With the denouement of Spygate mercifully near, a fascinating piece appeared on an ESPN chat board. Written by a guy styling himself “NEInsider,” it ostensibly gave the Patriots’ side of the story. A sample:
We were wrong and made a mistake. We as an organization failed and it will never happen again…
Here are the simple facts I know about Spygate and WalkthruGate:
1. We taped defensive signals and offensive formation signals and we still have video of other teams taping us. They are of little value since no team uses the same signals even from game to game, quarter to quarter, and sometimes from series to series. We do it to FORCE the opposition to stay on their toes and change signals hoping they mix up signals and have a bad play that results in a big play for us. There are no offensive signals only formation signals which are useless and they were taped at the same time as offensive signals and WERE possibly even on the Spygate tape. Any claims are baseless on this…
3. We did not want the tapes destroyed. We preferred they be released since they basically proved we did nothing since some of the tapes destroyed were processed tapes that prove there was little value to us other than aggravating the other team . Several showed coaches waving to our videographer, several other with obscene gestures, coaches laughing at us, and some hot cheerleader video for the enjoyment of those given the boring job of processing video that had zero intrinsic value.
Interestingly, the word in the Boston sports media last night was that after Matt Walsh has his moment in the sun today, the Patriots would hit back and begin telling their side of the story. Obviously, after a year of mea culpas, the Patriots have begun talking to the media and are readying themselves to put this matter in perspective.
And then there was this shot across the commissioner’s bow:
5. Goodell has serious issues within the NFL ownership. He has not made friends with his inability to keep his mouth shut before issues are resolved within the framework of the NFL structure. The Niners organization is livid at him for the sanction they received over free agent contact since they never initiated the contact and in this case everyone really does it.
6. The Kraft family was a Goodell supporter and will never openly criticize him but they are livid over the way Spygate was handled and the fact Goodell hung them out as "Cheaters" when he absolutely knew it never helped during a game and then on national TV aknowledged frivilous accusations like phone tampering etc. when he stated more punishment would be added if necessary instead of doing the right thing and stating such claims were baseless without proof since he knew we could never tamper with phones since we never knew what system or what frequency was availbale to us until game time. A little clue on this one. Not having Robert and Jonathon Kraft on your side makes job security an issue since they are the deal makers and the ownership most willing to compromise to help the smaller market teams. In other words they have lots of friends in the NFL ownership circle.
Of course, this chat board post could have been written by a psychotic living in his parents’ basement. Even so, every word in it rings true to me, especially the part about Goodell really making a misstep in having irritated the wrong guys.
In a short while, Goodell will appear before the media, fresh from being enlightened by Matt Walsh. Hopefully that press conference will end the official part of this affair, and the Patriots will finally be able to make their case.
Andrew Sullivan calls our attention to this essay by John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell which attempts to view our current politics through the prism of “The Godfather.” While this is of course a noble exercise since “The Godfather” can shed light on all areas of human endeavor, the authors are sadly clueless.
In the authors’ scheme, Tom Hagen “shares a number of philosophical similarities with the liberal institutionalism that dominates the foreign-policy outlook of today’s Democratic Party.” (See? Liberals can make even “The Godfather” boring!) Firebrand Sonny Corleone, meanwhile, is the neocon: “One can imagine that Sonny’s shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach would meet with the firm approval of arch-neoconservatives such as Norman Podhoretz and Michael Ledeen, given their stance on how to deal with Iran.”
Michael Corleone is of course the ideal. The authors write, “In today’s foreign-policy terminology, Michael is a realist.” Left unsaid is who represents Fredo. I’m guessing Howard Dean. I’m also guessing that Moe Green is Bill Clinton, lecturing Obama on how he was making his bones while Obama was dating cheerleaders and later bragging to Obama how he had cut a deal with the super delegates, only to have things end rather poorly for him.
You don’t have to parse the essay very closely to discern the authors’ political biases. The crack at the neocons is especially risible. Far from rashly shooting first and asking questions later, people like Norman Podhoretz and Michael Ledeen have spent lifetimes studying foreign affairs. One can disagree with their approach and their conclusions, but to argue that foreign policy for them is anything other than just business and nothing personal is ludicrous. Sonny responded to all provocations viscerally, a well known habit that made the fatal tollbooth ambush of him a reality. Neocons tend to gravitate to a more cerebral decision making process.
Still more ludicrous is lumping in Michael Corleone with the realists. Realists are guys like Warren Christopher, fellows who are forever constricting the definition of what can and what cannot be done. Can you imagine Warren Christopher pining for a meeting with the Turk and Captain McCluskey where he would go into the men’s room, find a hidden gun and then use said gun to – bada-bing! – blow the men’s brains all over his nice Ivy League suit? Even the trigger happy family neocon (Sonny) found that plan ridiculous at first. Or can you imagine Warren Christopher coming up with a plan so audacious that he would settle Christopher family business with all five of New York’s families on one blood-splattered Sunday morning so he could then peaceably consolidate power on the far more lucrative playing fields of Vegas?
In his blog post on the matter, Andrew Sullivan speculates, “I don't know whether Obama fits more the ‘liberal institutionalist’ role or the realist, more Tom or Michael. I'm hoping for a Niebuhrian fusion (Ed. Note – There they go making “The Godfather" boring again!), with the emphasis on Michael's cunning. As I said: hoping.”
Obama acting decisively and cunningly like Michael Corleone? Ah yes, there it is in bright blogging lights – the audacity of hope.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Boston Bruins had a player named Randy Burridge who became emblematic of the franchise. Burridge always gave the proverbial 110 percent, and was a good little player. Problem was, he did much better in the regular season than he did in the playoffs. Over the course of his career, he scored a goal once every 3.5 games in the regular season, but only once every six games in the playoffs.
The drop-off in performance wasn't really Burridge's fault. While other players loafed through hockey's endless regular season, Burridge hustled every night. But in the playoffs, more talented players neutralized Burridge's effort because everyone tries hard in the postseason.
Over time, I came to believe that the Bruins' desire for collecting self-motivated muckers like Burridge who always gave their all ruined the franchise. The team's front office minimized the value of talent, and that made them vulnerable in the playoffs. Year after year, management refused to learn that talent was the ultimate difference maker, since everyone tries when the games matter most. To memorialize the Bruins' obsession with effort and lack of concern with talent, I even gave this peculiar disease a diagnosis--Randy Burridge Syndrome.
I hate to say it, and I pray that I’m wrong, but I think I may be seeing a touch of Randy Burridge Syndrome in this year's Boston Celtics. When the Celtics signed Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in the off-season, I wasn't sold. But I underestimated what a special player Garnett is.
Garnett's a magnificent talent--everyone who follows basketball knows that. But what I don't think you can understand until you watch him play on a day in/day out basis is what a fanatical competitor he is. Garnett approaches every game as if it means everything. Basketball aficionados rightly lauded Larry Bird's hungry-hearted efforts, but take it from a guy who saw most of the games in Bird's career--his intensity level was nothing like Garnett's.
Throughout this past season, the Celtics fed off Garnett's intensity and brought a unique level of commitment to each game. The Celtics showed up every night, and that's an enormous rarity in professional sports where the regular seasons are endless. As evidence of their daily effort, the Celtics went the entire season without getting blown out. I think they lost by double digits only once. Again, trust me--it wasn't like this with the Bird teams. There were games (like say the third game on the road in four days) that Bird and his teammates would play indifferently and get slaughtered.
My concern with this year's Celtics, admittedly based on a small sample of only five playoff games, is that they won't react well when their intensity is finally matched. In their series with the Atlanta Hawks, the Celtics have played two of their worst games of the season. The fact that the younger, more athletic Hawks equaled the Celtics' effort in those games seemed to bewilder the Celtics. The Celtics will probably get by the Hawks, but more talented teams that are ready to finally start trying lay in wait.
The good news for the Celtics as they try to bring home their 17th championship banner is that they still may be the most talented team in the league. The Randy Burridge Syndrome Bruins never had such luck. The bad news for the Celtics is that the regular season, when the Celtics looked like the best team in the league by some margin, was something of a mirage. The Celtics may be a bit better than everyone else, but if they are the best team in the league, it isn't by much.
How the Celtics respond to that reality will determine how successful they are in the playoffs.
And here I thought it was Pershing Missiles and the Strategic Defense Initiative, not boring soap operas.
After a long hip parade of unironic countercultural icons such as Luke of "Cool Hand Luke" and Randle Patrick McMurphy of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Dallas" created a new archetype of the anti-hero we loved to hate and hated to love: an establishment tycoon who's always controlling politicians, cheating on his boozy wife and scheming against his own stubbornly loyal family. But no matter how evil various translators tried to make J.R. and his milieu ("Dallas, you merciless universe!" ran the French lyrics added to the wordless theme song), viewers in the nearly 100 countries that gobbled up the show, including in the Warsaw Pact nations, came to believe that they, too, deserved cars as big as boats and a swimming pool the size of a small mansion.
Joseph Stalin is said to have screened the 1940 movie "The Grapes of Wrath" in the Soviet Union to showcase the depredations of life under capitalism. Russian audiences watched the final scenes of the Okies' westward trek aboard overladen, broken-down jalopies -- and marveled that in the United States, even poor people had cars. "Dallas" functioned similarly.
Next up: unifying the Korean Penisula with The Hills.
Last night marked American Idol's second annual installment of “Idol Gives Back,” an episode of the wildly popular talent competition in which Hollywood mobilizes to raise money for a plethora of noble causes. Virtually everyone who is someone or was someone made an appearance –entertainment luminaries like Bono, Brad Pitt and Reese Witherspoon fell into the former category. Fossilized former funnyman Robin Williams, doing the same shtick that was tired fifteen years ago, fell into the latter, less desirable category.
The show consisted mostly of celebrities traveling around the globe to see the world's most impoverished people, and then urging the viewers to give money so that we might ease their suffering. Miley Cyrus and her father Billy Ray Cyrus journeyed to a patch of Appalachia reminiscent of "Deliverance" to visit with what had to be America's poorest and most forlorn family. Young Miley pronounced the parents "extraordinary" in a moment of pitch perfect Hollywood condescension. Personally, I would have held off on awarding them “extraordinariness” until they explained why they had all that garbage on their front lawn. Young rockers Daughtry journeyed to Uganda where things are really bad, yet thoughtfully lightened the load of the suffering natives by pleasuring them with a song.
Raising money for those in need is always a fine thing, and yet the tone of last night’s show was somehow wrong. There are some entertainers who really commit to a cause. Bono and Brad Pitt from last night's show fall into that category. So do guys we particularly admire like John Ondrasik and Gary Sinise, who have quietly devoted considerable time and energy to supporting and entertaining our troops. With minimal fanfare, Sinise has made dozens of trips for the USO in recent years.
The problem with last night's show is that it reflected maximal fanfare mixed with minimal involvement. The celebrities swooped down on an area of misery, and then left as quickly as they came. You couldn't help but get the sense that many of the celebrities participated in the festivities primarily to get their mugs before American Idol's tens of millions of viewers. And that led to the disquieting inference that the world's most fortunate people were exploiting the world's least fortunate people for a photo-op.
More than anything else, the evening was about entertainment community figures engaging in unseemly self-congratulations for their nobility in caring about the poor. Worse still, the self-congratulations was misplaced. While the evening was called “Idol Gives Back,” the giving in question wasn’t being done by “Idol” but rather by the many parties that Idol had shaken down. Idol got Gordon Brown to promise $200 million worth of mosquito netting for Africa. And, of course, Idol expected its viewers to give until it hurt.
Truly, it's hard to see exactly what American Idol actually gives when it purportedly “gives back.” With last night’s extravaganza, the show expanded its brand, extended its reach and solidified its standing at the top of the Hollywood heap. Near as I could tell, Fox sold advertising for the evening, and didn't funnel the advertising revenue to either Uganda or Appalachia. In other words, just as was the case on Tuesday's ordinary episode of American Idol, Idol and its partners were turning a profit in a business as usual fashion as regards the bottom line.
It's nice that American Idol can do well and do good at the same time. But the self congratulations and the dilletantism still grate, even more than one of Robin Williams's "comedy" routines. “Giving back” is I guess particularly easy when you tap others to do the giving.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Katie Couric is on her way out at CBS. After two years of Couric compiling “record-low ratings" and with her ratings currently having a trend line that resembles a ski-slope, CBS will finally cry uncle and part ways with its $15 million/yr. news reading starlet.
I would imagine that few readers of this site watch any of the network newscasts. If you gather news and opinion on the internet, you're by definition a high end news gatherer, and the networks direct their broadcasts at low end news gatherers. Much of the 22 minutes of “news” they disseminate each night really isn't news at all but rather "features" aimed at delivering their viewers from problems that purportedly bedevil them. For instance, significant portions of a given broadcast will instruct the viewer how to avoid a predatory mortgage or how to finally gain relief from his lower back pain. In other words, if you actually want to get the news and you're watching a network newscast, you've come to the wrong place.
Nevertheless, it's worth noting that more people watch Katie Couric each night than the king of cable, Bill O’Reilly. Much more. While the networks' nightly newscasts are ghostly anachronisms that harken back to the era when we had three real channels to choose from, their evening news shows still garner a lot of eyeballs – a total of well over 20 million between the three of them. But that number will continue to shrink as Americans gather the news they want in more efficient ways.
CBS, however ineptly, gamely tried to reinvent the nightly news formula to remain relevant in a new media era. How was the network to know that Couric's trademark perkiness and strange fireside interviews would repel viewers rather than attract them? What CBS's Couric fiasco most ably demonstrates is that the networks don't have the first clue what to do with the many eyeballs that Walter Cronkite (not to mention an oligopoly) bequeathed them. Maybe producing an actual news show could pause the decline, but the network nightly newscast's slide into irrelevance remains inexorable and inevitable.
It you haven't seen this already, you will enjoy it very much. Guaranteed, or your money back! Careful about spraying coffee on your monitor if that kind of thing gets you in trouble at your place of work.
Now that Eliot Spitzer's reign of error has mercifully ended, what can a responsible analyst do but irresponsibly speculate about Spitzer's future? The most common opinion is that we won't have Eliot Spitzer to kick around anymore. Spitzer will retire to private life, accept employment at some white-shoe law firm and begin making a couple of million dollars a year defending the kind of people he used to so vigorously prosecute.
I don't think this scenario adds up. First of all, Spitzer's family has money. Scratch that – Spitzer's family has MONEY. His father is said to have a net worth in the mid-nine-figure range. What's more, Spitzer is a rapaciously ambitious guy. Remember, this is a fellow who without remorse persecuted innocent people to further his ambitions. Such a man isn’t going to abandon his dreams just because he had a rough week. He's more likely to focus every fiber of his being on a comeback, however implausible such a thing may seem at this hour.
So how does Eliot Spitzer come back? It’s easy! He'll drop from the radar for a bit, but soon enough he'll be popping up on Oprah's couch lamenting the damage he did and how he let his addiction ruin not just his life, but harm the people he loved the most (most especially himself). Spitzer will doggedly stay on message. He'll use the terms "addiction" and "disease" with obnoxious frequency.
In a separate theatre of operations, Spitzer will devote his life's work to righting his previous wrongs. I bet he'll suddenly discover a passion for eradicating the human slave trade, something the left is oddly indifferent to (but shouldn't be) and relates more than tangentially to the prostitution trade. Spitzer's wealth, not to mention his ruthlessness, would actually be of great service if he decided to focus his energies on this scourge.
After a couple of years of taking trips to Africa and posing for photo-ops with former slaves that he personally delivered from bondage, the media will discover what a wonderful guy the new, humble Eliot Spitzer is. Meanwhile, Spitzer will publish a book that unequivocally expresses his contrition but reminds the reader frequently that an awful disease held him in its grasp.
Some time around 2012, there will be a semi-vulnerable NY Republican congressman who lacks a serious opponent. A former celebrity governor who's willing to toss several million of his own dollars into the race will interest New York's Democratic party. And Eliot Spitzer will be back in the game.
As I mentioned yesterday, Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com is one of the leading lights of the progressive blogosphere. It is thus with a measure of sadness that I must make note of a post Stoller made this morning. Under the headline “Is the Bush Administration Going After Eliot Spitzer?,” Stoller darkly notes, “Spitzer is clearly one figure willing to stand up to Bush.”
I have to confess to feeling disappointed, nay outraged, by this ludicrous post. This is worst than “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” redux. It confirms the nagging fear that even the most intelligent progressives see the boogieman Bush hiding in virtually every closet.
As intimated, I can't help but take this post personally. Part of my job at the Weekly Standard is to satirize and parody the excesses of the angry left. How am I supposed to satirize these people if they're determined to so thoroughly satirize themselves?
A crusading career prosecutor who ostentatiously railed against prostitution rings in the past gets caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and the left wing blogosphere instinctively gets angry with Bush. You couldn't make such things up.
Ken Langone was one of the lions of Wall Street who had the misfortune of having his reputation stand in the way of Eliot Spitzer's ambitions. Last night, CNBC's cameras caught up with Langone, and he wasn't shy. The best part came when he responded to the question, "What’s next for Eliot Spitzer?"
"You know, we all have our own private hells. I hope his private hell is hotter than anyone else's."
Click here to watch the entire three minute interview. (Readers with a known allergy to Schadenfreude are strongly cautioned against following the link.)
A few weeks ago, Entertainment Weekly compiled a list of the "50 Smartest People in Hollywood." Checking in at number five was Will Smith, the star of the current hit "I Am Legend." Smith was the highest ranked performer on the list, edging out the sixth ranked Meryl Streep. After Streep, you had to go all the way down to thirteen to find another purported Hollywood brainiac who does their work in front of the cameras. (That would be Northern Kentucky University dropout George Clooney, in case you were wondering.)
Smith must feel some pressure now that Entertainment Weekly has crowned him the smartest actor in Hollywood. Thus, he has taken to giving pronouncements on historical matters while he expands on his philosophy of seeing the good in everyone.
“Even Hitler didn't wake up going, ‘Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good.’ Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.”
What a canny student of humanity! It’s quite a comfort that the Hollywood community has so forcefully weighed in on all matters regarding the war with radical Islam. Those actors sure have a lot to offer.
Assuming this comment reaches a wide audience, Smith will have to submit to extensive sensitivity training as well as a highly public display of cross cultural rehabilitation. Abe Foxman, please call your office after sundown.
What in the name of Katharine Graham has happened to Beltway high society? According to this New York Times article, DC swells are throwing parties where they force their guests to consume food that hails from--you better sit down--Costco.
Actually, the Times story displays a wonderful ignorance regarding Costco and what it brings to the table, as it were. As most people know, Costco is a wholesale shopping “club.” Few people know, however, what “club” means in this context.
If you pay Costco's membership dues, you get to buy stuff "at cost;" Costco's profits are limited to its membership dues. In other words, the company doesn’t make any profit on the products it sells. This business model requires an unusual amount of discipline. Markups are limited to cover only operating expenses. Costco, unlike retail stores, doesn't sell its products at the highest price the market will bear. This is the main reason why you can find some amazing bargains there.
Costco's business model has attracted consumers from every end of the economic spectrum. The chain's constituency is not limited to put-upon housefraus looking to save a few bucks on paper towels or seeking a great price on sixteen pounds of nutmeg. Value appeals to everyone. A couple of years ago, I interviewed Costco's former CFO for a book project I was contemplating, and he glowed when he spoke of the upscale demographics of Costco's clientèle. Costco also sells some very pricey products; it's currently the world’s largest diamond dealer.
So what of these DC parties where Costco is supplying the grub? Costco offers high quality. You can go to a Costco butcher and get Niman Ranch prime beef, just like the best stuff that better butcher shops carry. (The best butchers carry dry-aged prime beef, but that’s for special occasions.) For what it's worth, you can't get prime beef at most Whole Foods markets.
None of this means that the DC party-makers doing their prep work at Costco will be springing for the good stuff. Nevertheless, neocon overlord Richard Perle manages to find some nice product there. “I just bought chanterelles there the other day,” Perle stated, “and they often have fresh shiitake mushrooms.”
But as we all know, when the Grey Lady latches onto a narrative it sticks with it, regardless of what the facts show:
Catering by Costco is a style statement, like drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.
“Reverse chic is a very powerful phenomenon in status-oriented circles,” said David Kamp, the author of “The United States of Arugula” (Broadway, 2006), a book about the American fine-food revolution. “I think Costco is the same thing. It gets discovered.”
For those wondering why Democrats in Congress get such terrible grades in Gallup's latest polling, it might be because of moves like this one:
House and Senate Democrats have inserted at least 18 previously undisclosed earmarks into the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies spending bill totaling more than $24 million, while taking steps to limit access to key budget documents prepared for appropriators by federal agencies.
Republicans wasted little time in attacking the new spending and accusing Democrats of hypocrisy. “The new majority just doesn’t seem to get it. They came to power by criticizing Republican abuses, and were justified in doing so. But now they are committing the same abuses,” Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), said in a statement...
But in addition to new earmarks, Democrats again appear to be targeting reforms to the appropriations process backed by Senate conservatives that passed earlier this year. The bill includes language prohibiting federal agencies from providing their “budget justifications” to any committees in Congress other than the appropriations committees. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a longtime critic of the appropriations process, earlier had cut a deal with the Office of Management and Budget to begin providing those budget justification documents to the public since, unlike the president’s yearly budget submission, the justifications provide a detailed breakdown of the specific projects that will receive federal funding.
It's stunning that Congressional leaders would propose a new law to block Congress and the public from simply reviewing the details of the federal budget. The Appropriations Committee rewrites the president's proposed budget as a matter of course, but now they are attempting to head off questions about their spending decision by ensuring that only appropriators know the details of the president's proposal. The arrogance of the move is mind-blowing.
So much for transparency and openness in government.
Netroots Doing the Work of the NRCC--A Continuing Saga
We've chronicled the shift in recent months in the attitude among the netroots towards moderate and conservative Democrats. Just a few months ago, the paramount goal of the left was achieving Congressional majorities--even if it meant backing Democrats who occasionally voted with the president. But the impotence of the Democratic majority seems to have changed everything. Now the netroots have turned their fire on the 'Bush Dogs' (which we first wrote about here).
As difficult as it is to believe, there are even varying degrees of loyalty to Bush within the 41 Bush Dogs. The following six Democrats not only voted for a blank check on Iraq, not only voted to continue warrant-less government spying on American citizens through FISA, but also voted against S-Chip...
At this point, if you favor an endless Iraq war, warrant-less spying on American citizens, and denying poor kids health care, why on earth is someone a Democrat? Let me rephrase that, since this goes beyond partisan self-identification: how can you do those three things and sleep at night? Funding an open-ended occupation of a foreign country that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, while spying on those within your own country who oppose that war, and then denying health care to poor children seems like a pretty good definition of not only a bad Democrat, but simply a bad person. I don't typically utilize moralistic language of this sort, but that is a pretty heinous combination of votes for anyone to take, Republican or Democrat. Oh, and all three of those positions run contrary to the constituents of these districts, too.
If primary challenges were to appear against any of these Democrats, I would support them...
All six of the representatives that Bowers identifies represent Republican districts. One has a Republican edge of 16 percentage points! While few are regarded as top-tier races in 2008, that's only because the members are viewed as fitting their conservative districts quite well. For a Democrat to encourage a primary from the left is to say--as Bowers essentially does--that it doesn't matter whether the district is held by a Republican or a Democrat.
That is a perfectly legitimate point of view--one mirrored at times on the right. But while it's understandable, it's a shortcut to minority status. I'm reminded of one of Professor Larry Sabato's signs that a party was about to lose majority status:
Democrats seemed capable of just about one thing in 1994: hemorrhaging seats in Congress. Powerful Illinois Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D) blew it in a district typically safe for his party after his indictment in a check kiting scandal, Nevada Rep. James Bilbray (D) was felled after it was revealed days before the election that his aide stood to profit millions from lands legislation he had sponsored, and Democrats frittered away more open seats than we care to count by clumsily nominating the weaker (and typically the more liberal) of two candidates in primaries. After all the wreckage had been surveyed, Democrats had lost a grand total of 54 seats, more than enough to forfeit their House majority.
From the perspective of one month out from Election Day, it's difficult to imagine how Republicans could suffer losses in a range anywhere near what Democrats suffered twelve years ago. But it's still a familiar picture: this year, the GOP has been giving away seats in Congress as if they were extra pairs of upper-deck Washington Nationals tickets.
If Bowers and other activists are serious about trying to knock off conservative Democrats in conservative districts, and replacing them with sure-fire losers in the general election, they'll get no argument from here. Right now many Democrats think that they have seats to burn in 2008. But in politics, trends can turn on a dime. The seats that activists give away today, they may wish they had back tomorrow.
The Land of Lincoln book tour comes to San Francisco tonight, when the book's author, WEEKLY STANDARD senior editor Andrew Ferguson, is set to discuss the book and sign copies at 6:00 PM at the Commonwealth Club, 595 Market St.
In case your not familiar with the book, here's a little bit about it from the Scrapbook:
THE SCRAPBOOK is feeling like a proud papa these days--or maybe a doting uncle. That's because our friend and colleague Andrew Ferguson has just published Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America (Grove/Atlantic, $24), and in THE SCRAPBOOK's considered opinion, if there's one book every STANDARD reader must devour this summer, it's Land of Lincoln.
Why do we say this? First, WEEKLY STANDARD readers already know Andy's hallmarks. He's a writer of exceptional skill, incapable of producing a dull sentence. He carries wisdom, erudition, and startling insight with a lightness and finesse that must be read to be believed. There's his understated wit, discerning eye, and instinct for the absurd. His reporter's antennae are exceptionally well-tuned; Andy never fails to capture the felicitous detail. And all these talents are on display in Land of Lincoln.
So what, you ask, another Lincoln book? To which we reply: This is not just any Lincoln book. Like many Americans, Andy Ferguson (born and raised in Illinois) grew up with a fascination for the sixteenth president, whose life and death are so central to the story of America. But what intrigues him about Lincoln is not so much the familiar facts--the log cabin birthplace, the Gettysburg Address, the homely face and mordant jokes--as the shadow Lincoln casts over his countrymen. Since the assassination at Ford's Theatre in 1865, Lincoln's drama has been cast and recast, the essentials of his life have been plumbed and reinvented, the meaning of Lincoln--to politics, history, folklore, psychology--has evolved with every succeeding generation.
So Andy embarks on a road trip in search of Lincoln's America. Or America's Lincoln. We meet collectors who accumulate sacred relics, scholars who try to make Lincoln "relevant," Abe Lincoln impersonators, management gurus, and a galaxy of people whose vision of Lincoln gives meaning to their lives.
Land of Lincoln is about a journalist's quest, but it's also a matchless portrait of our times, certain places, the national character (both hilarious and poignant), the complex life of a deceptively simple man, and the meeting of the present and past in our country. THE SCRAPBOOK cannot think of a better introduction to the great subject of Abraham Lincoln, or a funnier, more trenchant and affecting postcard from America.
Click here to see the full book tour schedule, and click here to purchase your very own copy.
About three-quarters of Americans, according to surveys, think the country is on the wrong track. About two-thirds of the public disapprove of the job performance of President Bush, and an even higher number disdain Congress. The media are excited about the prospect of a wealthy businessman running for President as an independent who could tap into broad public disgruntlement with the partisan politicians in Washington.
2007? Yes. But also 1992. The main difference between the two situations is that Michael Bloomberg is richer--and saner--than Ross Perot. But one similarity might be this: the American people were wrong then and may be wrong now.
Go read the whole thing to find out why "despite the gloom and doom from critics left and right (including, occasionally, me), the world seems to present the usual mixed bag of difficult problems and heartening developments."
A nice piece from TWS contributor Martin Morse Wooster appeared in yesterday's TCS Daily, seems very appropriate for the holiday.
BALTIMORE—It's a lovely early summer day in the Chesapeake Bay, and everyone with a boat knows it's time to grab the bathing suits and some crabs and head for the water. The Bay is jammed with sailboats, speedboats, and other pleasure craft.
But the fun-seekers crowding the waters are about to see something few Americans in this century have seen. Two deadly Japanese bombers, a Zero and an Aichi D3A, are coming in from the southeast.
The Zeroes approach menacingly, their lime-green fuselages glistening in the bright summer sun. They dive and swoop towards the water, coming closer, ever closer, getting ready to unleash their payload.
Luckily, the Americans have protection. One lone ship stands between the Zeroes and downtown Baltimore. It fires its 20-caliber machine guns towards the Zeroes, the weapons swooping clockwise as the Japanese planes head west. Finally, three American bombers show up: a P51D Mustang, a P-40E Warhawk, and a lumbering B-25J Mitchell bomber.
American firepower saves the day. The Japanese planes belch white smoke as they slink off to their eastern base.
The good folks over at the New York Times finally got around to taking a look at Indoctrinate U in the education section yesterday. As we might have expected, the Times’s take on the film was less than flattering--indeed, the author seems to use Evan Coyne Maloney’s film as little more than an introductory device to tell us how few restrictions are placed on free speech on campus.
Maloney has done a fine job dismantling the Times piece, which went so far as to praise university administrators for reopening newspapers they'd previously shut-down for what they perceived as objectionable political content:
Oddly, one of the examples cited in the article (but not the film) was the case of a student paper published by Vassar’s Moderate, Independent and Conservative Student Alliance. The paper was de-funded and shut down for a year after publishing a piece criticizing the school’s funding of special “social centers” for minority and gay students. But because the paper was eventually allowed to start publishing again--the following year--the Vassar case is presented as one in which “[u]ltimately, free speech was respected.”
Sorry, but shutting down a paper for a year is not a benign event, and it is certainly not one in which we can say “free speech was respected.” If Homeland Security shut down the Times for a year after exposing ways that we track terrorist financing, I’m sure they’d understand my position on this.
I’ve already written up my own thoughts on the film, so I won’t go into it any more here. But it is useful to contrast the treatment this documentary received with that of another controversial flick making the rounds: Sicko. A.O. Scott reviewed the new Michael Moore picture for the Times in a modestly celebratory manner. While Maloney’s film is dismissed as “just a pastiche of notorious events,” Moore’s is praised for making an “argument [that] is illustrated with anecdotes and statistics--terrible stories about Americans denied medical care or forced into bankruptcy to pay for it; grim actuarial data about life expectancy and infant mortality; damning tallies of dollars donated to political campaigns.”
Those interested in seeing some other “anecdotes and statistics” that argue America’s health care “crisis” is overblown and that socialized medicine is dangerous to your health can check out Free Market Cure, a project brought to us by one of the primary financiers of Indoctrinate U, Stuart Browning.
NYT Poll Result: "Old media’s influence increasingly marginalized."
Dean Barnett writes the definitive post on today's Timespoll on the attitudes of Americans aged 17-29. Barnett notes that the poll was cosponsored "by that most reputable of news agencies," MTV, and then informs readers that he will analyze the numbers himself, "unguided by Adam [Nagourney's] insights."
Once again, I haven’t read Nagourney’s coverage, but I assume his lead derives from the results to this tendentious question:
50. Which do you think would be better for the country: 1. Having one health insurance program covering all Americans that would be administered by the government and paid for by taxpayers, OR 2. Keeping the current system where many people get their insurance from private employers and some have no insurance.
62% of the kids would opt for the socialist experiment of a single payer system. In a way, I guess this is good. I think it was Churchill who said “If you’re not a communist when you’re young, you have no heart. If you’re still a communist when you’re old, you have no brain.” Good to see the kids have their hearts in the right place, even if the phrasing of the question drove them to that particular place.
What I found really interesting about the poll was Question 62. The question in question asked, “As a result of the United States' military action against Iraq, do you think the United States is more safe from terrorism, less safe from terrorism, or hasn't it made any difference?”
31% said “more safe”, 19% said “less safe”, 47% said “no difference” and 2% said “don’t know.” All I can say is, “Huh?” After being pounded over their young heads for half a decade that Iraq has been a fiasco on every level, the kids lean in the direction that it has made us more safe? Maybe the headline to this poll should be, “Old media’s influence increasingly marginalized.”
Go read the whole thing--it doesn't get better than Barnett writing on "the self-esteem generation."
WWS pal Tim Slagle writes in with word on Al Gore's epic global warming concert series, which is to feature musical performances from all seven continents broadcast live on July 7. Unfortunately, it seems that the concert that is to take place on Antarctica will not quite have the star-power that Gore had sought:
Nunatuk warms up the crowd, but they may need more lighting for the show--the sun never rises at the camp in July.
According to Linda Capper, representative for the British Antarctic Survey, the Antarctic leg of the Live Earth Show will not be a “Major Concert” as Al Gore once promised. In fact according to Linda: "We have a house band--five of our science team. They are very good indie rock-folk fusion.”
The Rothera Research Station is under British jurisdiction, and home to only 22 winter residents. July 7th is mid winter down there and it is completely inaccessible by plane or boat. But that didn’t deter the Oscar winning star of An Inconvenient Truth. Back in February, Gore’s office contacted the BAS requesting a flight into Rothera. The questioned Linda “about the possibility to fly an artiste [no-one specific] into to the research station in July.” When Al Gore was informed that July is winter in Antarctica, and completely inaccessible, Linda Capper suggested letting the scientists play. She actually sent a cameraman down to Rothera in March on one of the last flights of the season, to film a video of the band.
The band is called Nunatak, which is a Greenlandic word for an exposed summit of a ridge mountain or peak not covered with snow. As for audience, according to Linda: The remaining 17 [residents] will be the audience on location.
So Gore's attempt to rock Antarctica in the name of global warming was stymied by the fact that the continent is so darn cold as to be virtually uninhabitable and completely inaccessible at the time of the event. Still, if you want a glimpse of Nunatuk, you can check out the roughly 75 hours of event coverage that NBC Universal will serve up.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has a full-time position available for a staff assistant. This is a clerical position working with the editors. Duties will include answering phones and emails, updating our website, research, and record-keeping. Candidates should address a cover letter and résumé to hr@weeklystandard.com.
From Kristol's latest column for Time magazine, now available here:
In the old days, historians--at least some of them--were patriotic and moralistic. No longer. We live in what Andrew Ferguson, in his brilliant new book, Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America, calls "a wised-up era." Now, Ferguson explains, "skepticism about the country, its heroes and its history" is "a mark of worldliness and sophistication." Ferguson is himself a worldly and sophisticated observer of contemporary America. (Full disclosure: he also happens to be a colleague of mine at the Weekly Standard.) But his guided tour of the often amusing, sometimes bizarre ways we remember Lincoln today leads us gently from being wised-up toward wisdom.
Lincoln expected that America would become a nation doubtful about its heroes and its history. In his astonishing address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Ill., on Jan. 27, 1838, on "the perpetuation of our political institutions," the 28-year-old Lincoln foresaw the inevitable rise in a modern democracy like ours of skepticism and worldliness. Indeed, he worried about the fate of free institutions in a maturing nation no longer shaped by a youthful, instinctive and (mostly) healthy patriotism.
Such a patriotism is natural in the early years after a revolutionary struggle for independence. To the generation that experienced the Revolution and the children of that generation, Lincoln explained, the events of the Revolution remained "living history," and those Americans retained an emotional attachment to the political institutions that had been created. But the living memories of the Revolution and the founding could no longer be counted on. Those memories "were a fortress of strength; but what invading foemen could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls." So, Lincoln concluded, the once mighty "pillars of the temple of liberty" that supported our political institutions were gone.
THE SCRAPBOOK is feeling like a proud papa these days--or maybe a doting uncle. That's because our friend and colleague Andrew Ferguson has just published Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America (Grove/Atlantic, $24), and in THE SCRAPBOOK's considered opinion, if there's one book every STANDARD reader must devour this summer, it's Land of Lincoln.
Why do we say this? First, WEEKLY STANDARD readers already know Andy's hallmarks. He's a writer of exceptional skill, incapable of producing a dull sentence. He carries wisdom, erudition, and startling insight with a lightness and finesse that must be read to be believed. There's his understated wit, discerning eye, and instinct for the absurd. His reporter's antennae are exceptionally well-tuned; Andy never fails to capture the felicitous detail. And all these talents are on display in Land of Lincoln.
So what, you ask, another Lincoln book? To which we reply: This is not just any Lincoln book. Like many Americans, Andy Ferguson (born and raised in Illinois) grew up with a fascination for the sixteenth president, whose life and death are so central to the story of America. But what intrigues him about Lincoln is not so much the familiar facts--the log cabin birthplace, the Gettysburg Address, the homely face and mordant jokes--as the shadow Lincoln casts over his countrymen. Since the assassination at Ford's Theatre in 1865, Lincoln's drama has been cast and recast, the essentials of his life have been plumbed and reinvented, the meaning of Lincoln--to politics, history, folklore, psychology--has evolved with every succeeding generation.
So Andy embarks on a road trip in search of Lincoln's America. Or America's Lincoln. We meet collectors who accumulate sacred relics, scholars who try to make Lincoln "relevant," Abe Lincoln impersonators, management gurus, and a galaxy of people whose vision of Lincoln gives meaning to their lives.
Land of Lincoln is about a journalist's quest, but it's also a matchless portrait of our times, certain places, the national character (both hilarious and poignant), the complex life of a deceptively simple man, and the meeting of the present and past in our country. THE SCRAPBOOK cannot think of a better introduction to the great subject of Abraham Lincoln, or a funnier, more trenchant and affecting postcard from America.
Ferguson will begin his book tour on June 9 in Naperville, Illinois. Click here to see the full schedule, and click here to purchase your very own copy.
You’d be hard pressed to argue that 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later are inherently conservative movies (and you’d probably hear some complaint from series creator Danny Boyle if you did), but there are certainly some conservative undertones. If the sequel, released on Friday, was meant to be an allegory for the evils of the Iraq war (as somehave claimed), it’s a terribly confused one. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at a few aspects of the series that merit closer attention (SPOILERS FOLLOW. Stop reading now if you don’t want the film ruined).
In the original, the film kicks off when a group of do-gooding PETA/Earth Liberation Front types break into an animal testing lab to free some cute, cuddly monkeys. Except these cute, cuddly monkeys are infected with the Rage virus, the disease that ends up destroying England. Instead of listening to reason, the radicals threaten the scientist who discovers them with bodily harm and release the animals.
Similarly, in 28 Weeks Later, an American sniper refuses to fire on a crowd of civilians who are quickly being turned into rampaging zombies by their infected countrymen. This action is supposed to gain our sympathy--indeed, the sniper pays the ultimate price for refusing to kill, and later helping to escape, the child within his scope’s sight. His refusal to follow orders and his imploring a helicopter pilot to carry the child to the European continent and safety, however, will lead to millions, if not billions, more deaths, as the boy is a “carrier” of the disease. He doesn’t show any symptoms, but he can infect others through his saliva and blood. The final scene of the movie is that of a cadre of zombies rushing the Eiffel Tower--by transporting the boy to the mainland, one American soldier with a conscience has doomed the Eurasian landmass to a nasty, horrible death.
My basic point is this: In both films, liberal good intentions are the catalyst for the deaths of millions of people. Another example from 28 Weeks Later: if the military doctor overseeing the case of an infected survivor had followed her superior’s orders and promptly killed the woman, the plague wouldn’t have been reignited (we also wouldn’t have had a movie, but you see my point).
Also, the portrayal of the militaries in the two films is fundamentally different. In 28 Days Later, the British military is depicted as a group of sadistic rapists. In 28 Weeks Later, the American occupiers of Britain are depicted as benevolent, if incompetent. Once the virus breaks free again, it’s hard not to agree with the decision to firebomb the affected area in hopes of containing the outbreak and saving the rest of the “green zone” from infection and certain death. Even the use of nerve gas is understandable in the context of the film. A.O. Scott, the superlative film critic for the New York Times, said it best in his review: “It is only when things spin out of control that the inherent brutality of the situation becomes clear, but here again the movie poses intractable conundrums rather than scoring easy points. To the soldiers and the survivors alike, there are only bad choices, and doing what seems like the right thing--firebombing an open city or rescuing children from the bombs--can turn out to have horrendous consequences.”
So my colleague Mike Goldfarb calls me this afternoon and the first thing he asks is what do I make of Carmela Soprano reading Rebel-in-Chief by THE WEEKLY STANDARD's own Fred Barnes. I warned him not to read too much into this--some of us are still trying to understand the deeper significance of Gay Vito’s son defecating in the shower. And why must we be subjected to it? In any event, I will try to keep my impressions short.
First, we must remember this is Hollywood and Carmela’s reading Rebel-in-Chief is probably meant to reflect poorly on her and her sense of judgment. Carmela’s support for this highly unpopular president (remember, she voted for him) is the same as her standing by Tony Soprano. Both are equally repugnant and, of course, murderers of hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. Some think Carmela should leave her loutish husband. While she’s at it, she ought to leave that loutish president. Her husband may be arrested any time. Her president may be arrested anytime as well, for war crimes. All in all, a bad sign.
Second, who’s to say that just because Carmela is reading the book, she's actually enjoying it? For all we know, she might hate it. (Then again, who wouldn’t like it? “Crackling with fine reportage and analysis. Barnes knows this subject better than anyone,” said Rich Lowry. “I know Fred Barnes and I thought I knew what he knows about President Bush. Boy, was I wrong. This book is a revelation. I couldn’t stop reading it,” said Brit Hume. Rebel-in-Chief is also now available in paperback for just $11.86 at Amazon.)
It should also not surprise us that Carmela is a conservative. Remember in the second season when A.J. asks his mother “Why are we here?” Carmela’s response: “Because of Adam and Eve.” In the first episode of this season, when Bobby talks about putting up a wall between us and Mexico, Carm adds “Amen.” Not that Tony Soprano thinks any different. After all, he has now joined the war on terror by providing a cell phone number of a possible terrorist to the feds. This goes back to my first point, that Tony Soprano and Bush are the same, at least in the eyes of his wife, though in some respects Tony is more like Clinton.
But like I said, we shouldn’t read too much into this.
The 2007 Milblog Conference was held yesterday at a hotel just outside of Washington. The event was sponsored by our friends at Military.com, and while I did not attend last year's inaugural conference, everyone seemed very pleased with this year's turnout. THE WORLDWIDE STANDARD's own Bill Roggio was there to address some of the issues surrounding blogging from the front as part of a panel that was chaired by milblogger extraordinaire Matthew Burden of Blackfive. Roggio is something of a celebrity in this crowd and was interviewed by a camera crew from CNN for a segment to air sometime today between 2 and 4 pm (if I get more precise info on the time of that broadcast I will post in an update).
QandO and RedState, among others, were liveblogging the event, which featured a number of lively panel discussions on everything from mainstream press coverage of Iraq to how the community could best support the troops in the field. There were more than a few bloggers who stuck up for the mainstream press, but there was almost no one who thought that the U.S. military was doing an effective job of getting its message out. The Army public affairs office (PAO) was a favorite target for those in attendance, and this despite the fact that the Army tried to put its best foot forward by sending a number of representatives to the conference.
Likewise, the milbloggers were pretty much unanimous in their support of the war--they want the soldiers home, but not until they achieve their mission of a stable, democratic Iraq. Still, there were some dissenting opinions. In general, there are really two sets of bloggers covering the military--the milbloggers, who include active duty servicemen, their family members, and veterans-turned-journalists, and the techbloggers, who are a bit more of a mixed bag of veterans and milgeeks (I, too, would be a milgeek in this taxonomy). The techbloggers tend to be a bit more liberal and mainstream than their milblog counterparts. For the most part though, the politics of the war were largely ignored in favor of a serious discussion about how best to inform the public about what the troops are doing, and how best to support those troops while they're doing it.
And here is where I think the milblog community deserves a lot of credit. This conference was in no small part a celebration of the troops and the civilian organizations that support them, particularly an organization called Soldiers' Angels and its Valour-IT program. I heard some wonderful stories today about just how important this group is to the soldiers serving in Iraq and to the wounded soldiers coming home (check out Chuck Z's blog From My Position...On the Way! for more on that). The men and women behind this program are absolutely single-minded in their devotion to providing the troops with whatever it is that they need at any given time. I strongly urge our readers to support them by clicking through and making a donation.
On a final note, there was one character in particular who stands out in my mind as the group's most enthusiastic blogger/activist/all-around-lunatic. That would be the man behind the blog Castle Argghhh!, who provided much of the event's comic relief. His claim to fame: his blog is ranked number one by Google for the search "I bayoneted myself." Definitely a site you'll want to bookmark if you have even the slightest interest in the milblog phenomenon.
Also, here's the taped message the president sent in, which was played early yesterday morning as the conference got underway:
The Campaign for America's Furture hosted a debate today between the editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, William Kristol, and Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect--part of a day-long event at the National Press Club called "Failure of Conservatism: The Big Con."
The day's events can be seen here, and included panels such as "How Conservatives Get the World Wrong," "How Conservatives Get Government Wrong," "How Conservatives Fail Economics," etc., etc. There's even a panel this afternoon that asks "Is the Conservative Era Over?"
So anyway, not really much to report. Kristol went into the lion's den and tried to be reasonable, at one point conceding that "the Bush administration isn't the most competent of administrations." Otherwise, I thought he made a pretty persuasive case on the merits.
His opponent wouldn't yield an inch: conservatism has failed horribly, "progressivism" is the only option. The only thing that really made my ears perk up, Kuttner said:
one of the things Bush managed to slither out of was responsibility for 9/11...if he'd been paying attention the plot would have been foiled...instead it became a pretext for permanent emergency.
This brave statement earned Kuttner a nice round of applause. I just wonder, if Clinton had been paying attention, would the USS Cole not have been bombed, or the embassies in Africa, or the first attack on the World Trade Center? Maybe if FDR was paying attention, he might have foiled the attack on Pearl Harbor. The fact that such a lunatic statement was embraced by what I suppose is a mainstream progressive audience...pretty frightening.
(Update) McCain: "I'm going to compete in California"
Senator McCain had a conference call with a number of bloggers this afternoon, and McCain certainly made some interesting points.
In response to comments yesterday by Mitt Romney that we shouldn't "move heaven and earth" or "spend billions" trying to capture Osama bin Laden, which we commented on earlier today here, McCain said that he disagreed: "We'll devote every effort this country can make to get him," the Senator said.
On the supplemental, McCain said that he understood "the absolute drop dead date" to be sometime in early June, but he also said it was important that the president veto the current bill if for no other reason that the $20 billion in pork that Democrats have stuffed into it. He said the pork was being "used as a vehicle to buy votes," and that it was "obscene and corrupting." He also said that it would be a mistake to wait until that "drop dead date" before passing a clean supplemental.
On the issue of same sex marriage, the senator said he was personally opposed to the legislation just passed in New Hampshire that would legalize civil unions for gay couples, but that he did believe that this was a matter best left to the states--that he was a "strong federalist."
On the media coverage of the Iraq war, McCain said that "suicide bombers continue to be the focus of [press] efforts, but there is progress being made." He went on to say that "the thing that concerns me as much as anything is the Maliki government," pointing to its decision to take a two month recess this summer as particularly worrying. He also said there had been "dramatic improvement in Anbar," but that General Petraeus continued to be concerned about the suicide bombers and equipment coming into Iraq from Iran and Syria. Overall, he said that there was "measured but slow progress" taking place in Iraq.
On energy, McCain spoke of the "huge national security component to the need for energy independence," and then treated us to the only blatant pander of the afternoon by pointing to the importance of "corn oil" in Iowa as an alternative source of energy. More important, he emphasized the need for nuclear power: "We need [more] nuclear power badly."
When asked about what kind of justices he might appoint to the Supreme Court, McCain said that he would not impose a litmus test, but he did say he thought a "strict interpretation" of the Constitution was critical, and that he would look for someone with "life experience" rather than just focusing on judicial experience. Specifically, he said that he would want someone who had military or business experience, "real world experience" he said.
When asked whether he would be able to peel off any of the states that voted for Kerry in 2004, McCain said that "if you look what happened in Ohio and other midwest states [in 2004] it's not good," but that he would look to put California in play in 2008 to offset those negative trends: "I'm going to compete in California," he said, adding that Republicans can no longer afford to write off the biggest state in the Union.
And on defense spending, McCain was asked whether he was in line with Romney, who recently endorsed the Heritage Foundation proposal for spending a minimum of four percent of GDP on national defense. McCain said that he would see to it that defense spending continues to rise, but that "what we do is more important than how much money we spend," emphasizing the need
