Tohu Bohu

Can I get this off my chest? It’s all over now, and there’s no particular point to whining about it, but you know how all the news articles said that in order to get the Seven Hundred Billion Dollars through the Senate, they had to add A Zillion Dollars in Sweeteners? That’s a lie. Or it’s as close to a lie as dammit, so in effect, it’s a lie.

And an obvious lie. I mean, aside from everything else, it isn’t even plausible that anybody came up with all the pork-barrel crap in that bill between the House vote and the Senate vote. Seriously, is it within the realm of imagination that a tax break for children’s wooden arrows was negotiated with the Senators from Oregon and inserted into the bill in order to get their votes? And if it was, why did they only get one Senator to vote yes? Was the other Senator holding out for another ten bucks an arrow?

No, look. What happened was this: it is blatantly unconstitutional for the Senate to pass a financial rescue plan that hasn’t already passed the House. All money bills must start in the House. That’s the rule. But the House wouldn’t pass it, and the Senate would. So they cheated.

They took the hundred billion dollars in tax breaks that they already had sitting there and stapled the seven hundred billion dollars onto the back of it, and pretended that it meant that it wasn’t a new bill at all, just a little change in the old one. That’s pretty sleazy. And of course as a result instead of the tax break stuff getting passed on its own, or getting rejected, it was held hostage to the so-called rescue plan (one of those interesting grammatical structures in that it wasn’t a rescue, and it wasn’t a plan, but it sure was a rescue plan) so that anybody who wanted to vote for the pork-barrel stuff had to vote for the plan, and veezy verzy. That’s pretty sleazy, too. And yes, the Senate did just happen to have sitting around a bill for hundred billion dollars in tax breaks for exporters of wooden arrows for toy bows and other worthwhile causes, just in case some controversial bill or other needed to be attached to something nice and porky. That’s pretty sleazy as well. But it’s how the Senate works, and none of it’s a particular surprise.

And I’d also like to say this: if this business of “larding up” the seven hundred billion dollar pork roast is that contemptible, surely the two groups who escape such contempt are (a) Representatives who voted for the bill without the added lard, and (2) Representatives who voted against the bill with the added lard. In other words, there are about twenty people who could seriously be identified as having voted to pass the bill because of the sweeteners. They mostly belong to one political Party, I can’t remember its name, something associated with unpopularity and failure, though.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Gentle Readers have undoubtedly been waiting for me to blather on again about the candidates for President and the people with whom they surround themselves. What? No? Where’d everybody go?

Perhaps y’all are headed over to Congressional Quarterly’s site, where you can play with their Cabinet Maker. The link there is to the Republican version, which is the one I found really interesting. After all, Barack Obama is running as a Democrat; for all his post-partisan rhetoric, all the stars and hacks of the Democratic Party are available to him. Not so the Maverick. One consequent of actually betraying your party over and over again is that somehow the bench of people on your side gets mighty thin. And then there’s the fact that Our Only President has surrounded himself with a secretive cabal of incompetents and crooks, and that he and the Republicans in the Legislature are so tremendously unpopular because of all their failures. Anybody he picks from that crowd is tainted with the stink of mixed metaphor failure and unpopularity. And yet, who else is there?

So when the CQ reporters cadged together a Top Three for each seat, for five out of the 14 seats they had to include the current occupant in their list. Now that’s change we can believe in.

And can we talk a little about the fact that James Woolsey is on their Top Three for both Secretary of State and Secretary of Energy? No? How about that James Woolsey is clearly the best of the three for State? Seriously, the other two are Joe Lieberman (Asshole-CT) and, believe it or not, John D. Negroponte. Negroponte, Woolsey, Lieberman. Can somebody ask John McCain to comment on that?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

So. Your Humble Blogger wrote last week about the way that John McCain misinterprets the word precondition in Barack Obama’s foreign policy statements. In short, Sen. Obama uses the word to mean a meaningful concession made before a negotiation can even begin. Sen. McCain pretends to understand Sen. Obama to mean any conditions or terms whatsoever.

Then, last night, there was the following exchange:

BIDEN: Yes, well, you know, until two weeks ago—it was two Mondays ago John McCain said at 9 o’clock in the morning that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. Two weeks before that, he said George—we’ve made great economic progress under George Bush’s policies. Nine o’clock, the economy was strong. Eleven o’clock that same day, two Mondays ago, John McCain said that we have an economic crisis. That doesn’t make John McCain a bad guy, but it does point out he’s out of touch. Those folks on the sidelines knew that two months ago.

IFILL: Gov. Palin, you may respond.

PALIN: John McCain, in referring to the fundamental of our economy being strong, he was talking to and he was talking about the American workforce. And the American workforce is the greatest in this world, with the ingenuity and the work ethic that is just entrenched in our workforce. That’s a positive. That’s encouragement. And that’s what John McCain meant.

Now, is the disagreement about fundamentals the same as the one about preconditions? In both cases, the candidate said something that was widely understood to be a gaffe, or at least a statement worth mocking. In both cases, the candidate now claims that the word he used is now being misunderstood by the mockers. So is it the same?

I honestly don’t know. I am inclined to think that they aren’t. I have a sense that the term precondition in the context of diplomacy did have the meaning that Barack Obama now claims. The other interpretation requires the interpreter to believe that Barack Obama is has a policy that doesn’t jibe with his written policies, nor with common sense. But perhaps that interpretation only requires it to have been a misstatement, or perhaps the sort of slip that reveals a deeper disorientation with the topic. Certainly, my interpretation of his meaning is going to be charitable. I like the man.

On the other side, I don’t actually know what the fundamentals of the economy are. The GDP? The labor market? Productivity? Per capita savings and debt? I don’t think there’s any wide agreement about the term. So in that sense, when John McCain said the fundamentals of the economy were strong, he wasn’t really committing himself to any actual meaning that could be empirically checked. Maybe he did mean what Sarah Palin says he meant. Certainly, my interpretation of his meaning is going to be uncharitable. I don’t like the man.

See, I think there’s a difference, and here’s what I think it is: If you accept Barack Obama’s explanation after the fact, it means something. It’s a policy you can agree with or disagree with, and it is connected with his other foreign policy positions. If you accept John McCain’s explanation (via his running mate) after the fact, it means nothing.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The best one-line pundittery I’ve seen about last night’s Vice-Presidential debate is that Sarah Palin beat Tina Fey, but Joe Biden beat John McCain. I think even that is a bit tricky, as Ms. Fey gets her rebuttal tomorrow. But Sen. Biden showed remarkable discipline, I thought, in refraining from attempting to debate Gov. Palin. In the end, very few people are going to be casting votes because of these two people; this is a chance to talk about the fellows at the head of the ticket when people have been suckered in to watch by, well, by Tina Fey. I think Ian Gillingham over at Willamette Week’s blog makes a good point comparing the visualizations of the word frequencies of the two.

With the warning that I have no idea if these are even remotely accurate, here’s Sarah Palin’s:

First thing you spot, I hope, is John McCain. Then there’s the idiosyncrasies of her speech patterns: also, going, just, know. The stuff she wanted to get across: America/American/Americans, energy, can, will. Then it gets muddy.

Now, here’s Joe Biden’s side:

What jumps out? John McCain. And then Barack Obama. Then going and said, which I assume is his own speech pattern coming into play, and then what do you see? one, people, get, change, policy, know, voted, Afghanistan, billion. I can’t think either Sen. Obama or Sen. Biden would be at all disappointed in that picture.

Mostly, though, I’m impressed by his restraint. He was quite right to be restrained, partially because he doesn’t want to be perceived as picking on his opponent, but mostly because his side is winning and that’s the winning side’s strategy. Still, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. When Gov. Palin said

Up there in Alaska, what we have done is, with bipartisan efforts, is work together and, again, not caring who gets the credit for what, as we accomplish things up there. And that’s been just a part of the operation that I wanted to participate in. And that’s what we’re going to do in Washington, D.C., also, bring in both sides together. John McCain is known for doing that, also, in order to get the work done for the American people.

YHB would have said something like Really? Does anybody in Alaska think you worked well with bipartisan efforts? ’Cos that’s not what I’m hearing.

And when Gov. Palin said

Well, the nice thing about running with John McCain is I can assure you he doesn’t tell one thing to one group and then turns around and tells something else to another group…

YHB wouldn’t have been able to help saying something like You mean, except David Letterman, right?

And it would not have helped Sen. Obama at all.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

So in that debate thingy, they spent a crapload of time (actually 1.3 craploads) talking about preconditions. I thought Barack Obama did a very bad job responding to Sen. McCain’s nonsense, so I’m going to type in an alternate response, which I think he should have had prepared.

John McCain: What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a stinking corpse, and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments. This is dangerous. It isn’t just naive; it’s dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion. Blah, blah, blah. And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan’s "trust, but verify," and certainly not sit down across the table from—without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it’s just dangerous.

YHB pretending to be Barack Obama: John, I’m sorry, but it seems like you think that when I say I won’t demand preconditions for negotiations, I mean I’ll have an open door and any maniac or tin-pot dictator can just waltz in, stand on my desk and give a speech on worldwide satellite TV. That’s just wrong. That’s not my policy. And if you misunderstood it, well, I need to take responsibility for that and fix it. So I’d like to explain what my policy will be, and how it’s different from the Bush policy you’ve been supporting for eight years. And then, John, I’d like you to respond to my actual policy, not to whatever you’re talking about. All right?

John McCain: You said without preconditions! No backsies!

YHB pretending to be Barack Obama: Here’s the Bush policy, John. If we want some concession from somebody—we want Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program, we want Russia to recognize the territorial sovereignty of the Ukraine and Georgia, we want a trade deal or cooperation of any kind with another nation— President Bush has been demanding all those concessions as a precondition for negotiation. In other words, we won’t negotiate with Iran about their nuclear weapons program unless they give up their program before we even start!

Now, that would be a great policy. If it worked. If we got everything we wanted before we even sat down at the table, that would be great. And if it worked, then sure, I would support it. But it doesn’t. It didn’t work with North Korea—and even George W. Bush had to agree to come to the table eventually—it didn’t work with Iran, it hasn’t worked with Russia. It doesn’t work. People will not give up all their bargaining chips as a precondition of bargaining.

My policy is this: My State Department will engage with other countries at all levels. I will welcome chances to negotiate for what we want. And I will do that without preconditions for that negotiation. The Bush policy, which you’ve been supporting for eight years, is to demand those preconditions. Mine is, simply, not to. That’s what I’ve been talking about, and that’s what I would like to hear you respond to.

John McCainBut you said no preconditions! It’s dangerous! Blah, blah, blah.

…anyway, it’s not like John McCain would have broken down and wept, or that he would have stopped claiming that Barack Obama’s first day in office would involve tea with Hitler, Stalin and Peter the Hermit. But people who didn’t know what the hell either one was talking about might get the sense that (a) John McCain is lying, and (2) Barack Obama does know what the hell he’s talking about.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have two comments about last night's debate, and I think I’ll split them into two different notes, just to take up more room. What the hell, right?

So John McCain has spent his career doing the bidding of bankers and their lobbyists fighting against earmarks, right? He talked about it a lot. He thinks it’s a terrible system. He blames the earmark system for corrupting congressmen; congressmen are, he says, under federal indictment because of (*cough* personal accountability *cough*) earmarks. Earmarks are “a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption.” He’s made the fight against earmarks the center of his career, he says.

Also, the amount of money allocated via earmarks—“Do you know that it’s tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it’s gone completely out of control?”

Let’s recap. John McCain has been fighting earmarks in the United States Senate, where they have tripled in the last five years, to $18 billion. What will they be like if he fights them for four years from the White House? Fifty billion? A hundred?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Your Humble Blogger is a cranky guy. Do you want to hear what I’m griping about today? Aside from the weather and stuff? Because it’s raining all day and will rain all day tomorrow. And my Best Reader will be away tonight, so I’ll have to watch the stupid debate by myself.

So here’s the thing about the debate. It’s a sham. Everybody knows that. Anybody who cares enough (and has enough time) to watch ninety minutes of information about the presidential campaign has already made up their mind who to vote for. To the extent that the debates have an effect on the still-undecided voters, it’s through the filter of news programs and talk show clips. That is, after the pundit class gets their hands on it and decides on the story of what happened.

I know it’s a sham. OK? If the candidates decided not to bother with them, I wouldn’t be particularly upset about it. It’s a sham. A sham. OK?

And yet, I think it’s a good idea, for the purposes of creating a democratic society, which is after all the point of a democracy, to pretend that it isn’t a sham. To talk about how the candidates are airing their views and explaining how their positions and priorities differ. Giving the populace a chance to see them side by side and judge between them as they argue their cases. By participating in the sham, but participating fully in it, we can hold the candidates to certain norms of behavior, and hold ourselves and our compatriots to certain norms of behavior, that are beneficial to the democracy. We can make the debates less of a sham by buying into them, but buying into them on our own terms.

Instead, what do we get? This morning’s Hartford Courant (which I am planning to cancel on Monday) has an article above the fold on Scoring Obama-McCain Debate; the print edition I read over my bagel had the subheader Panel Lists Six Factors Debate Watchers Should Consider. Katherine Q. Seelye has a piece on the Times website called What to Look For in Tonight’s Debate. These are preparations for being a pundit; if you read them carefully, you will be prepared to go on television after the debate and declare somebody a winner. You may be prepared to predict what story the actual pundits will decide on, or even pick out which clips will get play.

No. Wrong. Bad.

The newspapers do not need to train us to be amateur pundits. The newspapers should be pretending that we are participating citizens, as we should be pretending that we demand the information we need to be participating citizens. If we all pretend hard enough, it will be difficult to tell the difference between people who are just pretending, and people who are actually participating.

Here’s the article they should be printing: Tonight’s Debate: Things to Watch For Pay attention not only to what the candidates say about their policies, but which policies they choose to bring up. That’s the way to gauge the priorities of the candidates, to know what they will be willing to spend political capital on. Spend some time beforehand thinking about your preferences, not so much in policy (you don’t need a debate to compare your policy platform with the candidates’) but in worldview related to the current policy issues. Remain aware that you cannot necessarily tell if someone is sincere, but presidents who commit to supporting some stupid stuff to get elected most often wind up supporting it when they are in office, for the same political reasons, so take most of what is said on policy to be a reasonably accurate predictor of action. Try to avoid being swayed by rhetorical tricks of presentation, particularly presentation of their personas. On the other hand, their presentation of persona is also likely to remain constant, so if it’s something that will be detrimental to success in office, take it into account. Finally, try to distinguish the question that you hear the moderator ask with the question that the candidate hears; the difference will reveal differences in your fields of interest, perceptions of the universe, assumptions about the role of government.

Oh, and I’d append a list of probable topics of discussion and links to the candidates’ position papers, so that the viewer could check to see if the candidates could remember what their positions were supposed to be, and remember which one was Georgia and which one was Wachovia. But that sort of thing is asking a little much, don’t you think?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I know it isn&38217;t really funny, but Barry Ritholtz over at The Big Picture says that trading desks are getting an email today containing a REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP.

I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.

If you receive any communications from a person calling himself Secretary of the Treasury or Henry Paulson, contact the national fraud center immediately.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Your Humble Blogger has for some years thought it was important to draw a distinction between candidates that wanted to be President and candidates that wanted to get something done that required them to be President to do it. I’m heightening the distinction, of course; anybody who gets the nomination of a major Party is ambitious enough, surely, to satisfy the first claim. I do think it’s a useful distinction, though, and says something about how the person uses the office.

I used to think that on the whole the distinction was a Party one, in recent times, anyway. Democrats, who believe in using the might of the federal government to protect those who need protection, tend to want to be President to institute some policy or other that protects some group or other. Republicans, who don’t believe in using that might, tend to want to be President because they are the right type of person.

I now think that’s wrong, and probably always was. Going backward, it seems likely that Our Only President had a vision of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and transforming the global balance of power that nobody else was going to accomplish, and that he wanted to be the person to accomplish anyway. Our Previous President, on the other hand, wanted to be elected President, which may well have been his primary accomplishment, and after that seems to have primarily wanted to run the place well (by his understanding of running an Executive office well). The fellow before him rather famously didn’t do the vision thing; he was Presidential but it wasn’t clear that he wanted to do anything with it. Ronald Reagan on one level just wanted the part, but on another wanted to be the Man Who Won the Cold War. Jimmy Carter didn’t appear to figure out what he wanted to accomplish as President until he had done it, and Richard Nixon just wanted to stop anybody else from being President.

As for those who got the nomination but not the office, I think Al Gore had a job in mind, but I don’t know the John Kerry did, other than winning the election. Bob Dole never seemed to have any particular tasks in mind, but neither did Michael Dukakis. Walter Mondale may have had some goal, but who would have listened long enough to find out?

As for our current crop, well, it will be easier with hindsight, but it seems to me that Barack Obama has a goal of transforming politics, a fairly nebulous goal, but I think he has some sense of what it means, and means to do it. Just as a comparison, Hillary Clinton clearly wanted to be the President Who Got Health Care Done; I think Sen. Obama would like to get health care done, but that’s not why he’s running. I also don’t get the impression that he is running to be First Black President; that’s surely a source of tremendous pride for him, but doesn’t seem to be what’s driving him, either. I rather suspect that like Bill Clinton, he really wants to be elected President, and that if he wins he will have to hunt around for something to get excited about accomplishing in office. Not that it’s such a terrible thing—I trust his priorities and instincts, so I think whatever he decides to focus on will be a Good Thing.

As for John McCain…why is he running for the office? He doesn’t seem to be enjoying the campaign in the way that Sen. Obama or Bill Clinton did, or even that the two ticket-sharers are enjoying themselves. He wants to reform Washington, and I think that’s real, but I don’t have any sense of what it means. Or, rather, I suspect that the bulk of it is paying back grudges against people who he dislikes. It’s obviously not reducing the influence of lobbyists. His experience changing the actual procedures by which policy and law gets made is not such that makes me think he has any interest in getting involved in actual reform, nor do his stump speeches about reform betray the kind of familiarity with the issue that makes a person think of a man itching to get to work.

Contrast here with, say, Rudy Giuliani, who was so obviously itching to get his fingers on the law enforcement and intelligence powers of the Executive, or with a Steve Forbes or a Jack Kemp.

Now, good Presidents don’t necessarily have to have gone into the job with a Big Goal, and Presidents who go in with a Big Goal don’t necessarily achieve that goal, or if they do, may regret it (or the rest of us might). There is always plenty for a President to do. Most of the job is not going to be taking care of the Big Goal anyway, and you never know what is going to come up and take center stage. So I don’t think it’s necessarily a disadvantage to a President to come into office having already achieved the height of his ambition, that is, of being elected rather than serving. Once you are there, your instincts and your priorities and your skills and your advisors will carry you along. I don’t like John McCain’s instincts, and I don’t like his priorities, and I don’t think much of his skills, and I abominate his advisors, but then, why wouldn’t I.

But I’m just wondering whether my view of the two candidates aligns, more or less, with yours, Gentle Readers. Do you think that Barack Obama has a Big Goal other than transforming politics, vaddevah dat means? Do you think that John McCain has a Big Goal in mind?

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Your Humble Blogger has devoted several posts recently to political partisan whatnot, as Gentle Readers have probably noticed. Some of those have been a bit more… shrill… than YHB’s usual tone. I have, for instance, implied or outright stated that the Republican nominee for the President of the United States lies a lot, seems to have no idea what he’s talking about a lot of the time, crumbles in a crisis, has no friends, and is a braying jackass of a useless pathetic poopy poopyhead. Also, that his party is full of racists and hasn’t done anything good for this country in two generations. Also, Joe Lieberman.

Now, in the past, YHB has tried to refrain from too much sneering and sniping in this Tohu Bohu. I am unashamedly partisan. My Party is the Democratic Party. I do think that the Republican Party not only is wrong on most (well, nearly all) policy issues, but that the Republican Party has encouraged personal and institutional corruption on a scale well beyond what my Party has seen for decades. I mean to say, I think that the evidence shows that corruption, and that while the corruption (and the incompetence, which is something else) is not entirely independent of the policy positions that make the Republican Party inferior in my opinion, it is not necessarily coincident with it, nor is my Party necessarily immune to it.

I’m saying this badly. Look, I’m a liberal. I have spent some time looking into Conservatism, and I think I get some of the basic aspects of the mindset. I certainly understand that people can be good people and be Conservatives, and that good people can feel strongly about Conservatism and utterly reject the Progressive mindset that feels natural to me. As people are different to one another, and that is what makes the world interesting and fun (the essence, after all, of the liberal mindset), one of those differences that I find so interesting and fun is that some people are Conservatives. Fine. And certainly not all Conservatives are corrupt or incompetent. Most, I assume are not personally corrupt, and disdain personal or institutional corruption. But the national Republican Party and its leaders have betrayed those Conservatives. That seems obvious to me.

Having said that, I can imagine if the situation were in my own Party. Could I vote for a candidate nominated by my Party if he were a poopy poopyhead? Yes, certainly. What if the leadership of my Party were revealed to be corrupt on a Tom Delay level rather than a Charlie Rangel level? That would be terrible, but I don’t think it would keep me from voting for my Party, although I would hope I would work within my Party to do something about it. Certainly if one of two candidates were going to be President, and one clearly had a Conservative mindset and was otherwise a man of middling character and the other was a poopy poopyheaded Liberal, I would vote for the Liberal. Even if it became obvious that my candidate would upon taking office surround himself with, say, a secretive cabal of crooks and incompetents? Well. I sure hope I never find out who I would vote for in that situation. It would be gruesome indeed.

So. I apologize to any Conservatives reading this Tohu Bohu, and I hope there are some somewhere, for the unnecessarily vituperative tone of late. I respect Conservatism. It isn’t my worldview, surely, but I would never want to be in a world without Conservatives. I am sure that most people who vote Republican do so, not because they are big poopy poopyheads, but because they think that their Party more closely adheres to their worldview and will therefore govern with better policies. I think it’s terrible that those people have been so badly betrayed by Our Only President and the leaders of the Republican Party. I think it’s terrible that John McCain is behaving the way he is behaving, and I think it’s terrible that the Republican Party doesn’t have a better face at the moment.

Well, and part of me thinks it’s terrible. Part of me, of course, wants the Republican Party to fail, and to become even more unpopular because of all its failures, so that my Party can gain support and govern. But not all of me. And really, I would rather that the Republican Party was an honest and clean Conservative Party, as I think that we’d still be more popular.

I will still bash the Republican leadership and its nominees. I will still make clear my honest assessment of their characters. I will try, however, to make it clear that those assessments are of the characters of the individuals involved, and are not character flaws of Conservatism, or of other Conservatives. They are not. If John McCain is a braying, boasting jackass of a man, that’s him. And if you feel you have to vote for him anyway, because he is the only candidate of your Party, well, that’s how it is sometimes, and good luck to you.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

More about Sen. McCain and his response to Black Bluesday. David S. Bernstein, over at the Phoenix, points out that Sen. McCain has been Walking Backward in this crisis. His point is a little different than the one I’m going to make, but he begins by pointing out that in a crisis, and this seems an awful lot like a crisis to a lot of people, we judge leaders "not necessarily based on their policies or advice, but on their confidence with the issue, their phrasing, even their body language."

He doesn’t toss in Mark Schmitt’s becoming-famous line, so I will: It’s not what the candidates say about the issues, it’s what the issues say about the candidates. Or, to the point, it’s not what the candidates say about the crisis, it’s what the crisis says about the candidates.

Up until two days ago, not only did John McCain insist that the "fundamentals" of the economy (vaddevah dat means) are sound, but that regulation of the financial industry was bad. He talks to Phil Gramm, which no-one with an ounce of sense, taste, or understanding of the economy would do. He has a track record of being the banker’s buddy. None of that changed over the summer, as the credit was drying up. None of that changed as people who know things about the economy were warning about AIG for the last month.

But after the Dow loses five hundred victory points, after Lehmann Brothers declares itself bankrupt and worthless, and after AIG declares that it must have left 80 B-B-B-Billion dollars in its other pants and if you could just spot it until dinner time, its man will go and look for it and send it around in the evening, and after it becomes a crisis, what does the man do? He turns his back on the policies he has professed to believe in, and starts babbling about reining in short sellers and putting a stop to golden parachutes and upholding the social contract.

In other words, John McCain, in a crisis, bailed. He grabbed for something shiny and popular instead of standing up for his principles.

This is not lying, you understand, unless he really doesn’t mean to implement any of the policies he’s talking about, and (if you remember) Your Humble Blogger is adamant that we should take seriously what candidates for office say they will do and hold them to it. No, he’s been lying all summer about his history and the histories of his associates, just flat-out factual lies, but this is not lying. This is caving. This is crumbling. This is pathetic.

The ship of state is headed for the rocks. We all know that. We’ve had a captain for eight years that has been using the wrong map, and has been holding the wrong map upside-down anyway. He won’t listen to anyone who tells him that we’re headed for the rocks, because he started going north-northwest, damnit, and to turn the wheel would be to admit that he was wrong from the beginning, even as the barrels run dry of water and the sails tatter on the masts. So yes, we want a captain that can turn the ship. But for the love of all that’s on her, let’s give the wheel to someone who has something like a pole star of principle to sail her by.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Via Paul Campos over at LGM, evidently Sen. McCain went on CNBC’s Squawk Box and on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning and called for a “9/11 commission type thing” to ”find out what went wrong and to fix what’s going to happen in the future so this never happens again.”

Now, I don’t know that Sen. McCain’s idea of a special commission is anything but a stupid idea to start with. I mean, if he means anything by a 9/11 commission type thing, he means a congressionally legislated bipartisan commission of former office-holders who are not currently legislators or governors. Why on earth would the credit crisis benefit from that, rather than from any of the currently established organizations—the SEC, the House and Senate Committees that cover banking, the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury, and the Fed—who have actual power to make actual changes in the laws and regulations that govern the industry.

Unless what Sen. McCain means by a 9/11 type commission is that he wants a slow, useless commission whose recommendations can be easily ignored. Oh, yes, of course that’s what he means. So: when Sen. McCain says that he wants a 9/11 commission type thing, the obvious follow up question is do you mean you don’t think the FED, the House and Senate, the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury and the SEC should act?

And the next follow-up question is whether Sen. McCain really thinks the credit crisis is as bad as 9/11. I mean, YHB thinks it is; undoubtedly more people have already died because of the credit crisis than died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the remaining crisis has the power to do far more damage than a handful of ragged terrorists in caves halfway across the globe. I thought my point of view was wildly outside the mainstream, though, that I was (as usual) a raving left-wing blogger. Has Sen. McCain joined me over there? Or, perhaps, is he just throwing 9/11s into his sentences without referent of any kind, as if the sound of it would go straight to voter’s hindbrains?

You know, I might possibly have preferred the claim that Sen. McCain invented the Blackberry.

By the way, Sen. McCain—the joint between the two long parts of your arm, the package holder that lets you touch your finger to your nose, that’s your elbow. Your ass is the other thing.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Dan P. asks a very reasonable question, which deserves a shorter answer than this one:

Given that the Democratic Party has been, within living memory, the party of Thurmond (and all that that entails), what do you see in that structure that makes you approach it not just as the currently preferable home of the good but as a good in itself?

My initial response is that my Party is the Party that Strom Thurmond had to leave to be a Dixiecrat. Yes, there were lots of people in the South who were Democrats because Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, but for sixty years or so, old-fashioned segregationist Southern Conservatives have been leaving my Party and joining a Party where they feel more comfortable, that is, the Republican Party. Oh, and lots of them have been dying, they should only be reborn as chandeliers. So let’s be clear: Party where old segregationists feel comfortable: Republican. Party where old segregationists feel unwelcome: Democratic.

That’s a bit glib, though, isn’t it? After all, there are more than two political parties in this country, and besides, one doesn’t have to claim any party as one’s own. If you are your own party, independent and alone, then you don’t have to take on the baggage of Thurmond-ism, of Phil Gramm-ism, of Faubus and Wallace and for that matter Andrew Jackson. No, your hands are clean. Of course, you are clean and alone.

No baggage, no party.

Certainly there is much to be said for working alone to improve the community and the country, and certainly there is much to be said for working in your church or your union or your neighborhood watch or your NGO or your charitable organization. All of those can be terrific things, and some of them are better than the Democratic Party. All of them, too, come with baggage: no baggage, no community. But my Party, for all its baggage, and for all the current and future flaws, is among those terrific things that has done and continues to be good in itself, not merely as a bulwark against the Other Party, and not merely as the lesser of evils.

In the middle of the summer, YHB wrote about Noelle McAfee and a taste of one of her ideas. I had outlined the narrative that she rejected, which is the political journey from dependence to independence, but I never talked about her suggested replacement, which is the political journey from silence to participation.

I find that narrative deeply moving. As we work our way deeper into, as we politically mature, we move further and further into participating in the civic life of our country. That may mean the participation of voting on Election Day, or the participation of commenting on this blog, or the participation of serving as President of the United States. Or, most importantly, the participation of conversation of Americans together about our politics and our world.

Independent judgment, as a goal, is a goal of casting off fetters, while participatory politics, as a goal, is a goal of choosing which loads to shoulder.

Or, more to the point, independent judgment seems to be antithetical to compromise, while participatory politics seems to lead directly to compromise. I say seems, because of course it’s more complicated than that: the entire concept of compromise requires the independent judgments of those doing the compromising, nor is the exercise of uncompromised independent judgment possible. But we are dealing here with the stories of what the world is like, and the world is made of stories and made by stories, and seems is a mighty word.

So it seems good to me to say that the Democratic Party is my Party, that it is a good Party, that it is, as you say, a good in itself. Not only because nearly every major governmental innovation, nearly everything the government has done for the public good, nearly every expansion of civil rights and civic dignity over the last half-century and more has come about because of Democrats working as members of the Democratic Party, but because the party itself is an example of the best of America. If you watched the convention on C-Span, watched the camera panning across the state delegations in their goofy hats, dancing in the aisles, community organizers and shop stewards, civil rights activists and veterans, African-Americans and Whites and Latinas and Asians and Native Americans, straights and queers, the self-made and the heirs, people who remember FDR and people who were too young to vote four years ago, then you saw the ongoing fulfillment of Walt Whitman’s dream. Democracy is not about creating a good government. Democracy is about creating a people who can create a good government.

Getting those people all together in that room, even if we lose the election, even if that grand coalition doesn’t get access to health care for everyone, even if we don’t moderate the bankruptcy laws, even if we don’t stop the war and stop the drain of public treasure into private pockets, just getting those people together in the same room to participate in the struggle for those goals makes my Party a good in itself. Read, Gentle Reader, this excerpt from one of the greatest speeches ever made by an American, Jesse Jackson in Atlanta to the 1988 Democratic National Convention:

Common ground. America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth. When I was a child growing up in Greenville, South Carolina and grandmamma could not afford a blanket, she didn’t complain and we did not freeze. Instead she took pieces of old cloth — patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crockersack — only patches, barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn’t stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture. Now, Democrats, we must build such a quilt.

Farmers, you seek fair prices and you are right — but you cannot stand alone. Your patch is not big enough.
Workers, you fight for fair wages, you are right — but your patch labor is not big enough.
Women, you seek comparable worth and pay equity, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Women, mothers, who seek Head Start, and day care and prenatal care on the front side of life, relevant jail care and welfare on the back side of life, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Students, you seek scholarships, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Blacks and Hispanics, when we fight for civil rights, we are right — but our patch is not big enough.
Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you are right — but your patch is not big enough.
Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove, you are right from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough.
But don’t despair. Be as wise as my grandmamma. Pull the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread. When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground, we’ll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our Nation.
We, the people, can win.

Even though we lost that election, we did something good for the nation by hosting that speech at that time. And even though we have not managed to fix health care, even though housing is again a problem, even though jobs are slipping away and education remains a concern, we knew that would happen. We know that there will always be fights to be fought and improvements to be made. Michael Dukakis wouldn’t have been able to make the world perfect and Barack Obama will not make the world perfect. But we can always come together, on common ground, to fight for a better world.

And when we do, when we do what my Party does, when we bind ourselves to ourselves with the common thread, and form that great quilt of a Party, even if we lose those fights, we have made something good.

e pluribus unum.

Out of many, one. We don’t lose the many, but we make one new thing, every day one new thing, one community that has a new face, a quilt with a new patch, another step in the journey from silence to participation. That’s what the Democratic Party is.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

While I’m on about what I’d like to see lefty bloggers and columnists and broadcast personalities talk about, here’s another one. Due to an unfortunate tradition, it’s considered inappropriate for Sen. Obama to discuss possible cabinet members and advisors before the election. I’d love for him to present a shadow cabinet, but it’s not going to happen, and it would probably backfire. But there’s no reason why various of us can’t come up with our own versions.

To be cautious here, I’m not necessarily talking about My Ideal Cabinet, which would be put together to institute all of my policies and to shoot the shit with me over tea and biscuits. I’m talking about putting forward a few names of people who Sen. Obama could reasonably appoint and work with, who could get through a Senate that still allows forty Opposition members to stop a confirmation, and who would work to institute Sen. Obama’s policies, which are not my own.

Before we start, though, I’d like everybody who accepts my challenge (oh, let’s make it a meme and a challenge and all that: write about three potential members of a Barack Obama administration in 2009) to begin by describing the scene in that second week in November. Sen. Obama would be sitting down with his advisors and staff to work on that transition. Joe Biden would be there, giving him the benefit of a truly massive experience with Senate confirmations, as well as with what different kinds of people have made of different positions. Who else is there? I would guess that there would be some member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, possibly John Podesta or Leon Panetta or possibly Bill Richardson. I would guess that there will be somebody from the legislature other than Joe Biden, perhaps Rep. Hoyer or Rep. Boehner.

Now imagine that meeting with John McCain, should he win the election. First of all, forget about Sarah Palin giving him advice on picking a Cabinet, and forget about him taking advice from her. Who else is going to be giving him advice? Joe Lieberman, sure, and Phil Gramm. Anyone else? Will there be anybody who has experience in the White House? How many of his Senate or House colleagues can stand him, and even if they can, can he stand them? Who’s going to be giving him advice, Trent Lott? Seriously, even before we get to the paucity of Republicans available to serve in his Cabinet who (a) can work with John McCain, and (2) aren’t part of Our Only President’s cabal of crooks and incompetents, and (iii) aren’t under indictment, and he needs a dozen plus another half-dozen to serve as Directors of agencies, he’s got to get together a transition team. I know it’s a lousy economy, but I think picking lettuce with a short hoe has got to be a better job than that.

Anyway. Three picks for an Obama Cabinet is my goal. The easy one is John Kerry as Secretary of State; I will make that one of my three, even though I’m not wild about it. How about Parris Glendening as Secretary of the Interior? And Jennifer Granholm as Attorney General. That’s three. As lagniappe, let’s see, Thomas R. Fitzgerald (Chief Justice of the Illinois State Supreme Court) as Attorney General. Just a guess, but I would think that Justice Fitzgerald knows Barack Obama and would get along well with Joe Biden, and would be an Attorney General choice that showed dedication to the Department of Justice rather than to the Democratic Party, and dedication to the rule of law rather than to the rule of the President.

See? Fun and easy. I tell you what, let’s all do this game on the left, and challenge the guys on the other side to pick John McCain’s Cabinet, and then we’ll set up our guys against their guys head to head and see who punts first.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Post Script: McCain Taps Lobbyist for Transition according to Michael Scherer over at Time Magazine.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s September, and time for Democrats across our fine nation to panic and wail. Waaaah! Elections are hard! Run! Flee from the wrath of Giblets!

Your Humble Blogger remains cautiously optimistic. There are still lots of paths to losing, but the only thing that has been ruled out is the highly unlikely scenario that Barack Obama would win in a walkover, maintaining a double-digit lead for the two months between the conventions and the election, and could spend the bulk of that time heading up the legislative campaigns. That would have been nice. But no, it turns out that we have an election on our hands.

I don’t have any particular advice for Sen. Obama. I think he’s doing OK, and he seems to have a better grasp on winning elections than I do. Unlike John Kerry, who did an impressive job in the 2004 primaries, Sen. Obama did not benefit from having his opponents largely self-destruct. And he won. I suspect he is fully capable of winning even if John McCain runs a vicious and dishonest campaign. Continues to run such a campaign. Because—nothing against Sen. McCain, or against vicious and dishonest campaigns, which are a glorious part of the history of our fine nation, but damn.

So. David S. Bernstein, over at the Boston Phoenix Talking Politics blog, mocks McCain’s Super Powers. While I repeat that I have no advice for Sen. Obama, I do advise lefty and anti-Republican bloggers and writers to abuse John McCain specifically on his braggadocio. The image of Sen. McCain as old, cranky, out of touch and economically incompetent is already pretty solidly out there. I’d like to paint that with a nice layer of braying jackass. I mean, come on. He’ll catch Osama bin-Laden, but he won’t tell anybody how? Bullshit. That’s the kind of boasting that doesn’t make you look strong, it makes you look weak.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, let's be clear about this: there is no reason why having a daughter who is an unwed pregnant teenager disqualifies a person for high office. None at all. But since everyone is talking about it anyway, may I just point out that one of three things seems to be the case:

1. Gov. Palin told Sen. McCain something like before you offer me the nomination, you should know that my daughter is seventeen, single and PG, although she is planning to marry the boy and raise the kid. And then Sen. McCain said something like no problem! Let's not mention it for a few days, though, all right?. And then the two of them wound up being backed into making an announcement the opening day of the convention, when there wasn't any actual convention, nor (thank the Divine) was the hurricane apocalyptic enough to take up all the news energy.
2. Gov. Palin, when asked if she would accept the nomination, and if there was anything Sen. McCain needed to know, thought something like should I tell him that I'll be a grandmother soon? Nah, why would he care about that.
3. Gov. Palin was unaware that her daughter was five months pregnant.

I mean, logically, unless I'm missing something, one of those three has to have happened. The first shows political incompetence that seems astonishing even for a Senator from Arizona, and if that's the case, it seems to indicate as clearly as anyone could ask that Sen. McCain is simply incapable of leading his Party, much less the country. The second shows a level of political imbecility on the part of the Vice-Presidential nominee that seems to indicate that she may be incapable even of fulfilling the constitutional office of Vice-President. The third, while on a personal level frightening and appalling, has little to do with her qualifications or Sen. McCain's, although one could at a stretch perhaps question her communication conduits with colleagues and underlings. Still, a mother-daughter relationship is significantly different from a working relationship; I don't think that situation, if true, constitutes anything but a personal scandal.

Of course, that third possibility is the one that would, if it were found out, force the Governor to withdraw.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, and that’s the end of the convention. I have to say, it was a tremendous convention, the sort of convention people in the business will be talking about for some time. Barack Obama seems to know how to hire the right people, which isn’t a bad qualification in itself. I’m not talking about the speakers, of course, although I like them, but the event staff; there are now enough events in the country that there’s no excuse for trying to hold a national political convention on the cheap with amateurs. Lots of Dems complained, over Our Only President’s first term, about how rigidly he controlled his image—all those backdrops, the careful placement of the podium to make sure that the lights and the background were just right. I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no great virtue in being incompetent at that sort of thing. It would be good for a President to have some time outside the bubble, to incorporate a certain amount of improvisation in the carefully controlled image factory, but it also would be good to have a President who knows that a bad image is a bad thing, and makes a difference in the end.

And the key thing is this: The Republican party has to work really hard not to look like pishers next week. They don’t have a lot of star power, and there is no way they can get eighty-thousand people into the tent. Unless I miss my guess (which happens a lot), any mistakes or glitches in the running of the show will be harped on by the sort of puerile pundits that are looking for easy insights. It’s easy enough to make comparisons between the music and lights, between the security lines, between the Tele-Prompt-R handling and the cheers of the crowds of the two conventions. Comparing the two policy platforms is takes work, intelligence and knowledge, and comparing the abilities, priorities and temperaments of the two candidates takes wisdom, experience and insight. Comparing the confetti just takes a mouth and a hindbrain. It’s nice, for once, to come out on the good side of the easy comparisons.

I will, however, say that if the rumors turn out to be true, and John McCain will pick Sarah Palin to run with him, it’s a startlingly good pick, on the theater of it. On first glance, I don’t dislike her any more than I would dislike any Republican with enough experience to be chosen. And there is just the slightest possibility that such a choice will convince people that John McCain does after all “get it”, that the times they are a-changin’.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The convention was wonderful last night, with several moments of real drama (or at least theater) and emotional highs. It was as good as I could imagine. I watched almost the whole thing, staying up later than I had intended, but I didn’t take very many notes. I did, however, exchange a lot of text with Dr. Cline over at Rhetorica; you can read the whole night’s liveblogging at the rhetorica site; I don’t think I’ll bother getting my sparse notes into shape for this Tohu Bohu. I will try to write a note about Bill Clinton’s speech, and another about Joe Biden’s, and I have the kitchen table note still to write, not to mention I still haven’t actually watched Michelle Obama’s speech, Clare McCaskill’s speech or Hillary Clinton’s speech, much lest written about them. And they’re doing it again tonight, although I will almost certainly miss the whole evening, what with brush-up rehearsal and all.

Anyway. I do want to write about the actual nomination. If you weren’t watching at that point, you probably missed it, and I don’t think the newspapers are conveying how well it was done. It was aimed mostly at the conventioneers, and to a lesser extent to hard-core convention watchers like Your Humble Blogger. You need a little background to enjoy the show, for this one, so even if you were watching last night, if you hadn’t watched a bunch of roll-call votes, you might have missed the drama. So, here’s a little description of what the roll-call is usually like, and then I’ll get to yesterday afternoon’s version.

Before 1968, in the days when it wasn’t absolutely sure who would win the roll call, this was the center of the convention. The whole reason for it, in fact. Speeches were made to persuade the conventioneers, who were free agents, near enough. They would call out each state, and each state’s delegation would cast its votes, and there would be a tally, and when nobody had more than half, they would do it all again. There weren’t as many states, then, of course.

After the McGovern Commission (and its refining) took away the purpose of the roll call, it became a ritual. I think I remember the 1976 one, and I certainly remember 1980; everybody knew who was going to win, but they went through the states anyway. The Great State of Blurvidia, home of the national champion high school bridge team (go Bashers!), birthplace of the cigar-store Indian, and proud neighbor to the home state of the next vice-president of the United States, casts one vote for its native one Emil Grabecky! (wild cheers), and twenty-glob votes for the next President of the United States, whats-his-name!! And the Secretary of the Convention repeating it, and the tally of the votes. The states go in alphabetical order, but the rules allow for a state to pass and come back, or for a state to yield to a different state, to change the order. The tradition was for the candidate’s home state to cast the votes that gave the candidate a majority, so that the candidate’s home delegation got to put him over the top. It was a nice tradition, a bit quaint and formal, but with people wearing lobster hats and a billion buttons. I believe that last cycle they simply nominated by acclamation, that is, instead of going through the roll call at all, they just have everybody shout “Aye!”, nobody shout “Nay”, and declare that the man was nominated. Faster, but not as much fun.

This year, as usual, all of the losing candidates have released their delegates and indicated that they are voting for winner. There are no more delegates “pledged” to vote for anyone but Sen. Obama, although many delegates have said they will be voting for Hillary Clinton anyway (as is their right, under the rules). Off they go on the roll call, then. American Samoa spoke in Samoan (I think referencing Daniel Inouye, but I don’t, you know, understand spoken Samoan) and then in English. I tried to figure out whether the fellow who spoke for Arizona was a Goddard; it looked a bit like one, but bald and thickset, where Terry is slim and has hair. I don’t know if the other Goddards are involved in politics. Arkansas, one of Hillary Clinton’s home states, cast all its votes for Barack Obama, despite Sen. Clinton winning the primary by a landslide. That seemed like a big deal, a signal that whatever CNN imagined, there was not going to be contention or protest.

And so it went, with California passing (California has umpty-’leven gazillion delegates, so it made some sense for them to pass if there was going to be a chance for a lot of other states to cast votes before there were two thousand for Barack Obama) and Illinois passing (so that it could be yielded back to them for the votes to put him over the top), and on until New Mexico. Barack Obama was still six or seven hundred votes shy of the total at that point, so when the great state of New Mexico (Land of Enchantment, Tierra Nuevo Mejico!) yielded back to Illinois, it didn’t make any sense to me. But then Illinois yielded to New York, just as both its Senators, its governor and its Charlie Rangel (shouldn’t every state have a Charlie Rangel?) walked onto the floor.

Wow, I thought. They’ve planned it so that Hillary Clinton will announce that New York casts all its votes for Barack Obama, and then they will yield back to Illinois, and that will put him over and end it, and it will be Hillary Clinton doing it. Which, I have to say, would have been cool. But what actually happened was cooler than that.

Sen. Clinton asked, after a very brief but quite moving speech, in the name of unity and in support of Barack Obama, the next president of the United States, for the convention to suspend the roll call (by a two-thirds voice vote) and to nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. Which they did.

So, after a magnificent and mostly fictional drama about supposed disunity between the Clintons and their associates and Barack Obama and his associates, Hillary Clinton took the floor and personally introduced the adoption of consensus in support of our candidate. Which was carried, with cheering and applause and dancing and everything but the confetti.

I’m not sure if I’ve given an idea of how what a surprise this was (to me—some people evidently had advance notice) and how moving it was (again, to me). I don’t think there could have been any better way for the party to signify unity. And I don’t think it could possibly have been clearer that these two people, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are the leaders of our Party. I have my disagreements with each of them. But they are fascinating, intelligent, charismatic people, and (what with, if you haven’t heard, neither of them being a white man) it makes me proud that my party did not exclude them or belittle them. It makes me proud that my country is a country where the leaders of its majority party (in both houses of the legislature, as well as the largest party by registration or by self-identification) are a woman and a black man. I like the fact that in my party, Barack Obama did not feel that he had to crush his rival or hide her from view. I like the idea that the Next President of the United States, please the Divine, will be someone who is capable of that kind of diplomacy, not just of saving face for people he needs to beat but of honoring them.

I sure hope Barack Obama gives a magnificent, powerful and inspiring speech tonight. But I doubt I will be as moved tonight as I was last night. I mean, leaving aside the whole bit where I won’t actually get to watch it.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So. National Political Party Conventions are strange things at this point in their evolution. As you watch them (or don’t, but if you don’t, then you can probably skip this note), one of the things that keeps coming up is the tension between the various audiences, and the various things that the Party wants from those various audiences. I would identify four different audiences with very little overlap, and with very little overlap in what the Party wants from them.

Let’s start with the two small audiences. One of those is the crowd in the hall itself, the conventioneers. They are largely there as props for the television audience. Yes, there are also some big donors there, and this crowd has a lot to do in GOTV and other local parts of the campaign, but most of these people would do most of that stuff anyway. They are activists. They do politics either for a living or as a hobby. The Party does need them, but the Party generally has them, and as long as they don’t screw it up, it’ll be fine. On the other hand, when the speakers make their speeches, the crowd is vitally important. Not only does an enthusiastic and attentive crowd look and sound good on television, they give back energy to the speaker. When you watch the thing in your living room, you may not feel part of the connection between the speaker and the live audience, but you can (whether consciously as a critic or not) tell whether that connection is there. The conventioneers most important task is to cheer, to chant and to, er, something else that begins with a ch. Not choose, though.

The other important small audience is the press, mostly the people there at the hall. They have to be persuaded to tell a particular story of the convention. This time, for my party, it’s a particularly compelling story—will the Clinton and Obama wings of the party work together? Will Bill Clinton flip out and call Sen. Obama a ******* on live television? Will Sen. Obama pull a knife? Or will they all join hands and pledge to a cause that is bigger than any of them, the cause of America?

I’m being snarky, but actually, what the Party wants out of the press is not just to be a perfectly transparent window into the convention (which is not going to happen) but to frame and tint things in a way that is to the advantage of the Party. The press are largely sophisticated, educated and informed people, so if you are going to manipulate them, you usually need something shiny, or some barbecue. Tragically, they are as likely to eat the shiny thing and put the barbecue in their pockets as the other way around. But you have to try.

Then there’s the big audience that I’m in, the people who are going to vote for the Party’s nominee no matter what, and who are tuning in to be entertained and consoled. We’re looking to get a peek at next cycle’s candidates for one thing and another, and to get a peek at the campaign’s themes and signs and all, and we like to be told we’re right about our policies and prejudices. But it’s not going to affect our votes, because our votes are in the right place. This year, Sen. Obama’s campaign would like us all to donate twenty bucks or so, where because of an oddity in the law, that wasn’t very important in previous cycles. And it’s always nice if the Party can get us off our asses so we can make a few calls, too, but most of us aren’t going to do that, and it’s pretty unlikely that we are going to be persuaded to do it over the television, anyway. Really, the most important thing that the Party wants me to do, after watching the thing, is to talk to my co-workers and neighbors and friends about how wonderful it was, and how I’m going to vote for Barack Obama. I was going to vote for him anyway, but perhaps I wouldn’t have brought him up in conversation, or perhaps somebody else in the fourth audience will bring it up and I can say that it was a great speech and a great convention, and all.

That fourth audience is the group of people who have not yet made up their minds who to vote for, or whether to vote. In some ways, this is the most important audience, since the candidate that gets most of those voters will almost certainly win the election. On the other hand, very few of those voters are sitting down to watch the convention. Maybe they will sit down to pay attention to the Big Speech, or to two or even three Nearly Big Speeches by the vice-presidential nominee or the previous President. More likely, they will see a report on an evening newscast, or hear about it on the radio, or see a headline on an on-line portal page or even on a good old-fashioned newspaper. Or, with luck, they’ll talk about it with a coworker or neighbor or relative.

So. The Party, and each of the people within the Party (each of whom likely has his or her own separate sub-goal, an appointment or nomination or meeting or whatnot), have to work all four of those audiences simultaneously, largely all from the same podium, and their success with each group affects their success with some of the other groups. Any individual moment may be for one group or another; any individual moment may be attempting to work in different ways for different groups. When the action on the podium stops and the music starts blasting for the crowd to dance, that’s getting the crowd ready to cheer for the next speaker, and it’s also letting the networks cut to a commercial or chat with a pundit. Some of the scheduling is aimed at me, and some isn’t.

So when you are watching, and I’m guessing almost all of my Gentle Readers are in the third audience, those that have already made up their minds (unless any of y’all are still seriously considering voting for a third Party), it’s interesting to look at the things that are aimed at the other groups. The moments that are for the crowd, the ones that are for the press, the ones that are for the swing voters. In a way, ours is the least important audience. Unless I do my job and start some conversations.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Tuesday I missed the first three hours or so, alas. Here are the notes from the couple of hours I watched.

Janet Napolitano. Magenta Nehru jacket, black pants. Nehru jackets must be the thing. She’s giving the business about the AZ politicians who lose presidential races. "I wanted to say something positive tonight about Senator McCain." "He doesn’t understand the policies he has supported." "can’t afford more of the same" use of specific name, which doesn’t thrill me, but is one of the Accepted Political Speech bits. "Green-collar jobs" is a nice phrase though, and I think we’ll get it into the public discussion.

Town hall. Gov. Jennifer Granholm hosting. Better hair than Brown or whatever his name was. This panel is just as dopey as the other one, though. No back-and-forth, no discussion, just a prepared question and prepared speech. If you’re going to do that, just have them give speeches, and give up the stools and hand mikes. A. Cline over and rhetorica and I have been amusing ourselves coming up with the ground rules for the debate. Rule one: panelists may not speak to each other or look at each other. Rule two: panelists will be given the question in advance, and may give only the prepared and approved answer. Rule three: the Moderator will lead, or rather feed. With a great big spoon. Rule four: the debate will go on as long as the networks need to run ads or have their pundits blather about other things.

Jim Whitaker, Mayor of Fairbanks. Republican. Endorsing Barack Obama. "realistic and resulting wisdom"? I like his fifties necktie and brown suit. Suits him. Shifts and whims of the marketplace which are subject to shifts and whims of dictators.

Gloria Craven, described in the on-line schedule as "Laid-off North Carolina textile worker with huge medical bills" I was kinda figuring this would be bad, but it’s actually great: plain-talking woman, very matter-of-factly talking about how awful the Republicans are, and how the Democrats actually have different ideas and priorities. With a nice class hostility (although not hostile enough for me).

Nancy Floyd, energy tech money. Wasn’t paying much attention, I’m afraid.

Kathleen Sebelius, Gov. Kansas. Starts with Barack Obama’s Kansas roots. Ad astra per aspera, which is nice and the Kansas motto. Best Reader points out that she’s a good speaker, but she’s not having much fun. My Best Reader misses Ann Richards. Gov. Sebelius is very dull.

Federico Peña, former Mayor of Denver, former Sect’y of Energy. More energy coming in. Crowd still wandering around chatting. "America is on a liquid leash" Back to man on the moon.

Nydia Velazquez: Now, that’s a jacket. And emerald necklace? Jet? Jade? Awesome, whatever. She’s going after Sen. McCain. I’m glad tonight has shown a lot more willingness to go after McCain. It hasn’t coalesced into a clear caricature, though, which is what we need.

Robert Casey, Jr. Gov PA. A slight reference to his father’s refusal to endorse Bill Clinton in 1992, and the refusal to let him speak at the convention about his anti-abortion position. Just a slight reference, though, and no reference (yet) to his own anti-abortion stance. Pushing how comfortable Sen. Obama really is with working-class Pennsylvania voters. "He’s one of us." "Native son Joe Biden!" Now talking about Hillary Rodham Clinton in glowing terms. "When she endorsed Barack, she called on all of us to do whatever we can to get Barack Obama elected President of the United States." Another Abraham Lincoln reference. Now an explicit reference to his anti-abortion opinion, and saying outright that his present tonight shows blah blah blah. I suppose it’s a good thing for Sen. Obama, and he can scarcely get up there and say his dad was a prick.

Four more months! Four more months!

Lilly Ledbetter: Very serious looking. Jaw locked. She’s the one in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, where the Supreme Court shut down the rights of more people to use the courts for redress. She’s a good prop for pointing out that the Supreme Court, and thus the Presidency, is important. Bad delivery, though, and bad gesturing. The audience is good to her, though, and I don’t grudge her the time. I wonder if CNN or the others showed her at all.

Musical interlude: "I’m So Excited". There are many men in the crowd who know the words. To the verses. I’m just saying. And there were two bull-dykes who didn’t know the words even to the chorus but who waved their rainbow flags.

Mark Warner with the keynote: I took some separate notes so that I can write this up as an entry of its own. Maybe later today, or events may pass me.

Ted Strickland: Applause for Stephanie Tubbs-Jones. Then going into a speech of his own. kitchen table reference again. I like the kitchen table stuff. "more likely to lose a neighbor to foreclosure than to gain a neighbor with a mortgage" "John McCain is sleeping better than ever" Stuck in the past. I like stuck in the past. Particularly used as a modifying phrase: a stuck-in-the-past energy policy, etc. Started on third, stole second. Instead of some starting on third, giving everybody a chance at bat.

Deval Patrick: That is who we are. That is also what we stand for as Democrats. The poor are in terrible shape, but the middle class are one paycheck away, one serious illness away from being poor. The generation did all of that. I don’t get the focus on that. "A well-educated America will make things again." John McCain is one of those say one thing do something else guys. The same folks. "Democrats don’t deserve to win just because Republicans deserve to lose" This is not working. Lots of greatest generation stuff. "Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together". Lost the crowd, I think.

Gov. Schweitzer comes on in a bola tie and has lots of energy. I shut down the computer at that point, and was ready to head off to bed, but he grabbed me and didn’t let go. That was a fun speech. Clearly the highlight of the night. So far.

I’ll add Hillary Clinton to the list of Big Speeches that I need to go back and watch when I get the chance.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.

Posted by Vardibidian at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I did wind up watching quite a bit of the first day of the convention, and I took some very sparse notes. Here they are, for what they are worth. I'll try to write a couple of more coherent essays (brief essays, I hope) about some of the bigger issues, like the sense of powerful women in the Party and some contradictory and conflicting images around that, the tensions between the convention for the Party and the convention for the swing voters, and the color scheme that makes pale blue shirts for men look so atrocious.

Rev. Leah Daughtry, the CEO of the convention. Angry black woman in bright blue. And pearls. “The least, the last and the lost”. That’s good.

Video about The West. Governors and Senators from NV, WY, AZ, MT, WY, NM, CO. That’s pretty impressive, actually. Video is too long. Interestingly, includes a plea to get together and work on the campaign; that can’t be aimed at the conventioneers, but who else is watching at this point? Not that there’s anyone in the hall yet. Ends with AZ Gov. saying we have never elected a president from Arizona, and at least for this cycle, she’d like to continue that precedent. Hee hee.

The Credentials Committee: Eliseo Roques-Arroyo, Puerto Rico. Si se Puede. A good speaker. Then Jim Roosevelt. Unity talk. Stiff and squinty. Announces that MI and FL delegates get votes, and gets a big round of applause for it. Alexis Herman (former Secretary of Labor) on Hope and Determination. Then Dr. Dean adopts the report on voice vote.

The Rules Committee: Sunita Leeds. Pearls. Nervous-looking. Announces a new committee to look at superdelegates and caucuses. Mary Rose Oakar from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination League, looks very Jewish to me. Ohioan. Nominates Nancy Pelosi as convention chair, other women as officials of the convention. Gov. Walker, then, who I missed, appears to nominate other officers, men this time. Then Dr. Dean gets the aye, and then he adds some other officers.

Note: Dr. Dean, in identifying the people who will be, I think Sergeants at Arms, some purely nominal post anyway, says that one of them is an “LGBT activist”. Amazing to think that (a) only four cycles ago, having an openly gay speaker was a Very Big Deal, and (2) the head of the DNC can now casually refer to LGBT without explaining or identifying further. This is the first of the moments where I find myself shocked, not by how progressive and egalitarian and diverse my Party is, but by how recently those changes have happened. More on this later, I hope.

Anyway, here I skipped a bit.

From the platform committee, Patricia Madrid, AG of NM. Patriotism is working to improve the country. Examples of patriots are are Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan B. Anthony, Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta. Then Judith McHale, who talks about letting America be America again. Shout-out to Hillary. Dull, boilerplate speech. Tiny mouth, very serious. Nancy Pelosi gavels it aye.

Skipped some more.

The Hispanic Caucus. Missed the first bit. Silvestre Reyes, not a very likeable man. Jose Serrano, US Rep. from the Bronx, starts with “Hello, New York! Helllloooooooh, Puerrrrrto Rrrrricoooooooooo!” Speaks Spanish with a Bronx accent. Little moustache. I like him.

Nancy Keenan, from NARAL. “My Party, the Democratic Party.” Right to choose contraception. Stand with women who choose adoption. “How is it moral, John McCain…”

Amanda Kubik, speaking for young delegates. Making our change visible. “Yes we can! Or as we say up in Fargo, Yah sure, ya betcha!”

Emil Jones, Jr. IL State Senate (minority leader? Former minority leader?) South Side. Very tough looking. Nice suit. “We were not a likely pair.” Says that Sen. Obama told him “You know I like to work hard”, so sent him to work with Republicans on ethics reform. His nose is wider than his mouth!

Reg Weaver from the NEA. Black pinstriped suit. Big fellow, black, bald, with a big white walrus moustache.

Best Reader asks “what’s with the disco?”

IL AG Lisa Madigan. Wearing purple, no pearls. Very likeable. Underscoring Sen. Obama good for women. Pushing the IL state senate stuff, which of course is all he’s got, really. Important, though. Perhaps they should have saved some of this for later?

Dan Hynes. Illinois State Comptroller. Lost to Sen. Obama in the primary for Senate. “No-one likes to lose, but it’s a lot easier when you respect and admire the person who wins.”Pale blue shirt, pale blue tie, looks odd against the blue DNC background.

Alexi Giannoulis, IL State treasurer. Appears to be eighteen years old. "basketball buddy" Blue tie with a HUGE knot, very loose around a thick neck. Actually 32.

Randi Weingarten, AFT. Very angry. Good with the audience. Teachers must be partners, not pawns. Join us in this quest.

…

John Legend, singing. Not very interesting R&B. If you are out there? Tomorrow is starting now? Yawn. Clearly my break isn’t over.

…

Panel discussion on the economy. This is dumb. It’s like a parody of a Sunday morning politics show. It turns out that Barack Obama would be good for the economy! And John McCain bad! With no specifics! But lots of chatting. But I kinda like Sherrod Brown with his goofy hair and cheap-looking gray suit.

Nancy Pelosi video. It’s OK. A bit eulogy-ish, if you know what I mean.

Nancy in white. A disco pantsuit, or Nehru jacket thingie. Also, my Best Reader hates the podium. Awkward gavel business.

Margie Perez, N’awlins musician. She’s hot! Katrina, of course. Can’t afford to let John McCain drown our hopes in the same failed policies. Musician’s Village, Habitat for Humanity. A nice, if odd, bit when she grabbed the fleur-de-lis she wears around her neck, as if it were an amulet.

Video about Katrina. Which appears to be also the Jimmy Carter video. Pres. Carter gets to make the Louisiana is the third-world thing out of personal experience (with both), without making it sound insulting.

Hey! Jimmy Carter is there! With Roz, I guess. It doesn’t look like he’ll speak. They’re playing “Georgia on my Mind”. …aaand, he’s gone. Hmph. And now we’re back to a video, evidently about Barack Obama in law school.

Maya Soetoro-Ng. Comes out and hangs five (later looks this up, Wikipedia calls it the shaka sign). She doesn’t look polished (in the negative connotations), and seems strangely comfortable up there. Now she’s settled in to read from the teleprompter, seeming less comfortable, stiffer, more prepared. “Bounteous opportunity. It is a gift he has already given us in this campaign.” I don’t really like that already-historic meme that seems to be popping up.

The hall has filled up, now, at last.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. “first political convention in history to take place within sight of a mountaintop.” Again, already-historic. Not the right tone. More of his IL legislative history, which is nice. “party establishment was skeptical”. He’s not his father. He is good, though, within the normal parameters of good. Sets up the party establishment, and then says that the election wasn’t decided by them, but by the voters, the people of IL, and IL is America. An odd then about the He and the We and the She. “The well being of the ‘we’ depends on the well being of the ‘he’ and the ‘she’.“ Very awkward sounding. “The Selma generation, my father’s generation”; I like that, point out the generational thing, and that it’s effectively John McCain’s generation, as he was old enough (by 1964 at any rate) to have helped with the movement, and didn't. “I know Barack Obama, I have seen his leadership at work.” In Denver, a mile high, “Freedom has never rung from a higher mountaintop than it does today.” The music isn’t as bad as four years ago. That’s something. I’m not saying it’s good, I’m just saying it doesn’t make me want to hurt the musical director. Yet, anyway. Where’s Will.I.Am?

It’s been five minutes now of music and panning over the Big Tent. I love the Big Tent, but it does seem like a programming problem.

Homes for our Troops? Each convention site-meaning here and in Minneapolis? Didn’t get this.

Mike and Cheryl Fisher, talking about lunch with B.O. before the IN primary. Kinda cute. Very much an aw, shucks.

Tom Balanoff, SEIU Chicago. This guy isn’t much of a speaker. OK. His tie works on TV better than it ought