Killing Sparrows with Howlitzers: Easily the worst contribution the blogosphere has made to our culture has been its obsessive media bashing. Fact checking and exposing the latent biases of the Beltway Punditocracy is cool and all that, but do we really need essay-length jeremiads about how Thomas Edsall is completely, totally, massively stupid for stating that David Broder is the "Voice of the People.," as if that's what he literally meant. It's fine and dandy to "work the ref" in service of a higher ideological end, but even Bobby Knight does some real coaching on the side.

I always thought the "Oil-for-Food Scandal" was one that was hyped by the right wing to provide an ex post facto rationalization for their little adventure in Iraq, but little did I know that the real scandal was "Oil-for-Rice."

The oft-excellent Avedon Carol has a good post tying together Girls Gone Wild, predatory student loan practices, and Justice Kennedy's recent decision on late-term abortions, that's worth reading.

Like many other conservatives, Mickey Kaus has made a bugbear out of teachers' unions, without providing much in the way of support for why he feels breaking the union will bring about a paradise on earth for those concerned about education. Matthew Yglesias calls his bluff, and Kaus, rather than putting up, instead refers people to a blog called Eduwonk, which from my brief review seems to blame much of the woes of our educational system on the quality of teachers, but while critical of the unions, doesn't seem to provide much in the way of evidence that the union representing teachers is responsible for the quality shortfall or any other defects in our educational system.

I probably have more close friends who are public school teachers than I have lawyer pals, so what I write is clearly anecdotal, but from what I have seen, they work 24-7 at their jobs. There may have been a time when teachers everywhere earned poverty-level incomes, and the only people who could possible want the jobs were either affluent zealots who felt they had a calling or those who weren't bright enough to get into graduate school, but that isn't really true anymore, in large part thanks to the economic gains the unions have helped teachers make. Insofar as I've seen no evidence that the educational system is better in states where there are no collective bargaining entities negotiating teacher pay and working conditions, I fail to see how "busting" the unions will solve all of the problems.

Moreover, it would seem that the public is somewhat disinclined to blame the teachers for the perceived failings of the educational system. The favorite conservative policy, school vouchers, has been poorly received whenever it's appeared on the ballot, even though there's always some deep pocket ready to finance any initiative that would hurt teachers' unions. It's hard to see how vouchers constitute a "solution," in any event, since the public will inevitably demand that the tax dollars going to private schools be supervised, most likely by the same bureaucrats who run the public schools (it also raises the obvious question that if private or parochial schools are doing so well, why do they need vouchers in the first place?).

This seems to be an old argument, anyway. Was there ever such an Edenic Age when the public didn't think it had a problem with the educational system? You can boil down whatever gripes you might have with public schools, and toss up whatever solutions you might think are workable, and in the end, the only really important factor is whether a student is motivated to learn. That requires good teaching, to be sure, but infinitely more are the values that are stressed at home. A child who is raised to believe that a good education is important and is valued by his parent(s) will be more likely to succeed in school, no matter how rotten his teachers are and no matter how much power the unions have.

Who said Free Trade doesn't benefit everyone:

This article is a few years old, but I thought it worth sharing: it's the story of William Zantzinger, one of the subjects of this song:

The Joys of Netflix: Sinking a presidential campaign is now only a mouseclick away...but lets hope the MSM is more aggressive this time than they were in 2000, when they let this story slip through the cracks.

A good example of why you should never combine drinking with blogging, here. Apparently, the writer believes that the reason the Lakers didn't win the NBA Championship this season is that Kobe is a lazy n*****.

The Netroots, in a nutshell:

The most significant fact of American political life over the last three decades is that there is a conservative movement and there has not been a liberal movement. Liberalism, to be sure, has all the component parts that conservatism has: think tanks, lobbying groups, grassroots activists, and public intellectuals. But those individual components, unlike their counterparts on the conservative side, do not see one another as formal allies and don't consciously act in concert.If you asked a Heritage Foundation fellow or an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal how his work fits into the movement, he would immediately understand that you meant the conservative movement. If you asked the same question of a Brookings Institute fellow or a New York Times editorial writer, he would have no idea what you were talking about.

The netroots have begun to change all that. Its members are intensely aware of their connection to each other and their place in relation to the Democratic Party. The word "movement" itself--once rare among mainstream liberals--is a regular feature of their discourse. They call themselves "the people-powered movement," or "the progressive movement," or, often, simply "the movement."

--Jon Chait, TNR [May 1, 2007] Chait touches on all the reasons I feel uncomfortable with "the movement," even as I appreciate the gains it has helped progressive politics make in the last few years: the tendency towards group-think and the party line, the vapid sloganeering, the disinclination to discuss (or write about) public policy, and the vilification of those with whom you disagree (and TalkLeft has a good critique of some of Chait's specific points).

Perhaps the most telling observation Chait makes is that the netroots are the mirror image of the propoganda machine that brought the right wing to power (minus, of course, a liberal version of Fox News). We forget at our peril that it isn't simply Republican policies that have damaged America, both internally and in our world standing, but also its destructive philosophy of governing and campaigning. There is nothing to prevent the Democratic Party from becoming as corrupted and discredited as the Republicans unless they repudiate the destructive behavior that has become rewarded by the system in the last twenty years. Instead, the netroots seem more inclined to emulate that behavior.

My nephew, Charles Ruderman, attended his first Dodger game last night, and it seems he had a good time...







Pics compliments of his Uncle Jimmy...the mess on his face can be blamed on the Dodgers, who beat Arizona, 2-1.

Today is the fourth anniversary of the official end to the war in Iraq, the date that America "accomplished" its "mission." Where will you be commemorating Uno de Mayo?

Kevin Drum points out something that has been obvious to me for a few years: kids today are just smarter than I was at the same age. Or, they have earned a heckuva lot more credentials in the academic sphere than I had when I got accepted to Reed College twenty-six years ago(with Berkeley as my "safety school," available when I divorced myself from all Portland ties after my freshman term). I was a B-student at Harvard High, with good-but-not-spectacular SAT's, letters in track and cross country, and special distinction ranking in forensics. My community involvement was minimal, to say the least; other than volunteering on a couple of political campaigns, there wasn't anything worth mentioning.

Today, those credentials would barely get me into a state college, at best. Of course, I would be more motivated to improve my qualifications were I a teen today, but the spectre of incurring close to a half million dollars in student loan debt might have soured my ambitions in that regard. In any event, the closest I could get to Berkeley now is watching the Golden Bears at 14-Below.

Presented, without editorial comment:



Speaking of which, last week we heard the heartbreaking news that Natalie Nelson is engaged. And not to some rich fratboy a-hole, neither, but to SC's starting center last season, who was just picked up in the second round by Carolina. Congrats to the lucky couple, and CRAP !!!

Brendan Nyhan has a good post up about the history of Republican efforts to paint anti-war efforts by the Democrats as objectively pro-terrorist and "appeasement." Since public opinion on the war has steadily and consistently moved in favor of the Democrats since the war against Iraq began back in March, 2003, it's safe to say that the rhetoric has failed. There's nothing like a failed occupation to cast hawkishness with a jaundiced eye.

We have to be very careful not to draw the wrong lessons from Iraq. Obviously, what we've learned is that diplomacy, alliance-building and multilateralism are good things, and that a true ally is sometimes the country that says no; if we had listened to Chirac's warnings, many thousands of people would be alive today, and U.S. power and influence might not be at a low ebb. But the reason why "appeasement" had such a negative connotation for so long was that a perfectly reasonable policy of negotiating with an adversary was taken to a ridiculous extreme in 1938. Appeasement hasn't always been a dirty word: it was, after all, British policy toward the United States from 1815 to 1917, and it's been American policy towards China since the mid-70's, although we don't call it that. In the aftermath of World War I, when tens of millions perished fighting a war for objectives that simply weren't worth it, it may have seemed a smart idea to be a little more careful the next time a territorially-ambitious despot came to power in Europe.

The problem, of course, was that Hitler was a madman who acted irrationally, who wanted a war with the rest of the world, and no amount of negotiations was going to appease him. Had Britain and France reacted to Hitler the same way it reacted to the Kaiser, or in the alternative, if they had appeased the Kaiser in 1914, a lot of unnecessary bloodshed could have been avoided. And America cannot be afraid of defending itself and its allies by using force in the future, just because the Bushies were so incompetent and reckless in fighting Iraq.

Schilling for Your Thoughts: It was REAL BLOOD, he insists.

Paul Begala presents a marvelous defense of the Man from Searchlight:

Mr. Broder has moved with ease from the elite comfort of the University of Chicago to the smug confines of Arlington, Virginia. And so he looks down at a man who rose from among the hard-rock miners and hard-luck hookers of Searchlight, Nevada to be the most consequential senator of his time. While David Broder was thinking great thoughts at his elite university, Harry Reid was working his way through Utah State. While David Broder was pontificating, Harry Reid was working his way through law school as a cop on Capitol Hill.

(snip)

Perhaps Broder's bed-wetting tantrum against Reid was spurred by the certain knowledge that while Harry Reid has been telling hard truths, Mr. Broder has been falling hard for transparent lies.

Whereas Reid called for Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal long ago, Broder vouched for Rummy, writing, "Overall, Rumsfeld left me with the impression that he is aware of the risks of war with Iraq, but confident they can be handled."

While Reid has called for investigations into allegations Karl Rove broke the law, Broder vouches for Rove: "Let me disclose my own bias in this matter. I like Karl Rove.... I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of [Rove's] historic cabin...." Mighty cozy in Karl's cabin, isn't it, Mr. Broder?

I doubt very seriously that Harry Reid is bothered by Broder's comments. Reid has faced down Vegas mobsters who planted a bomb in his family car. He's unlikely to be intimidated by George W. Bush's housebroken lap-dog.

The Broder column referenced above is here. Atrios would be doing us all a favor if he just retired the banal "Wanker of the Day" designation and replaced it with an "honor" based on the bootlicking sycophancy of David "He came in here and he trashed the place, and it's not his place" Broder.

Christine: Tucked away inconspicuously, on page 2 of the local sports section this morning, was perhaps the most interesting article published in the LA Times in some time, and certainly one of the most courageous ever published in a mainstream newspaper.

Is the "G" hard or soft? Best blogtitle of the day....

Rather than whine about how mean MoDo and the others are to our candidates, here's an effective counter to the "$400 Haircut" attack that Edwards should have used.

For some reason, I've always associated this performance with the Monterey Pop Festival in '67 (I believe they backed Otis Redding), even though I'm sure that it's more likely some German TV broadcast from that period. Awesome playing by all concerned: