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Saturday, February 16, 2008
The Lines Meet
16 Feb 2008 07:11 pm
Obama pulls ahead on Pollster's poll of polls for the first time:
The View From Your Window
16 Feb 2008 06:55 pm
Provincetown, Massachusetts, 7.40 am.
Back At You
16 Feb 2008 06:31 pm
Clinton puts out a new ad attacking Obama for attacking her ad:
Obama's Substance
16 Feb 2008 05:05 pm
A reader points me toward this post by Hilzoy from October 2006 about some of Obama's wonkier endeavors:
...my little data point is: while Obama has not proposed his Cosmic Plan for World Peace, he has proposed a lot of interesting legislation on important but undercovered topics. I can't remember another freshman Senator who so routinely pops up when I'm doing research on some non-sexy but important topic, and pops up because he has proposed something genuinely good. Since I think that American politics doesn't do nearly enough to reward people who take a patient, craftsmanlike attitude towards legislation, caring as much about fixing the parts that no one will notice until they go wrong as about the flashy parts, I wanted to say this.
She lists some of the legislation. Hilzoy is also currently sifting through Obama's and Clinton's legislative records to see what they have actually accomplished while in the Senate. As far as his speechmaking goes, here is a post of mine from early January listing some of his more substantive policy speeches.
On this note, Ezra Klein has a novel idea:
...presumably, the way to figure out if [Obama] was talking about policy was not to evaluate whether his speech was longer and more boring than his other speeches, but to examine the actual statements he offered and ask some experts how the proffered solutions might fare.
When all else fails.
Face Of The Day
16 Feb 2008 04:44 pm
Students gather for a prayer service on the campus of Northern Illinois University to pray for those killed and wounded in Thursday's shooting at Cole Hall February 15, 2008 in DeKalb, Illinois. Six people are reported dead including the gunman and 16 other people were left wounded after a young man pulled out a shotgun and began firing inside a lecture hall. This is the fourth shooting at a U.S. school within a week. By Scott Olson/Getty Images.
Real Time Last Night
16 Feb 2008 04:29 pm
Here's the web-only portion of the show:
The rest of the show is on HBO this week. Here's parts three, four, five, and six.
An Old Prejudice
16 Feb 2008 03:40 pm
A reader writes:
You wrote:
"There seems to be a meme that because someone is inspiring, there has to be no substance."
This is an old prejudice. I think I wrote to you before about it, but it is ancient, heightened during the Rennaissance and Enlightment, to the point where it is ordinary bias to presume that one perfects style at the expense of substance. Teaching rhetoric, I hear this sort of idea expressed by students, noted in the press, and stated in conversation regularly. It is easy for people to fall into this sort of thing even though conceptually it is bunk and Obama is a contemporary exhibit A as to why it is bunk.
I dare say, no matter how many times you point it out, until Obama drones on about policy specifics to the point where no one can ignore the fact that he has specifics (and knows them), many will still assume that one who soars in language is not staying focused on issues.
Obama is quite Ciceronian in his enactment of leadership. He balances a wide culture with eloquence. Yet many often assume Cicero was principally a stylist, which is sheer nonsense.
It is superficial decision making, what social scientists might call peripheral processing. I would wager that many of those who reiterate Obama is all hat and no cattle, as Hillary is encouraging, actually don't know much about her policy positions either.
Ending Government HIV Discrimination
16 Feb 2008 03:11 pm
Good news from the State Department. But why did it take a lawsuit for this to happen? Now can we repeal the Jesse Helms ban on HIV-positive visitors, tourists, and immigrants? The provision was removed from PEPFAR for reasons I have yet to understand. The US is in a discriminatory class of countries with Saudi Arabia and Iran - even China has repealed its ban - and yet, the Democrats cannot manage to pass this sane and long overdue legislation. Many Republicans support it - thanks, Gordon Smith! So why the inability to get it done?
Breaking Up With Barack
16 Feb 2008 02:58 pm
The whole thing is just sooo last week in January.
Kenya Diary
16 Feb 2008 02:35 pm
The Economist has a correspondent writing dispatches from Kenya. What's happening there - the unraveling of a successful African country into a tribal stew - is a story somewhat eclipsed by the Middle East and the election. But the parallels to Iraq are striking. An excerpt:
Alan Ogot, one of Kenya’s leading historians, is the chancellor of Moi University in Eldoret...The biggest threat to the country, he says, will not come from Luo secession, or even from other tribes’ reprisals, but from crime. In Luoland over half the population is under 18 years old. Unemployment in Kisumu is already 70%. Without jobs, political lawlessness will harden into organised criminality.
The History Of The Beard
16 Feb 2008 02:32 pm
From Charles Dawson Shanley's 1867 Atlantic article about hair:
At various periods beards were regulated by law. In 1533, Francis I. issued an edict ordaining that Bohemians, Egyptians, and other persons of that sort should be arrested, shaved, and committed to the galleys. It is said that the Parliament of Toulouse forbade the wearing of beards, and that, when a certain gentleman, furnished with a very long one, brought some claims before that body, he was told that they could not be entertained until he had shaven his face clean. Indeed, so much controversy took place at this time regarding the beard, that the learned doctor Gentien Hervet wrote a discourse upon the subject, which was printed at Orleans in 1536. He divided his discourse into three sections. The first maintained that all men ought to allow their beards to grow; the second, that all men ought to shave their beards off; and the third, that every man should do just as he pleases about his beard.
Twenty years later, beards were again much in vogue. They were worn in the swallow-tail cut now, and there were fan-tail beards to be seen also, as well as many other strange and grotesque devices in the arrangement of the facial hair. A great variety of unguents for the beard were also brought into use at this time, all of different colors and perfumes. The beard, at this period, was generally made up at night, and placed in a bag to prevent it from getting out of form. It became the proper thing now, in France, to carry a small brush for the purpose of arranging the mustache, an office which ladies would sometimes perform for their beaux, and great value was attached to a mustache that had been put in form for the wearer by some fair hand.
Totally Gay For America
16 Feb 2008 01:55 pm
Homo-neo-cons have a new anthem. Have at it, Jamie:
A Good Point
16 Feb 2008 12:53 pm
A reader responds to this post about guns in space:
On at least two occasions, Russian Soyuz capsules have come down in the Siberian wilderness, and been surrounded by wolf packs. I think the gun is justified.
If Headline Writers Ruled The World
16 Feb 2008 10:42 am
Who would the next president be?
Friday, February 15, 2008
Flags Of The World
15 Feb 2008 07:03 pm
Pride
15 Feb 2008 05:38 pm
A twenty-one year-old reader writes:
There's one salient reason why people of my age are supporting Obama and that's because we feel that Obama will finally show us what it means to be proud of our president.
I read more than I should about politics and US history and am always confused as to how Americans can love their president so. Intellectually I understand why Americans love(d) Lincoln and the Roosevelts but I never felt why they did.
Andrew, people my age are too young to remember Bill Clinton. All we have is George W. Bush. The office of the President to us is a mockery. We don't link President Bush to concepts such as leader, we link it to ignorance and idiocy. Most people my age have never felt proud of our President. We grew up on the Daily Show, we only know how to make fun of him and mock him.
I attended an Obama rally a few days ago and was amazed at how filled up with emotion I was. Halfway through his speech, other 21 year olds just like that filled the Hall were screaming their heads off, waving banners, and grinning. Everyone was giddy, hell even I was giddy. I was smiling and chanting along to "Yes We Can." I didn't know what that feeling was because I had never felt it. But then I realized it. It was pride. I was proud of Obama.
I know you've felt proud of Reagan and others have felt proud of Bill Clinton. I can't wait to actually know what it feels like to be proud of my President and not embarrassed by him. That's why at least my generation is turning out in droves to make Obama president. We've finally got a taste of what it feels like to be proud of our President and we're not giving that feeling up.
Stress Positions
15 Feb 2008 05:31 pm
A reader writes:
The first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on Strappado:
Strappado is a form of torture in which a victim is suspended in the air by means of a rope attached to his hands which are tied behind his back, in which the arms are most likely dislocated. Weights may be added to the body. Other names for strappado include reverse hanging and Palestinian hanging. It is best known for its use in the Medieval Inquisition and has since been used by the governments of Turkey, Nazi Germany and the United States of America.
Granted Wikipedia is subject to all manner of mischief and manipulation but I believe that most Americans would be sickened, as I am, to see our country listed there.
Don't Mess With Beagles
15 Feb 2008 04:57 pm
Arnold Kling takes it all back.
Mental Health Break
15 Feb 2008 04:48 pm
Lionel Ritchie on helium.
Stress Positions And The Crucifixion
15 Feb 2008 04:42 pm
Several e-mailers have made this point about stress positions:
"Stress postions" may will win the award for the most obfuscatory euphemism. If one gives attention to the actual method, as opposed to the Orwellian terminology, then the most casual student of ancient history -- and of the New Testament -- will see an immediate parallel with crucifixion.
Continue reading "Stress Positions And The Crucifixion" »
The Conservative Soul
15 Feb 2008 04:23 pm
Rush's version:
I treat [talk radio] as a business. My definitions for success have nothing to do with who wins elections, but rather, Is the program growing audience-wise? Are we attracting new sponsors? Are those sponsors paying confiscatory rates? Are we able to charge confiscatory rates? Which we are. Are they getting results for their advertising? Yes they are. We're sold out constantly, we've got a waiting list for people to get on. That's how I define it.
The Ignorance Of The Right
15 Feb 2008 04:11 pm
Here's Victor Davis Hanson:
Under pressure to produce some facts and specifics, the Obama team is beginning to release a little on the economy, taxes, and new entitlements.
Now the reason I balk at this is that I actually sat through a long Obama speech on taxes last year in Washington. I couldn't get through the details there were so many. It bored the pants off me. The notion that Obama has not released details and specifics on economic policy is a fantasy. It's a product of pundit laziness. The cocoon right seems to believe that because they haven't done their homework, Obama hasn't.
And because Obama actually inspires with oratory, they also assume he doesn't have substance. The premise is that you cannot be inspiring and detailed at the same time. Two words: Why not?
What people fail to understand is that in politics, words are also substance. The ability to inspire people is not inherently a dangerous phenomenon. It is sometimes critical to effective governance. Conservatives used to understand this. Perhaps Churchill's greatest actual weapon was the English language. It did things no bureaucrat, soldier, armament, or policy could do. The core of Ronald Reagan's success was his rhetorical ability to reach over the heads of the Washington process to the people who can force Washington to change: the American people. And I don't recall conservatives decrying the rhetoric of hope reacting to George W. Bush's inspired speeches after 9/11.
Look: flim-flam and emotional hysteria are dangerous things. There are moments when Obama's rhetoric gets the better of his common sense. But the record shows that he also does have common sense - more common sense than Charles Krauthammer or me when it came to predicting the practical consequences of an Iraq occupation. And if a potential president has a head on his shoulders and is able to inspire millions, what on earth is wrong with that?
Moore Award Nominee
15 Feb 2008 03:51 pm
"Right now, I would like to put every City trader and master-of-the universe banker into an offshore penal colony where they would have to make their own clothes out of copies of The Wall Street Journal, cook a ration of rice in a dung-oven, and read at least one important book a day. I think they can all begin with Das Kapital, not because Marxism is a viable economic model, but because the rich West urgently needs to remember that making money is neither an end in itself, nor an activity that commands respect," - Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian. (Hat tip: John Baker).
Obama, Clinton and The War
15 Feb 2008 03:44 pm
Ximena Ortiz draws a distinction:
"While Obama’s positions on important foreign-policy issues have not always been static (even to some degree on the Iraq War), Obama has demonstrated a willingness to acknowledge his prior position. Obama has therefore not resorted to that dark art of politics, alchemizing one’s prior positions in order to avoid acknowledging misjudgments or contradictions... the main dichotomy between Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s Iraq positions may be that while Clinton has obfuscated to some degree on her 2002 vote, Obama has not equivocated on what position he took in 2002, even though he may at times have doubted whether or not he had made the correct call on the war."
The difference between a dissembler and a doubter, between pure politics and intellectual honesty.
Clinton's Foreclosure Plan
15 Feb 2008 03:18 pm
And they call Obama a socialist?
Face Of The Day
15 Feb 2008 03:08 pm
Supporters of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto arrive to attend a public election meeting in Faisalabad on February 14, 2008. The widower of Bhutto Asif Ali Zardari urged thousands of supporters to 'besiege' polling stations next week to ensure results are announced fairly. By Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images.
White Men And Obama
15 Feb 2008 03:07 pm
They've been with him from the beginning.
Clinton's New Spin
15 Feb 2008 02:47 pm
I'd forgotten that unions with four-letter acronyms don't count. AFT! NEA! AFSCME! Those are unions. HERE, UFCW, SEIU and so forth don't make the cut.
How Obama Can Win Texas
15 Feb 2008 02:29 pm
A true insider's guide.
Project Implicit
15 Feb 2008 02:14 pm
Harvard has an online test to see who you really like for president. It has to do with reflexes and positive associations. I'm a little jet-lagged and out of it, but my own score gives McCain a slight lead over Obama in the depths of my psyche. And yes, I disliked Huckabee more than Clinton. Just.
SEIU For Obama
15 Feb 2008 02:01 pm
The wind is at his back.
Pushing On A String
15 Feb 2008 01:59 pm
Krugman on Bernanke. Krugman has predicted gloom for a very, very long time. This time he may well be right.
Fatherhood
15 Feb 2008 01:58 pm
Josh Marshall is loving it. Happy birthday.
Finally Someone Says It
15 Feb 2008 01:46 pm
We will never have a vaccine for HIV. The resources directed toward it might well have been better spent on prevention and better treatments. Maybe a therapeutic vaccine to ameliorate the immune response of those already infected - but nothing like a vaccine the way we normally think of it.
The View From Abroad - Australia
15 Feb 2008 01:09 pm
A reader writes:
Aussies follow all-things American pretty closely. Interesting, it seems as though older Aussies are more comfortable with Hillary - indeed excited by her - whereas younger Aussie's are very much behind Obama. They recognise the global PR coup that would be won by an Obama victory, and they're caught up in the charisma he has to offer as well.
Keep in mind that yesterday, the Australian government officially apologised to the Stolen Generation, those indigenous - black - Australians who were stolen from their parents in an effort to "protect" (read "whiten") them from the 1930s into the 1970s. In a way, Obama's success represents a hope for reconciliation, renewal, and rebirth for this country as well.
Continue reading "The View From Abroad - Australia" »
The Crystal Skull?
15 Feb 2008 12:49 pm
What is it? A public service movie against meth abuse? Well, you know you want it:
Yglesias Award Nominee
15 Feb 2008 12:45 pm
"Oh yes, we are well aware of Senator Obama’s morally unacceptable
position on abortion. No Catholic can or will endorse the taking of
innocent life. Indeed, conscience could not just dissuade, but directly
preclude, casting a vote in his column. However, Catholic moral
teaching enjoins us to work to transform the culture in every vineyard,
not just those that are friendly. And Senator Obama has courageously
and intriguingly opened a window of opportunity for important
conversation across faith traditions, by reminding us that "we should
not use faith as a wedge to divide, but instead use faith to resolve
cultural tensions and mediate conflicts rather than engage in a
politics that exploits them and drives us further from a solution ...
To date, Senator Obama has kept the essence of his campaign at the
level of the statesmen, which is why many Catholics, including myself,
find this to be a favorable comparison to the memory of Ronald Wilson
Reagan," - Douglas Kmiec, responding to Ramesh Ponnuru, in NRO.
His orthodox Catholic defense of Obama over McCain can be read here. I don't agree with all of Kmiec's views, but I do believe that Obama's sensibility and public conduct are appealing to most of the Catholics I know.
Hispanics In Texas
15 Feb 2008 12:35 pm
Clinton 44, Obama 42. Those kinds of numbers suggest an Obama victory over all.
Encyclopedia Baracktannica
15 Feb 2008 12:33 pm
The English language will never be the same.
Bradbury's Defense Of Waterboarding
15 Feb 2008 12:17 pm
It all depends on what the meaning of the word "waterboarding" is, apparently:
Let's be very clear: This so-called "analysis" is at the very core of the OLC justification for waterboarding, and possibly several other components of the CIA program, as well. And it is flatly, 100% wrong, and indefensible, for reasons I have discussed at length. The fact that Judge Mukasey continues to abide by it is a scandal. And the fact that Congress has not said a word about this legal linchpin of the OLC/CIA regime is even worse.
A Synthesizer, Not A Divider
15 Feb 2008 11:57 am
The rather banal view of "bringing people together" is such a cliche and so clumsy a phrase when describing Barack Obama's history of coalition politics. Jeff Rosen, who seems almost as smitten as I am, describes (reg req.) one such Obama moment:
After Obama was elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996, he defended individual rights in a way that might have marginalized him: He joined only two other senators in voting against a bill to forbid convicts on probation from having contact with street gangs, and he voted against a bill to expand the death penalty to gang-related murders. But Obama nevertheless won the respect of police and prosecutors in Chicago by building those "alliances of consent."
One of his greatest legislative triumphs was a bill to require the videotaping of all confessions and interrogations in capital cases. Initially, police, state prosecutors, and the newly elected Democratic governor were strongly opposed, some death-penalty abolitionists viewed the bill as too moderate, and legislators were afraid of being soft on crime. But Obama led daily negotiations (without reporters) during which he emphasized his opponents' common values. At the end, the bill had the support of all parties, passed unanimously, and today has been adopted as a model by four states and the District of Columbia.
When Pro-Sports Meet Washington
15 Feb 2008 11:49 am
Josh Green on the brutal baseball hearings:
Professional sports and official Washington have much in common. Neither is a stranger to steroidally overdeveloped egos or grand displays of power. But as so often happens when the two worlds collide, yesterday's hearing was a massacre—and, as usual, professional sports didn't see it coming. It looked to me as though Clemens and the many sports media types in attendance were genuinely taken aback by the primal, dog-in-heat urgency with which these grandstanding nobodies tore apart a sports legend.
The political reporters, however, were not the slightest bit phased. This highlights a crucial disparity that I think the sports world has never truly appreciated, and that helps to explain the disastrous string of recent appearances by major sports figures in Washington: sports and politics both thrive on ego, money, and power. But only in Washington is the ritual humiliation that Clemens experienced a deeply ingrained and important part of the culture.
The View From Your Window
15 Feb 2008 11:07 am
Chicago, Illinois, 3.30 pm.
FEMA News
15 Feb 2008 10:26 am
It gets better:
U.S. health officials are urging that Gulf Coast hurricane victims be moved out of their government-issued trailers as quickly as possible after tests found toxic levels of formaldehyde fumes.
Stress Positions
15 Feb 2008 10:21 am
By focusing on waterboarding, we can sometimes forget that the other "alternative techniques" for "enhanced interrogation" are also forms of torture, even when they leave no permanent marks, or, in the words of AEI's John Yoo, do not cause major organ failure. The term "stress position" for example, when uttered by someone like Rush Limbaugh, who described some of what happened at Abu Ghraib as nothing more serious than fraternity hazing, can seem banal, even defensible. These positions, which the president strongly supports, can nonetheless become very quickly hideous acts of cruelty. Here's a photo of what the Nazis called Pfahlbinden.
You can seen that individuals are contorted just by the weight of their own bodies into positions of excruciating pain that lasts until it is unbearable. In this picture, it does not appear that the methods are being used to interrogate. They are being used for sadistic purposes. They are worse thah the 'stress positions" we have evidence of in US custody because the Nazi prisoners were literally suspended in the air, their feet barely touching the ground.. But the victums of US stress positions were chained to fixtures and wall with hands chained above and behind the head, with feet barely on the ground. They had a tiny bit more support for their feet, but it often made the procedure longer and in end, therefore, more painful.
When you hear a banal phrase like "stress position", and hear people dismiss it, remember that everything is in the doing. And when human beings are given total control over others, they are capable of great evil. Sane and civilized societies do not give permission for such things. And they do not make excuses for them. And when they discover they have been done, they investigate and prosecute those who broke the law.
The War And The Republicans
15 Feb 2008 10:04 am
I was working on a post on the subject - about the GOP's tendency to denialism of extreme remaining danger and its facile conflation of the surge with the occupation - but Ross beat me to it. It's a really sharp post. McCain is playing a very bold game of risk on the war. And this entire election will be driven by it.
Outside The Cocoon
15 Feb 2008 09:31 am
If you're reading this, you're probably part of the relatively small number of people who take an inordinate interest in politics and the campaign. There are a lot of you, but still a tiny minority of the primary voting public. Most normal human beings with jobs to do, kids to raise, bills to pay, don't have that luxury of examining candidates for months on end, long before voting time. So they often focus as the election day approaches, and picking among several within existing party categories, many make up their minds at the last moment. Jay Cost thinks this explains a lot about the skewiff polls this primary season:
If we put ourselves in the shoes of the average voters, and try to recreate their thought processes - it makes a lot of sense. Their partisanship cannot serve as a quick, easy guide. Thus, they have to take a good, long look at the candidates as people. Given their typical inattention to politics, the time when this happens is the last week or so.
This might explain the wide variability of the primary polling. Because they have not been anchored by partisanship - voter opinions have been unstable for most of the cycle, up until the very end when we are wont to see a massive break in one direction or another. The "error" in the polls might simply be a reflection of public indecision. For that matter, Clinton's massive lead through most of last year might have its origins here as well - without their partisanship, poll respondents had little to go on except their vague sense of the media's consensus view of the race. Predictably, they claimed to support Clinton. Finally, this might account for momentum. Voters take a close look at winners at precisely the moment they are basking in the glow of positive media coverage. Unsurprisingly, researchers have found that more informed voters are less susceptible to momentum effects.
Cost believes that the swings decline in the general election, as partisanship stabilizes preferences. My own view of this primary campaign is that Clinton has long enjoyed a big advantage because of her name recognition, her partisan brand, and almost two decades of media attention. And that was her strategy - coast to a coronation because she's ... Hillary. Obama - for all the hype - is still relatively new on the national scene. But when people actually focused and realized things were not fore-ordained, he caught up quickly. That's why a twenty-point lead in the big states evaporated as Super Tuesday approached - because Dem voters realized they actually had a choice. In most of those states where retail campaigning really mattered - New Hampshire excepted - Obama won. The more you see of him, the more support he tends to get. Now he has momentum as well.
I may be deluding myself and I don't believe for a minute that the Clintons will give up until they have no alternative, but my sense is that Obama has already won this thing. And as the broader electorate focuses more and more, that will become clearer and clearer. His main problem is voter cold feet. His relative unfamiliarity is still unsettling to many. He's up against a very familiar, comforting brand, especially if you're a Democrat. At the last moment, some lose their nerve. Hence the odd phenomenon of his winning most final weeks but losing support the day or so before the actual vote. His major obstacle now is understandable but unmerited trepidation.
Which means to say I can still see a way in which Obama could win or lose. But there is no way that Clinton can do anything with this election but survive it.
Mental Health Break
15 Feb 2008 09:15 am
If this doesn't put you in a good mood for today, I don't know what will:
These Shoes Were Made For ...
15 Feb 2008 08:12 am
... whoring? GPS too!
An Anonymity Experiment
15 Feb 2008 07:29 am
Not easy to do:
Pay for everything in cash. Don't use my regular cellphone, landline or e-mail account. Use an anonymizing service to mask my Web surfing. Stay away from government buildings and airports (too many surveillance cameras), and wear a hat and sunglasses to foil cameras I can't avoid. Don't use automatic toll lanes.
(Hat tip: kottke)
Josh On Clinton
15 Feb 2008 03:42 am
Clinton is ultimately responsible for putting her political fate in this fool's [Mark PennClinton] hands. But this is a guy who has basically one big political win under his belt and whose record in seriously contested races, particularly Democratic primary races is one of almost constant defeats. Much of Clinton's current predicament stems from Penn's disastrous, glass-jaw 'inevitability' strategy and the mind-boggling decision not even to contest a slew of states where Obama racked up huge victories and many delegates.
Campaigns are about winning votes not making excuses. There are plenty of delegates still out there for Clinton to win -- over a thousand left in the remaining primaries. But her efforts are being stymied by a campaign apparatus rooted in the belief that any new reality can be overturned by pretending it away.
John Lewis Switches
15 Feb 2008 12:01 am
This is quite a moment. Last October, the titan of the civil rights movement signed onto the Clinton machine. A month ago, he even had this to say about Barack Obama:
"He is no Martin Luther King Jr. I knew Martin Luther King. I knew Bobby Kennedy. I knew President Kennedy. You need more than speech-making. You need someone who is prepared to provide bold leadership."
This is what he's saying now:
"In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit. Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap... I've been very impressed with the campaign of Senator Obama. He's getting better and better every single day."
If Lewis's original endorsement of the Clintons was a huge blow to Obama, then his reversal is an even bigger blow to the Clintons. The Obama campaign has now not only built a rival machine to the Clintons', it is poaching loyalists. A figure like Lewis also brings, for good reason, a vast moral credibility with him. He gives permission - even encouragement - for other Clinton super-delegates to move to prevent a bruising and bitter fight through the spring. It's a tipping point. I predict others will follow. And what both Clinton and Obama have to avoid is a polarizing racial divide.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Debates
14 Feb 2008 11:48 pm
Obama answers Clinton's ad:
Same Old
14 Feb 2008 07:38 pm
Barbara Ehrenreich on Clinton:
Clinton can put forth all the policy proposals she likes - and many of them are admirable ones - but anyone can see that she's of the same generation and even one of the same families that got us into this checkmate situation in the first place. True, some people miss Bill, although the nostalgia was severely undercut by his anti-Obama rhetoric in South Carolina, or maybe they just miss the internet bubble he happened to preside over. But even more people find dynastic successions distasteful, especially when it's a dynasty that produced so little by way of concrete improvements in our lives. Whatever she does, the semiotics of her campaign boils down to two words - "same old."
For Valentine's Day
14 Feb 2008 05:53 pm
For Aaron, from our wedding ceremony:
"When a man meets the half that is his very own, then something wonderful happens; the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment. These are the people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is they want from one another.
No one would think it is the intimacy of sex - that mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep a joy in one another. It's obvious that the soul of every lover longs for something else; his soul cannot say what it is, but like an oracle is has a sense of what it wants, and like an oracle it hides behind a riddle.
Suppose two lovers are lying together and Hephaestus stands over them and asks "What is it you human beings really want from each other?" And suppose they're perplexed and he asks them again:
"Is this your heart's desire, then, for the two of you to become parts of the same whole, as near as can be, and never to separate day or night? Because if that's your desire, I'd like to weld you together and join you into something that is naturally whole, so that the two of you are made into one. Then the two of you would share one life, as long as you lived, because you would be one being, and, by the same token, when you died you would be one not two in heaven.
Look at your love, and see if this is what you desire: wouldn't this be all the good fortune you could want?
No one who received this offer would turn it down. No one would find anything else more precious."
- The Speech of Aristophanes, The Symposium, Plato.
Gun Control In Space
14 Feb 2008 05:23 pm
Whose jurisdiction does this fall under?
(hat tip: Orin Kerr)
Dissent Of The Day
14 Feb 2008 04:41 pm
A reader writes:
Enough of this rah rah Obama crap. Yes, he's a captivating speaker. He could potentially unite us, lead us, and revive our international reputation. We get it already. But of all the "pro-O" bloggers (and there are many), I was really hoping that you would be the one to really scrutinize his policy positions. What happens when when he turns to Plouffe on election night and says, like Redford in The Candidate, "What do we do now?" When are you going to stop cheerleading and start asking the tough questions? Get to it, man! The idol-worship is wearing thin!
I find this criticism bewildering. Obama has a host of policy positions, on taxes, healthcare, Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration, climate change, and this blog has mentioned or debated many of them. There seems to be a meme that because someone is inspiring, there has to be no substance. But they are not mutually exclusive categories. In the Democratic race, the only real substantive difference is healthcare mandates, which I've aired a great deal. And compared with McCain, Obama is a wonk.
Obamaites vs Clintonites
14 Feb 2008 04:40 pm
The rhetoric is getting more toxic:
...what these people say about the zealotry behind the Obama campaign is not only alarming, but dangerous to our democracy. It is akin to emails I've received over the years from the anti-abortionist zealots on their own personal political war path. The insanely reactive, accept no compromise, unhinged religious fervor of a movement that was not only destructive to women, but to our politics. It is the same unbending group think that leads people off cliffs. That's what I'm getting from Obama fans. It's something that is unhealthy, even destructive to the Democratic party.
Then again, this is Taylor Marsh.
SEIU For Obama?
14 Feb 2008 03:50 pm
Not certain yet - but looking like a big endorsement, especially useful in Texas, could be imminent.
Face Of The Day
14 Feb 2008 03:48 pm
Bride Christina Sosa drinks Champagne after she and Jason Arreguin (not pictured) were married on Valentine's Day at the Empire State Building on February 14, 2008 in New York. The annual Valentine's Day wedding event at the Empire State Building had 13 couples exchanging vows in a temporary chapel on the 32nd Floor. The couples were selected from a nationwide contest conducted by Brides.com and the Empire State Building. By Stan Honda AFP/Getty Images.
McCain And Torture
14 Feb 2008 03:40 pm
A reader writes:
I was surprised that you so easily bought into the notion that McCain would "do the right thing" on torture. McCain has an election to win and needs the support of the Christianist pro-torture crowd. And if he wins, I assume that many of the appointees (and outright hires) who enabled or encouraged torture would remain in place as the price McCain must pay for the nomination and the support of the base in the election. I can never support a Republican in 2008 for the simple reason that I think a change of party -- whether led by Hillary or Obama -- is necessary to clean the Bush disciples out of the executive branch, starting with Monica Goodling's Regent University Law School classmates.
Another adds:
You are not the only one who is heartbroken. It is hard to believe that on an issue about which he seemed to feel such conviction, McCain bended so swiftly when bullied by the unforgiving right wing of his party. He's got the nomination sewn up, and yet he is still so intimidated that he offers up this tribute to Bush, his new BFF in these primary skirmishes.
I think it will be McCain who, in the end, is the most heartbroken of all. How will he look back on this moment, when he realizes that he was not strong enough to stand by his principles? That his hunger for power overwhelmed him at last? He is not on a road to victory. He is on a road to self-betrayal and despair.
Happy Campaign Valentine's Day
14 Feb 2008 03:31 pm
Barack Obama Favorited Your Photo
14 Feb 2008 03:11 pm
Yep, it's Valentine's Day.
McCain For Clinton?
14 Feb 2008 03:10 pm
Jon Chait sees a new strategy for the GOP nominee: try to keep his most formidable opponent from gaining strength.
Yglesias Award Nominee
14 Feb 2008 02:49 pm
"This demonstrates not only a gross ruthlessness on the part of Clinton's campaign, but an astonishingly cavalier attitude towards the preservation of the progressive coalition. To be willing to blithely rip it to shreds in order to wrest a nomination that's not been fairly earned is not only low, but a demonstration of deeply pernicious priorities -- namely, it's an explicit statement that the campaign puts its own political success above the health of the party and the pursuit of progressive goals, and one can't but help assume that's exactly the attitude they would take towards governance, too," - Ezra Klein. More scales, more eyes.
Romney To Endorse McCain
14 Feb 2008 02:12 pm
It also appears Romney will ask his delegates to back McCain. Looking at the delegate numbers, it seems like that should put McCain near the tipping point. Will Huckabee drop out?
Liberating Texas Dildoes
14 Feb 2008 02:10 pm
Rejoice and feel the good vibrations.
Bill Wants Florida Counted
14 Feb 2008 02:04 pm
Yep, he wants the war:
Bill Clinton said today that the delegates won by his wife in the penalized state of Florida should count towards the final score leading into the convention. In making his case, the former prez said "the Republicans set the date" in Florida and that "we had nothing to do with it."
The View From Your Window
14 Feb 2008 01:33 pm
St. John's, Newfoundland, 7.04 am.
The Clintons' Texas Challenge
14 Feb 2008 01:06 pm
The way the system is set up does not play to their alleged advantages among Hispanic voters:
Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton is looking to Latino voters in Texas to help her wrest the nomination from Barack Obama, but Texas' complicated delegate apportioning system doesn't necessarily favor Hispanic regions of the state.
Of the state's 228 Democratic presidential delegates, 126 will be awarded based on voting in the March 4 primary. But most of the remaining 102 are allocated in a caucus system leading up to the state convention in June, making Texas the only state with a twin primary-caucus system.
Continue reading "The Clintons' Texas Challenge" »
McCain's Betrayal
14 Feb 2008 12:33 pm
I fear he has hurt himself very badly among those who were more than prepared to give him a chance. Oliver Willis:
It's Mitt Romney all over again.
It's one thing to be against torture in a primary debate where you're trying to appeal to independents and crossover voters, but it's quite another thing to be against torture after you've won the nomination and need to appease a conservative base that's righteously pissed off and not afraid to let you know it.
It would be very helpful if someone in the press would ask McCain is he will rescind Bush's signing statements pertaining to the president's alleged "unitary" constitutional right to break the law and order torture. He said today that he personally believes that torture is illegal but he doesn't want to inhibit the CIA so he won't vote to explicitly make it illegal across the board. That's some straight talk for you.
Damozel at the Moderate Voice:
Why, John McCain? Why? I don't mean "Why did you vote the way you did?" The answer is obvious. But why, or how, could you let down people who regarded you as someone who would stand by a moral principle, even if it appeared to be detrimental to his own interests? (And I would argue that it has not been detrimental to your interests.)
From being an honored outsider who would take on the establishment, you've revealed yourself as an ordinary cynical politician. It's only now that I am realizing how much I esteemed you for standing by your convictions and insisting on holding the government to a higher standard.
Maybe McCain is waiting to take on the forces of Rove and the electoral advantages of appealing to crude, fascistic templates of "torture-them-or-we-all-die" variety. But McCain should know that when dealing with unscrupulous thugs, appeasement is not the best policy. He's the nominee. He needs to remind people that conservatism can be - must be - a decent political philosophy, that upholds, rather than trashes, the deepest moral traditions of the United States.
Bill Kristol
14 Feb 2008 12:06 pm
"I'm ambivalent on torture." Which means to say he's "ambivalent about the rule of law." It's both a non-statement and a cowardly one. He's an intellectual. He can make a moral and strategic call. He won't. Even in the face of something as evil as torture, he calculates.
The View From Abroad - Germany
14 Feb 2008 11:55 am
"We want to be able to love America again," the conservative former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in an editorial for Die Zeit newspaper.
Close In Wisconsin
14 Feb 2008 11:48 am
It looks competitive between Clinton and Obama. Here's a poll of polls there. All the Clintons need is one win to stop the momemtum. Obama's shift to putting more of his policy details into his speeches is as necessary as it is educative.