Saturday, March 8, 2008

08 Mar 2008 10:21 pm

Face Of The Day

Auschwitz survivor Mr. Leon Greenman, prison number 98288, shows his prison number tattooed on his arm December 9, 2004 at the Jewish Museum in London, England. Mr. Greenman O.B.E age 93 and a British citizen, spent three years of his life in six different concentration camps during World War II and since 1946 he has tirelessly recounted his life through his personal exhibition at the museum where he conducts educational events to all age groups. Greenman died today at the age of 97. By Ian Waldie/Getty.

08 Mar 2008 08:22 pm

Cookie Monster

Was Samantha Power half-right?

08 Mar 2008 06:47 pm

Email Of The Day

A reader writes:

Even though I am an Obama supporter, I have always resented your remarks about Hillary and thought you were being unfair.  You were right, the woman is evil! 

08 Mar 2008 06:34 pm

Inside Cheney's Brain

The question is: does McCain share it?

08 Mar 2008 05:21 pm

Obama's Wyoming Margin

Be careful when interpreting results:

Again, the 59-41 numbers you are seeing after 7 counties have reported are NOT the relevant numbers.  The relevant numbers are the number of delegates each county sends to the state convention. Right now Obama has 62.8% of the delegates apportioned to the state convention - not 59%... this is an important distinction that most seem to be missing...

The current vote tally is 58 percent to 41 percent with 91 percent of precincts reporting. and the voting is more like most primaries than most caucuses:

Instead of the traditional caucus format, most of Wyoming’s 23 counties held caucuses conducted by paper ballots, where participants simply placed a check mark next to the name of their chosen presidential candidate and put the slip into a ballot box.

Money quote:

“Wyomingites are pretty independent,” Mrs. Dunn said. “We like somebody who speaks like him.”

The West has its share of Obamacans.

(Photo: Obama in Wyoming by Emmanuel Dunand/Getty.)

08 Mar 2008 05:18 pm

McCain's Temper?

I have to say I don't see much of a problem with his responses to Elizabeth Bumiller:

08 Mar 2008 04:48 pm

"The Clinton Rules"

A post perhaps worth a second weekend airing. It was a frenzied week and the blog zips by so fast, it's not even on the front page any more. My advice for Obama here.

08 Mar 2008 04:45 pm

The Clintons' Tax Returns

You can now sign an online petition demanding that they do what Obama has already done.

08 Mar 2008 04:31 pm

Wyoming

Huge turnout; small state by population and delegates. But Obama is leading by his usual caucus margin: around 60 - 40.

08 Mar 2008 04:30 pm

The View From Your Window

08 Mar 2008 03:31 pm

Sex In Literature

Lee Rourke doesn't approve:

Sex does not belong on the page, not the type of sex scene we read in contemporary literary fiction anyway; for me, when I encounter it there, in countless modern lifestyle novels, it is a form of nothingness, hanging on the page, dislocated from the rest of the book.

When novelists try to make their sex scenes literary, when they try to orchestrate each moan and groan into the book, wasting all that time trying to create the perfect scene, trying to make it seem believable, they fail miserably. The literary approach to writing a decent, believable sex scene is the most embarrassing thing about contemporary literary fiction today.

Just do it.

08 Mar 2008 03:27 pm

Thinking, Re-Thinking Iraq, Ctd.

A reader writes:

I have come to view the Iraq occupation in terms of post Civil-War Reconstruction.

When the North ended its occupation of the former Confederacy, it arguably left something as bad as--or possibly worse than--the slavery it had deposed in the Civil War...the Jim Crow South. Possibly worse because it was built on a lie, the political lie that the black man was free and equal to his former white masters, while slavery was at least open and honest about the status of the black in society.

The North could have stayed until the South was ready to really live up to the words of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments ... but that might have taken most of a century to achieve, a century in which the natives of the old Confederacy would have festered a deep resentment of their occupiers, as any occupied people will--while the North grew to resent the money and manpower required to control a restive South.

I think the analogy to Iraq is clear. Staying or going  is harmful to the US as a nation. The question is which is worse. I think staying is worse, because it gives no chance for the people of Iraq to work out their own solutions.

08 Mar 2008 03:15 pm

Creating An Electronic Brain

08 Mar 2008 01:52 pm

Quote For The Day II

"I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around. She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player," - David Trimble, former First Minister of Northern Ireland on Hillary Clinton's absurd lie that she "helped bring peace to Northern Ireland."

08 Mar 2008 01:36 pm

Washington Moment

I was lucky enough to be invited to an off-the-record dinner with the king and queen of Jordan last week. Under the rules, I can't say anything they said, but I did have a rare laugh. I was seated next to Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post who was impressed, as anyone would be, with the beauty of one of his hosts.

"I've never seen a queen with muscle tone like that," he whispered over the starter.

He's clearly never been to my gym.

08 Mar 2008 01:13 pm

Quote For The Day

"She isn't Satan, but they definitely hang out," - a commenter on Digg.

08 Mar 2008 01:05 pm

Maher vs McAuliffe

Good for Bill:

08 Mar 2008 12:38 pm

The Torture President

George W. Bush vetoes a bill in order to keep using torture techniques perfected by the Nazis and deployed by the Khmer Rouge.

08 Mar 2008 12:33 pm

The Campaign In One Minute

Reihan explains it all for you:

08 Mar 2008 12:27 pm

Beer Bot

The future is now. I have an ex-boyfriend who would love one of these.
 

08 Mar 2008 12:07 pm

Thinking, Re-Thinking Iraq

A reader writes:

One way of looking at the 'correction' in your thinking regarding the war is to say that in the wake of 9/11 your judgment was impaired by the sheer emotionally destabilizing power of that event. In this state you could simply not think clearly about what a decision to go to war really means and so once confronted with the realities attendant to all wars you became disillusioned.

Conservatives like myself sometimes use this defense to explain why they suddenly found themselves open to appeals made by those who believed Arabs capable of secular democratic self rule. We too have experienced (or re-experienced) disillusionment. As I said, we all make mistakes. But supporting a war is not like supporting other political positions we might take from time to time. If emotionalism caused you to support this war, perhaps it is the same phenomenon that now causes you to seek ways to abandon it even as hopeful signs continue to mount. The flip side of romanticism is paranoia and despair.  The reason no serious person takes the get out argument seriously - even those who opposed the war originally - is that it is simply and manifestly unserious.

In my own case, while I still hold out hope that Iraqis will emerge from their ordeal with something better then what they could ever have hoped for with out it, my arguments have shifted more heavily towards the pragmatic. But part of that pragmatism is the certainty that whatever loss to our moral credibility you imagine Abu Ghraib to have represented, we could not survive the abandonment of the Iraqis to those who would fill the breach in our absence.

I'm grateful for the painfully tough critique. I'm particularly grateful because it exposes the rawness of the choice before all of us - whatever our various positions on this war since 2002 (and the polls alone will tell you that a hefty majority of Americans have shifted positions - quite rationally, I should add - since the war began). Let me respond to a couple of points as best I can. 

Are "the realities of all wars" similar to what has befallen us in Iraq? I don't think so. Those of us who have changed our mind on Iraq have not done so because we have been shocked that war costs lives or money or suffers setbacks. In many ways, it was stunning to see how successful the actual war to depose Saddam was in terms of casualties and disruption. Awful - but by historical standards, very swift and remarkably free of collateral fatalities on any large scale. The problem is the occupation, which is now almost in its fifth year, and the multiple, shifting insurgencies, counter-insurgencies and insurgencies against insurgencies that have happened since - and the appalling human casualties on all sides that continue.

The occupation force was never big enough to prevent the disintegration of Iraq, and was also denied, retroactively, its primary justification: the securing of stockpiles of WMDs. Its sole legitimacy springs from its attempt to create a functioning non-dependent non-despotism in a unitary state called Iraq (a task self-evidently quixotic, at this point, for the foreseeable future). So now, its point is to prevent something worse. We have created a vacuum and only we can fill it. And so the occupation continues, with no logical or feasible end-point. Do we really believe we will ever be able to leave Iraq to a unitary, non-despotic, America-friendly government? And if we came up with the illusion that we had, how long would it take, after our departure, for it to become otherwise? I don't want to be too pessimistic here, but I also want to be realistic. This is the Arab Middle East. It has always defied the ability of external powers to control, shape or understand it. Once we lost the window of opportunity to use the shock and power of Saddam's removal to imprint a new country with a template strong enough to hold, it's been a vortex of unintended consequences (largely, the empowerment of Iran).

So we can say one of two things:

Continue reading "Thinking, Re-Thinking Iraq" »

08 Mar 2008 10:49 am

Drugs And Enlightenment

The more we are able to change the physical composition of the body and our brains, the more our societies can shift. That's partly what coffee did when it took off in the eighteenth century. What would happen if we invented a better, smarter drug - one that

can reduce your need for sleep, increase your concentration and make you smarter, with minimal side effects?

A second Enlightenment? Cranky dissent here.

08 Mar 2008 09:01 am

A House Out Of Newspapers

Very cool. There's got to be some good use for them these days.

Friday, March 7, 2008

07 Mar 2008 09:07 pm

Daily Zen

After this week, maybe we should all take a breath and relax a little.

07 Mar 2008 07:58 pm

Face Of The Day

Angelo Mozilo, founder and former CEO, Countrywide Financial Corporation, testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Capitol Hill March 7, 2008 in Washington, DC. The committee is examining the compensation and retirement packages granted to the CEOs of corporations deeply involved in the current mortgage crisis. By Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

07 Mar 2008 06:33 pm

What Foreign Policy Experience?

The Chicago Tribune does us all a service by examining what exactly is Senator Clinton's experience. Read the whole thing, but the Macedonia and Northern Ireland claims are the most revealing:

Pressed in a CNN interview this week for specific examples of foreign policy experience that has prepared her for an international crisis, Clinton claimed that she "helped to bring peace" to Northern Ireland and negotiated with Macedonia to open up its border to refugees from Kosovo.

Both claims are ludicrously untrue. All she did in Northern Ireland was have tea with some local peace activist women. Laura Bush could argue, by that token, that she has ended AIDS in Africa. But here's the beaut:

The Macedonian government opened its border to refugees the day before  Clinton arrived to meet with government leaders.

Clinton has next to no foreign policy experience. And no executive experience. She has less legislative experience than Obama. And she has not just exaggerated, but flat-out lied, about her non-achievements. I'm glad the Tribune has done this. Can the rest of media follow up?

(Photo: Mannie Garcia/Getty.)

07 Mar 2008 06:24 pm

Quote For The Day

A reader offers:

We've all heard about the politics of personal destruction. Clinton is practicing the politics of Party destruction.

07 Mar 2008 05:44 pm

Marty Peretz On Obama

I have to say it makes me feel reassured that my old boss and friend has taken the position that he has in this election, however much that might tick off Matt. It's odd that I don't feel queasy about Obama the way I do about someone like Jimmy Carter or Tony Lake or even Madeleine Albright. After the last few years, the prospect of real diplomacy should not be ignored. But Obama is not, I think, a naive dreamer. Back to Marty:

A case can be made for sitting down with our enemies -- as long as we understand that they are our enemies.

So Barack Obama's belief in the power of speech worries me in the realm of foreign affairs. But otherwise he has won my confidence. Unlike the isolationists in the guise of idealists, or the cheerleaders for violence who pretend to be pacifists and populists, Mr. Obama is a patriot of the old cadence and the old convictions, and not easily pushed around. If he is elected president, he will disappoint many of his supporters, and surprise many of his detractors.

I have the same hunch.

07 Mar 2008 05:32 pm

Are Even Iowa's Delegates Decided?

Apparently not. This seems to be becoming a bigger clusterfuck with every passing day.

07 Mar 2008 05:30 pm

Splutters

David Corn:

How can the Clintonites justify tossing questions about Rezko at Obama but decrying his questions about her tax returns, equating his queries with Ken Starr's inquisition into Whitewater and Monicagate?

A better question: How can David still be asking "how can?" of the Clintons.

07 Mar 2008 04:48 pm

Advice For Obama

Matt Cooper's two cents:

Hope is a great message. Math isn't. Whining's even worse.

My view is still that Obama should not go negative. His surrogates and supporters should - especially those of us who remember the Clintons' sleazy, polarizing past. But he does need to become more aggressive and more direct. I should add: asking for the Clintons to release their tax returns is not negative. Pointing out that Clinton has very little experience in foreign policy is also not negative. It's simply true. One way of not going negative while being aggressive would be to explain, along the lines of this post, why the Clintons represent the past and the Washington establishment; why they actually mean a third term of Rovism. He has to stop hoping that his veiled references to Rove-Morris politics somehow sink in with people, without spelling it out. He needs not just to resist the Clintons' tactics, but to expose them. And show them as the bankrupt, irrelevant diversion that they are.

And then remind us whey we long to get past them; and why he alone can do it.

07 Mar 2008 04:33 pm

Your Moment Of Reihan

It's Friday. It's the Atlantic library. And Reihan's head explodes:

07 Mar 2008 04:27 pm

An "As If" Personality

Psychologist Ellen Ladowsky examines why Hillary Clinton remains so creepy to so many. I prefer Hitch's formulation: the kind of person who never wants the meeting to end. If you've ever been on a condo board, you know the type.

07 Mar 2008 04:24 pm

What Peggy Wrote

A fantastic column, in my view. She's one of the few conservatives with her eyes wide open. This was particularly good:

[Clinton] is hardy, resilient, tough. She is a train on a track, an Iron Horse. But we must not become carried away with generosity. The very qualities that impress us are the qualities that will make her a painful president. She does not care what you think, she will have what she wants, she will not do the feints, pivots and backoffs that presidents must. She is neither nimble nor agile, and she knows best. She will wear a great nation down.

07 Mar 2008 03:48 pm

Go, Already!

Jon Chait on the fratricidal maniac that is Hillary Clinton. Money quote:

Pennsylvania is a swing state that Democrats will almost certainly need to win in November, and Clinton will spend seven weeks and millions of dollars there making the case that Obama is unfit to set foot in the White House. You couldn't create a more damaging scenario if you tried.

If she cannot win the White House, she wants McCain to beat Obama. She is clearing the ground for him. A reader points out what the Clintons' next move would be as McCain takes office:

She and her numerous supporters will view this as a repudiation of Obama, not Clinton. If he loses the general election as a result of this, it will prove her right all along—that the only way to further the Democratic agenda is to beat the Republicans at their game. New politics will have been a sham. If the victors write the history books, then the triumph of cynicism will not be cause for despair, but rather cause for celebration of the one cynic who saw all this, and tried to save us hopemongers from ourselves.

This is the Golden Rule about the Clintons - and take it from someone like me who actually endorsed the guy in 1992 and came to see what lies beneath: it's always, always, always about them.

07 Mar 2008 03:27 pm

Cheney In A Pant Suit Watch

We're beginning to understand why the Clintons refuse to release their tax returns:

Mr. Clinton had gotten the nonpublicly traded stock from Accoona Corp. back in 2004 as a gift for giving a speech at a company event. He landed the windfall by selling the 200,000 shares to an undisclosed buyer in May 2006, commanding $3.50 a share at a time when the company was reporting millions of dollars of losses, according to interviews.

This is just the beginning. But the Clintons - and their media lackeys - refuse to abide by the most basic rules of campaign transparency.

07 Mar 2008 03:11 pm

What Samantha Should Have Said

If you apologize to monsters like the Clintons, they just go in for the kill more. Once you blink in a war with them, it's over. A reader suggests an alternative Power statement:

"Obviously, I am deeply sorry for calling a career public servant like Senator Clinton a name.  It was disrespectful and downright immature.  But it wasn't untruthful.  Listen, a lot of people including myself have devoted immense time and energy to the Obama campaign because we firmly believe that a different kind of politics is possible.  And Obama's lead in victories, delegates and votes makes us hope that this time, this year, after all of the swiftboating, that the old negative tactics aren't going to win the day. So when Clinton runs fearmongering ads about sleeping children and when her husband dismisses Obama as a merely black candidate, when Senator Clinton herself says that John McCain is more qualified to be commander-in-chief than her Democratic opponent  ... it just seems monstrous to me. 

And that sort of behavior is monstrous, it's a sickness of our political system, one that we desperately hope to cure through our efforts in this election. Perhaps these despicable tactics will, once again, win the day, and perhaps I have contributed to their victory with my regrettable outburst.   But that doesn't make them any less deplorable."

07 Mar 2008 03:10 pm

Exposing The Clintons

This is a good start:

By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.

That's Gary Hart. What the Clintons are doing to Obama on national security will be Karl Rove's trump card this fall. They know this. They don't care. What the Clintons always do is reduce everyone to their mediocre, hair-pulling level. It's essential that they drag the promise of politics down to their empty, careerist, poll-driven cynicism - or else they lose. That's why, I think, Obama is right actually to resist any personal negative campaigning. The rest of us have to do that for him. If he is reduced to the Clintons' level, the Clintons - and all they represent - win.

This is a generational struggle - although plenty of older folks get it completely. As such, it usually does take more than one insurrection to move past the past. Usually, we might wait for the forces of reaction and inertia and cynicism to fade away. The trouble is: we cannot afford more Rove-Morris politics given the enormous dangers we now face at home and abroad. And if you give the Clintons any power, we know they will use it to destroy - not just limit - any threat to them. They know the threat Obama and his politics present to them and their machine. They will never forgive his presumption. And you cannot assume they will at some point allow him to take over. The battle really is now.

07 Mar 2008 02:39 pm

The Return Of Rove-Morris Politics

A reader writes:

I’ve always been politically engaged (although this is the first time I’ve ever volunteered/organized/donated significantly to a presidential candidate), but I swear to Zeus, I can’t handle the thought of another 4 or 8 years of dynastic, cynical, politics-as-usual BS. Bush’s 2004 re-election already threw me for a major loop, and I think I will have to disengage from the process altogether if Hillary somehow wrests the nomination out of Barack’s hands. Mentally and emotionally, it’s like I can’t afford to care anymore. Even the thought of it is gut-punchingly devastating.

07 Mar 2008 02:30 pm

Quote For The Day

"I said to a producer once that I wanted to do a reality show called Project Britney instead of Project Runway, where I would take Britney for the next six months and I would do hair, makeup, wardrobe every day for her and become her personal staff every day. And then of course I would be, hello, the thanks that everyone has to give for saving Britney, ‘cause I would totally save her whole image and – oh my god, it would be flawless," - Christian Siriano, Project Runway winner.

07 Mar 2008 01:58 pm

Power Resigns

Ambers looks at the bigger picture:

If Clinton wins the nomination, there will be many Obama staffers, particularly mid-to-high-ranking aides, who will refuse offers to help with the general election. The walk-away rate will be unprecedented.

And let me add - since I am not an adviser, since I have kept a very long distance from the actual official campaign, since I am not a Democrat, since I cannot be accused of being a closet Bush-supporter, since I am just a blogger.

Samantha Power is right. The Clintons are monstrous. Samantha has quit because she told the truth.

07 Mar 2008 01:49 pm

Clinton Rules, Ctd

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"I have a simple prediction. It will mean a mass flight from the process.  It will alter the political consciousness of an entire generation of young voters - against any positive interaction with the political process for the foreseeable future."

Mass flight from the process, Andrew, isn't a tactic. It's the point of her campaign. The point is not a mandate. The point is not actually governing. The point is 50% plus 1, 270 electoral votes, and the power that comes with it for its own sake. The Clinton's know how to win that fight, both in the nomination and in the general. That generation of young voters is what Rumsfeld would have called an "unknown unknown" and is inherently uncontrollable. They have no use for that at all.

The Clintons have, of course, never won 50 percent of the national popular vote - not even in 1996, for their second term against Dole.

07 Mar 2008 12:42 pm

The Clinton Rules

Continue reading "The Clinton Rules" »

07 Mar 2008 12:05 pm

Dissent Of The Day

A reader writes:

Before we all fall hopelessly prey to our own emotions and the daily spin surrounding the opposing camps at play in the Democratic Party, is it possible for us to pull back a bit from our ever-hardening positions to see what is really going on this election year, and (dare I say the words), to enjoy the process and be thankful for its meaning?

Continue reading "Dissent Of The Day" »

07 Mar 2008 11:41 am

Obama In California

Largely missed in this week's craziness: he just picked up a swing of 8 delegates after the certification came through.

07 Mar 2008 11:23 am

The View From Your Window

San Francisco, California, 3 pm.

07 Mar 2008 10:47 am

The Scots-Irish Vote?

Jonathan Martin sees a new demographic pattern in the Clintons' electoral support.

07 Mar 2008 10:38 am

The Beltway And Iraq

In a bunch of conversations - all casual, random, varied - with fellow journalists in Washington this past week, I'm struck when the talk moves to Iraq by one thing. I know no one who believes that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will actually remove any troops from Iraq beyond those that might conceivably be removed by John McCain. For those of you who believe that your vote in this primary season means anything, this might be worth passing along. Withdrawal in any meaningful way is off the table, as far as Washington is concerned. And when I have raised the serious possibility that this should happen, I am greeted with That Unserious Look.

Now, there are obvious pragmatic, short term arguments for staying with 150,000 troops or so in Iraq for the next ten years. There are also very powerful strategic, economic and moral arguments for getting out as fast as we can. But what troubles me is that these arguments are not really relevant. The Washington elites have already decided. It's unthinkable for the US to leave Iraq at any point in the foreseeable future. This, as Greenwald would say, is the Serious Position. You can challenge it in the campaign or on the blogs, but no one actually believes anyone will actually do this. They're humoring us.

And the primary candidate for maintaining the occupation indefinitely on the Democratic side is Hillary Clinton. As for Obama, I disagree with my fellow hacks. He will be in a very tough spot if he becomes president. But he will be able to leverage a unique movement in the country and a uniquely powerful honeymoon in world opinion with a uniquely potent rhetorical skill to at least attempt an exit from the quicksand of the Middle East occupation. He has a chance to shift the paradigm. The Clintons, to put it bluntly, will not. And Clinton will swiftly realize that the most potent antidote to conservative criticism of her at home will be buttressing her military image, working the Thatcher thing, constructing an Iron Lady persona that will both appeal to her white ethnic base and keep the Republicans at bay. She will no more withdraw troops from Iraq than John McCain will. Anything that could make her look weak - and it's Hannity and O'Reilly to whom she will defer in this perception game - she will resist. She has so little raw political talent and so few rhetorical skills she will be a captive of polls and caution and, as always, self-preservation. Bush knows this, which is why he is so keen to prevent Obama from changing the Beltway consensus and to preserve his own legacy. In some ways, a return to the Clintons, his fellow dynasts, as long as they legitimize and extend his new empire, is what he really wants.

There are four candidates  still left in this race: Clinton, Clinton, McCain, and Obama. The first two are a seamless team. Only one has a small chance of extricating the US from a lifetime of occupation of the Middle East. It's Obama. 

 

(Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty.)

07 Mar 2008 10:14 am

Samantha On Hillary

The good professor blurts out the truth. There is something monstrous about a couple so intoxicated with money, power and secrecy and so unencumbered by any ethical constraints that they will do anything, say anything, be anything in order to stay ahead.

07 Mar 2008 10:11 am

Cheney In A Pant-Suit Watch

The Clintons will not do what every other candidate does - release their tax returns - and they will not allow scrutiny of their period in the White House, the last time an unelected spouse exercized formal, unaccountable power (if nothing like what we will face if the Clintons both return to the White House in 2009). What are they hiding? The headline is misleading and more evidence of double-standards in the media with respect to the Clintons. This was ultimately the Clintons' decision, not the archivists':

That archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.

Clinton's legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.

My emphasis. David Brooks today argues that the Obama camp must not go negative. But this is one of those areas where the Clintons' sense of personal privilege and passion for secrecy simply has to be challenged. Demanding answers to basic questions of accountability and transparency is not negative in the Rove-Morris sense. It's called competitive campaigning. If Clinton is running on her so-called experience, why does she insist on keeping it under wraps?