Més que -- un blog 
July 14, 2007
July 13, 2007
Sorry, Mr. Nyhan, but after all the stonewalling, lies, and claims of "executive privilege," the burden of proof over any accusation is on George Bush, not Josh Marshall. There are things the President can do and say in this instance that would indicate he was never involved in the leaking of a covert CIA agent's name, and that, in both word and deed, he opposed the actions of that cabal of executive office staffers who conspired to out Valerie Plame. He has not done so. Do the math.
As sentient human beings, we are not obligated to adhere to the same standards of proof on this issue that a juror would. We don't need proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Just a hunch will do, and when our gut has told us in the past that the Bushies were up to no good, it was almost always correct.
As sentient human beings, we are not obligated to adhere to the same standards of proof on this issue that a juror would. We don't need proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Just a hunch will do, and when our gut has told us in the past that the Bushies were up to no good, it was almost always correct.
July 12, 2007
July 11, 2007
One of the most unbelievable comebacks in rock history is at hand: Roky Erickson (of 13th Floor Elevators fame) is touring again, and will play his hometown of Austin this Friday, which is his 60th birthday. He earlier played the Coachella Festival last February. Here's a vintage clip of the man who "invented" acid rock:
Obstruction of Justice? Harriet Miers' likely non-appearance before Congress tomorrow, at the behest of the White House, may provide both the legal rationale and the political motivation to begin impeachment proceedings against the President and Vice President. The public already backs removing Cheney from office, and it wouldn't be hard to convince a third of the GOP contingent in the Senate to abandon him; I wonder if this open defiance of a subpoena will break the damn concerning Bush as well.
July 10, 2007
Indiginous People of Peace: A lot of people are having fun with this ridiculous Michael Fumento post, complaining about how Hollywood doesn't scare up enough wartime bigotry they way it did in the 40's. In particular, his observation that in the recent Die Hard sequel, the FBI ally of John McLane "looks decidedly Arabic," is generating quite a bit of scorn from those whose anti-Islamafascism is decidedly on the muted side.
In fact, the character he is referring to, "Bowman," is played by Cliff Curtis, a thirty-nine year old actor from New Zealand. Curtis has done several major American films, but is best known for his work in movies like Whale Rider, The Piano, and Once Were Warriors. That's right: Curtis is from that hotbed of revolutionary jihad, the noble defenders of the Caliphate, the Maoris. Never mind the chador or the burqa, maybe we should outlaw the haka. Lomu Akbar !!!
UPDATE: Fumento's response is even lamer. He's no racist, he claims, because:
In fact, the character he is referring to, "Bowman," is played by Cliff Curtis, a thirty-nine year old actor from New Zealand. Curtis has done several major American films, but is best known for his work in movies like Whale Rider, The Piano, and Once Were Warriors. That's right: Curtis is from that hotbed of revolutionary jihad, the noble defenders of the Caliphate, the Maoris. Never mind the chador or the burqa, maybe we should outlaw the haka. Lomu Akbar !!!
UPDATE: Fumento's response is even lamer. He's no racist, he claims, because:
1. How my saying he looked Arabic has anything to do with racism is unexplained.If Arabs are white like him and I, and the actor in question is a dark-skinned Maori, how does that make the character look "decidedly Arabic"?
2. Arabs are Caucasian. That's my race.
3. The actor is an aborigine descendant, hence his dark skin. He actually PLAYED an Arab in the movie Three Kings.
July 09, 2007
Three of the smarter lights of the blogosphere, Susie Madrak, James Joyner, and Marc Danziger, debate the best way to make blogging something more than a rich man's hobby. Danziger, I think, has the better of the argument; until we figure out a way to allow the individual blogger to get a piece of the action the Queen Beez of the blogosphere are getting, regardless of ideology, it is fruitless expecting assistance to come from ideologically sympathetic cohorts.
I suspect this is going to be a recurring issue, what with three major bloggers (Cathy Seipp, Steve Gilliard and now Jim Capozzola) dying in the past three months of natural causes, all before reaching their fiftieth birthday. Most successful bloggers are able to devote the time and hours necessary to pimping their site and reaching a large audience without having to worry about the mundane folly of "making a living." That is because most bloggers fall into one of a few categories, which I list in order of their non-precariousness: wealthy people with a lot of free time on their hands; lawyers; people whose job it is to be near a computer terminal all day; college professors and students; people who get paid to write for a living; and, most precarious of all, political activists, both actual and wannabe.
When political blogging first started to make headway in our culture, the major players were disproportionately from the world of journalism, academia and computers. Blogging supplemented their real world jobs, and if financial insecurity began to rear its ugly head, their on-line hobby complemented what they did for a living. Eventually, when the ease of creating your own website combined with the narcissistic pleasure of having your opinions thrust on the world became apparent to more and more, the blogosphere began to include greater numbers of people, like myself, who loved to write and had either the free time or the inclination to devote several hours a day to their blog. Some of us had the money to subsidize this hobby, but many did not.
Increasingly, perhaps inspired by the success of Daily Kos and MyDD, we are seeing more and more bloggers emerge from the latter category of would-be political activists. Madrak's complaint, as I see it, is that people who work their asses off getting Democrats elected to office should reap some of the material benefits of that success, and that blog readers should be less passive when it comes to helping the scribes who toil away for hours fighting for the better tomorrow. To those bloggers, their website isn't a hobby, it's their calling, and it is difficult to appreciate the amount of time that goes into creating a high-traffic blog.
It is an unfortunate reality that the very power of the blogosphere, that it includes so many different and disparate voices, is the one thing that will keep the Susie Madraks of the world impoverished, at least for the time being. None of us, not Kos nor Prof. Black nor Ms. Madrak nor Digby, nor, especially, myself, is irreplaceable. We may each have a unique voice, but the blogosphere as a whole generates hundreds of new "unique voices" each day, and any political entity, whether it be the Democratic Party or Move On, can always find a different Unique Voice to raise funds or encourage activism online. Since we are fungible commodities, we aren't marketable to them. Our supply greatly exceeds their demand.
So the only solution is not ideological, but structural. Until bloggers can find a way to profit from the Long Tail (and until a "Long Tail" actually emerges from the wake of the Queen Beez at the top, like Kos and Instapundit), blogging will remain an activity for hobbyists with lots of time on their hands, and for those would-be activists with not a second to spare.
I suspect this is going to be a recurring issue, what with three major bloggers (Cathy Seipp, Steve Gilliard and now Jim Capozzola) dying in the past three months of natural causes, all before reaching their fiftieth birthday. Most successful bloggers are able to devote the time and hours necessary to pimping their site and reaching a large audience without having to worry about the mundane folly of "making a living." That is because most bloggers fall into one of a few categories, which I list in order of their non-precariousness: wealthy people with a lot of free time on their hands; lawyers; people whose job it is to be near a computer terminal all day; college professors and students; people who get paid to write for a living; and, most precarious of all, political activists, both actual and wannabe.
When political blogging first started to make headway in our culture, the major players were disproportionately from the world of journalism, academia and computers. Blogging supplemented their real world jobs, and if financial insecurity began to rear its ugly head, their on-line hobby complemented what they did for a living. Eventually, when the ease of creating your own website combined with the narcissistic pleasure of having your opinions thrust on the world became apparent to more and more, the blogosphere began to include greater numbers of people, like myself, who loved to write and had either the free time or the inclination to devote several hours a day to their blog. Some of us had the money to subsidize this hobby, but many did not.
Increasingly, perhaps inspired by the success of Daily Kos and MyDD, we are seeing more and more bloggers emerge from the latter category of would-be political activists. Madrak's complaint, as I see it, is that people who work their asses off getting Democrats elected to office should reap some of the material benefits of that success, and that blog readers should be less passive when it comes to helping the scribes who toil away for hours fighting for the better tomorrow. To those bloggers, their website isn't a hobby, it's their calling, and it is difficult to appreciate the amount of time that goes into creating a high-traffic blog.
It is an unfortunate reality that the very power of the blogosphere, that it includes so many different and disparate voices, is the one thing that will keep the Susie Madraks of the world impoverished, at least for the time being. None of us, not Kos nor Prof. Black nor Ms. Madrak nor Digby, nor, especially, myself, is irreplaceable. We may each have a unique voice, but the blogosphere as a whole generates hundreds of new "unique voices" each day, and any political entity, whether it be the Democratic Party or Move On, can always find a different Unique Voice to raise funds or encourage activism online. Since we are fungible commodities, we aren't marketable to them. Our supply greatly exceeds their demand.
So the only solution is not ideological, but structural. Until bloggers can find a way to profit from the Long Tail (and until a "Long Tail" actually emerges from the wake of the Queen Beez at the top, like Kos and Instapundit), blogging will remain an activity for hobbyists with lots of time on their hands, and for those would-be activists with not a second to spare.
More good stuff from The Terrorist's Dictionary:
commute - verbAnd from earlier this month:
To correct the misapplication of sentencing guidelines to the ruling class.
oppo research - noun
Abbr. "Opposition research." Training for civil service.
July 08, 2007
The Story the past few days in Los Angeles has been the revelation that our mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, has been carrying on an affair out of wedlock with a local TV reporter, Mirthala Salinas. California being a state in which being a marital miscreant is not only not a barrier to high elected office, but practically a necessary credential (ie., Reagan, Unruh, Feinstein, Schwarzenegger, and the last two mayors of San Francisco, just to name a few), it doesn’t appear likely that this will hinder Villaraigosa’s long-term political ambitions.
But a more telling question is whether “sex scandals” have ever been as crippling to a politician as has been assumed. We needn’t look at recent examples involving Gov. Schwarzenegger and President Clinton to indicate the public’s tolerance for a potential leader’s betrayal of his marital vows; even in the 19th Century, the public was willing to set aside rumor and conjecture in electing men to the highest office. Thomas Jefferson’s alleged relationship with a slave, Sally Hemings, was not something dug up by recent scholars: it was first aired publicly in 1802, and although Jefferson never publicly denied the charge, he easily won reelection two years later. Andrew Jackson won two terms as President, even though he was involved in a bigamous relationship with his wife, a fact the voters were well aware of (as well as the fact that he had killed a man in a dual over that fact) when he ran for office. Most famously, Grover Cleveland twice won election to the Presidency after it had become known that he had fathered a child out of wedlock.
For a time, it was thought that divorce would prove to be debilitating to a politician’s career, after Adlai Stevenson and Nelson Rockefeller fell short in their bids to be President. But considering that Stevenson’s best region in his two defeats to Eisenhower was the Bible Belt, and that Rockefeller’s defeats in 1964 and 1968 had more to do with his being unwilling (and unable) to court his party’s base on a host of other issues, that factor was overstated even then. It is safe to say that Ronald Reagan’s divorce and subsequent remarriage clearly didn’t upset his party’s base, and even as the Rove Machine was throwing every bit of garbage at John Kerry last time, the fact that he had been divorced did not play a perceptible role in the last election.
Nor is there any evidence to suggest, as the LA Times editorial page did last week, that Democrats tend to be judged more harshly by the voters than Republicans. Besides Bill Clinton, who won terms as President in spite of almost continuous frenzied speculation concerning whom he was sleeping with, and whose approval ratings went up every time a new allegation was made, other Democrats, including Barney Franks and the late Gerry Studds, have also been able to weather the media storm even when the allegations concern homosexuality. By itself, sexual indiscretions by male politicians have never been anything but background noise, important only to those people who didn’t like the politician in the first place.
Even the examples the Times raised only prove the rule. Gary Hart’s popularity went through the roof after it was revealed that a reporter tailed him while investigating his private life; had he stayed in the race, he would probably have been the Democratic nominee in 1988. Henry Cisneros survived the initial revelation of his affair with a staffer in 1989, and was strong enough politically to get confirmed as Clinton’s first Secretary of H.U.D.. His troubles happened not because of an affair, but because he lied to FBI agents years later about the amount of hush money he had paid the former mistress. And Gary Condit’s troubles stemmed not from the fact that he had an affair with Chandra Levy, but from the fact that he many had suspected him of being her killer.
More to the point, it can well be argued that far from hurting political careers, the perception that a male politician is getting some on the side may well be beneficial, particularly for liberal Democrats, as long as the proper pieties are spoken and the acts of contrition seem genuine. Nothing reinforces the perception of the Alpha Male more than the belief that the dude in question is a Sex Machine, and when a political leader whose public principles include compassion for the underclass and support for women’s rights is also perceived as being a ruthless Don Juan to the ladies, any undercurrents that he might not be “man” enough for the job dissipate. And should the media see fit to expose that aspect of his character, the public will invariably rally around the politician, defending his right to privacy, while subconsciously cheering him on. For a liberal Democrat, it's a no-lose situation, a fact that the Mayor probably knew when he preemptively announced his adulterous relationship this week.
When Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy at a 1962 fundraiser, there probably wasn’t a person in the room who didn’t have some idea that the two were an item, and the later revelations about JFK’s betrayal of his marital vows do not seem to have appreciably damaged his public standing, where he remains one of our most popular Presidents in history. If Villaraigosa goes down in flames, it won’t be because he’s been sleeping with beautiful TV reporters, but because some other scandal gets him first.
But a more telling question is whether “sex scandals” have ever been as crippling to a politician as has been assumed. We needn’t look at recent examples involving Gov. Schwarzenegger and President Clinton to indicate the public’s tolerance for a potential leader’s betrayal of his marital vows; even in the 19th Century, the public was willing to set aside rumor and conjecture in electing men to the highest office. Thomas Jefferson’s alleged relationship with a slave, Sally Hemings, was not something dug up by recent scholars: it was first aired publicly in 1802, and although Jefferson never publicly denied the charge, he easily won reelection two years later. Andrew Jackson won two terms as President, even though he was involved in a bigamous relationship with his wife, a fact the voters were well aware of (as well as the fact that he had killed a man in a dual over that fact) when he ran for office. Most famously, Grover Cleveland twice won election to the Presidency after it had become known that he had fathered a child out of wedlock.
For a time, it was thought that divorce would prove to be debilitating to a politician’s career, after Adlai Stevenson and Nelson Rockefeller fell short in their bids to be President. But considering that Stevenson’s best region in his two defeats to Eisenhower was the Bible Belt, and that Rockefeller’s defeats in 1964 and 1968 had more to do with his being unwilling (and unable) to court his party’s base on a host of other issues, that factor was overstated even then. It is safe to say that Ronald Reagan’s divorce and subsequent remarriage clearly didn’t upset his party’s base, and even as the Rove Machine was throwing every bit of garbage at John Kerry last time, the fact that he had been divorced did not play a perceptible role in the last election.
Nor is there any evidence to suggest, as the LA Times editorial page did last week, that Democrats tend to be judged more harshly by the voters than Republicans. Besides Bill Clinton, who won terms as President in spite of almost continuous frenzied speculation concerning whom he was sleeping with, and whose approval ratings went up every time a new allegation was made, other Democrats, including Barney Franks and the late Gerry Studds, have also been able to weather the media storm even when the allegations concern homosexuality. By itself, sexual indiscretions by male politicians have never been anything but background noise, important only to those people who didn’t like the politician in the first place.
Even the examples the Times raised only prove the rule. Gary Hart’s popularity went through the roof after it was revealed that a reporter tailed him while investigating his private life; had he stayed in the race, he would probably have been the Democratic nominee in 1988. Henry Cisneros survived the initial revelation of his affair with a staffer in 1989, and was strong enough politically to get confirmed as Clinton’s first Secretary of H.U.D.. His troubles happened not because of an affair, but because he lied to FBI agents years later about the amount of hush money he had paid the former mistress. And Gary Condit’s troubles stemmed not from the fact that he had an affair with Chandra Levy, but from the fact that he many had suspected him of being her killer.
More to the point, it can well be argued that far from hurting political careers, the perception that a male politician is getting some on the side may well be beneficial, particularly for liberal Democrats, as long as the proper pieties are spoken and the acts of contrition seem genuine. Nothing reinforces the perception of the Alpha Male more than the belief that the dude in question is a Sex Machine, and when a political leader whose public principles include compassion for the underclass and support for women’s rights is also perceived as being a ruthless Don Juan to the ladies, any undercurrents that he might not be “man” enough for the job dissipate. And should the media see fit to expose that aspect of his character, the public will invariably rally around the politician, defending his right to privacy, while subconsciously cheering him on. For a liberal Democrat, it's a no-lose situation, a fact that the Mayor probably knew when he preemptively announced his adulterous relationship this week.
When Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy at a 1962 fundraiser, there probably wasn’t a person in the room who didn’t have some idea that the two were an item, and the later revelations about JFK’s betrayal of his marital vows do not seem to have appreciably damaged his public standing, where he remains one of our most popular Presidents in history. If Villaraigosa goes down in flames, it won’t be because he’s been sleeping with beautiful TV reporters, but because some other scandal gets him first.
July 04, 2007
A perspective on the Libby commutation:
Keep in mind that Scooter Libby would undoubtedly have served his time at a minimum security facility. I have visited the federal minimum security prison at Lompoc, California, and while it’s not a “country club,” it’s not what most people think of when they think of “prison,” either. Most of the prison is outside. There are no walls or fences; you could simply walk out of prison if you wished. (Prisoners don’t, typically, because the consequences of getting caught include a transfer to the maximum security facility.) Inmates play softball, milk cows, and sleep in dormitory-style accomodations. I’m not saying it looks like a fun life, because it doesn’t. But it’s not 23 hours a day locked in a jail cell with someone named Bubba.--Patterico
In California, misdemeanor defendants face mandatory jail time for repeat offenses of driving on a suspended license — one of the lowest-level crimes on the books. And they go to L.A. County Jail — a far less pleasant place than minimum security federal prison.
Paris Hilton went to jail. Scooter Libby couldn’t serve even one day?
July 03, 2007
When I first started blogging (a little over five years ago), there weren't a lot of ideological cohorts of mine doing this newfangled medium, so what few of us there were had to take great pains to get noticed, network, etc. The first person who ever saw fit to contact me and offer encouraging words was a blogger from back east named Jim Capozzola, whose blog, The Rittenhouse Review, was an early fave. In particular, I remember that when Blogger began putting rather tacky-looking ads at the top, he made a small contribution toward removing it, a decent, generous act by someone who never met me, done at a time when I considered getting 40 visitors a day to be an avalanche.
If you wrote something he liked, he would link to you, and plug you for a week. If you praised something he wrote, he would e-mail the most profuse thank you note by the end of the day. He had an impeccable sense of fairness and decency, was wicked funny, and had a vast catalog of interests, so it was quite a loss when he started blogging less and less over the past few years. About a month ago, I e-mailed him, asking how he was doing, wondering if like so many other early bloggers, he was distancing himself from the monster the blogosphere had become.
Today comes word that Jim Capozzola passed away last night. As it turns out, I wasn't the only person touched by his generosity of spirit; Susie Madrak, who lives in the same city (Philadelphia), also had her Blogger ad removed, courtesy of the Baron of Rittenhouse Square, and has a detailed obit of her friend, here.
If you wrote something he liked, he would link to you, and plug you for a week. If you praised something he wrote, he would e-mail the most profuse thank you note by the end of the day. He had an impeccable sense of fairness and decency, was wicked funny, and had a vast catalog of interests, so it was quite a loss when he started blogging less and less over the past few years. About a month ago, I e-mailed him, asking how he was doing, wondering if like so many other early bloggers, he was distancing himself from the monster the blogosphere had become.
Today comes word that Jim Capozzola passed away last night. As it turns out, I wasn't the only person touched by his generosity of spirit; Susie Madrak, who lives in the same city (Philadelphia), also had her Blogger ad removed, courtesy of the Baron of Rittenhouse Square, and has a detailed obit of her friend, here.
July 02, 2007
It must be obvious by now that the judicial branch of government is powerless to rein in this Adminstration. With the exception of his father, no President in a century has pardoned fewer people in office* than this one; no two-term President has granted as few clemency actions since Thomas Jefferson, who presided over a country about a twentieth its current size. Yet like his father, when he finally decides to wield one of the few powers for which the Constitution actually does give him absolute authority, he doles it out to his cronies and loyalists, not to the deserving.
If there was any doubt that these guys could give a rat's ass about upholding the law, the events of today should put it to rest. Congress must either initiate impeachment proceedings, at the very least against Dick Cheney, or it should formally pass a resolution saying that it doesn't intend to do a goddamn thing about executive branch lawlessness.
*And that one was James Garfield, who was assasinated only four months into his term.
If there was any doubt that these guys could give a rat's ass about upholding the law, the events of today should put it to rest. Congress must either initiate impeachment proceedings, at the very least against Dick Cheney, or it should formally pass a resolution saying that it doesn't intend to do a goddamn thing about executive branch lawlessness.
*And that one was James Garfield, who was assasinated only four months into his term.
July 01, 2007
It wouldn't be a baseball season at Smythe's World without at least one reference to the whereabouts of my all-time favorite player, Jose Offerman. This year, it's Long Island, where he has returned to the league which gave him succor during the 2003 and 2006 seasons, the Atlantic League, His teammates on the Ducks include Carl "Jurassic" Everett, Pete Rose Jr., Donovan Osbourne, Edgardo Alphonso, and other former alums of the Show. He's hitting a healthy .317 and four home runs for his division-leading team (to put that number in context, Rose is hitting .360 with six homers, Everett .284 with 10 knocks, and Alphonso an anemic .264 with three home runs). Hey, it's baseball, so don't knock it.
For a jawdropping example of Rudy Giuliani's complete unfitness for the White House, check out this passage from a recent interview, concerning the "surge":
And you would give Petraeus all the time he needs?"...or whatever"? [link via Josh Marshall]
Sure, if I thought he was right. I had a similar, on a lesser scale, issue with the police department or the fire department or whatever. If No. 1, that's General Petraeus's advice; if No. 2, you believe it's the right evaluation of the situation, which I guess the administration is going to get some separate views on this--which is a good thing--but if they come to the conclusion that he does need a year or two more, and it makes sense to invest in that, then the political part of that comes second, and that's what you have to explain to the American people.
June 30, 2007
Boom. Discovering the joys of deep thinking, a blogger goes beyond the vapidity of "Wankers" and "Wheeeeeee !!!," in commenting on this morning's non-story about a car-bomb attempt in Great Britain:
My main beef remains that much of the cable news media reacts to this nonsense like a fifty year old guy on Viagra or Cialis--they pop major wood. And the same warnings are appropriate--an erection lasting more than four hours may be harmful. Amen.--Atrios. That's probably the best analogy I've heard for the cable news phenomenum of providing saturation coverage of the non-story, whether it be "terrorist plots" or "kidnapped teens." Is there any better description for the CNN/FoxNews treatment of Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan than that they "pop major wood" when those teen vixens appear, or that such stories can become harmful to the public after four hours of exposure? Anyways, read the whole thing....
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