Archive
July 27, 2008 - August 2, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 200802 Aug 2008 07:51 pm Obama On The CurrencyMcCain used the metaphor first, as Jed Lewison points out. Here's the ad from late June: 02 Aug 2008 06:43 pm The Undark Night
Out here on the Cape, I'm reminded always of the existence of the moon and stars. The big skies and the distance from major cities brings them to the foreground of the night sky in ways you just don't see in D.C. It doesn't surprise me that some people have found sleep disorders emerging from urban mankind's banishment of the darkness of the night sky. From a 1996 Cullen Murphy article on modern sleep patterns:
02 Aug 2008 05:49 pm Did Obama Play The Race Card?Hard to improve on Chris Bodenner's take here. Yes, Obama did, in such a casual, insubstantial way that I buy his defense that that wasn't his main point. But the McCain camp's seizing on this sliver of an opening was impressive, if not too elevating, as a campaign tactic. So far, my hope for a substantive, elevated debate between Obama and McCain has not exactly been borne out, has it? 02 Aug 2008 05:42 pm How Shitty Was McCain?
Yes, the last couple of weeks of the campaign, even from my remote perch, were pretty uninspiring on the GOP side. Here's my brief take, for what it's worth. Obama's fortnight was an objectively miraculous one: Maliki and then (almost) Bush endorsed his withdrawal timetable from Iraq (game, set and match to BO), he conducted himself with foreign leaders flawlessly, burnished his international rep, and proved the force of his soft power potential. (By the way, 200,000 in Berlin was less, it seems to me, about the celebrity of Obama than about the disaster of Bush-Cheney. Obama is the vehicle for the world's hope for the return of the America they remember.) But the flipside of this kind of success is always an attempt to take the dude down a few pegs and I can't get too worked up about that. Of course a candidate being greeted the way Obama was in Europe will prompt a raspberry from the back-row when he gets back home. I don't see anything that awful about that. It's actually quite healthy in a democracy. Still, it also had the hallmarks of the usual boomer dust-ups. The arrogant-celebrity meme is a variation on the usual Rovian fare: empty of actual policy substance but evocative of playground loyalties and resentments. Basically, McCain called Obama a girl, to appeal to the jocks, and then called him arrogant to flatter the nerds. Continue reading "How Shitty Was McCain?" » 02 Aug 2008 05:11 pm Face Of The Day
Eddy, at low tide, yesterday. 02 Aug 2008 04:58 pm Quote For The Day"Well, yeah. I'm kind of on the sidelines, but I can't do golf and all that stuff anymore. But life is good. It's wonderful, and it's great having the family up here in Maine, and all is well. Do you see our man Ailes at all?" - former president George H.W. Bush, to Rush Limbaugh, on the air, last week. He didn't realize he was being broadcast. 02 Aug 2008 04:56 pm Cringe Of The DayI missed my occasional K-Lo hathos:
02 Aug 2008 04:55 pm More ImaginationlandSouth Park offers up the full non-censored version. I'm not sure TV usually puts out director's cuts of shows. 02 Aug 2008 11:31 am Back To Shore
I can't remember when I last unplugged quite as effectively as I did the past two weeks. For a week, no email; for another week, only marginal reading of the web. The come-down wasn't too brutal, as I slipped into a bit of a coma for a while. And the feeling of free-floating freedom that being a normal pre-web person provided was a bit of a revelation. You can get lost in these here Internets. Sometimes you need to clear the mental horizon of all protruding objects and breathe a little to remember what being human used to feel like. I did my usual mini-retreats into the dunes and beaches of the Cape. What I find I crave after months of intense blogging is solitude. This may sound weird since a blogger is usually physically alone. But never mentally. In fact, being in the thick of the blogosphere is to be bombarded with company, loud and quiet, polite and rude, always begging for engagement. You can be on the end of a wharf in Provincetown and still feel as if you're in downtown Manhattan or central London. So I headed out to the beach, sans husband and dogs, for a temporary vegetative state. I took a photo of my veg-station above one day last week. It conveys the general idea. I did some reading and writing. Ron Hansen's "Exiles" was right up my alley. But Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side" stayed with me. It's the most important book yet written about the Bush presidency. Perhaps it was seeing "The Dark Knight" at the same time, but if you read that book, absorb what is tells us about what has happened to this country these past seven years, and then read or watch this election campaign filter through the ether, it is hard to avoid a sense of deep concern about where we're headed. We have war criminals as president and vice-president, and a constitution staggering after one serious terror attack. But the campaign is about whether Obama is like Paris Hilton. The threat of Rove and his ilk is not that their petty, deceptive and irresistibly subjective tactics are evil in a petty, deceptive, childish kind of way. It's that their venial sins distract from their mortal ones. It's the mortal ones we have to be worried about. And the mortal ones that they are getting away with. 02 Aug 2008 11:19 am ThanksWell, I might as well get started back today. But a word of thanks to Patrick Appel, who ran the site while I was away, and posted so often, and tended to the guest-bloggers. Blogging at this pace is not as easy as Patrick makes it look, but Patrick is fast becoming a master of the art. I couldn't do this site without him and you now know a little better why. Chris and Jessie are two other Dish alums, and it's a source of some pride that they grow up so fast into bloggers in their own right. Thanks also to Daniel and Hilary, two of the sharpest, most civil and yet penetrating bloggers on the Internet. Reading the Dish while not writing it is slightly weird, like renting out your house to strangers, but their mix of passion and nuance and insight was a pleasure to read. I'm back now. And the beat goes on. 02 Aug 2008 11:00 am The View From Your Window
Pulau Penang, Malaysia, 6.30 pm. 02 Aug 2008 12:15 am Until Next TimeBy Patrick Appel Andrew will be back tomorrow. As always, I've had a great time filling in. Many thanks to Andrew, the guest bloggers, and all the readers. By Chris Bodenner A huge and humble thanks to Andrew for giving me the opportunity to help out with the Dish. I had a blast, and thanks for all your feedback, readers. Friday, August 1, 200801 Aug 2008 11:50 pm Gays (Already) In The Militaryby Chris Bodenner
I was raised by
two Army officers. My mother, a retired COL in the Nurse Corps, worked alongside many gays and lesbians (who, in her
generation, disproportionately entered nursing). My father, a retired LTC, encountered many gay soldiers while serving in Vietnam. Arriving
in Saigon in 1971, my father, then a Lieut., was first given a rifle platoon to lead.
But being an Airborne Ranger in the Special Forces, he was soon
assigned a LRRP platoon -- a small reconnaissance unit that
collected information on the enemy. During my childhood, he often told stories of his wartime experiences, one of which is particularly relevant to the DADT debate. I asked my dad to write me an abbreviated account:
01 Aug 2008 11:46 pm Signing OffBy Daniel Larison The week went by quite quickly. I'd like to extend my thanks to Andrew, Patrick Appel and everyone here at the Dish and the Atlantic for providing me with the opportunity to blog here, and also for all the help they provided me this week. 01 Aug 2008 09:02 pm Staying Above The Muckby Chris Bodenner
I have no doubt that the increasingly-desperate McCain campaign, bereft of any affirmative arguments for their candidate, will try to subtly inject and amplify identity politics in order to corral white, working-class voters (McCain all of a sudden opposes AA in Arizona? What a coincidence!). But I think Obama's in the wrong here. For a while now, he's oh-so-subtly insinuated on the stump that Republicans will highlight his race to portray him "out of the mainstream." He's right, of course -- some will, and some have (including McCain). But that shouldn't be an excuse for Obama to point it out directly, as a way of eliciting sympathy from voters. If he wants to call out Republicans for their cynical use of cultural warfare, stick with sound-bytes like "he's got a funny name" or "he's not patriotic enough." But if Obama really wants to be a "post-racial" candidate who "transcends race," he should abstain from offering up any reference to how others will portray him as black. Everyone knows he's black, and everyone knows that some people won't vote for him because of it (though I believe, like Clinton with gender, there's a net gain of people who see his race as a plus). So there's no need for Obama to invoke it himself. Doing so will only give the McCain campaign an excuse to cease upon it, distort it, and feed it to the black hole of identity politics. The modern GOP was largely founded on racism, but the party over the past four decades has shown steady progress towards scrubbing it away. The more liberals who assume that Republicans are racist by default, the slower that progress will be. Douglas Mackinnon elucidated that argument in a great op-ed last week, writing:
01 Aug 2008 08:06 pm McCain's Supposed Former CivilityBy Daniel Larison Joe Conason and David Ignatius are just two of the many observers expressing disbelief at McCain's alleged transformation from fabled truth-telling man of honor to the candidate he is today, all of which is premised on the bizarre assumption that McCain was once a civil, respectful politician in the past and is now throwing that away in pursuit of power. The most remarkable line comes from Ignatius' column:
Of course, the "fiercely independent" McCain spent the bulk of 1999 and the early months of 2000 (and many years after that) trying to please other people. The difference then was that Ignatius and other members of the Washington press corps were the ones he was trying to please and unironically, accurately referred to members of the media as his base. During the 2000 campaign, he referred to the GOP establishment as the "evil empire," which seemed perfectly fair and satisfactory to his boosters in the press because they thought this was simply a description of reality and not a slur. Pretty much every "maverick" episode in McCain's career has involved staking out a position in opposition to his party in the interests of attracting good press and cultivating a reputation as one of the "good" Republicans--the "noble, tolerant" McCain that Conason refers to in his piece--and he has done this by adopting a haughty, self-righteous tone as a champion of reform fighting against the forces of corruption (campaign finance) and bigotry (immigration "reform") within his own party. By endorsing the worst prejudices about his party held by his party's political opponents (while enabling some of their genuinely worst attributes in his warmongering), he became renowned for his integrity, just as Republicans have been lauding Joe Lieberman for his character and courage for denouncing liberals, his own party and that party's nominee in terms that perfectly fit GOP talking points. Implicit in this self-construction has been the claim that he is one of the reasonable few keeping the irrational masses on the right at bay, and he has built up enough credit with journalists over the years that he can align himself with the worst of the administration's policies on Iraq and immigration and still be thought of as different from Bush. Indeed, to the extent that his agreement with the administration on many major policies is acknowledged, it is usually framed as part of a story of how the "real" McCain lost his way in trying to satisfy his party, but these accounts often hold out the hope that the "real" McCain might still make a comeback before the end. People will talk about McCain's poor relations with conservatives and the party leadership as if he had nothing to do with causing them, and as if he had never launched an unfair or disreputable attack on an opponent or another person in his life, when the creation of his "maverick" image has been founded on portraying members of his party and the conservative movement according to the worst stereotypes and exploiting his opposition to these strawman positions as proof of his political courage. That he now approves of taking the so-called "low road" against Obama is nothing new. Indeed, by comparison with the treatment of some of McCain's other opponents in policy debates, Obama is still being treated pretty easily. Cross-posted at Eunomia 01 Aug 2008 07:46 pm The Other Kind Of PoliticsBy Patrick Appel 01 Aug 2008 06:58 pm Driving Up Obama's NegativesBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 06:55 pm British Obamaconsby Chris Bodenner
Looks like PHDiva is no longer the most famous London Obamacon. (But still the foxiest.) 01 Aug 2008 06:03 pm Face Of The Day
01 Aug 2008 05:09 pm Of Two TypesBy Patrick Appel 01 Aug 2008 04:37 pm Who's Negating Whom Here?by Chris Bodenner
Understandable sentiments. But then Lafsky expands them into a critique of feminism: Continue reading "Who's Negating Whom Here?" » 01 Aug 2008 04:36 pm Democratic GlobosclerosisBy Daniel Larison Michael Brendan Dougherty questions Brooks' lament of lost unipolarity, and Michael lands some solid blows. I found this passage in Brooks' column to be the most telling:
The real difficulty with multipolarity is not so much that there are more groups vetoing collective action as it is that many rising powers don't agree with Washington or Brussels what the real problems are. They veto collective action in one area or another because that "collective" action increasingly appears to be actions directed against their interests or the interests of their client states. "Globosclerosis" is inevitable in a politically diverse world with hundreds of nation-states and multiple major powers. Officially, everyone solemnly intones that nuclear proliferation is undesirable and should be prevented, but the Iranian acquisition of nuclear technology does not appear to India or China as a threat. Their perspective as rising powers that have more recently acquired their own nuclear arsenals means that even an Iranian bomb seems far more rational and justifiable to them than it does to our government. At the same time, the real power and status that India has derived from its arsenal, such that our government has been trying to seal a nuclear deal with New Delhi in pretty obvious violation of the NPT, show every aspiring state that the way to be taken seriously by the U.S. is to possess this sort of power. What a multipolar world really shows is the limits of multilateral institutions. During most of the Cold War, the U.N. did not provide much in the way of collective security because the member states were either divided between the two superpowers or organized under the Non-Aligned Movement, and after the Cold War the U.N. was able to provide meaningful collective security only when the remaining superpower backed the action. Now that there are multiple new powers emerging in the world, the multilateral framework, which presupposes a consensus that will almost never exist among so many divergent interests, has been breaking apart. This has been exacerbated by the consistent targeting of Russian and Chinese satellites for sanctions and attack, while leaving U.S. allies that have their own egregious records unscathed, but these are simply symptoms. The problem, if you want to call it that, is that the artificial and unusual disparity of power between the U.S. and the rest of the world that occurred in the wake of WWII has been steadily narrowing, and it will continue to do so. This is essentially a return to something more like a normal state of affairs after the extremely abnormal 20th century. Continue reading "Democratic Globosclerosis" » 01 Aug 2008 04:20 pm Mental Health Breakby Chris Bodenner
Twenty-six more inexplicable videos at Lasagna Cat. (H/T Ralph Bodenner) 01 Aug 2008 03:45 pm The Gloves Come Off, Ctd.By Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 03:44 pm Pestilence, Death, Skinny JeansBy Jessie Roberts Adbusters plays anthropologist to hipsters:
Alex Payne differs. 01 Aug 2008 03:25 pm The Gloves Come OffBy Patrick Appel McCain strikes again: 01 Aug 2008 03:18 pm Cheating Themselvesby Chris Bodenner
01 Aug 2008 03:04 pm The Kaus PhenomenonBy Daniel Larison Matt and Ross have been discussing the rather strange question of whether Slate is a center-right publication, and Matt said most recently:
This is something that puzzles me about liberal views of Mickey Kaus. Kaus has repeatedly said that he will vote for Obama, he was an early neoliberal (as those involved in the debate over the merits of neoliberalism last year will remember) and has worked at other such "center-right" publications as The New Republic and The Washington Monthly. He has the habit of criticizing what he considers to be excesses and errors of those to the left of him, at least partly because this is simply what neoliberals do. They are not usually in the habit of reinforcing liberal conventional wisdom when they find it lacking, but even neoliberals are center-left people. Kaus' refreshingly sensible opposition to so-called comprehrensive immigration reform and his concerns about the effects of mass immigration on social equality are, as far as I can tell, the main reasons why he is routinely accused of being a crypto-conservative, because people who are "really" on the left aren't typically concerned about these things. Even his reasons for challenging the immigration status quo are rooted in his desire to promote social equality, which I assume most liberals would also want to promote. Meanwhile, dissident conservatives who are on the right frequently attack shibboleths of the mainstream right, but we do so from a conservative perspective. Even when our arguments are undermining some part of conventional wisdom on the right, we are not therefore mostly publishing liberal content. It works the same way among liberals, too. Cross-posted at Eunomia 01 Aug 2008 02:40 pm RicochetBy Daniel Larison Patrick Appel asks a good question about who will benefit from invoking race in the election, and as I said yesterday I tend to agree that this may cause a different reaction in the general electorate:
As a matter of how the media will treat the two candidates, however, I still think the politicization of race in the presidential contest almost certainly will fit into the already well-established narrative that has been in place since the earliest Democratic primaries. According to that narrative, the Republicans are inevitably going to engage in race-baiting, and any negative ad or line of criticism that can be interpreted to support that will be given much more attention than would otherwise be the case. That said, in a close election in an otherwise very pro-Democratic year, I can think of definite ways that this could still work to McCain's disadvantage in the general election, since the perception that McCain was employing racist tropes in his campaign could drive up turnout and fundraising for Obama and it could eat away at his strangely enduring reputation as a moderate. If Republicans engage in so-called "ricochet pandering," by appealing to minorities in order to reassure white swing voters, a consistent portrayal of the McCain campaign as one that exploits racism will have the same ricochet effect and drive away swing voters in crucial states. This is more or less in line with what Chuck Todd said. Cross-posted at Eunomia 01 Aug 2008 02:22 pm Making War With IranBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 01:49 pm NRO Baitby Chris Bodenner (H/T Buzzfeed) 01 Aug 2008 01:28 pm Invoking Race Helps Whom?By Patrick Appel
I'm not sure that the comparison works, a point made by one of Ben Smith's readers:
Chuck Todd has similar feelings:
01 Aug 2008 01:06 pm The View From Your Window
Rome, Italy, 7.30 am. 01 Aug 2008 12:44 pm Can Real Life Sell?by Chris Bodenner
Mark Olsen reported on suspicions that the film isn't an authentic documentary. Director Nanette Burstein responded:
(For anyone interested in genre-bending documentaries, I'd recommend "American Movie" and "Capturing The Friedmans.") 01 Aug 2008 12:33 pm McCain's Message GuyBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 12:20 pm An Exercise PillPatrick Appel 01 Aug 2008 11:47 am Silly SeasonBy Patrick Appel
(hat tip: Drum) 01 Aug 2008 11:38 am Planking Identity Politics?by Chris Bodenner 01 Aug 2008 11:25 am Dumb LuckBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 11:17 am No Pets AllowedBy Patrick Appel 01 Aug 2008 10:38 am Holy CureBy Patrick Appel 01 Aug 2008 10:07 am Failures In AfghanistanBy Patrick Appel
Continue reading "Failures In Afghanistan" » 01 Aug 2008 10:02 am Should Obama Attack?By Jessie Roberts Jonathan Chait thinks so:
But even when Obama dips in the polls now, McCain doesn't go up. Who's to say that Obama attack ads wouldn't alienate more voters than they'd win? 01 Aug 2008 09:39 am The Limits Of Executive PrivilegeBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 09:21 am The Race Card Card, CtdBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 08:37 am Beware The TrollsBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 08:14 am Blood SportBy Patrick Appel
01 Aug 2008 08:04 am Wishful ThinkingBy Patrick Appel
Thursday, July 31, 200831 Jul 2008 08:42 pm Time To Sacrificeby Chris Bodenner What is McCain asking us to sacrifice? A man who gave 6 excruciating years to his country can't ask Americans to forgo 6% of their annual income? Does he want us all to act like the self-absorbed hippies and materialistic squares he went to Hanoi for?
July 27, 2008 - August 2, 2008
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