The Smoking Room

God bless protestors

Before everything goes to hell in New York next week, protestors are providing free entertainment for our dreary little lives (well, not quite free, with increased police and security costs footed by taxpayers).

DC protests are so civil and boring. Damn them for sobriety!

Marginally famous by association

My old boss in Seattle has what I think is his first major published article, a Seattle Times op-ed on John Kerry's open courtship of the protectionist vote (in contrast to his past pro-trade record) in this campaign. It's an intelligent piece and he deserves the publicity for all the work he's put in at the think tank. When we did mailing drives - and it was just regular staff, no professional service - he would bring in taped episodes of "The Simpsons" so we wouldn't get too bored stuffing and sealing. So congratulations, Steve.

Just don't call it a blog

New York magazine has an excellent and mostly fair profile of James Taranto, the guy who turned the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web from an obscure online counterpart to WSJ's stuffy ed page into a rollicking right-wing adventure through the day's news, characters and inane headlines ("What would we do without experts?"), enjoyed by an audience around 120,000. Taranto is credited with popularizing the description of John Kerry as French-looking and making a mockery of his endless Vietnam self-publicity, and the humorous tone of the missive sets it apart from the excruciatingly serious and angry blather from a host of other conservative sites. As this article notes, Taranto is often more nuanced than critics give him credit for:

Taranto sees himself as less of a movement conservative than as someone who writes about the things that interest him. A quick tour of the Best of the Web’s pronouncements on hot-button issues paints a picture of a man who is right of center, but not extremely so. Abortion: “We favor some restrictions on abortion but not an outright ban.” Same-sex marriage: “We oppose both court-mandated same-sex marriage and the overbroad Federal Marriage Amendment.”

My biggest irritation with him was his treatment of the death of American activist Rachel Corrie, the girl from Evergreen State College in Washington who got killed by a bulldozer while she protested Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas with terrorist smuggling (Taranto repeatedly called her a "terror advocate"; I wrote to him she was just a misguided kid). And he can go a bit overboard or stretch logic too thin. But he's been damn entertaining five days a week for the past few years - even before blogging took off. Good for him. (Via MediaBistro, whose editor, a Taranto friend, is also mentioned here.)

Shock jock glocked

Just catching up with the Seattle Times and I see that shock jock Tom Leykis got his ass kicked after he left a greasy-spoon Seattle diner (the LA show broadcasts from Seattle occasionally). I can't really feel sorry for him; my first exposure to the guy was when one of my writers at PUNCH proposed doing a feature on him. He's similar to Howard Stern in the raunchy chauvinist way. Mostly he earned my ire for saying on-air that a woman blocking traffic on the Ship Canal Bridge in Seattle three years ago should jump, then when she did and someone snapped a photo, he had a caption contest for it. That's just low in my book. This is just funny:

According to Leykis and a witness with him, he was "not feeling well" when one of the alleged assailants photographed him outside the Five Point bar and went back inside to show the photo to two other men.

I don't think anyone has ever left the Five Point and its worse-than-casino-food menu feeling well. Forgive me for not being principled on civility - he got what he had coming.

Crashing the party

It's good to see that the Republicans finally gave credentials to some bloggers for the convention. Many of them are well known on the center-right/hawk side of the blogosphere, and you can read about them here. Some of them look a lot geekier than their names or writing styles suggest. Maybe that will be the next underhanded cliche: "You have a face for blogging." (Via Instapundit.)

Interview with Swift head honcho

After reading this WaPo chat interview with the head of the Swifties, I will take them more seriously. That doesn't mean I'll accept everything they say, but I believe John O'Neill gave good answers and background information on what his group intends to accomplish. Especially telling is that he has contributed substantial money to Democrats on a case-by-case basis and appears to have backup, despite press difficulty in verifying it.

Beating a dead horse

One more review of tonight's "Daily Show" before I take a hiatus from this subject. Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, was the guest. Most of the interview was very cordial; Jon Stewart and Ed treated each other with respect and good humor. Still I was a bit surprised when the talk shifted to Iraq - the GOP has a new Kerry ad here - and Jon said he agreed with John Kerry that the original Iraq resolution was intended simply as leverage against Saddam, not an actual intention to go to war. Kerry has frequently said the same to explain his vote against the $87 billion postwar, but you really have to torture the language of that resolution to make it sound diplomatic rather than militant. Forgive the chauvinism if it strikes you thus, but the different interpretations Republicans and Democrats had on the Iraq resolution remind me of the difference between men and women in interpreting relationships. Men generally hear something and take it literally, not digging deeper to find the "real" meaning, while women often hear a statement and don't take it at face value. It's a cliche that the GOP is the daddy party and the Dems the mommy party, but it seems to make sense in this context.

UPDATE: Steve just pointed out to me that Instapundit linked my previous TDS post. And yes, it's gone to my head. Third ref to myself or my blog on Instapundit, I believe.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This refers to the Kerry interview post - see Slate TV critic Dana Stevens' take on the interview:

Watching Kerry strike out was especially heartbreaking given that Stewart was pitching not just softballs but marshmallows. Puffy interview marshmallows with rainbow sprinkles on them, and Kerry was letting them sail by as if he planned to get to first base on a walk.

He was indeed a "charm vacuum," as the critic says. Somehow I missed this one:

And then, when the interview was over and Kerry rose to leave, he caused audible groans in my household by saluting the audience (just as he did at the opening of his convention speech: "John Kerry reporting for duty." Lieutenant Kerry, your first order is to stop saluting the audience. It makes you look like a total tool).

On the other hand, I could lose myself in John Edwards' dreamy eyes all day long. But that's just me and a lot of lonely housewives.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kerry going on TDS - it's the media's fault!

In the rest of the pseudo-interview, Jon Stewart stuck to his mockery of the American media, both print and television, that supports George W. Bush and relentlessly attacks Kerry.

He just can't get his message out. Millions of Americans still need to be educated in Kerry's valiant Vietnam service!

Gloating about no-names

Republicans have the lamest musical acts for every occasion. Maybe they're just hoping to get those 4 million evangelicals who didn't vote in 2000 to get to the polls this time, energized by Christian pop acts at the convention. They're never going to beat Ricky Martin playing at Bush's inauguration. (Via Wonkette.)

Blogging memories

Happy fifth birthday to Blogger, the first great blog publishing software! Media mogul Jeff Jarvis shares his memories from when he heard about blogging, met blog publishing maven Nick Denton (whose blogs include Gawker and Wonkette), and first "got it' - that blogging was not about "content," but "conversation." It changed his life, as did 9/11, after which he started blogging. Hard to believe Blogger has been around for so long - blogging is really only in its second year of public awareness, and look at how much it's changed the landscape.

A candidate for me to poop on

John Kerry will be on "The Daily Show" tonight. As this TV critic wonders, What the hell? The Kerry camp's response:

Q: Why are you having Kerry go on "The Daily Show" for his first national TV interview since Swifties for Bush went on the attack, instead of a traditional news show?

A: How would that help us?

The implication is that Kerry will get a better reception with Jon Stewart and Co. and it's probably right. Even when Kerry went on Leno months ago, he got taken down a peg by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, as this story notes. But give credit to TDS for bagging its first actual presidential nominee - they've certainly changed the dynamics of this campaign, and pissed off Ted Koppel, which counts for something. Still I'm not thrilled with the logic of TDS' producer on the Kerry veteran controversy:

"If you just want to pinpoint the success of the Republican Party and Bush, this is a perfect case study," Karlin continued, "because George W. Bush has put a moratorium on talk about his behavior under the age of 40 and everyone [in the press] is abiding by it. 'Were you or were you not an alcoholic or did you just have a drinking problem?,' 'Were you or were you not a drug abuser?' Meanwhile they're debating whether [Kerry's war] wounds drew blood or were they superficial, or occurred in the same day, or whether he shot a guy wearing a toga. . . . How is that possible?"

If Bush were running on his pre-sober past, then of course he should get questioned thoroughly. But Kerry's entire f---ing campaign has been his Vietnam service. I have no idea what he's done in Congress besides some famous drug running hearings, because he hasn't mentioned any of it. People watching the DNC convention at home who didn't know the convention schedule could be forgiven for thinking it was the GOP convention, given the primetime floor speeches. Kerry made his Vietnam service and subsequent activism the central theme of his campaign and only belatedly started an offensive on Bush's economic management. He brought in on himself. That's why it's an issue, and I wish the folks at TDS would realize that. I'm hoping for a "real" interview, but not expecting anything approaching what Kerry would get from Tim Russert. (Via Romenesko.)

UPDATE: Not sure what to say about the interview. Kerry had a few lighter moments, like his remark about people introducing themselves in the bathroom, but it was mostly the usual boring John Kerry and a few campaign lines. Giving credit where credit is due, I'll compliment Kerry for intelligent comments about moving America to a new energy policy built on innovation. But his other lines were standard liberal interest group blather devoid of context (the job-loss line is especially deceptive - see this FactCheck report). Jon Stewart as usual made a few good quips, but mostly reinforced Kerry's themes and shared his "disappointment" (you'll never hear him say "anger") over the Bush strategy on his Vietnam service. It was like Rush Limbaugh interviewing John Ashcroft. And Kerry said at least a couple questionable things that Stewart could have at least mildly contested, especially his campaign line about getting foreign troops into Iraq. Surely Jon has heard a few Middle East and European foreign policy experts say that Kerry is promising a lot more than any candidate could pull off with regard to foreign troops in Iraq. Not a peep. If any readers saw the interview and thought they heard even a slightly contrary word from Stewart on something Kerry said, leave it in the comments. I missed it completely if it happened. Stewart actually added to Kerry's case against Bush. I have trouble taking him seriously as a thoughtful commentator anymore, and I've long thought he was thoughtful. He could use some reading source diversity.

Since I'm guessing I'll get another angry comment from a progressive reader who stumbled across this blog from elsewhere, I'll add that I thought Stephen Colbert's segment on the gas station owner fighting the big oil companies was hilarious. I loved the "adorable" girl who represented the oil companies. They'd use her as a spokeswoman if they could!

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Post's TV critic follows up her preview story of the Kerry interview with a full account, including some of Stewart's better laugh lines - cars running off liposuction was great - and Kerry's odd transitions to subjects that Stewart didn't ask about. She also notes easy setups by Jon:

Kerry is the first presidential nominee to appear on "The Daily Show." Host Stewart wasted no time grilling him.

"I watch a lot of the cable news shows, so I understand that apparently you were never in Vietnam," Stewart said.

"That's what I understand, too -- I'm trying to find out what happened," Kerry joked.

Ha ha. Sorry to play the stick-up-the-ass journalist, but the controversy involves a claim that Kerry stood by until questioned in the past month about his alleged crossing into Cambodia, a neutral country during the war. It's not a trivial issue at all, unless you think Bush's confusing answers on his National Guard service were trivial. But it was a good laugh line, and the crowd loved Kerry, so whatever.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Instapundit has more on the Kerry TDS interview, including an Editor & Publisher article on Kerry's growing reticence around reporters; hence his TDS appearance. Glenn also notes that Kerry didn't answer Jon's jokey but real question about whether he was in Cambodia.

FINAL UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Take a look around if you're in the mood to expand your blog reading. I cover politics, media, pop culture fluff, technology and such, with an eye toward the humorous. Just moved to DC from Seattle, so I'm catching up with the local scene here. Incredibly shallow as I'm learning, which is fine with me!

He's gay?

So I'm in the office right now, and talking about CNN with two women in my office, and I say that I really like host Anderson Cooper (the youngish but graying evening anchor). One of them says, "Isn't he gay?" and brings up a former person in the office who said he'd been out of the closet for a while, but doesn't trumpet it. Apparently it's true. I'm not crushed by it or anything, but I just never saw it. I mean, every guy is metrosexual now. And Cooper would be a chick magnet if he were straight. As Austin Powers said about Liberace, "I didn't see that one coming!"

"Neanderthal chauvinism"

That title isn't a reference to something published in Ms. or a NOW publication - it's from an account by conservative columnist/blogger Michelle Malkin (formerly of the Seattle Times editorial page) on her interview with Chris Matthews on "Hardball." I didn't see the original interview, but it was recast on MSNBC's Saturday "live" news program, and it was brutal. Malkin has a new book called In Defense of Internment, and it's definitely controversial, but she got hammered by Matthews over the book by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group and their contention that some of John Kerry's Vietnam wounds were "self-inflicted." Read the account for yourself, if only to see Malkin's perspective and what it's like to be on one of these talk shows. For the record, I'm not big on Malkin - she's just a bit out there - and I'm very much undecided on how much credence to give to the anti-Kerry veterans, given that they didn't serve on his boat and some of them probably have more of an ax to grind for his antiwar activism (while technically still in the service). I'll also admit that I've long had a soft spot for Chris Matthews - he's just so engaging and has so much energy; also I did a senior journalism project on "Hardball" - but he clearly trespassed into Bill O'Reilly territory in this interview, and left Malkin really pissed, not just for his rude machismo before the segment started. In sum:

I am used to playing hardball. I expect it. I am used to ad hominem attacks. I get more in a day than most of these wussies have received in their lifetimes. But what happened last night was pure slimeball and the unfair, unbalanced, and unhinged purveyors of journalism, or whatever it is they call what they do at MSNBC, should be ashamed.

She also has a link to the "Hardball" transcript and responses from Matthews and fellow MSNBC host Keith Olbermann ("alleged journalist"), who said she made "a fool of myself." If so, Matthews did too. (Via Joe Gandelman.)

The perfect job

Add this activity to the roster of Bobo pleasures: roasting coffee in a small Seattle shop. One of the roasters at Victrola Coffee, which sadly I had never visited but passed by on Capitol Hill a couple times, describes the joy of roasting, including the fascinating details of what happens to coffee beans during the process, the precise timing and such. With several pictures. You'd never know it was such a difficult yet rewarding task, and it continues to sadden me that most Americans take coffee for granted and don't expect much more than a brief caffeine rush and warm liquid on their tongue. Coffee is a way of life all to itself:

Big flame-spewing machinery, geekery of limitless granularity, and drinking some of the best coffee in the world - it sure beats working in an office.

Sigh. I picked the wrong major. (Via Gizmodo.)

Hyping and griping

Do the media love to hype a particular company or person only to tear them down when they can't meet impossibly high expectations? This writer thinks so, and makes the case using the Google IPO as a recent example. Call them "arrogant," but don't tear down their accomplishment:

Let's put the Google IPO in its proper perspective. It raised $1.7 billion, the 25th-largest IPO ever and the largest of any Internet company. It valued the company at $23 billion, roughly the same as General Motors. Those who had the guts to buy the initial shares scored a cool 18 percent gain on the first day of trading. And those two bumbling, amateurish founders are now each worth $3.8 billion.

If that's a "disaster," we could sure use a few more of them. Let's find out what chardonnay those "bumblers" drink and send a case to all the other high-tech CEOs.

It's not just Google, of course - insert your own favorite example. I'd say the media buildup of expectations about the reconstruction and pacification of Iraq went to enormous lengths, even as commentators such as the NYT's Tom Friedman were saying progress would come over many years, not a few months. Hyping a few statements from administration officials that soldiers would be greeted as liberators (and in particularly repressed areas, they were), then basically shutting down coverage of rebuilding when it required too much patience for too little ratings. (Romenesko.)

Losers solidify victory

In the wasteland of commercially successful magazines, we learn a cardinal rule of victory: Lose any power whatsoever. The Nation, America's oldest political magazine and the house organ of what I'd call the Crazy-Ass Left, now leads the politicalopinion magazine genre in circulation, ahead of the New Republic (moderate left), Weekly Standard (moderate right) and National Review (far right). NR nonetheless has circulation close to The Nation, proving once again that moderation isn't popular in the niche market. Why subscribe if you don't feel overlooked, marginalized and victimized? So much better to be validated in everything you believe. (Via Romenesko.)

The Seven Habits of Highly Annoying Books

The Economist tackles an extremely relevant question of our times: Why do business books suck? Maybe because of how formulaic they are:

The formula seems to be: keep the sentences short, the wisdom homespun and the typography aggressive; offer lots of anecdotes, relevant or not; and put an animal in the title—gorillas, fish and purple cows are in vogue this year. Or copy Stephen Covey (author of the hugely successful “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”) and include a number.

Coming soon: "The 11 Neuroses of Highly Grating Bloggers." It would sell in the tens!

Race to the bottom

Slate blogger Mickey Kaus catches the New York Times in a suspicious omission in its breathless story about new education data showing charter schools perform worse than public schools on the whole. (See the fourth entry on Wednesday - damn Slate for no permalinks!) Actually the Progressive Policy Institute's Eduwonk blog should get the credit for discovering that the only statistically significant difference between the two is race (gotta love those pro-reform progressives). Charter schools typically have a much higher proportion of minority students than the public schools, possibly because they come from lower-income backgrounds and presumably less stable households, and have exhausted traditional educational options. It's a complex picture, but the Times' reporting doesn't help flesh it out. Read the whole entry - it really seems that traditional education groups have no tolerance for charter schools and will hide any inconvenient data to keep them from flourishing and giving kids a chance.

No more Toys 'R' Us kids

New York Times columnist David Brooks, who dabbles in "comic sociology," has an unusually serious article about the decline of general-interest summer camps in America. He follows the line of reasoning from his excellent book "Bobos in Paradise" (which I'm reading now) and his college campus stump speech (which I heard earlier this year in Seattle) on the professionalization of childhood under the baby boomers. Relating his own 15 years' experience working in the Episcopal Camp and Conference Center in Connecticut, which has seen its attendance drop substantially in the past decade and slowly rebound, Brooks lays out the social forces at play:

Camp was a place where teenagers learned to build courage. There was cliff diving. There were river rapids. There were survival-style camping trips, with kids sleeping alone in the forest.

But society has become more risk-averse, and liability costs have escalated. So in the 1990's, the people running the camp banned most of the activities that scared and thrilled us. Camp became safer, but also more tepid and less meaningful. ...

Parents have become more involved in running their children's lives, even by remote control when the kids are away at summer camp. So over the past few decades, camps that promise to develop a specific skill - music, basketball, computers, video-making - have prospered while generalist camps have suffered. ...

We used to mount elaborate games with bizarre names like Investment Opportunities in Zimbabwe. What's a parent supposed to make of that? ...

In short, over the past few decades, parents have made childhood more to their liking. The side effect is that camp became less exciting, less meaningful and less compatible with résumé-building lives.

I'm feeling that now, although I suppose the situations aren't analogous because technically I'm an adult. Unwilling, I might add.

Love the name

Quick post on my lunch break: The Weekly Standard has a new blog called "The Substandard." Great "self"-deprecation. Check it out. (Via Instapundit.)

Enjoy the silence

I'm back! It's been a harrowing past week. Utah, Wyoming and Nebraska were a breeze - you can't beat a 75 mph speed limit and (mostly) flat roads. But Iowa was HELL. I got into Des Moines the night before the Iowa State Fair, as it turns out, and I couldn't find a hotel room in the state. Add to this the state's 65 mph limit. My car was full, and though I tried moving some things around, it just wasn't enough space to fall asleep. So I drove all night, buzzing on caffeine, zooming through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania - learning to loathe turnpikes - until I got to Maryland and got a hotel room the next night. Passed out around 9. Then I continued into Bethesda, where I moved into my new place on Tuesday. (Stayed Monday night with my old roommate and SPU alum Jeff, who works for a senator and lives in Alexandria - we went to the annual outdoor screening of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" on the National Mall) The apartment is big and empty - no furniture yet, blogging from the floor.

Wednesday was my first day at the Capitol Hill internship. I'm the office lackey, sorting mail and faxes, making coffee in the morning, and starting tomorrow I'll be answering phones. Soon I'll also have to give tours of the Capitol, so at least I can get out of the office. Cafeteria food in the Hill office buildings sucks, if you were wondering. SPU cafeteria food was better. Oh, and my Metro ride is about 35 minutes, so I'm not thrilled with that, but blessedly my new apartment is only two blocks from the Metro station. At least I don't have to catch a bus to take a train.

I'm not sure what will happen to this blog. If today was any indication I won't get home earlier than 7, and I'm pretty tired. Might do some light blogging before bed, which is now about midnight. I just can't keep up the schedule I had during unemployment. If you're the praying kind, I'd appreciate your prayers while I adapt to this new life.