Saturday, November 8, 2008

08 Nov 2008 07:34 pm

He Saw It Coming

Michael Hirschorn on the under-appreciated work of meta-genius Peter Watkins:

Like a Centre Pompidou of cinema, Watkins is forever laying bare the arti­fice. Fiction and nonfiction merge: non-actors improvise roles in fictional accounts of factual events (the effect is very reality-TV); and the contrivance inherent in any media narrative is exposed as Watkins shows the cameras, the sets, his directorial technique. His endlessly recursive gambits serve as a metatextual critique of how fact and fiction are just different ways to impose narrative—and yet they never seem like academic posing; indeed, they carry an amazing emotional wallop.

And yet, I find this election campaign to have been an impressive testament to post-modernism's limits. The post-modern candidate was Palin: a hologram of cultural resentments, crafted to win votes through image, propaganda and untruth. And yet we saw right through it. Fact mattered in the end, didn't it? And truthiness finally lost.

08 Nov 2008 06:41 pm

Non-Movement Conservatism

One thought that the right should consider more deeply: is the whole idea of a "conservative movement" an oxymoron? Austin Bramwell, whose piece I linked to before, thinks movements are overrated. I guess I'm relieved when I read someone else who actually seems to have understood a little about Oakeshott:

Michael Oakeshott...characterized conservatism as a mere disposition—a theory that negates the very possibility of a conservative “movement.” But Oakeshott wrote precisely in reaction to the more ideological understandings of conservatism like those the movement was beginning to develop in America. The conservative movement continues to pay lip service to Oakeshott, but his theory of conservatism, if accepted, would fatally undermine the rationale for having a movement in the first place. The practical, “cash value” of every other theory of conservatism is that the movement should pursue this or that set of goals and not others.

Continue reading "Non-Movement Conservatism" »

08 Nov 2008 05:55 pm

Chasing Their Tails

James Surowiecki writes about the investor class information overload:

These markets and indexes are valuable as a way to help investors hedge risk. But, in an environment of profound uncertainty, investors have a natural if troubling tendency to turn to them as horoscopes, particularly since they now get so much attention in the business press: you have only to turn on CNBC or go online to find that the Japanese market is cratering or the VIX index soaring. The result is to draw investors away from the grind of analyzing corporate performance and economic fundamentals, and to encourage pure speculation—investing as an exercise in anticipating what other investors will do. Meanwhile, traders in other markets are looking to our stock market for guidance—Nikkei traders usually react positively when the Dow rises—or, like VIX and futures traders, are overtly trying to forecast what our stock market will do. Investors find themselves trapped in a mirror maze, like the gunslingers in “The Lady from Shanghai.”

08 Nov 2008 04:18 pm

The Conservative Intelligentsia And Palin

Mark Lilla has a must-read in the WSJ today. (Dislcosure: we were political theory students of Shklar and Mansfield at Harvard together years ago). It charts the collapse of the intellectual right from a pioneering attempt to re-think established nostrums about public policy to ... well the Caribbean cruise now floating around on a sea of denial and contempt:

The Palin farce is already the stuff of legend. [but] John McCain's choice was not a fluke, or a senior moment, or an act of desperation. It was the result of a long campaign by influential conservative intellectuals to find a young, populist leader to whom they might hitch their wagons in the future. And not just any intellectuals. It was the editors of National Review and the Weekly Standard, magazines that present themselves as heirs to the sophisticated conservatism of William F. Buckley and the bookish seriousness of the New York neoconservatives. After the campaign for Sarah Palin, those intellectual traditions may now be pronounced officially dead.

Irving Kristol's bitter capitulation to populism a quarter century ago was the harbinger. It's all been downhill since:

Their function within the conservative movement is no longer to educate and ennoble a populist political tendency, it is to defend that tendency against the supposedly monolithic and uniformly hostile educated classes. They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them.

One reason I believe the reconstruction of conservatism will require a generation's work is that the rot has gone so deep among so many with so much patronage. If it weren't for the blogosphere allowing new thoughts and debate to bubble up from below, and outside the Kristol-Lowry-Steyn axis, I'd despair.

08 Nov 2008 02:41 pm

Whither The Honey Bee?

Paul Comstock interviews Rowan Jacobsen, author of Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis. Jacobsen on what would happen to human civilization if bees completely died off:

No mass starvation, because the grains that make up the bulk of our diet are not at risk. (Wind-pollinated.) So we’d have corn, bread, oatmeal, etc. And certain fruits, such as grapes, are wind-pollinated or self-fertilizing.

Continue reading "Whither The Honey Bee?" »

08 Nov 2008 02:07 pm

LGBT, GOP, Ctd

I'm still bemused by the drop in gay support for Obama after Kerry. I'd put it down primarily to the fact that the gay political establishment, with its usual brilliance, fused itself with the Clinton campaign very early on, and there was a real slice of Clintonian anti-Obama hate that wouldn't go away. For much of the campaign, I expressed surprise at how so many gay men and lesbians were indifferent or hostile to Obama. Maybe there was a particular lesbian bond with Clinton, which may have led some lesbians to pick McCain (they're susceptible to a little Alaskan boobage as well). Maybe that goes for some diva-worshipping gay men as well, men who so identified with Hillary that they couldn't reconcile themselves to Obama. But a reader suggests that racism may be more alive and well in the gay community than some of us want to believe:

I think you could do quite a bit more with that startling statistic - McCain 27% vs. Bush 23% among gays, Obama 70% vs. Kerry 77%. As a married gay man I'm upset about Prop 8, but I'm also upset about this blame-the-blacks line. The black vote in California simply wasn't large enough to make a difference, so why are people focusing on that? The eagerness to jump on the black vote for Prop 8, together with the statistic above, points to a smoldering issue in the gay community.

Continue reading "LGBT, GOP, Ctd" »

08 Nov 2008 12:43 pm

Face Of The Day

Elizabeth Hernandez, 6, of Fort Lewis, Washington waits for her father, Benajamin at a homecoming ceremony for members of the 514th Medical Company and the 547th Area Support Medical Company November 7, 2008 in Fort Lewis, Washington. The units finished a 15-month deployment in Iraq. By Stephen Brashear/Getty.

08 Nov 2008 12:36 pm

Fiction

Will Bush write a book?:

When George W. Bush leaves office in January, he’s likely to join other past presidents and write a memoir. However, publishers aren’t that interested in producing something from history’s most unpopular president at this point and are suggesting that he “take [his] time.” Even Marji Ross of the conservative Regnery Publishing said, “Certainly the longer he waits, the better.” President Clinton received $15 million for his autobiography, “My Life,” although few expect Bush will command the same sum.

Brian Beutler adds:

The sad truth is that if Bush were to write an honest memoir--and not a dishonest self-hagiography--I'd be much more interested in reading it than I would be in reading Bill Clinton's [book].

08 Nov 2008 11:56 am

She Got Him In The End

Trooper Wooten ended up at a desk job after his life was threatened. If I were him, I'd get a book contract and tell some truths about his former sister-in-law. He was the trooper who didn't bark in this election.

08 Nov 2008 11:56 am

Obama And The Press

Packer has some wise words for the next administration:

The problem with strategic communications is that the White House that lives by it slowly becomes incapable of dealing with reality. When bad news comes, the impulse is to deny it, and that impulse turns into a mental habit. Eventually, those in power are the last to figure out the truth (in this sense, Katrina was a direct result of the kind of mentality that had already led to disaster in Iraq). The Administration can’t answer the arguments of its critics because it has long since stopped listening to them. It finds itself increasingly isolated, not just from potential supporters, but from the truth.

Continue reading "Obama And The Press" »

08 Nov 2008 11:53 am

Palin And The Jerks

Palin tells us there is no truth whatever in the massive clothing expenditure stories, and no truth in the stories being leaked by the McCain people about her temper tantrums, no truth to the RNC inventory story, no truth to the NAFTA story and on and on. We know about Palin's relationship with the truth from long experience. And there will surely be, over time, substantiation of all these charges - "silk boxer shorts"! "I'm pregnant!" - or not. Just know that while the Dish is not staffed by investigative reporters, we sure do keep an eye on what they find. But don't relent! This is not about some kind of vendetta against a human being. It is holding the McCain camp accountable for nearly foisting this farcical candidate on the entire world.

Oh, and Madam governor, love from a real stinker in unreal America.

08 Nov 2008 10:51 am

The View From Your Window

Lubbock, Texas, 6.37 pm.

08 Nov 2008 10:07 am

Is The "Blogosphere" Over?

Nick Carr says so:

While there continue to be many blogs, including a lot of very good ones, it seems to me that one would be hard pressed to make the case that there's still a "blogosphere." That vast, free-wheeling, and surprisingly intimate forum where individual writers shared their observations, thoughts, and arguments outside the bounds of the traditional media is gone. Almost all of the popular blogs today are commercial ventures with teams of writers, aggressive ad-sales operations, bloated sites, and strategies of self-linking. Some are good, some are boring, but to argue that they're part of a "blogosphere" that is distinguishable from the "mainstream media" seems more and more like an act of nostalgia, if not self-delusion.

08 Nov 2008 08:46 am

Joe The Watchdog

Ezra Klein has no sympathy for Lieberman:

As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman's House counterpart -- Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight Committee -- was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.

Continue reading "Joe The Watchdog" »

08 Nov 2008 07:39 am

Gays, Blacks, Marriage

Cindy Rizzo attacks Dan Savage, a Kossack tries to separate myth from reality, and Coates thinks before he speaks:

I'm still embarrassed by the fact that 70 percent of those who did vote, voted yes. It means we have serious work to do. But I'm seeing a makings of a disreputable trend to turn a problem into a black problem. We use disproportion as a crutch--what's important is that blacks are disproportionately poor, not that there are large numbers of white poor people. Ditto for homophobia. What's important isn't the large minority of whites, and the influential majority (barely) of Latinos who passed Prop 8, but the roughly 5 percent of the California electorate who voted for it.

Continue reading "Gays, Blacks, Marriage " »

Friday, November 7, 2008

07 Nov 2008 09:51 pm

Prop 8: Chill

I totally understand the anger, hurt and pain now roiling the gay community and our families, especially in California. But it's important to keep our heads. I've been in the middle of this fight for two decades. It's important to remember that we have never had this level of public support for marriage equality before. In eight years in California alone, the majority in favor of banning marriage equality has gone from 61 to 52 percent. Meanwhile, California's legislature has voted for it, 18,000 couples are legally married in California, and legally comparable (if still unequal) domestic partnerships are available. Very soon, thousands of gay couples will be able to marry in Connecticut. The one state with a history of marriage equality, Massachusetts, is showing how good and positive a reform it is. New York recognizes Massachusetts' civil marriages.

Calm down. We are not experiencing a massive, permanent backlash.

Continue reading "Prop 8: Chill" »

07 Nov 2008 09:25 pm

Derb on Torture

A reader draws my attention to this piece from November 2001. It's a categorical rejection of all forms of torture, as one would expect from an Englishman by birth. But I am unaware of his protesting the Bush administration's use of torture. Did I miss something?

07 Nov 2008 08:33 pm

Prop 8 And The Catholic Vote

Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll in California, talks about polling on 8:

When comparing the findings from The Field Poll's final pre-election survey of likely voters (n-966) to the Edison Media Research exit poll in California, the biggest differences relate to the turnout and preferences of frequent church-goers and Catholics.

Continue reading "Prop 8 And The Catholic Vote" »

07 Nov 2008 08:16 pm

Face Of The Day

A Shiite Muslim girl watches from behind a silver plated grill as men take part in the Friday noon prayers at the Imam Hussein shrine in the southern holy city of Karbala, 120 kms south of Baghdad on November 07 2008. Several prominent Shiite preachers in Iraq gave fiery Friday sermons warning against the signing of a new security agreement which would keep US forces in the country for up to another three years. By Mohammed Sawaf/AFP/Getty.

07 Nov 2008 07:33 pm

LGBT, GOP

From a Log Cabin Republican e-mail:

Exit polls show Sen. John McCain received at least 1.3 million votes from gay and lesbian Americans—more than any other Republican Presidential candidate has ever received.  He garnered 27% of the LGBT vote, an increase from 19% support for President Bush four years ago.

'Tis true. Not sure why. McCain did not engage in the kind of anti-gay bile that Bush and Rove trafficked in, and did not grandstand on Prop 8. He had an openly gay chief-of-staff for a long time, which might have helped. And then there were the Hillary hold-overs. That's my best explanation the uptick in LGBT GOP support this year. Maybe you have others.

07 Nov 2008 07:17 pm

Gene Therapy And HIV

It's always been a smarter approach, to my mind, than the search for an always-elusive vaccine to an always mutating retrovirus. And this looks like a breakthrough - by accident, as so often happens.

07 Nov 2008 07:03 pm

Malkin Award Nominee

"I see that some of my NRO colleagues are scratching around for shards of optimism — of Hope! — in the general wreckage. Good luck to them. I see nothing for conservatives to hope for in an Obama administration. We just have to stick it out. This shallow, ignorant, self-obsessed man, who held an actual job for just one year of his charmed life (low-grade editing for an obscure newsletter — he felt, he tells us in Dreams, “like a spy behind enemy lines,” the enemy of course being capitalism), this red-diaper baby and his wife, will be our First Couple for the next four years and some weeks. It’ll be interesting. Interesting," - John Derbyshire, NRO.

07 Nov 2008 06:02 pm

The Nancy Grace Proposition

Mary Beard regrets California prop 9 passing:

Even worse, in my view, was the passing of Proposition 9, a Victims Rights initiative (paradoxically bank-rolled by a rich Californian currently indicted on fraud and drugs charges). It reduces the possibilities for prisoners’ parole, adds to the vast Californian prison population and give victims of crime a greater voice in the judicial and punitive process. There’s something truly dreadful about this. Sure, we should support the victims. But one of the whole purposes of a state legal system is to break the link the link between culprit and victim – to stop punishment being vendetta.

07 Nov 2008 05:32 pm

From Notlob To Japan

A crime wave by the over 65s hits Japan:

The number of people aged 65 or older arrested for crimes other than traffic violations totaled 48,605 last year, up from 24,247 in 2002, the Justice Ministry said in an annual crime report. Elderly crimes rose 4.2 percent in 2007 from a year earlier, though the total number of people arrested fell 4.8 percent to 366,002. Thefts, such as shoplifting and pick-pocketing, were the most common crimes committed by older people, the report said, citing low income, declining health and a sense of isolation as the main causes of the trend.

(Hat tip: FP). Monty Python got there first, of course:

07 Nov 2008 04:53 pm

Number 44

Dave Barry peers into the future:

Barack Obama is our next president, which is very bad because he is a naive untested wealth-spreading terrorist-befriending ultraliberal socialist communist who will suddenly reveal his secret Muslim identity by riding to his inauguration on a camel shouting ''Death to Israel!'' (I mean Obama will be shouting this, not the camel) after which he will wreck the economy by sending Joe the Plumber to Guantánamo and taxing away all the income of anybody who makes over $137.50 per year and giving it to bloated government agencies that will deliberately set it on fire.

Give the man a Fox News contract!

07 Nov 2008 04:41 pm

The First Press Conference

Full transcript here. Joe Klein was impressed. So was Josh Marshall. I missed it, I'm afraid. Aaron had out-patient minor surgery today and I've been husbanding. You know: destroying the sacred institution of the family by taking care of my spouse. Take it away, Maggie Gallagher.

07 Nov 2008 04:04 pm

Mormons vs Gays

The Hewitt strategy of trying to bring the LDS church - especially LDS money - into a Christianist popular front began with the Romney candidacy. Then it morphed into Prop 8, funded by $20 million of Mormon money. The leadership of the LDS church has every right to do this; but equally gay people and their families now have every right to highlight the Mormon church as an enemy of civil rights and of gay people everywhere. This will be decried as bigotry. But gays are not fighting to remove the civil rights of Mormons; while Mormons have successfully campaigned to remove the civil rights of gays.

Tolerant and inclusive Mormons should not be forgotten; the Mormon tradition of church-state separation should not be ignored either. But toleration goes both ways. Gay people have every right to regard the Mormon church hierarchy as a mortal enemy. If they knock on my door any time soon, they will get an earful.

(Photo: Protest signs are left on the fence of the Los Angeles Mormon Temple as supporters of same-sex marriage continue to protest against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints November 6, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. By David McNew/Getty.)

07 Nov 2008 03:40 pm

The Old Derb Returns

He was quite absent in the Corner during the election, presumably because he was too honest to tell the requisite lies about the Palin farce. He's back now, and horrified, of course, that Obama is president. But it has to be a land speed Godwin's law record for someone to compare a president-elect, only days after the election, with both Hitler and Stalin. I do think that comparing Obama's proposals for voluntary service to the forced labor marches in building the White Sea-Baltic canal by Stalin is absurd. But it is also deeply insulting to the actual victims of Stalinism.

At no point, to my best recollection, did Derbyshire protest when the Bush administration actually did use Communist torture techniques against incarcerated terror suspects. But maybe his revulsion at the methods of totalitarians will shortly be revived now that there's a black man in the White House.

07 Nov 2008 03:28 pm

Flava!

By illustrator Patrick Moberg.

(Hat tip: Beutler)

07 Nov 2008 03:26 pm

13 Suitcases

That "authentic" moose-killer certainly had some fancy tastes:

The campaign was charged for silk boxer shorts, spray tanners and 13 suitcases to carry all the designer clothes, according to two GOP insiders.

"The shopping continued after the convention in Minneapolis, it continued all around the country," one source said. "She was still receiving shipments of custom-designed underpinnings up to her 'Saturday Night Live' performance" in October. Sources said expenses were put on the personal credit cards of low-level Palin staffers and discovered when they asked party officials for reimbursement.

Silk boxer shorts? For Todd? Remember also that she denied all of this when asked. So add more pathological lying to the bizarre self-enrichment. Now you really still believe all the stories she has told?

07 Nov 2008 03:25 pm

Rebuild The Party

Patrick Ruffini, among others, has launched a 10-point action plan for the next RNC Chairman:

... the best part? You can vote on key tenets of the plan, submit your own, and vote them up in a Digg-like process. The best user generated ideas may be included in future releases of the plan. Participate in this platform by visiting Ideas.RebuildTheParty.com and registering.

07 Nov 2008 02:58 pm

Palin's Mole At The NYT

Scott Horton has more detail on the role of Bill Kristol in blowing up the McCain campaign both before and after the disastrous selection of Sarah Palin. From a McCain adviser:

“In the last six weeks there was a remarkable echo. You could listen to arguments made by folks inside of the campaign who were close to Bill Kristol and then open up the New York Times and read them in Kristol’s columns. It was ‘set Sarah free,’ coupled with an agenda designed to appeal to the religious right and the more raucous elements of the party.

Continue reading "Palin's Mole At The NYT" »

07 Nov 2008 02:48 pm

The Only Choice?

Noam Scheiber makes the case that Rahm was Obama's only plausible pick.

07 Nov 2008 02:26 pm

Get Rid Of The Rich Republicans!

They're social liberals, anyway. Ross considers the next Republican coalition:

A party that restores its reputation for competence and policy seriousness, as the Republicans desperately need to do, will win back voters across the income and educational spectrum, no matter what specific positions it takes. But insofar as there's a choice to be made, I think building a coalition of social conservatives and social moderates from the middle of the income and education distribution makes much more political sense than trying to hold together a coalition of social conservatives from the middle of the distribution and social liberals from the upper end.

Continue reading "Get Rid Of The Rich Republicans!" »

07 Nov 2008 01:47 pm

Quote For The Day

"Does any reasonable person not believe that gays and lesbians deserve respect and equality? Not today’s Republican Party. Expert translators from Arabic have been dismissed for being gay. And applicants for the post of certified public accountants in the Iraq Green Zone have been asked about their view of Roe v. Wade," - Jeffrey Hart, one of the founders of the conservative movement.

Hart was removed from the masthead of National Review a little while ago.

07 Nov 2008 01:19 pm

The Politics Of Inequality

Wilkinson and Manzi disagree about the importance of inequality. Here's Manzi's bottom line:

Why does a person with whom I agree about so much find inequality to be much less troubling than I do? I’ve thought a lot about this, and I believe that ultimately it’s because I see the world as a much more dangerous and violent place than Will does. I think that living in an extended, law-bound, commercial society is deeply unnatural, and the product of many generations of work. Aspects of human nature are an acid that constantly undermines its foundations. Hordes of violent men are always outside the city gates ready to sack it, and those inside always threaten to turn into a mob and destroy it from within. One of many bulwarks against these threats is social cohesion, which is undermined by extreme inequality.

I'm with Manzi. Aristotle convinced me of this a long time ago. I'd just prefer to tackle inequality by investing in education rather than skewing tax rates.

07 Nov 2008 12:50 pm

The View From Your Window

St, Petersburg, Russia, 9.30 am.

07 Nov 2008 12:30 pm

"Humanity" And "Decency"

Michael Gerson manages to write a column about George W. Bush's humane side without noting that this president subjected, by lawless fiat, countless individuals to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, tortured at least two dozen individuals to death, and launched a war where hundreds of thousands of innocents died because of his negligence and hubris. Yes, PEPFAR is an achievement. But set against the legacy of the first American president to authorize torture against mere suspects, to adopt the techniques of the Khmer Rouge and the Gestapo for the US, PEPFAR is sadly overwhelmed.

No president's record - in its treatment of helpless prisoners under his total control - has ever been as indecent as this president's. Gerson was an integral part of the administration that brought torture into the American system of government. He has yet to address this - and the challenge it presents for Christians in particular.

07 Nov 2008 12:13 pm

The Right To Suicide

Jacob Sullum considers the meaning of Washington's new assisted suicide law.

07 Nov 2008 11:51 am

Energy Warfare

Robert Rapier studies Obama's plans:

I think Obama's choice of Secretary of Energy is going to be a strong indicator of whether he is going to declare open warfare on the oil companies, or whether he is going to try to work with them.

Continue reading "Energy Warfare" »

07 Nov 2008 11:47 am

Palin, Africa, Denial

Ramesh is the lone voice of reason over at the Corner:

...if it is true that Gov. Palin did not know that South Africa was a country on the continent of Africa, it is the type of information that voters should know before her career progresses. And I don't think, by the way, that most people on the Left fear her.

He expands upon this point here. He also has a smart post on the future of the right. I know it's close to incredible that Palin was quite the know-nothing that she is, but you have to deal with the truth before you dig any further in.

07 Nov 2008 10:49 am

Could Michael Goldfarb Have Been Wrong?

A reader writes:

Don't underestimate the impact Emanuel's background is having on some people.  Within hours of announcing the pick, a friend of mine--a well-educated Jewish professional who voted for McCain because of concerns about Rev. Wright and Israel--emailed me, excited about the pick.  My wife's grandfather--a Florida Jew who also voted McCain for the same reason--emailed me his Wikipedia page within minutes.  Emanuel's a Modern Orthodox Jew, the son of an Irgun member, and volunteered as a civilian for the IDF during the first Gulf War.  His Israel credentials are every bit as impeccable as Alan Dershowitz's.  Obama just calmed thousands of Jewish voters who were anxious about Israel and Iran, and sent a message to the world that he won't be a pushover in the Middle  East.

I wonder how many other "anti-Semites" Obama will be filling his White House with.

07 Nov 2008 10:38 am

Enjoy The Low Gas Prices Now

Because they aren't going to last:

Oil prices will rebound to more than $100 a barrel as soon as the world economy recovers, and will exceed $200 by 2030, the International Energy Agency will say in its flagship report to be published next week.

I sure hope so. Nothing less will jump-start the non-carbon revolution. Bradford Plumer has more.

07 Nov 2008 10:25 am

A Real Threat To Marriage

This would be a huge mistake:

I hope advocates don't make other, more radical claims.  I've heard people talking about arguing that Prop. 8, when combined with either the suspect class status of sexual orientation or the fundamental nature of the marriage right, requires that civil marriage be rescinded entirely, with presumably only a  non-discriminatory civil union status remaining.  The technical merits of the claim aside, I can't imagine a judge accepting it.  More importantly, that argument strikes me as a public relations catastrophe: after arguing for months about the importance of marriage it would be seen as a scorched earth policy of denying the right to everyone rather than continuing the hard work of obtaining the right for ourselves.  I can't imagine lawyers pressing this argument, and I hope they don't.

My advice to the marriage movement: educate, speak, reach out. Stop the litigating. Resist the impulse to revel in victimhood. It may be justified and I certainly know how it feels, but it doesn't change any minds. That's what we have to re-focus on. And that's the only reason we have had the success we have had. Patience, diligence, charity: these are what a civil rights movement needs to stand for.

07 Nov 2008 10:20 am

The MSM-Blog Axis

An addendum to my post on 538:

...it’s also worth remembering that Silver’s statistical model was entirely dependent on other people’s polling data. This doesn’t detract from his accomplishment - it’s just a healthy reminder that even new media gurus depend on traditional reporting more than we’d like to admit. It’s a fairly banal observation, but the future of internet-based media probably involves some sort of symbiotic relationship with more traditional outlets. Which is basically a long way of saying that you should still subscribe to newspapers.

I said as much during my recent NPR appearance. Blogging needs the MSM and vice-versa.

07 Nov 2008 10:15 am

Did Lehman Kill McCain? Ctd

A reader writes:

I completely agree with your larger point, but your reference to the Couric interview is off.  Couric was later - she interviewed Palin the same day McCain suspended, which was well after the Lehman collapse.  But you're right about the turn coming before Lehman, and about much of it having to do with the growing awareness that Palin was a fraud. 

Continue reading "Did Lehman Kill McCain? Ctd" »

07 Nov 2008 09:59 am

California's Split Decision

Toles again puts it as well as anyone:

07 Nov 2008 09:51 am

Joe On Joe Action

Klein debates Lieberman's future:

The best course of action would be to remove him as chair of the Homeland Security Committee, but allow him to retain his seniority. That's about as gracious as I think Democrats should be, and far more than Lieberman deserves.

07 Nov 2008 09:22 am

Did Lehman Kill McCain?

That's the partisan Republican spin on the dreadful McCain campaign. Krauthammer makes the case this morning:

The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 -- caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) -- although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4. In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff.

The data do not support this thesis. McCain was behind for almost all of the campaign, apart from a brief post-convention bump. Here's the Pollster graph for the period in question:

You will note that McCain's slide began September 7, a week before Krauthammer claims; and Obama's re-surge began September 9. Pollster's polls are smoothed out, but the turning point was well before Lehman, and correlates with the disastrous Couric Gibson-Palin interview.

All along, the clear line for McCain was always down, and only the convention period - when people were still under the temporary illusion that Sarah Palin was a credible, rather than a farcical, candidate - gave McCain any hope.

Continue reading "Did Lehman Kill McCain?" »

07 Nov 2008 08:44 am

Ross Is In The Lead

Speculation about what will replace the execrable, incoherent column that Bill Kristol has been phoning in to the paper he despises is buzzing around the Internets. Our own Ross Douthat is leading in one online poll. Don't go!