Racist? No. Stupid? Yes.

Considering the Wall Street Journal already posed the question, I might as well provide an answer. John McCain is stupid. Ok, he's not, but his campaign's "Celeb" ad is. But it's not racist. As a reader wrote to The Daily Dish:

All of those other individuals are famous for something - there is substance behind their celebrity. Britney and Paris are paper-thin and without any substance whatsoever. That's the comparison McCain was going for - trying to allege that Barack Obama is without substance, a celebrity for celebrity's sake.

The McCain campaign was saying Obama is like Paris and Britney, not that he was fucking them. Nonetheless, the concept of the ad is stupid for numerous reasons: Obama transparently has some substance, McCain is also a celebrity, it reeks of just a stupid, desperate attack.

Right now, the McCain campaign is just flailing about in the dark, it seems.

McCain deserves better surrogates

Really, he does. I don't think he's actually insane, but his surrogates might be.

I mean, computer illiteracy can't really be a good thing, can it?

Jon Voight? Really, that's the best you can do? Hollywood really must be as liberal as everyone says. But seriously, not even like the guy who created 24?

I can't even explain this.

Obscure Ethical Debates

Can Vegans eat honey?

Obama's charisma

You could do what Andrew Ferguson says:

Anyone who wants to understand Barack Obama would do well to stay away from the radio and the TV. Obama is a theatrical presence. That's what it means to be "charismatic": To an unnerving degree his appeal relies on sight and sound rather than sense. Better, in my opinion, to stick to the printed word. On paper (or the computer screen) his words can be thought about and chewed over. You can understand him at your own pace, undistracted by that rich baritone, the regal bearing, the excellent drape of his Burberry suits.

Or you could be like me and recreate Obama's voice in your mind whenever you read something he says in the paper. It makes it so much cooler.

Assorted Links

• Jon Chait indirectly calls McCain a 'sociopath.' Didn't he just saw he loved him last week? That was a quick breakup.
  
• Excellent article in the New Yorker about China's "Angry Youth." They want China to join the world stage as an equal to the United States, not as its morally deficient younger brother. This quote sort of sums it up:

  Boycotting the Beijing Games in the name of Tibet seemed as logical to him as shunning the Salt Lake City Olympics to protest America’s treatment of the Cherokee.

• The United States' "culture war" pales in comparison to Turkey's, as this WSJ article makes clear. I had always understood that Turkey was founded as a secular state, but never this clearly. The piece is just filled with interesting facts like this one:

  Just as Muslim activists mine the Quran for verses to boost their cause, Turkey's hard-line secularists and their foes delve into Ataturk's voluminous writings and speeches -- Turkey's secular scripture. The sheer volume of Ataturk's words gives plenty of scope for argument: a single speech he gave in 1927 lasted 36 hours, spread over six days.

• The Weekly Standard shoots down programs designed to scare kids sober.
• Bill James meet a Lemur. I bet Lemurs have good range ratings.
  

What made America strong?

Ezra attributes American economic power to geopolitics (natural resources, not getting beat up in World War II).

David Brooks attributes it to education and economic freedom.

Who's right? I think Ezra's argument enabled Brooks' argument. Relative peace made it easier for the United States to invest in education instead of in rebuilding broken bridges and buildings. But economic freedom and education played a role as well - the United States' smaller government and lower taxes did enable more economic success (if not more happiness for most of its people) and the United States was able to be a dues ex machina in the two World Wars partially because of technological advantages we had, which were at least indirectly attributable to public education.

Also worth nothing from Brooks' column is the following:

Third, it’s worth noting that both sides of this debate exist within the Democratic Party. The G.O.P. is largely irrelevant. If you look at Barack Obama’s education proposals — especially his emphasis on early childhood — you see that they flow naturally and persuasively from this research. (It probably helps that Obama and Heckman are nearly neighbors in Chicago). McCain’s policies seem largely oblivious to these findings. There’s some vague talk about school choice, but Republicans are inept when talking about human capital policies.

Unlike every other blogger on the planet, I have not read Grand New Party (What? I'm a poor college student and books are freaking expensive), but that seems a very GNP-ish argument to me.

Shit. You mean I have to write?

Via The American Scene, this depressing news from Will Wilkinson:

When I was a teenager, I had a fanstasy that I could get paid or famous simply from having interesting ideas. It turns out people won’t pay you for interesting ideas unless you show up at a certain place and at a certain time to express them verbally in an entertaining format, or unless you write them down. It’s hard for me and not at all as nice as doing the backstroke through Platonic heaven.

Unfortunately for this aspiring journalist/scholar/intellectual/guy who writes for a living, this is very true.

Discovering New Bloggers is Fun!

Although he'll probably make me smash my laptop against the wall at some point in the future, I've really been enjoying Daniel Larison's guest posts at The Daily Dish this week. He normally blogs at The American Conservative.

One nice post from him today:

At the TAC main blog, Clark Stooksbury points us to this gem from Limbaugh:

How does it make you feel that Zhang Linsen has a big Hummer with nine speakers blaring as he pulls out into a four-lane road with so much smog he basically can’t see the car in front of him, and you are trading in all of your cars and trying to go out and find basically a lawn mower?

Actually, it makes me feel relieved that I don't live in smog-infested cities where marathoners collapse and die because of the pollution.

Things people shouldn't write about

Metro columnists shouldn't write about baseball. Adrian Walker:

Right-thinking people in this town have finally had enough of Manny Ramírez.

What was once charming and eccentric is now self-centered and selfish. Ramírez suggested last weekend that he's had enough. Everyone, it seems, has had enough.

Honestly, I think most Red Sox fans would rather give up their right nut than Manny.

Mark Penn shouldn't write about, well, anything, really. Active grannies? Mark, can you share whatever is you're smoking?

I wonder if the stock moved ten points

Via Regret The Error, the ghost of Malcolm Gladwell strikes the New York Times:

An article on Friday about earnings at JPMorgan Chase misstated the bank’s income from investment banking in its second quarter. The division reported a net income of $394 million, not a loss of $785 million.

Your Turn, Europe

So says Anne Applebaum:

[The] new administration, Democratic or Republican, would immediately offer the Europeans the "leadership" and "partnership" they so often say they desire. Between the sinking housing market and the soaring price of food, the high price of fuel and low growth, the new president is going to have so much on his plate that a group of Europeans who appear from across the Atlantic announcing, say, a plan to fix southern Afghanistan would be welcomed with open arms. In fact, I'll wager I could find a dozen future members of either administration who would roll out the red carpet and greet them like envoys of a fellow superpower if the Europeans so desired.

Yet at the same time, I'd also wager that I could not find a dozen current members of any European government who have even thought about coming up with any ideas at all. This is the hour of Europe—but do the Europeans even know it?

Judging by the press and the popular reaction to Barack Obama's visit there last week, they don't. Just about every account of the speech noted the dearth of applause for its single line encouraging European participation in world events. "America cannot do this alone. … The Afghan people need our troops and your troops" was not a crowd pleaser. Neither was "We can join in a new and global partnership" to fight terrorism. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, spoke tartly of "the limits" of Germany's contributions to the Afghan cause, making it clear she didn't favor such upbeat talk, while another senior German official worried that his colleagues "will have trouble meeting [Obama's] demand to assume more common responsibility."

And:

And as the election gets closer, the anxiety will grow. In a strange sense, Bush's catastrophic diplomacy was a gift to Europe's politicians. "Bush allowed them to explain away radical Islam as an understandable, even legitimate, response to the hypocrisies and iniquities of American policy," wrote one British columnist this week. Bush also allowed them to blame American "unilateralism" for their own lack of initiative, to use bad American diplomacy as an excuse for doing nothing.

This reminds me of old posts by Megan Mcardle and Matt Yglesias over whether when people say "someone should do something about (Darfur, Burma, etc.)," if that 'someone' inherently has to be the United States.

But I'm not sure if this is right. Megan says that Britain, Australia, and Israel could also single-handedly intervene in a conflict (but Israel, in particular, is loath to do so). That may be true.

But without know much about the respective strengths of various world militaries, would it not be possible for an alliance of say, Spain, Portugal, and Italy to intervene in Darfur? Or for Canada to join hands with Norway to keep the peace in the Congo?

In other words, I think Europe could have a much larger military (and political) role in world affairs, but have gotten so used to American leadership, that they have sort of entered an intellectual malaise. It's almost like they are saying: "We can't intervene in Sudan. That's America's job."

But it shouldn't be. And for all the complaining of American hegemony, I don't see Europe all that eager to work with the United States to solve any problem that requires military force or real confrontation.

"Who do you think you are? A Kennedy?"

Leaked trailer for Oliver Stone's W. The most notable part of this trailer, to me, is how huge Richard Dreyfuss' eyebrows are.

Assorted Links

• Expelling a kid because he has a 2.8 is pretty dumb. I understand the need for standards at a magnet school as popular as Thomas Jefferson is, but a 3.0 is too high. I think it should be like most colleges - if you're below a 2.0 for consecutive semesters, you're done.
• This has to be an intentional Talledaga Nights reference.
• In the movies, someone would try to secretly establish Atlantropa. In real life, however, these sorts of grandiose schemes are always publicized, probably because their backers are convinced of their brilliance. ALSO: Strange Maps is definitely a site worth visiting on occasion.
• Via Yglesias and Wonkette, DC Prep also seems to be based on a false premise: that the sons and daughters of U.S. public officials live in Washington, D.C. At least for members of congress, I am under the impression most kids live in the home districts of the parents.
  

McCain and Russia

From Joe Klein's column in Time:

But that's the point: McCain would place a higher priority on finding new enemies than on cultivating new friends.

The entire thing is very good. Klein does his usual good job of blending policy and politics into a coherent analysis - something a lot of journalists struggle with.

The most baffling part of McCain's foreign policy is his extreme dislike of Vladmir Putin and Russia, which Klein calls "rather exotic." I would call it retarded.

From what I know, his plan to kick Russia out of the G8 has no supporters outside of his campaign and certainly none outside the United States. The G8 is an informal body with no real power - kicking Russia out would have no positive effects. But it would force them closer to China and perhaps restart the Cold War, generating a whole new set of enemies for the United States.

McCain's view of the world seems to be like The Dark Knight in reverse. Where in The Dark Knight, the presence of Batman creates the Joker, in McCain's world, the presence of Batman requires a Joker. He seems to think that because the United States is good, there must be evil.

Good Sentence

From a David Frum WSJ piece on party conventions:

The parties made the conventions dull in self-defense, because anything exciting can and will be used against them.

The rest of the story (including a delightful H.L. Mencken quote) is also good. As the kids say, read the whole thing.

"The Reporter's Worldview"

Ezra Klein nails one of the problems of contemporary journalism (emphasis mine):

Oddly enough, it's not really considered reporting to read Anthony Cordesman's latest report on Iraq. It is considered reporting to call Anthony Cordesman on the phone and ask him what he thinks. It's not considered reporting to read through Barack Obama's speeches on nuclear proliferation and emerge with a coherent understanding of his stated policies. It is considered reporting to land an interview with Barack Obama and ask him what he thinks, and it would be considered ace reporting -- A1 level reporting -- to unearth a copy of Obama's college thesis on nuclear non-proliferation and publish his conclusions....

In part, this is due to the competitive pressures of journalism. The journalist's job, in theory, is to learn things that other people can't learn, so work conducted largely by analyzing documents and information in the public domain isn't journalism...

An underlying worldview in journalism (is): That politicians are all bullshit artists, that politics is all artifice, and the reporter's job is to cynically expose it as such and then peer behind the curtain to uncover the moments of spontaneity and honesty. Within this rubric for journalism, there's no reason to read speeches or policy plans or interview transcripts, no reason to stick in the public domain because it's all crap anyway. Better to try and trigger moments of surprise -- when truth might slip through the cracks created by shock -- then take seriously a politician's stated plans for the country.

This is partially because editors consider it "lazy" to just rely on information in the public domain. Adam Nagourney could easily just rewrite Obama's policy papers, stripping them of glittering generalities and bureaucratic BS, call one or two outside experts, then go take a long lunch. I have no doubt he would prefer to do this. But he also feels the need to show editors he is working. So he has to call Obama's press office and ask them to put him in touch with Obama's policy advisers and because most press officers are fucking useless (the most underreportered story ever, because reporters can't afford to piss them off), he has to sit around and wait 3 hours for them to get back to him, while repeatedly telling his editors he has "calls in" and doing nothing.

Basically, aggressively pursuing stuff like Obama's college thesis also makes it look like a reporter is working hard. Note: if an editor thinks a reporter is not working hard, he will undoubtedly assign the reporter a story idea the editor has. The idea will be either a. dumb or b. impossible to report. There is nothing reporters hate more than story ideas editors come up with.

The Politics of The Dark Knight

There has been a good deal of discussion about the politics of The Dark Knight on liberal blogs today.

For me, the movie could have been far more political than it actually was, but I feel like its quick pacing prevented the sort of reflection and dialogue that would have been needed for it to make a truly coherent political statement. Ultimately, it just sends mixed messages. Is Bruce Wayne right to build the eavesdropping device? Or is Lucius Fox right to destroy it? (Iron Man, in my opinion, was the same way.)

I feel like there's two key points I still want to make, however.

First, does Batman equal Dick Cheney as Spencer Ackerman claims? And does the Joker equal Al Qaeda?

The answer to both is no.

I would say Batman doesn't equal Cheney for several reasons:

• Batman views this as moral quandry. Cheney doesn't appear to do so.
• As shown in Charlie Savage's excellent Takeover, Cheney had wanted to seize extrajudicial powers for the executive branch long before September 11 happened. He simply used that as an excuse. Batman only becomes Batman after his parents are killed. For Cheney, the trauma was an excuse. For Batman, it was a cause.
• Lastly, Batman never actually breaks his "one rule," as the Joker puts it. While he does other immoral, risky things, he never breaks his established moral code in the way Cheney has trampled over the Constitution.

There is one main reason the Joker doesn't equal Al Qaeda. I'll let Bruce Hoffman explain (italics mine):

Terrorism, in the most widely accepted contemporary usage of the term, is fundamentally and inherently political. It is also ineluctably about power: the pursuit of power, the acquisition of power, and the use of power to achieve political change. Terrorism is thus violence -- or, equally important, the threat of violence -- used and directed in pursuit of, or in service of, a political aim.

Whereas Al Qaeda has a specific goal/ideology and is at least a pseudo-rational actor, The Joker is insane. He doesn't want power - he just doesn't want anyone else to have it. He wants to ruin the plans of the schemers of Gotham City. He has no desire to acquire power - although he certainly does end up acquiring a good deal of it. This actually makes him a much more significant threat than Al Qaeda, who need to make political progress as well as terrorism progress to acheive their goals and to stay popular in the Islamic world. The Joker has no need for the political system.

Ouch.

I don't have much to add to this, which is from George Will's column:

General Motors' market capitalization recently dipped below that of the Hershey chocolate company.

Something I found weird

Gary Oldman plays both Commissioner Jim Gordon and Sirius Black.

Also, yes, The Dark Knight was one of the best movies of the year. I just can't wait for Justice League and The Avengers movies.

Things you should read

• Ryan Lizza's New Yorker profile of Barack Obama. Fascinating stuff about both Obama and the Chicago political scene. Far more than the rehashed stuff you get in the NYT's "The Long Run" series and elsewhere. It's a shame the cover overshadowed Lizza's story.
• This WaPo piece on the future.
• This Washington City Paper piece on the Post's Chandra Levy series. I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, the series has been fantastic. On the other hand, this is totally true:

  Pierre wrote that he found it “unconscionable” that the paper would devote a year and 12 chapters to the murder of a white woman, when around 200 people per year are murdered in the District–most of them male African Americans.

  The analysis by Erik Wemple is also good. I hope the series takes a harder turn soon, and really starts critiquing the media, the police, or someone and becomes more than a shortened John Grisham book. Or it ends with "BLANK... killed Chandra Levy.
• 10 most amazing ghost towns. Simply cool.
• This brief NYT profile of Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested for war crimes yesterday.
• This NYer piece on "Obama's" email. How did they find this guy?
  

The false hope of wonkery

Like Hilzoy, I am a wonk. I love policy. Love reading about it, love writing about it, love analyzing it, etc. However, I am even more loath than she is to put much into the candidates' position papers and websites. Why?

Because, to a certain extent, it doesn't matter what the President wants. It matters what Congress wants.

Ultimately, it is up to Congress to write and pass laws, with all the compromise and squabbling that entails. While presidents can and do use the bully pulpit, congress can decide to shit or piss all over any proposal a president can make. Because Democrats are likely to retain or expand their congressional majority in the fall, this makes President McCain's plans, in particular, pretty irrelevant because none of them will be enacted. There's no way Pelosi and Reid will allow McCain to stack the courts with right-wing judges, pass massive tax cuts, etc.

Freeman Dyson scoops David Brooks

A few days ago, I stumbled upon this quote from Anglo-American physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson:

In England there were always two sharply opposed middle classes, the academic middle class and the commercial middle class. In the nineteenth century, the academic middle class won the battle for power and status. As a child of the academic middle class, I learned to look on the commercial middle class with loathing and contempt. Then came the triumph of Margaret Thatcher, which was also the revenge of the commercial middle class. The academics lost their power and prestige and the business people took over. The academics never forgave Thatcher and have been gloomy ever since.

I feel this is the dividing line in upper-class America has well. David Brooks said it this way in a more recent column:

Political analysts now notice a gap between professionals and managers. Professionals, like lawyers and media types, tend to vote and give Democratic. Corporate managers tend to vote and give Republican. The former get their values from competitive universities and the media world; the latter get theirs from churches, management seminars and the country club.

The trends are pretty clear: rising economic sectors tend to favor Democrats while declining economic sectors are more likely to favor Republicans. The Democratic Party (not just Obama) has huge fund-raising advantages among people who work in electronics, communications, law and the catchall category of finance, insurance and real estate. Republicans have the advantage in agribusiness, oil and gas and transportation. Which set of sectors do you think are going to grow most quickly in this century’s service economy?

The shift here, I speculate, has to do with how engineers break. Engineers and technical workers used to work for industrial firms (GM, factories) in the Rust Belt. Now they program and type for media, internet, and technology companies (Google, Intel, etc.) in the Sun Belt. The Rust Belt engineers vote Republican. The Sun Belt ones vote Democratic.

The Perverse and Often Baffling Economics of Solar and Wind Power

Via Ezra Klein, Al Gore on the difference between fossil fuels and renewable energy:

"Here's the difference, when the demand for wind and solar goes up, costs go down. When demand for oil and gas goes up, prices go up."

Sunday's NYT on addiction

First, Tom Friedman:

When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up. His problem is what that crack addiction is doing to his whole body. The cure is not cheaper crack, which would only perpetuate the addiction and all the problems it is creating. The cure is to break the addiction.

Ditto for us. Our cure is not cheaper gasoline, but a clean energy system. And the key to building that is to keep the price of gasoline and coal — our crack — higher, not lower, so consumers are moved to break their addiction to these dirty fuels and inventors are moved to create clean alternatives.

Second, David Carr:

After shooting or smoking a large dose, there would be the tweaking and a vigil at the front window, pulling up the corner of the blinds to look for the squads I was always convinced were on their way. All day. All night. A frantic kind of boring. End-stage addiction is mostly about waiting for the police, or someone, to come and bury you in your shame.

The end result of these two quotes put together, I think, is true. There is a certain segment of American society - not limited to hardcore environmentalists - who want to see the United States punished economically for over consuming oil (and everything else for that matter). It is a cleansing method, a penance we must pay for our sins.

And I'm guessing, that regardless of if we want it, the economic pain is coming (or has already started).

Wishes come true, Judis on McCain, and Samantha Power

As I previously hoped, the United States is making a shift in policy in Iran, adopting a position similar to the one we took against North Korea.

From The Guardian:

That dreaded spectre appears to be receding for now. A "second North Korea" remains the preferred model for the US state department and the European allies – meaning talks leading to voluntary disarmament in return for security, aid and normalisation. This is just the sort of multilateral "soft power" horsetrading Cheney & Co cannot abide.

I also liked this quote:

But former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry spoke for many people around the world when he described the US decision to talk as "the most welcome flip-flop in recent diplomatic history".

The US is also looking at opening up a mini-Embassy in Iran.

The big question is whether or not a President McCain would continue to talk to Iran. His rhetoric indicates otherwise, but his rhetoric also indicates that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in charge of Iran's foreign policy when he isn't, so McCain's rhetoric really can't be trusted. But at the same time, John Judis thinks McCain has thrown off the yolk of realism and is now a pure neocon.

The Judis article includes this gem:

Like Bush, McCain looked into Putin's soul, but, where Bush saw a man "deeply committed to his country," McCain saw only devilry: "I looked into Putin's eyes and saw three things: a K and a G and a B." McCain has repeatedly displayed his contempt for the Russian. He has called Putin a "spoiled child" who exhibits "aberrational" behavior and a "totalitarian dictator who ... is trying to revert [to] the old Russian Empire." And he continues to see Russia entirely through the prism of Putin, dismissing his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, as "Putin's puppet."

He does realize he's going to have to talk to Medvedev once's he in office, right? Right?

Another IR note - Obama basically has a mini-State Dept. working for him. I'm glad to see that Samantha Power is still in contact with the campaign - A Problem From Hell is one of my favorite IR books. Also, it leaves open the possibility of having both an Undersecretary of State Power and an Undersecretary of State Slaughter simultaneously - a dream first expressed by Matt Yglesias, I believe.

Azn Pride!

To continue on the hip-hop track, when I saw this press release, I couldn't help but think of this video:


Also, I have a weird obsession with ethnic gangs, so expect more posts about the mob/mafia/organized crime in the future.

I think it's the money...

Contra Tim Noah, I'm pretty sure Jonah Goldberg and Dinesh D'Souza are smarter than their books indicate. However, they really are just replicating Ann Coulter's book-selling method. I think Ross Douthat/Reihan Salam, David Brooks, etc. show that contemporary conservatism isn't totally brain-dead. But at the same time, any non-brain dead work was getting immediately slapped with the "Traitor!" label and not selling. So, in order to make a living/supplement their income, they need to be needlessly incidenary.

So, in short, it's all about the money.



However, based on everything I've heard about the two books at hand (I've skimmed through The Enemy at Home, but I couldn't bring myself to read Liberal Fascism), I ultimately agree with Noah's assessment:

1. Yes, these books are more deeply researched than the typical Coulter screed and deserve to be taken seriously.
2. Taken seriously, these books reveal themselves to be nonsensical, overwrought, vile, and quite obviously wrong.

Conservative distrust of the State Deparment, Robert Gates, and other IR thoughts

Via Dan Drezner (one of my favorite IR bloggers), Robert Gates on the importance of diplomacy in foreign affairs:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned yesterday against the risk of a "creeping militarization" of U.S. foreign policy, saying the State Department should lead U.S. engagement with other countries, with the military playing a supporting role.

"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory" in the long-term campaign against terrorism, Gates said, arguing that military action should be subordinate to political and economic efforts to undermine extremism.

I think a large part of this has to do with the fact that because the Bush administration perceives the State Department to be "liberal," they feel they can't trust State to do anything without secretly undermining them. So, they don't let them do anything at all.

It should also be noted that this basically goes directly against Gates' bureaucratic interests as Secretary of Defense because any money going to State could be taken from the DOD (although this is unlikely, because DOD's budget is rarely cut).

This kind of thing also makes me more supportive of the idea of having Gates stay on as SecDef under Obama or McCain. Although I think his realist views would frequently clash with those of some of the more liberal members of Obama's team, Obama has been shedding his liberal advisers left and right. See the dropping of Rob Malley for Dennis Ross as an example.

In other good news from Ann Scott Tyson's WaPo piece, H.R. McMaster was promoted to general. McMaster was a poster child for having your military career punished for daring to break from the Army's orthodoxy of thought. Petraus helped select the general promotions this year, and it looks like he made a difference:

The list... includes several officers skilled in the counterinsurgency doctrine that Petraeus helped write -- a doctrine that embraces a broader approach to winning conflicts centered on protecting and providing for local populations.

An open letter to Lee Abrams

Mr. Abrams,

Look, I may only be 20, but I still have more experience than you in the newspaper field, so I'm going to give you a little bit of advice. A quick way to ensure that journalists won't listen to you is to make spelling or grammar errors or TO YELL. In your widely circulated memos, you do all three frequently.

So, just have a copy editor (The Tribune papers still have those, right?) go over them before you send it out. Otherwise, the first time you YELL, every journalist will immediately think you're a moron. If you don't make the spelling and grammar mistakes, instead of viewing you as a buffoon, journalists might be willing to listen to you as a guy with the perspective of an outsider who wants to shake things up. But with the grammar mistakes, you have all the legitimacy of the crazy old man who writes letters to the editors every week.

So, in summary, copy edit.

Sincerely,
K.

Doesn't Harold Bloom know about statistical sampling?

Harold Bloom on A-Rod:

“The great Alex Rodriguez, the famous A-Rod, is not a clutch performer,” he said. “He compiles these enormous statistics, but every time I make the mistake of looking at a game he comes up with two out and men on second and third, and does nothing."

Doesn't Harold Bloom know there's no such thing as clutch hitting? Shouldn't he realize when he watches baseball isn't a fair statistical sample? Sigh. I'm confident the late Bart Giamatti, a Red Sox fan and Bloom's colleague at Yale, wouldn't have made the mistakes the Yankee-supporting Bloom does.

Also check out A-Rod! The Musical.

The "I invented the internet" of 2008

The following comments, I believe, could officially cost John McCain the election:

Q: What websites if any do you look at regularly?

Mr. McCain: Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics, sometimes.

(Mrs. McCain and Ms. Buchanan both interject: “Meagan’s blog!”)

Mr. McCain: Excuse me, Meagan’s blog. And we also look at the blogs from Michael and from you that may not be in the newspaper, that are just part of your blog.

Q: But do you go on line for yourself?

Mr. McCain: They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need – including going to my daughter’s blog first, before anything else.

While most people are simply mocking these comments and pointing out inaccuracies (Politico and The Drudge Report aren't blogs, RealPolitics is RealClearPolitics, etc.), I think these comments represent something more significant.

In 2000, Gore's "I invented the internet" comment (which he never actually said) became viral because it fit into the narrative about Gore - that he was a pseudo-liar who was prone to exaggeration. Today, that phrase and maybe "lockbox" are the two things most people remember about the 2000 Gore campaign.

The question is, will this conversation become equally shortened (To "I'm learning how to use the internet," perhaps?) and become a catchphrase to fit into a large media narrative labeling McCain as too old/off-his-rocker/senile to be president? This narrative hasn't really started to develop yet, but I could easily see it happening. The key part will probably be what the more campaign-oriented New York Times columnists (particularly Maureen Dowd) and the satirists at The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Saturday Night Live decide to do with it.

In summary, don't be surprised if, come October, voters cite McCain not being able to use the internet as a reason to not vote for him.

Lieberman in 2000

When reading about the recent death of Clay Felker, the founder of New York magazine, I stumbled upon a collection of old New York articles, including this one from when Joe Lieberman was named as Al Gore's running mate in 2000.

It would be interesting to see how many of the (presumably liberal) Jews gushing over Lieberman's nomination now think he's a crazy neoconservative hawk/traitor to Democratic party. And to think that Joe Lieberman, who is one of John McCain's strongest supporters, was once the Democratic vice presidential nominee, is sort of mind-boggling. (Also mind-blogging: Joe Torre managing Nomar Garciapara.)

It's also an interesting reminder of how certain issues can fade in and out over time. Lieberman probably held at least borderline-neoconservative views in 2000, but they weren't as well-known and weren't problematic because no one thought the United States would be attacked by Islamic terrorists and even if we were, no one thought the United States would recklessly try to fight two wars at one time, etc. So his agreement with Democrats on social, economic, etc. issues was much more important than his agreement with Republicans in some foreign policy areas.

ADDENDUM: And there's this:

Dan Kurtzer, an Orthodox Jew, is the ambassador to Egypt.

Is it just me or does that sound like a horrible idea? I realize Egypt and Israel are at peace, but an Orthodox Jew as ambassador to a Muslim country? Based on a google search, it appears to have worked out OK, but I still find it surprising.

Doing what he should do

This post seems pretty nitpicky. What else do you expect a blogger to do? At least Matt admits he doesn't know enough about the issue and points you to someone he thinks does.

At the same time, I'm sympathetic to the claim that bloggers should do more reporting, even if it's only on background. Calling some policy experts before making a post can't hurt, can it?

And for some issues - I would say water rights could be one of them - actual foot reporting is definitely necessary. I have some more thoughts on what newspapers are good at vs. what blogs are good at, but I'm going to save them for a future post.

Everyone hates the Associated Press

I had never read Matt Yglesias' takedown of Associated Press reporter Nedra Pickler until now, when he points out another absurdity in her reporting.

However, in the defense of newspapers, I feel I should also point out that quite a few of them have their own problems with the Associated Press.

Secondly, I should also point out that despite declining budgets and disappearing Washington bureaus, newspapers have options besides the AP. The LA Times, NYT, McClatchy and Reuters all run wires and a lot of papers prefer NYT and McClatchy's product to the Associated Press'.

This isn't to excuse the poor coverage or deny that declining quality has led people to turn away from newspapers. But I do think Matt overstates the amount poor quality has to do with declining circulation, at least at the level of the NYT, WaPo, etc. At the same time, I think most "real" journalists underestimate the amount declining quality has to do with declining circulation.

Expanding the G8 and the complexity of International Relations

With the G8 currently meeting in Japan, there has been lots of talk about expanding and/or reforming the group. See this Economist article, which also considers the issue of reforming the UN Security Council.

This quote, I feel, seems to get at something the current administration doesn't seem to understand:

Most recently a concerted effort by Brazil, Germany, India and Japan (a self-styled G4) to join the council’s permanent movers and shakers was thwarted by a combination of foot-dragging, jealousy and stiff-arming. African countries failed to agree on which of their several aspirants should join the bid. Regional rivals—Argentina and Mexico, Italy, Indonesia, Pakistan and others—lobbied to block the front-runners. China made it clear it would veto Japan; America, in supporting only Japan, helped destroy its friend’s chances.

Basically, international relations is really, really, really complicated. Even the membership of a purely symbolic body like the G8 generates a ton of disagreement.

But, back to my point. The Bush administration seems to think solely in the first-person. "I want... X" They don't think about what others want from them or about what others may want from others. Or about how giving what others want from them may piss off a different group.

For example, if the U.S. were to negotiate with Iran, it would not only be about what the United States needs or wants from Iran. It would also be about what Iran whats from the United States. And about what Israel wants. And what Russia wants. And what Iraq wants. But what Russia wants could upset the EU, and so on and so forth. Negotiations aren't just about the United States, although when we were the undisputed hegemon, maybe they were. But in the current multipolar/nonpolar environment, every country matters.

This is what was key to the six-party talks with North Korea. I hope a President Obama (or President McCain) would be willing to try to set up something similar, although getting Israel and Iran to sit down together may be impossible.

I Agree with...

Ross Douthat on Rush Limbaugh, who he compares to Oprah. I would add that in addition to Rush having a very specific political agenda, where Oprah's is simply vaguely liberal, there is another difference. Oprah's shtick, it seems to me, is primarily internal - it's about you. With Limbaugh, it's all about everyone else: the liberals, immigrants, etc. who are ruining America. When Oprah lifts up, Rush lashes out.

Ezra Klein on Zev Chafets' NYT Magazine profile of Limbaugh. It was a total puff piece, particularly when compared with Chafets' profile of Mike Huckabee from earlier this year, which famously exposed Huckabee's ignorance on foreign affairs, Mormon theology, and pretty much everything else.

Rush Limbaugh (there's a first time for everything) on Christopher Hitchens. In aforementioned NYT Magazine profile, Limbaugh says:

He’s misguided sometimes, but when you read him, you finish the whole article.

Christopher Hitchens on Jesse Helms. If Hitchens believed in God, I would say He put Hitchens on this earth solely to write scathing obituaries of truly despicable people.

"How Soccer Explains the World" by Franklin Foer

I recently finished it. While the book is a few years old, it's still quite good.

My quibble is with the subtitle. No "unlikely theory of globalization" is ever proposed, never mind proven. A better subtitle would be "A series of vignettes showing how Soccer connects to Politics, Culture, and Society." But that probably wouldn't sell as many books.

I am still eager to read David Goldblatt's "The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer," which Alan Jacobs recently enthusiastically recommended.

Jacobs' post also introduced me to Garrincha, a teammate of Pele's for Brazil, who I had never heard of before and I think is virtually unknown in the United States.

Frank Rich overestimates kids

While I enjoyed Frank Rich's column today - IMHO, he's the 2nd best columnist the NYT has, only behind David Brooks - I think he's overestimating the kids at his screening of Wall-E when he says the following:

They seemed to instinctually understand what “Wall-E” was saying; they didn’t pepper their chaperones with questions along the way. At the end they clapped their small hands. What they applauded was not some banal cartoonish triumph of good over evil but a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out.

My guess is the kids were more mesmerized by the movie's stunning visuals than by its deep moral questions. Also, most kids above the age of say, 4, know not to ask their parents questions during the movie. The mini-van ride home is a different story, however.

Chocolate Skittles...

...are the same thing as M&M's. Regardless, I saw them at 7-11 today. They are, quite simply, the most redundant product ever.

Why Publish on Saturdays?

The newspaper as we know it is dying. Revenue and profits are down and the cost of newsprint is up. But for the most part, the newspaper industry is stubbornly refusing to make any substantial changes. They're just assuming that eventually someone will figure out the new model - whether it be foundation-backed, purely web-based, or user-generated - and then everything will be fine.

But what if the new model isn't discovered for 20 years? What will newspapers do then? Alternatives to mass buyouts need to appear. A simple solution would be to adopt the model used by the The Capital Times in Madison, WI. Publish less frequently and post most stories exclusively on the web.

More expensive than writing a newspaper (the cost of reporters, editors, etc.) is the cost of distributing a newspaper. But the writing is what actually gives the paper its value. So why not distribute less?

The most obvious thing to do, for many papers, is to cease Saturday publication. No one reads the paper on Saturdays, and most in the news industry will acknowledge saving most of their good stories for Sunday anyway. So why even publish on Saturday?

Other papers could cut down to publishing twice (like The Capital Times) or three times a week instead of just cutting the Saturday paper. The one downfall to this is that news would get to readers later - but I think for most news, if people really, really, really need to know, they're finding out from television before they even pick up the paper. (I also think the whole issue of timeliness in journalism is overrated, but that's a separate post.)

The sad thing is, although this makes sense, it seems that no one in the newspaper industry would dare suggest it.