My prodigious, beer-engorged gut tells me that Bush's Second Inaugural Address will be used by Democrats in the near-future the same way Kennedy's Address has been used, to great political effect, by Republicans.

Quote of the Week:

they introduced him as the honorable president of the united states. and with that lie begins the second term of a much needed abortion.

--Tony Pierce

Winning Hearts and Minds: I suppose there are more tasteful ways the government can spend our tax dollars...[Update: FEMA has now dropped the "Tsunami" game].

Liberals in Los Angeles need not feel isolated and beleaguered anymore. It took a year, but AirAmerica is finally going to cross the Blue Curtain, thanks to Clear Channel.

The "Barbara Boxer for President" bandwagon starts now...has there ever been any pick for Secretary of State that was so little respected, both inside and outside her own party, as Condi Rice? I guess you'd have to go back to William Jennings Bryan in 1913 to find someone so completely out of his depth, but at least the Boy Orator was picked to run the State Department during peacetime (he had also been right about our imperialist adventure in the Phillipines a decade earlier, the foreign policy debacle most analogous to the current situation).

I've been nominated for something called the "Koufax Award", in the category of Blog Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. There's no money in it, and I doubt winning will help me get laid, so check out the site hosting the Sandys, randomly browse through the sites of the other nominees, and vote for one of them.

O.K., so a prominent blogger forms a political consulting partnership with another blogger, gets an account from a major Presidential candidate, and promptly discloses it, in all its gory detail, on the pages of his website. Over the next few months, a disclaimer is attached to the side of his blog, alerting people that he is working for one of the candidates he's writing about (the other blogger announces his employment, and promptly goes on hiatus for six months to work on the campaign). His employment is discussed, not only in anecdotal fashion on his website, but also in numerous profiles of the blogger in the mainstream media. In addition, the web savvy of the candidate in question is also a featured item in those stories; his understanding of new media, and, in particular, the blogosphere, becomes the definition of his candidacy.

And now, almost two years later, someone decides that it's a scandal, an "Abu Ghraib" of web punditry. This week's report on the Killian Forgeries, CBS' reactive pose when initially confronted with the evidence, and the lack of due dilligence the network performed when it received the documents, has predictably been used as a cover to attack the tenets of "objective" journalism as practiced by CBS News, as opposed to the doctrinaire agitprop produced by FoxNews and most of the blogosphere. But if anything reveals the emptiness of the traditional media, it's this story, which was published in the news section (that is, the section of the paper not edited by Julius Striecher) of the Wall Street Journal: an attempt to provide a false ideological counterpoint to the Armstrong Williams story.

That I have to devote any time to this flaming-piece-of-crap of a story makes me feel diminished, which is a poor condition to be in on a beautiful morning in Berkeley (I'm visiting my sister and nephew). What Mr. Zuniga and Mr. Armstrong did wasn't unethical, and doesn't diminish my enjoyment of their blogs (full disclosure: neither has ever included me in their blogroll, or taken note or issue with anything I've posted here). It does seem ironic that a number of bloggers who've made the most noise about this violation of "blogger ethics" are also practicing lawyers, none of whom seemed too concerned about the ethics of our own profession when it came to intentionally or recklessly disseminating the false stories of the "Swift Boat Vets". In any event, it is not morally equivalent to accepting money from the taxpayers to shill for a government policy, and not disclosing it.

Right-wing pundit Jill Stewart endorses Ahnold Ziffel's reapportionment initiative, a noble cause indeed, but for the wrong reason. Like so many opponents of gerrymandering, she supports giving the power to redraw districts to retired judges, who, as political appointees of the governor, are as much political animals as the legislators they are replacing. While using retired judges solves, at least theoretically, the problem of partisan gerrymandering (whereby one party redraws the lines to create as many potential districts for their own party as possible), it does nothing to insure against the problem of gerrymandering to protect incumbents, which is what the California State legislature did in 2001. And the current political dynamic in California, in which the Democrats have an overwhelming edge in both houses in Sacramento as well as with the state delegation in Washington, was inherited from the redistricting plan drawn up by a special panel in 1991, which Ms. Stewart views as a Golden Age. Quoth Stewart:

In 1991, Gov. Pete Wilson challenged the latest absurd gerrymander drawn up by Democrats in the state legislature. The courts were asked to step in. Eventually, the California Supreme Court sided with Wilson and temporarily took the power away from the slimy California legislature. The court ordered an independent panel of special masters to create geographically and racially accurate voting districts. In several resulting mixed districts, Democrats and Republicans were forced to compete head-on.

This temporary outbreak of democracy inspired some non-hacks to run between 1992 and 2000. Californians, largely unaware of why they suddenly had choices, elected a wave of moderate to conservative Republicans and Latino Democrats.

But mostly, after 1994, they elected Democrats. The partisan split in the state legislature following the 2000 election, the last election held under the lines drawn by the "special masters", gave the Democrats a 50-30 edge in the State Assembly, and a 26-14 lead in the Senate; under the lines drawn up by the legislature, the split after the 2002 and 2004 elections was 48-32 and 26-14. The current dominance by the Democratic Party in Sacramento is not something imposed on the people by "slimy" politicians, it's something that, apparently, the people want.

I'm sure it wasn't his intention, but winning the "Von Hoffman Award" seems to be only slightly less prestigious than the Nobel Peace Prize. [link via TMW]

My first internet feud...when will they realize that the Idiotarian Savant takes no prisoners?

Karma's a little girl: One person who may receive a measure of comfort from this week's firing of Tucker Carlson by CNN is Valerie Lakey, the sixteen-year old girl mockingly referred to as a "Jacuzzi Case" by the former Crossfire pundit. Of course, he had good reason to do so; she had been represented in her lawsuit by John Edwards, and her case invited ridicule from the smart set inside the Beltway.

When she was five, a suction tube in a child's wading pool malfunctioned, trapping the little girl. By the time she was freed, her intestines had been sucked out of her body, leaving her permanently disabled. While she will spend the rest of her life being intravenously fed and having to use colostomy bags, Mr. Carlson will have the onerous duty of bouncing from gabfest to gabfest, no doubt receiving his talking points from the Federalist Society or the Heritage Foundation, or maybe even a stipend from the taxpayers, a la Armstrong Williams.

An interesting junction between the Tsunami and the War on Terror: one of the few places to receive advance warning was the tiny island of Diego Garcia, which happens to house one of the many concentration camps the U.S. government has set up to imprison, without trial or due process, captured "Islamofascists".

Back from the South Pacific. The last day, spent on the island of Tahiti, was pretty much devoted to waiting to disembark for the airport. It being Sunday, the businesses in and around Papeete were closed, and as I mentioned earlier, a cruise really isn't the optimum way to visit an island destination. Actually, the ship is almost always the best part of the vacation; it serves as a luxury hotel, where you don't have to worry about exchange rates, transportation, or being over-charged on the local wares.

Roger ("I Support Gay Marriage") Simon, who spent the better part of two months last summer hyping the varied accounts of the discredited "Swift Boat Vets", and whose obsession with the "Oil for Food Scandal" has been the source of much laughter and merriment at SoCal blogger meetings, opines:

While I respect George W. Bush's evangelical Christianity, I wonder about his giving CBS a chance to be "born again" in the wake of Rathergate. If I had promulgated forged documents on this little blog and then, to this day (months later), had not fully acknowledged what I had done, I would not deserve the attention of anyone. In fact, I'd probably have been too ashamed to continue blogging. Yet CBS (Channel Two almost anywhere) still holds one of the most coveted positions in American television broadcasting.[emphasis mine]

Well, thank Leinart he didn't take his own advice.

Happy New Year (if I might make that wish without the Red State Thought Police whining about the obvious dissing of Christmas that entails) from Bora Bora, which may well be what the ancients envisioned when they thought of Paradise. The highlight of the trip so far: the feeding of the land crabs !!

There's something about 120,000 dead that concentrates the mind. I noted just a few days ago that this was likely going to be a story that would have little effect in the West, particularly America, back when the death toll was less than ten percent of what it now is. The President, comfortably ensconced at his villa for the holidays, didn't even think it was important enough to make a public statement until three days had passed. Not even he could stay silent for that long, and our nation's long tradition of stinginess when it comes to the less fortunate, whether it be in our own country or in the Third World, and public pressure to do something will even force Tom Delay and the Red State Crackerocracy to spend a non-trivial amount.

I think it's safe to say that this is going to be THE STORY for awhile; all others, including the "war on terrorism", will have to take a back seat. If it takes a disproportionate focus on the dead and missing among Western tourists in Thailand to get Americans concerned about the miasma of plagues that afflict the Third World, if we need stories about movie producers searching for missing grandchildren, or supermodels hanging on to trees for eight hours, so be it. Our interest in the lives of people outside our continent and Europe tends to focus on how much they are like us (or unlike us), what the late Edward Said called Orientalism. Understanding that it is entirely possible that more Americans may well have died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami than died on 9/11 may be the first step towards understanding that the First Principle of human existence is not Freedom, Liberty, or Democracy, but to simply live.

Our objective should always be how we can create a global community where the simple act of living is not threatened by hunger, eradicable diseases, filthy water, inadequate medical care, and plain ignorance and superstition. How people choose who governs them (if at all) is a secondary, or even tertiary, matter. It reminds me of the controversial moment in Fahrenheit 9/11, the one that pissed off so many Michael Moore's critics on the Right: the scene where the kid is flying a kite before our invasion. Moore was criticized for implying that Iraq was some sort of idyllic society under Saddam, when in fact he was pointing out that even in one of the most oppressive dictatorships in the history of humankind, a normality could exist where children could play in the streets and vendors could sell their wares, without bombs falling and insurgents battling Marines for control of the cities. It wasn't perfect, and it would have been intolerable for almost every American, but in many ways, it beat the alternative we imposed on them.

It was clear when Bush attacked Iraq that the concerns of the Iraqi people were of no concern to him, or else he wouldn't have picked an arbitrary fight with a nation not threatening us and killed tens of thousands of its civilians. Even now, the upcoming elections in that country seem likely to simply substitute the despotism of a strongman with the oligarchy of an elite, without improving the daily lives of its people in any material way. The basic wants of Iraqis, though, are no different than our own, or those of the people of Sri Lanka: to be able to be reasonably assured that we can survive another day.

The horror in the Indian Ocean this past week should remind us that everybody, Americans and Thais, Africans and Indonesians, are interconnected, and that no matter what unimportant differences in our politics, religions, and cultures we might have, our common humanity binds us. When any part of our world suffers, it should impact us as well.

I'm beginning to think that a cruise ship is the wrong way to visit a tropical paradise. The whole point, I think, of going to a place like the Marquesas is to enjoy the beauty and splendid isolation, and to do that requires spending a few days there. Just stopping for a few hours, when the most an honest tourist can do is walk around the pier and (maybe) buy a few odds and ends, just doesn't cut it.

About a year ago, I commented on another site that many more people would die of starvation and diseases that were eradicated years ago in the U.S. than would die of terrorism. The author of that site responded by claiming that people like myself were of the "nothing to see here, just keep moving past the World Trade Center" wing of the Democratic Party. It is remarkable that, at least on a superficial level, our country can change so dramatically (and for the worse) over the death three years ago of 3,000 people, but an event that has killed at least four times as many people will cause barely a ripple. No wonder the rest of the world feels so little amity towards our cause, whatever that may be.

Merry Christmas: A very surreal cruise, so far. After a nine-hour flight, we decamped in Papeete, exhausted and a bit staggered to go from an air conditioned airplane to the tropical humidity of Tahiti. There's usually a ceremonial bit at the beginning, where a band plays "Margaritaville" and we wave farewell, but since the ship didn't sail until 4:00 a.m., that just wasn't practical. Not much life so far.

The first stop was the island of Moorea, which is quite beautiful if you are into that sort of thing, but since I don't snorkel or sunbathe, I made only a perfunctory walk off the pier, realized there wasn't a resort within walking distance, and returned to the ship. Also, this is French Polynesia, so good luck watching the NFL.

The Tahitian Princess is a relatively small cruise ship. The cruiseline purchased the beast from the Renaissance cruiseline after that company went under in the aftermath of 9/11, and have pretty much left the ship intact; even the on-board dining rooms have the same names they did. Still, as anybody who has cruised before will tell you, the larger the ship, the less enjoyable the cruise. On a ship this size, you get to know a lot more people in a shorter time, and all the amenities that one comes to expect are delivered, but in a smaller, more accessible space.

We sail for a couple of days, which, of course, means two days of the social event of any cruise, Bingo. So once again, Merry Christmas to believer and infidel alike.

Gone to South Pacific for long overdue vacation. Will be blogging even more sporadically than normal. Bush lied.