Saturday, February 16, 2008

16 Feb 2008 07:11 pm

The Lines Meet

Obama pulls ahead on Pollster's poll of polls for the first time:

16 Feb 2008 06:55 pm

The View From Your Window

Provincetown, Massachusetts, 7.40 am.

16 Feb 2008 06:31 pm

Back At You

Clinton puts out a new ad attacking Obama for attacking her ad:

16 Feb 2008 05:05 pm

Obama's Substance

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.

16 Feb 2008 04:44 pm

Face Of The Day

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.

16 Feb 2008 04:29 pm

Real Time Last Night

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.

16 Feb 2008 03:40 pm

An Old Prejudice

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.

16 Feb 2008 03:11 pm

Ending Government HIV Discrimination

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?

16 Feb 2008 02:58 pm

Breaking Up With Barack

The whole thing is just sooo last week in January.

16 Feb 2008 02:35 pm

Kenya Diary

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.

16 Feb 2008 02:32 pm

The History Of The Beard

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.

16 Feb 2008 01:55 pm

Totally Gay For America

Homo-neo-cons have a new anthem. Have at it, Jamie:

16 Feb 2008 12:53 pm

A Good Point

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.

16 Feb 2008 10:42 am

If Headline Writers Ruled The World

Who would the next president be?

Friday, February 15, 2008

15 Feb 2008 07:03 pm

Flags Of The World

Reimagined:

15 Feb 2008 05:38 pm

Pride

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.

15 Feb 2008 05:31 pm

Stress Positions

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.

15 Feb 2008 04:57 pm

Don't Mess With Beagles

Arnold Kling takes it all back.

15 Feb 2008 04:48 pm

Mental Health Break

Lionel Ritchie on helium.

15 Feb 2008 04:42 pm

Stress Positions And The Crucifixion

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" »

15 Feb 2008 04:23 pm

The Conservative Soul

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.

15 Feb 2008 04:11 pm

The Ignorance Of The Right

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?

15 Feb 2008 03:51 pm

Moore Award Nominee

"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).

15 Feb 2008 03:44 pm

Obama, Clinton and The War

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.

15 Feb 2008 03:18 pm

Clinton's Foreclosure Plan

And they call Obama a socialist?

15 Feb 2008 03:08 pm

Face Of The Day

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.

15 Feb 2008 03:07 pm

White Men And Obama

They've been with him from the beginning.

15 Feb 2008 02:47 pm

Clinton's New Spin

Heh:

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.

15 Feb 2008 02:29 pm

How Obama Can Win Texas

A true insider's guide.

15 Feb 2008 02:14 pm

Project Implicit

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.

15 Feb 2008 02:01 pm

SEIU For Obama

The wind is at his back.

15 Feb 2008 01:59 pm

Pushing On A String

Krugman on Bernanke. Krugman has predicted gloom for a very, very long time. This time he may well be right.

15 Feb 2008 01:58 pm

Fatherhood

Josh Marshall is loving it. Happy birthday.

15 Feb 2008 01:46 pm

Finally Someone Says It

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.

15 Feb 2008 01:09 pm

The View From Abroad - Australia

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" »

15 Feb 2008 12:49 pm

The Crystal Skull?

What is it? A public service movie against meth abuse? Well, you know you want it:

15 Feb 2008 12:45 pm

Yglesias Award Nominee

"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.

15 Feb 2008 12:35 pm

Hispanics In Texas

Clinton 44, Obama 42. Those kinds of numbers suggest an Obama victory over all.

15 Feb 2008 12:33 pm

Encyclopedia Baracktannica

The English language will never be the same.

15 Feb 2008 12:17 pm

Bradbury's Defense Of Waterboarding

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.

15 Feb 2008 11:57 am

A Synthesizer, Not A Divider

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.

15 Feb 2008 11:49 am

When Pro-Sports Meet Washington

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.

15 Feb 2008 11:07 am

The View From Your Window

Chicago, Illinois, 3.30 pm.

15 Feb 2008 10:26 am

FEMA News

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.

15 Feb 2008 10:21 am

Stress Positions

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.

15 Feb 2008 10:04 am

The War And The Republicans

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.

15 Feb 2008 09:31 am

Outside The Cocoon

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.

15 Feb 2008 09:15 am

Mental Health Break

If this doesn't put you in a good mood for today, I don't know what will:

15 Feb 2008 08:12 am

These Shoes Were Made For ...

... whoring? GPS too!

15 Feb 2008 07:29 am

An Anonymity Experiment

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)