
Gann plays the pup with a scowl that Russell Crowe might envy,
and he does so in the service of a relationship comedy that, with
every silly gesture, goes digging for emotional truth as if it were
a bone.
the chat room
Sizing Up McCain
Jacob Weisberg takes readers' questions about the strengths, flaws, and
motivations of the Republican candidate.
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 4:14 PM ET
Slate editor Jacob Weisberg was online on Washingtonpost.com
to chat with readers about John McCain's strengths and
weaknesses and to speculate on what makes the Republican
candidate tick. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.
Fourth Estate: Look, I'm doing everything I can to help voters
understand this campaign. I've ignored John's mix-up of "Sunni"
vs. "Shiite"—it really doesn't matter. I attended John's BBQ at
his ranch and picked up all the talking points to use this Fall. I've
written extensively about every smear against Obama I've seen
in the e-mails, because they're out there, and I have a journalistic
responsibility to discuss them. I regularly write out Obama's full
name, including his middle name of "Hussein." Yet Obama
seems to be strengthening. What else can I do?
Savory Goodness: As a fun Wednesday afternoon exercise, read
the entire Slate article then review the associated posts. Many
learned Frayers post all of the usual "four more years" blather,
while this Slate piece is one of many which give evidence to the
contrary. Further evidence can be derived from Sen. McCain's
record in the Senate, and in the conservative media's reactions to
him.
John McCain—whatever else one might think of him—is
nobody's lapdog; not Bush's, nor Limbaugh's, nor Fox News's,
nor the religious right's, nor the lobbyists', nor even the GOP's.
We are unquestionably, finally going to have palpable change in
Washington after this election, no matter which side wins. 'Bout
damn time.
Jacob Weisberg: The question of press bias has gotten really
tedious. With McCain and Obama, I think we have two
nominees (nearly) who are widely liked and admired by
reporters. Both are sure to cry foul when it suits their purposes,
but I don't see any meaningful media slant in a race between
them.
Jacob Weisberg: I agree that McCain is driven to an unusual
degree by his own conscience. He has never been a good team
player, and Republican party-liners are right to mistrust. I don't
think he has any real respect or affection for George W. Bush (or
vice-versa), though their views on Iraq happen to be closely
aligned at the moment.
_______________________
_______________________
Harrisburg, Pa.: Jacob, I actually am reading the news from my
studio in Paris (which I have leased for the month of May). I
have read your articles in the past, but my question is perhaps
more of a comment. I found your last paragraph "flat." It took
away from the earlier part of it. The piece certainly convinces a
reader that you know your way around the D.C. circuit, but it
just sort of hangs there ... at the end. Was there a reason for
doing that in this article? I am a writer, also. Just had my first
book published: a novel, The Widow's Web.
Reading, Pa.: If Sen. McCain had a "senior moment" on the
trail and said something truly ridiculous or out of touch, would it
be fair to report that, or do you think the media would look the
other way? Would you report it?
Jacob Weisberg: Sorry about that. It ends abruptly because it's
an excerpt to a longer introduction to David Foster Wallace's
book McCain's Promise. In printed form, my piece goes on to
consider DFW's view of McCain and the paradox of a candidate
who succeeds politically by acting as if he's not that political.
Jacob Weisberg: Are you kidding? The press will be over any
gaffe or slip of any kind, by either candidate. But "senior
moment" implies that he's gone foggy in some way that his
campaign is trying to conceal. I don't think that's true. My sense
is that he's as energetic and on the ball as he was eight years ago.
_______________________
_______________________
Hope, Ark.: Jacob, do you think the town-hall-type debates
McCain has proposed to Obama actually will happen? Given
that both candidates weren't really such great debaters, who do
you think it would benefit more?
Anonymous: If McCain is at his best when he is losing, then I
am certain Democrats would love to make him great. Why does
he seem to be more outspoken and more of a maverick when he
is not comfortably ahead?
Jacob Weisberg: I'd love to see a more open-ended type of
debate between McCain and Obama, and I think there's a decent
chance of it happening. As you say, neither has been terribly
impressive in debates so far.
Jacob Weisberg: Obvious, isn't it? The stakes get higher in
proximity to victory. Last August, McCain probably thought he
didn't have much to lose.
_______________________
_______________________
San Francisco: Sen. McCain has sold out most of the principled
stands that earned him the maverick reputation in the 2000
campaign. (Embracing Jerry Falwell after calling him an agent
of intolerance and supporting Bush after the Bush campaign's
despicable slurs against his family in South Carolina, for
example.) Is his popularity likely to fall as people realize that
McCain 2008 is not the same as McCain 2000?
Jacob Weisberg: McCain is certainly challenging his side less
than he did in 2000, but probably more than Obama has ever
challenged his own side. McCain still comes into conflict with
most Republicans on immigration and campaign finance reform.
The maverick streak is still there, but without the selfimmolating dimension.
_______________________
Eastern Shore Conservatives: In private, how much does
McCain hate conservatives like me?
Jacob Weisberg: I don't think he hates you all, but I remain
skeptical that he's really one of you. McCain is genuinely
hawkish, but he doesn't think like a natural conservative about
social or economic policy. In fact, he doesn't seem to think much
about social and economic policy at all, so he can tilt in a
conservative direction as easily as in a liberal one. His economic
plan looks equally shameful from a liberal or conservative
perspective.
McCain/The Wire: Isn't it as simple as one of The Wire's
themes? A man cannot succeed within the context of the
institution without prostituting himself and his beliefs.
Jacob Weisberg: I think the idea that politics entails
compromise with one's beliefs may go back a bit farther than
The Wire.
_______________________
New York: My wife, who is from Arizona, says that she is
amazed that McCain is doing so well because he is, in her
words, "a crook." She then cited all sorts of scandals from the
'80s and '90s that I never had heard of. Is this past relevant? Did
McCain used to be a more divisive figure?
Jacob Weisberg: The most famous controversy was the Keating
Five scandal, when McCain helped out a big contributor in an
inappropriate way, and was scolded by a Senate investigator.
There have been other instances in which he has been criticized
for favoring Arizona contributors. He is surrounded by the worst
hired-gun lobbyists on the Republican side. But crook is much,
much too strong a term for any of that, even if you believe that
the worst accusations are true.
_______________________
_______________________
Charleston, S.C.: Jacob, how do perceive McCain's
temperament in comparison to other past presidents or
candidates? About the same, or worse?
Jacob Weisberg: His temperament does worry me. McCain can
be a loner, and can be extreme in adherence to his principles.
This is a guy, remember, who chose to remain a POW in
Vietnam for five years rather than violate his code. I worry that
in certain confrontational situations, McCain might be inclined
to escalate where it would make more sense to compromise or
back down. I wouldn't have wanted him making the calls in the
Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance.
_______________________
Anonymous: I have to disagree about McCain not liking or
respecting President Bush. I could see by the way he made sure
Bush got on his plane after that fundraiser the other night that
McCain was concerned that the president keep to his busy
schedule, even though I'm sure he would have liked to schmooze
a bit longer.
Jacob Weisberg: Well, I think he wants Bush to raise as much
money for him as possible—and to help with the conservative
base. But I've never detected any personal affinity.
_______________________
EarlyBird: McCain is best when he's behind rather than leading
the pack, just like conservatism is best as a countermovement
rather than a movement. The whole point of conservatism is to
conserve what is, to be skeptical of change and giving
government power to work grand schemes in the name of its
constituents. It is at its best as an insurgency when, as William F.
Buckley, Jr. dedicated National Review to doing, it "stands
athwart history and yells 'Stop!' " It certainly is not given to
interventionism abroad, either.
Goldwater launched the modern conservative movement,
Reagan made its values mainstream, and since then it has
decayed like any successful movement into politics for politics
sake. Ultimately, successful political movements become
decadent. Compare the idealist Goldwater, to the corrupted Bush
and his veep, who rot at the end of the long 40-plus year
movement.
McCain is best when he's behind, having to call bull on the latest
"Government as Santa Claus" scheme, because he is a
conservative. He's not by nature a builder, but a fighter. He is, at
the end of an amazing run of conservative success, now as out of
ideas as the conservative movement is. It's why he, along with
the Republicans, need to be swept away this year for a long
winter, so they can get back to basics, weed out the neocons and
Bible-based coercers, and rededicate themselves to core
conservative values. Because we will need them healthy and
principled and ready to fight that fight again in another eight
years.
Jacob Weisberg: I very much agree with the point about
conservatism losing track of its principles and being corrupted
by power. What's more, most conservatives I know agree with it.
Losing control of Congress has begun to provoke some serious
rethinking on their side. I agree that losing the White House
would help to promote it further.
_______________________
Anonymous: Do you think we'll see an attempt to play out the
whole Vietnam War thing before this is all said and done? Aren't
McCain's service and prisoner of war ordeal really the only
things he has to run on?
Jacob Weisberg: McCain is 71. Obama is 47. If McCain's
campaign focuses too heavily on Vietnam, I think it risks turning
the race into a past-vs-future content. In that scenario, the past
loses. Remember Bob Dole?
_______________________
Huh?: "McCain is surrounded by the worst hired-gun lobbyist
in the biz." And all this time I thought he was on a crusade
against that kind of influence-peddling.
Jacob Weisberg: My point precisely. McCain is a total
hypocrite on this issue. Or, perhaps more precisely, he thinks he
is so pure on the issue of political reform that he won't be tainted
by having lobbyists all around him.
_______________________
Minneapolis: It seems to me this campaign has revealed a pretty
major flaw in McCain's governing style: Though he certainly has
core convictions (like reducing the influence of lobbyists, or
campaign finance reform), he's clueless about how to actually
achieve meaningful results. I mean, after he was worried about
the "perception" of lobbyists in his campaign, he rashly created a
policy that caused much confusion among his staff, and really
didn't do anything to fix the perception problem. The same thing
seems to be wrong with the way McCain/Feingold has been
almost completely ineffective in reigning in campaign spending.
Do you see his potential governing style becoming an issue in
the campaign, or is it too abstract an issue for voters to really
latch onto?
Jacob Weisberg: It's a very valid issue. McCain has never
managed anything significant. He's not detail-oriented. He's
interested in policy only selectively. He's not someone is going
to delve deeply into the operations of government. As we've seen
with George W. Bush, these liabilities can be catastrophic. But I
agree, this issue is a bit subtle and abstract to be aired in a
presidential campaign. Also, Obama, while somewhat more
hands-on, doesn't have real executive experience either.
_______________________
Fighting Back: Great to see the Democrats and Obama
loosening the GOP's eight-year lock on their twin trump cards of
terrorism and patriotism. It's amazing to me to read Obama's
recent retort to McCain, where he said McCain "should explain
to the American people why almost every single promise and
prediction that he has made about Iraq has turned out to be
catastrophically wrong, including his support for a surge that
was supposed to achieve political reconciliation." I for one
second that emotion! It's about time somebody asked McCain
these kinds of questions, as reporters apparently won't.
Jacob Weisberg: I'm not sure McCain's position on the war is
as much of a liability as you think it is. For one thing, he was a
shrewd critic of the Bush-Rumsfeld strategy from very early on,
arguing that the U.S. needed to move to a counter-insurgency
strategy. And since Bush finally moved to McCain's preferred
strategy in early 2007, levels of violence in Iraq have decreased
and the situation has improved somewhat. So while I agree that
the invasion of Iraq was a catastrophic blunder, I think there's an
argument to be made that McCain's military instincts have been
pretty good.
Again, the charge of press bias—which echoes through many of
the questions I haven't had time to answer—is wrong-headed and
really, really tedious.
_______________________
Black's Ops?: John McCain has repeatedly said to judge him by
the company he keeps. Okay—in the past week, six lobbyists
have resigned from the McCain campaign under questions about
their ties to foreign regimes and corporate interests. Still
working for McCain is Senior Political Advisor Charlie Black,
whose client list is a who's who of evil men, including Ahmed
Chalabi, Ferdinand Marcos, Somali dictator Mohamed Siad
Barre, Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and Nigerian
Dictator Ibrahim Babangida. Why do you think Black still is
working for John McCain?
Jacob Weisberg: See my early answer. I agree—Charlie Black
is a greedy sleaze with a terrible history. And McCain's a
hypocrite to keep him on board.
the green lantern
Is an Idle Car the Devil's Workshop?
Turning off your engine to save energy.
By Brendan I. Koerner
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 4:25 PM ET
I always idle my engine while stuck in traffic or waiting at
the drive-through. My wife insists that the greener move is to
turn off the car every time we come to a stop, but I think
she's nuts—doesn't restarting a vehicle waste a whole lot of
energy? I remember learning that each restart burns the
same amount of gas as idling your car for 30 minutes.
The Lantern assumes that you started driving way back in the
heyday of the carburetor, when engines started up with a big
gush of fuel. But unless you own an automotive dinosaur, your
current engine is so efficient that idling would rarely, if ever, be
an earth-friendly choice.
Today's cars use electronic fuel injectors, which rigorously
control the amount of gas delivered to the engine when you hit
the ignition. As a result, virtually no fuel is wasted during
startup, and only a thimbleful is burned as the car roars to life.
So forget about the 30-minute axiom you were raised on—the
threshold at which it makes more sense to shut off rather than to
idle should be expressed in seconds, not minutes.
How many seconds, exactly? A lot of environmental
organizations advocate the 10-second rule: If you're going to be
stopped for more than 10 seconds, it's best to shut off your
engine. The one exception is when you're stopped in street
traffic—it's illegal to kill the engine in many states, due to
concerns that switched-off cars are more easily rear-ended
(especially if an absent-minded driver forgets to restart once the
gridlock abates).
At first, the Lantern figured the 10-second rule couldn't possibly
be legit—surely it's an invention of auto-parts companies for
whom worn engines are a boon. But he's slowly come around to
buying it, in large part because of this field experiment by the
Florida section of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers. The researchers concluded that restarting a sixcylinder engine—with the air conditioner switched on—uses as
much gas as idling the same car for just six seconds.
Idling is similarly wasteful in frigid temperatures. Contrary to
popular belief, cold-weather drivers needn't warm up their cars
for longer than 30 seconds. The best way to raise an engine's
temperature to optimal levels is to drive it almost immediately
after startup; according to a study by the Ontario Ministry of
Transportation, a car driven for 12 minutes in 14-degreeFahrenheit weather will achieve the same temperature as one
that idles for 30 minutes. (However, it's best to avoid rapid
acceleration during that 12-minute warm-up drive.)
Frequent restarting does create some extra stress on your battery
and ignition mechanisms, though probably not as much as you'd
think. According to a study by Natural Resources Canada,
obeying the 10-second rule will add roughly $10 to a driver's
annual maintenance bill. How does that tab stack up against your
fuel savings? Well, let's go with the conservative estimate of the
Ohio Air Quality Development Authority, which states that the
average idling car consumes about 0.156 gallons of gas per hour.
(The Lantern has seen other much higher estimates but can't
vouch for their veracity.) If you're able to cut out 10 minutes'
worth of idling per day, and you need to restart your car an
additional four times per day as a result, then you should save
around 8.9 gallons of gas a year. At today's gas prices, that
amounts to $33.74 annually, leaving you with well in excess of a
double sawbuck.
OK, so cutting out idling, though certainly advisable, isn't going
to pay for your kids' college tuitions. Nor, for that matter, will it
make a huge dent in our national carbon footprint. Keeping in
mind that burning a gallon of gas creates 19.564 pounds of
carbon dioxide, if every one of the nation's 196 million licensed
drivers reduced their idling by 10 minutes per day, we'd cut our
annual CO2 output by 15.48 million metric tons. That would
represent about 0.2 percent of the carbon dioxide that was
emitted in the United States in 2006.
But if we were able to eliminate idling in stop-and-go traffic, the
effect could be more dramatic. Right now, it is imprudent (and
often illegal) to cut your engine while on public streets. There
are automated systems, such as in the vaunted Toyota Prius, that
can rapidly turn engines off and on when the car is, say, stopped
at a red light or involuntarily "parked" on a bumper-to-bumper
freeway; just apply some pressure to the accelerator, and the
engine springs back to life. According to the learned folks at Car
Talk, the widespread adoption of such technology could reduce
our national fuel consumption by as much 10 percent.
Is there an environmental quandary that's been keeping you up at
night? Send it to [email protected], and check this
space every Tuesday.
the has-been
The Romney Bubble
In a slumping market, Mitt futures surge.
By Bruce Reed
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 10:03 AM ET
Wednesday, May 27, 2008
Mr. Romney's Neighborhoods: Mitt Romney has
a new motto: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. In
the past two months, he has transformed himself
from John McCain's sharpest critic to one of his
most active surrogates. For more than a year,
Romney traveled the country talking up his
chances of becoming president. Now he coyly
downplays any chance of gaining the vicepresidential nod.
On Saturday, we learned of another surprising
reversal. In mid-May, the state Supreme Court
voted to allow same-sex marriage in California.
This weekend, news leaked that Romney has
decided to buy a house there. With property in
Massachusetts and California as well as New
Hampshire and Utah, the crusader who once
warned his son that Democrats would usher in
same-sex marriage now owns homes in two of the
eight jurisdictions on earth that allow it.
Diane Bell of the San Diego Union-Tribune—who
began her column Saturday with the immortal
words "Mitt Romney is in escrow"—sparked a rush
of rumors by asking: "Could Romney be planning
to establish residency in California with an eye on
the governor's seat? Gov. Schwarzenegger is
forced out by term limits in 2010. Stay tuned ..."
If Romney wanted to buy into a slumping market,
his timing couldn't be better. San Diego real estate
prices are down 18 percent from a year ago,
making even La Jolla beachfront a bargain. When
Schwarzenegger's term runs out, the California
Republican Party will likewise be the political
equivalent of a vacant lot.
Romney's staff quickly shot down any Golden State
ambitions. A spokesman told the Associated Press,
"Governor Romney has been looking at property on
the West Coast because he has family in California,
and because his wife, Ann, spends a good deal of
time there riding horses." The AP noted that son
Matt lives in San Diego, "while son Josh lives in
Salt Lake City." That's 750 miles away—less than a
month's ride on horseback!
This isn't the first time homeownership has
emerged as an important theme for Romney. When
he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he
had to amend his tax returns, which showed he
had actually been a resident of Utah. His
presidential bid made much of his vacation home
on Lake Winnipesaukee, but a second home in New
Hampshire wasn't enough to save him after he lost
the first caucus in Iowa. If Romney had bought a
summer place in Cedar Rapids instead, he might be
the presumptive nominee today. Then he could
have been the one to invite prospective running
mates to spend Memorial Day weekend at his
home, wherever that might be.
Last week, Mitt launched a new campaign vehicle,
Free and Strong America PAC, which is backing
candidates like … John McCain. He even has his
own blog. While it's a far cry from the Five
Brothers Blog, the Mitt blog brings welcome news
of how they're doing. Ben is expecting his first
child, Craig his second, Josh his fourth. Matt had
his fourth a few months ago. Clearly, the Romney
boys have put their blogging days behind them.
Remarkably, the Romney plan seems to be
working. While housing prices plunge, Mitt vicepresidential futures are soaring. On Tuesday,
Romney stock hit its highest price on Intrade in six
weeks, moving into first place ahead of Minnesota
Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Why the rebound? One of Romney's greatest
weaknesses may also be his greatest strength:
He's always making up for his last mistake. When
Politico asked leading Republicans how to save
their party, Romney had the best answer: new
ideas, a better agenda, and "a very clear set of
principles."
The GOP is in trouble if Mitt Romney is its go-to
guy for principle. But if a house on your block is for
sale, you have to admit: He'd make a great
neighbor. ... 9:53 a.m. (link)
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Romney spent the weekend at John McCain's
Western getaway with other vice-presidential
hopefuls. The La Jolla purchase gives him one
more advantage over the rest of the field: He now
brings the most undisclosed secure locations.
On the Rocks: After years of comparing
illegitimacy rates around the world—which were
low in Italy, moderate in Germany, and
astronomical in the United States—Sen. Pat
Moynihan used to joke that out-of-wedlock birth
rates increase in direct proportion to distance from
the Vatican. Now another member of the New York
delegation has gone out of his way to confirm
Moynihan's theory. Vito Fossella Jr.'s office is a
long way from Rome.
Moynihan offered an even more prescient
explanation of Fossella's behavior in his famous
essay "Defining Deviancy Down." Citing a
sociologist's rationalization that "the number of
deviant offenders a community can afford to
recognize is likely to remain stable over time,"
Moynihan feared a vicious cycle of what another
New Yorker, Fred Siegel, dubbed "moral
deregulation": The more people bend the rules, the
further some will go in bending them.
Human weakness may be a renewable resource,
but public attention is not—so, no matter how
many cads live in the tri-state area, only the most
shameless can make the front page of the tabloids.
According to the tabloids, Rep. Fossella's troubles
began in December 2002, when he fell for Air Force
legislative liaison Laura Fay on a junket to Malta.
The Daily News marvels that their union could take
root on such rocky soil: "Malta is not an obvious
place for a love affair to flourish. Not unlike Staten
Island, it tends to be a conservative place."
Of course, in those days, so was the House of
Representatives. Speaker Dennis Hastert himself
led that congressional delegation to Malta. The
following summer, Hastert took Fossella and Fay
along on another European junket. One person on
the trip told the Daily News that the affair became
an open secret in Spain, somewhere near the
Alhambra. The newspaper claims that "word about
the affair spread, and Republican officials soon
became concerned, fearing it would be exposed,
sources said." The tabloid implies that the Air Force
dropped Fay as a legislative liaison because she
was a little too good at it.
Obviously, Vito Fossella's personal life is not Dennis
Hastert's fault. Perhaps the speaker had his nose in
a guidebook or was rereading Washington Irving's
classic Tales of the Alhambra. (Unexplored tabloid
angle: The namesake for Irving's most famous
character, Ichabod Crane, is buried on Staten
Island—just like Fossella's political career.)
Moreover, once you've accepted the ethics of
congressional leaders and Pentagon staffers taking
taxpayer-funded fact-finding missions to the tourist
capitals of Europe, you don't have to be above the
legal blood alcohol limit to have trouble seeing any
bright lines.
Still, the leadership's avoidance and denial in this
case is eerily similar to the last great House
Republican sex scandal, involving former Florida
Rep. Mark Foley. A House ethics committee
investigation determined that Hastert's chief of
staff, Scott Palmer, learned of Foley's page
problem in 2002 or 2003, the same period as
Fossella's budding romance. The House leadership
did nothing about it. As the ethics committee
report declared, "A pattern of conduct was
exhibited among many individuals to remain
willfully ignorant."
In time, those years may be remembered as the
Era of Willful Ignorance. Mark Foley was busy
IMing House pages. Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed
were busy e-mailing each other. Tom DeLay was
busy hounding the FAA to track down Texas
Democratic legislators who had flown to Oklahoma.
Today's New York Post reports that Scott Palmer,
the Hastert aide, knew about the Fossella-Fay
problem, too. He did something but not about the
wayward congressman. Instead, Palmer called the
Pentagon and reported Fay for unprofessional
behavior. "I lost confidence in her and I'm not
going to kid you," Palmer told the Post. "I was also
concerned with this other relationship thing. It
didn't look like it should."
Five years later, Republicans no doubt wish their
leaders had lost confidence in Fossella after the
Alhambra instead of waiting for the mistress, love
child, and DUI. But as Pat Moynihan warned,
there's a limit to the number of ethically deviant
members any community can afford to recognize
at one time. … 10:52 a.m. (link)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Three's Company: For Democrats who still can't
decide between Clinton and Obama, a third
candidate has put his name on the ballot in the
Idaho primary later this month. Keith Russell Judd
is pro-choice, opposes No Child Left Behind, wants
to end the war in Iraq, and once bowled a 300
game. There's just one catch: he's an inmate at a
federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, and won't get
out until 2013.
Two decades ago, Idaho nearly re-elected a
congressman who was on his way to prison. So
perhaps it was only a matter of time before
someone already in prison would see Idaho as a
springboard to the White House.
Asked how a federal prisoner could qualify for the
ballot, Idaho Secretary of State Ben Ysursa told the
press, "We got conned." The state recently
eliminated the requirement for candidates to
gather signatures; now they just need to fill out a
form and pay a $1,000 fee. According to the
Spokane Spokesman-Review, Keith Judd sent
forms and checks to 14 states, but only Idaho put
his name on the ballot.
Judd isn't the only out-of-state candidate on the
primary ballot. Hal Styles Jr. of Desert Hot Springs,
California, who has never been to Idaho, is seeking
the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. For all
the heartache and suffering that Larry Craig has
caused the state, his arrest and subsequent
humiliation have done wonders for candidate
recruitment. Far from frightening people away,
Craig has lowered the bar so much that even
hardened criminals think they could win there.
Judd's 35-year membership in the NRA might give
him an edge with some Idaho voters. But the road
from Beaumont to Denver is a tough one. Idaho
already selected its delegates in caucuses on Super
Tuesday. The May 27 primary is just a beauty
contest, and Judd seems to be going for the Willie
Nelson look.
Even in a year when come-from-behind victories
have become the norm, a come-from-behind-bars
campaign requires exceptional resourcefulness.
Judd used a Texas newspaper tip line as the phone
number for his campaign office, and an IRS line in
Ohio as the number for his campaign coordinator.
He paid the $1,000 with a U.S. Treasury check
drawn on his prison account.
Although no one has contributed to his campaign,
Judd diligently files a handwritten FEC report every
quarter. The FEC database shows Judd for
President with $532,837 in total receipts, $11,285
in total expenditures, and an impressive $387,561
in cash on hand. With more than half a million in
receipts, Judd's reported total exceeds that of Mike
Gravel, who is practically a household name. The
Huckabee and Giuliani campaigns would have done
anything to match Judd's figure for cash-on-hand.
Running for president isn't a habit Judd picked up
in prison, where he has spent the past decade
since being convicted of making threats at the
University of New Mexico. He has been running for
office his whole life. He ran for mayor of
Albuquerque in the early '90s, and tried to run for
governor. He sought the presidency in 1996, 2000,
and 2004 – when he won 3 write-in votes. He has
filed more than 70 FEC reports going all the way
back to 1995.
Judd has shown the same persistence in the
courts, firing off appeals at a faster clip than Larry
Craig. In 1999, after receiving a dozen frivolous
cert petitions from Judd, the U.S. Supreme Court
barred him from filing any more non-criminal
claims unless he paid the required fees. In 2005,
the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals prepared an order
noting that Judd had filed "at least 70 frivolous,
duplicative and repetitive actions in this Court." By
the time the order was issued, that number had
reached 82.
Idaho has a long history of embracing maverick
long shots, and Judd's iconoclastic background and
platform won't hurt. He passes the Mickey Kaus
test on welfare reform but not immigration. He
favors eliminating all federal taxes so "the
government can operate on its own self produced
money." He wants to require gun licensing but let
people carry concealed weapons. He says his
national security views are "classified," but his Iraq
position is "withdraw ASAP and forget it."
Judd plays the bass and bongos, belongs to the
ACLU and the NRA, and admires JFK and Nixon. His
nicknames are "Mr. President" and "Dark Priest,"
and his favorite athlete is a professional bowler.
Bowling is hardly the rage in Idaho: In a fitting
tribute to Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's famous
theory of social alienation, my hometown turned
the bowling alley into a self-storage complex. Still,
Judd's rivals can only envy his claim to have once
bowled a perfect game.
Idaho pundits, who've had their fill of national
attention, cringe over Judd's candidacy. "Jailbird
Makes Us Look Silly," wrote the Ketchum Idaho
Mountain Express. Others around the country note
the irony that a felon can run but can't vote. The
Illinois State University student newspaper, the
Daily Vidette, defended Judd's right to run, but
warned voters and party leaders not to support
him: "All superdelegates should save their
endorsements for candidates with a real shot."
At one particularly low moment of the 1988
campaign, a news crew tracked down Willie Horton
and found out that if he weren't behind bars, he
would vote for Dukakis. Give Keith Judd credit for
passing up the chance to endorse Obama or
Clinton, and running against them instead. ...
12:28 a.m. (link)
Monday, April 21, 2008
Running With the Big Dogs: While Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama deflected Charlie Gibson's
question about running together, last week was a
big one for Democrats' other dream ticket: any
Republican pairing that includes Mitt Romney. With
a well-received cameo at a national press dinner
and nods from Great Mentioners like George H.W.
Bush and Karl Rove, Mitt is back—and campaigning
hard for the No. 2 slot.
When John McCain wrapped up the Republican
nomination back in February, the odds against
picking Romney looked long indeed. The two spent
the entire primary season at each others' throats.
Romney trashed McCain over "amnesty" for illegal
immigrants; McCain joked that Romney's many
flip-flops proved he really was "the candidate of
change." Even Rudy Giuliani, not known for making
peace, chimed in from Florida that McCain and
Romney were "getting kind of nasty," implying that
they needed to come chill with him at the beach.
Sure enough, after a little time off, Romney felt
better—good enough to begin his vice-presidential
audition. He went on Fox to say, "There really are
no hard feelings." He interrupted his vacation in
Utah to host a fundraiser for McCain. After months
of dismissing McCain as a Washington insider,
Romney flip-flopped and praised him as a longtime
congressional champion of Reaganism. Lest anyone
fail to notice, Romney confessed that he would be
honored to be McCain's running mate, and
practiced ripping into the potential Democratic
nominees: "When it comes to national security,
John McCain is the big dog, and they are the
Chihuahuas."
Of course, any big dog should think twice before
agreeing to a long journey with Mitt Romney. The
past would not be easy for McCain, Romney, and
their staffs and families to overcome. Before New
Hampshire, McCain's alter ego, Mark Salter, called
Romney "a small-varmint gun totin,' civil rights
marching, NRA-endorsed fantasy candidate." After
the primaries were over, Josh Romney suggested
that the Five Brothers wouldn't be gassing up the
Mittmobile for McCain anytime soon: "It's one thing
to campaign for my dad, someone whose principles
I line up with almost entirely," he told the Deseret
News. "I can't say the same thing for Sen.
McCain."
For Mitt Romney, that won't be a problem: Any
grudge would vanish the instant McCain named
him as his running mate. And by the Republican
convention in September, Romney's principles will
be due for their six-month realignment.
The more difficult question is, What's in it for
McCain? Actually, Romney brings more to the
ticket than you might think. As in any partnership,
the key to happiness between running mates is a
healthy division of labor. When Bill Clinton and Al
Gore teamed up in 1992, Clinton had spent most of
his career on the economy, education, health care,
and other domestic issues; Gore was an expert on
national security, the environment, and
technology. Even the Bush-Cheney pairing made
some sense: Bush cared only about squandering
the surplus, privatizing Social Security, and
running the economy into the ground; Cheney was
more interested in hoarding executive power,
helping narrow interests, and tarnishing America's
image in the world.
So, McCain and Romney are off to a good start:
They come from different backgrounds and share
no common interests. McCain, a soldier turned
senator, prefers national security above all else. As
a former businessman and governor, Romney
rarely brings up foreign policy—for reasons that
sometimes become apparent when he does so. In
his concession speech, Romney said he was
dropping out to give McCain a united front against
Obama, Clinton, and Bin Laden. "In this time of
war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of
aiding a surrender to terror," he said. "We cannot
allow the next president of the United States to
retreat in the face of evil extremism!!"
For the general election, the McCain campaign
must decide what to do with conservative positions
it took to win the Republican primaries. Here again,
Romney is a godsend: a vice-presidential candidate
who'll flip-flop so the nominee doesn't have to. No
one can match Romney's experience at changing
positions: He has been on both sides of abortion,
talked out of both sides of his mouth on same-sex
marriage, and been for and against his own health
care plan. It's a market-based approach to
principle—just the glue Republicans need to
expand their coalition. Moderates might assume
Romney was only pretending to be conservative,
and conservatives will thank him for trying.
Straight talk is all well and good for presidential
candidates. But as Dick Cheney demonstrated, the
job of a Republican vice-presidential candidate is
quite the opposite—keeping a straight face while
saying things that couldn't possibly be true. Take
the economy, for example. McCain gets visibly
uncomfortable whenever he ventures beyond fiscal
conservatism. Romney is more flexible. In an
interview with National Journal last week, he had
no trouble contending that corporate tax cuts help
the middle class. He spent the primaries warning
that the United States was on a slippery slope to
becoming the next France. Now he's perfectly
happy to argue that we have to cut corporate taxes
to keep companies from moving to France.
In his surprise appearance at the Radio &
Television Correspondents dinner in Washington
last week, Romney showed another virtue that
makes him perfect for the role—a vice-presidential
temperament. With his "Top 10 Reasons for
Dropping Out," he proved that he is ready to poke
fun at himself on Day 1.
A vice president needs to be good at selfdeprecation, yet not so skilled that he outshines
the boss. By that standard, Romney's audition was
perfect: He chose good material ("There weren't as
many Osmonds as I had thought"; "As a lifelong
hunter, I didn't want to miss the start of varmint
season") and delivered it just awkwardly enough to
leave the audience wondering whether to laugh or
feel slightly uncomfortable.
After watching him up close in the primaries, Team
McCain no doubt harbors real reservations about
Romney. Some conservatives distrust him so
much, they're running full-page ads that say, "NO
Mitt." A Google search of John McCain, Mitt
Romney, and food taster produces more than 100
entries.
But looking ahead to a tense fall campaign, McCain
should put those concerns aside and listen to
voices from across the spectrum. This could be the
issue that unites the country across party lines.
Democrats like a little fun at Mitt Romney's
expense. The McCain camp does, too—perhaps
more so. And after last week, we know that—ever
the good sport—even Romney's all for it. ... 2:14
p.m. (link)
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Twist and Shout: When the news broke last
August that Larry Craig had been arrested in a
restroom sex sting, he had a ready answer: The
Idaho Statesman made him do it. He claimed that
the Statesman's monthslong investigation into
whether he was gay made him panic and plead
guilty. Otherwise, he said, he feared that what
happened in Minneapolis might not stay in
Minneapolis, and the Statesman would make sure
the voters of Idaho found out.
Craig's jihad against the Statesman didn't go over
too well in Idaho, where people are more likely to
read the newspaper in the restroom than worry
about it afterward. On Monday, the Statesman was
named a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in
Breaking News Reporting for what the committee
called "its tenacious coverage of the twists and
turns in the scandal involving the state's senator,
Larry Craig."
The story took yet another strange twist and turn
this week. For the past six months, the entire
political world has been wondering why Craig
promised to resign when the scandal broke, then
changed his mind a few days later. In a rare
interview Wednesday with the congressional
newspaper the Hill, Craig finally found someone to
blame for staying in the Senate: The people of
Idaho made him do it.
According to the Hill, Craig said "support from
Idahoans convinced him to reverse his pledge to
resign last year." This was news to most Idaho
voters, who have viewed the whole affair with
shock, outrage, embarrassment, and dismay. But
Craig didn't stop there. The Hill reports that he also
said his decision not to run for re-election "predated the controversy."
Last fall, Craig stunned Idahoans by insisting he
was not gay, not guilty, and not leaving. Now he
says it's our fault he never left, he was leaving
anyway, and if he's not running, it's not because
we don't believe him when he says he's not guilty
and not gay.
Unfortunately, Craig's latest explanation casts
some doubt on the excuse he gave last fall. If he
had already decided long ago that he wasn't
running for re-election, he had less reason to panic
over his arrest, and much less to fear from voters
finding out about it back home. In September, he
made it sound as if he pled guilty to a crime he
didn't commit to avoid a political firestorm back
home. If politics were of no concern, he had every
reason to fight the charges in court. For that
matter, if he was so sure he wouldn't run again, he
could have announced his decision early last year,
which might have staved off the Statesman
investigation before it got started.
nothing on 1998 Tennessee State Senate candidate
Byron "Low-Tax" Looper. Besides changing his
name, Looper also murdered his opponent. Under
Tennessee law, the names of dead candidates are
removed from the ballot. So even though he was
quickly charged with homicide, Looper nearly ran
unopposed. The victim's widow won a last-minute
write-in campaign. Looper was sentenced to life in
prison.
Bloopers: The Pittsburgh Pirates are now the most
mediocre first-place team in baseball history. In
their season opener Monday night against Atlanta,
the Bucs provided plenty of evidence that this year
will turn out like the last 15. They blew a five-run
lead in the ninth by walking four batters and
booting an easy fly ball. Pirate players said they'd
never seen anything like it, not even in Little
League. For an inning, it looked like the team had
gone on strike to demand more money.
But to every Buc fan's surprise, the Pirates won,
anyway—12-11 in 12 innings—and with no game
Tuesday, Pittsburgh has been above .500 for two
glorious days. New General Manager Neal
Huntington e-mailed me on Monday to promise
that the team's new regime is determined to build
an organization that will make the people of
Pittsburgh proud again. That might take a while.
For now, we're content to make the people of
Atlanta feel really embarrassed. ... 1:35 p.m.
(link)
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Craig's latest revelation undermines his defense in
another way as well. If he is telling the truth that
he had made up his mind not to run before his
arrest, that would be the best explanation yet for
why he risked putting himself in a position to get
arrested. Eliot Spitzer's re-election prospects
plunged long before he got caught, too.
Nothing can fully explain why public figures like
Craig and Spitzer would flagrantly risk arrest. But
we can rule out political suicide if they'd already
decided their political careers were over. ... 3:55
p.m. (link)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
B.Looper: Learned reader Kyle Sammin recalls
that Idaho's Marvin "Pro-Life" Richardson has
Danger Is My Middle Name: Outgoing Senator
Larry Craig can take consolation in one thing: out
in Idaho, everyone wants his seat. Fourteen
candidates have filed to run for the Senate,
including eight Republicans, two Democrats, two
Independents, and a Libertarian. Hal Styles Jr. of
Desert Hot Springs, California, entered the
Republican primary, even though he has never
been to Idaho. "I know I'll love it because, clean
air, clean water and many, many, many
mountains," he says. "My heart, my mind, my
body, my soul, my thoughts are in this to win."
The general election will likely be a rematch between former
Democratic congressman Larry LaRocco and Republican Lt.
Gov. (and former governor) Jim Risch. If Idahoans find those
two insufficiently embarrassing, however, a number of fringe
candidates have lined up to take Craig's place. According to CQ,
one Independent, Rex Rammel, is a former elk rancher who is
angry that Risch ordered state wildlife officials to shoot some of
his elk that got away. The Libertarian, Kent A. Marmon, is
running against "the ever-expanding Socialist agenda" he claims
is being pushed by Democratic congressmen like John Dingell.
On the other hand, Republicans and Democrats alike can breathe
a sign of relief over another unintended effect: the new law foils
Larry Craig's best strategy for a comeback. Before the law, Craig
could have changed his name to "Not Gay" and won in a
landslide. "A person formerly known as Not Gay" is more like it.
... 5:27 p.m. (link)
Friday, Mar. 28, 2008
But by far the most creative third-party candidate is Marvin
Richardson, an organic strawberry farmer who went to court to
change his name to "Pro-Life." Two years ago, he made that his
middle name and tried to run for governor as Marvin "Pro-Life"
Richardson. State election officials ruled that middle names
couldn't be used to make a political statement on the ballot. As
plain old Marvin Richardson, he won just 1.6% of the vote.
Now that "Pro-Life" is his full name, the state had to let him run
that way on the ballot. He told the Idaho Press-Tribune that with
the name change, he should win 5%. He plans to run for office
every two years for as long as he lives: "If I save one baby's life,
it will be worth it."
As the Press-Tribune points out, Pro-Life is not a single-issue
candidate, but has a comprehensive platform. In addition to
abortion, he opposes "homosexuality, adultery, and fornication."
He wants the pro-life movement to refer to abortion as "murder,"
although he has not yet insisted pro-choice candidates change
their name to that.
Idaho Republicans and anti-abortion activists don't share ProLife's enthusiasm. They worry that conservative voters will
check the box next to both Pro-Life and the Republican
candidate, thereby spoiling their ballots. So last week, the Idaho
Secretary of State persuaded both houses of the legislature to
pass emergency legislation to clarify that "voters are casting a
vote for a person and not a political proposition." Under the
legislation, candidates who appear to have changed their names
to "convey a political message" will be outed on the ballot as "a
person, formerly known as …." The Prince Bill will go to the
governor for signature this week.
According to the Associated Press, Pro-Life accuses legislators
of "trying to legislate intelligence"—a charge not often hurled at
the Idaho legislature. "The people that vote for me are more
intelligent than to have something defined in legislation like
this," he says.
Of course, Idahoans who really want to make a political
statement will still be able to outsmart the Prince Bill. Nothing
in the legislation prohibits Idaho parents who feel strongly about
issues from naming their children Pro-Life or Pro-Gun at birth.
For that matter, Marvin Richardson has changed his name so
many times that if he changes it again, the ballot might have to
describe him as "a person formerly known as 'Pro-Life.'" Or he
could just change his name to Mitt Romney.
We Are Family: Midway through the run-up to the
next primary, the presidential campaigns are
searching for fresh ways to reach the voters of
Pennsylvania. My grandparents left Pittsburgh
more than 80 years ago, so my Pennsylvania roots
are distant. But I still think I can speak for at least
half the state in suggesting one bold proposal we
long for every April: a plan to rescue one of the
most mediocre teams in baseball history, the
Pittsburgh Pirates.
Granted, the nation faces more urgent crises. But
in hard times, people often look to sports for
solace. To blue-collar workers in taverns across
western Pennsylvania, watching the Pirates lose
night after night is as predictably grim as the Bush
economy. The lowly Bucs are the reigning
disappointment in the world of sport—with a
batting average that seems pegged to the dollar
and prospects of victory in line with the war in
Iraq.
The Pittsburgh franchise hasn't finished above .500
since 1992. If, as universally predicted, the Pirates
turn in their 16th consecutive losing season this
year, they will tie the all-time frustration record for
professional sport set by the Philadelphia Phillies in
the 1930s and '40s.
Pittsburgh is still a proud, vibrant city, which has
rebounded handsomely from losses far more
consequential than the Pirates'. The once-proud
Pirates, by contrast, show plenty of rust but no
signs of recovery. In 1992, the team was an inning
away from the World Series, when the Atlanta
Braves scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth
to steal Game 7 of the National League
Championship Series. The Braves soon moved to
the NL East en route to winning 14 consecutive
division titles, the longest in sports history. The
Pirates moved from the East to the Central and
began their soon-to-be-record-setting plunge in
the opposite direction.
On Monday, the Pirates return to Atlanta for
Opening Day against the Braves. Baseball analysts
no longer give a reason in predicting another lastplace Bucco finish. This year, the Washington Post
didn't even bother to come up with a new joke.
Last season's Post preview said:
Blech. This Pirates team is so
mediocre, so uninteresting, so
destined for last place, we don't
know if we can squeeze another
sentence out of it for this capsule
we're being paid to write. But
here's one. … The Pirates haven't
had a winning season since
1992, and that streak will
continue this year. That's still not
long enough? Well, here's
another line! Hey—two sentences
in one line! Make that three! And
here's another! See how easy
that is?
This year, the same Post analyst wrote:
Okay, folks, here's the deal: We
need to fill precisely 4.22
column-inches of type with
information about the faceless,
tasteless Pirates, and as usual
we're not sure we can do it. But
guess what? We're already at .95
inches, and we're just getting
started! Wait—make that 1.19
inches. ... Should they finish
below .500 again (and let's be
honest, how can they not?), they
will tie the Phillies of 1933-48 for
the most consecutive losing
seasons. (By the way, that's 3.53
inches, and we haven't even had
to mention new manager John
Russell, Capps's promise as a
closer or the vast potential of the
Snell-Gorzelanny duo.) There:
4.22 inches. Piece of cake."
So now the Pirates even hold the record for
consecutive seasons as victims of the same bad
joke.
Pittsburgh faces all the challenges of a smallmarket team. Moreover, as David Maraniss pointed
out in his lyrical biography, Clemente, the first love
for Pittsburgh fans has long been football, not
baseball. These days, no one can blame them.
Seven years ago, in a desperate bid to revive the
Pirates' fortunes, the city built PNC Park, a
gorgeous field with the most spectacular view in
baseball. From behind home plate, you can look
out on the entire expanse of American economic
history—from the Allegheny River to 1920s-era
steel suspension bridges to gleaming glass
skyscrapers.
The result? As Pittsburgh writer Don Spagnolo
noted last year in "79 Reasons Why It's Hard To Be
a Pirates Fan," Pittsburgh now has "the best
stadium in the country, soiled by the worst team."
(The Onion once suggested, "PNC Park Threatens
To Leave Pittsburgh Unless Better Team Is Built.")
Spagnolo notes that the city already set some kind
of record by hosting baseball's All-Star game in
1994 and 2006 without a single winning season in
between.
Although the Pirates' best player, Jason Bay, is
from Canada, if Pittsburgh fans have suffered
because of trade, the blame belongs not to NAFTA
but to an inept front office. Jason Schmidt, now
one of the top 100 strikeout aces in history, was
traded to the Giants. Another, Tim Wakefield, left
for the Red Sox. Franchise player Aramis Ramirez
was dealt to the Cubs. When owners sell off
members of a winning team, it's called a fire sale.
The Pirates have been more like a yard sale. In
2003, when the Cubs nearly made the Series, the
Pirates supplied one-third of their starting lineup.
In the early '80s, an angry fan famously threw a
battery at Pirate outfielder Dave Parker. Last June,
fans registered their frustration in a more
constructive way. To protest more than a decade of
ownership mismanagement, they launched a Web
site, IrateFans.com, and organized a "Fans for
Change" walkout after the third inning of a home
game. Unfortunately, only a few hundred fans who
left their seats actually left the game; most just
got up to get beer.
This year, fans are still for change but highly
skeptical. In an online interview, the new team
president admitted, "The Pirates are not in a
rebuilding mode. We're in a building mode." One
fan asked bitterly, "How many home runs will the
'change in atmosphere' hit this season?"
I've been a Pirate fan for four decades—the first
glorious, the second dreary, the last two a long
march from despair to downright humiliation. In
more promising times, my wife proposed to me at
Three Rivers Stadium, where we returned for our
honeymoon. On the bright side, the 2001 implosion
of Three Rivers enabled me to find two red plastic
stadium seats as an anniversary present on eBay.
Our children live for baseball but laugh at our
Pirate caps—and, at ages 12 and 14, haven't been
alive to see a winning Pirate season. Yet like so
many in western Pennsylvania, I've been a Pirate
fan too long to be retrained to root for somebody
else.
After 15 years, we Bucs fans aren't asking for
miracles. We just want what came so easily to the
pre-2004 Red Sox, the post-1908 Cubs, and the
other great losing teams of all time: sympathy.
Those other teams are no longer reliable: The Red
Sox have become a dynasty; 2008 really could be
the Cubs' year. If you want a lovable loser that will
never let you down, the Pittsburgh Pirates could be
your team, too. ... 12:06 p.m. (link)
Thursday, Mar. 13, 2008
Craigenfreude: In a new high for the partisan
divide, a mini-debate has broken out in far-flung
corners of the blogosphere on the urgent question:
Who's the bigger hypocrite, Larry Craig or Eliot
Spitzer?
Conservative blogger Michael Medved of Townhall
offers a long list of reasons why Craig doesn't need
to go as urgently as Spitzer did. He finds Craig less
hypocritical ("trolling for sex in a men's room,
doesn't logically require that you support gay
marriage"), much easier to pity, and "pathetic and
vulnerable" in a way Spitzer is not. Liberal blogger
Anonymous Is a Woman counters that while Craig
and Louisiana Sen. David Vitter remain in office, at
least Spitzer resigned.
Warning, much political baggage may look alike.
So, party labels aside, who's the bigger hypocrite?
Certainly, a politician caught red-handed
committing the very crimes he used to prosecute
can make a strong case for himself. In his
resignation speech, Spitzer admitted as much:
"Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I
believe correctly, that people, regardless of their
position or power, take responsibility for their
conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself."
Moreover, for all the conservative complaints about
media bias, the circumstances of Spitzer's fall from
grace ensure that tales of his hypocrisy will
reverberate louder and longer than Craig's. Already
a media star in the media capital of the world, he
managed to destroy his career with a flair even a
tabloid editor couldn't have imagined. Every detail
of his case is more titillating than Craig's—call girls
with MySpace pages and stories to tell, not a lone
cop who won't talk to the press; hotel suites
instead of bathroom stalls; bank rolls instead of
toilet rolls; wide angles instead of wide stances; a
club for emperors, not Red Carpet.
Spitzer flew much closer to the sun than Craig, so
his sudden plunge is the far greater political
tragedy. No matter how far his dive, Craig couldn't
make that kind of splash. You'll never see the
headline "Craig Resigns" splashed across six
columns of the New York Times. Of course, since
he refuses to resign, you won't see it in the Idaho
Statesman, either.
Yet out of stubborn home-state chauvinism, if
nothing else, we Idahoans still marvel at the level
of hypocrisy our boy has achieved, even without all
the wealth, fame, and privilege that a rich New
Yorker was handed on a silver platter. Many
Easterners think it's easy for an Idahoan to be
embarrassing—that just being from Boise means
you're halfway there.
We disagree. Craig didn't grow up in the center of
attention, surrounded by money, glamour, and all
the accouterments of hypocrisy. He grew up in the
middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains.
When he got arrested, he didn't have paid help to
bring him down. No Mann Act for our guy: He
carried his own bags and did his own travel.
Larry Craig is a self-made hypocrite. He achieved
his humiliation the old-fashioned way: He earned
it.
Unlike Spitzer, who folded his cards without a fight,
Craig upped the ante by privately admitting guilt,
then publicly denying it. His lawyers filed yet
another appellate brief this week, insisting that the
prosecution is wrong to accuse him of making a
"prehensile stare."
As a Clintonite, I'm delighted that the show will go
on. But even if I were on the sidelines, my reaction
would have been the same. No matter which team
you're rooting for, you've got to admit: We will
never see another contest like this one, and the
political junkie in all of us hopes it will never end.
While it's admittedly a low standard, Craig may
have had his least-awful week since his scandal
broke in August. A Minnesota jury acquitted a man
who was arrested by the same airport sting
operation. Craig didn't finish last in the Senate
power rankings by Congress.org. Thanks to
Spitzer, Craig can now tell folks back home that
whatever they think of what he did, at least they
don't have to be embarrassed by how much he
spent. In fact, he is probably feeling some
Craigenfreude—taking pleasure in someone else's
troubles because those troubles leave people a
little less time to take pleasure in your own.
It looks like we could get our wish—so we might as
well rejoice and be glad in it. A long, exciting race
for the nomination will be good for the Democratic
Party, good for the eventual nominee, and the ride
of a lifetime for every true political fan.
Like misery, hypocrisy loves company—which, for
both Spitzer and Craig, turned out to be the
problem. But Spitzer was right to step down, and
Craig should long ago have done the same. Politics
is a tragic place to chase your demons. ... 5:30
p.m. (link)
Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2008
All the Way: As death-defying Clinton comebacks
go, the primaries in Ohio and Texas were very
nearly not heart-stopping enough. On Monday,
public polls started predicting a Clinton rebound,
threatening to spoil the key to any wild ride:
surprise. Luckily, the early exit polls on Tuesday
evening showed Obama with narrow leads in both
do-or-die states, giving those of us in Clinton World
who live for such moments a few more hours to
stare into the abyss.
Now that the race is once again up for grabs, much
of the political establishment is dreading the
seven-week slog to the next big primary in
Pennsylvania. Many journalists had wanted to go
home and put off seeing Scranton until The Office
returns on April 10. Some Democrats in
Washington were in a rush to find out the winner
so they could decide who they've been for all
along.
For the party, the benefits are obvious: By making
this contest go the distance, the voters have done
what party leaders wanted to do all along. This
cycle, the Democratic National Committee was
desperate to avoid the front-loaded calendar that
backfired last time. As David Greenberg points out,
the 2004 race was over by the first week of
March—and promptly handed Republicans a full
eight months to destroy our nominee. This time,
the DNC begged states to back-load the calendar,
even offering bonus delegates for moving primaries
to late spring. Two dozen states flocked to Super
Tuesday anyway.
Happily, voters took matters into their own hands
and gave the spring states more clout than party
leaders ever could have hoped for. Last fall, NPR
ran a whimsical story about the plight of South
Dakota voters, whose June 3 contest is the last
primary (along with Montana) on the calendar.
Now restaurateurs, innkeepers, and vendors from
Pierre to Rapid City look forward to that primary as
Christmas in June.
But the national party, state parties, and Sioux
Falls cafes aren't the only ones who'll benefit.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the biggest
beneficiaries of a protracted battle for the
nomination are the two contestants themselves.
Primaries are designed to be a warm-up for the
general election, and a few more months of spring
training will only improve their swings for the fall.
And let's face it: These two candidates know how
to put on a show. Both are raising astonishing
sums of money and attracting swarms of voters to
the polls. Over the past month, their three headto-head debates have drawn the largest audiences
in cable television history. The second half of last
week's MSNBC debate was the most watched show
on any channel, with nearly 8 million viewers. An
astonishing 4 million people tuned in to watch
MSNBC's post-debate analysis, an experience so
excruciating that it's as if every person in the Bay
Area picked the same night to jump off the Golden
Gate Bridge.
Josh Romney called speculation
that his father could be back in
the race as either a vice
presidential candidate or even at
the top of the ticket as the GOP's
presidential candidate "possible.
Unlikely, but possible."
The permanent campaign turns out to be the best
reality show ever invented. Any contest that can
sustain that kind of excitement is like the World
Series of poker: The value of the pot goes up with
each hand, and whoever wins it won't be the least
bit sorry that both sides went all-in.
That's not much of an opening and no doubt more
of one than he intended. But from mountain to
prairie, the groundswell is spreading.
Endorsements are flooding in from conservative
bloggers like this one:
No matter how it turns out, all of us who love
politics have to pinch ourselves that we're alive to
see a race that future generations will only read
about. Most campaigns, even winning ones, only
seem historic in retrospect. This time, we already
know it's one for the ages; we just don't know
how, when, or whether it's going to end.
Even journalists who dread spending the next
seven weeks on the Pennsylvania Turnpike have to
shake their heads in wonderment. In the lede of
their lead story in Wednesday's Washington Post,
Dan Balz and Jon Cohen referred to "the
remarkable contest" that could stretch on till
summer. They didn't sign on to spend the spring in
Scranton and Sioux Falls. But, like the rest of us,
they wouldn't miss this amazing stretch of history
for anything. ... 11:59 p.m. (link)
Monday, Feb. 25, 2008
Hope Springs Eternal: With this weekend's
victory in Puerto Rico and even more resounding
triumph over the New York Times, John McCain
moved within 200 delegates of mathematically
clinching the Republican nomination. Mike
Huckabee is having a good time playing out the
string, but the rest of us have been forced to get
on with our lives and accept that it's just not the
same without Mitt.
But soft! What light through yonder window
breaks? Out in Salt Lake City, in an interview with
the Deseret Morning News, Josh Romney leaves
open the possibility that his father might get back
in the race:
Mitt Romney was not my first
choice for a presidential
candidate, but he came third
after Duncan Hunter and Fred
Thompson. … I would love to see
Mitt reenter the race.
Even if re-entry is too much to hope for, Josh hints
that another Romney comeback may be in the
works. He says he has been approached about
running for Congress in Utah's 2nd District.
That, too, may be an unlikely trial balloon. Josh is
just 32, has three young children, and would face a
Democratic incumbent, Rep. Jim Matheson, who is
one of the most popular politicians in the state.
Matheson's father was a governor, too. But unlike
Mitt Romney, Scott Matheson was governor of
Utah.
If Mitt Romney has his eye on the No. 2 spot, Josh
didn't do him any favors. "It's one thing to
campaign for my dad, someone whose principles I
line up with almost entirely," he told the Morning
News. "I can't say the same thing for Sen.
McCain."
Even so, Romney watchers can only take heart that
after a year on the campaign trail, Josh has
bounced back so quickly. "I was not that upset," he
says of his father's defeat. "I didn't cry or
anything."
In his year on the stump, Josh came across as the
most down-to-earth of the Romney boys. He
visited all 99 of Iowa's counties in the campaign
Winnebago, the Mitt Mobile. He joked about his
father's faults, such as "he has way too much
energy." He let a Fox newswoman interview him in
the master bedroom of the Mitt Mobile. (He showed
her the air fresheners.) He blogged about the
moose, salmon, and whale he ate while
campaigning in Alaska—but when the feast was
over, he delivered the Super Tuesday state for his
dad.
As Jonathan Martin of Politico reported last
summer, Josh was campaigning with his parents at
the Fourth of July parade in Clear Lake, Iowa,
when the Romneys ran into the Clintons. After Mitt
told the Clintons how many counties Josh had
visited, Hillary said, "You've got this built-in
campaign team with your sons." Mitt replied, to
Ann's apparent dismay, "If we had known, we
would've had more."
We'll never know whether that could have made
the difference. For now, we'll have to settle for the
unlikely but possible hope that Mitt will come back
to take another bow. ... 4:13 p.m. (link)
Monday, Feb. 11, 2008
Face Time: When Ralph Reed showed up at a
Romney fundraiser last May, Mitt thought he was
Gary Bauer – perpetuating the tiresome stereotype
that like some Reeds, all Christian conservatives
look alike. Now, in Mitt's hour of need, Ralph is
returning the favor. According to the Washington
Times, he and 50 other right-wing leaders met with
Romney on Thursday "to discuss the former
Massachusetts governor becoming the face of
conservatism."
Nothing against Romney, who surely would have
been a better president than he let on. But if he
were "the face of conservatism," he'd be planning
his acceptance speech, not interviewing with Ralph
Reed and friends for the next time around.
Conservatives could not have imagined it would
end this way: the movement that produced Ollie
North, Alan Keyes, and ardent armies of true
believers, now mulling over an arranged marriage
of convenience with a Harvard man who converted
for the occasion. George Will must be reaching for
his Yeats: "Was it for this … that all that blood was
shed?"
For more than a year, Republican presidential
candidates tried to win the Reagan Primary. Their
final tableau came at a debate in the Gipper's
library, with his airplane as a backdrop and his
widow in the front row. It was bad enough to see
them reach back 20 years to find a conservative
president they could believe in, but this might be
worse: Now Romney's competing to claim he's the
biggest conservative loser since Reagan. If McCain
comes up short like Gerald Ford, Mitt wants to
launch a comeback like it's 1976.
Even conservative leaders can't hide their
astonishment over finding themselves in this
position. "If someone had suggested a year ago
and a half ago that we would be welcoming Mitt
Romney as a potential leader of the conservative
movement, no one would have believed it,"
American Conservative Union chairman David
Keene reportedly told the group. "But over the last
year and a half, he has convinced us he is one of
us and walks with us."
Conservative activist Jay Sekulow told the
Washington Times that Romney is a "turnaround
specialist" who can revive conservatism's fortunes.
But presumably, Romney's number-crunching skills
are the last thing the movement needs: there are
no voters left to fire.
To be sure, Mitt was with conservatives when the
music stopped. Right-wing activists who voted in
the CPAC straw poll narrowly supported him over
McCain, 35% to 34%. By comparison, they favored
getting out of the United Nations by 57% to 42%
and opposed a foreign policy based on spreading
democracy by 82% to 15%. Small-government
conservatism trounced social conservatism 59% to
22%, with only 16% for national-security
conservatism.
As voters reminded him more Tuesdays than not,
Mitt Romney is not quite Ronald Reagan. He
doesn't have an issue like the Panama Canal. Far
from taking the race down to the wire, he'll end up
third. While he's a good communicator, many
voters looking for the face of conservatism couldn't
see past what one analyst in the Deseret News
described as the "CEO robot from Jupiter.'"
If anything, Romney was born to be the face of the
Ford wing of the Republican Party – an economic
conservative with only a passing interest in the
other two legs of Reagan's conservative stool. Like
Ford, Mitt won the Michigan primary. He won all
the places he calls home, and it's not his fault his
father wasn't governor of more states.
Romney does have one advantage. With a
conservative president nearing historic lows in the
polls and a presumptive nominee more intent on
leading the country, heading the conservative
movement might be like running the 2002
Olympics – a job nobody else wants.
Paul Erickson, the Romney strategist who
organized the conservative powwow, called
McCain's nomination "an existential crisis for the
Republican Party," and held out Mitt as a possible
Messiah: "You could tell everybody at the table
sitting with Romney was asking himself: 'Is he the
one?'"
Romney has demonstrated many strengths over
the years, but impersonating a diehard
conservative and leading a confused movement out
of the wilderness aren't foremost among them. It
might be time for the right to take up another
existential question: If conservatism needs Mitt
Romney and Ralph Reed to make a comeback, is
there enough face left to save? ... 3:37 p.m. (link)
Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008
Romney, We Hardly Knew Ye: When Mitt
Romney launched his campaign last year, he struck
many Republicans as the perfect candidate. He was
a businessman with a Midas touch, an optimist with
a charmed life and family, a governor who had
slain the Democratic dragon in the blue state
Republicans love to hate. In a race against national
heroes like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, he
started out as a dark horse, but to handicappers,
he was a dark horse with great teeth.
When Democrats looked at Romney, we also saw
the perfect candidate—for us to run against. The
best presidential candidates have the ability to
change people's minds. Mitt Romney never got that
far because he never failed to change his own mind
first.
So when Romney gamely suspended his campaign
this afternoon, there was heartfelt sadness on both
sides of the aisle. Democrats are sorry to lose an
adversary whose ideological marathon vividly
illustrated the vast distance a man must travel to
reach the right wing of the Republican Party.
Romney fans lose a candidate who just three
months ago led the polls in Iowa and New
Hampshire and was the smart pick to win the
nomination.
With a formidable nominee in John McCain, the
GOP won't be sorry. But Romney's farewell at the
Conservative Political Action Committee meeting
shows how far the once-mighty right wing has
fallen. In an introduction laced with barbs in
McCain's direction, Laura Ingraham's description of
Mitt as "a conservative's conservative" said all
there is to say about Romney's campaign and the
state of the conservative movement. If their last,
best hope is a guy who only signed up two years
ago and could hardly convince them he belonged,
the movement is in even worse shape than it
looks.
Had Romney run on his real strength—as an
intelligent, pragmatic, and competent manager—
his road to the nomination might have gone the
way of Rudy Giuliani's. Yet ironically, his eagerness
to preach the conservative gospel brought on his
demise. Romney pandered with conviction. He
even tried to make it a virtue, defending his
conversion on abortion by telling audiences that he
would never apologize for being a latecomer to the
cause of standing up for human life. Conservatives
thanked him for trying but preferred the genuine
article. In Iowa, Romney came in second to a true
believer, and New Hampshire doesn't have enough
diehards to put him over the top.
Romney's best week came in Michigan, when a
sinking economy gave him a chance to talk about
the one subject where his party credentials were in
order. In Michigan, Romney sounded like a 21stcentury version of the business Republicans who
dominated that state in the '50s and '60s—proud,
decent, organization men like Gerald Ford and
George Romney. As he sold his plan to turn the
Michigan economy around, Mitt seemed as
surprised as the voters by how much better he
could be when he genuinely cared about the
subject.
By then, however, he had been too many things to
too many people for too long. McCain was
authentic, Huckabee was conservative, and
Romney couldn't convince enough voters he was
either one.
Good sport to the end, Romney went down
pandering. His swansong at CPAC touched all the
right's hot buttons. He blamed out-of-wedlock
births on government programs, attacks on
religion, and "tolerance for pornography." He got
his biggest applause for attacking the welfare
state, declaring dependency a culture-killing poison
that is "death to initiative."
Even in defeat, he gave glimpses of the Mitt we'll
miss—the lovably square, Father Knows Best figure
with the impossibly wholesome family and perfect
life. He talked about taking "a weed-whacker to
regulations." He warned that we might soon
become "the France of the 21st century." He
pointed out that he had won nearly as many states
as McCain, but joked awkwardly with the
ultraconservative audience that he lost "because
size does matter."
He didn't say whether we'll have the Romneys to
kick around anymore. But with the family fortune
largely intact and five sons to carry on the torch,
we can keep hope alive. In the Salt Lake City paper
this morning, a leading political scientist predicted
that if Democrats win the White House in 2008,
Romney "would automatically be a frontrunner for
2012."
It's hard to imagine a more perfect outcome. For
now, sadness reigns. As the Five Brothers might
say, somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere
children shout; but there is no joy in Mittville—Guy
Smiley has dropped out. ... 5:42 p.m. (link)
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008
Mittmentum: With John McCain on cruise control
toward the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney
finds himself in a desperate quest to rally true
believers – a role for which his even temper and
uneven record leave him spectacularly unsuited.
Romney knows how to tell the party faithful
everything they want to hear. But it's not easy for
a man who prides himself on his optimism, polish,
and good fortune to stir anger and mutiny in the
conservative base. Only a pitchfork rebellion can
stop McCain now, and Luddites won't man the
ramparts because they like your PowerPoint.
So far, the Republican base seems neither shaken
nor stirred. McCain has a commanding 2-1 margin
in national polls, and leads Romney most
everywhere except California, where Mitt hopes for
an upset tonight. Professional troublemakers like
Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are up in arms,
trying to persuade their followers that McCain is
somehow Hillary by other means. On Monday,
Limbaugh did his best imitation of Romney's stump
speech, dubbing Mitt the only candidate who
stands for all three legs of the conservative stool.
Strange bedfellows indeed: Rush-Romney is like a
hot-blooded android – the first DittoheadConehead pairing in galactic history.
On Saturday, Mitt Romney wandered to the back of
his campaign plane and told the press, "These
droids aren't the droids you're looking for." Oddly
enough, that's exactly the reaction most
Republicans have had to his campaign.
But in the home stretch, Romney has energized
one key part of his base: his own family.
Yesterday, the Romney boys set a campaign record
by putting up six posts on the Five Brothers blog –
matching their high from when they launched last
April. Mitt may be down, but the Five Brothers are
back.
The past month has been grim for the happy-golucky Romney boys. They sometimes went days
between posts. When they did post, it was often
from states they had just campaigned in and lost.
Bright spots were hard to come by. After South
Carolina, Tagg found a "Romney girl" video, set to
the tune of "1985," in which a smiling young
Alabaman named Danielle sang of Mitt as the next
Reagan. One commenter recommended raising $3
million to run the clip as a Super Bowl ad; another
asked Danielle out on behalf of his own five sons. A
few days later, Matt put up a clip of a computerized
prank call to his dad, pretending to be Arnold
Schwarzenegger – prompting a priceless exchange
between robo-candidate and Terminator. Then the
real Arnold spoiled the joke by endorsing the real
McCain.
In the run-up to Super Tuesday, however, a spring
is back in the Five Brothers' step. On Sunday, Josh
wrote a post about his campaign trip to Alaska.
Richard Nixon may have lost in 1960 because his
pledge to campaign in all 50 states forced him to
spend the last weekend in Alaska. That didn't stop
Josh Romney, who posted a gorgeous photo of
Mount McKinley and a snapshot of some Romney
supporters shivering somewhere outside Fairbanks,
where the high was 13 below. He wrote, "I
sampled all of the Alaskan classics: moose, salmon
and whale. Oh so good." Eating whale would
certainly be red meat for a liberal crowd, but
conservatives loved it too. "Moose is good stuff,"
one fan wrote. Another supporter mentioned
friends who've gone on missions abroad and "talk
about eating dog, horse, cow stomach, bugs."
Rush, take note: McCain was ordering room service
at the Hanoi Hilton while Mitt was keeping the faith
by choking down tripe in Paris.
The rest of the family sounds like it's on the trail of
big game as well. Ben Romney, the least prolific of
the Five Brothers, didn't post from Thanksgiving
through the South Carolina primary. Yesterday, he
posted twice in one day – with a link to Limbaugh
and a helpful guide to tonight's results, noting that
in the past week members of the Romney family
have campaigned in 17 of 21 states up for grabs
on Super Tuesday. Now we can scientifically
measure the Romney effect, by comparing the
results in those 17 states with the four states
(Idaho, Montana, Connecticut, Arizona) no Romney
visited. After Huckabee's victory in West Virginia,
the early score is 1-0 in favor of no Romneys.
Tagg, the team captain, also posted twice, urging
the faithful to "Keep Fighting," and touting Mitt's
evangelical appeal: "The Base Is Beginning to
Rally." Back in June, Tagg joked with readers about
who would win a family farting contest. Now he's
quoting evangelical Christian ministers. The
brothers are so focused on the race, they haven't
even mentioned their beloved Patriots' loss,
although there has been no word from young
Craig, the one they tease as a Tom Brady
lookalike.
Of course, if the Republican race ends tonight, the
inheritance Mitt has told the boys not to count on
will be safe at last. By all accounts, they couldn't
care less. They seem to share Tagg's easy-come-
easy-go view that no matter what happens, this
will have been the best trip the family has ever
taken, and this time no dogs were harmed along
the way (just moose, salmon, and whale).
At the moment, the Five Brothers must feel the
same nostalgia to keep going that the rest of us
will feel for their antics when they're gone. Back
when the campaign began, Tagg joked that they
would love their father win or lose, although he
might become something of a national
laughingstock in the meantime. Mitt did his part,
but whatever happens tonight, he can be proud the
firewall he cares most about – his family – has held
up its end of the bargain. ... 6:15 p.m. (link)
today's blogs
Al-Qaida's End?
By Michael Weiss
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 5:21 PM ET
Bloggers analyze two stories about how al-Qaida may be
alienating fellow jihadists. And should Barack Obama tour Iraq
with John McCain?
Al-Qaida's end? Lawrence Wright, author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11,
has a lengthy profile in The New Yorker of Sayyid Imam alSharif, a former al-Qaida strategist and now one of the terror
group's fiercest critics. Meanwhile, Peter Bergen and Paul
Cruickshank offer their thoughts in the New Republic on the
mounting disaffection for Osama Bin Laden and his crew among
Muslims in Europe and Asia. Is this the "beginning of the end"
for al-Qaida, the "end of the beginning" of the war on terror at
large, or neither?
Cruickshank, the co-author of the New Republic piece,
elaborates on Counterterrorism Blog: "[T]he new wave of
criticism coming from key figures in the jihadist movement has
real extra bite, because it is very difficult for Bin Laden to
dismiss the arguments of jihadist leaders who once fought at his
side. ... To the degree that this makes radical leaning youngsters
from London to Lahore think twice about joining al Qaeda, this
could be a watershed moment in the war on terrorism." Merv at
Prairie Pundit says: "When two liberal publications both
published articles premised on our enemy's falling apart, I see a
trend. Of course both see the internal disintegration resulting
from something other than the pressure put on them by the US
war."
But Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden
unit, dismisses the articles in a guest post at Wired's Danger
Room: "The recent spate of articles about the so-called civil war
within al-Qaeda are the products of Western- and wishfulthinking. Almost all of the 'critics' of bin Laden and al-Qaeda
that have been cited are jihadi-has-beens; men with personal
grudges against bin Laden and/or al-Zawahiri; or men who are
saying what the Egyptian and Saudi governments tell them to
say in order to get a bit less horrendous treatment in the prisons
in which they are incarcerated." "Dangerous naivety" is how
Melanie Phillips terms the New Republic argument in a
trenchant post at the London Spectator blog.
Sonny Bunch at Doublethink Online frames the al-Qaida
crackup against broader gains in the war on terror: "[N]ote the
decrease in attacks around the world that Fareed writes about in
this week's Newsweek. [Article here.] Knock on wood, attacks
in Iraq are cratering as well, suggesting that we're doing a pretty
good job of killing them over there so we won't have to fight
them over here."
John Wohlstetter at war-and-security-focused Letter From the
Capitol is optimistic: "If winning Afghanistan was the End of
the Beginning, this might be the Beginning of the End. Only the
specter of WMD terror makes even a failing al-Qaeda potentially
very dangerous still." Seattle blogger Martian Bracelets at Hex
Message concludes tersely: "[Y]ou cannot read the article
without realizing that the angry 'Arab Street' of 2002 is now
sitting down at a cafe for a serious re-evaluation." Conservative
Diplomad credits the West with inflicting "a series of defeats on
the jihadists, and influential Muslims are waking up to the fact
that following the violent ones will only lead to more defeat and
misery for Muslims."
Steven Corman at COMOPS Journal, a blog that focuses on
security and diplomacy from a "human communication
perspective," finds much to commend but adds:
"Notwithstanding their own image problems, the extremists'
propaganda punch relies on damning the West with its own
actions, showing how it fails to live up to its own values. I would
add that we are also playing into the extremist narrative."
issue—because if he does actually go to Iraq, will it look like
McCain's idea? There are certainly a few other pros to McCain's
line of attack here: It moves the issue terrain to ground on which
the Arizona senator is comfortable (Iraq), and it makes McCain
look like the knowledgeable and experienced one." (On the other
hand, Montanaro points out, we'll probably see more video of
McCain's infamous stroll through Baghdad, and Obama could
have a "commander in chief moment.")
Conservative Provocateur Mike Volpe says it was unwise of
Obama to refuse the invite: "McCain can claim that 1) Barack
Obama is making military decisions without seeing the facts on
the ground, and 2) he is more willing to meet with Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad than General David Petraeus and the men and
women that are so bravely fighting for our freedom. Like I said,
heads I win, tails you lose."
Lefty Ric Caric at Red State Impressions thinks Obama should
go: "[I]t would be a tremendous opportunity for Barack Obama
to look presidential. People in the U.S. are dying for some
authoritative voice on opposition to the war and Obama could be
that voice. Specifically, he could publicly inform Gens.
Petraueus and Odierno that the American people oppose the war,
he opposes the war, and that he would definitely order a
withdrawal if he were elected president."
Allahpundit at Hot Air snarks: "Just so we're clear, a 'political
stunt' would be letting McCain cow him into a joint trip to Iraq.
Letting McCain cow him into a solo trip? Not a stunt. It's
amazing how a townhall meeting carried across the dial on cable
news can concentrate the mind, I guess."
Noam Scheiber at the New Republic's Stump thinks it's not the
safest political bet: "My hunch is that McCain really wants to
debate Iraq. … I guess I respect that on some level. And,
politically, it does reinforce his truth-teller, 'I'd rather lose an
election than lose a war' image. But, assuming Obama is able to
establish a minimum level of national security credibility, which
I think he will, McCain may be making a strategic mistake."
Read more about McCain's invitation to Obama.
Read more about the al-Qaida stories.
Traveling companions: John McCain's been criticizing Barack
Obama for his willingness to sit down with America's enemies
but his reluctance to talk to Gen. Petraeus or go to Iraq. Obama
last toured the country in 2006, and McCain has offered a joint
visit during the general-election campaign, which he hopes will
change Obama's perceptions of the war. Obama parried the offer
as a "stunt" though now he says he plans to visit Mesopotamia
solo in the near future.
Domenico Montanaro at MSNBC's First Read sees a few net
positives for McCain: "Has McCain boxed Obama in on this
today's blogs
Scott Free
By Michael Weiss
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 3:50 PM ET
Bloggers are reacting to former Bushie Scott McClellan's
scathing new book and wondering if former-U.N. Ambassador
John Bolton will really be subjected to a citizen's arrest in the
United Kingdom.
Scott free: Politico has excerpted former White House press
secretary Scott McClellan's new memoir, What Happened. And
what happened is that McClellan went from Bush loyalist to firebreathing critic. Among the many charges McClellan levels at
the administration are its use of propaganda to coax the country
into war in Iraq, its deceptions about the Plame affair, and its
"state of denial" after Hurricane Katrina.
At the Tribune Co.'s Swamp, Mark Silva isn't surprised: "Of
course, this is the McClellan who had to stand at the press
podium of the West Wing and assert that Rove, the president's
former deputy chief of staff, had no knowledge of the leaking of
the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the press after her
husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, publicly accused the Bush
administration of manipulating intelligence to make its case for
the invasion of Iraq. Seems like suitable cause for resentment."
Not all liberals are ready to embrace McClellan's new attitude
toward the Bush administration. Bill at Daily Kos writes: "Once
again, we come face to face with a White House official who
could've done the right thing ... but instead decided that the lives
of American troops, Iraqi civilians, Katrina victims, and a
network of covert CIA operatives were worth less than the luster
of his master's lapel pin. When our country needed him to tell it
straight, he hid behind propaganda and spin and bogus talking
points and outright bamboozlement." David Corn at CQPolitics
has an idea for McClellan: "If he were truly contrite about his
involvement in a deceptive, propaganda-wielding administration,
McClellan could demonstrate his sincerity by pledging that all
profits from his belated truth-telling will go to charities
supporting the families of American soldiers killed or injured in
Iraq." And Jason Zengerle at the New Republic's Plank writes:
"So kudos to McClellan. His book displays a calculating mind
that was never much in evidence in the White House press
room."
Zengerle proves a point made by the Weekly Standard's Stephen
Hayes, who claims a dim bulb has written a seedy tell-all: "Ask
fifty Washington reporters for an assessment of Scott McClellan
and forty-nine of them will give you some version of this: He's a
nice guy who was in way over his head. (Most of them will be
tougher in their analysis of his intellect.)"
Conservatives (well, except for Andrew Sullivan) are
predictably unimpressed. James Joyner at Outside the Beltway
writes that McClellan "was a Bush confidante, dutifully passed
on the administration's talking points, and participated in all the
things he's now saying were so awful. So he was either lying to
us then or he's lying to us now. Why should we take him at his
word? Either a man has integrity or he doesn't." Jules
Crittenden says: "There's always a demand for a professional
liar. There's always a demand for professional saps who will
swallow and spit up whatever you want. The thing is, you want
your hired gun to stay bought."
And Seth Liebsohn at National Review Online's Corner sighs: "I
think this genre of book is losing its cachet, and people are
getting a little tired of the game which goes something like this:
Get a high-level job, make your name and reputation, do an
average job at it, then write a book after you leave that helps
nobody but bolsters your own reputation at the expense of those
without book contracts. It's one of the uglier things in
Washington, and as I say, I think its days will soon be over.
People are tired of it."
A passage about the media's acquiescence to the Bush war plan
for Iraq should "forever slay the single most ludicrous myth in
our political culture: The 'Liberal Media,'" according to lefty
Glenn Greenwald.
Could it be just business? FishbowlDC is "sure that McClellan
means what he says, but lots of Washingtonians think poorly of
their successors but bite their tongue and play the role of a good
soldier. So why didn't McClellan do this? Simple: Speaking out
against the Bush administration in such harsh tones is simply a
smart career move by McClellan."
Read more about McClellan's tell all.
Put 'em up, John: George Monbiot, a columnist for the
Guardian, has called former U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations John Bolton a "war criminal," and planned to stage a
"citizen's arrest" when both men are at the Hay-on-Wye literary
festival on Wednesday in Wales. (Read his comprehensive list of
charges against Bolton here.) Color bloggers skeptical.
Lawhawk at A Blog For All offers a pointed history lesson and
adds: "The same people who bray about the US failing to
intervene in Darfur and Burma want to see President Bush and
other Administration officials hauled up on war crimes charges
on Iraq, even though they took down a regime that engaged in
the same kind of ethnic cleansing and genocidal activities that
they see in Burma and Darfur.""
While Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones' Mojo Blog is more
sympathetic to Monbiot's would-be lit-festival collar:
"Considering John Bolton thinks attacking Iran is America's
'most prudent' foreign policy option at the moment, it might
make sense for somebody to detain him before he (har har!)
strikes again. Okay, maybe that isn't funny."
Norman Geras responds in earnest to Monbiot's plaint: "Hasn't
George been rather remiss in the matter of arrests up to now? I'm
not suggesting that he, personally, should have to make all the
arrests that are needed because of the putatively illegal war, but
he might have essayed at least one or two before Bolton's visit to
Hay. Any member of Tony Blair's 'war criminal' cabinet would
have done. It's puzzling why Monbiot should have been so tardy
about this."
Rick Moran at American Thinker fumes: "Moonbat's barely
concealed call for an assault of some kind on Bolton won't get
him into trouble if only because he won't be in the thick of any
scrum between the bobbies and the citizens who try to carry out
his wacky scheme. He will be too busy composing a column
bragging how close he came to bringing Bolton to justice." And
Brit blogger Gary Bowman of Fresh Green Beast concludes:
"Talk about shameless grandstanding. Monbiot is like the Paris
Hilton of politics -- if he weren't so loathsome, I'd probably feel
sorry for him."
Read more about Monbiot's planned citizen's arrest of Bolton.
two quotes. Imagine the headlines about how he was
disrespecting the memories of fallen servicepeople and how he
was such a pompous moron to ignore and belittle the
overwhelmingly massive contributions of the Russians in WWII,
who frankly had more to do with defeating the Nazis than
America did (in my relatively knowledgeable opinion). … The
accusations of dumbness and chimp-like brain power would be
coming at you like a tsunami."
Conservative Michelle Malkin thinks that Obama has raised the
bar for gaffes: "Either Obama's uncle served in the Red Army, or
he's spinning Clintonesque lies about Auschwitz to sell his
government programs. Hey, it's for a good cause…but it's not
enough for him. It has to be personal. It has to be all about him.
… I think the Obamessiah just out Tuzla'd Hillary. The man
is…nefarious."
today's blogs
Obama's Forgettable Memorial Day
By Michael Weiss
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 5:10 PM ET
Conservative bloggers are parsing Barack Obama's gaffe-filled
Memorial Day speech, and everyone else is in a tizzy over Emily
Gould's confessions-of-a-blogger New York Times Magazine
cover story.
Obama's forgettable Memorial Day: Conservative bloggers are
fired up over Barack Obama's Memorial Day speech, in which
he said, "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its
unbroken line of fallen heroes—and I see many of them in the
audience here today—our sense of patriotism is particularly
strong" and talked about how his uncle helped liberate
Auschwitz, a task actually accomplished by the Red Army. (Late
Tuesday, Obama's camp clarified that the candidate meant to say
Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.)
Ed Morissey at Hot Air sighs: "Does Obama see dead people?
Coming from Chicago, one might be tempted to joke that they
would form a natural portion of his constituency, but obviously
Obama confused this with Veterans Day, which honors our
living veterans of war. Unfortunately, most of the nation makes
the same mistake, and small wonder when its leadership can't
distinguish between the two." Conservative Jimmie at the
Sundries Shack says: "I'm going to call his verbal boners 'Duhbamas' in honor of the man who graces us with them so very,
very often."
Riehl World View snipes: "Watch the Left scream about how
this was a simple gaffe. But had it been Bush, it would be proof
that he's a moron…But given Obama's positioning and the fact
that he is a Dem - the party always afraid of looking weak on the
military - this was a disastrous place for this type of truly stupid
gaffe." Adds conservative Rachel Lucas: "Here's a thought
exercise: imagine Dubya making blatant factual errors like these
McQ at QandO Blog points out that Obama's comment about
seeing "fallen heroes" in the audience was an ad-lib (it's not
included in the prepared remarks) and decides that Obama
should stick to the script: "Of course all pols say things like this
from time to time, but in Obama's case, these sorts of utterances
seem to be increasing and only reinforcing the growing belief
that he's not really ready for prime-time." Tom Maguire at
JustOneMinute concurs: "What's interesting is that we have
seen that Obama is a very ordinary impromptu speaker who
normally does a great job delivering prepared remarks; now he
has gotten fluff-mouth even with a teleprompter. Yikes!"
Read more about Obama's Memorial Day gaffe.
Emily exposed: The New York Times Magazine is under fire for
its Sunday cover story, written by former Gawker-ite Emily
Gould about the perils of blogging about one's emotional and
sexual travails. Bloggers are complaining about her narcissism
and her failure to distinguish her own confessional style of
blogging from the medium's more outer-directed uses.
As might be expected, Gawker was all over the story before,
during, and after its publication online. Ryan Tate even
contacted a source at the Times to ask why comments on Gould's
piece were turned off after 700 had been posted. Evidently, the
paper of record needed its comment-trolling staff to redirect their
attentions elsewhere. To which Tate says: "It still seems a bit
absurd that the Times would take pride in stoking an online
discussion when it doesn't have the staff to manage that
discussion. It is also self-defeating of the newspaper to rob
paying print subscribers of the ability to comment on a story just
because it was released early online to freeloaders."
Megan's Minute sort of liked the piece, but: "Yes, she gave us a
look into the world of high pressure blogging---12 posts a day
after all----yes she shared her eventual regret about revealing
personal details of her life and of those close to her, and yes she
eventually quit her job at Gawker. But what I didn't get was a
genuine sense of where she was in the world and what her
aspirations might be based on the experiences in those ten
pages."
opportunity for al-Qaida to grow, Hayden now says great
progress has been made, and al-Qaida is struggling to survive in
Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Municipalist, a blogger who blogs about, um, blogging,
banishes Gould from its dominion: "[T]he Emily Goulds of the
world have every right to blog and blog and blog, about their
boyfriends and breakups and tatoos. But someday, soon we
believe, 'blogging' and the 'blogosphere' will mean something
completely new. It will mean problem solving and coalition
building. It won't mean ranting, and pointless anonymous
comments, etc. And it won't mean Emily Gould."
The Los Angeles Times leads with word that the UCLA Medical
Center performed a liver transplant on the leader of one of
Japan's most violent gangs. The surgery was performed by
UCLA's "most accomplished liver surgeon," who also performed
transplants on three other men who are now forbidden from
entering the country because of their ties to criminal activities.
Meanwhile, more than 100 people died in the Los Angeles area
waiting for a transplant. The Wall Street Journal's world-wide
newsbox leads with the Texas Supreme Court's agreeing that
state officials acted illegally when they seized hundreds of
children from the compound of a polygamist sect. USA Today
leads with an analysis that shows there are fewer people living in
hurricane high-risk areas, which had experienced huge growth in
previous years. Experts say this trend has more to do with the
decline of the housing market rather than a growing trepidation
of settling down in disaster-prone areas. "Memories are short,
and when the economy does recover, you'll see people snap up
those properties in coastal areas again," the president of the
Insurance Information Institute said.
Peter Suderman, guest blogging for Megan McArdle, is more
lenient: "The combined lure of easy content and personal
attention is tough to resist; Gould didn't, and the distinction
between her online life and everything essentially disappeared.
The author and the subject became one. Does Gould deserve
criticism for this? Perhaps. But it's also a function of the medium
-- its pace, its content demands, and even its readers, who
encourage personal revelation. The blogosphere always pulls
this way. It's magnetized toward self-obsession."
Daily Intel, New York magazine's blog, writes: "Millions of
people blog, many of them about themselves. But if past work is
anything to judge by, we're not going to be reading about them
this weekend. Except for the ones Gould slept with." Rachel
Sklar, in a lengthy takedown at the Huffington Post's Eat the
Press, concludes: "Not everyone navel-gazes so completely, or
uses the pronoun 'I'so reflexively — there are many people doing
great work online writing on topics other than themselves.
Sometimes, Gould is even one of them; alas, not this time."
Read more about Gould's piece.
today's papers
Clean Break
By Daniel Politi
Friday, May 30, 2008, at 6:18 AM ET
The New York Times leads with a look at how one of the most
important projects that was supposed to help in the fight against
global warming faces an uncertain future. The promise of "clean
coal," which involves burying carbon dioxide emitted from coalburning power plants, has excited many politicians and
environmentalists, but developing the technology to turn the
dream into a reality has turned out to be more complicated than
initially imagined. The Washington Post leads with an interview
with CIA Director Michael Hayden, who provided a "strikingly
upbeat assessment" on the fight against al-Qaida. Even though
the CIA had previously warned that the Iraq war had provided an
No one thinks coal is going away anytime soon, because it's
"abundant and cheap," so there were once high hopes that
burying the emissions from coal-burning power plants would
provide an effective way to control global warming. But
recently, many projects that were supposed to be the jumping-off
point to create "clean coal" have been canceled because of high
costs and regulatory problems. There was a huge setback when
increased costs led the government to pull out of subsidizing one
of the most promising projects to build a plant in Illinois that
could have been a test-study on how to build a new type of
power plant. Now the fear is that companies are so frustrated
with the slow pace of development that the next generation of
power plants will be built using existing technology.
In his interview with the Post, Hayden was sure to emphasize
that al-Qaida is still a threat that must be taken seriously but that
"on balance, we are doing pretty well." Not only has the United
States been successful in its attacks against some of al-Qaida's
core leadership, the "Islamic world" has also been increasingly
rejecting "their form of Islam," Hayden said. Many terrorism
experts agree that there have been recent gains, but they also
caution that it's too early to know whether they will last. AlQaida's "obituary has been written far too often in the past few
years for anyone to declare victory," one analyst said. And while
experts are sure to credit the intelligence community for some of
the gains, they also point out that al-Qaida may ultimately be
responsible for its own downfall. "One of the lessons we can
draw from the past two years is that al-Qaida is its own worst
enemy," a former CIA counterterrorism official said. Now
Hayden says one of his biggest concerns is that recent gains will
turn into complacency among government officials and the
general population.
The LAT reveals that the FBI helped the Japanese gang leader
get a visa to enter the United States in exchange for information.
But officials say he left after the transplant without providing
any useful information. He was then forbidden from entering the
United States again, so the UCLA surgeon traveled to Japan to
examine the gang leader. Although the surgeon insists it's not his
job to pass judgment on those who need his help, some
bioethicists and transplant experts said the news is troubling,
particularly because there are so few livers to go around. "If you
want to destroy public support for organ donation on the part of
Americans, you'd be hard pressed to think of a practice that
would be better suited," one bioethicist said.
Everybody reports that the two top Democrats in Congress
publicly predicted the primary race will come to an end soon
after the last two contests on Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both emphasized in
separate public appearances that they're determined not to allow
the race to continue until the convention. To that end, the two
leaders have been contacting uncommitted superdelegates to
push them to make up their minds after voters in South Dakota
and Montana go to the polls on Tuesday. "By this time next
week, it'll be all over, give or take a day," Reid said.
Scott McClellan went on a media tour yesterday to push back
against criticism from former colleagues for his memoir that
takes a critical look at the Bush administration. "The White
House clearly did not want me out talking candidly about these
events," the former White House spokesman told USAT. The WP
fronts an interview with McClellan, who says he didn't set out to
write such a critical book, but his feelings hardened after he
started to seriously look back on his years in Washington. "Over
time, as you leave the White House and leave the bubble, you're
able to take off your partisan hat and take a clear-eyed look at
things," he said. Indeed, a "publishing industry insider" said that
McClellan's initial idea for a memoir made it seem like he would
write "a not-very-interesting, typical press secretary book." In
his interviews, McClellan said there were "two defining
moments" that really led to his disillusionment with the Bush
administration. One had to do with how he was "deceived into
unknowingly passing along a falsehood" relating to the outing of
Valerie Plame, and the other was when the president admitted he
had authorized the leak of classified information.
The NYT reveals the State Department has canceled all Fulbright
grants awarded to Palestinian students in Gaza because Israel
hasn't given them permission to leave the coastal strip. Many
Israeli officials say the policy of isolating Gaza is having the
desired effect, since Palestinians are losing faith in the Hamas
government. But some say the policy has gone too far if it
doesn't allow students to leave and pursue educational
opportunities around the world. "This policy is not in keeping
with international standards or with the moral standards of
Jews," said the leader of the Israeli Parliament's education
committee.
The WP fronts, and everyone mentions, news that at least part of
the mystery surrounding Stonehenge appears to have been
solved. Researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine that
the site was used as a burial ground for what archaeologists think
may have been a single family that ruled the area for a long time.
"Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its
zenith in the mid-third millennium B.C," the archeologist who
led the project said.
Will there be slides? The WP's Reliable Source notes La Scala
offiicials announced that they have commissioned a composer to
turn Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth into an opera. The Milan
opera house plans to debut the show in its 2011 season. "We
were hoping for interpretive dance, but whatever," the Reliable
Source said.
today's papers
You Can Take It With You
By Daniel Politi
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 6:14 AM ET
The New York Times leads with news that New York will begin
to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in another
state or country. Gov. David Paterson directed state agencies
earlier this month to begin revising policies and regulations so
the change can take effect. Gay married couples "should be
afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed
union," the governor's legal counsel wrote in a memo sent to
state agencies. USA Today leads with Dow Chemical's
announcement that it will increase prices by as much as 20
percent. This marked the latest in a series of price boosts by big
companies and is leading to concern that higher energy and food
prices will spark "a full-blown episode of inflation."
The Los Angeles Times leads with a look at the Democratic
Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting that will take
place on Saturday to try to determine whether the delegates from
Michigan and Florida will be seated at the convention in August.
Many have been lobbying the "obscure panel of 30 party
insiders" who are used to working behind the scenes but lately
have been receiving hundreds of e-mails from supporters of both
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Wall Street
Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with the Chinese
government declaring that its response to the earthquake has
been a success and saying that the country would be ready to
carry out its duties as host of the Olympics. Almost 20,000
people are still officially missing from the earthquake that killed
68,000. The Washington Post leads with a look at how grassroots organizations, as well as groups of private citizens, have
been providing much-needed aid and relief work to help the
survivors of the earthquake. The Communist government, which
normally keeps close track of nongovernmental organizations
and requires them to register, is standing aside and letting these
private citizens help.
Paterson's initiative would make New York the first state to
forbid weddings for gay men and lesbians while also recognizing
those that are legally performed elsewhere. The NYT says the
move is the "strongest signal yet" that Paterson intends to "push
aggressively to legalize same-sex unions as governor."
Recognizing these unions is as far as the state can go without the
state Legislature, which holds the power to allow same-sex
marriages in New York. The directive sent to state agencies cited
a New York appeals court ruling that said the state must
recognize all legal marriages from other jurisdictions unless the
Legislature specifically decides to prohibit their recognition.
Dow Chemicals said it is being forced to carry out an across-theboard price hike due to increasing energy costs. The move is
particularly significant because Dow Chemicals is one of the
world's largest chemical manufacturers, and its products are used
to make a wide variety of consumer goods. Dow's CEO issued a
statement where he squarely put the blame on Washington for
failing to deal with "rising energy costs and, as a result, the
country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing
serious harm."
The NYT off-leads, and the WP goes inside, with news that
Clinton's hopes to get the delegates from Michigan and Florida
seated at the convention were dealt a clear setback yesterday.
Democratic National Committee lawyers wrote a memo saying
that both states must lose at least half of their total delegate votes
as a punishment for violating party rules and holding their
primaries earlier than Feb. 5. That means the state delegations
could be cut in half or each delegate would get only half a vote.
It seems that Obama's campaign would be willing to accept this
outcome, but Clinton and her supporters could decide to take the
argument to the convention. As the LAT makes clear, "Clinton
would not close the gap" even if she got everything she wanted
from the meeting "and went on to perform spectacularly in the
final primaries." At least some Clinton supporters in the rules
committee seem to accept that this is the case. "At the end of the
day, what we do on Saturday is not going to change the fact that
Obama is going to win the nomination," said one.
Now that Obama has almost clinched the Democratic
nomination, his policy proposals are getting closer scrutiny, and
the WP fronts a look at how there simply isn't much there. In his
few years in the Senate, Obama hasn't picked up a "signature
domestic issue" or given any hints that he intends to take the
Democratic Party in a new direction on policy issues. During the
primaries it became clear that, unlike Republicans, Democrats
pretty much agree on the big issues, a strategy that seems to be
working since independents are also more likely to agree with
their views. But Obama is sure to come under fire from McCain,
who can appeal to independents by highlighting how he has
disagreed with his own party in the past. Of course, Obama
supporters say their candidate offers more than policy proposals
and is advocating for a change in tone and leadership style. His
campaign also says that after the primary contest is over, more
staff will be dedicated to policy issues so that Obama can go into
greater detail about where he wants to take the country.
The LAT and WP front news that more than 100 countries
reached an agreement to create a new international convention
banning the use of cluster bombs. The United States, along with
Russia, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan, refused to support the
international ban on the weapons that consists of many
"bomblets" designed to explode on impact. In reality, many fail
to explode and cause a lasting hazard for civilians. The most
important turnaround came when British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown ignored pressure from the United States, as well as
members of his own military, and decided to back the ban. U.S.
officials say cluster bombs are an important part of the country's
arsenal and insist that technological advances will mean that
future cluster bombs won't suffer from the same deficiencies.
The NYT's Jacques Steinberg writes about how the WP's Howard
Kurtz interviewed Kimberly Dozier, a CBS journalist, on his
weekend CNN show even though his wife, Sheri Annis, was a
paid publicist for Dozier's memoir. Kurtz mentioned the
connection at the end of the interview, but some say he shouldn't
have even invited Dozier on his show. At first it seems like
another story about what Steinberg calls the "complicated tangle
in the complex world of Mr. Kurtz," which has been written
about plenty. But readers that stay until the end of the story get a
little rewarding nugget. As part of her media calls to drum up
interest in the memoir, Annis contacted Steinberg "and identified
herself, in part, as 'Howard Kurtz's wife.' "
The LAT reports that a small brewery in Weed, Calif., has come
under the sights of the federal government because it decided to
print the words Try Legal Weed on the bottle caps of Weed Ales.
The U.S. Treasury Department says the marketing ploy can't be
used because it alludes to using marijuana, and it's "false and
misleading" because a buyer could be confused about what's
inside the bottle. "They sell Bud. We sell Weed," the brewery's
owner said. "What's the difference?"
today's papers
Supreme Turn
By Daniel Politi
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 6:29 AM ET
The New York Times and Washington Post lead with the
Supreme Court ruling that federal civil rights laws that protect
workers against discrimination also cover those who faced
retaliation for complaining about bias in the workplace. The Los
Angeles Times devotes its top nonlocal spot to the twin decisions
that said workers, including federal employees, are protected
from retaliation, even if the federal laws don't explicitly say so.
The majority in the 7-2 and 6-3 decisions emphasized that the
justices relied on Supreme Court precedent that had previously
found an implied right to sue for retaliation. The decisions don't
really change the broad outlines of employment law, but they
were somewhat surprising coming from a Supreme Court that
had been keeping itself busy by issuing a series of pro-business
rulings and limiting the rights of workers.
The Wall Street Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with Sen.
John McCain announcing that he would reduce the number of
nuclear weapons in the United States if he's elected president. In
a speech that aides said marked a break with President Bush,
McCain vowed to work more closely with Russia on nuclear
disarmament. Although McCain said nuclear weapons are "still
important to deter an attack," he emphasized that "we must seek
to do all we can to ensure that nuclear weapons will never again
be used." USA Today leads with economists' warning that
housing prices are likely to continue declining, even as a new
survey detailed that they've already experienced their sharpest
drop in at least 20 years. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller
Home Price Index, which was created in 1988, home prices
dropped a record 14.1 percent in the first three months of the
year compared with the first quarter of last year. "We forecast
another 10 percent drop from current levels and bottoming out in
2009," one economic analyst said.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court found itself in an unusual position
where it was praised by civil rights advocates and criticized by
business groups. The WP mentions that some are wondering
whether the court was reacting to the condemnation it received
after last year's decision that prevented a worker from suing her
employer for pay discrimination. The NYT called it "especially
significant" that Chief Justice John Roberts joined a decision that
mentioned the importance of adhering to precedent when he has
previously spoken about his "distaste for precedents in which the
court has gone beyond a statute's text to infer a basis for a
lawsuit." USAT says the rulings are an "intriguing development"
for a group of justices who chose to go against precedent in
several rulings last year that dealt with a variety of issues,
including abortion and campaign finance.
The WP fronts an early look at former White House press
secretary Scott McClellan's new memoir that is surprisingly
critical of the Bush administration. What Happened: Inside the
Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception will
be released next week, but the WP, NYT, and WSJ were able to
buy a copy yesterday. (Politico beat all the papers with its own
account that was posted yesterday afternoon.) The NYT points
out that the book is particularly notable because it "is the first
negative account by a member of the tight circle of Texans" who
followed Bush to Washington. McClellan writes that the
administration carried out a "political propaganda campaign" to
convince the public about the need to invade Iraq.
McClellan also says he was deceived about the role that Karl
Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby played in the outing of CIA
operative Valerie Plame. In a potentially explosive bit,
McClellan suggests that Rove and Libby may have coordinated
their stories about the Plame leak during a secret meeting.
Overall, Bush is portrayed as a president obsessed with winning
a second term, which "meant operating continually in campaign
mode: never explaining, never apologizing, never retreating." He
also has harsh words about the way the administration handled
Hurricane Katrina and is critical of the press ("complicit
enablers") as well as several members of the administration,
including Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The LAT is alone in noting up high that experts say McCain's
nuclear policy speech "marked a less dramatic break from the
current administration than his campaign suggested." The one
thing everyone can agree on, though, is that yesterday provided a
revealing glimpse at how McCain is playing a delicate balancing
act as he tries to win over big Republican donors while also
highlighting his independence from the unpopular president.
After the speech that McCain's aides were eagerly touting as a
break with the president, the presumptive nominee went to
Phoenix and joined Bush at a fundraiser. The event was held
behind closed doors, and the two made time only for a brief
photo op at the airport that lasted less than a minute. But even
though they kept their joint public appearance to a minimum, the
day's events provided plenty of material for Sen. Barack Obama
to point out that McCain is trying to hide his connections with
Bush because he "doesn't want to be seen, hat in hand, with the
president whose failed policies he promises to continue for
another four years."
The WP fronts a look at how more Americans are filing for
bankruptcy even though a 2005 law made the whole process
more difficult and expensive. The total number of bankruptcy
filings increased 38 percent last year compared with 2006, in an
ominous sign of how many people are struggling to get by in the
United States. Although filing for bankruptcy was once more
common among those who had abrupt life changes, such as a
divorce or illness, experts say all types of people who simply
have too much debt are choosing to pursue such a drastic
measure. "It is pretty widespread because there are widespread
problems in the economy," one economist said.
The NYT points out that many angry parents of the estimated
10,000 children who died in China's earthquake are abandoning
their usual apprehension about confronting the Communist
government. Parents are getting together at informal gatherings
to angrily demand that the government investigate why so many
schools collapsed and punish those responsible for what appears
to have been shoddy construction work. Even more out of the
ordinary is the fact that protesters are angrily confronting
government officials in the streets, and there have been clashes
with the police that left several people injured. Officials are
insisting that they will investigate but say they must first deal
with the needs of survivors.
The LAT says that the paparazzi have found a new favorite
target: Miley Cyrus. Although the 15-year-old star of Hannah
Montana is nowhere near as famous as the likes of Britney
Spears and Lindsay Lohan, the number of photographers that
chronicle her every move has increased in the past few months.
Photographers report that after her infamous not-quite-nude
picture appeared in Vanity Fair, following Cyrus around
suddenly became more lucrative. But, so far at least, Cyrus has
avoided Spears-like attention simply because she's boring by
tabloid standards. "You're not going to get cocaine-snorting,
addled teen queens, are you?" the co-owner of a big paparazzi
agency said. "The first kiss is going to be worth a lot of money."
today's papers
A Military Touch
By Daniel Politi
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 6:23 AM ET
The New York Times leads with a new report issued by the
International Atomic Energy Agency that accuses Iran of failing
to answer questions about its nuclear program. In what the NYT
characterizes as "an unusually blunt and detailed report," the
United Nations nuclear watchdog calls on Tehran to counter
allegations of military involvement in its nuclear program. The
Los Angeles Times leads with a look at how the two top
presidential contenders campaigned in New Mexico yesterday in
a poignant sign of how important a few Western states will be in
the November election. President Bush won Colorado, Nevada,
and New Mexico by a very slim margin four years ago, and the
three swing states are an important part of Obama's strategy to
redraw the electoral map.
The Washington Post leads with word that the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute will give $600 million to 56 scientists in the
United States so they can pursue risky, but potentially
groundbreaking, medical research. This is the latest example of
how private philanthropies are swooping in to try to make up for
the ongoing decline in federal research funding. The Wall Street
Journal leads its world-wide newsbox with aid groups pushing
the Burmese government to allow a larger international relief
effort in the country to assist the 2.4 million survivors of
Cyclone Nargis who are in desperate need of help. USA Today
leads with NASA's Phoenix spacecraft that landed on Mars on
Sunday night. Investigators will spend the next few days testing
the equipment and expect the Phoenix to begin digging into the
surface of the Red Planet on Monday.
Besides the NYT, none of the other papers give much play to the
IAEA report and emphasize the agency said it has no evidence
that Iran's military has gotten involved in the country's nuclear
program. For its part, the NYT specifies that 18 documents were
included in the report that claim "Iranians have ventured into
explosives, uranium processing and a missile warhead design,"
which could suggest that nuclear weapons are being developed.
The nuclear watchdog agency also says Iran has failed to
disclose advancements in its nuclear program and suggests the
country could be producing enriched uranium. David Albright, a
former weapons inspector who is the go-to guy for these kinds of
stories, tells the NYT that the "Iranians are being confronted with
some pretty strong evidence of a nuclear weapons program" and
the report "is very damning." But Albright also tells the LAT
there are some key components missing from the report that one
would expect to find in a weapons program. Iran insists the
documents are fakes but has failed to release evidence and
provide access to international inspectors that could verify
Tehran's claims.
There are signs that, just like much of the country, Colorado,
Nevada, and New Mexico are turning away from Republicans.
This trend could work in Obama's favor, particularly when it's
added to the fact that a hard-fought primary campaign has
resulted in tens of thousands of new registered Democratic
voters. But McCain is a westerner in a region where voters have
often turned away from politicians who are seen as big-city
liberals and members of the party establishment. Obama has also
had trouble wooing Latino voters, who make up a significant
part of the population and who could determine who wins the
three Western battleground states. It's therefore no surprise that,
as the WP notes, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson stuck close
to Obama yesterday.
More than three weeks have passed since Cyclone Nargis
devastated large parts of Burma and left at least 134,000 people
dead or missing, but the vast majority of survivors in some of the
worst-hit areas still haven't received any aid. The United Nations
said yesterday that it could reach all the survivors by the end of
the week if it gets permission from the military junta to carry out
operations in the Irrawaddy region. The NYT goes inside with
another heartwrenching dispatch from an isolated village in the
Irrawaddy delta and tells the story of a woman who lost 15
members of her family to the cyclone. But the survivors have
little time to deal with the psychological toll of such huge losses
as they struggle to stay alive without help from the government
or international aid.
The LAT fronts the latest from China, where the government said
that as many as 1.2 million people could be forced to evacuate
because a "barrier lake" formed by the earthquake could
overflow and cause a new disaster. Chinese soldiers, with the
help of international relief efforts, are feverishly working to
prevent the flooding, but some have decided not to wait for
official word and are already moving to higher ground. Earlymorning wire stories report that emergency workers will
evacuate 80,000 people.
Phoenix's mission controllers began cheering after the last few
anxiety-riddled minutes gave way to a picture-perfect landing on
the Red Planet. A couple of hours later, the craft's solar panels
deployed successfully and the Phoenix began sending images
back to Earth. "It could not have gone better, not in my dreams,"
the mission's project manager said.
The WP fronts a look at another example of how the Bush
administration doesn't always follow the president's rhetoric on
not holding talks with tyrannical leaders and dictators. A special
envoy from the administration is set to meet with the Sudanese
president "sometime in the next few weeks," in the latest
overture to a government that has been accused of perpetuating
the Darfur genocide and providing a safe haven for terrorists,
including Osama Bin Laden. Several high-level officials,
including secretaries of state, have also had direct contacts with
the Sudanese president throughout Bush's presidency. "Bush's
Sudan policy has relied more heavily on diplomacy than that of
the Clinton administration," notes the WP.
The New York Times leads with a look at how government
officials are increasingly questioning whether all of the nation's
nonprofit organizations deserve their tax-exempt status. At a
time when nonprofits run businesslike operations, and some
private universities have endowments that total billions of
dollars, there are those who are wondering whether it makes
sense for these organizations to retain a status that costs local
governments somewhere around $8 billion to $13 billion every
year.
The LAT fronts news that Sydney Pollack died of cancer
yesterday. The director, producer, and actor worked with some
of Hollywood's biggest stars throughout his career and was
behind several of the most memorable films from the '70s and
'80s, including They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Tootsie, The
Way We Were, and Out of Africa, for which he received an
Academy Award. More recently, Pollack was a producer and
actor in Michael Clayton and was credited as an executive
producer for HBO's Recount, which premiered on Sunday. He
was 73.
In the WP's op-ed page, Zbigniew Brzezinski and William Odom
write that the Bush administration's policy of dealing with Iran
by offering "sticks" and "carrots" is a strategy that "may work
with donkeys but not with serious countries." The administration
could be more successful if it simply stopped threatening a
military invasion as well as all calls for regime change in
Tehran. "Imagine if China … threatened to change the American
regime if it did not begin a steady destruction of its nuclear
arsenal."
today's papers
A Soft Touch
By Daniel Politi
Monday, May 26, 2008, at 6:17 AM ET
The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times lead with news that
NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed safely on Mars yesterday.
After traveling for 296 days and 422 million miles, the 904pound spacecraft made the first successful soft landing—using a
parachute and thrusters instead of air bags—in Mars since 1976.
Unlike the two rovers that have been exploring the Red Planet's
surface, the Phoenix is designed to stay put in Mars' northern
pole and dig. The material it digs up will then be analyzed with
instruments that are inside the craft, which the WP calls
"miniature chemistry labs." The LAT says the Phoenix is the
"first spacecraft designed to taste the water of an alien planet."
Phoenix is the first to travel directly to a part of Mars where
there is water to try to figure out whether the minerals and
organic processes that are necessary for life actually exist, or
once existed, in the planet. Scientists hope this data will help
them determine whether the region was ever habitable. The
mission is set to last three months.
Last December, the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a ruling
"that sent tremors through the not-for-profit world" when it said
that a small nonprofit day-care center had to pay taxes because it
charged every parent the same price, regardless of their incomes,
reports the NYT. Now Congress is also looking into the issue by
inquiring how churches spend their money, debating if
universities should be required to spend a minimum percentage
of their endowments and looking into whether nonprofit
hospitals should really be exempt from taxes when they operate
pretty much the same way as their for-profit counterparts. Tax
assessors say it's getting increasingly difficult to figure out who
qualifies for exemption when many nonprofits are doing the
same work as for-profit institutions.
The LAT catches late-breaking news that severe thunderstorms
killed at least eight people in Iowa and Minnesota yesterday.
Seven people were killed by a tornado in northeast Iowa that
injured at least 50. "Occasionally we have a death, but we have a
warning system. Seven deaths. It's been a long time since we've
had those kinds of injuries and deaths reported," the Iowa
Homeland Security administrator said.
The WP and NYT go inside with looks at how Sen. Hillary
Clinton continued to deal with the uproar that was caused by her
reference to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on Friday.
Some have said the former first lady was trying to suggest that
she refuses to drop out of the race because her opponent could
be killed. In a letter published by the New York Daily News
yesterday, Clinton wrote that some took her words "entirely out
of context and interpreted them to mean something completely
different—and completely unthinkable." Clinton went on to
emphasize that she was only "making the simple point that given
our history, the length of this year's primary contest is nothing
unusual." Campaign aides said the media and the Obama
campaign were partly responsible for turning the statement into
such a huge deal. Obama's campaign immediately seized the
story on Friday and sent e-mails to reporters to alert them of the
Kennedy statement. But yesterday, the senator's top strategist
said that "as far as we're concerned, this issue is done."
The NYT's Paul Krugman writes that it may almost be
"appropriate" that the last few days of the Democratic primary
have been mired by "yet another fake Clinton scandal."
Although none of this will matter in figuring out who will get
the nomination since Obama has already won, it could have an
effect in the general election if disgruntled Clinton supporters
refuse to back the senator from Illinois. Obama and his
supporters "should realize that the continuing demonization of
Mrs. Clinton serves nobody except Mr. McCain."
The NYT fronts a look at how despite the fact that Clinton has
received millions of votes and came close to reaching the
presidential nomination, she would still go back to the Senate "as
No. 36 out of 49 Democrats." Making the awkwardness worse is
that, assuming she doesn't become the vice president, Clinton
would have to go back to work with colleagues who pointedly
supported Obama. Some contend her increased popularity and
exposure would help her, but none of that changes the simple
fact that "Clinton's relatively junior status limits her options in
the Senate." There are suggestions she might immediately jump
to a leadership spot, but that would have to come at the expense
of more senior members who aren't likely to want to give up
their positions of power.
In the NYT's op-ed page, Helen Benedict writes that the
Department of Veterans Affairs is failing the women who are
coming back from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides the
trauma of combat, female veterans often also have to deal with
the harassment from their colleagues and nearly a third say they
were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military. This
abuse can increase the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, not
to mention other health ailments, but there is currently a great
shortage of programs tailored specifically for women veterans.
"The Department of Veterans Affairs must open more
comprehensive women's health clinics," writes Benedict. "The
best way to honor all of our soldiers is to do what we can to help
them mend. "
In the WP's op-ed page, Maj. Gen. William Troy writes about
the Army's practice of "assigning a general officer to attend the
funeral of every soldier who falls in service to our country."
Troy has attended 23 funerals and struggles to understand the
sacrifice of soldiers and their families. "I've learned that war
most often claims the lives of young kids who go out on patrol
day after day, night after night," writes Troy. "They go with a
singular purpose: to not let their buddies down. Each soldier we
lay to rest shared that goal. They kept faith with their comrades,
even in the face of danger and death. That is the most humbling
lesson of all."
today's papers
The Great Fall of China
By David Sessions
Sunday, May 25, 2008, at 6:48 AM ET
The New York Times leads with Chinese parents' concerns that
badly built, uninspected schools resulted in the unnecessary
deaths of thousands of their children in the earthquake that
shook China's Sichuan Province two weeks ago. The
Washington Post leads with another story about dangerous
buildings killing kids: Trailers used by FEMA to house
Hurricane Katrina victims contained high levels of
formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical found in the lowquality wood used to build the trailers quickly. The Los Angeles
Times leads with an "upending" of the American economy—a
boom for industries that were previously believed to be fading,
even as the technology and finance sectors face large-scale
layoffs.
Schools in the Sichuan Province seemed to have borne a
disproportionate amount of the destruction in the earthquake that
rocked China earlier this month, the NYT reports in a massive
piece that gets most of the paper's front-page real estate.
Examining the decimated Xinjian Primary School in
Dujiangyang, the article notes that the buildings surrounding the
school were by comparison relatively unharmed. Turns out, the
school had a long history of poor construction—parents, many
of whom worked at a nearby cement factory, knew that Xinjian
was unsafe when it opened, and a wing of the school was
demolished in 1992 because it was so far below standards. A
team of structural engineers and "earthquake experts" was asked
by the NYT to examine detailed photos of the destruction, and
"concluded, independently, that inadequate steel reinforcement,
or rebar, was used in the concrete columns supporting the
school. They also found that the school's precast, hollow
concrete slab floors and walls did not appear to be securely
joined together." The 7.9-scale quake was vicious enough to
damage even well-built structures, but schools, affected by lack
of funding and the Chinese government's helter-skelter buildingcode enforcements, paid an especially high price. Parents of the
dead students are beginning to stage demonstrations and demand
that the government be held responsible for the carnage.
FEMA officials ordered $2.7 billion worth of mobile housing for
the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the WP reports, "many
of them using a single page of specifications." The 25 lines of
specifications made no mention of safety requirements, and the
trailers, which were supplied at an unusual speed, led to a public
health crisis affecting as many as 300,000 people. Dangerously
high levels of formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical present
in some of the trailers' wood, led to severe illness and several
deaths among the flood victims. Many of the injured are joining
a class-action lawsuit against the trailer makers and the federal
government. "Weak government contracting, sloppy private
construction, a surge of low-quality wood imports from China
and inconsistent regulation all contributed to the crisis," the
piece summarizes, further noting that the situation is now one
colossal government blame game, the cost of which "will not be
known for years."
The LAT leads with the "twin turns" of the American economy—
a boom in the heartland's industrial sector, spurred by global
industrialization, as the financial and technologies sectors face a
steady downturn. These trends are "letting once-struggling
behemoths such as U.S. Steel Corp. put modern marvels such as
Microsoft Corp. to shame," the piece reports, noting that U.S.
Steel's stock has risen 1,000 percent "in recent years." In national
economic terms, the industrial boom is only bittersweet news;
it's pushing up incomes but not creating jobs. Thus, the spillover
into other sectors is likely to be limited, meaning "the economy
as a whole will have to keep relying on high tech and services if
it is to experience new growth in income and employment."
The NYT off-leads a pegless piece that editorializes against the
"insane, characteristically American" method of selecting
judges: by popular vote. Eighty-seven percent of state judges are
elected, and 39 states elect at least some of their judges. The
stage is set by the story of a Wisconsin judge election, in which
the candidates spent $5 million on their respective campaigns
and the winner ran false television advertisements before taking
51 percent of the vote. A shining alternative to such barbarics is
the nonpartisan, "much more rigorous" method of testing and
selecting independent judges employed by France (and all the
rest of the world, for that matter). Seemingly culled straight from
an introduction to American politics textbook, the pro-con piece
searches awkwardly for a satisfying conclusion—and a reason to
exist.
The weekend columnists are all over Sen. Hillary Clinton's
"assassination gaffe," in which she referenced the 1968
assassination of Robert F. Kennedy to point out that Democratic
primaries often drag into June. WP style reporter Libby
Copeland is not amused, writing that Clinton's allusion to the
murder of a candidate "almost sounds like wishful thinking."
The NYT's Maureen Dowd is slightly more inclined to take
Clinton at her word, helpfully suggesting that she simply meant
to say she's staying in the race because "stuff happens."
today's papers
Oh No She Didn't!
By Arthur Delaney
Saturday, May 24, 2008, at 5:23 AM ET
The Washington Post leads with Hillary Clinton sticking her foot
in her mouth big time by mentioning the June 1968 assassination
of Robert Kennedy as a reason she's not ending her nearly
hopeless campaign for the Democratic nomination. The other
papers front or tease the story as well. The Los Angeles Times
leads with a new poll indicating that California voters favor
Barack Obama over Republican John McCain in a general
election. The New York Times leads with the sentencing of 270
illegal immigrants rounded up in a raid on an Iowa meatpacking
plant.
Hillary Clinton apologized for her assassination statement within
hours of making it. The WP emphasizes the notion that the
morbid remark undercuts speculation that Clinton wants to wind
up on a joint ticket with Obama. The NYT credits the New York
Post for first reporting the gaffe and notes the speed with which
outraged comments piled up on the Internet. The Times also
notices that Clinton made almost this exact same statement to
Time magazine back in March.
The significance of the LAT's poll is that California voters like
Obama much more than Clinton when it comes to beating
McCain, when just four months ago Clinton defeated Obama in
the California primary. The Democratic candidate has won the
state in each of the last four general presidential elections.
The NYT calls the sentencing of the 270 immigrants to fivemonth prison terms a sharp, message-sending escalation of the
Bush administration's crackdown on illegal workers. The
criminal prosecution represents a departure from immigration
officials' usual practice of detaining and quickly deporting
suspected illegal immigrants using civil statutes. The
convictions, doled out in trailers and a converted dance hall on a
fairground, were obtained by the feds with what critics call
"unusually speedy" plea agreements. The meatpacking plant has
been nailed before with repeated sanctions for worker safety
violations.
John McCain's doctors say he's healthy, the papers report. Right
in its lede, the LAT treats readers to colon polyps, kidney cysts,
and stones floating around in McCain's bladder. Doctors say
there is no evidence for recurrence of the melanoma skin cancer
that required surgical attention in 2000. Digging through the
1,173 pages of medical records made available to reporters for
three hours by the campaign yesterday, the NYT finds a
discrepancy between pathologists' findings and doctors' public
statements about the the candidate's melanoma those eight years
ago. The Times also reports that doctors said a surgery scar on
McCain's face is 6 by 6centimeters, "a size not previously
disclosed."
The WP off-leads word that growing global prosperity is
diminishing the role of the International Monetary Fund with
developing nations, forcing the fund to become more adviser
than lender. The Post says the new trend is the largest upheaval
for the IMF since the fall of the Berlin Wall. A senior Ghana
liaison to the fund likens the situation to a parent finally
recognizing that a child is mature enough to make his or her own
decisions.
The Chinese government's rush to dispose of dead bodies in the
aftermath of the May 12 earthquake is compounding the agony
of survivors who lost loved ones, says a Page One NYT story.
More than 60,000 people have died; corpses are being burned or
buried in mass graves, leaving little chance for identification and
little time for traditional Chinese reverence of the dead.
Turmoil in Zimbabwe continues: The LAT reports that Robert
Mugabe's ruling party will cling to power regardless of what
happens in the upcoming runoff election. Rights organizations
say violence directed at opposition leaders is way worse than it
was in 2000 and 2002 elections.
The Wall Street Journal reports that would-be Democratic
convention delegates are campaigning hard for the privilege of a
"no-expenses-paid trip to Denver," where they will cast their
predetermined vote for the candidate of their jurisdiction's
choice at the convention this summer. In Colorado, 2,000 people
are running for 48 seats, way up from the several hundred who
ran in 2004.
New York City is getting readying plans for a "rapid-organrecovery" ambulance, reports the NYT. The ambulance will be
dispatched in hopes of quickly saving good organs when a donor
dies. Some people find the plan unseemly; a Boston bioethicist
calls it "disgusting."
The NYT fronts word that, with "[t]eeth [g]ritted," Americans are
learning to live with high gas prices. AAA reports a 1 percent
decline in driving this year, the government estimates the first
drop in demand for gasoline in 17 years, and the Transportation
Department says that last March Americans drove 11 billion
fewer miles than in March 2007. The photo accompanying of the
story shows a woman walking past a California gas station sign.
The woman's mouth is closed, but it really looks like she's
gritting those teeth.
th
The WSJ wants you to know that 11 grade is really tough on
high-school kids. With all those tests and things to do to impress
colleges, junior year has become "a crucible of academic
pressure" like never before. Some parents are actually urging
their teenagers to work less and play more!
video
May '68
A Magnum photo essay.
Photographs by Bruno Barbey
Thursday, May 29, 2008, at 5:37 PM ET
war stories
Worse Than Bush
When it comes to foreign policy, McCain is more of a neocon than the
president.
By Fred Kaplan
Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 11:26 AM ET
Many foreign-policy mavens have wondered which John
McCain would step to the fore once he started running for
president in earnest—the McCain who consorts with such
pragmatists as Richard Armitage, Colin Powell, and George
Shultz; or the McCain who huddles with "neocons" like Robert
Kagan, John Bolton, and William Kristol (before he started
writing op-eds for the New York Times).
Last month, the Times published a story about the battle for
McCain's soul that's being waged by those two factions.
On Tuesday, McCain cleared up the mystery: He's with the
neocons. He is, fundamentally, in sync with the foreign policy
pursued by George W. Bush for his first six years in office. The
clincher is that he has now broken with the president on the one
issue where Bush himself reversed course more than a year ago
after realizing that his policy had failed. In two op-ed articles
and a speech—all of them published or delivered on Tuesday,
May 27—McCain called for a return to Bush's original,
disastrous approach.
The issue is nuclear negotiations with North Korea.
First, a quick recap (taken mainly from Chapter 2 of my book,
Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked
American Power):
In 1994, top officials for President Bill Clinton and North
Korean dictator Kim Jong-il signed the Agreed Framework, an
imperfect, interim accord that nonetheless froze Pyongyang's
plutonium program, kept its nuclear fuel rods locked up and
monitored by international inspectors, and thus prevented the
tyrant from developing an A-bomb for the next eight years.
When Bush took office, his secretary of state, Colin Powell,
wanted to pick up where Clinton left off—the two sides were on
the verge of hammering out a treaty banning the production and
export of long-range missiles—but Bush shut him down. The
principle, as stated by Vice President Dick Cheney: "We don't
negotiate with evil; we defeat it."
So, the North Koreans kicked out the inspectors, unlocked the
fuel rods, reprocessed a half-dozen A-bombs' worth of
plutonium—and Bush did nothing. Finally, in August 2003,
Bush agreed to set up "six-party talks" on the North Korean
problem—along with China, Russia, Japan, and North and South
Korea—but stopped short of offering Pyongyang any incentives
to reverse their course. His position was that Kim Jong-il must
dismantle his nuclear program as a precondition to
negotiations—an absurd stance on its face, since plutonium was
Kim's only bargaining chip, and he wasn't about to cash it in
before talks even began.
In October 2006, the all-but-inevitable took place: The North
Koreans set off a nuclear explosion at a remote test site.
Nobody said so at the time, but what happened here was that
Bush had gone eyeball-to-eyeball with the pygmy of
Pyongyang—and lost. He and most of his aides had figured that
all they had to do was to hold out—that Kim Jong-il's monstrous
regime would collapse before it managed to set off a bomb.
They were wrong.
So, at the beginning of last year, Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice convinced Bush that it was time to negotiate for real. She
sent her emissary Christopher Hill to Berlin to conduct one-onone talks with his North Korean counterpart—something Bush
had said repeatedly that he would never do. Within a few days,
the two struck a deal that did not require the North Koreans to
dismantle their program as a prerequisite—another violation of
earlier principles.
Former Bush officials hit the ceiling—especially John Bolton,
who, during the first term, had tried to disrupt the six-party talks,
limited as they were. (Some aides still in office also rebelled;
Eliot Abrams, Bush's deputy national security adviser, sent out
e-mails to his neocon comrades, rallying them to protest.)
and perhaps Iran in developing a nuclear program. We don't yet
know how complete those 18,000 pages are. And nothing has
been worked out on how to verify any future North Korean
claim that they have destroyed all their nuclear materials.
Then again, it was Bush who forfeited his leverage when he
stood by and let North Korea build an A-bomb to begin with.
Unable to take military action (the risks of North Korean
retaliation against South Korea or Japan were deemed too
dreadful) and unwilling to pursue diplomacy, he instead did
nothing—and the consequences were inevitable. The deal that
Hill worked out isn't great; it's not even as tight as Clinton's
Agreed Framework; but the North Koreans hadn't reprocessed
their plutonium when Clinton was president. Hill's deal might be
the best that could have been negotiated under the
circumstances. In any case, it's better than nothing.
McCain wants to undo the deal; he wants to go back to nothing.
In an op-ed for the Asia edition of the Wall Street Journal,
McCain and his co-author, Sen. Joe Lieberman, wrote, "We must
use the leverage available from the United Nations Security
Council resolution passed after Pyongyang's 2006 nuclear test to
ensure the full and complete declaration, disablement and
irreversible dismantlement of [North Korea's] nuclear facilities,
in a verifiable manner."
Absent knowledge of the historical context, this sounds
reasonable. (Even with such knowledge, it's desirable.) The U.N.
Security Council did pass a resolution that condemned the
nuclear test and called on North Korea to dismantle its facilities.
However, the members of the Security Council knew, soon
enough, that the resolution was unenforceable. Even Bush
realized that, contrary to McCain and Lieberman's premise, the
resolution gave them no "leverage" whatever.
In a similar op-ed for the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun,
McCain and Lieberman urged using the six-party talks "to press
for a full, complete, verifiable declaration, disablement and
dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons program."
But guess what? The deal has worked out pretty well. The North
Koreans have halted their plutonium program, shut down and
started to take apart their nuclear facilities, and handed over
18,000 pages of documentation on the program to date.
However, the fact is, the six-party talks really don't exist
anymore, except as a ratifying body for bilateral talks between
the United States and North Korea. (Hill, in fact, is reportedly in
Beijing today, continuing these one-on-one sessions.) Bush
decided, realistically, that demanding dismantlement as a first
step was a nonstarter and that a freeze followed by a gradual
disabling—prodded by the delivery of free fuel oil and other
economic aid—was more feasible and imminently worthwhile.
He had tried cutting off economic aid before, but it had no effect
in weakening Kim's hold on power.
Things are far from perfect. There are still outstanding—and
important—questions about North Korea's role in assisting Syria
As Daniel Sneider, assistant director of the Shorenstein AsianPacific Research Center at Stanford University, put it in a phone
interview Tuesday night: "The policy that John McCain
proposes is the policy that George W. Bush pursued—and that
policy failed. There's not much to be said for going back to a
policy that failed to contain North Korea's nuclear program."
Finally, in a speech at the University of Denver, delivered the
same day that the op-eds were published, McCain suggested that
his demand for nuclear dismantlement was contrary to the
position of the Democrats' likely presidential candidate, Sen.
Barack Obama. "Many believe," McCain said, "all we need to do
to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is have our
president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we
haven't tried talking with the governments repeatedly over the
past two decades."
In effect, McCain was really criticizing George W. Bush. It was
Bush who dropped the demand for North Korean dismantlement
as a first step, much less as a precondition to talks. And as for
McCain's snide aside—"as if we haven't tried talking with the
governments repeatedly"—well, in fact, we haven't, or at least
Bush hadn't, until he let Hill talk directly with the North
Koreans. And, as it happened, that was all we needed to do to
end (or at least to halt and start to tear down) their nuclear
program.
And so, if John McCain is elected president, it's not quite true
that he'll continue the policies of George W. Bush, as Sen.
Obama charges. When it comes to controlling and disarming
North Korea's nuclear program, McCain would set back Bush's
policy several years.
xx factor xxtra
One-Hit Wondering
Yes, Virginia, there will be another woman candidate in your lifetime.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Tuesday, May 27, 2008, at 6:14 PM ET
It's enough to make a girl want to run for president …
With Hillary Clinton edging ever closer to the won't-finish line
in the Democratic primary, the inevitable rending of garments
that a woman may never again mount a successful run for the
presidency has begun. Former Kentucky Labor Secretary Carol
Palmore complained to Bloomberg news this weekend, "Never
in our lifetime will we have another chance to have a woman
president." Last Thursday, Marie Cocco wrote a column for the
Washington Post suggesting that "if Clinton is not the nominee,
no woman will seriously contend for the White House for
another generation." Days earlier, Kate Zernike penned a piece
for the New York Times bemoaning the fact that "there is no
Hillary waiting in the wings." And in Saturday's Chicago
Tribune, Mark Silva asked whether "Hillary Clinton paved the
way for anyone but herself?"
No more women candidates in our lifetimes? Not for a whole
generation? Can we at least make Sex and the City a box-office
success? Do we dare to eat a peach?
Perhaps it's the inevitable byproduct of the accusation that
anyone who failed to support Clinton's presidential bid has
doomed feminism, but the claim that the doors have slammed on
decades of future woman presidents is as maddening as the
Olympics of Oppression that preceded it. The folks claiming
we've allowed the presidency to slip through our fingers arrive at
this conclusion by pressing the same flawed syllogism: The only
viable woman candidate thus far has been Hillary; Hillary did
not win; ergo there will never be another viable woman
candidate.
Zernike thus sets up her article with a composite sketch of
qualities any Clinton successor will require: "[S]he will come
from the South, or west of the Mississippi. She will be a
Democrat who has won in a red state, or a Republican who has
emerged from the private sector to run for governor … will have
proven herself to be 'a fighter' (a caring one, of course) … She
will be young enough to qualify as postfeminist … married with
children, but not young children." In short, the first woman
president will have to be conservative yet liberal, tough yet
caring, and young yet old. … Get it? She doesn't exist! (That's
Zernike's next paragraph.)
We all know these double standards exist for females in public
life—voters demand toughness but not bitchiness, confidence
but not shrillness, authenticity but also glamour. If the Clinton
candidacy has taught us anything, however, it's that a woman
can straddle all those irreconcilable demands and still win. She
can win more than 16 million votes in the primaries and around
1,779 delegates. Clinton has shown that a woman can win huge
at the ballot box and bring in huge money, and even if Obama
ultimately secures the nomination, those facts will not change.
Faced with all that evidence of success, how do the naysayers
prove it can never be repeated?
They argue that Clinton had a legitimate shot at the presidency
only because she represented a once-in-a-lifetime lightening
strike of marriage, fame, and experience that is not only unique
to her but that will die with her failed nomination. Silva quotes
commentators who have argued that "only Clinton, a former first
lady in an administration that presided over eight prosperous
years and a second-term senator who has established her own
credentials, could have achieved the successes she has this year."
Zernike's experts echo this: "Mrs. Clinton had such an unusual
combination of experience and name recognition that she might
actually raise the bar for women." Under this theory, Clinton
was never really a strong woman candidate; she was just the
lucky one who'd married a future president.
By advancing the argument that no woman will ever win the
presidency without the advantages of a Hillary Clinton because
only those advantages account for her success, we do more to
disrespect her enormous talents than all of the oily misogynists
on Fox News. All across the country, in the most unlikely ways
and places, Hillary Clinton kicked ass as a woman. Why take
that away from her now?
Not content with this knock on Clinton's accomplishments, the
naysayers amplify it with the assumption that no woman will
ever manage to pull off what Barack Obama has done: emerge
from the ether without decades of experience. Zernike here
quotes former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers as
saying that "[n]o woman with Obama's résumé could run." She
then quotes Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American
Women and Politics at Rutgers, as saying that women lack what
she "used to call the John Edwards phenomenon and now calls
the Barack Obama phenomenon: having never held elective
office, they run for Senate, then before finishing a first term
decide they should be president."
Unclear why this is a gender-based phenomenon rather than
merely a temporal one. Recall that before it was called the
"Barack Obama phenomenon," it was apparently called the
"John Edwards phenomenon" precisely because nobody had yet
heard of Barack Obama. That's why we call them phenomena.
Because they don't usually come with save-the-date cards.
Even if it were true that no new female candidate can appear to
amaze and inspire us by 2012, we are already blessed—as even
the naysayers concede—with a bullpen that's both deep and
wide. It features female talents such as Kansas Gov. Kathleen
Sebelius, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Arizona Gov.
Janet Napolitano, Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Claire
McCaskill of Missouri, Condoleezza Rice, and former New
Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. Why diminish all these
women with claims that whatever qualities of Clinton's they lack
are precisely those qualities needed to become president
someday? What possible evidence do we have for that?
We have no evidence at all that the next woman who runs for
president won't succeed—especially if one or two possible
candidates are tapped this summer for a vice-presidential run.
And so we arrive at the real stumbling block for any future
female candidate. One way or another, the naysayers all want to
conclude (indeed, at times, Clinton herself is wont to conclude)
that the Clinton campaign was ultimately derailed by the same
pervasive sexism that will scuttle the next woman's chances.
Never mind that this conclusion is belied by polls Zernike cites,
which indicate that 86 percent of Americans say they would vote
for a woman. Never mind that it's also belied by Clinton's own
historic achievements.
The sexism argument takes two forms: The media itself are too
sexist ever to allow a woman to win a presidential election. And
(not unrelated to the first) the public mistreatment of Clinton
will dissuade future women from trying for that brass ring.
Cocco cites sexist coverage of Elizabeth Dole's presidential bid
in 2000, which "drowned out discussion of her own record." Yet
that didn't stop Clinton from running for office. And Zernike
quotes Karen O'Connor, director of the Women and Politics
Institute at American University, who asks, ''Who would dare to
run?" after Clinton's bid. "The media is set up against you, and if
you have the money problem to begin with, why would anyone
put their families through this, why would anyone put
themselves through this?"
A suggestion: Women will put themselves through this because
most of us will have been more inspired by the Clinton run than
scared off by it. They'll put themselves through it because—for
the first time in history—they'll know what it looks like when a
woman almost scores the presidency, and it looks amazing. And
some of them will also put themselves through it because having
been well and truly sickened by the "iron my shirts" moments,
they'll do what women did in 1992 after watching Anita Hill
endure outrageous nuts-and-sluts treatment at the hands of an
all-male Senate judiciary committee. They'll swarm government.
If Hillary Clinton has taught the women of America anything
this year, it's never to say never. Which is why it would be
lamentable if the only lesson we take from her candidacy were
that nothing like it will ever happen again.
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
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