Why We Don't Hate (And May Like?) Sarah Palin

I was wondering why Governor Palin had such high "favorability" ratings.

I was wondering why the very liberal Rachel Maddow seemed almost giddy to report on Governor Palin, and the rest of the MSNBC liberal chorus seemed just as excited.

After the first dust settled, I was wondering why people were still divorcing Governor Palin the person and Governor Palin the policies.

Then I thought - it's that word before her name! "Governor". Specifically, Governor of Alaska, a state many people know about only through Into the Wild and other such stories. Perhaps Sarah Palin isn't so bad as Governor of Alaska. Up to now (barring some real issue with Troopergate), she's been a fairly positive presence in the state as far as the casual observer can tell, and since she's so new, pretty much everyone at least started out as a pretty casual observer.

She took on the "good old boys", came in as a fresh face who seemed genuinely more concerned about doing right by Alaskans then perpetuating the horrifying Alaska politicking, and has probably come through in large part, as we see from her soaring popularity in her home state. Maybe, just maybe, there is room in this world for positive press about Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska.

But.

Sarah Palin, Vice Presidential Nominee is a terrifying thing. So she's anti-choice - what can she do about it, as Governor of Alaska? Probably nothing, and if anything, it would only affect her constituency, who voted her in. I don't worry about an anti-choice Governor of Alaska for the same reason Chuck Hagel is getting play as a possible Cabinet member of the hypothetical Obama administration: abortion isn't an issue for these positions to decide. However, as Vice President (or President) with a Supreme Court up for grabs, this issue goes from nonexistent to huge, or should.

So she's anti-environment. A bit more of an issue than abortion, but she's trying to do well by her constituents by getting them the money from oil exploration. It's not Big Oil - it's Little Oil (or the groundlings who stand to gain) that she claims to favor here. Sure, she could be creative and promote new energies that could also bring in money, but the way she has chosen has potential to help her people more quickly. Fine. But as (Vice) President, she'll have to understand the broader issues, and since she's clearly anti-science, this becomes more of a problem.

The press, and the people on the ground, have to stop evaluating her as the leader of a place so far away in geography and custom that it may as well be another nation, and start judging her as a leader of this land. Hopefully this will sour those giddy faces (and I think that the Great Souring of the media is already starting, I just hope it continues, really).

Governor, you're not in Alaska anymore.

~Meryl

How to win over the media on the eve of the Convention:

Step 1: Open up the Elitch Garden amusement park to the 15,000 members of the media in Denver.

Step 2: Provide unlimited free food and drinks.

Step 3 (and this is the really important one): Make all the amusement park games free, and give a prize to everyone even if they didn't win, so everyone gets to go home with armfuls of huge stuffed animals:

I'll be posting updates this week from Denver, and don't forget to visit the newly re-launched Campus Voices for video reports from the College Democrats of America Convention as well as the DNC.

"Over"

Everybody -- and by "everybody" I mean "Tim Russert and his friends" -- says yesterday's NC and IN results basically end the campaign, whether Hillary knows it or not. That's the big narrative of the day, and Obama supporters are predictably jubilant. But the best commentary comes, as usual, from Chris Bowers:

I am finding myself resistant to the way this nomination campaign appears to be ending, mainly because there is no logic to it. All of the arguments that could be used by the punditry to declare the nomination campaign over could have been used really at any point since Wisconsin. For some reason, those arguments appear to be sticking tonight, whereas they weren't earlier. According to the logic that ends the campaign tonight, there was no reason to torture us for the past two months, except to damage Democrats for the sake of damaging Democrats. I guess I should have learned by now that that is reason enough.

The Clinton campaign will probably slog on in some form, as Ben Smith indicates. After all, she is going to win West Virginia, and maybe Michigan really won't have a single delegate for Obama. Or something else absurd that won't happen. However, the truth is that the Clinton campaign has been kept alive by inaccurate and arbitrary media rules that now seem to have arbitrarily shifted against her. Survival in that environment will prove extremely difficult indeed. Live by the arbitrary media narrative, become irrelevant by it. The nomination campaign seems to have outlived its usefulness to the national media.

Absolutely right. This whole thing is just a joke.

Everything that is wrong with David Brooks

Brooks on Wednesday, writing about the shallow ABC debate that everyone hated:

We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.

Okay, but, see, no it's not. Only in the twisted mind of a mainstream political reporter is anything related to these issues "legitimate". The other day I had an argument with a commenter in which I suggested that our media (elite and wannabe-elite) is cognitively incapable of distinguishing the symbolic from the real; well, here you have Exhibit A. This man needs help.

...Perhaps the greatest contribution of political blogging since its inception around 2002-2003 has been its thesis that mainstream political journalism, as an institution, is intellectually bankrupt. Digby has been the most prominent and eloquent articulator of this thesis, and Atrios probably the most reliable, but it informs almost all the discussion everywhere from activist-type blogs to snark blogs to the wonkosphere and outward. It's a commonplace at this point. So maybe that's why so many bloggers were in such googly-eyed outrage on Wednesday night; ABC unabashedly and unreservedly endorsed all the transparently stupid bullshit that we've spent years trying to beat back. Moments like these, and Brooks' astonishing column, ought to remind us how far away we really are from having a media with a brain...

I-Banker Journalism

Coming to this a bit late, but Tyler Cowen has an interesting post responding to Henry Farrell on economic biases among journalists. Farrell mentions (in the context of a larger discussion) that the media tends to swing right on economics, citing some Jon Chait work; Cowen, a libertarian, responds with some cogent points as to why journalists would swing more left on the issue. As follows:

2. Journalists are more likely to be suspicious of corporations and indeed more likely to be suspicious in general. People lie to them every day, repeatedly and often without shame.

[...]4. If anything, it is the odd mix between cynicism and idealism that defines the journalistic political point of view.

5. Most journalists work in a declining sector -- newspapers or TV -- and this does not augur well for their belief in progress and the virtues of economic growth. They are not well-positioned to enjoy "creative destruction."

6. Not many top journalists are "far left Democrats." But most are Democrats. I also do not think many journalists would endorse the economic proposals of the rational wing of the Republican Party, say Greg Mankiw or Martin Feldstein. Journalists are likely to think those proposals do not show enough concern for the poor.

[...]In sum, the left-right spectrum is not the best way to understand the economic views of journalists. But, when it comes to economic issues, it is hard for me to put journalists on the right side of that line.

Fair enough. But there's a distinction to be made, that I don't see Farrell or Cowen picking up on: between journalists as individuals, and the people who shape opinions and reporting in media organizations (that is, owners, editors, and commentators). Journalists may have these characteristics that make them more skeptical of free-market economics, but I certainly don't think the opinionmakers do.

At Harvard we are privileged to observe these people in their larval stage, where their thought processes can be easily analyzed. They are the people who hang around the Crimson and the IOP, and who enjoy things like "networking"; they will on graduation almost immediately aquire jobs at prestigious publications or think-tanks. You know exactly the type of person I'm talking about. (In my experience, they have a sizable but shrinking representation in the Dems; and they are almost completely absent from the Harvard Republican Club, which is greatly to the HRC's credit.) If they were less intellectual they'd be future consultants hanging out in final clubs; if they were more intellectual they'd be those annoying people in section who never stop talking. As it is they're able to interact quite well with the rest of us, but their motivations are the same: they want prestige and they want attention, and that -- though of course they'll tell you otherwise -- is what drives their politics.

These people -- let's call them I-Banker Journalists -- are often brilliant and tremendously fun to argue with, but their thinking (especially on economics) is establishmentarian and elitist, as befits someone who's trying to to get ahead. And this kind of status-quo triumphalism is it's a natural fit for Harvard College, where everyone is either already fabulously wealthy or assumed to be on the way towards it; the IOP, where calm, placid centrism has been elevated to an art form; and the Crimson, which reads less like a student paper than a wannabe Washington Post. It is a whole self-reinforcing world that is convinced of its own power and infinite wisdom, Harvard uber alles. Things like the Stand for Security campaign -- which called all those precious assumptions into question -- frightened and confused these people, which is why they all (including so many Dems, look at the mailing list archives if you don't believe me) reacted violently against it. We are talking about people who are unfailingly SERIOUS, as Atrios would say, and they feel obligated to look "sensible" by distancing themselves from radicals in their own parties. They simply know better, after all. Here is their platonic ideal:

You see what I'm saying. This is a class of people who pursue a certain kind of un-provocative intelligence, one that can be found only in the Ivy League and our elite media. (Anywhere else, of course, these people would be immediately recognized and beaten up by unwashed Middle American hoodlums, or at least that's what I assume they're afraid of. No other reason to stay in those godawful places like Manhattan and Georgetown all the time.) Unlike regular journalists, I-Banker Journalists carry none of the traits Tyler Cowen writes about; addicted to power and prestige, they naturally lack any kind skepticism or cynicism. They are certainly not "suspicious" of corporations or the elite, since they ARE that elite, and they have no reason to worry about economic fairness ("creative destruction" to them only means a generous severance package from whatever conglomerate they're currently at). They take the free market as absolute gospel, prompted by -- just as Cowen mentions -- Marty Feldstein and Greg Mankiw. (After all, how could two such SERIOUS Harvard professors possibly be wrong?) We are not talking about Woodward and Bernstein here; we are talking more about Chris Matthews.

And the end result is a tangible bias toward establishment economics in our media -- cloaked in limousine liberalism sometimes, of course, but still ultimately in the mode of Ec10. Think about it; how many pundits can you think of that really question economic orthodoxy? Other than populist bomb-throwers like David Sirota (who now has a column, incidentally, not yet widely syndicated), you're pretty much out of luck. The closest mainstream pundit I can think of is the excellent Paul Krugman, and even he still works largely within a free-market mindset. Real economic dissent is pretty much confined these days to places like the World Socialist Web Site, which (while often insightful and valuable) is not really something you want to be citing in a argument.

Garrett wrote a while ago about Harvard's "liberal" mentality, and he's quite right, but I submit that there are specific people who drive this mentality -- through Harvard and right out into our media, dominating the discourse no matter how tiny a minority they may be. Whether this can be stopped, and whether it's a problem of the people or the environment, are questions for another post, but the trend is worth noting and worth observing if you want to really understand our college and our media climate.

(Feeling bad about Harvard economics? Remember, we may be stuck with Mankiw, but we also have Dani Rodrik. Read his blog.)

(h/t Reihan Salam pretending to be Ross Douthat)

The Incredible Shrinking Senator

Fifty bucks and a bag of donuts says you hadn't heard of Senator David Vitter, pictured right, prior to this little incident. (Or should I say, David Vitter '83, Ec concentrator, Rhodes scholar. Seriously.) In fact those of you who do interesting things with your time may not even have heard of him today, in which case, executive summary: HE'S A MAN, AND HE HAS NEEDS, DAMMIT.

But here's what gets me: the way this story was covered. When it first came out that David Vitter liked hookers there was a great collective shrug among the media; it sat on the Washington Post's page A3 alongside the National Hurricane Center and an obtuse story about executive privilege. Considering that we are talking about a SEX SCANDAL here, this is rather surprising, don't you think? It's like you offer Wimpy a free hamburger and he says "ehh, how about a salad?" Headlines focused on Vitter's solemn apology for his transgression, the bestowing of forgiveness by his sainted wife, and just generally the genteel Southern grace with which they handled it all. (In unspoken contrast, of course, to a certain other down-home politician, who apparently had the special Democrat kind of sex and thus unfortunately could not be saved.)

(...Maybe you get bonus points if you pay for it, because then, at least, it's capitalistic.)

IN FACT there seemed to be an active attempt to beat the story down altogether -- Tucker Carlson, of all people, gave a vigorous and slightly unhinged defense of Vitter on the radio that morning, culminating in this interesting statement:

Men when they lived apart from their wives and children tend to commit adultery as you know. That is just the way men are.

Well, then, that makes it all better! But Tucker's odd c'est-la-vie defense was dwarfed by Senator Jim DeMint, who (presumably with a single tear running down his cheek) said:

I think all of us have to look at it and say, ‘We can be next'... This can be a very lonely and isolating place.

To which the only possible response is "Uh, Senator, is there something you'd like to tell us?"

Between Tucker and Jim Boy there seemed to be more than a little irrational, fevered desire to defend Senator Horny McWhorehouse from any kind of moral condemnations--- of course, far be it from me to make insinuations about our respected leaders' private lives, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck---

Anyway. Here's where it gets interesting. As the news week went on, the story slowly picked up steam, gaining traction on the blogs and the regular media as more and more info leaked out. TPM dug up those deeply ironic campaign ads to coincide with Vitter's being linked to a New Orleans brothel that specialized in something I really don't want to think about. Then they started talking about Vitter's wife -- not so sainted, apparently, comparing herself to Lorena Bobbitt -- and the suddenly questionable future of Vitter's manhood. By the time the blogs were writing about a potential impact on the Louisana governors' race and rising young star Bobby Jindal, you knew the damage had been done and this was, for better or worse, A Story! Today I saw Wolf Blitzer sitting behind a chyron that screamed "SEX IN POLITICS!", and the Louisana Republicans are fiercely denying rumors they're planning to have Vitter replaced. It has become a full-scale public roasting that shows no signs of abatement. For his part, Vitter has made the wise decision to bugger off until things quiet down; but you have to imagine that, down there in his Louisiana bunker, he's more than a little shell-shocked.

After all, this is NOT how it's supposed to happen. Republicans have been getting away with this kind of stuff for decades; when their guys say "let's put a lid on the story", they PUT A LID ON THE STORY and that's that. It was working here for a day or so, too, before for some reason things started sliding and then went all to hell -- now Vitter might actually be finished, kaput, and heaven only knows who's next. Any one of their senators or congressmen might be weeping on Larry King within weeks. (They are all perverts, after all, that's been understood in Washington for some time. Democrats too. The problem comes when the usual quiet recourses don't work, and that may be what's happening now.) Simply, the Republicans no longer have control of the narrative.

And so the most serious consequence of this whole incident is: if you can't be confident in the Republican media machine, you can't be confident in the party. Certainly, if I'm a big-time GOP donor, I'm not going to be cutting a check to Jim DeMint anytime soon; and this is probably just the first incident of many. Republicans already lag in fundraising -- money follows winners, after all. From here it's not far to a chain reaction that has the big money totally drying up, and friends, you can guess what happens from there. We saw in the spanking of 2006 that the wheels had come off the Republican bus; but now there's black smoke pouring out of the engine and cops catching up at the back.

Anyway I'm straying from the point. The fact that Republicans, as an organization, are in trouble is not exactly news these days; let's just take a moment to appreciate the thought of conservative senators being publicly emasculated (metaphorically and physically). I'll give James Wolcott the last word:

I wonder if Mrs. Vitter has given thought to what she will do with her husband's penis once she lops it off. Tossing it out the car window a la Lorena Bobbitt is a bit declasse and unworthy of a senator's spouse. Perhaps she should consider packing it in ice and preserving it in a Baggie before deciding on final dispensation. Perhaps she could have it bronzed and carry it around in her pocketbook as an admonitory keepsake, though the unseemly bulge of a bronze penis might conflict with the sleek contours of her designer bag. Then again, she may simply wish to hold it hostage. Should they divorce, Vitter's lawyers will certainly fight on their client's behalf to regain and retain custody of his penis for possible reattachment later after a suitable "cooling off" period.

Male solidarity would seem to dictate that I harbor some sympathy for Vitter and his endangered penis, despite his trespasses, but when I read in the ABC story, "Vitter quickly became the Louisiana delegation's most conservative member... against abortion even in cases of *rape and incest*," (my emphasis), I thought, Even a hypocrite needn't be that backward and hateful. So cheers to Larry Flynt and let the penises fall where they may.

Bloomberg, and Bush's Post-Modern Presidency

I really don't see how anyone can look at the overwhelming blizzard of abuses, crimes, and foolhardy errors that have constituted the Bush years and then decide that what they're really sick of is partisanship:

... The forty per cent of the American electorate who regard themselves as Independents would also benefit. Their number has been growing in recent years, and they are increasingly joined in political sympathy by Republicans and Democrats who find their parties captive to a base, fringe, or interest group with which they have little in common. We are living through one of those recurring moments—1912, 1980, and 1992 were others—when disgust with the two big parties stirs a longing for an outsider of upright character, untainted by dirty money or political dealmaking.

Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that voters are sick of what I'm sick of, which is the actions of the current executive, and the actions of Republicans in the House and Senate (and now apparently the Supreme Court). If pressed, I could draw up a specific, and fairly inclusive, list of grievances against BushCo and against the GOP and other enablers. But maybe that's just because I'm on the high side of the news-awareness bell curve.

I can see how, in someone who doesn't spend a fairly significant portion of their waking life reading and digesting news information (this is a class issue as well, by the way; a good portion of the population doesn't have the leisure time or spare energy), my fairly specific dissatisfaction could manifest in a general 'screw the government' sort of feeling.

That it's so difficult for a casual news observer to distinguish between radicals and anti-radicals is also a damning comment on our broken media discourse. After all, most politicians sound the same as one another, they all yell and point when they get angry, and mostly they only are seen on television disagreeing with one another.

Too often, our politicians are quoted side by side making mutually contradictory claims, and too often the media fails to point out factual falsehoods (because to point out a negative about a candidate or official without pointing out a symmetrical negative for the other side would be 'biased' and 'partisan,' perhaps).

I recall a commentator on CNN who, after the Bush/Kerry debates said that it would take a team of Kennedy School of Government fact checkers a week to verify or refute all the truth claims made in the debate. And in terms of substantive discussion, that was apparently it for CNN. All that CNN was prepared to do was identify truly glaring factual inaccuracies. The rest was about who was more effective in their message delivery, the little tics, the gaffes. Coverage shifted over to 'Spin Alley,' a name suggesting fluctuation between two poles, existing simultaneously without cancelling each other out, matter and anti-matter.

It's understandable for people to get sick of it. The lack of attention to substantive policy difference makes mainstream political discourse a cross between a beauty contest and a shouting match. The media itself isn't the least bit interested in changing the dynamic; it makes for good television (Crossfire! Liberal, conservative--debate!). It took Jon Stewart making his own good television to get the show off the air.

There's ambivalence to objective truth; theirs a post-modern feeling that the truth is unknowable and that things can be two mutually exclusive ways at once. Maybe it's best just to call it doublethink. And Bush and his supporters have been disconcertingly open about their post-modern thinking:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

That's a post-modern stance (in the sense where post-modern can mean "counter-enlighment". There are so many senses of post-modern that it's best to specify). When Bush and Cheney say, as they often do, that only History will be able to judge their Administration, they are really concurring with the above. The un-named aide quoted is just, you know, articulater.

Post-modernism made some sense when applied to literary conceits like Justice, Virtue, Love, and all the rest, but it is a terrible paradigm under which to build a functioning government, composed of bureaucrats and cops. It's nonsense to say that truth is unknowable in the context of governance. The government must operate under the premise that truth is knowable, or government policy is governed by nothing but competition to see which narrative is the most compelling.

There are a few issues where one side or the other is objectively correct, and they can prove it. There are a great many other issues where an objective observer would say that the preponderance of the evidence tilts one way or the other.

I don't know that anyone (except maybe that Bush aide) would disagree with that assertion, and yet our media often seems to operate on the premise that all viewpoints are created equal. That stance, more than anything, creates the conditions that I think will consistently allow a sufficiently visible third-party candidate who can "bridge the divide" to claim ten to twenty percent of the vote.

The main way to be 'visible' without joining a party is to have tons of your own dough to pour into television ads. That's what Ross Perot did in '92, and that's what Bloomberg will do if he ultimately decides to make a run. Hell, he may get more than 20%. Perot got 18, and he sure wasn't a popular and effective city administrator with a record of effective compromise.

The question, if Bloomberg runs, is who he will pull more votes from, the Republican or the Dem. To me, it looks likely to be a negative for the Democrats. So what Bloomberg needs to consider, if he's conscientious, is whether he wants to help someone like Giuliani or Thompson ascend the throne of George the Second. I hope he doesn't run. If it looked like he would help the Democrats, I would be pulling for him all the way. I say this because I am not a political post-modernist--I think the Democrats have superior ideas and positions, and as a result, I want them to win.

A Friendly Note to My Buddy Noam Scheiber

Noam Scheiber of the New Republic:

It's pretty clear that working-class voters favor Hillary over Obama largely because they value experience. But it's the reason they value experience that's so interesting: Working-class Democrats, and particularly unionized Democrats, tend to see seniority as the only acceptable way of divvying up sought-after work. (And what is the presidency if not the most sought-after job on the planet?) For them, the problem with an inexperienced candidate isn't that he or she is unprepared to be president. It's that such a candidacy flies in the face of their basic sense of fairness...

Many of Hillary's most loyal supporters lack college degrees and toil away at low-skilled jobs. Now if you happen to be a poorly educated worker who's nonetheless eking out a decent living, no prospect is more alarming than the thought of losing out one day because someone a little younger, a little flashier, leapt ahead of you in line. There is a comforting order to the world you know. And that order demands that people pay their dues before getting promoted. The alternative is a bitter competition between you and your co-workers — and who knows how you'll fare in that?

In the eyes of working-class Democrats, Hillary is someone who's paid her dues — first in the White House, where she weathered a terrific, eight-year assault from conservatives, then as the scrupulously dependable senator from New York. If, after all this, Hillary doesn't win the nomination, then the system they've bought into their entire working lives will have been turned upside down.

Dear Noam Scheiber,

Take your stupid, patronizing generalizations about how "working people" think and shove them up your ass. While you're at it you can do the same with your M.A. from Oxford, you arrogant, pompous, elitist twat.

Thanks,

Markus.

Roundup -- Get It Off! Get It Off Me!

It's around this time -- the last real weekend before Reading Period comes to take our souls away -- that everyone on campus basically turns into a blithering idiot. YardFest, which helpfully caused everyone to go around singing Third Eye Blind songs uncontrollably for hours, did not help in that regard. At the moment, after spending hours today cleaning bathrooms as part of the Dorm Crew Day fundraiser (executive summary: "Eww! Hair!"), my body's limp and my brain feels like a boiled cabbage that's been repeatedly mashed with a fork. So I'm going to forego my usual discursive introduction and dive right into LINKS FOR YOU. Enjoy.

--The Stand For Security movement is picking up steam and needs everybody's support. (The backstory is basically that Harvard security workers are being screwed in their contract negotiations and they need our help.) First, if you haven't signed the petition, do that, and if you're a stronger person than me you can join the fast on Monday and Tuesday. But generally, we should do everything we can to help this campaign before the end of the year. These people put themselves on the line to protect us every day; at very least we owe the same back to them.
---UPDATED (2:00 AM): There is a sit-in or protest of some kind today at 1:30 outside University Hall. Also I'm told there's a big rally planned for Wednesday, 2:30, at Holyoke Center; and if after those events the demands are not met, a hunger strike starting Thursday is in the works. Keep an eye on this developing situation.

--Garrett linked to an amazing clip from that Bill Moyers documentary we've all been hearing about; turns out you can watch all 90 minutes of it, in excellent quality, at PBS. When you find the time, please do; it's a powerful look at how deeply fucked-up our media really is.

--In non-fucked-up-media news, the Indy has launched a blog! Awesome! Those who don't read the Indy are missing out, it's often hilarious. (Also fill out their annual sex survey, it'll make you think.)

--Loud cheers for our friend Andrew Golis, of Cambridge Common fame, who looks like he's made the jump from being TPMCafe's open-thread slave into a legit writer. And it's a great, erudite post, too, worth a read on its merits as well as for its awesomeness factor.

--Meanwhile at TPMCafe, it's about time someone made this argument: "The Case For Bureaucracy". ...God, I'm such a Democrat.

--From the NY Sun, a charming Mitt Romney story:

"I feel old," Ann Romney told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "You are!" her husband chimed in. The crowd winced. "It's a joke, we're the same age," he clarified.

I repeat: please, please nominate him. Please. (...via James Walcott, who incidentally is absolutely hilarious and should be read regularly. In this same post he compared Fred Thompson, wonderfully, to Wilford Brimley).

--From another excellent Pew poll (click for larger version):

People seem to have the ideological affiliations of Dem candidates exactly backwards. Edwards is way to the left of the other frontrunners on basically every issue; but that perception is not out there in the public yet. How will the structure of the race change as that comes forward?

--Paragraph Of The Week honors go to Whiskey Fire: "Harry Reid is not calling for "defeat." Liberals are not calling for "defeat." We're telling you that the bloody clown show is over. Take off your floppy shoes, doff your giant red noses, and go home."

--Mystery Pollster has wonderful tag clouds for the various Dems at the debate; it's a fun way to see how on-message they are and where their heads are at (if anywhere). You can make your own tag clouds, of anything, here.

--In unrelated debate news, note that when Williams asked candidates to raise their hands if they believed there was such a thing as the "global war on terror", the split was interesting -- Edwards, Biden, Kucinich and Gravel found themselves in agreement that there wasn't, while the other four agreed there was. Myself, I find "war on terror" to be a conceptual impossibility, or at best an absurdity, so I tend to agree with Edwards and Biden (a man who knows his stuff on foreign policy, one must admit). Thoughts?

--I have got to get a copy of Rahm Emanuel's new book, "The Thumpin'", if only because in it he apparently describes Washington as "Fucknutsville". A man after me own heart.

--Band Madness is down to the Elite Eight (thankfully, AFI finally got knocked out). Remaining: Queen, Bowie, the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, the Who, Pink Floyd, and the Doors. While I'm still hurting over Neil Young (and also, I'm sorry but Queen did not deserve to beat Hendrix), we must soldier on. I'm pulling for The Who, underdogs to the end; who's with me? Voting opens Monday.

And I'll leave you with a quote. Michelle Malkin recently referred to Mike GW and his friends (who got arrested protesting that FBI speech last week) as evidence of liberal media bias, through logic I don't quite follow. In that spirit, I wondered if the Dems had ever been similarly held up by right-wing pundits as examples of evil liberalism. Sure enough -- National Review, 9/25/2001, from future "Corner" celebs John J. Miller and Ramesh Ponnuru:

If there really were a Captain America, he probably wouldn't be a member of the Harvard College Democrats.

We must have been doing something right. Good night everybody. This is an open thread.

Roundup -- I Hear There's Some Kind Of Weather Thing Going On?

There's a palpable sense of terror vibrating through Cambridge, as though some kind of meteorological Armageddon might be happening. I wouldn't know; I've been here at work, minding the conveniently underground Fung Library since noon, and when I left Mather it was just a pleasant dusting of snow, no worse than my Canadian hometown gets in July. (I'm exaggerating, but not by as much as you think.) Possibly it's gotten worse this afternoon -- whatever, damned if I'm going outside. I think I'll just assume that you're all a bunch of shrinking violets who can't handle a little bit of weather. Typical Americans.

Anyway, maybe that explains our sudden blogcoma these past couple days. Or midterm season, or March Madness. I don't know. Fact is, if John McCain's ghostly bifurcated face occupies the front page much longer it's going to start haunting me at night, and nobody wants that. So here's a few links that will hopefully push him down the screen. Get thee behind me, Senator!

--If you haven't already, bookmark Planet 02138, an excellent new Harvard blog aggregator put together by Renat Lumpau. It does subject us to the opinions of Greg Mankiw, but I suppose that's a price we'll just have to pay.

--You may have heard about Hillary's weird response to a question about homosexuality -- apparently, whether or not being gay is immoral is "for others to conclude." Which is a fair answer, but also a shitty one, for obvious reasons. Barack had a similar non-response after Newsday asked him three times -- first he discussed the Joint Chiefs, second he commended military sacrifice, and third:

Signed autograph, posed for snapshot, jumped athletically into town car.

Ouch. After a day, both issued statements to the effect that no, they don't think homosexuality is immoral, please go away. Terrible showing by all concerned; this really ought to be something we fundamentally believe and are willing to say openly.

--So I was going to write about how Governor Patrick's first couple months have been a colossal fuckup, marked by amateur mistakes / borderline-tonedeaf imaging, and he really needs to get his act together. Unfortunately, the Crimson editorialized about this on Wednesday, and as we all know the Crimson is wrong about everything. Thus I'm forced to defend the Governor -- so BRAVO, Deval, for shaking up your staff and eliminating that stupid $72,000 job for your wife's assistant! This definitely indicates that you're back on the right track, and not likely to keep bumbling around and wasting money like a drunk guy at a hotel minibar! Woohoo!

--Zogby reports that 97% of conservatives think the media has a liberal bias. This is incredible. You can't get 97% of conservatives to agree that the earth is round, for crying out loud, yet they all seem to think that CNN has it in for them. Even 17% of Democrats perceive a liberal bias. Can somebody show me this bias? I honestly don't see it. Kos has a liberal bias, not the goddamn mainstream media. (Caveat: this is one of those Zogby Interactive polls, which historically have the same accuracy rate as your horoscope.)

--"Egad! The game is afoot!"

--"Political Insider" (a spinoff of the normally respectable Political Wire) has a helpful guide on becoming a "Political Junkie", which details the reading habits of your average respectable Washington observer. Apparently this involves sucking in massive amounts of Drudge, Novak, and even -- dear God -- ABC News' "The Note". Do read the whole thing if you want to fully appreciate the magnitude of the head-up-assedness. And then we wonder why our Washington journalists all seem so dopey... no wonder they call them "junkies," this is the political equivalent of sniffing glue.

--It's been brought to my attention, somewhat belatedly, that Gilbert Arenas has a blog.

And let’s talk about "Mister 50." Can you believe that crap? Mister 50 ain’t had more than 30 points in one game yet, but he’s Mister 50. I’m not paying attention to a proclaimed Mister 50. If he was Mister 50, why did he lose to a one-armed man? Tell that to Mister 50. If he ain’t scoring 29 points a game, he can’t talk to me. I’m Mister 29... Forget that, I don’t need to be Mister 29. I’m Agent Zero, son.

You need to see this. It's like something out of McSweeney's, only real.

--More and more buzz is building, thanks in part to Josh Downer on GOP-Open, about the potential Republican candidacy of fmr. Sen. Fred Thompson. I agree with Paul of Alien & Sedition (which, again, everyone should be reading): if we're going to have a "Law & Order" President, seriously, it'd have to be Sam Waterston.

--You know what? I can't top that. Have a good weekend, everybody, up to and including St. Patrick's Day. This is an open thread.

Update (7:32 PM): OK, I admit it, the weather sucks. Objectively. It's the fucking Day After Tomorrow out there. Anyhow, I can't believe I missed this -- here's John "Tears Of Blood" McCain delivering his traditional direct, honest, unvarnished "straight talk":

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

He's a maverick, all right!

News To Me

Well, the overwhelming impression I get of student reaction to our new Dear Leader Dr. Faust is apathy mixed with indifference. There's a vibe of "good, they chose a woman", and a vibe of "oh god, they chose a token," but beyond that and lame jokes about her name it's pretty much Drew Who?

Which is why I was awful surprised to read this in the Washington Post:

Who, on this campus, thinks that Faust (along with the Core reforms, which for our purposes are as close on the horizon as flying cars) will somehow refocus Harvard on undergraduate concerns? Isn't that what Larry was supposed to be all about? And WTF is that reference to TFs; are we up in arms about being taught by grad students? Since when? What freak-of-nature Bizarro-Harvard student did these lunatic reporters talk to?

Oh, right:

"Everybody is really excited," said Ryan Anthony Petersen, president of Harvard's Undergraduate Council. "She is a teacher and has the ability to bring people together and put the focus here on teaching and undergraduates, which hasn't been true for 50 years."

Well, although he has a good point, you have to admit the spin borders on ridiculous. I don't think we're particularly "excited"; if anything at all we're skeptical (see Katie at Cambridge Common, who's spinning an unnervingly plausible conspiracy theory) or underwhelmed (see Adam at Gadfly). Ryan's obviously putting lipstick on a pig. And I guess that's part of his job.

But I think the real problem this shoddy article points to is the one Garrett identified yesterday: one-dimensional reporting. The Post headline states, bluntly, "Woman Chosen to Lead Harvard"; think about that. Even Deval Patrick did better than "Black Guy Chosen to Lead State."

Honestly, read the article and you'll see what I mean -- Page A1 notwithstanding, it feels more like a fluff piece in a Women's Interest section circa 1960. "Nice Girl Makes Good." The portions which don't involve Faust's gender are perfunctory and, as above, sometimes inaccurate. At moments the damn thing reads like Hints From Heloise ("Faust faces big challenges... in getting those towels extra-fluffy!"). And I hate to say it, but it may not be a coincidence that this article sports the all-too-rare byline of two female writers... overall the Post clearly has its storyline, "Harvard Picks Lady President," and everything else is filler.

So ONCE AGAIN we the student body get to be window dressing as the national media projects its own political anxieties onto Harvard's presidency. Aren't we all symbolic and shit. And never mind those funny noises coming from the biolabs, no, let's all worry about the Endless Global Struggle For/Against Feminism, because that's what's relevant in today's political climate. Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlafly live. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!

More Fun with Anachronisms

The New York Times has a telling article today about Barack Obama and his role in the Neverending Story of 1960s generational politics -- or, in this case, lack thereof:

Mr. Obama calculates that Americans of all ages are sick of the feuding boomers and ready to turn to the generation that came of age after Vietnam, after the campus culture wars between freaks and straights... Obama is critical of the style and the politics of the 60s, when the psyches of most of his potential rivals for the White House were formed.

REVOLUTIONARY! The 60s are over? Who'd a thunk it? And as for Obama himself:

He is tieless and relaxed and oh so cool.

Heavens, no wonder the pundits all drool over him -- Barack is new, he's hip, he's funky. Congratulations America, your political journalists have entered 1975.

How else would you explain this bizarre illustration accompanying the Times article? It's a 70s-style Keep-On-Truckin' blaxploitation Obama, leaping merrily over what appears to be the cast of The Electric Company, and is captioned "Candidate Next" -- which, to me, has the ring of a rejected Shasta Cola slogan. Good Lord.

It's well established that our media is behind the times, but it takes a jolt like this to make you realize it's 30 years' worth. Not to mention how fixated they are on style; never mind that Bill Richardson singled-handedly brokered a ceasefire in Sudan, Barack Obama doesn't wear a tie! Stop the presses! It's the biggest thing since Nixon went on Laugh-In!

There is this endless media obsession with generational battles, at least on the Democratic side. Remember how Bill Clinton was the redeemer of Baby Boomers everywhere, just because he may or may not have "inhaled"? And now we have this epic battle between Boomer Hillary and Post-Boomer Obama; what a perfect narrative that is. Obama's just like the 70s -- smooth, stylized, substanceless -- and our political climate can always use a little "healing." Add some wanking about Generation X and you got yourself a Pulitzer Prize!

(Oddly, this doesn't seem to apply on the GOP side. George Bush grew up in ahistorical Connecticut preppy neverland, but we didn't hear about him being "out of touch with his generation" or anything. I guess Republicanism transcends time and space.)

The hilarious part is, nobody else thinks this way. Nobody but the media gives two shits whether our politicians are "facing new challenges that require a new political paradigm" and "moving beyond tired ideological battles." Nobody else worries about hippies coming back and staging a love-in at the Omni Shoreham. But our erstwhile DC reporters do, and until they get over it (i.e. never), we get to read about Barry Obama and his Leisure Suit Revolution. Please, Dems, when you make up your minds about the candidates, don't let crap like this cloud your decisions. It's 2007, these people are who they are, and there are bigger things at stake than symbolic progress.

The Dilbert Principle in journalism

People in the business world joke about the Dilbert Principle, or, as I like to call it, "floating turd phenomenon," wherein promotion is based not on skills or talents but good hair and a round understanding of the word 'paradigm'.

Jebediah Reed over at Radar has an interesting take on this in the world of high-stakes foreign policy punditry. Specifically: why is it that the majority of 'respected' high-profile journos right now were utterly dead wrong about something that is now widely-agreed upon as the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last forty years?

Conservatives love to talk about running politics 'like a businesses.' You know what would happen if a corporate board wasted two trill' on an enormous mistake? That's right: you would fire every single person involved with it, and never ever hire them anywhere else again.

A shame the world of punditry isn't more 'accountable'.

Tell me they're kidding.

...aaaand the mainstream media is dead. Ring the bells.  

NEW YORK (AP) - Congratulations! You are the Time magazine "Person of the Year."

The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals - citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.

I just... it... it...

Are they retarded?

...Does the responsibility for being Person of the Year come hand in hand with Preventing Forest Fires?

These people, this "journalism," is not relevant. When they try, this moronic burbling is the result. Why do we keep buying their magazines and newspapers?

Fox News to Foley: We Don't Know You

Bill O'Reilly delivered the ultimate dis to Mark Foley last night: