Just sat through 11 minutes of video (posted and duly re-posted on the Facebook walls of some friends) in which an Obama-supporting chap interviewed a succession of Tea Partiers, highlighting a certain lack of resolution in their data. Pause for popcorn:
Sorta like if Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments were produced at MSNBC, right? Not the most stellar performances of wonkery from the lumpen non-wonkers.
But it reminded me of something. Let's see....
Oh yeah! That was it.
So, what's the take-away from this little exercise in compare-and-contrast? Well, that would kinda depend on your chosen set of goggles, now wouldn't it? Is it an indication of how much more [insidiously] effective Right-Wing media outlets are in promoting a set of talking points? Is it a sign of the Left-Wing Media's emphasis on emotionally salient but factually-unfurnished memes? Is it a simple matter of (Camera One) Tea partiers' brainwashed vacuity? (Camera Two) Obama supporters' blinkered adherence to the cult of their Dear Leader's personality?
Is it an indication of how the granularity of much-needed data gets sand-blasted in an environment of entrenched partisanship, such that individuals on both sides (not to mention all the other possible "sides") are deprived of the means (or even the vague sense that there is a need) to flesh out their wafer-thin comprehension of Very Important Stuff?
And where in this process might we situate the act of promulgating one of these clips in the absence of the other?
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John McCain. Show all posts
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sound and Fury
I think I have been exemplary in my patience.
I have watched as the Obama Administration made some potentially canny and promising early appointments (and retentions) in positions relevant to national security and international diplomacy. I have given due (if necessarily guarded) credit where appropriate.
I have watched as it took steps to set in motion a vast experiment in government management of the economy for the stated purpose of kicking in the afterburners on a system which was losing altitude at an alarming rate. I am far less than sanguine about the prospects of that experiment yielding the fruit which the Administration has put on the menu. I exist in a state of dread about the shape which the American economy will assume if a significant proportion of the Democratic proposals end up being adopted. A top-heavy, regulation-besotted, debt-rich, redistributionist, entitlement-clotted, engineered economy is just the sort of climate which any sane businessperson will seek to flee at relativistic speeds.
But, whatever. The Democrats have been yammering for longer than I care to contemplate about just this sort of economy's putative virtues for elevating the lot of humankind. Now they have a chance to run the program and let the data shake out as it will. It's a strange universe; they may not be wrong.
What has really chafed my nethers this evening is the sheer hypocrisy embodied by this story off the AP:
Really?
I don't even have to close my eyes to summon up the full scope of the derisive drubbing which the Obama campaign visited upon John McCain when he made just this sort of statement during his run for office. At the time Sen. McCain was painted as a tin-eared economic lightweight and panderer, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and all that. Now the Obama administration, awash in the blowback from the ceaselessly bleak catastrophism with which it strove to sell the immense spending bender it so quaintly insisted on calling a "stimulus," sees fit to co-opt the same language in order to sweeten the potion it has spooked us into drinking. Seldom has the word, "disingenuous" seemed to apply so very aptly. And, again, I am summoning all the politesse I can muster here.
In point of fact, I thought that McCain retreated far too abjectly on this point. Flawed and floundering as it was, I do believe that the "fundamentals" of the economy were far less intrinsically damaged than it was deemed politically expedient to acknowledge. People were (and are!) hurting, and perhaps not so favorably disposed to hear that the overall economy could be jump-started without wading in and tinkering with the code. Macroeconomics serves as a sour and unsatisfying brew when one's utility bills are piling up and foreclosure statistics are far more than a news item. I get it.
Still, the pressure to appear empathic and to be seen as Doing Something can get in the way of the sort of intelligent management of the interface between government and the economy which holds real promise for building on that economy's strengths and judiciously addressing its shortcomings. For someone who droned on so relentlessly about the evils of a "Politics Of Fear," Obama was only too willing to employ those very tactics when the time came to try and motivate the American people to sign onto his blueprint for a "new and improved" American economy...up until the point when he 'discovered' that collective psychological phenomena are variables in the functioning of that economy. Now he is scrambling to massage the message and offer up a little Hope. One might have thought it fairly obvious that sermonizing about the Imminent Collapse of Everydamnthing might be apt to engender a bit of pessimism in the market. Seems that little item was omitted from The One's flow chart. Rookie mistake.
A penchant for revisionist history had ever been the hallmark of the Obama campaign's M.O. It is not unreasonable to predict that this tendency will persist...so I'm not holding my breath for any belated acknowledgment that Candidate McCain was right after all. For the moment, I suppose I'll have to content myself with the fact that even the AP could not whitewash over the irony of today's statements.
Beware of Jedi Mind Tricks, fellow citizens.
I have watched as the Obama Administration made some potentially canny and promising early appointments (and retentions) in positions relevant to national security and international diplomacy. I have given due (if necessarily guarded) credit where appropriate.
I have watched as it took steps to set in motion a vast experiment in government management of the economy for the stated purpose of kicking in the afterburners on a system which was losing altitude at an alarming rate. I am far less than sanguine about the prospects of that experiment yielding the fruit which the Administration has put on the menu. I exist in a state of dread about the shape which the American economy will assume if a significant proportion of the Democratic proposals end up being adopted. A top-heavy, regulation-besotted, debt-rich, redistributionist, entitlement-clotted, engineered economy is just the sort of climate which any sane businessperson will seek to flee at relativistic speeds.
But, whatever. The Democrats have been yammering for longer than I care to contemplate about just this sort of economy's putative virtues for elevating the lot of humankind. Now they have a chance to run the program and let the data shake out as it will. It's a strange universe; they may not be wrong.
What has really chafed my nethers this evening is the sheer hypocrisy embodied by this story off the AP:
WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy is fundamentally sound despite the temporary "mess" it's in, the White House said Sunday in the kind of upbeat assessment that Barack Obama had mocked as a presidential candidate.
Really?
I don't even have to close my eyes to summon up the full scope of the derisive drubbing which the Obama campaign visited upon John McCain when he made just this sort of statement during his run for office. At the time Sen. McCain was painted as a tin-eared economic lightweight and panderer, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and all that. Now the Obama administration, awash in the blowback from the ceaselessly bleak catastrophism with which it strove to sell the immense spending bender it so quaintly insisted on calling a "stimulus," sees fit to co-opt the same language in order to sweeten the potion it has spooked us into drinking. Seldom has the word, "disingenuous" seemed to apply so very aptly. And, again, I am summoning all the politesse I can muster here.
In point of fact, I thought that McCain retreated far too abjectly on this point. Flawed and floundering as it was, I do believe that the "fundamentals" of the economy were far less intrinsically damaged than it was deemed politically expedient to acknowledge. People were (and are!) hurting, and perhaps not so favorably disposed to hear that the overall economy could be jump-started without wading in and tinkering with the code. Macroeconomics serves as a sour and unsatisfying brew when one's utility bills are piling up and foreclosure statistics are far more than a news item. I get it.
Still, the pressure to appear empathic and to be seen as Doing Something can get in the way of the sort of intelligent management of the interface between government and the economy which holds real promise for building on that economy's strengths and judiciously addressing its shortcomings. For someone who droned on so relentlessly about the evils of a "Politics Of Fear," Obama was only too willing to employ those very tactics when the time came to try and motivate the American people to sign onto his blueprint for a "new and improved" American economy...up until the point when he 'discovered' that collective psychological phenomena are variables in the functioning of that economy. Now he is scrambling to massage the message and offer up a little Hope. One might have thought it fairly obvious that sermonizing about the Imminent Collapse of Everydamnthing might be apt to engender a bit of pessimism in the market. Seems that little item was omitted from The One's flow chart. Rookie mistake.
A penchant for revisionist history had ever been the hallmark of the Obama campaign's M.O. It is not unreasonable to predict that this tendency will persist...so I'm not holding my breath for any belated acknowledgment that Candidate McCain was right after all. For the moment, I suppose I'll have to content myself with the fact that even the AP could not whitewash over the irony of today's statements.
Beware of Jedi Mind Tricks, fellow citizens.
ETA: Awsome pic courtesy of this thread, chock full of hilarity.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Hopes
Needless to say, posting has been almost embarrassingly light this month. Part of this, I'm sure, can be attributed to the impending Holidays, and their effects on my schedule (think three-dimensional Tetris). Plans to travel and see family, coupled with attempts to squeeze clients into time-slots, while accommodating various vacations and exams (most of my clients are teens and 20-somethings) have had their impact on blogging.
However, if I'm to be entirely honest, I must confess that the outcome of the election has had an impact on me. At first, there was a kind of depression (not so much clinical/personal --I'm not that far gone-- as blogospheric). I'd devoted so much energy to the candidates' qualifications and positions, debunking and exposing and advocating and warning and generally obsessing, that the end of it all left me rather spent.
Also, I have not wanted to be the one who prematurely blasted or gave a pass to the President-Elect. I have been surprisingly sanguine about his appointments to foreign-policy-relevant Cabinet positions; there are signs there of a degree of maturity and pragmatism which frankly I did not expect to see from Obama. Keeping Bob Gates on as Sec Def was an intelligent and politically risky move, for example. I'm not even displeased with Hillary as Secretary of State; she is, if anything, a canny and pragmatic politician, a master triangulator, and a moderate on the Hawk-Dove continuum. Sec State was arguably the role she was born to play. Other appointments have left me rather more wary...which is a subject for another day.
In short, Obama has so far earned a wait-and-see attitude from me, which is quite astonishing, considering his campaign persona and the blindingly foolish things coming out of his mouth as he contended with John McCain for the Big Chair. I suppose the realities of governing have had the hoped-for effect on his policies, a moderating and focusing effect which is inevitably --for someone who is truly intelligent-- going to be at variance with the need to inspire an electorate to cast its vote. I live in hope that reality continues to mug the POTUS-Elect, and that he continues to exercise the sort of political jujitsu for which one can only hope a street fighter like Rahm Emmanuel will be able to provide cover against the unalloyed horror embodied by the likes of Pelosi and Reed.
Meanwhile, before the subject of McCain drops too far in the rear-view, I direct your attention to an editorial from the WaPo, by Sens. McCain, Lieberman, and Graham, in the wake of their recent trip to Iraq. Their observations embody the sort of careful optimism which the near-miraculous turnaround in Iraq has inspired in so many of those who are able to shed the goggles of partisanship long enough actually to look at what has been transpiring there:
Really, there is nothing new here; this has always been the plan: stay long enough to stabilize the situation, allow the government to dig in and prove its legitimacy, and train up the Iraqi military and police to the point that they can function as a modern, professional force in the service of the Iraqi people's interests, guided by civilian leadership which will set sound policy. Then pull out in a responsible manner, and let the Iraqi people chart their own course. The difference is that those goals are far less abstract than they once were. Indeed, they are very much in sight.
Just as the destiny of Iraq was very much in question as little as 18 months ago, so the nature of an Obama Administration's strategies and tactics were a terrifying cipher until recently. It is my considered opinion that there are unexpected grounds for hope on both fronts. It is still my belief that McCain would have been a simply superb President (a statement which is likely to draw considerable fire from both Liberals and Conservatives who may read these words). But I am starting to see that Obama may not prove the unmitigated disaster I'd been so certain he would be (ditto!).
I have not forgotten that Obama opposed the change in strategy which has made the current situation in Iraq possible. The fact that he has shown indications of being able to respond intelligently to current conditions is not prima facie evidence that he will have the wherewithal to craft and implement policies which will result in similarly favorable conditions in the future. There will likely be only a short span in the early days of his presidency during which he can ride the coattails of --and vehemently disavow-- the accomplishments of Bush's foreign policy team. After that, he is on his own. Interestingly, this is something which he and Nouri al Maliki share.
However, if I'm to be entirely honest, I must confess that the outcome of the election has had an impact on me. At first, there was a kind of depression (not so much clinical/personal --I'm not that far gone-- as blogospheric). I'd devoted so much energy to the candidates' qualifications and positions, debunking and exposing and advocating and warning and generally obsessing, that the end of it all left me rather spent.
Also, I have not wanted to be the one who prematurely blasted or gave a pass to the President-Elect. I have been surprisingly sanguine about his appointments to foreign-policy-relevant Cabinet positions; there are signs there of a degree of maturity and pragmatism which frankly I did not expect to see from Obama. Keeping Bob Gates on as Sec Def was an intelligent and politically risky move, for example. I'm not even displeased with Hillary as Secretary of State; she is, if anything, a canny and pragmatic politician, a master triangulator, and a moderate on the Hawk-Dove continuum. Sec State was arguably the role she was born to play. Other appointments have left me rather more wary...which is a subject for another day.
In short, Obama has so far earned a wait-and-see attitude from me, which is quite astonishing, considering his campaign persona and the blindingly foolish things coming out of his mouth as he contended with John McCain for the Big Chair. I suppose the realities of governing have had the hoped-for effect on his policies, a moderating and focusing effect which is inevitably --for someone who is truly intelligent-- going to be at variance with the need to inspire an electorate to cast its vote. I live in hope that reality continues to mug the POTUS-Elect, and that he continues to exercise the sort of political jujitsu for which one can only hope a street fighter like Rahm Emmanuel will be able to provide cover against the unalloyed horror embodied by the likes of Pelosi and Reed.
Meanwhile, before the subject of McCain drops too far in the rear-view, I direct your attention to an editorial from the WaPo, by Sens. McCain, Lieberman, and Graham, in the wake of their recent trip to Iraq. Their observations embody the sort of careful optimism which the near-miraculous turnaround in Iraq has inspired in so many of those who are able to shed the goggles of partisanship long enough actually to look at what has been transpiring there:
Based on our observations and consultations in Baghdad, we are optimistic that President-elect Obama will be able to fulfill a major step of his plan for withdrawal next year by redeploying U.S. combat forces from Iraq's cities while maintaining a residual force to train and mentor our Iraqi allies. We caution, however, that 2009 will be a pivotal year for Iraq, with provincial and then national elections whose secure and legitimate conduct depends on our continued engagement. By allowing a greater number of forces to remain in Iraq in the short term, we will be able to set the conditions for much deeper troop cuts thereafter.
Really, there is nothing new here; this has always been the plan: stay long enough to stabilize the situation, allow the government to dig in and prove its legitimacy, and train up the Iraqi military and police to the point that they can function as a modern, professional force in the service of the Iraqi people's interests, guided by civilian leadership which will set sound policy. Then pull out in a responsible manner, and let the Iraqi people chart their own course. The difference is that those goals are far less abstract than they once were. Indeed, they are very much in sight.
Just as the destiny of Iraq was very much in question as little as 18 months ago, so the nature of an Obama Administration's strategies and tactics were a terrifying cipher until recently. It is my considered opinion that there are unexpected grounds for hope on both fronts. It is still my belief that McCain would have been a simply superb President (a statement which is likely to draw considerable fire from both Liberals and Conservatives who may read these words). But I am starting to see that Obama may not prove the unmitigated disaster I'd been so certain he would be (ditto!).
I have not forgotten that Obama opposed the change in strategy which has made the current situation in Iraq possible. The fact that he has shown indications of being able to respond intelligently to current conditions is not prima facie evidence that he will have the wherewithal to craft and implement policies which will result in similarly favorable conditions in the future. There will likely be only a short span in the early days of his presidency during which he can ride the coattails of --and vehemently disavow-- the accomplishments of Bush's foreign policy team. After that, he is on his own. Interestingly, this is something which he and Nouri al Maliki share.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
A Bit of Perspective
Via Instapundit, comes this reflection on the man for whom I will be voting on Tuesday.
Haters are invited to engage in the exercise of imagination which the writer proposes. What would you have done?
Haters are invited to engage in the exercise of imagination which the writer proposes. What would you have done?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Say it Ain't So, Joe
Before I get down to the topic of this post, I want to pause and mention this report from the AP that Barack Obama will be suspending his campaign for a couple of days to fly to Hawaii, where his 85 year-old grandmother is reported to be gravely ill. I'm not the praying kind, but, for what it may be worth, my thoughts and wishes travel with him, that his grandmother will rally. If she should not, then I hope that they will at least get to spend some very fine moments together before she slips off.
Dropping off the trail at such a crucial time in the campaign is verily a menschy thing to do, and Obama's humanity stock has jumped more than a few points for your humble commentator. I fully expect that the response from the McCain campaign will be classy and respectful (from some of his surrrogates, alas, not so much).
But while I respect the man and I respect the office, this does not mean that he is the man for the office.
Yesterday, Joe Biden reaffirmed one of the principal reasons why Obama is not that man. Quoth Joe:
A few years ago, in one of Stratfor's George Friedman's free Geopolitical essays (alas, I can't remember which one, and the archives don't go back that far without membership), it was said (and I paraphrase) that, in tough negotiations with a determined foe, it helps if that foe sees his opponent as strong, resolute, and a little bit nuts.
Speaking to that last bit, anyone who has listened to Obama cannot walk away without the impression that he is, if nothing else, a consummately rational man. He is a studious, methodical thinker who exudes a confidence that the world is inherently comprehensible, and from that confidence flows a cool assurance that a deep and nuanced enough understanding will ineluctably lead to a system of solutions for any problems which arise. It is an admirable quality in a scholar and in a senator.
An Executive, however, cannot allow himself the luxury of rationalizing the actions and motivations of the irrational, or, more properly, of those who operate under the dictates of fundamentally different --and competing-- species of rationality. He must confront the logic of Radical Islam, which orders its thinking and planning according its utter certainty that it is Divinely commanded and destined to subdue all other belief systems, by the sword if necessary. He must confront the rationality of a resurgent Russia, which calculates the weaknesses and fracture lines among all who might stand in the way of avenging its pock-marked pride and wresting a role as a regional hegemon and global power. He must confront the machinations of a rising China, as it gyrates through its multi-millennial dance of weakening rival empires to cement the safety of its walled-off borders.
He must, however reluctantly, accept the reality that you don't bring a pen to a knife fight.
In what may qualify as the mother of all unforced errors, Biden has articulated the most compelling reason not to vote for Obama. Leaving aside (with great effort) the potentially disastrous effects of his statist, bureaucratic plans for an economy in crisis, and his highly problematic associations (and the ideology they reveal), the bottom line is the degree to which we may be confident in his credibility among world leaders in whose dominance-driven view of the world, negotiation equals submission. Biden has pretty much come out and said that Obama's approach to domestic and world affairs will invite probing thrusts from those leaders whose willingness to "test his mettle," must arise out of belief that it is a worthwhile bet that their fire will melt it. Whether or not he should rise to the occasion and meet the challenge with acumen and strength, surely it would be better for the victims of that challenge if it were never made at all. Essentially, Biden said "Just you wait; we're gonna get hit hard, and Obama's gonna do great!"
But he doesn't stop there. Biden goes on to say that we will have to support Obama "Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right." Think about that for a moment. In the midst of this "generated crisis" which he is so sure we are going to face, Biden is exorting us to be patient while Obama makes his play. We are to cleave to this certainty in the midst of a fast-moving, real-time disaster...just the sorts of things that tend to claim certainty among their first victims. Maybe Biden was referring to the need to be patient while Obama unfolds his meticulously crafted, eminently reasonable and nuanced response, whose final shape may not be evident in its initial stages. In some instances, this is just the right way to go, for the sake of faking out your opponents and hitting them when their guard is down. But it's a bit of a stretch to speculate that this is what Biden had in mind. It sounded more like he was remonstrating with us to be patient while Obama figured out how to respond.
And that simply will not do.
One need only reflect back to this past August (so long ago!) and Obama's risibly wrong-headed initial response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, to appreciate the prophetic quality of Biden's statements. Here was (another) one that McCain got right straight off the bat, while it took Obama (and, interestingly enough, Bush as well) some time to wend his way to approximately the same position. Had McCain been POTUS at the time, the position of the United States would have been crystal clear right from the get-go, and the policies arising from that position would have sprung into motion in a timely enough manner to argue persuasively to Russia that it had best re-think its game plan. Contrary to the catastrophic scenarios presented by so many in the "anti-war" crowd, meeting strength with strength actually decreases the chances of armed conflict. The moment when you believe the other guy will blink is the very best time to land a punch.
So, like McCain in his Al Smith Memorial Dinner address, I can't wish Obama luck...but I can wish him well. I wish him peace and closure in his family's crisis, and a long, prosperous career as a highly promising senator. But, should he find himself on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, I fear we may finally get to say the words; "Joe Biden was right."
Dropping off the trail at such a crucial time in the campaign is verily a menschy thing to do, and Obama's humanity stock has jumped more than a few points for your humble commentator. I fully expect that the response from the McCain campaign will be classy and respectful (from some of his surrrogates, alas, not so much).
But while I respect the man and I respect the office, this does not mean that he is the man for the office.
Yesterday, Joe Biden reaffirmed one of the principal reasons why Obama is not that man. Quoth Joe:
"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."This may be one of the first foreign policy pronouncements which Biden has actually not gotten breathtakingly wrong, as he has (I can only assume) inadvertently stumbled upon a profound yet simple truth of geopolitics (if not necessarily of humanity as a whole): perceived dominance is predictive of tests to that dominance.
"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."
A few years ago, in one of Stratfor's George Friedman's free Geopolitical essays (alas, I can't remember which one, and the archives don't go back that far without membership), it was said (and I paraphrase) that, in tough negotiations with a determined foe, it helps if that foe sees his opponent as strong, resolute, and a little bit nuts.
Speaking to that last bit, anyone who has listened to Obama cannot walk away without the impression that he is, if nothing else, a consummately rational man. He is a studious, methodical thinker who exudes a confidence that the world is inherently comprehensible, and from that confidence flows a cool assurance that a deep and nuanced enough understanding will ineluctably lead to a system of solutions for any problems which arise. It is an admirable quality in a scholar and in a senator.
An Executive, however, cannot allow himself the luxury of rationalizing the actions and motivations of the irrational, or, more properly, of those who operate under the dictates of fundamentally different --and competing-- species of rationality. He must confront the logic of Radical Islam, which orders its thinking and planning according its utter certainty that it is Divinely commanded and destined to subdue all other belief systems, by the sword if necessary. He must confront the rationality of a resurgent Russia, which calculates the weaknesses and fracture lines among all who might stand in the way of avenging its pock-marked pride and wresting a role as a regional hegemon and global power. He must confront the machinations of a rising China, as it gyrates through its multi-millennial dance of weakening rival empires to cement the safety of its walled-off borders.
He must, however reluctantly, accept the reality that you don't bring a pen to a knife fight.
In what may qualify as the mother of all unforced errors, Biden has articulated the most compelling reason not to vote for Obama. Leaving aside (with great effort) the potentially disastrous effects of his statist, bureaucratic plans for an economy in crisis, and his highly problematic associations (and the ideology they reveal), the bottom line is the degree to which we may be confident in his credibility among world leaders in whose dominance-driven view of the world, negotiation equals submission. Biden has pretty much come out and said that Obama's approach to domestic and world affairs will invite probing thrusts from those leaders whose willingness to "test his mettle," must arise out of belief that it is a worthwhile bet that their fire will melt it. Whether or not he should rise to the occasion and meet the challenge with acumen and strength, surely it would be better for the victims of that challenge if it were never made at all. Essentially, Biden said "Just you wait; we're gonna get hit hard, and Obama's gonna do great!"
But he doesn't stop there. Biden goes on to say that we will have to support Obama "Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right." Think about that for a moment. In the midst of this "generated crisis" which he is so sure we are going to face, Biden is exorting us to be patient while Obama makes his play. We are to cleave to this certainty in the midst of a fast-moving, real-time disaster...just the sorts of things that tend to claim certainty among their first victims. Maybe Biden was referring to the need to be patient while Obama unfolds his meticulously crafted, eminently reasonable and nuanced response, whose final shape may not be evident in its initial stages. In some instances, this is just the right way to go, for the sake of faking out your opponents and hitting them when their guard is down. But it's a bit of a stretch to speculate that this is what Biden had in mind. It sounded more like he was remonstrating with us to be patient while Obama figured out how to respond.
And that simply will not do.
One need only reflect back to this past August (so long ago!) and Obama's risibly wrong-headed initial response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, to appreciate the prophetic quality of Biden's statements. Here was (another) one that McCain got right straight off the bat, while it took Obama (and, interestingly enough, Bush as well) some time to wend his way to approximately the same position. Had McCain been POTUS at the time, the position of the United States would have been crystal clear right from the get-go, and the policies arising from that position would have sprung into motion in a timely enough manner to argue persuasively to Russia that it had best re-think its game plan. Contrary to the catastrophic scenarios presented by so many in the "anti-war" crowd, meeting strength with strength actually decreases the chances of armed conflict. The moment when you believe the other guy will blink is the very best time to land a punch.
So, like McCain in his Al Smith Memorial Dinner address, I can't wish Obama luck...but I can wish him well. I wish him peace and closure in his family's crisis, and a long, prosperous career as a highly promising senator. But, should he find himself on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, I fear we may finally get to say the words; "Joe Biden was right."
Friday, October 17, 2008
Big Mac Rocks the Roast
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner is one of my favorite annual political events. It is a chance to see the political heavy hitters lighten up and have a bit of fun at their own and their opponents' expense. It is a rare treat to watch people on whom we hang so many of our most passionate beliefs and fears and expectations clarify for us that it is possible to have a sense of humor about ourselves without diminishing the seriousness of the causes in which we can become so invested.
This year's dinner featured someone I have missed greatly. John McCain has always struck me as one of the few politicians who is able to be intentionally funny, whose wise-alecky, self-deprecating style had for years made him a favorite on "The Daily Show," the late-night talk shows, and even SNL. The seriousness with which he has approached his run for the Presidency, the carefulness with which he has had to package himself for National consumption, and the deadly earnestness of his opponent's supporters have all come together to drain much of the sparkle from someone I was really looking forward to watching spar with the White House press corps.
For one night at least, though (and hopefully for much time to come), the old Mac was back, masterfully mixing pointed barbs with what only the most jaded could fail to see as genuine regard and respect for his Democratic counterpart (who himself showed an ability to take the jokes and the compliments with more or less equal aplomb and grace).
Here's Part One of McCain's speech:
And here's part two:
Obama's speech ended on a rather more somber tone than McCain's (the tribute to Tim Russert was especially effective and moving). Still, he displayed better comic timing than I'd expected, and more or less matched McCain's skill at poking fun at himself (his references to his own celebrity status were at times straight-up hilarious). It was a side of the Democratic candidate which I very much enjoyed seeing.
Here's part one:
And here's part two:
In a time when politics can become so personal, when the joy of the contest can be swamped by an intensity which is as understandable as it can be unfortunate, it is events like these which remind us that even such powerful emotions occur within the context of that most extraordinary of historical oddities: the orderly and peaceful transfer of power. Democrat or Republican, it is vital that we never forget to be grateful for the democracy of our Republic.
The stakes of this election are no laughing matter...but what will any of it matter if we lose our ability to laugh?
.
This year's dinner featured someone I have missed greatly. John McCain has always struck me as one of the few politicians who is able to be intentionally funny, whose wise-alecky, self-deprecating style had for years made him a favorite on "The Daily Show," the late-night talk shows, and even SNL. The seriousness with which he has approached his run for the Presidency, the carefulness with which he has had to package himself for National consumption, and the deadly earnestness of his opponent's supporters have all come together to drain much of the sparkle from someone I was really looking forward to watching spar with the White House press corps.
For one night at least, though (and hopefully for much time to come), the old Mac was back, masterfully mixing pointed barbs with what only the most jaded could fail to see as genuine regard and respect for his Democratic counterpart (who himself showed an ability to take the jokes and the compliments with more or less equal aplomb and grace).
Here's Part One of McCain's speech:
And here's part two:
Obama's speech ended on a rather more somber tone than McCain's (the tribute to Tim Russert was especially effective and moving). Still, he displayed better comic timing than I'd expected, and more or less matched McCain's skill at poking fun at himself (his references to his own celebrity status were at times straight-up hilarious). It was a side of the Democratic candidate which I very much enjoyed seeing.
Here's part one:
And here's part two:
In a time when politics can become so personal, when the joy of the contest can be swamped by an intensity which is as understandable as it can be unfortunate, it is events like these which remind us that even such powerful emotions occur within the context of that most extraordinary of historical oddities: the orderly and peaceful transfer of power. Democrat or Republican, it is vital that we never forget to be grateful for the democracy of our Republic.
The stakes of this election are no laughing matter...but what will any of it matter if we lose our ability to laugh?
.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Present and Unaccountable
Barack Obama likes to go on about how "deregulation" under Republicans is at the root of the economic woes we now face. He holds this out like some kind of talisman, highlighting the Greed and Short-Sightedness of the GOP...a charge which, I fear McCain has not done nearly enough to debunk.
But bunk it is, of the worst kind.
Ed over at Hot Air linked to a Peter Wallison editorial in the WSJ which speaks to this bit of preposterous prevarication by The One. On this matter of "deregulation," it is worthwhile to quote the editorial at length:
Then of course, there's this bit from the New York Times, from 2003. These last four paragraphs are particularly perky on the palate:
Essentially, the GOP and some Democrats were trying to impose sensible regulation on regulators who were lacking in sense, so that they could then de-regulate the ensuing market and let it find its level based on the true value of what was being bought and sold. We are in an emergency largely because they failed to make their case with sufficient force.
Which brings us back to Barack Obama. The above-cited legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. McCain could very well have knocked the blocks out from under the noxious financial follies which have landed us in this quagmire. According to Wallison, however, it met with terminal resistance from some telling sectors:
(Note: portions of this post are lifted shamelessly from an email exchange with friends last week. Lazy? Sure. But why re-invent the wheel when I'm on a roll)
But bunk it is, of the worst kind.
Ed over at Hot Air linked to a Peter Wallison editorial in the WSJ which speaks to this bit of preposterous prevarication by The One. On this matter of "deregulation," it is worthwhile to quote the editorial at length:
If Sen. Obama had been asked for an example of "Republican deregulation," he would probably have cited the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (GLBA), which has become a popular target for Democrats searching for something to pin on the GOP. This is puzzling. The bill's key sponsors were indeed Republicans, but the bill was supported by the Clinton administration and signed by President Clinton. The GLBA's "repeal" of a portion of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 is said to have somehow contributed to the current financial meltdown. Nonsense.
Adopted early in the New Deal, the Glass-Steagall Act separated investment and commercial banking. It prohibited commercial banks from underwriting or dealing in securities, and from affiliating with firms that engaged principally in that business. The GLBA repealed only the second of these provisions, allowing banks and securities firms to be affiliated under the same holding company. Thus J.P. Morgan Chase was able to acquire Bear Stearns, and Bank of America could acquire Merrill Lynch. Nevertheless, banks themselves were and still are prohibited from underwriting or dealing in securities.
Allowing banks and securities firms to affiliate under the same holding company has had no effect on the current financial crisis. None of the investment banks that have gotten into trouble -- Bear, Lehman, Merrill, Goldman or Morgan Stanley -- were affiliated with commercial banks. And none of the banks that have major securities affiliates -- Citibank, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase, to name a few -- are among the banks that have thus far encountered serious financial problems. Indeed, the ability of these banks to diversify into nonbanking activities has been a source of their strength.
Got that? The one bit of actual deregulation which Democrats are able to cite in connection with this mess not only was introduced and approved during a Democratic presidency, but ultimately fails the evidence test for any actual relationship with those institutions which have failed. The "deregulation" dog simply won't hunt, however plausible it may sound, since Republicans generally are in favor of reducing the stultifying effects of excessive regulation on the dynamism and efficiency of free markets. But while we're on the subject of the potential for sensible regulation to have staved off the Economic Crisis, see if you can guess who said this, and when:
For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs--and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. [Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight]'s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO's report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.Give up?
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
Then of course, there's this bit from the New York Times, from 2003. These last four paragraphs are particularly perky on the palate:
Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.The problem here wasn't too much or too little regulation, but the wrong sort of regulation...the kind that mandated that loans be provided to those who could not afford them (under the ever-effective cover fire of possibly being branded with charges of racism), and that those loans be backed/bought up by the GSEs, FM&FM. This created powerful incentives to treat those risky loans like safe investments and to securitize them and spread them throughout the world economy like herpes in a rural co-ed dorm in Winter. That's the sort of thing that makes it impossible for a free-market system to accurately assign value and operate as it should. It artificially inflated the value of the housing market by flooding it with demand, while betting outrageously on the perpetual meteoric growth of that market, and studiously ignoring the fact that it was built on pure hot air.''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''
Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
''I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,'' Mr. Watt said.
Essentially, the GOP and some Democrats were trying to impose sensible regulation on regulators who were lacking in sense, so that they could then de-regulate the ensuing market and let it find its level based on the true value of what was being bought and sold. We are in an emergency largely because they failed to make their case with sufficient force.
Which brings us back to Barack Obama. The above-cited legislation, co-sponsored by Sen. McCain could very well have knocked the blocks out from under the noxious financial follies which have landed us in this quagmire. According to Wallison, however, it met with terminal resistance from some telling sectors:
In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate. This was a time for the leadership Sen. Obama says he can offer, but neither he nor any other Democrat stepped forward.Instead, by his own account, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending -- but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama's past: voting present.
Indeed. Unlike John McCain, who has a long track record of irritating the hell out of his own party by taking the lead on issues which go against its orthodoxies, Obama has consistently squandered opportunities to demonstrate a similar degree of moxie. His lock-step adherence to the most liberal and doctrinaire policies of the Democratic Party have shown him to be far more of a joiner than an pioneer, and we are all now paying the price for his and his Democratic cronies' lack of vision.
(Note: portions of this post are lifted shamelessly from an email exchange with friends last week. Lazy? Sure. But why re-invent the wheel when I'm on a roll)
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Ecolonics 101
Up till now, I have refrained from blogging about the financial crisis, as I'm the first to admit that I've scarcely reached yellow-belt status in my econ-fu (h/t to Mike for introducing me to that most excellent term). As they say, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
But I've been doing some pretty extensive (for me, on econ matters, anyway) reading and watching and listening and thinking, and think it's time to dip in a toe. What I have been able to glean, in very general terms, is that the crux of the immediate issue before us is akin to a massive bowel obstruction in the viscera of our economy. Stay with me here. This blockage was created by the great mass of illiquid assets in the form of mortgage backed securities (MBS), themselves comprising masses of mortgages whose value has been allowed to become so ambiguous that they cannot be moved. All of the tottering financial edifices which have become so infiltrated by these inert clots stand to collapse, as credit markets cannot function without some reliable indices of value against which to borrow, and the underlying value of the mortgages within these MBSs has become quite impossible to ascertain.
These obstructions need to get flushed out. The Paulson plan, as I understand it, is to authorize the Treasury to purchase these MBSs and other bundled bales of bad mortgages at substantial discounts under the prices originally paid for them, and thus to extract them from the market, to be combed through and valued in some meaningful, transparent way. They could later be sold off in an orderly (and maybe even, in some cases, profitable) manner. This would, in theory, free the overall economy of the drag which they represent, and permit a stabilization of the marketplace through a gush of liquidity.
Now, given that the projected price tag for this enterprise looks to hover just south of a trillion dollars, it is understandable that there is pressure to craft the deal in such a way that there is oversight and transparency. This is as it should be. Where I think there could be real problems, though, is in further gumming up the works with all manner of provisos and caveats and additional conditions (like, say, tacking other forms of debt onto the buyout which, while they may also be troubled, do not contribute as centrally to the constipation of the system as do the dead mortgages the plan was crafted to excise). Those who seek to graft their pet porkers and populist projects onto these negotiations risk undermining what confidence there is in what is surely a perilous and unprecedented rescue plan. Perception is a key factor here, one which is reflected in the markets, and they have been making like the vomit comet as the wrangling has dragged on.
I am in no way advocating for undue haste and desperation in pushing this thing through. The whole thing offends my free-market sensibilities something fierce. The X-rays need to be pored over, and the treatment needs to be refined and streamlined (notably, the terms under which the treasury gets paid back need to be quite a bit more clear), lest it prove worse than the disease. But undue foot-dragging also has consequences which need to be assessed and mitigated. This is one reason why I doff my hat to John McCain for his canny, bold and responsible move to suspend his campaigning and possibly delay Friday's debate on foreign policy while he (and hopefully his opponents, since all three of these guys still have jobs to do as sitting senators) heads to DC to partake in the process. Sure, it'll bring a blizzard of presidential politics to the proceedings, but that could hardly be worse than the sorry spectacle we've seen so far. I daresay it might even provide a chance for the candidates to demonstrate a bit of leadership.
Care should, of course, be exercised, but further obstructionism will just as surely come back to bite those who commit it.
After all, the enemy of my enema is no friend.
(NOTE: Edited for clarity and...um...flow)
But I've been doing some pretty extensive (for me, on econ matters, anyway) reading and watching and listening and thinking, and think it's time to dip in a toe. What I have been able to glean, in very general terms, is that the crux of the immediate issue before us is akin to a massive bowel obstruction in the viscera of our economy. Stay with me here. This blockage was created by the great mass of illiquid assets in the form of mortgage backed securities (MBS), themselves comprising masses of mortgages whose value has been allowed to become so ambiguous that they cannot be moved. All of the tottering financial edifices which have become so infiltrated by these inert clots stand to collapse, as credit markets cannot function without some reliable indices of value against which to borrow, and the underlying value of the mortgages within these MBSs has become quite impossible to ascertain.
These obstructions need to get flushed out. The Paulson plan, as I understand it, is to authorize the Treasury to purchase these MBSs and other bundled bales of bad mortgages at substantial discounts under the prices originally paid for them, and thus to extract them from the market, to be combed through and valued in some meaningful, transparent way. They could later be sold off in an orderly (and maybe even, in some cases, profitable) manner. This would, in theory, free the overall economy of the drag which they represent, and permit a stabilization of the marketplace through a gush of liquidity.
Now, given that the projected price tag for this enterprise looks to hover just south of a trillion dollars, it is understandable that there is pressure to craft the deal in such a way that there is oversight and transparency. This is as it should be. Where I think there could be real problems, though, is in further gumming up the works with all manner of provisos and caveats and additional conditions (like, say, tacking other forms of debt onto the buyout which, while they may also be troubled, do not contribute as centrally to the constipation of the system as do the dead mortgages the plan was crafted to excise). Those who seek to graft their pet porkers and populist projects onto these negotiations risk undermining what confidence there is in what is surely a perilous and unprecedented rescue plan. Perception is a key factor here, one which is reflected in the markets, and they have been making like the vomit comet as the wrangling has dragged on.
I am in no way advocating for undue haste and desperation in pushing this thing through. The whole thing offends my free-market sensibilities something fierce. The X-rays need to be pored over, and the treatment needs to be refined and streamlined (notably, the terms under which the treasury gets paid back need to be quite a bit more clear), lest it prove worse than the disease. But undue foot-dragging also has consequences which need to be assessed and mitigated. This is one reason why I doff my hat to John McCain for his canny, bold and responsible move to suspend his campaigning and possibly delay Friday's debate on foreign policy while he (and hopefully his opponents, since all three of these guys still have jobs to do as sitting senators) heads to DC to partake in the process. Sure, it'll bring a blizzard of presidential politics to the proceedings, but that could hardly be worse than the sorry spectacle we've seen so far. I daresay it might even provide a chance for the candidates to demonstrate a bit of leadership.
Care should, of course, be exercised, but further obstructionism will just as surely come back to bite those who commit it.
After all, the enemy of my enema is no friend.
(NOTE: Edited for clarity and...um...flow)
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Russian Roulette
Riffing on George W. Bush's infamous comment about gazing into Vladimir Putin's eyes and experiencing what one can only assume was an optical illusion suggesting the presence of a soul, John McCain is widely quoted as having said, "I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B.” He's gotten a lot of grief over that from those who felt that he was being unduly and dangerously provocative. But, more and more, it's looking like yet another case of McCain-as-Cassandra.
Along those lines, this week's STRATFOR Geopolitical Briefing is a must-read. Here's an extended excerpt:
If the preceding passages made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, then you were paying attention. Although it was supposed to serve the Party, the KGB was reputedly composed of steely-eyed sophisticates whose icy pragmatism left little room for grandiloquent Communist bombast. They had always been all about power, but at least nominally served the interests of the Revolution, and so had to at least appear to work within the strictures of Communist ideology.
Now, it appears, the only red you'll see is on the teeth and claws of an unchained bear in a very, very foul mood.
As I've said before, there were some precious opportunities during the early 90s to shore up the Russian state, support its fledgling capitalist economy, and make true allies of our long-standing enemies. Those opportunities were resoundingly squandered by the Bush41 and (especially) Clinton administrations, and are likely lost for the foreseeable future. What is left to us is a bitter adversary with a long reach, a lot of practice, and very full coffers.
I truly believe that, if it is properly and firmly contained and confronted, the threat represented by Russia will be reasonably manageable, and full-on hot war could very well be avoided. Russia has no interest in pushing the envelope so hard that it would be truly isolated in the world; its economy may be flush with energy revenue, but it is brittle and shallow for now. Introducing more supply into (and/or removing some demand from) the global petroleum markets could strengthen our hand in this game (and in so many others besides) by lowering prices and thinning out the revenue streams with which Russia (and so many others) tend to finance the worst of their mischief.
But make no mistake, Putin's Russia will push in every direction in search of soft spots, and will fill any void it finds. We and our true allies (notably those who remember what it was like, back in the USSR) need to be everywhere they look.
So, the reader is heartily encouraged to reflect at length on exactly who it is that they want sitting across the table from the man that this fine young fellow grew to be...
Along those lines, this week's STRATFOR Geopolitical Briefing is a must-read. Here's an extended excerpt:
After the Aug. 7 confrontation between Georgia and Russia and the Sept. 10 deployment of Russian strategic bombers in Venezuela , there is little doubt that Russia is reasserting itself and that we are entering a period of heightened geopolitical tension between Russia and the United States. This period of tension is, as forecast, beginning to resemble the Cold War — though as we have noted in previous analyses, the new version will be distinctly different.It is very important to remember that while the hallmark of the Cold War was espionage, the efforts of the intelligence agencies engaged in the Cold War were far broader. Intelligence agencies like the CIA and KGB also took part in vast propaganda campaigns, sponsored coups and widely used proxies to cause problems for their opponent.
[...]
Fast-forward to 2008. Russia is no longer a Soviet republic in league with a number of other communist republics. Today, Russia is technically a constitutional democracy [ed. BWAA-ha-ha-ha!] with a semicapitalist economic system; it is no longer a model communist society or the shining light of Marxist achievement. In spite of these ideological changes, the same geopolitical imperatives that drove the Soviet Union and the United States to the Cold War are still quite real, and they are pushing these powers toward conflict. And in this conflict, the Russians will reach for the same tools they wielded so deftly during the Cold War.
[...]
Another consideration is that ideological change in Russia could mean Moscow will reach out to radical groups that the KGB traditionally did not deal with. While many KGB officers didn’t completely buy in to communist ideology, the Communist credo did serve as both a point of attraction and a limiting factor in terms of whom the Soviets dealt with. Since the Russian state is no longer bound by Soviet ideology — it is really all about power and profit these days — that constraint is gone. The Russians are now free to deal with a lot of people and do a lot of things they could not do in Soviet times. [emph. added]
If the preceding passages made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, then you were paying attention. Although it was supposed to serve the Party, the KGB was reputedly composed of steely-eyed sophisticates whose icy pragmatism left little room for grandiloquent Communist bombast. They had always been all about power, but at least nominally served the interests of the Revolution, and so had to at least appear to work within the strictures of Communist ideology.
Now, it appears, the only red you'll see is on the teeth and claws of an unchained bear in a very, very foul mood.
As I've said before, there were some precious opportunities during the early 90s to shore up the Russian state, support its fledgling capitalist economy, and make true allies of our long-standing enemies. Those opportunities were resoundingly squandered by the Bush41 and (especially) Clinton administrations, and are likely lost for the foreseeable future. What is left to us is a bitter adversary with a long reach, a lot of practice, and very full coffers.
I truly believe that, if it is properly and firmly contained and confronted, the threat represented by Russia will be reasonably manageable, and full-on hot war could very well be avoided. Russia has no interest in pushing the envelope so hard that it would be truly isolated in the world; its economy may be flush with energy revenue, but it is brittle and shallow for now. Introducing more supply into (and/or removing some demand from) the global petroleum markets could strengthen our hand in this game (and in so many others besides) by lowering prices and thinning out the revenue streams with which Russia (and so many others) tend to finance the worst of their mischief.
But make no mistake, Putin's Russia will push in every direction in search of soft spots, and will fill any void it finds. We and our true allies (notably those who remember what it was like, back in the USSR) need to be everywhere they look.
So, the reader is heartily encouraged to reflect at length on exactly who it is that they want sitting across the table from the man that this fine young fellow grew to be...
Friday, July 18, 2008
Rolling Stone Gathers More Than Just Moss (In Other News, Dog Bites Man)
Today I looked in my In box and found a message from a good friend, with the subject line: "FW: Excellent Article." As usual, I took a deep breath and braced for the worst. A quite intelligent fellow, whom I love like a brother (with all that that entails!), he is nonetheless camped pretty securely on the port side of the ship of state, so I have resigned myself to sifting through intermittent Progressive polemics I might otherwise scan and discard (my friends almost always get the benefit of the doubt...only fair, given how patiently they tend to listen to my dextrospheric diatribes). Generally, I find something I can identify as good [enough] sense, which at the very least forces me to unpack and revisit sets of assumptions which might otherwise go unexamined (always a healthy exercise).
Then there was this article from Rolling Stone (where I always go for hard-hitting political analysis).
It was far, far, far worse than I could possibly have imagined. And, like Han Solo, I can imagine quite a bit. By way of illustration, I present the 'satirical cartoon' which accompanied the editorial emesis in question:
Never mind the simply nauseating racial stereotyping (though I find it curious that so much of the obsession with race seems to come not from the Right but from those who are ostensibly all about transcending the bigotries of the past). Never mind the infantile caricaturing of political opponents. Never mind the dismissive and disrespectful treatment of a man's distinguished military record (which, for all the posturing about "supporting the troops" is, after all, de rigeur for so many on the Left). It's the sheer repellent callousness with which the almost unimaginable suffering which McCain experienced at the bloody hands of the North Vietnamese is tossed off as though it were a mere political wiffle-ball.
And we haven't even gotten to the text yet.
I simply lack the energy to do a proper block-quoted, point-by-point fisking of this toxic train-wreck. I would simply ask that the reader pay attention to a few key concepts as they slog through it.
Note the pervasive and pernicious elitism and condescension which permeates it like swamp gas, the repeated references to variations on the "slack-jawed yokel" motif. Try, if you will, to reconcile this with the putative populism which is supposed to underlie the Democratic message. Note also the way a snippet of an interview with some less-than-enlightened "sweet-looking old ladies" (who are not even denizens of "the darkened plains of Montana and South Dakota," or "backwoods South Carolina," or some such benighted place) is interjected apparently as a stand-in for the views of McCain supporters in general. Here's a neat trick: How about I write an article about Obama, and let interviews with this crowd (NSFW) stand in for what I will portray as the mainstream of his supporters. That would be fair, yes?
Pay attention to the number of times some racial broadside is shoe-horned into the text. Try a thought experiment: Imagine if the words "a Negro intellectual from Harvard who's never served in the military" had appeared in the pages of The National Review. Imagine the comment threads over at the Huffington Post over that one!
Notice the offhand reference to the "mean-ass hate-radio conservatism of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh." The implication here seems to be that the complacency of Liberals was instrumental in allowing those Venal Right-Wing Haters to gobble up the airwaves so they can whip up the Brownshirts against the slumbering forces of decency. Hogwash. Liberal ideas were simply unable to garner the market share on the languishing AM band by attracting listeners and sponsors the way Conservative shows were (and are) able to do (just ask Air America's accountants). Instead, those who hunger for "Progressive" voices to bring those Right-Wingers to heel have to pin their hopes on the return of the almost-laughably misnamed "Fairness Doctrine," and the Carthaginian peace it would bring to political discourse on the airwaves.
Notice how McCain is mocked for allegedly "going dumb and courting the same talk-radio demographic that used to despise him." So, then, after many years of developing a reputation for reaching across the aisle and irritating the Conservative wing of the GOP by his "Maverick" positions (a far more impressive track record of actual bipartisanship than Obama's history [such as it is] can boast...but I digress), he is reaching out to that bloc of citizens and reassuring them that he will represent their interests as well if elected. The bastard! Actually, this is one of the precious few points on which the Rolling Stone editorial is not completely nonsensical. McCain has adjusted his positions on several issues over time...and he has accounted for all of those changes:
I must confess that these passages confused me:
So, no, this does not qualify as anything even resembling an "excellent" article (unless one's intent is to so comprehensively discredit the seriousness of McCain's opponents as to indirectly burnish his credentials to lead...if that's the goal, then it is truly Most Triumphant). What it is is a sorry, slap-dash potty-mouthed playground hack job which allows name-calling and profanity to substitute for analysis, and tries to shame people into not noticing how utterly it fails to make anything resembling a coherent argument, by making them feel that anyone who was Clever and Sophisticated enough would see its murky premises as blindingly obvious.
I am not impressed.
Then there was this article from Rolling Stone (where I always go for hard-hitting political analysis).
It was far, far, far worse than I could possibly have imagined. And, like Han Solo, I can imagine quite a bit. By way of illustration, I present the 'satirical cartoon' which accompanied the editorial emesis in question:
Never mind the simply nauseating racial stereotyping (though I find it curious that so much of the obsession with race seems to come not from the Right but from those who are ostensibly all about transcending the bigotries of the past). Never mind the infantile caricaturing of political opponents. Never mind the dismissive and disrespectful treatment of a man's distinguished military record (which, for all the posturing about "supporting the troops" is, after all, de rigeur for so many on the Left). It's the sheer repellent callousness with which the almost unimaginable suffering which McCain experienced at the bloody hands of the North Vietnamese is tossed off as though it were a mere political wiffle-ball.
And we haven't even gotten to the text yet.
I simply lack the energy to do a proper block-quoted, point-by-point fisking of this toxic train-wreck. I would simply ask that the reader pay attention to a few key concepts as they slog through it.
Note the pervasive and pernicious elitism and condescension which permeates it like swamp gas, the repeated references to variations on the "slack-jawed yokel" motif. Try, if you will, to reconcile this with the putative populism which is supposed to underlie the Democratic message. Note also the way a snippet of an interview with some less-than-enlightened "sweet-looking old ladies" (who are not even denizens of "the darkened plains of Montana and South Dakota," or "backwoods South Carolina," or some such benighted place) is interjected apparently as a stand-in for the views of McCain supporters in general. Here's a neat trick: How about I write an article about Obama, and let interviews with this crowd (NSFW) stand in for what I will portray as the mainstream of his supporters. That would be fair, yes?
Pay attention to the number of times some racial broadside is shoe-horned into the text. Try a thought experiment: Imagine if the words "a Negro intellectual from Harvard who's never served in the military" had appeared in the pages of The National Review. Imagine the comment threads over at the Huffington Post over that one!
Notice the offhand reference to the "mean-ass hate-radio conservatism of Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh." The implication here seems to be that the complacency of Liberals was instrumental in allowing those Venal Right-Wing Haters to gobble up the airwaves so they can whip up the Brownshirts against the slumbering forces of decency. Hogwash. Liberal ideas were simply unable to garner the market share on the languishing AM band by attracting listeners and sponsors the way Conservative shows were (and are) able to do (just ask Air America's accountants). Instead, those who hunger for "Progressive" voices to bring those Right-Wingers to heel have to pin their hopes on the return of the almost-laughably misnamed "Fairness Doctrine," and the Carthaginian peace it would bring to political discourse on the airwaves.
Notice how McCain is mocked for allegedly "going dumb and courting the same talk-radio demographic that used to despise him." So, then, after many years of developing a reputation for reaching across the aisle and irritating the Conservative wing of the GOP by his "Maverick" positions (a far more impressive track record of actual bipartisanship than Obama's history [such as it is] can boast...but I digress), he is reaching out to that bloc of citizens and reassuring them that he will represent their interests as well if elected. The bastard! Actually, this is one of the precious few points on which the Rolling Stone editorial is not completely nonsensical. McCain has adjusted his positions on several issues over time...and he has accounted for all of those changes:
- On the Bush tax cuts, he saw that they had achieved what they were intended to do, galvanizing the dynamism of the US economy after the potentially catastrophic effects of 9/11 on a sluggish post-dot-com situation (but he continues to quite rightly blast the GOP for not reining in spending commensurately...which was one of his main objections to the cuts in the first place), so now he wants those tax cuts preserved, and a greater emphasis on fiscal discipline.
- On immigration reform, he has shifted the emphasis from creating a non-amnesty path to citizenship for illegal immigrants while securing the border; to securing the border, then creating a fair path to citizenship, in response to the withering stream of the harshest criticism from Conservatives. Anyone who thinks he has caved altogether on this issue and is now in the good graces of Immigration Hawks simply has not been reading some of the stuff that is still getting written about "Juan McCain."
- McCain has always been an opponent of abortion. Indeed, this is one aspect of his candidacy with which I have struggled most; while I find abortion to be a grisly, tragic, grotesque, and morally repulsive affair, undertaken far too lightly and frequently for the very worst of reasons...I stop well short of being able to put my libertarian tendencies far enough to the side to feel that it should actually be banned. Still, as this Jan 2000 Salon article lays out, McCain's position on abortion for at least the better part of a decade has been markedly similar to that of Bush who, after almost 8 years (six of which were spent with majorities in Congress), has still managed to not return us to the days of wire hangers and back alleys. I'm not writing this to get into a debate about abortion, though, (please!) so much as to point out the vapidity of the Rolling Stone editorial's depiction of McCain as somehow having morphed into a rabid Anti-Choicer. It is yet another instance of the gross intellectual dishonesty with which this hit piece is riddled like profanity and brilliance in a George Carlin comedy routine.
I must confess that these passages confused me:
And when it comes to Obama's and his wife's America-hating, well . . . McCain really doesn't need to say anything about that. All he needs to do to remind audiences of Reverend Wright and Michelle "I'm proud of America for the first time" Obama is to offer a few bons mots in the opposite direction. "I seek the office with the humility of a man who cannot forget that my country saved me," McCain likes to say. And while he doesn't believe he was anointed by God to lead the great nation of America, he insists, "I am her servant, first, last and always."
That's it — that's the entire argument. McCain is a canny enough old goat to know that the public's insatiable appetite for traitorous enemies will do the rest. He'll wave as many flags and stand in front of as many fucking fighter jets as you like, while the other guy lectures us about why he doesn't always need to wear a flag pin in his lapel and calls a bomb-throwing Sixties terrorist "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" instead of calling for his immediate beheading.
The author appears to be saying that McCain is graciously (some say foolishly) refraining from directly attacking Michelle Obama for her belated pride in the nation in which she has been able to achieve so much, or her husband's public struggles to pin down (har-har) the symbology of his own patriotism, or the implications of his affiliation with an unrepentant terrorist, focusing instead on his own affection and gratitude for that nation. Further, the implication appears to be that McCain is placing his trust in the American people to recognize when those who wish to lead them are not doing enough to "sell" them on their pride and devotion to its ideals and their opposition to those who stand for undermining its interests. So, this is supposed to be an attack on McCain?
From this point on, the editorial simply degenerates into the same old tired, ad hominem wank-fest of long-distance psychoanalyzing (blah-blah PTSD, yadda-yadda bitter Woodstock-envy...) which is the last refuge of those who are unable to mount a coherent argument based on issues. I would say that in this part the author just embarrasses himself...but it is clear that the capacity for self-reflection and critical thinking were not priorities for him from the get-go.
So, no, this does not qualify as anything even resembling an "excellent" article (unless one's intent is to so comprehensively discredit the seriousness of McCain's opponents as to indirectly burnish his credentials to lead...if that's the goal, then it is truly Most Triumphant). What it is is a sorry, slap-dash potty-mouthed playground hack job which allows name-calling and profanity to substitute for analysis, and tries to shame people into not noticing how utterly it fails to make anything resembling a coherent argument, by making them feel that anyone who was Clever and Sophisticated enough would see its murky premises as blindingly obvious.
I am not impressed.
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