Completely Unnecessary

[Ed note - sorry, this was supposed to publish late last night and failed somehow. The miracle of technology.]

I’m not a big fan of Chicago Tribune columnist, Dennis Byrne. (If you’re googling yourself again, Mr Byrne - welcome back.)

His column today [Sept 30], however, made me chuckle rather than foam. This - in all seriousness - is the opening line:

The American public on Monday stuck it to the “knowledgeable and sophisticated” elites who warned that without the $700 billion federal financial bailout plan all hell would break loose.

Um, the ‘elite’ leading the charge for the bailout was none other than Mr Byrne’s president, George W. Bush.

Bryne complains about the choice that we, American taxpayers, are being forced to make:

We who hesitate are lost. On top of that, the public was asked to pick its poison immediately, without congressional hearings, extensive public debate or any other accouterments of a democratic republic. The public was required to accept the edict. No look before you leap.

Now… of what does this remind me? The insistence that we accept at face value what we are told despite what appears to be a reckless investment of capital into a risky adventure that no one has taken the time to think through… What could it be?

But, credit to Mr Bryne for both calling out Bush as ‘elitist’ and then railing against Speaker Pelosi for:

…let[ting] loose with a nasty partisan attack totally inappropriate for the quality of the debate. You had to see it to believe it: There was rational debate on the House floor, indeed in a spirit of bipartisanship, and then she comes along blaming President George W. Bush for everything.

To be fair, I don’t disagree with some of his points - the bailout plan was rather rushed; hopefully there will be a better plan sometime this week.

But what I adore about Byrne’s column is it appears totally devoid of irony (at least when it’s not coming from the Left).

Now that’s something you have to see to believe.

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Well, John McCain ’suspended’ his campaign and headed back to Washington… to the apparent dismay of everyone involved in trying to fix the US economic clusterfuck.

My favorite quote is actually from Bush (can you believe it?) who referred to the economy as ‘this sucker’.

Paulson got on his knees in front of Pelosi, and everyone more or less acknowledged that it was House Republicans (plus the largely silent McCain) who were stuffing the whole thing up:

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate banking committee, denounced the session as “a rescue plan for John McCain,” and proclaimed it a waste of precious hours that could have been spent negotiating.

But a top aide to Mr. Boehner said it was Democrats who had done the political posturing. The aide, Kevin Smith, said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement.

Oh, please. Shove a Boehner in it, will you? McCain is on none of the economic/financial committees - there was no reason for him to be there.

Senator McCain will have plenty of time to air his views on just about anything he pleases should he show up tomorrow night for the debate.

And I think he will. 75% of Americans think the debate and the campaigns should continue - so methinks he’d have to have a crystal ball and monster cojones to flake out tomorrow.

Speaking of… well whatever - how craptastic were the Palin interviews? Ish. They were still sort of amusing, but in that awkward way.

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There’s always one or two crossover speeches at each convention, so the fact that Joe Lieberman spoke at the RNC doesn’t really bother me that much. He and John McCain have been friends for years, etc.

Do what you want man - go with god.

But, seriously, can he, like, go with god already?

My favorite part of the 2008 election - Obama win or lose - is going to be winning enough seats in the Senate that we can give the sanctimonious old blowhard the heave ho.

Here’s Bush at the RNC tonight via video (and I’m sure there are several Republicans damning the miracle of satellite technology):

Fellow citizens: If the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will.

That ‘angry left’ used to include Joe Lieberman. TPM’s got a series of clips of him railing against Bush, et al. ideology and policies as recently as 2004.

I’ve never been particularly fond of Lieberman, but his braggadocio was less repellent when it didn’t reflect an apparent willingness to abandon nearly all his values in favor of draconian, one-issue politics.

Or perhaps he’s still smarting from 2006, so he took his ball and went to the TC.

[Ergh. Sorry, I had some great (wrong) par from the NYT about how Dems had pushed Lieberman from his ticket in 2006, but I'm unable to find here. I think it's up on my work machine. If I find it, I'll update.]

Either way - really looking forward to the Senate pick up. No one person should have that much power. I hope the Senator enjoyed the smug cheers from the floor tonight; his status is bound to be downgraded come November.

In other news, some frightened part of me begins to suspect that all these Palin scandals and mini-scandals are only to place the bar so low that she only has to skip over it to succeed.

I’ve read multiple postings today (including this one from FiveThirtyEight) that say all she has to do tonight is avoid everything but the most major stuff ups.

Bear in mind that I also just re-watched Season Seven of The West Wing. Remember the one where Leo makes everyone think he’s a crap debater, just so he can hit it out of the park?

I bet Sarah Palin doesn’t even have any kids…

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At least for today.

Damn perfect. Republicans get out of having to have Bush speak at the RNC so that he can go ‘attend’ to Gustav.

Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino says the White House is working on possible alternatives that would allow Bush to make a speech at the convention, which begins Monday.

Somehow I bet that’s not going to happen, Dana.

God forbid there’s chance for Bush to make an ass of himself when it actually benefits us.

You know, as opposed to mortally embarrassing us to the point lamenting the last eight years on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

On a non-political note - let’s just hope he doesn’t stuff this up as badly as the last one.

Update: Cheney’s out, too. Though Laura Bush - whose approval rating sits some 20 points higher than her husband’s (so, like, a 98 points higher than Cheney’s) will still be speaking tonight. Enjoy!

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Jesus. That’s about all one can say about this past Friday’s election in Zimbabwe.

With Tsvangirai gone and the UN bravely refusing to do anything (the august body was even unable to declare a run-off with one candidate ‘illegitimate’).

Mugabe has declared victory and proclaimed ‘record turnouts’, though it appear (unsurprisingly) that the Zimbabweans that voted did so out of fear. Despite the increasing violence and terror waged against those supporting the opposition, it seems as though numerous voters spoilt their ballots or voted for Tfo. Some even boycotted the poll, despite Mugabe’s thugs checking for the tell-tale ‘I voted’ red ink on people’s fingers.

But, worry not, Mugabe is going to be magnamouous in his ‘victory’ - I suppose he can afford to be, having terrorized his opponent and his people.

Bush is going to put in tougher sanctions, but whether this will work or not is debatable. One of Mugabe’s ploys in the past has been to claim that Western sanctions on his government is what has driven the insane inflation in the country. But at least he’s doing something.

After the fact, of course. God forbid we act when it might be truly effective - say, before or during the intimidating beatings, murders and incarcerations. Say, before Mugabe could claim victory in an election.

Perhaps if we meddled in the right place for once we wouldn’t have to call it ‘meddling’.

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…for not posting.

I mean, it does. I know that more than one of you check this blog regularly for new and (ahem) insightful content.

But I can’t control your poor life choices.

So I’ve been tempted this week to blog about the lovely and soul-inspiring weddings of biddies - because obviously that’s awesome.

I think if you can’t be happy for 80+-year-old women getting married you don’t really understand what life is about. There’s fundamental level at which you don’t understand happiness.

[Ed. note - Um, Firefox 3, vaguely appealing though it is, does not seem to have incorporated spellcheck in a timely manner. This is absolutely disastrous for your editor, who can't spell her way out of a very small shoebox.] [Oh thank crap, it kicked back in; I had spelled disastrous wrong. I'm more of a big picture kind of girl.]

Anyway, I’ve been sick and also working/marking/watching Angel, so it’s really a grab bag of reasons why I’ve lacked the wherewithal to fulfill the blogging duties that - I will remind you - come with little to no financial reward.

I had something to say. I think it was this:

I know the Administration only has a short number of months (yay!) left in office, but this doesn’t mean that they should drive down their game.

It will potentially frighten several of you to learn that my father is a Republican. Not of the truly alarming variety - he just believes in lower taxes, etc, etc. (whereas I believe in stealing from the rich, etc., etc.).

Anyway, he sends me an article last week in which George Will (displaying the youngest picture GenXers have ever seen of George Will) is all about drilling in ANWAR and everywhere offshore because the Chinese are already doing it.

Eh, they’re not.

But, if the story gets repeated enough times, it looks like good enough impetus for Bush to advocate drilling off all our coastlines a few days later. The NYT, however, is not so impressed with that, considering it won’t lower gas prices until 2030.

But hey - talking points trotted out in the press ten days before they become ‘policy’ is just typical. Could these guys try anymore? I mean, where are those bold policy suggestions of yore? Isn’t there a country we should think about invading?

Oh, or is it just that we’ve gotten lazy, considering the oil contracts with one that we’ve already invaded?

Personally, I’m happier thinking about old ladies getting married.

Congrats to them and everyone taking the plunge (especially to Elissa and Keith, who I love with all my heart… even though they’re not gay. It’s not, like, a definite criteria for my support of your union).

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I know I’m behind the times; on the upside, I know far more about Australian irrigation, catchment levels and the Murray-Darling scheme than I’d ever hoped to learn.

Anyway, onto Justice Kennedy, who reasserted himself as my favorite Supreme Court justice after a lengthly period on my shit list. Writing the Opinion (.pdf) in Boumediene v. Bush (the case that gave Gitmo detainees their rights back) he said:

Although the United States has maintained complete and uninterrupted control of Guantanamo for over 100 years, the Government’s view is that the Constitution has no effect there, at least as to noncitizens, because the United States disclaimed formal sovereignty in its 1903 lease with Cuba. The Nation’s basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say “what the law is.”

I feel that ‘Snap!’ doesn’t properly represent the the six years of illegality under which these detainees have been held.

Kennedy first won his way into my heart via his Opinion in 1993’s Church of the Lukumi Babalu-Aye v. City of Hialeah:

Our review confirms that the laws in question were enacted by officials who did not understand, failed to perceive, or chose to ignore the fact that their official actions violated the Nation’s essential commitment to religious freedom… No one suggests, and on this record it cannot be maintained, that city officials had in mind [as the target of their ordinances] a religion other than Santería.

I might not always agree with him, but the man does not mince words, which I respect more than most things. The Hialeah ruling is like series of uppercuts to the judge below him - awesome.

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I was thinking yesterday about the changing perception of Al Gore. He seems suddenly to be the father of the party - or perhaps the wise, environmentally- friendly uncle to whom we turn for advice. (In my metaphor, Howard Dean is the rowdy cousin who gets you all pumped up on sugar before bed.)

Gore was mentioned in March as an ‘honest broker’ for the standoff between Clinton and Obama, a job in which he was not interested.

As the race slogged through another month of flag pins, Bosnia and Stephanopoulos, I saw his name mentioned again yesterday as someone to which Democratic faithful could look for support and sage wisdom. (Sorry, don’t have the link.)

I don’t know whether it’s An Inconvenient Truth or seven years of steadily paving the road to hell, but, man, Al Gore is totes popular now!

But remember 2000? Remember when everyone was just going to hold their noses? When there wasn’t any difference between the candidates?

Check out the stats I found today in some research I’m doing on Elizabeth Dole (Gallup poll, 17 March, 1999):

Along with high favorability ratings, Dole scored ahead of Bush and Gore on a number of specific items. More people were likely to report that Dole shared their values (69%) than Bush (58%) or Gore (56%). They were also more likely to report that Dole was someone they would be proud to have as president (68%, compared to 63% for Bush and 53% for Gore). Seven in 10 adults (71%) reported that Dole was inspiring, compared to 55% who said the same about Bush and 35% who reported that Gore was inspiring. (Heldman, et al., 2005: 219).

Now everyone’s all like, ‘Hey! Let’s see you on that forklift/crane thing again! With the graphs!’ or ‘Hey! Can you come save the Democratic Party from eating itself alive, once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?’

I bet Al and Tipper sit at home drinking red wine, alternately giggling and weeping.

In case you want it, here’s the reference:
Heldman, C., et al. (2005) ‘”She Brought Only a Skirt”: Print Media Coverage of Elizabeth Dole’s Bid for the Republican Presidential Nomination’ Political Communication 22(3): 315-335.

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He just can’t seem to find any.

During his charming (and possibly media/democracy-destroying) appearance on Deal or No Deal the other night, Bush quipped:

I’m thrilled to be on ‘Deal or No Deal’ with you tonight. Come to think of it, I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings these days.

Hilarity ensued, no doubt, across the nation he’s taken to the woodshed.

Or maybe not.

The episode on which Bush appeared had the lowest ratings in the show’s history.

That poor guy just can’t catch a break. Keep strivin’!

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This brings us to the article on politicians as TV comedians, which I think is actually the more depressing one:

None of the presidential candidates want to be seen as snooty or overeducated, which must be why on Monday all three provided taped greetings to wrestling fans watching “WWE Raw” on the USA network.

I’m going to leave the shamefulness of this statement. I’ll note only how pathetic it is that that around the world, education is seen as the thing that can lift people up, change their lives - and in the US its seen as effete and something to be hidden. As if there is somehow a thing as ‘too educated’ - call me elitist (though you might be racist if you do), but that is the single saddest comment anyone can make about the United States.

The article goes on to detail the alarmingly large number of TV appearances by the candidates. There is something disturbing about the embedded (and by this I actually mean ‘in bed’)-ness of the candidates, their wives and surrogates with the news media.

For instance, Laura Bush is serving as co-host on the ‘Today’ show. Hard news it’s not, but there’s still something alarming about the media serving as an uncritical platform (literally) for politicians. How will NBC Nightly News critique the husband of the woman who hosted their morning show? Oh wait, he’s already on Deal or No Deal.

Sure there is concern about politicians using the airwaves as cheap publicity stunts. The cheapening of our politics (and politicians), however, is only one aspect of this problem.

As this trend becomes more entrenched, the networks will be compelled to deliver these kind of political celebrity moments more and more. The problem becomes not if Bush wants to show off on Deal or No Deal, but if NBC needs to have Bush on the show. What kinds of efforts will the networks have to make to attract these guests?

Media theory around sources suggests (unsurprisingly) that one of the problems inherent in relying on government for media sourcing is that eventually the media becomes dependent on the government. They become unlikely to bite the hand that feeds them because they need access for their stories.

Control of access is incredibly powerful, which we saw this weekend in the NYT’s story about military analysts. These men admitted that they sometimes told military falsehoods to keep their Pentagon contacts happy.

If the media become dependent on government and politicians for both their news and entertainment sources, it further removes the media’s ability to be an independent watchdog.

Which brings me to a question: how do we feel about satire? The Daily Show and Colbert Report seem to be able to critique politicians in ways available to few other media outlets. The two shows have also been using politicians as guests for a number of years. A) Do you think their success is driving the trend in other media outlets? and B) Could the critical distance of these shows make them immune from the effects?

Please discuss in groups for about ten minutes, and then we’ll report back.

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