Smythe sez...Revenge of the Sith wasn't bad at all; better than Return and Clones, and much better than Phantom. What worked: great effects (if you can, see this film on a digital projection screen, or better yet, IMAX); the two Scottish actors (Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid) playing Obi-wan and the Emporer, respectively; the final 45 minutes, which features the slaughter of the Jedi and the emergence of the Empire. What didn't: uninvolving battle scenes; General Grievous; Natalie Portman and Hayden Christenson, neither of whom strikes a true note in their scenes together.

I saw the movie at the multiplex next to Universal Studios, a place I had not visited in awhile. In fact, I can recall the exact date I was last there: October 11, 1998. That was the day my father died. He had slipped into a coma a few days earlier, and it was clear that it was just a matter of time. I think I ended up seeing a movie, then going to Gladstones, a seafood restaurant which is sort of a pretentious version of Red Lobster, to nosh and watch Game 5 of the ALCS, plus whatever assorted football games were playing that Sunday.

Obviously, I wasn't really in the mood for sports that day, so I came home to be with my dad. I held his hand and spoke to him, read him the battlefield speech from Henry V that he loved so much, as well as speeches from Winston Churchill ("Sail on, O Ship of State...") and John L. Lewis ("It ill-behooves those who sup at labor's table...") that always seemed to inspire him. I don't know if he heard me, but I figured it couldn't hurt. He died that evening, in the middle of Game 4 of the NLCS; like Nick Hornby in Fever Pitch, sports play way too important a role in marking the chapters of my life. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think back to that night, nor a week that goes by without a vivid dream about my father.

Just asking...who is Kylie Minogue?

Santorum Time: It's about time someone went after those little Eichmans in the Senate supporting the filibuster....

Ed Wood Lives: That howlingly bad script Julie Delpy was pitching about the legendary Countess Bathory last year is finally set to come to life, starring the bland/blonde French actress, who will also make her directorial debut, and her frequent screen collaborator, Ethan Hawke.

Credit Where It's Due: Here's one area where No Child Left Behind has been an unqualified success....

Almost four years ago, less than a week after 9/11, Andrew Sullivan made this especially disturbing attack on the patriotically incorrect:

The middle part of the country - the great red zone that voted for Bush - is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead - and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column. But by striking at the heart of New York City, the terrorists ensured that at least one deep segment of the country ill-disposed toward a new president is now the most passionate in his defense.

As someone who lives in one of those coastal enclaves (Los Angeles) and matriculated at another (Berkeley), I took that very personally. Having studied American history, I knew that civil liberties are often a casualty of war, and Sullivan's broadside set off alarms to those of us who were not willing to bow down unquestioningly at the feet of our Maximum Leader. The sentiments expressed in that column was one of the reasons I decided to start this website back in April of 2002.

Having said that, I cannot think of anything that is less important to the issues of 1) Gay civil rights; 2) our use of torture and human rights deprivations at Abu Ghraib, G-mo and elsewhere; 3) the efforts by the Bush Administration to quash the free press when it attempts to look behind the curtains; 4) the troubling state of the Catholic Church, and its declining moral relevance; and 5) whatever else he may be expounding on this week, than what Andrew Sullivan wrote four days after the collapse of the Towers. Certainly, Sullivan's opinions carry no greater weight by how far he has apparently traveled in the past four years, but neither are his eloquent opinions on the above issues diminished in any way by what he said just after the Towers collapsed.

OK, so he had a louder megaphone than the rest of us did four years ago, and in the heat of the moment, he was too quick to find a scapegoat. Like so many other people, he was hopeful when he should have been skeptical, and he got suckered by the Bushies. All of that might be an interesting chapter to his biography, but it also just so happens that the GayCatholicTory is writing the most interesting s*** in the blogosphere lately. What he said four years ago should be no more germane to the present topics than Earl Warren's support for the internment of the Japanese during WWII was at the time of the Brown decision, or Robert Byrd's opinions on civil rights six decades ago are during today's filibuster debate. Grow up.

The Good German: Glenn Reynolds defends the soft-on-torture position.

L.A. Mayor: Absentee returns give Villaraigosa a narrow margin (<3%) over Hahn. A bit of a surprise, considering that the polls consistently gave the challenger a double-digit lead over the incumbent, but it still seems likely Los Angeles will have a new Mayor. The L.A. Times has a group blog covering the election, and Villaraigosa has the support of Hugh Hewitt, who feels Antonio V. is a nice, charismatic guy who will get clobbered in any gubernatorial run.

UPDATE: About a quarter of the vote is in, and Villaraigosa now has a 16+% lead. It's over.

The most frustrating type of fandom is to be an American fan of a British stage actress. If she's really good at what she does, she will spend her career doing plays at the West End, or the odd TV-movie for Channel Four, and never feel the need to go Hollywood or do anything that will make its way to my small corner of the world. While less-talented performers will come over to this country, become stars, and fade away into obscurity after their fortieth birthday, she'll be perfecting her craft, playing for the long haul.

Thus, the bittersweet discovery this week that the woman pictured at the top right corner of my website, Phoebe Nicholls, is set to appear in a play opening at the Hampstead Theatre in London, commencing in mid-June. No movies, no TV, as far as I can tell, just a performance in the one medium I have absolutely no access to, thousands of miles away. Any true fanatical interest in the work of an actor or director, whether great or mediocre, compels a desire to be a completist, to see anything and everything he's done, in order to gain a more detailed perspective of his career, to compare performances, but mainly just to indulge some idiosyncratic weirdness in oneself. Yet with Mrs. Sturridge, I can't see the one avenue in which she has most excelled; its almost like having access only to Shakespeare's sonnets, and not his plays. Sigh.

Lord, I'm pathetic....

Andrew Sullivan calls Scotty McLellan's bluff on G-mo.

It's easy to forget how stupid the Far Right is, especially when they always seem to win national elections. They do seem to have a knack for appealing to base public sentiments, and I suppose religious demogoguery does entail a certain genius, but when it comes to the actual skills necessary to govern, these people just don't have it.

Witness the on-going tour de farce concerning the Senate sub-committee investigating the "Oil-for-Food Scandal". The investigation, designed to score cheap political points against the U.N. (wow, there's corruption in the Middle East; who knew?), has now completely boomeranged. This morning's revelation by the committee that more than half of the money went to American oil companies, and was signed off by the Bush Administration, has finally caught the attention of the media. And as if that wasn't bad enough, today was the day that Loony Left M.P. George Galloway was called to testify in open session about allegations he personally received kickbacks from Saddam. There was only one problem: the committee was relying on evidence that seems to have originated from the same mill that produced the Killian Documents. Quote the Beeb:

[A] spokesman for Mr Galloway's Respect party told a press conference the document used by the Senate hearing was a forgery. The spokesman said: "The actual first document, we don't know where it is, they don't know where it is and all they have is a photocopy handed over by an unnamed source." Typographical analysis showed Mr Galloway's name was in a different typeface, a lighter shade and at a different angle to the rest of the document, he said. The spokesman suggested Mr Galloway's name had been stuck to the bottom of the list, and the document photocopied. He also cited testimony from an Iraqi who claimed he forged lists of people who profited from the oil for food scheme.

Galloway, who won a libel suit against the Daily Telegraph after revealing a similar scam, then tore the sub-committee chairman, Norman Coleman, a new one, before forcing the rest of the Republicans to strip naked and stacked into a human pyramid.

Hey, look who's got a blog...just in time, too. [link via WOC]

Query: Isn't the fact that the Bushies are "categorically" denying the Flushed Koran story strong evidence that the allegations are true? They haven't told the truth about anything else....

UPDATE: More examples of the allegation that predate the Newsweek story, here, here, and here. I don't know if this story is true, or if it is an Islamic version of the urban myth that war protesters spat on returning vets after Vietnam, but I do believe that the publishers of Newsweek should politely tell Scott McClellan where to shove his demands for a full retraction.

UPDATE [II]: TalkLeft has an even more thorough review of the allegations, all published before Newsweek ran its story, that should give the soft-on-torture crowd some pause.

Attn. Nerds This morning brings four pivotal reviews for Revenge of the Sith: the LA Times (qualified thumbs-up), the New Yorker (pan), the NY Times (full-throated rave), and Newsweek (ditto).

The problem with using Newsweek's entirely honorable correction of its story that the Pentagon was about to admit in a report that some of its soldiers had flushed the Koran down the toilet during interrogation of POW's, as yet another excuse for lib'rul media bashing, is that the story has been around for some time:

Afghan men freed today after spending months in legal limbo as U.S. prisoners in the war on terrorism said they were generally well-fed and given medical care, but housed in cramped cells and sometimes shackled, hit and humiliated.

(snip)

Some of the men released today were close-shaven, but most kept their beards. The men who wore their beards in the long fashion of the Taliban complained most about poor treatment at the hands of Americans and insults against Islam. Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet. "It was a very bad situation for us," said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. "We cried so much and shouted, 'Please do not do that to the Holy Koran.'"

Merza Khan, who had been captured in northern Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban, said Americans in Kandahar tied him up and alternately forced him to lie face down on the ground, then squat with his hands on his head for hours. He also said he saw American soldiers throw the Koran on the ground and sit on it while in Kandahar. (emphasis mine)

--Washington Post, March 26, 2003 [link via Atrios/Avedon Carol]

Atlanta 5, Los Angeles [N] 1: Disappointing night at my first trip to the Stadium this season. Probably the best seats I've ever been legally allowed to sit in (field level, right behind home plate) merely gave me the opportunity to witness a boring, uneventful loss. Eric Gagne made his seasonal debut, allowed back-to-back home runs to the Jones Boys to start the ninth inning, then struck out the side. Julio Franco, who no doubt roomed with Otis Nixon and Cool Papa Bell in the old Negro Leagues, stole a base off the pathetic Jason Phillips. Celebrity spottings: Pat Sajak, Dodger exec Howard Sunkin*, the B.P.L.A., and "TV's Shane", Walt Goggins. No cannabis, gang tats, or drunken, belligerent, shirtless fans, but otherwise, a routine night at the ballpark.

*Classmate of author, Harvard H.S. '81.

Some random thoughts about the “Nuclear Option”:

1. If Frist is successful, the filibuster is dead. Not just for judicial nominations, but for any possible use in the future. If it is “unconstitutional” to use the tactic when debating lifetime appointments, why would it be less so when other legislation requiring a majority vote is debated? Once its use is deemed unconstitutional, it will be impossible to rationalize it in other areas. The only question will be if the Republicans move to abolish it before Social Security privatization comes up for a vote.

2. Of all the arguments made by both sides, easily the most disingenuous has been the argument made by some conservatives that the filibuster is unprecedented in judicial nominations. Besides its use against Abe Fortas in 1968, when an unsuccessful cloture vote doomed that nomination in spite of his support by a plurality in the Senate, the tactic of using extended debate in an attempt to kill judicial nominations supported by a bare majority goes back to 1841, and a full-throated filibuster occurred against the nomination of Stanley Matthews to the high court in 1881 (a compromise was later worked out, and Matthews was eventually confirmed). Prior to Bush’s election, the filibuster had been used, in one form or another, some 17 times in the previous 50 years against judicial nominees, most notably against Fortas, and more recently, against Richard Paez (led by, of all people, Bill Frist) and five other Clinton appellate nominees. And the use of the “blue slip”, while technically not a filibuster, still has the same effect: it’s a parliamentary rule used to ensure that a judicial nominee is supported by a something other than a bare majority.

To argue that those filibusters don’t count because those nominees ultimately were approved, or, in the case of Fortas, because of the unprovable assumption that he wouldn’t have had a majority in his corner, is, to say the least, dishonest. A filibuster is a filibuster, regardless of whether it is ultimately successful. After all, Strom Thurmond had the distinction of the longest filibuster on record, a twenty-four hour speech against the 1957 Civil Rights Act, all to no avail: the measure passed. But since no cloture vote was ever taken, it would be considered by the Orrin Hatchs and Hugh Hewitts of the world as a non-filibuster.

3. The abolition of the filibuster will enable the passage, in the future, of progressive legislation that otherwise would be unimaginable. For example, the Clinton healthcare package, watered down as it was, would have been law today if a straight majority had had the chance to vote on it back in 1994. In fact, President Clinton could probably have proposed a much more generous program, and subsequent Republican Congresses would have been hard-pressed to roll it back later, as Americans came to rely on the new entitlement (which, incidentally, was exactly what Bill Kristol feared, and why he was so active in opposing the Clintons).

It may be a Law of Politics that liberal legislatures can do so much more in a shorter period of time than conservatives. It certainly is true that it is easier to increase the size and powers of government than it is to roll it back. Going back to 1953, Republicans have controlled the White House for 32 of the last 53 years, and have had at least one house of Congress for 18 years. Even when the Democrats controlled Congress, its Southern wing frequently was indistinguishable from the GOP, giving conservatives de facto control on Capital Hill. Yet, during that time, the size and role of the government has increased exponentially, most of the New Deal and Great Society still in place, with the battles taking place at the margins. Civil rights for women and gays has improved immeasurably, abortion and contraception are legal, and the rubric of the safety net has remained in place, all during the Age of Reagan, Nixon and the Bushes, and with liberals, for the most part, out of power. In order to chip away at civil rights or environmental protections, conservatives must do so using liberal rhetoric; the conservative position otherwise would be unpalatable. Since progressive politics has come to mean a more expansive role for the government, its policies are more likely to have a lasting effect.

In short, liberals can afford to lose elections most of the time, since what we accomplish in eight years is more likely to stand than what Republicans can in twelve. Take away the filibuster, and the leftward push will be even more pronounced in the future. Needing only a majority vote, some things that would be otherwise unthinkable, such as massive regulation of the Oil Industry (even nationalization), Universal Health Care, a shifting of the tax burden from the middle class to the super-rich, a repeal of Taft-Hartley, would suddenly be doable. And all it would take would be one good election cycle.

4. There are very few people on either side of this debate who wouldn’t have the opposite opinion if the Democrats controlled the government and the Republicans were the ones trying to use the filibuster.

Kerry's greatest blunder, it turns out, was not appealing to this interest group...yet another popular TV series ends, in spite of my not having seen a single episode. I had also never seen an episode of NYPD Blue, Aly McBeal, and E.R., which come to think of it, is still on the air. On the other hand, I religiously watched shows such as Arrested Development, Bakersfield P.D., Get a Life, and that sitcom with Jay Mohr playing a Hollywood exec a few years back. If I watched FoxNews religiously, I could put Rupert Murdoch into Chapter 11.

Bucs Owner Purchases Man United: This is really a Big Deal accross the Atlantic, although it's hard to see why. Malcolm Glazer has been hot on the trail of the World's Most Popular/Overrated Sports Team for over a year, and has finally closed the deal in spite of some heated opposition from fan's groups. Other than latent anti-Semitism, it's hard to see why his interest would draw such intense antipathy. The guy is loaded*, his NFL team has never lacked for funds, and it's not as if he's going to be moving the team to Norfolk or Swansea as a bargaining ploy to get more luxury boxes built at Old Trafford. It's not as if Donald Sterling had bought the team.

*In the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Glazer is indirectly a client of mine, through his ownership of commercial property giant General Growth Properties, whose interests I represent before the local bankruptcy court.

What do liberals believe, Eric Alterman asks. Perhaps the best definition I can come up with is---a liberal believes that a person has an inherent right to believe that evolution is “just a theory”, that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice deserving of legalized discrimination, that AIDS can be transmitted by tears and sweat, that using birth control is a mortal sin condemning its practitioner to eternal damnation, that moral absolutes contained in the Bible should be the unquestioned dogma of our society, instead of the “secular humanism” practiced by the cabal of feminists, teachers, activist judges, liberal journalists, and pro-Arabists in the State Department that really runs things in America...but that it’s not a good idea to let people who believe in those things to be in charge of reforming Social Security, fighting terrorism, or for that matter, anything to do with operating heavy machinery.

The much-hyped Huffington Post kicked off this morning, so if you want to read what Mike Nichols' or Ellen Degeneres' publicists are thinking, check out the blog. It's being edited by local wunderkind Andrew Breitbart, who was Matt Drudge's Hollywood presence (although that didn't stop him from some pretty good reporting of the Tsunami last year).

UPDATE: Well, at least one critic disapproves, although it reads like one of those interminable Pauline Kael "reviews" of a Clint Eastwood movie, where it was clear that it was written well before she saw the film....

Wigan 3, Reading 1: The ancestral home of Smythe's World (mother's side), known more for its rugby team, its supporting role in a George Orwell book, and as the hometown for 90's one-shot group The Verve, qualified for the English Premier League on the last day of the season, where they get to match-up next year with Arsenal, Man United and Chelsea. One of the cooler things about soccer leagues in Europe is the system of relegation and promotion, where the three or four worst teams get dumped into the minors, while the top teams in the lower division get bumped up. It certainly leads to greater accountability for team management; a Donald Sterling-type owner, who profits no matter how bad his team is, would be next-to-impossible overseas.

I've thought it odd that the Bush Administration hasn't been as obsessed about the Oil-for-Food "scandal" as their cheerleaders in the blogosphere. You'd think anything that shows the U.N. in a bad light would be like manna from heaven for these guys, but it turns out, they may have had reason not to dwell on corruption in someone else's backyard. The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the even more questionable activities of the Development Fund for Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars are unaccounted for under American supervision.

When you can't even count on the character of Nancy Grace, what is our legal system coming to?

Desperate Housewife? Laura Bush lied !!!

I don't care how reactionary this makes me sound, this billboard sickens me. As a lifelong Angeleno, I have been more than willing to accept, even laugh at, jokes and ridicule about my city. But for some media conglomerate, in a desperate reach for ratings, to link Los Angeles with a corrupt pseudo-democracy, ruled by a one-party oligarchy in thrall to oil companies, kleptocrats, and the scions of a few elite families, a government possessed of not a shred of human decency, backward and intolerant to the core, paying only lip service to civil liberties and due process, and utterly contemptuous of the rights of minorities, in total betrayal of its own honorable revolutionary past, is, to me, vile and repugnant.

It almost makes me wish someone would put up a billboard linking Los Angeles to Mexico....

Prof. Warren informs us of a cute little valentine Congress included in the "reform" act it just passed, a 30% increase in the filing fee for debtors. Ostensibly to finance the appointment of 28 new judges to the Bankruptcy Court, which will be all-the-more necessary to deal with what the bill's sponsors promised would be a steep decline in filings under the new law, the professor points out that the math just doesn't add up.

Although she sees the surplus from the fee hike going into general revenues, acting as a hidden "tax increase" upon the segment of the population most vulnerable, there is another explanation as to how the money will be spent. In the past, filing fees have gone up in direct correlation with the increase in the minimum assessment paid out in what are called "no asset" cases to the Chapter 7 Trustee, the court-appointed administrator who oversees the debtor's estate in every filing. The Trustee makes money off the big estates that he liquidates on behalf of creditors, for which he receives a pre-set percentage, but his office keeps afloat on what he earns from the "no asset" cases, which constitute the overwhelming majority (say, at least 80% of the cases assigned to him). When there are a lot of estates to administer, that assessment is a steady source of income, and if it's too low, the ability of the Trustee to go after estates with larger assets suffers.

Bankruptcies, of course, are likely going to go down, at least initially, when the act goes into effect in five and a half months. In addition, asset cases will become a rarity under the new law, since debtors with substantial assets free and clear of liens will be forced (along with everyone else whose income exceeds the local average) into Chapter 13, where creditors are repaid through a court-approved plan, or even into the more expensive (and complicated) Chapter 11.
So why the increase? Clearly, Chapter 7 Trustees will continue to play a vital role in the new system; I suspect that the U.S. Trustee will be forced to rely on them to bring many of the motions called for under the new law, including those that seek to convert or dismiss many of the cases that have now been defined as having been filed in "bad faith". But with fewer filings, those administrators will have less money to work with, while incurring exponentially higher costs. In fact, it is precisely this additional paperwork that will make bankruptcy law even more lucrative for its practitioners.

Thus, the seemingly ludicrous fee increase is being promoted to finance some of the chaos that will ensue at the end of the year, when the new law goes into effect. The Trustees are going to see their minimum assessments increased, the court administration will see an increase in its funding, and judges will receive a reduction in their workload, thanks to the appointment of the 28 new judges. And of course, lawyers like myself are going to do quite well under the new law. The only people who lose are going to be the poor suckers who are forced to resort to the bankruptcy courts for relief from their debts. But then again, that's the whole point, isn't it?

The War on Terror: How we lost.

In the movie Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg creates a scene where the mother of the title character gets the horrible news about her other sons by showing a convoy of automobiles converging on her house, each carrying a representative of the military who will inform her that her children have died in the service of their country. According to the LA Times, such a scene was an anachronism: the military didn't start that practice until Vietnam, for the most part sending telegrams in earlier wars. The entire procedure of notifying the next of kin is quite moving, with the military assuming a responsibility for the lives of its own that one wishes the rest of the government would emulate.

Pajama Party: Perhaps I'm missing something, but this sounds like it might be a pretty good idea. In the tradition of United Artists Films, a number of uberbloggers have decided to pool their resources and create the New Media version of U.S. Steel, a conglomerate that will do to blogs what AOL did to the Internet, transforming Our Thing from a hobbyist's playground into a grand entrepreneurial venture. The idea is to aggregate the muscle of some of the more popular websites into something more attractive for big-time advertisers, creating an economy of scale that would allow smaller sites affiliated with the big boys (such as the site you're reading) to wet their beaks, as it were. In addition, they hope to create a blogger "news service" that would provide better access to a wider range of websites, particularly overseas. In short, a mighty ambitious calling.

I have no idea whether these people will ultimately make a fortune, but I'm pretty certain that a business along these lines will inevitably succeed. Someone will eventually bring together the independent blogger and corporate advertiser, and it makes sense that the first people willing to travel into this brave new world are proprietors of websites that already reach hundreds of thousands of readers. The fact that many of them are conservatives (but not all; one of the prime movers is an editor at The Nation) has no relevance; who even knows what politics the creators of E-Bay or Amazon have. This isn't a liberal or conservative idea; it's the future.

Noel Gallagher?
Bono, on Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin:

When told recently that Martin would eventually like to take U2's place, Bono seemed flattered. "Well, they may be the ones to do it," he said. "They have the legs to go a long way if they keep their concentration. Chris is a songwriter in the high British line of Paul McCartney and Ray Davies and Noel Gallagher.

I assume the Gallagher reference is Bono's little joke, like a baseball manager saying that "Milton Bradley is in the high line of great power hitters, of Henry Aaron and Ted Williams and Willie Aikens."

Anyways, what is with Robert Hilburn's obsession with British rock groups? At least three times a year, the LA Times rock critic will hype some Brit (ie., The Jesus and Mary Chain, Blur, Prodigy, Coldplay, etc.) as being the next Great White Hope, the group or singer that will reestablish British hegemony over the pop music scene in America, and end the collective slump that nation has had since the mid-80's. It's become as boring as his biannual column debating which '70's icon belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and, surprise, surprise, the predicted British Invasion never seems to take root much beyond the teenagers of Pacific Palisades or Rolling Hills Estates. Hilburn reminds me of the old farts in my youth who used to predict that rock 'n roll was just a passing fad, and that Big Bands were going to make a comeback, sure enough. Just give it a rest.

Blair Lied.

Something to think about when the "nuclear option" gets debated: more than half the members of the U.S. Senate won election to that body by margins greater than twenty percent of the vote, and most of the Senators who won by less than ten percent were Republicans.

Usually an overlooked tournament staffed by NHL underachievers and foreign "stars" not good enough to play in the league, the Hockey World Championships begin Saturday in Vienna with an unusually deep pool of talent. For the couple of dozen hockey fans still left, it will present a unique opportunity to watch some of the stars we knew and loved back when they still played the sport in North America.

Sith Happens: Silent Bob loves Revenge of the Sith !!

Frumpishly cute actress Maggie Gyllenhaal* is one of the select cabal of celebrities hired to blog on the upcoming Arianna Huffington website, and she's already proven her New Media bona fides by making an asinine remark about America's "responsibility" for 9/11. I can't defend the substance of her remark, which is tantamount to saying that the victims of any warcrime bear some responsibilty for their injury. What I admire, though, is the fact that when the s*** hit the fan, she didn't back down, or claim that she was misquoted, or in any way avoid responsibility for the tenor of her remarks. If she's willing to piss off a large chunk of the population by speaking her mind, and not have her site run by her publicist, the way most celebrity blogs have been, her blog might actually be worth reading.

*Class of '95, Harvard-Westlake

As I suspected, the real Gannon Scandal wasn't that he got to playact as a "reporter" in the White House, but that someone in the White House allowed him to use that dodge for other purposes. Secret Service records show that Mr. Guckert paid dozens of visits to the White House on days when there were no scheduled press briefings, and other times failed to check out after visiting, contrary to policy concerning day passes. Either the Secret Service is the world's most incompetent law enforcement agency, or Guckert was seeing somebody important.

McDiarmid Watch: Benedict XVI--Jedi or Sith? You make the call....

OK, in the alternative universe depicted on 24, there has been a massive train wreck, the kidnapping of the Secretary of Defense, a nuclear meltdown, a Downtown blackout, and the shooting down of Air Force One, and with it the near-killing of the President, all occurring within a sixteen-hour period in the greater Los Angeles Area. This comes in the wake of other recent nightmares, in which terrorists have blown a plane out of the sky, tried to assasinate a Presidential candidate, detonated a nuclear warhead in the Mojave Desert, and unleashed a deadly bioweapon in a local hotel.

Yet tonight, the villain, Habib Marwan, somehow managed to find a club just east of Downtown that was still open, with resiliant local patrons drinking, dancing, and partying like it's 1999, oblivious to the fact that several 9/11-events have once again happened in our community, all on the same day. I suppose if Bauer just tortures the club owner, we could get to the bottom of this.

This afternoon I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is said to be the largest of its type in this country. It's a two-day festival, and most of the panels I would have wanted to attend occurred yesterday, but seein' is how the NFL Draft conflicted, I would rather have followed the Odyssey of Aaron Rodgers than hear Hugh Hewitt bloviate about the Brave New World of the blogosphere (and btw, is there anything more laughable than a blogger whose motto is "Democrats must be destroyed" opining about moral deficits in his opponents; anyone who encounters the violent partisanship of his blog comes away with the clear impression that the compassionate message of Jesus Christ is not one that has left much of a mark on his life). So today was the day I visited the Kingdom of Wooden.

The Festival is spread out over the enormous campus, with much of the space devoted to a wide assortment of book publishers. There are anywhere from 10 to 15 panels going on at once, and obtaining tickets beforehand (they are free) is necessary to assure oneself of a seat, although stand-by seating is available for the early bird. There are also readings by noted authors, such as Walter Mosley, that are open to the public, as well as an assortment of stages and a food court (one served a pretty decent BBQ tri-tip). Unless you plan to walk over a mile, it is suggested that you avail yourself of the free shuttle buses from the campus parking lots. If you are unfamiliar with UCLA, you should use some of your free time to check out where your next panel is going to take place.

I managed to attend two panels. The first appealed to the former history major in me, a panel on the art of the biography, where a number of writers explained the process of creating compelling stories about historical figures as disparate as Marie Curie, J.K. Galbraith and the daughters of George III. The second panel was a discussion of whether the U.S. is making the world "safe for democracy", and, if so, whether the way we are going about doing so is the optimal method over the long haul. Held in the cavernous Royce Hall, the discussion, while enlightening, was marred by the propensity of the audience members to applaud like trained seals every time one of the panelists appealed to their prejudices, which, in this audience, were decidedly left-of-center. The beneficiary of much of the audience's love was one Amy Goodman, who co-hosts a public radio show, and who seems to have a soft spot for the former Haitian weakman leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide , who is a prime example of how the current fetishization of "democracy" by Clintonites and neo-cons alike is one limited to preserving the legitimacy of Third World elites, rather than creating just and prosperous societies.

The gabfest I really wanted to see, a discussion with Vanity Fair writer (and blogger) James Wolcott, turned out to be one of the more popular panels. I had crashed another panel, with former GE CEO Jack Welch, to hook up with a friend, the lovely, ambitious Natalie Panossian, and I figured that I accomplish the same across campus. No such luck; the stand-by line snaked around the building, and the relatively tiny auditorium where Wolcott spoke could not accomodate the high demand for seating. My loss.

Quickie TV Trivia: Who are the only two actors to have portrayed both the archvillain on Batman and the murderer on Colombo? Answer via e-mail....

Los Angeles [A] 6, Cleveland 5: First baseball game of the year, compliments of Welch pere, ended in dramatic fashion. Angels score once in the 8th, 9th and 10th innings, the winning run coming on a solo blast by Orlando Cabrera down the left field line, to overcome some uncharacteristically spotty pitching by Jarrod Washburn and some superlative defense by Indians outfielder Coco Crisp (and is that a great name or what?). Great seats, decent ballpark chow, and, most importantly, a vintage Rally Monkey comeback; also, I lost my wallet (second time in three seasons that I've had wallet problems at ballgames), only to have it quickly returned with credit cards intact, a phenomenum unlikely to occur at Chavez Ravine.

Shape of Things to Come:

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge", said the gentlemen, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentlemen, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentlemen, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy."

"Oh, I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their usual course," said Scrooge. "I am very glad to hear it."

--Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

Benedict XVI, Moral Relativist [II]:

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not, however, with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

--Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, reaching out to "Cafeteria Catholics" in 2004

Benedict XVI, Moral Relativist:

"I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offences among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower... In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1% of priests are guilty of acts of this type...The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information nor to the statistical objectivity of the facts. Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the Church. It is a logical and well-founded conclusion."

Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, December, 2002.

In case you're interested, Benedict XV was the second Pope ordained in the 20th Century, almost concurrently with the outbreak of World War I. For Catholics frustrated by JP2's "Veterans Committee" philosophy of inducting saints by the bushel, Ratzinger's forebearer beatified only three saints during his decade in the papacy, one of whom was Joan of Arc.

U.S. Not World Soccer Power: How on earth did this get past the four layers of factchecking they supposedly have at the LA Times (under "World Cup Winner")? Are we next going to see columns celebrating past NBA championships by the Clippers?

Year of the Rat: Josef Ratzinger, whose tenure as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has been characterized more by a reliance on theocratic rationalization than on theological principles (for a mind-numbing example of Ratzinger's "thinking" and his overuse of banalities and strawmen, check out the sermon he gave yesterday), has been elected Pope. Ratzinger, whose resemblance to British character acter Ian McDiarmid will no doubt be much commented on over the next month, will be known as Pope Benedict XVI.

Suffice it to say, any day in which the house organ for the MSM has NaziPundit on its cover, proclaiming her to be "Ms. Right", the voice of American Conservatism, is a very, very good day for liberals. This is the sort of adverse publicity for the other side that you just can't buy....


UPDATE: She might have a point about the cover photo! [link via WWDT]

Worried that the C of C is going to pick Ratzinger, or some other sexist reactionary as the next Pope? Well, at least he won't be as bad as some of the characters I described here two years ago.

Asshole Watch: The skinheads and chickenhawks at LGF are having a field day celebrating the death of Soros-funded socialist hatemonger Marla Ruzicka.

T.Bogg links to an attack by one of the Powerline bloggers, on some hapless college professor who wrote a column in the Christian Science Monitor about the thirtieth anniversary of the Khmer Rouge coming to power in Cambodia. The Boggster is steamed about a rather silly attempt by the co-Blogger of the Year to whitewash the crimes at the torture camp at Abu Ghraib, but what really sticks out in that post, which is entitled "A Very Sick Professor", is its pure disingenuousness:

Reader Jim Mason called my attention to this piece by Alex Hinton, a professor at Rutgers University, that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and was picked up by Real Clear Politics. Hinton warns that our government's prosecution of the war on terror is causing us to become like the Khmer Rouge, the criminals who ran Cambodia at one time. Their rule saw the mass extermination of ordinary Cambodians in the name of a crazed Communist ideology. So Hinton must have evidence that the Bush administration has killed Americans pursuant to the war on terror, right? Of course not. Nor does he present evidence that we have intentionally killed foreign terrorists in our custody -- you know, the folks who actually are trying to exterminate Americans. Hinton does point to abuses at places like Abu Graib. But it's obscene to compare the disgusting but non-lethal tactics of the rogue guards at that prison to genocide. For the most part, the reported tactics did not even involve the infliction of physical pain.

Genocide has taken place in Iraq. But the perpetrator wasn't the U.S. government, it was Saddam Hussein, the fellow our soldiers overthrew and captured. Also, while it may have escaped Professor Hinton's notice, the U.S. has brought about free and fair elections in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't recall the Cambodian analog to these shining events. Hinton, however, may think he sees one when he refers to the "era of new fanaticisms." Perhaps he regards President Bush's quest to promote democracy in the Middle East as fanaticism.

It would be nice to think that Hinton's piece represents off-the-chart lunacy. However, he's far from the only leftist to have compared Bush to Hitler -- for example, moveon.org found merit in two such amateur campaign ads. If Hitler, then why not Pol Pot? Perhaps that's what the Christian Science Monitor thought when it published the piece, a decision that further shows that Hinton's lunacy is not necessarily outside the hard left mainstream.

The hatred of folks like Hinton for the U.S. knows no discernible bounds.

Those of you who know and love Powerline can probably guess that the column in question, in fact, does absolutely nothing of the sort. Professor Hinton does not write that George Bush is just like Pol Pot, or that the war on terrorism is comparable to the Cambodian genocide of the mid-70's. Bush is not compared to Hitler in the column; the name "Hitler", in fact, is not even mentioned in the column. In fact, the tone and substance of the piece is not of Ward Churchill-style America-bashing, but of calm, reasoned historicism: an event like the "Killing Fields" does not occur in a vacuum, is not something that happens overnight, and that tragic historical events often are motivated by idealism, albeit in a fanatical, corrupted form. Hinton's point is that the best way not to travel down that slippery slope is to remember the past, and to be wary when our leaders seem to be tolerating a curtailment of our rights, a demonization of others, in the name of some higher goal.

But I guess what really irks me about that post is that it was written by a practicing lawyer. As I wrote last year in the context of the "Swift Boat Vet" fraud, perhaps the most troubling aspect behind the bloggers who were hyping the story was that so many of them were members of the bar. As an attorney, I am obligated to obey certain ethical guidelines, such as not bearing false witness, or not distorting evidence, even when I'm not representing a client. Lawyers lose their license to practice all the time because they are convicted of felonies, regardless of whether the crime had anything to do with their practice. Using their blog to smear Prof. Hinton does not seem consistent with the privileges accorded officers of the court in the practice of law.

Hopefully, the writer just had a bad day, or was sloppy in summarizing Prof. Hinton's column (Powerline seems to have had a bad month in that regard, although this is far more serious than wrongly speculating as to the authorship of the Schiavo Memo before the truth came out). There is simply no other way to justify that sort of mendacity.

One of the more provocative features of the new bankruptcy law passed by the House this afternoon is Section 106, which requires prospective debtors to seek "credit counseling" as a condition for being allowed to file a Chapter 7 petition. Credit counseling agencies are currently regulated by the states, and the new law will require the United States Trustee, a political appointee in the Justice Department, to approve any non-profit groups permitted to give credit counseling. Federal budgeting being what it is, the likelihood that the U.S. Trustee is going to be given the funds to properly regulate credit counseling agencies is almost nil, so it is more likely that the Trustee will rely on the regulatory powers (if any) currently invested by the states in determining which agencies will be approved.

So far, the states aren't doing a particularly effective job. It is unclear from the language of the bill whether bankruptcy attorneys would be permitted to affiliate with an approved agency; the petition mills that have proven such a bane to the Bankruptcy courts in California may switch business strategies when the bill goes into effect, luring prospective clients by advertising as "credit counseling agencies", then handing the case off to a bankruptcy lawyer who works next door. Moreover, the law contains a glaring exception: when a debtor can show that he was not able to receive counseling within five days of so requesting, he may go ahead and file, and seek "counseling" later. With the disproportionate number of non-English speaking filers in some states, the probability of this loophole being exploited is high.

Section 106 represents probably the biggest change from the current law, in terms of who will be permitted to file in the future (and btw, the "future" won't begin for six months: 180 days of the most spectacular, hedonistic goings-on in the history of my profession, a BK Bacchanalia, if you will). As I noted last month, the much-discussed change in financial eligibility has a loophole so broad that any changes to the current practice of bankruptcy law will be limited to the greater amount of money lawyers like myself will be able to charge. By not providing clear standards for judicial review, Congress is inviting the Bankruptcy Court to set its own; the "special circumstances" that will justify a greater than normal budget will be set judge by judge, circuit by circuit, and based on what I've heard from other local professionals, more than a few of the local judges have no intention of imposing any sort of rigid formula preferred by the credit card industry. Expect to see this issue revisited many times in the future.

For all the frothing at the mouth by the Far Right, it is increasingly becoming clear that the "Oil-for-Food Scandal" was little more than a standard kickback arrangement, typical in Arab countries and Israel, where companies had to "pay to play" with the rulers of a regime to do bidness. In other words, the sort of arrangement that Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay might be comfortable with, a global version of the K-Street Project. In fact, the successor program to "Oil for Food", the Development Fund for Iraq, has potentially billions of dollars in unaccounted-for funds, a level of corruption geometrically greater than the petty bribes involved in the Oil-for-Food Program. The "victims" of Oil-for-Food weren't the people of Iraq (after all, the end of the deal involving "food" came through), but the shareholders of companies like Exxon and Chevron, who got fleeced by yet another third world despot. It certainly does not justify abolishing the U.N.

A Snitch in Time: Perhaps the best accounting of the sad decline and utter gracelessness of Christopher Hitchens:

Hitchens might want to insist, contrarily, that although he has changed his allies, he has not changed his opinions. Unlike, say, David Horowitz, he still believes that the Cold War was an interimperial rivalry, the Vietnam War was immoral, the overthrow of Allende was infamous, and American support for Mobutu, Suharto, the Greek colonels, the Guatemalan and Salvadoran generals, the Shah of Iran, and the Israeli dispossession of Palestinians was and is indefensible. He still believes in progressive taxation; the New Deal; vigilant environmental, occupational safety, and consumer protection regulation; unions (or some form of worker self-organization); and, in general, firm and constant opposition to the very frequent efforts of the rich and their agents to grind the faces of the poor. It’s just that he now cordially despises most of the people who proclaim or advocate these things.

(snip)

Will Hitchens ever regain his balance? Near the end of his Bush endorsement, Hitchens defiantly assures us that “once you have done it”—abandoned cowardly and equivocating left-wing “isolationism” and made common cause with Republicans in their “willingness to risk a dangerous confrontation with an untenable and indefensible status quo”—there is “no going back.”

Well, it wouldn’t be easy. After heavy-handedly insulting so many political opponents, misrepresenting their positions and motives, and generally making an egregious ass of himself, it would require immense, almost inconceivable courage for Hitchens to acknowledge that he went too far; that his appreciation of the sources and dangers of Islamic terrorism was neither wholly accurate nor, to the extent it was accurate, exceptional; that he was mistaken about the purposes and likely effects of the strategy he associated himself with and preached so sulfurously; and that there is no honorable alternative to—no “relief” to be had from—the frustrations of always keeping the conventional wisdom at arm’s length and speaking up instead for principles that have as yet no powerful constituencies. But it would be right.

[link via Crooked Timber] The tendency described in the article, of a formerly left-wing writer joining forces with the Far Right over a series of issues, is one that is typical almost to the point of banality. Weathermen become chickenhawks, just as Communists became McCarthyites and pre-Civil War Abolitionists became backers of Jim Crow. They switch sides, but still don't feel obligated to use an indoor voice.

I'm not sure I buy the rationalization the writer gives for Hitchens' shift: that in order to "speed up" the long and demoralizing process needed to "make the United States an effective democracy", he chose to ally himself with the forces of power (ie., neocons). It's hard to say what exactly motivates people, but one thing that seems to characterize many on the extremes, whether on the right or left, is that they believe their true enemies aren't those on the opposite side of the political spectrum, but rather their more pragmatic cohorts. Hitchens wrote more passionately, and with greater venom, when he was attacking Clinton for adultery than he did when he accused Kissinger of war crimes. If much of the time in your formative years is spent defining yourself as being more pure and virtuous than those of us who have tried all along to work within the mainstream, it's probably easier to identify the opposite side.

What Liberal Media? A survey is released, showing that Jewish voters have gone from splitting 80-20 for the Democrats (in 1992) to 77-22 in the past election, an almost identical total to the margin Al Gore had the last time out, and what's the LA Times headline? "Bush Made Inroads Among Jewish Voters, Study Shows" !?!

Yep, gaining ground at a rate of 3% every dozen years, the GOP will finally "make enough inroads" to be competitive sometime around 2088....

Damning with effusive non-praise: I dare you to read the caption on the photo of this article and not feel an intense wave of sympathy for the subject, whose career as a film actress will officially end in sixty days.

For those of you under the age of 35 who watched the tribute to the 1985 L.A. Lakers tonight, that wizened crone who insisted on kissing each of the players after they were introduced was Dyan Cannon. She has no official connection with the team.

Bloggers of the Year: Methinks Powerline's achievement will one day merit the same degree of "respect" that The Greatest Show on Earth's Best Film Oscar has achieved. What a debacle....

Little Green Futbol(II): A pre-game attempt to offer a moment of silence in honor of the death of John Paul II was thwarted by jeering fans in Edinburgh yesterday, before the start of a game between local team "Hearts" and perennial champion Celtic, a team with a largely Catholic following based in Glasgow. After the game, several fans were arrested for their part in the booing, on the rather cryptic charge of "sectarian aggravated breach of the peace".

Michael Kinsley, contrasting the pomp and majesty of the British and American constitutions:

In the United States, we don't split the role of head of government from the role of head of state. In Britain, they do. And this is the best defense of the monarchy: People can express their love of country by adoring the queen without implying any view either way about the prime minister. This is pleasant for the queen. And it's healthy for the prime minister. Keeps him humble. Or at least humbler.

By contrast, the U.S. presidency is an ego-inflating machine. The president moves in a vast imperial cocoon, unsurpassed in grandeur since the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. (And those guys didn't get the really over-the-top stuff until they were already dead.)

It would take a level of humility incompatible with running for public office in the first place for a president not to think, "Hey, I'm a pretty cool guy." Every time George W. Bush hears "Hail to the Chief," the odds go up that some unsuspecting country is going to find itself getting democratized — with all the violence, anarchy, foreign occupation, arbitrary arrests, torture of prisoners, suppression of dissent and random deaths that word has come to imply.

Little Green Futbol: Just about every soccer league in Europe has at least one team whose fans are more interested in yelling racist chants at their team's opponents than watching a game. This unfortunate trend has caught on in Israel, where the followers of Beitar Jerusalem have become notorious for their anti-Arab chants, including one celebrating the slaughter of twenty-nine people at a mosque in 1994. Such conduct became less defensible even to some of the more extreme elements in Israeli society, however, when they targeted a national sports hero, Abbas Suwan, an Israeli Arab who scored a last-second goal two weeks ago to tie Ireland in World Cup qualifying (Israel currently leads its group, which also includes France, in a quest to play in its first World Cup since 1970).

Bill Bradley's widely-discussed prescription on what ails the Democratic Party has found at least one detractor, Mickey Kaus:

The problem, of course, is that the Democratic party's most stable institutional elements are also its most problematic elements: 1) unions; 2) the civil rights and Latino lobbies; 3) the senior lobby (AARP); 4) institutional feminists (NOW); 5) trial lawyers; 6) Iowa-caucus style "progressives;" and 7) Hollywood emoters. If a national problem could be solved without trampling on the interests of this institutional base, Democrats would have solved it in the decades when they were in power. What's left are the problems that can't be solved--even solved in accordance with liberal principles--without trampling on these liberal interest groups: competitiveness, for example, or public education, or entitlement reform. If the Dems' permanent institutional base is what gets to "develop" and "hone" the ideas to be adopted by the party's presidential nominee, then the Democrats will in perpetuity be the party of union work rules, lousy teachers, mediocre schools, protectionism, racial preferences, unafforadable entitlements, amnesty for illegals and offensive rap lyrics! That winning collection gets you, what, 35%?

I think Mr. Kaus is missing the point. Senator Bradley, in his column, is talking about a different type of entity when he refers to the "base" of the Democratic Party; not the constituent groups (AARP, NOW, NAACP, etc.) but an amalgam of think tanks, 527's, and George Soros-type philanthropists (the "base" of a pyramid), similar to the groups and individuals that helped seed the conservative resurgence after the '64 election. Bradley is not suggesting that the GOP became the majority party by relying on ideas generated from the Republican counterpoints to the groups mentioned by Kaus, such as the Moral Majority, the Right-to-Work League, the Birchers and the White Citizens Council, but from entities such as the Cato Institute and the A.E.I., which took the ideas that motivated the people in those groups and made them a better sell to an American electorate that otherwise frowned on explicit pitches to racism and lobbing nuclear warheads at the Russkies.

In short, Bradley is proposing that Democrats nurture an institutional structure for creating and selling their own "wedge issues", a liberal version of the Heritage Foundation or the CPD, generating studies and policy proposals that validate the core beliefs of the party faithful (and hopefully, maintain some academic credibility). From there, the ideas would filter up the pyramid, through the blogosphere and Air America, to Congressional staffers and lobbyists, and finally to our campaign strategists, who can use them to retake control of the country. Sounds good on paper.

Just in time for the playoffs: the Lakers have activated Vlade Divac.

Offerman Signs: You know the baseball season draws near when this story hits the wires...btw, the page for Phoebe Nicholls at IMDB.com has not updated in the past twelve months. Should I be concerned?

Well, obviously, if we are to believe MSM accounts, his Holiness did not die on April Fools Day, although all accounts continue to suggest that his death is "imminent". What happened? I posted yesterday, based on a report I saw on FOX NEWS (!!!!), then had no access to a computer the rest of the day to change, edit, alter, or do anything to correct it. Anyways, the post stays, forever an example to me and others of blogospheric hubris, a reminder not to believe anything controlled by Sir Rupert.

JOHN PAUL II DEAD: For good or ill, he was probably the most important historical figure of the last fifty years. It was he, not Gorbachev or Reagan, who was most responsible for the West's victory in the Cold War; Reagan's contributions were mainly rhetorical, and Gorbachev might not have been possible without the groundwork laid by the Pope throught Eastern Europe. But he must also bear a good deal of the responsibility for the dominancy of reactionary theological tendencies in the Church, particularly its continued support for the oppression of women and gays. There was a reason The DaVinci Code became a best-seller, and it wasn't because of the high-quality of its prose.

Alice in Crackerland: Tired of wasting your life talking to men and women who actually think for a living, in the "provincial ghettos" of the Big Apple and The City. How would you like to "overhear sophisticated lunchtime conversations about logistics management and telecom configurations," or ..."appreciate the problem-solving rigors of commercial ventures," while uncovering "...the crafts culture of stay-at-home moms." Well, then, Virginia Postrel has just the hellhole for you. [link via Alicublog]

The conventional wisdom in this town is that Jerry Buss dropped the ball, big-time, when he traded Shaq in the off-season and let Phil Jackson retire, rather than letting Kobe Bryant leave as a free agent. While Miami's emergence as the class of the Eastern Conference would seem to support that line of thinking, I think there are some problems with making Dr. Buss the scapegoat for the Lakers' downfall.

First, as anyone who saw last year's NBA Finals can attest, the Lakers were no longer a championship-caliber team before the Lakers made the trade. It was a stone-cold fluke that they even made the Finals (where have you gone, Fisher King?), and the Lakers were one miraculous Kobe Bryant trey from getting swept by the Pistons, one of the least talented champions in my lifetime. Without a draft to build on, some changes were going to be in order if the Lakers were going to do something better than remain competitive.

Second, Shaq was the obvious candidate to be moved. He is seven years older than Kobe, had a contract set to expire in another year, and he had all but disappeared in four of the five games of the NBA Finals. He was rarely in shape, often showing up for training camp morbidly obese, and then playing himself into something resembling "shape" over the course of the regular season, which usually encompassed a few weeks on the D.L. Even if he could be presumed to have two or three more seasons at the top of the league, his was clearly a stock in decline over the long haul. The salary cap meant that extending Shaq's contract and re-signing Kobe would have made it nearly impossible to sign another superstar anytime soon, which, as anyone who saw the 2003-4 NBA Finals can attest, was absolutely essential if the Lakers were going to make another title run.

So, of course, the Lakers trade their star for two younger players, neither of whom will likely start on any future Lakers champions, re-sign Kobe, and Shaq is finally motivated to get into shape before training camp, this time with a new team. The Heat have completely dominated their conference, and if they remain healthy through the playoffs, are almost a lock to make it to their first NBA Finals. The Lakers will not make the playoffs, and are now struggling to remain ahead of their Staples Center cotenants, the Clippers. Neither result could have been considered unexpected at the time the trade was announced (the biggest flop in the NBA this year isn't the Lakers, btw, it's the T-Wolves, the team with the best record in the Western Conference last year, who returned all of their stars, but have a record scarcely better than the Lakers).

But even had the Lakers held on to Shaq, managed to re-sign Kobe, and re-upped the ZenMaster for another year, it is improbable that they would be contending for another NBA title this season. Without the humiliation of being traded, I doubt Shaq would have been healthy enough to contribute the way he has to the Heat, and an injured, sub-par O'Neill would, at best, have led the Lakers to another 4 or 5 seed in the West, good enough to possibly get out of the first round, but not good enough to win the title. To Jerry Buss' credit, the Lakers aren't yet willing to settle for just being a contender.

Under current bankruptcy law, homeowners who suffer temporary setbacks, either at work or due to medical expenses, can file what is known as a Chapter 13 petition, where they can pay off the amount they've fallen behind on their mortgage over a period of time (usually between 3-5 years). It has been a remarkably successful method for some to keep their homes while rebuilding their credit, but according to this article, the new "reform" is going to sabotage Chapter 13 by giving greater priority to credit card debt, and by abolishing "cram downs", where a financially distressed debtor is allowed to reduce the amount owed on car loans to the actual depreciated value of the car, rather than the inflated (and typically usurious) amount in the original loan. The result, according to the bankruptcy judges they interviewed, will be a complete breakdown of a system that had been working quite well at enabling creditors to recover over $3 billion a year in outstanding loans.

On the other hand, foreclosure specialists are going to party like its 1999...I wonder if we're going to see something along the lines of judicial nullification when this law gets passed. Much of the proposed law, including provisions concerning the imposition of repayment plans when a debtor earns more than an arbitrary, pre-set level of income, requires a court order first, and judges maintain the discretion not to force the debtor into a repayment plan if the debtor can establish "special circumstances" that justify certain expenses. I can guarantee you that many bankruptcy judges will bend over backwards to define "special circumstances" in such a way as to permit all but the most egregious cases to remain in Chapter 7; the phrase, "special circumstances" almost begs to be given the sort of improvisation that an activist judiciary can muster.

And of course, there will be just enough pricks in the judiciary to give the term the most anally retentive definition possible; that split is exactly what will make the practice of ordinary Chapter 7 law so lucrative for specialists such as myself. The bankruptcy "reform" bill, stitched together as it was by credit card industry trolls and Federalist Society profs at non-elite law schools, with seemingly no contribution from anyone who's ever had any day-to-day experience in the trenchs, is going to become a joke the moment it goes into effect.

My sister Jen, who is currently in the Indonesian port city of Medan (150 miles NE of the epicenter), informs me that a) last night's quake was the most horrifying experience of her life, b) you could hardly tell as of this morning that a quake had struck Medan, and c) her company (Kohler) is pulling their people out of there ASAP, but not until after she's put in a few hours this afternoon interviewing some of their local reps. That, and the West is getting very preliminary casualty figures...yikes.

Reading between the lines of this poll, it would seem to me that if Mark McGwire is still receiving more than a majority of support for the Baseball Hall of Fame, after a week in which he was vilified for his refusal to rat out his former colleagues before a panel of political buffoons, he probably will capture enough support for entry when the actual vote takes place next year.

Kevin Drum has some words about the rather unusual proclivity of the President for kissing and fondling the smoothened scalps of bald men. This is a subject about which I have had plenty of first-hand experience since my fateful, alcohol-fueled decision to shave my head back in the summer of '94. When done by a woman to a man, the head squeeze carries just a hint of sexual frisson, and it's one of the true joys of follicle impairedness; when done by a man to another man, it's, well, icky and condescending.

Idiot Son Watch: In what could conceivably be the most bizarre romantic coupling in the history of man, the tabs are reporting that Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman was seen in the company of...our old friend, Saadi Ghaddafi.

Sorry about the lack of posts recently; over the last week I've had several day-long depositions in Orange County, followed by the four-day holiday I take from reality every year in mid-March. Nevertheless, my silence on the Terry Schiavo matter stems from a lack of anything knowledgeable to say about the legal, medical or ethical issues involved, rather than any crunch for time. The fact that Tom DeLay and the governing clique of texans believe that the power of the federal government should intervene on behalf of a specific individual doesn't mean that there isn't some legitimate federal interest in the issue of euthanasia, but don't hold your breath that any reasoned argument is going to get made in this environment.

Concerning the media circus the day before in the Capital, the rare example of bipartisan comity over the ever-important issue of steroid use in baseball during the 1990's is addressed with appropriate rage by Mr. Welch, here and here. Up until last week, I had little sympathy for the players who took illegal performance-enhancing drugs; I rather enjoyed the candor expressed by Jose Canseco on the subject, and I felt the Code of Silence on the issue tended to punish the players who had played by the rules. And what Dodger fan doesn't want to see Barry Bonds deflated, both literally and figuratively.

But the media reaction to Mark McGwire's refusal to name names before Congress stunned me. I tend to be sympathetic to any individual who takes on the full power of the governmnet, and his unwillingness to lie about his use of performance-enhancers (as several other ballplayers no doubt did last week) was manly and appropriate. When it comes to the rights of the accused, whether it be Rick Neuheisel, Jerry Tarkanian, Tanya Harding, or Pete Rose, sportswriters tend to be hard-boiled fascists, and McGwire's exercise of his constitutional rights before the House caused what can only be described as mock outrage. One would have thought that McGwire was covering up his role in ignoring warnings about Al Qaeda attacks in the U.S. before 9/11, or that he had made false claims about WMD's and Saddam's attempted purchase of yellowcake, or that he was gouging the taxpayers through the use of no-bid contracts in Iraq, or any of the other matters that the House committee that he testified before has still not used its subpoena power to investigate. Then again, if he had, the Bush Administration would probably be nominating him to lead the World Bank, or finding a Cabinet-level post for him to fill.

Social Security Privatization, R.I.P.: NY Times Columnist David Brooks gives the eulogy:

Having skimmed decades of private-account proposals, Republicans did not appreciate how unfamiliar this idea would seem to many people. They didn't appreciate how beloved Social Security is, and how much they would have to show they love it, too, before voters would trust them to reform it. In their efforts to create a risk-taking, dynamic society, they didn't appreciate how many people, including conservatives, value security and safety.

Furthermore, Republicans didn't really have a strategy to get their proposals through Congress. They seemed to think that if the president held enough town hall meetings around the country, they could somehow bulldoze the Democrats.

(snip)

But Republican leaders have never really developed the skills required for cross-party horse-trading. Today's Republicans emerged in response to the ideological politics of the 1960's and were forged in the anti-political populism of the 1994 revolution. These anti-political creatures of conviction find sticking to orthodoxy easier than the art of compromise.

(snip)

When Social Security reform was broached, the [Democratic] party leaders went to the F.D.R. Memorial, as if the glory days of the 1930's were the guideposts for the 21st century. Meanwhile, the party base has grown militant with rage. The Howard Dean hotheads declare that they hate the evil Republicans, making compromise seem like collaborating with Satan. The militants, bloggers and polemicists have waged a relentless pressure campaign on any moderates who might even be thinking of offering constructive ideas.

Well, I wouldn't put it that way, exactly, but it does do a heart good realizing the power progressives are beginning to exercise through the blogosphere (or almost as good, the power we are perceived to be exercising; it's interesting to note that while conservative bloggers are more content to pick off the occasional media figure who steps out of line, liberal bloggers are having much more influence at the policy level). For a political party that has been pretty devoid of ideas for a generation, the militancy decried by Pundit Brooks can more accurately be described as a movement becoming revitalized.

Code White: Joel Kotkin, on yesterday's mayoral primary in Los Angeles:

Hertzberg ran as the candidate of the city's middle class, tailoring his appeal largely to the San Fernando Valley, the city's most suburbanized area. He focused on issues like traffic, taxes, police protection, business growth, and dysfunctional schools--topics that are the chief concerns of middle-class homeowners. Yesterday Hertzberg won the bulk of these voters. The problem? Middle-class residents here may no longer have large enough ranks to elect one of their own to citywide office. This may have turned the famously energetic Hertzberg into the little engine that could not climb the demographic hill. Whatever the merits of the candidates in this particular election, one thing is clear: The underlying demographic factors that doomed Hertzberg's campaign spell bad news for Los Angeles, and for the American city in general.(emphasis mine)

Now, I favored Bob Hertzberg in yesterday's race, and I would have voted for him if I hadn't been in a two-and-a-half hour traffic snarl from Costa Mesa to the Valley last night. He had fresh, provocative ideas, and came within an eyelash of knocking an incumbent mayor out of the runoff (also, in the interest of full disclosure, he used to work for my father back in the day). But the inference in that piece, that "middle-class" voters in Los Angeles were unable to elect "one of their own", thanks, no doubt, to the nefarious "special interest groups" who backed Antonio Villaraigosa and James Hahn, not only shortchanges Hertzberg's appeal, but also lays out in very stark form one of the least subtle racial hooks I've read in some time. [link via LA Observed]

And, while I'm at it, it's bogus to boot. First, the voter turnout yesterday was 30% citywide, so it's safe to say that "middle class" voters were probably disproportionately more likely to vote than, lets say, voters in South Central or Panorama City. Hertzberg's problem wasn't that the "middle class" was too small to choose the mayor of Los Angeles, but that he didn't do particularly well with the significant segment of voters who wouldn't be considered "middle class" in Kotkin's analysis.

Second, although it's only a point of semantics, the notion that Bob Hertzberg can be considered one of the "middle class" is a bit of stretch. Hertzberg is a prominent attorney, and himself the son of a prominent attorney. I'm speculating, of course, having no access to any statements of personal net worth, but I'd be willing to stick my neck out a little and guess that, as a prime shaker in a boutique law firm, he probably had an annual income well into the six, maybe even seven, figures. He lives in Encino, one of the wealthiest communities on the planet, Sherman Oaks, a block away from me (me stupid!), and hardly a hub of true middle class sentiment.

Lastly, Kotkin's underlying point, that Hertzberg was the candidate of the "middle class", was belied by the exit polls. According to the city's paper of record, the frontrunner, Villaraigosa, captured 31% of voters earning between $60-100,000 (as opposed to 27% for Hahn, and 21% for Hertzberg), 32% of voters earning between $40-60,000 (vs. 23% for Hertzberg and 22% for Hahn), and 35% of voters earning between $20-40,000 (vs. 28% for Hahn and 16% for Hertzberg); those groups encompassed 64% of the electorate. Only among voters earning in the six figure and above range (26% of the electorate) did Hertzberg surpass Villaraigosa, but even there the margin wasn't that wide (37% to 28%). He also decisively won the East San Fernando Valley, where a large proportion of middle income homeowners actually live. Hertzberg remained competitive by leading in the West Valley and splitting the Westside with his rivals, two of the richest areas in town, but bombing everywhere else.

In other words, the mythical "middle class" voter Kotkin speaks of exists only in the form of a stereotype, the white suburban homeowner. Although the demographic trend he refers to may indeed be happening, whether it represents bad news for this area is another question entirely. If anything, yesterday's election may signify the development of a different type of middle class voter, the non-white Angeleno, which as a voting bloc provided Villaraigosa with the base of his support. Suffice it to say I have not heard anything that would lead me to believe that the emergence of a Latino or African-American middle class is "bad news" for Los Angeles, even if it displaces the "middle class" so near and dear to Kotkin's heart.

No matter how many "democracies" spring up from the ashes of U.S. aggression in the Middle East, it will never justify our decision to have gone to war in the first place. Period. End of story.

Why is this such a difficult concept to understand? One can applaud the emergence of free elections, opposition parties, even a respect for civil liberties, in the Middle East, and encourage the Bush Administration to live up to the President's rhetoric in his Second Inaugural, and still say "never again" to the mendacity that led us into the war in the first place, or the incompetence that followed. Anyone who has studied history knows that remarkable events often follow in the aftermath of a war, events that may not have been contemplated at the time war started, or which may have had nothing to do with the causus belli, but which are still, in the context of the development of mankind and civilization, quite positive.

For example, the following occurred, either directly or indirectly, because of World War II: the decolonization of the Third World; the end of legalized segregation in the U.S.; the emancipation of women in the U.S. and Europe; the ideological discrediting of racialist and anti-Semitic thinking; the "democratization" of higher education, thanks to the GI Bill of Rights; the establishment of the state of Israel; the emergence of the U.S. as the preeminent industrial power in the world (and with it, the end of the Great Depression); the creation of international bodies of government, such as the U.N.; the development of the computer; and the beginnings of space travel. Without the war, each of those developments would have occurred more slowly, or might not have occurred at all, at least in the way they ultimately did. And those are all good things, but it doesn't mean Hitler was justified in invading Poland, or that the bombings of Dresden or Nagasaki were morally validated.

Riviera Update: With S256, the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005", aka the "Loan Sharking Bill of Rights", aka the "Full-Employment Act for Bankruptcy Counsel", hours from passage by Congress, I would be remiss if I didn't point out my favorite plum in the entire law. Section 1501(a) suspends the effective date of the law for 180 days from the date of passage. Ostensibly to give the courts sufficient time to formulate new procedures and forms for the new law, this elegant little valentine will enable, shall we say, the more dedicated consumer advocates within the bankruptcy bar to advertise from now until September about the importance of filing before the new law goes into effect. Sssssssweeeeeet...just what the doctor ordered for the economy !!

This is another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences at work. Just as the movement to thwart tort actions against Big Business has led instead to the filing of more frivolous lawsuits, and our efforts to fight terrorism have led to more terrorists, so too will this grand attempt to make it harder to file bankruptcy lead instead to more bankruptcy filings. Whatever you might say about Her, God does have a wicked sense of humor.

UPDATE: Oops, my bad--according to CNN, the House isn't set to take up the Senate bill until next month. Expect to see those "Last Chance to File" ads running through the end of October.

Contrasting takes on the bankruptcy "reform" measure from the right, by Instapundit and Volokh Conspiracy. The Volokh poster links to a letter sent by the rapidly diminished "Blue Dog Democrats" (one of George Bush's greatest achievements has been the discrediting of "Luxury Box" Democrats the "Blue Dogs" symbolize, both philosophically and, more importantly, at the polls) to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, giving him their uncritical support for the Republican bill. Among the signatories: Harold Ford Jr. (a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate unless he chickens out again, and who rather ironically notes on his website, "[I]n this new century, America is confronting challenges on many fronts. Our generation has been called upon to fight terrorism, defend our homeland, and expand democracy abroad. At the same time, too many Americans do not have access to good jobs, first-rate education, or quality health care. These are urgent challenges, but there is no doubt America can meet them. We must rise to the task without passing on the burden and the debt to future generations"), Jim Cooper (whose fifth column efforts to sabotage the Clinton Health Care proposal led to the party's minority status in both houses of Congress for the past ten years), and Californians Jane Harman, Joe Baca, Ellen Tauscher and Jim Costa, whose interest in representing less affluent constituents may be tempered by the fact that the 2001 reapportionment has given them safe seats.