439 percent

that's how much college tuition has increased over the past 25 years; by contrast, median family income has risen only 147 percent. (numbers adjusted for inflation.)

these, according to this morning's new york times, from a report by the national center for public policy and higher education. (the 36-page report is available in PDF format here.)

as a share of family income these numbers are especially staggering: "Last year, the net cost at a four-year public university amounted to 28 percent of the median family income, while a four-year private university cost 76 percent of the median family income."

unfortunately neither the nyt article nor the report itself (whose main objective is to assess the individual 50 states measure up in terms of preparation for, participation in, affordability of, and completion rates for higher education) give much sense of the root causes of such increases: at state universities, the increases have "largely been to make up for declining state appropriations."

the center's president, patrick callan: "When the economy is good, and state universities are somewhat better funded, we raise tuition as little as possible. When the economy is bad, we raise tuition and sock it to families, when people can least afford it."

except that this is visibly untrue, as the center's own graphic demonstrates with its steady upward trajectory for tuitions regardless of whether the u.s. economy is doing well or poorly.

no folks, unless you have blinders on or are simply in serious denial, it's quite easy to see (especially in private universities) where the cost increases are being incurred. it's certainly not going to faculty budget lines.

UPDATE: rodney's absolutely right: in that last paragraph i should've written "easy to see where some of the cost increases are being incurred." clearly there are other factors contributing to rising tuition costs beyond bloated senior administrator costs, including but not limited to bloated middle management ranks, bloated coaching and athletic program costs, etc.

i would also add that it's the same patrick callan, who erroneously asserts in today's article that tuition is directly tied to the national economy, this is one and the same patrick callan who with the news two weeks ago of some university presidents turning in their some of their six- and seven-figure salaries, declared: "People are getting tuition increases, some faculty are facing layoffs, it just doesn’t look too good for presidents, no matter how capable they are, to be getting so much money." notice he says, "it just doesn't look too good," not "it's fundamentally wrong." he's clearly more concerned with image than substance.

in other words, it sometimes seems those officially sanctioned to diagnose the problem are least effectively able to. (in fairness, callan elsewhere writes: "On the other hand, universities are spending huge amounts of money on construction – for new dorms, new athletic facilities, and new student centers – as part of an 'amenities arms race.' And administrative overhead at many universities has ballooned, due to an explosion in niche student services and fund raising apparatuses. It is doubtful that these developments have improved student learning.")

neoconservative tears

eco-heroes

the cover story of this week's riverfront times, the st. louis free weekly i picked up while i was there over the holidays: longtime missouri hog farmer russ freeman has gone back to the old healthy way of doing things and organized a thriving co-op around it.

meanwhile, former weapons engineer jim merkel lives in vermont on $5,000 a year and explains how his program of radical simplicity works.

physicians, heal thyselves

it's fascinating to watch the right-wing diagnosticians concoct various remedies and treatments for what ails their body politic.

The key is not to abandon conservative positions, but to explain them in novel ways to the majority who might find them more in tune with human nature — and consequently more humanitarian than their usual caricatures of being too selfish, tough, or insensitive. (victor davis hanson, NRO)

in other words, lie about them because the caricatures are accurate.

At the GOP governors' meeting this month, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota argued that Republicans need to stay conservative but also modernize. A revitalized conservatism would push for tax reform with an eye on middle-class families, not hedge-fund operators. It would seek solutions to global warming rather than deny that it exists. It would place a higher priority on making health care affordable than on slashing pork programs. It would promote the assimilation of Hispanics rather than regard them as a menace or a source of cheap labor. (ramesh ponnuru, time)

in other words, take up positions that obama and the democrats already effectively own.

The future of the Republican Party is in the hands of the party’s grass roots. In the months to come, some of us will be concentrating on organizing the people who are the real base of the party and fighting to restore the party’s values as represented by my father’s administration. (michael reagan, human events)

in other words, that portion of the electorate that is shrinking almost daily.

I think it's pretty obvious that conservatives need to find new ways to address issues, new ways to apply conservative solutions to problems, new ways to shape conservatism to make it more appealing to a broader slice of the population. I haven't figured out what those new ways are, of course. (john hinderaker, power line blog)

finally, someone without delusions!

friday news roundup

how will he govern? george packer writes in the new yorker how obama's ideology is, if anything, one of pragmatism more than traditional liberalism or conservatism. he bases this on people who know obama's thinking and reading (what a pleasure itself, a president who reads!)

paleopartisanship? unfortunately the right and left are objecting to attorney general nominee eric holder from their traditional quarters. according to the nation, holder sounds like a bushie in 2002 when claiming national security bureaucrats clinging to their turf should be gotten rid of, and he was also part of the team that helped secure reauthorization of the patriot act in 2005. for the national review, the holder pick signals "a return to the September 10 mentality." quel surprise.

watch 'em squirm: salon has a feature on "the conservative crack-up" in which many of the right's leading luminaries -- and i mean actual smart people like ross douthat and renegades like kathleen parker in addition to blowdried blowhards like tucker carlson -- go round and round the bend on the fate of conservatism in america. it ain't pretty, but ah, sweet sweet schaedenfreude...

niall ferguson may well be the smartest guy out there writing about our current economic woes. he has a long piece in vanity fair which, if you're at all like me with my straight C's in college econ, you'll probably need to read two or three times, but still it's the clearest and most synoptic view i've come across. check out also his long piece from two years ago on the end of the so-called "american century," and his brand spanking new book "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World" is on my wish list.

"liberal" media? finally, in what should keep inquiring readers busy for months, project censored has issued its list of 2009's top 25 list of censored stories. seriously folks, some of these are devastating, including my favorites:

• #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
• #4. ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
• #5. Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
• #12. Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
• #13. Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq

post-election roundup

salon's michael lind offers the theory that american politics moves in 72-year cycles split in halves: an initial 36-year period of government centralization and nation-building followed by a second 36 years of downsizing and individualism; lind says we are now in the midst of a new 72-year cycle.

the good folks at mediamatters.org refute the myth that we live in a fundamentally center-right nation, with polling data showing that americans' beliefs are largely progressive even if they do not call themselves liberal or progressive.

mcclatchy's frank greve has an interesting take on how the obama campaign might use its tremendous netroots operation post-election

josie delap of the economist compiles for the new york times the reactions of middle eastern bloggers to the election results, while huffpo's jason linkins rounds up reactions from the right-wing blogosphere (which begs the question, who is it again who hates america?)

liz cox barrett of the CJR points out that time magazine's joe klein stands alone among his peers for refusing to overlook or ignore mccain's filthy campaign on the basis of his "classy" concession speech. it should be quite the opposite.

the nro's andy mccarthy attributes, falsely, the increased youth vote to "the Left's dominance of the academy" (which in fact has little to no impact on students' political or world views).

max blumenthal looks at the reclusive billionaire who funded one of this past week's political disappointments, the success of proposition 8 in california.

and peter beinart calls sarah palin, in what i hope could be the final word on her, the last of the culture warriors.

Obama and the Weatherman

[since i'm unlikely to get two letters to the editor published in two successive weeks, i include this one here. i think it's actually better than the one published last week. 200 words exactly!]

How many "associations" does a law student, community organizer, 6-year state senator and 3-year U.S. senator make throughout his career? Certainly hundreds. Yet Kevin O'Brien insists Bill Ayers is uniquely indicative of Obama's character. Indeed Ayers did some terrible things 40 years ago. A president also took us into war under false pretenses. A general told us he had to destroy a Vietnamese town in order to save it. Back home, cities burned.

Today Ayers is the ultimate toothless radical, a university professor. "Poisoning the minds of future teachers against America," as O'Brien claims? A reviewer for the conservative Chicago Tribune wrote, "There must continue to be thoughtful books like Ayers' that illustrate the profound flaws of today's juvenile-justice system and society's abandonment of the young and poor." Ayers claims his more recent remarks on "no regrets" and "not doing enough" applied only the Vietnam War, and he has publicly condemned the attacks of September 11.

According to polls, 50-60% of voters say Ayers does not matter. So talk about him all you want, Mr. O'Brien: Americans are not listening and not interested in reigniting culture wars. As Gertrude Stein said famously, there's no there there.

ACORN's activities are no threat

Once again, facts must come to rescue Kevin O'Brien. His column Thursday on ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is right-wing boilerplate, this time regarding the alleged voter fraud the conservative media have gotten themselves all frothed up about.

First off, O'Brien's claim that ACORN is "one of the prime sponsors of the mortgage meltdown that's throttling the economy" is patently false. ACORN is an organization that works to achieve living wages, better housing and schools, and neighborhood safety for low-income families -- the kind of community organizing for which some Republicans have active disdain.

ACORN pays underemployed individuals to collect voter registrations, and a small number of them clearly try to game the system. ACORN identifies many potentially fraudulent registrations.

Now even if O'Brien's estimates of the number of fraudulent registrations were not wildly overblown, he never manages to explain how fraudulent registrations translate into actual voter fraud. Five Mickey Mouses registered to vote does not mean that five Mickey Mouses will show up at the polls and actually vote for the desired candidate. The likelihood of that is slim to none.

[fulltext link to Plain Dealer, October 19 2008, Page G5]

A Question of Character

from tmorange
to pwehner@eppc.org
cc contentions@commentarymagazine.com
date Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 10:08 AM
subject "A Question of Character" (Wehner, 10/14)

Mr. Wehner,

Of course, character matters. But the fundamental premises underlying your case for challenging Obama's character are, to say the very least, questionable.

Consider this: how many "associations" do you think the average law student, community organizer and state senator makes over the course of his or her career? I think it's safe to estimate the number to be several hundred at least. Now if I understand your case correctly, you want us to believe that three or four association in particular -- ACORN, Ayers, Rezko and Wright -- deserve more scrutiny, or are somehow more indicative of Obama's character, than any of the hundreds of his other associations.

Many reasonable observers would, rightly I think, be unwilling to grant you even this basic premise, but I will purely for the sake of argument. You talk about, and I quote, "Barack Obama's past associations with radical figures," "Obama's radical associations" (twice), "Obama's associations with Ayers and Wright and all the rest," that he "hung around with some pretty disturbing characters," and "what we're talking about aren't isolated incidents. It has happened with a slew of people." Notice already what is happening in some of your specific language here: "and all the rest" and "a slew of people" both suggest far more than the four most infamous of Obama's associations I listed above, and yet I've never heard more than these four mentioned by name of the literally hundreds of professional associations he undoubtedly has. Have you?

Now let's move from considering the quantity of associations (these four among hundreds) to the quality, which you characterize as "radical figures," "radical associations" repeatedly, "pretty disturbing characters," and in a final flourish, "people who have a disturbing history of violence, hatred for America, and corruption." Are these fair or accurate characterizations of ACORN, Ayers, Rezko and Wright?

ACORN is a community organization that works to achieve living wages, better housing and schools, and neighborhood safety for low-income families, It also pays underemployed individuals to collect voter registrations, and a small number of those people clearly try to game the system. Indeed the Republican lawyer who prosecuted the first ACORN case (King County, Washington, 2007) said, "a joint federal and state investigation has determined that this scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting. Instead, the defendants cheated their employer, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN), to get paid for work they did not actually perform." Obama has in the past done some work for them and given them some of his campaign money.

Bill Ayers is now the ultimate toothless radical, an education professor at an Illinois university who committed acts of terrorism some forty years ago, when Barack Obama was eight years old. He claims his more recent remarks on "no regrets" and "not doing enough" have been subject to "deliberate distortion" in being applied beyond the Vietnam War and has publicly condemned the attacks of September 11. Obama has served on some boards with him and did not, contrary to GOP assertions, begin his campaign in Ayers' living room.

Tony Rezko is a businessmen with some undoubtedly crooked dealings. Obama has received some campaign contributions from him and did a small real estate deal with him that may have created an appearance of but no actual impropriety.

Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Obama's UCC mega-church in Chicago, served in this country's Navy and Marine Corps and earned four academic degrees. His 36-year ministry was rooted in a theology of empowerment and self-determination. His decontextualized sermon sound bites, such as "God Damn America," look and sound entirely understandable given a video backdrop of, say, tens of thousands of poor, largely African American citizens of New Orleans abandoned in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. More recent Wright statements Obama has found offensive and denounced.

So I ask again: are these truly "radical associations" with "pretty disturbing characters," with "people who have a disturbing history of violence, hatred for America, and corruption" as you claim? I think the reasonable observer would concede that these four associations, of the hundreds Obama likely has, simply cannot be painted equally with so broad a brush. No, the associations themselves vary from significant to distant and incidental; the individuals themselves vary from crooked and somewhat controversial to essentially innocuous.

"This issue shouldn't, by itself, be dispositive," you concede, "Nor should it be the only, or even the most important, issue in the campaign. Nor is it fair to say that Obama's character can be understood only through the prism of his associations." Unfortunately, on October 4 the Washington Post quoted McCain campaign adviser Greg Stimple as saying, "We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans." A day later, the New York Daily News quoted "a top McCain strategist" admitting, "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose." This was the same weekend that McCain's running mate was out on the stump accusing Obama of, quote, "palling around with terrorists." Only days later, when McCain asked his audience who is the real Obama, the reply came back loud and clear, "terrorist." Visibly startled, McCain said nothing.

"The concern is not that Obama will invite domestic terrorists to the White House for signing ceremonies or private lunches," you claim. But clearly GOP operatives are stoking these very fears. I won't list all the incidents here -- the Virginia GOP chair encouraging volunteers to link Obama with terrorists, the GOP websites in Pennsylvania and Sacramento calling Obama "A Terrorist's Best Friend" and urging people to "Waterboard Barack Obama," the Robocalls going out right now that declare, "I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers."

Yes, Mr. Wehner, this is a question of character. Even close conservative friends and allies of John McCain no longer recognize this man. And whatever character he had going into this election, he has little if any left now.

P.S. Your white suprematist analogies do not apply for at least two reasons: 1) Jeremiah Wright is not a black suprematist, and black liberation theology is not about black supremacy but black equality, and 2) because black equality attempts to redress centuries of socioeconomic injustice while white supremacy attempts to maintain and reinforce that injustice, there is no moral equivalent between the two.

the ayers "relationship"

from tmorange
to "Stanley Kurtz" (skurtz@eppc.org)
date Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:20 AM
subject NYT's Ayers-Obama Whitewash

Mr. Kurtz,

In reference to William Ayers's 1997 book, A Kind and Just Parent, you wrote on The Corner the other day: "That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa's apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country." The apartheid charge is one you have levied repeatedly: on Fox News Network's "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren: "And in that book on juvenile crime, Bill Ayers says a lot of things, a lot of very radical things about the United States, compares the U.S. justice system to apartheid" (September 23); in the Weekly Standard: "Ayers also makes a point of comparing America's prison system to the mass-detention of a generation of young blacks under South African Apartheid" (August 11).

Since you never provide specific citations in support of this claim, I hope I am correct when I assume you are referring to the following three instances in which the word "apartheid" appears in the Ayers book.

1) On page 87, Ayers is reporting on his visit to The Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center School, in which a student named Mario is reading aloud the opening passage of a short story by Reginald McKnight entitled "The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas." Ayers writes, "'Alphabetized,' says Mario. 'Alphabetized. They didn't stick us in the back, or arrange us by degrees of hue, apartheid-like. This was real integration.[...]'" Not do these sentiments belong to McKnight's short story rather than Ayers himself; additionally, they are describing an integrated school, one exactly opposite that of an apartheid system.

2) On page 165, Ayers is reporting the words of a South African friend, Michael Freeman, "an official with the Anglican Church in charge of voter education and registration [who has] worked closely with the African National Congress during the resistance and now [1997] works with the Mandela government. Michael is in Chicago to exchange information with community-based voter projects and to meet with foundation officers about strategies for funding his efforts. 'You know,' he tells us early in his visit, 'we face a desperate problem with youth crime. Under apartheid our youth were rounded up and incarcerated in huge numbers. Now, with no formal education, and bearing the scars of growing up in prison, these young people must somehow integrate into the new society. It is a critical, monumental struggle for us.'" Here Freeman, not Ayers, is simply pointing out the implications of mass youth incarcerations based on his own experience in South Africa, perhaps in the hopes that the American justice system might learn from and correct the unintended consequences of such policies. (It's not even clear if he's truly making a comparison with the American system here at all.)

3) Finally, on page 183, the same Michael Freeman has just departed from a visit to the same Chicago classroom. "So many black boys in cages," says Freeman, not Ayers. "This feels like apartheid." Notice Freeman, again not Ayers, is drawing a point of resemblance, "feels like" in one specific respect, not "is identical to" in every respect. He knows America does not embrace apartheid but can't help drawing a resemblance in this instance.

In claiming that it "compares America to South Africa's apartheid system," you misrepresent the Ayers book in at least three fundamental respects. First, you attribute directly to Ayers words and sentiments expressed not by Ayers himself but by others in his narrative. Second, you strip these statements of any and all context that would render them even remotely intelligible: namely that one is a fictionalized account of an integrated, not segregated school system, while the other two are spoken by a South African possibly warning Americans about the dangers of apartheid and even the slightest possible resemblances to it. Third, you wildly overstate the significance of these three incidental passages for the book as a whole.

Given that a reviewer for the conservative bulwark Chicago Tribune wrote, "There must continue to be thoughtful books like Ayers' that illustrate the profound flaws of today's juvenile-justice system and society's abandonment of the young and poor. Ayers' book provides a valuable step in understanding what is happening" (March 8, 1998, page 12), one cannot help but wonder why you have so willfully distorted the Ayers book -- especially when they are so easily checked (via Google Books) -- or what precisely in the three sentences I have identified and contextualized above has anything remotely to do with Senator Obama.

Could it be you, Mr. Kurtz, and not Ayers, who is the radical here -- a radical bent on adding your own personal smudge to an ongoing, guilt-by-association political smear? You claim that the NYT piece "makes no serious attempt to present the views of Obama critics who have worked to uncover the true nature of the relationship. That makes this piece irresponsible journalism." The evidence I have presented above suggests that you are the irresponsible "journalist" crying sour grapes over the fact that the NYT wisely and responsibly ignores distortions and fabrications like yours.

Early Voting

from tmorange
to deroy.murdock@gmail.com
date Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 1:33 PM
subject Early Voting

Mr. Murdock,

You wrote on the Corner yesterday: "In Ohio, most dramatically, an individual can register to vote between September 30 and October 6, then immediately receive an absentee ballot. Existing and brand-new electors also can cast ballots at early-voting centers. This is a gourmet recipe for voter fraud."

I wonder, do you have any specific evidence relevant to voter fraud in Ohio right now? You cite an AP report that "Independent groups seeking to increase poor and minority participation also transported voters from places like homeless shelters, halfway houses, and soup kitchens," except that there's nothing inherently fraudulent about these particular constituencies exercising their constitutional rights, is there?

Since I suspect your fears are based in mere speculation rather than actual evidence, let me offer you some, first-hand: I voted yesterday in Ohio. And I voted on a paper ballot since the last thing in the world I'd trust with my vote is a Diebold touch-screen machine.

Let me alleviate your fears: the election officials here in Lorain County are checking state-issued photo IDs, they are checking home addresses, and they are taking their job very seriously; there is little way anyone who isn't supposed to vote is going to be able to.

You conclude, "early balloting assaults the notion of contemplative self-government." Puh-leez. Sure, undecideds should wait. But many of us have seen all we need to see and know all we need to know. By giving more people a greater window of opportunity for exercising the vote in their already overstretched lives, it's plainly clear that early voting encourages and enhances democracy.

more to doubt

from the sun sentinel (ohio), september 25, 2008, page a7. the piece appears not to have made it online, so for a better view click here. read the original editorial here.

Campaign Lies, Media Double Standards

from tmorange
to STaylor@nationaljournal.com
date Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 1:55 PM
subject "Campaign Lies, Media Double Standards" (NJ 9/20)

Dear Stuart Taylor,

I'm certainly not the only reader who appreciates your genuinely balanced effort ("Campaign Lies, Media Double Standards," National Journal 9/20) to cut through the lies of the current presidential campaign but regrets that you draw the wrong conclusion. Instead of "no longer trusting the major newspapers or television networks to provide consistently accurate and fair reporting and analysis of all the charges and countercharges" you should rejoice in the fact that the press, for the first time in long-term memory, is actually doing its job by scrutinzing the claims and record of candidates who lie, shamelessly and repeatedly, even when their lies have been refuted. As recently as Sarah Palin's interview with Sean Hannity last night, for example, the Governor has still not come clean on the fact that she supported the bridge to nowhere before Congress killed it. (And she kept the money!)

In fact, some of your fact-checking needs checking. First, Charlie Gibson's purportedly "distorting Palin's meaning" about the Iraq War being "a task that is from God" is nothing of the sort. What is the effective difference between stating that the war is a task from God and praying that it is? Simply that a little doubt has replaced certainty. The effect is the same: that God has justified this terrible ill men have wrought. Hardly the "unremarkable exhortation" you make it out to be, it's cut from merely a slightly humbler cloth than this current president's presumption to be the deliverer of God's gift of freedom -- at the barrel of a gun -- to the rest of the world.

Second, Obama's claim that McCain "is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" is indeed less than accurate. McCain wants a permanent military presence in Iraq, but his qualifying condition -- "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" -- rests on an utterly flawed analogy. "We've been in Japan for 60 years," McCain argues, "We've been in South Korea 50 years or so." Those were conventional wars between relatively symmetrical enemies that ended with conventional treaties, armistices or cease fires; the Global War on Terror as currently conceived and waged cannot even contemplate these things. To the extent that McCain cannot articulate what "victory" in Iraq means or how we secure it, he remains delusional as ever.

Dear Jay Nordlinger

from tmorange
to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com
date Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 2:08 PM
subject Re: Sick

Dear Jay Nordlinger,

You're actually serious, aren't you? Sure, politics can be sickening; but it can hardly be the press, for the first time in long-term memory actually doing its job by scrutinzing the claims and record of a virtual political unknown less than two months and plausibly a heartbeat away from the land's highest office, causing the sickness.

Let's be honest: the media loves nothing more than a fresh new face. And what's not to like about Sarah Palin's rather compelling story? In fact, as Rex Huppke has reported for the Chicago Tribune, coverage of Palin in the first week of September slightly edged out that of Obama and dwarfed that of Biden; it also helped give McCain 60% more coverage than Obama. What's more, "Based on 6,027 stories analyzed, LexisNexis found that 26 percent were positive, 22 percent negative and 52 percent neutral." Can you refute these numbers?

Well, you may say, that was then and this is now. Perhaps -- but as I see it the difference is this. Palin has lied, blatantly and repeatedly, to the media and the nation. Even after her lies have been refuted, she lies all the same. (You don't seriously believe in spite of clear evidence to the contrary, for example, that she "said thanks but no thanks to that bridge to nowhere," do you?)

Indeed this so-called "liberal media" of ours rarely objects to being lied to; more often than not, they usher the lies right along, swallowing them whole and shitting them out undigested upon the American public. Thing is, when you have a relative unknown competing for the highest office in the land, one with a highly questionable record that includes several pending investigations that her campaign is actively stonewalling, the press has not simply a right but a duty to scrutinize her record and subject her claims to tests of truth.

NOT because she's a woman, and NOT because she's a conservative -- but because she has proven herself thus far to be a consummate liar.

Here's to the First Amendment, and to the exercise of a free press that is essential to our democracy!

*     *     *     *     *    *

from tmorange
to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com
date Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 2:32 PM
subject Re: Something About Sarah

Dear Jay Nordlinger,

The "hacked" yahoo email account makes you sick too? Give me a break. Until the offenders are caught and the matter investigated fully you have no basis for crying foul about this.

In fact, given that Palin has, like Karl Rove and other GOP operatives, been using her personal email account for matters of the public trust (presumably to avoid detection), and that she withheld 1,100 emails from a FOIA request filed by one Andree McLeod on a cronyism charge, Palin claiming like Bush and Cheney, "executive privilege" as the basis for the withholding -- I would not be surprised one bit if this "hacking" episode were not an altogether convenient way of disposing with such emails and the details about Troopergate and other investigations currently being stonewalled on which such emails might shed light. (After all, the only mistake Nixon conceded was not destroying the evidence...)

Palin is cut wholly from Rove-Bush-Cheney cloth.

And by the way, consider listening to the Geoff Nunberg piece from NPR's "Fresh Air" from Tuesday on the opportunism of playing the victim, which your recent Corner posts are managing all too well. If you don't have the time or inclination, here's Nunberg's final analysis:

And in fact, there were plenty of conservatives who wanted no part of this [the "lipstick on a pig" nonsense]. David Brooks described the episode as "stupidity on stilts." And David Frum warned against what he called the "inflammation of imaginary grievances." And others on the right worried that the McCain campaign might be perceived as whining, which as it happens was the word that Sarah Palin used last spring to describe Hillary Clinton's complaints about her press coverage. But whine they did, and with pitch-perfect proficiency. You decide whether that's hypocrisy or opportunism or simply adaptiveness.

What's remarkable is how naturally the idiom came to them, as if they'd been speaking it all their lives. For all the ridicule that's been heaped on the language of political correctness and identity politics--and the right has no monopoly here--there's no group that hasn't learned to work it to its advantage. Whether or not you ultimately persuade people that your grievance is justified, you can at least count on owning the discussion for the next news cycles.

Enjoy your new victimhood.

smoke and mirrors

watch this mccain lackey named tucker bounds dissemble, evade and lie his way through an interview with CNN's campbell brown:



what's even more stunning than the effrontery with which this tucker bounds commits his insults of public discourse is the fact that -- for once! -- a member of the so-called "liberal media" actually calls this scumsucking decepticon out on his bullshit.

observe how this works (my paraphrase and coding):

Q: given the mccain's critique of obama's experience and the apparent double standard mccain exhibits by picking an equally if not more inexperienced VP, why is palin ready to be commander in chief?

A: she's on mccain's ticket [EVASION], and he's got experience. [MESSAGE]

Q: yeah we know about him, but what about her?

A: people support obama [EVASION], and she has as much experience as him. [MESSAGE]

Q: no, you're not answering the question: what qualifications or experience does she have to be commander-in-chief?

A: executive state-level experience; more executive office experience than obama [QUESTIONABLE CLAIM, see below*]; commander of the alaska national guard that's been deployed overseas.

Q: give one example of a decision she's made as commander of the ANG.

A: any decision she's made as commander [EVASION] is more of a decision that obama has made. [MESSAGE]

Q: so give me one example.

A: certainly you don't mean to belittle every judgment she makes as commander? [ATTACK THE INTERVIEWER AND PLAY VICTIM]

Q: i'm belittling nothing, i just want to know one decision she's made.

A: in deciding how to equip and command the ANG, she has more experience than obama. [MESSAGE]

Q: but the pentagon and white house make those decisions, not the governors.

A: actually, on a factual basis, they do. [LIE, see below**] if you have an emergency in your state [EVASION (question pertains to foreign policy], the governor commands the national guard. that's more of a command role than obama, and the GOP ticket has more combined experience. [MESSAGE]

it's really a command performance: evade all questions and hammer home your message; when you get called out on your evasions, lie and play the victim. mccain will never fire bounds because he's too good and what he does -- and it's an utter disgrace. this is what passes for news, information and reasoned political discourse in this country. kudos, campbell brown

*palin does have more years in office than obama. she served four years on the wasilla city council and four years as that town's mayor. added to the year she chaired the alaska oil and gas conservation commission and the year and a half as governor, she has six-and-a-half years executive political experience. by contrast, obama was an illinois state senator for seven years and has been u.s. senator for almost four. so while she has more "executive" experience, in terms of total years in public office obama has almost 11 to palin's almost 10.

**actually, on a factual basis, they do not. the associated press reports that, according to craig campbell, adjutant general of the alaska national guard, "and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations." sorry, tucker bounds, facts still mean something in the reality-based community.

redistributing the wealth

saw this during my brief stopover in the kansas city airport en route from nashville to portland a few weeks ago and only just getting to posting and commenting on it now.

there's really no kinder way of putting this: terry love is a complete idiot. nevermind that with respect to the size of government, the joint venture of no less conservative outfits than brookings and the urban institute claims that "Since the Bush tax cuts were enacted, government spending has increased significantly in all major categories." and nevermind how an obama administration would set out to control terry love's life.

it's the word "further" in the second bullet point above that marks the sign of truly perverse thinking. that's right, terry love fears "the further redistribution of wealth in American society" under obama. as if there is some redistribution of wealth we have already been experiencing and obama would bring more.

no, terry love, what the bush presidency has brought us is a further polarization of wealth, as the san francisco chronicle reports today:

The rich-poor gap also widened with the nation's top one percent now collecting 23 percent of total income, the biggest disparity since 1928, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

god willing, an obama presidency will begin a redistribution of wealth and a renewal of the social contract that 40 years of conservative economic policy has all but decimated in this country.

gonzo documentary

at age 20 i first began reading seriously on my own and for myself. naturally throughout my education i read, and even growing up i read very intently in very specific areas of interest (stamp collecting, peanuts cartoons). but at age 20 i started reading outside of curricular contexts, specifically in what might be considered european modernism and american counterculture. i think the motivation was partly a broad dissatisfaction with my academic curriculum (international affairs) and a desire to seek out confirmations or validations of my lived experience. there was music -- i was led to camus by the cure's song "killing an arab," bauhaus had a song called "antonin artaud," the doors got their name from aldous huxley quoting william blake, and so all these required investigating. and there were also the beats challenging their experience: the trilogy of cut-up novels by william burroughs, which i remember friends picking up, reading a few sentences and shaking their heads in dismay; kerouac's on the road i read that summer -- vicariously, in a basement bedroom sublet.

very much a part of this context was fear and loathing in las vegas by hunter s. thompson, the subject of a new documentary by alex gibney. i remember liking the book a fair bit but not being overwhelmed by it or wanting to rush out and read more of thompson's work. (as any indication, it's one of the pocket paperbacks from that era no longer in my possession, though it's quite possible i gave it away, left it somewhere or otherwise lost it.) and so i went to see Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson last night to see if there was anything new i could learn about his life and work and come to any kind of judgement about his puported liberal, libertarian or anarchist politics.

but i plowed through his wikipedia entry first: eldest son of an insurance adjuster and a reference librarian from an old louisville neighborhood. the film played up his "middle class" background, his rich high school friends getting bailed out while he had to spend the night in jail after some high school pranks. still i'm a bit dubious of how "middle class" this really is. (dual income white-collar household in the 1940s and 1950s?) in any case, dad died while he was a teenager, upon which mother suposedly took to drink. decent athlete at a prestigious public high school, a few years in the air force, and a number of years doing piecework journalism before his hell's angels book (written while having infiltrated the group) made his name. this was 1966: two years before, he and his wife and newborn son had moved to san francisco, right on the cusp of hippie culture's full flowering. it's subsequent hyping and spectacularization, followed by the events of 1968: the rfk & mlk assassinations, and the riots at the chicago democratic convention especially, disillusioned and demoralized thompson greatly.

by this time the thompson family had relocated to a hamlet in woody creek, not 10 miles outside aspen, colorado.

In 1970 Thompson ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the "Freak Power" ticket. The platform included promoting the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to his opponent as "my long-haired opponent", as the Republican candidate had a crew cut. (wikipedia)

this is indeed, as a number of the commentators in the movie state, a kind of highwater mark in a hunter s. thompson politics: an utterly idealistic, completely impractical program at the local level that came everso close to actually working. as if for a moment the plain truth in all its apparent bizarreness could finally and successfully subvert the politics-as-usual routine of the truly bizarre hyperreal. this dynamic plays itself out at the national level on the campaign trail of 1972, which thompson of course covered, putting his stock in a likewise improbably mcgovern who also could have actually succeeded. this is probably the thompson book to which i will return, a little more knowledgeable about 1970s politics than i was at age 20 though still with much to learn.

thompson was doubtless a complicated individual. and i'll leave it to others to judge the literary merit of his work. i think his mark on journalism is indisputable, and for those occasions in which he saw and described the grand stupidity of this country with all his outrage, irony and humor, thompson is to be given full credit. ultimately tho, and perhaps from that moment in late 1974 when he went to zaire to cover the ali-foreman "rumble in the jungle," spent the whole fight drinking at poolside and came back with no story at all, the work became less important than the myth of himself he helped create. he saw the wave of rollback coming but could not keep up the fight, instead tacitly renouncing the public good by retreating into the romantic and individual solace of personal rights (for guns and drugs mostly) and self-mythologization.

notes on the obama new yorker cover

1) it's stupid, tacky, in poor taste, not worth further attention or discussion -- tho it's possible i react this way knowing that the cartoon itself is already packaged in controversy; were it not i suspect i might linger over the cartoon and try to figure out what is going on in it, and perhaps that moment of lingering is of some value, but i suspect i would eventually end up with the same conclusion

2) but ooh, it's a lightning rod of controversy! does the cartoon cross the line, how far is too far, or are we just plain too sensitive and politically correct today? the answers are predictable and uninteresting: we'll ask ann coulter and al franken coming up after this commercial break

3) controversy sells!

4) nothing new here really, just the nature and function of satire

5) satire stratifies its audience: at the top is a) the satirist himself who always assumes a superior position to the object of satire; slightly below are b) the audience members who "get it" and thereby partake in the satirist's genius and share in the chuckle had at the expense of c) the schmucks being satirized, who only "get it" at the literal level, or what's more likely, see the satire but nevertheless remain committed to the ideas or values satirized

6) satire presents something of a rorschach test: you will see what you are predisposed to and are unlikely to change your perspective

7) this is said to be the great "risk" undertaken by the satirist: that he will be misinterpreted, misunderstood, even disliked; in fact all writers take this risk, it is not unique to the satirist

8) the greater risk is that, in an area where hearts and minds need to be changed, the satirist's work has left the two sides doubled-down and further entrenched

9) this can be cause for great anger; i can get great anger from newspapers, cable tv and the internet i don't need it from cartoons

10) does the new yorker have the right to put this artist's work on their cover? well even though no rights are absolute, hell for all i care they can put hardcore porn on their cover if they want (see point 3)

11) just don't claim it as some new or cutting edge form of insightful or incisive critique and not expect me to reiterate with insistence the preceding ten points!

12) and by the way, isn't this the magazine known for enigmatic cartoons and terrible self-important poetry, i.e. the height of east coast elitism? score another validation for the red-staters...

UPDATE 7/19/08: don hazen has a nice recap of the commentary over at alternet, which includes a useful look at linguistic framing as well.

campaign news wire 2/8/08

Latte liberals v Dunkin Donut democrats
By Gerard Baker / Times London
Mr Obama wins disproportionately among people who may be considered the winners in the global economy: the well educated, the mobile and the financially secure. Mrs Clinton's voters are the strugglers, the class that feels itself left behind by an increasingly unfair global economic system.

Can Mrs. Clinton Lose?
By Peggy Noonan / WSJ
Mrs. Clinton is losing this thing. It's not one big primary, it's a rolling loss, a daily one, an inch-by-inch deflation. The trends and indices are not in her favor. She is having trouble raising big money, she's funding her campaign with her own wealth, her moral standing within her own party and among her own followers has been dragged down, and the legacy of Clintonism tarnished by what Bill Clinton did in South Carolina. Unfavorable primaries lie ahead.

He's got Obamaphilia
By Joel Stein / LATimes
Obamaphilia has gotten creepy.[...] He's a politician so soft and safe, Oprah likes him. There's talk about his charisma and good looks, but I know a nerd when I see one. The dude is Urkel with a better tailor. All of this is clear to me, and yet I have fallen victim.

Gloves off: The Dem plan to hit McCain
By Jeanne Cummings / The Politico
From the economy to Iraq to immigration to abortion, the Arizona senator's lengthy voting record and his primary season offerings to the Republican Party's conservative wing provide a deep vein for opposition researchers to mine for shifting positions and policy inconsistencies.

The Nightmare Scenario for Democrats
By Chuck Raasch, USA Today
Hillary Clinton is running an heir apparent campaign that is heavily connected to the successes of her husband's administration. There are too many Democrats who view the 1990s as Happy Days, and there are too many others who believe she is a candidate of destiny as the first serious female contender for the White House.[...] Obama's campaign is the closest thing to a movement the Democrats have had in a long time and one that appears to be on the upswing. There is evidence that the longer Obama is exposed to Democratic primary voters, the better he does. The primaries and caucuses over the next four weeks favor him and should boost his fundraising. If you have money, momentum and parity in delegates, why even talk about giving in for the good of the partyhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif when your movement is all about a generational takeover of that party?

Taking Issue With the Democratic Race: An empty primary
By Jonah Goldberg / NRO
Obama is "the one" — in Oprah's words — not because of his policies but because his is a transcendent, unifying, super-nifty-cool personality. Hillary, meanwhile, is staying aloft largely through her ability to guilt-trip female liberals into sticking with her. Her cultivated weepiness and dour lamentations about how she's been so picked on sometimes make it seem like she's setting up a political version of one of those "how-does-a-Jewish-mother-change-a-lightbulb?" jokes. Answer: "It's all right; I'll just sit in the dark."

McCain Disdain: Why some Republicans won't vote for the senator
By Mona Charen / NRO
"There is a strutting self-righteousness about McCain that goes hand-in-hand with a nitroglycerin temper. He flatters himself that his colleagues in the Senate dislike him because he stands up for principle, while they sell their souls for pork. Not exactly. He is disliked because on many, many occasions he has been disrespectful, belligerent, and vulgar to those who differ with him."

Left Wing and a Prayer
By R. Scott Appleby / NYT
In short, the Democratic Party's long string of counterproductive responses to the enduring influence of the religious right has had the cumulative effect of driving away any type of base with the word "faith" attached to it, and opening the door to the Republicans' shrewd, if cynical, courting of religiously conservative white Christians. It's been a self-defeating failure, since there are millions of moderate and progressive Christians ready to embrace a reasonable alternative.

Beyond Bush
By Alan Ehrenhalt / NYT
Frum's fundamental thesis is that Republicans must move beyond the policies and ideology not only of the Bush years but of the past three decades, even if this means repudiating some of the political axioms that brought it to power under Ronald Reagan in 1980. But it is never quite clear just how much renovation Frum is willing to undertake. Loudly denouncing government, as Reagan did, will not be enough in the 21st century, he proclaims. "There are things only government can do," he argues, "and if we conservatives wish to be entrusted with the management of the government, we must prove that we care enough about government to manage it well."

Questions for Dr. Retail
By David Brooks / NYT
The next states on the primary calendar have tons of college-educated Obamaphile voters. Maryland is 5th among the 50 states, Virginia is 6th. But later on, we get the Hillary-friendly states. Ohio is 40th in college education. Pennsylvania is 32nd.

small victories

the recent and long-awaited publication of george oppen's prose has the poetry world buzzing. well, at least that's my intuition in a kind of incidental way indicated, for example, by paul's recent comment on mark's blog.

until any such time as i have further thoughts on the oppen book, i'll just note another telling coincidence in the pages of the latest issue of the nation.

reviewing the oppen prose together with the recent critical study of oppen by peter nicholls, james longenbach concludes that "Oppen's victories are no less great for being small." (not unrelated to my previous post on sectarianism.)

turn the page, and in an omnibus review of recent books chronicling late 1960s radicalism, maurice isserman points out how elinor langer assesses the great failure of the new left was that "it mistook revolution, a rare historical event, for a moral choice." she goes on:

"John Brown is a good symbol for us," Langer noted in passing. "At one point he wanted to run a school for Negroes but he came to find the idea too small: he had to attack Harper's Ferry."

score one for small victories.