Cogitamus

Pennsylvania Primary Meaningless Coffeehousing Thread

I love the smell of voting in the morning. Smells like ...

John McCain's FEC Dilemma

There is an interesting little drama unfolding involving the Bush Administration, Congress, and the Federal Election Commission that may have a significant impact on the McCain campaign and its ability to receive federal funds for the election.

The FEC is the administrative body charged with overseeing the nation's federal election laws.  It is run by a bipartisan commission with six members.  No more than three members of the FEC can belong to one party.

At the moment only two of those six seats are presently filled because of a battle over Bush nominee, Hans von Spakovsky.  Mr. von Spakovsky was a Justice Department official who was engaged in voter suppression efforts for the Republican Party -- a rather interesting qualification for an FEC member.  He served on the Commission as a recess appointment along with two Democratic appointees, former Chairman Robert Lenhard and member Steven Walther.  The Senate has remained continuously in session since the end of 2007 in order to prevent Bush from making further recess appointments to the FEC.  The Senate Democrats are insisting that von Spakovsky face an individual up or down vote rather than be paired with a Democratic nominee. The Bush Administration insists that it will not withdraw von Spakovsky's nomination.

As a result, the Commission lacks a quorum, rendering it unable to rule on whether McCain could withdraw from public financing and, more importantly, a quorumless FEC may be unable to authorize the release of $84 million in public funds now that McCain appears to have opted back into public financing.

Vote For Lee Stranahan's Obama in 30 Seconds Ad Submission for MoveOn

We Love Lee

You've seen a number of Lee Stranahan's witty and wonderful political parody videos featured here, as well as at litbrit. Now he's created a brilliant little gem for MoveOn's Obama in 30 Seconds contest. Click the link above, watch the video short (very short), and show our creative pal some love!

Clicking through will take you directly to the contest page for Lee's video; you'll be asked for your name, e-mail address, and ZIP code, and once you receive the confirmation e-mail and click the link in that, your vote will count as a unique viewing. After seeing Lee's video, MoveOn wants you to consider a few randomly selected videos, if you have time, and rate those (you won't be able to rate Lee's entry, but don't worry--your viewing it and confirmation of same are what count.)

So don't hesitate another moment--go now and vote for the man who brought you these bits of lovely:

"Any man can give diamonds or flowers, but only Rudy can give you the New York City Police Department..."

"Mike Huckabee wants you to know he just got a voice mail from God...and he didn't sponsor a bill to send millions of Mexicans into Iowa to steal your job, dance the Lambada with your daughter, and make your food taste spicy with their jal-OP-enoes."

"Join literally hundreds of fanatical Ron Paul supporters as they generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity needed to power the time machine by typing RON PAUL in capital letters in the comment section of every blog in the world."

"Your Mom: you wouldn't ask her to help you install software--why let her choose the leader of the free world?"

What are you waiting for? Vote now and send this post along to your friends, too. And on behalf of my family--Lee fans, every one--I thank you and send many hugs and kisses out into the blogosphere.

XXX
D.

The Politico Tries to Put Me Out of a Job

Their map is interactive, but not color-coded. Mine is better, right?

RedState's Attack On Google And Larry Lessig: EPIC FAIL!

Erick Erickson's new post at RedState is a perfect picture of the modern Republican Party. He's trying to turn his right-wing hordes against Google and Barack Obama by noting that Larry Lessig showed a sacrilegous YouTube at a Google employee event. The title of the post is: "Obama and Google's Mutual Adviser: Jesus is gay, wears a diaper, and gets run over." Why against Google? Because Google favors Net Neutrality. In big letters is the text: "Call the Senate Commerce Committee at 202-224-5115. Tell the committee it is abhorrent to have Larry Lessig parroting Google's call for open networks while Google censors and denigrates Christians." The post goes way further than that -- insinuating that Google is generally an anti-Christian organization and that Lessig is a Communist. In short, it's a naked attempt to get the religious right to do the dirty work of big corporations (the telecoms, in particular) who oppose net neutrality.

But this time, something really special happens. Most of his readers see right through it, in part because their relationship with Google and Lessig is a lot closer than a small-town wingnut's relation to gay people, or any wingnut's relation to actual Muslims. The first comment: "I think Lessig's "Creative Commons" license rocks. I use CC licensed material all the time when putting together presentations." Everybody there uses and enjoys Google and YouTube. It looks like there are more posts against the author than in his defense.

Your Liberal Media -- Part Deux

This stuff really defies parody. 

Once again CNN (which I am beginning to think should be called the "Catholic News Network" after this weekend's endless, wholly uncritical and toadying propaganda fest for the Pope) continues to slavishly follow the Fox model by bringing on Tony Snow as a commentator.  Why do they think the true believers want a pale imitation of the genuine article?  And what about the rest of us who walk without our knuckles dragging on the ground?  At some point, if they had any brains, MSNBC would fully grab the opportunity available to it and construct a progressive alternative to this tripe.   

Meanwhile, I was happy to learn while perusing the CNN webpage that Cindy McCain has assured us that St. John doesn't have a temper.    To which I have but one thing to say -- "shut up trollop!"  Such effrontery from a thieving strumpet. 

Your Liberal Media -- Still in the Tank for McCain

Now 6:15 AM on a rainy Monday morning is an ugly time for any human being, but when Cokie Roberts, the Doyenne of DC's conventional wisdom, comes on the radio in such circumstances a spiritual crisis is likely to ensue -- or a clock radio to be hurled across the room.  This morning's travesty seem designed to answer my query of last week regarding media treatment of McCain versus Obama.   

Cokie was asked about the impact of John Hagee's endorsement of McCain, a question that seemed to cause her no end of pain.  She strongly implied that McCain had renounced Hagee's support, although, as Media Matters makes crystal clear, he has done no such thing.  Now Cokie is certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed, but listening to her feebly grasping for words in an attempt to avoid saying anything bad about St. John of the Straight Talk was excruciating.

We need to call bullshit on this sort of thing over and over as this campaign unfolds in an uphill fight to try to shame the shameless.   

Monday Miscellany

Take a break from the Democrats' crisis of two people wanting the same job and read up on some non-political, er, "news."

• Do you know what a "man cave" is?  I do now, and I'm hoping that by subjecting you to the utter absurdity that is the phenomena of man caves, I can get them out of my head.  This oh-so-Web 2.0 story from CNN highlights what too much money, too much time and not enough common sense will get you.
• Robert McCarthy from Florida Atlantic University has reconstructed Neanderthal vocal tracts and used them to create a recording of what the a Neanderthal's voice would actually sound like.  To the surprise of everyone involved, Neanderthals apparently emigrated to ancient Europe from what is now Canada.
• litbrit can correct me if I'm wrong, but this article pretty much sums up what it means to be British.
• German sculpture shows bare backside to Austria.

A modern statue on Germany's south-east border has triggered controversy, with some people concerned on Wednesday that the figure is showing a bare backside to Austria. Sculpted by local man Dominik Dengl and unveiled Saturday, the apparently naked male riding a giant fish is a personification of the Inn River which marks the border. He is named Aenus, the Latin term for the river.

At the risk of sending Sir Charles into a full-blown seizure laughing at all the jokes which can be made from this - if it hasn't happened already - a picture of the sculpture is after the jump.

Get A Faster Plane

The word "lazy" is clearly off-limits, so I will just say that the Barack Obama campaign is exhibiting a serious lack of hustle in the final days of campaigning. The most valuable thing a campaign can do at this point is get the candidate to make an in-person appearance somewhere, earning favorable local TV and newspaper coverage. Today, Hillary Clinton is in four different markets--Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Scranton--while Barack Obama is only in one, in Pittsburgh. The only legitimate reason for doing something like this is if Team Obama has enough polling to know that every Congressional district's delegate count is "locked in" except those where Obama is appearing.

Obama faces more of a logistical challenge, due to larger crowds, more press, and a bigger Secret Service entourage, but that's still no excuse. We've had over one hundred days of hard-core campaigning, which ought to be enough time for their crews to figure out how to turn these events around quickly.

More Polls

Read Jerome Armstrong, who did some digging into the crosstabs. Essentially, the polls that show a close race are overestimating male turnout ... men haven't been 45% of the primary electorate in any state this cycle (Missouri was closest at 44-56).

I wouldn't call a 10 point win for Hillary Clinton a 'blowout'; the majority of contests so far have ended with 10-point or larger margins for one candidate or the other, and Clinton can in theory get as high as 58% of the vote but end up with only a 4 delegate gain. In practice, though, I think 8-10 delegates is more likely, which of course means Clinton will have to win an even higher percentage of remaining pledged delegates on April 23rd than she did on April 21st.

Danica Patrick: Blasting Through the Glass Ceiling at 200 mph.

Danica Patrick, Indycar Champion and
the First Woman to Win a Major Auto Race

In October of 2000, Robert and I drove to Savannah, Georgia to attend the bi-annual racing clinic and get-together known as Targa 66, an event that's organized and conducted by the legendary and much-decorated British racing champion, Brian Redman. During the day, veteran drivers and retired champs (like Brian) coach those who are relatively new to the sport (like me), and the track is also open to aficionados and current contenders interested in sharpening their skills and testing their vehicles in a non-competitive environment. On Saturday night, there's always a lovely black-tie banquet complete with an intriguing keynote speaker (for example, the president of Jaguar, or one of Brian's pals from the good old days when race car driving was even more dangerous than it is now, which is saying something.) Of course, there is also plenty of drinking and the telling of stories both hilarious and hair-raising.

Anyway, that Saturday, Robert (who'd win a major series himself the following year) and I (who, come 2003, would start my own racing adventures in a little '61 Porsche 356), were joining everyone in the hotel lobby for after-dinner drinks when American Indycar champ and current team-owner Bobby Rahal stood up, clinked a spoon against his glass, and announced that he'd like to introduce someone special.

Capital Gains Tax Rates

I see John McCain has bought into Charlie Gibson's supply-side nonsense, arguing that when capital gains taxes are cut, revenues go up, and go down when the rates are raised. This is the short term effect of changing the capital gains tax rate. If you tell a bunch of wealthy people with accountants that in six months the cap gains rate will go from 15% to 28%, the accountants will recommend that they consider selling equities prior to the rate increase, unless they believe the return will justify the increase. Some capital gains realization does end up moving from the present to the future. Similarly, if you announce a cut, accountants will tell their clients to hold onto stocks for a few more months. But if the cap gains rate goes up and stays that way, there's no reason to think suddenly people will decide to stop buying and selling stock.

And the let's end the faux populism from the right about stock ownership. Most middle class stock ownership is already in . The people who pay capital gains tax are overwhelmingly super-rich. The top 1% of America earns something like 9% of the income, but pays 72% of the capital gains taxes.

Silly Polls

Did MSNBC really get crosstabs of Pennsylvania voters who bowl? Gun ownership I understand, but bowling? Why not ask who watches Grey's Anatomy?

Of course regular bowlers are probably more likely to be white, non-urban, and working class. So I'm not sure it tells us anything interesting. In general it appears that the undecided voters are more likely to be Clinton voters, but Obama is probably going to pull in the 39% that he needs outside of the metro areas in order to avoid a delegate blowout.

She Stopped Thinking About Tomorrow

I see Matt's point about how Hillary's desperate situation is causing her to make a bunch of desperate moves like inserting herself into the 'bitter' controversy.  But I would've hoped that at some point, she'd consider the fact that she has a pretty long political career ahead of her, and good will from progressive institutions and future colleagues will be valuable.  (Not to mention fervent young Obama supporters who will be in the game for the rest of her career, and now see her in the worst possible light.)  I remember Ezra commenting some time ago that her path to leadership in the Senate is now complicated by concerns that she'll retaliate against colleagues who didn't take her side. 

When I saw the Texas debate, I was optimistic that things might not end up this way.  It wasn't just her gracious and conciliatory closing statement.  She'd spent a lot of time attacking Obama from the left on health care, which was fine by me, and I was hoping she'd become more comfortable with that kind of approach.  A surprising loss in the biggest campaign of one's life seems like the kind of thing that might genuinely change someone's basic strategic mindset.  And maybe there's hope for that -- strongly supporting President Obama for many years and being a good Democrat will probably repair most of what's damaged here.  But there's no doubt that she's made post-campaign life harder for herself by pursuing her miniscule chances of winning with all these desperate moves. 

Some This-n-That For A Saturday Evening

If you've never heard of the sordid history of the banana, take a look at this article and consider getting the books it references.  It'd probably be nice to know the banana's history so that our grandchildren can use all of us as references when writing school reports on the fruit's extinction.

Missouri has a new license plate, and the design was chosen my good neighbors themselves.  The only problem is that the residents of the Show-Me State chose a design that has the phrase "Show Me State" on it.  I couldn't decide if an "I love lamp" reference or a "Show meeee........STATE!!!" reference would be funnier, so I'm including both.

One of my wife's coworkers appeared on Family Feud back in the 70s.  He has video of it, which he'll sometimes bring to work parties.  It's utterly hilarious.  His family did pretty well, winning enough games to last more than one day of taping.  The first day of taping, his sister found a well-stocked and suprisingly - to her - complimentary bar, and she had a few martinis to settle her nerves.  Then her mom gave her some sort of 1970s-era relaxant to further calm her nerves.  She was really calm for the shows - though you can see Richard Dawson getting a little uncomfortable at all the time she spent staring vacantly at him instead of responding.  Also, all the women appearing on Family Feud were given cards which asked their preference for their interaction with the always-inebriated Dawson:  nothing, peck on the cheek or kiss on the lips.  Ewww.

Best beer ever.  Costs $5.49 for 11.9oz, or about as much as 36 cans of PBR or some other such crap.  But oh, it's worth it.

In other food news, I recently went in on some chickens that were raised by some friends of mine.  They processed them, but I had to butcher my own birds.  Doing that really does change one's approach to them, much like eating produce from one's own garden.  The chickens were raised comfortably, given strictly vegetarian food to eat, their beaks stayed on and they never had anything wrong with their legs due to excessive weight.  It makes me feel better about that portion of the food my family eats.  Oh, and they taste utterly amazing.   

Update:  Picture of an anti-China protest sign after the jump.

Just Tell Us the Truth

Be inspired by Lee Stranahan's brilliant video protest. For it's the one thing on which virtually all of us can agree: this week's ABC Debate was utterly appalling--just an unforgivable journalistic trainwreck in which rightwing trash-talking points collided with irrelevant, lowest-common-denominator tabloid distractions to spectacularly stupid, intelligence-insulting effect. While George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson manned the throttle and steering wheel.

The good news, though, is that people are speaking out--in volume, volume, volume.  You can, too: tell ABC you want substance, not slime; news, not entertainment.  You can phone ABC at 212.456.7777 and contribute your thoughts on the debacle debate here. (To give you an idea of the magnitude of the blowback ABC's received these past couple of days, the comment total is approaching twenty thousand as I type!  I don't think I've seen that many comments on a story ever, not even at the Shakesville virtual pub or in an Atrios thread.)

I still don't know all that much about the specifics of either Dem. candidate's plans for healthcare, war-ending, or education-improving, and I cannot fathom how a major network, one that employs so-called journalists at that level and payscale, could squander the opportunity to really delve into those and other topics on behalf of millions of viewing voters.

Believe it or not, Disneyland delusionmeisters, most of us out here are grownups who want, and can handle, cold facts; we don't appreciate being served a plateful of recycled, reheated bullshit studded with made-in-China flag pins.

Also at litbrit.

Fair and Balanced

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson tries to kick up some dust and argue that Thursday's debate is fair game, claiming there were "multiple debates where the moderators were extremely tough on senator Clinton". Politico's writers make a similar point that the debate provided 'balance' after several debates that had an anti-Clinton slant, if you believe their spokespeople. This is a total false equivalence. In short, does anyone think that the outcry would have been as large if Charlie and George had asked tough questions about policy matters?

The Pursuit of Triviality

The big point that Democrats are making against ABC is nicely expressed by the start of the second paragraph in the letter that dozens of major bloggers and media figures signed: "For 53 minutes, we heard no question about public policy from either moderator."  You'd think that this would be a point that any conservative would be fairly sympathetic to.  If you want to ban abortion, privatize Social Security, or invade more countries, you probably want to see your candidates asked questions about those issues so you can learn the details of their policy proposals and decide which person to vote for. 

So I looked at the Corner, hoping that some right-winger would alight on this point and say something like "I hate trivial debate questions too!  I wish that instead of having candidates recite their favorite hagiographic Reagan poems, we could spend more time discussing the order in which we should invade the rest of the Muslim world!  I'm leaning Syria-Iran-Lebanon because it lets us use our Iraqi bases, but I've been curious about using our aircraft carriers to support Iran-Malaysia-Morocco..."

Sadly, no.  Here's what we have at present, excluding liveblogging that came too early to notice the pushback:

Friday Kitsch Cover

Paul Anka does "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Leave your suggestions for next week's kitsch cover in the comments

"Straightforward plagiarism"

Given that we're all in a media-criticism mood lately, I thought I'd reprint an excerpt from something I stumbled upon in my studies recently.  After analyzing the heavy use of press releases and other publicity materials in the print media, the authors conclude:

Taken together, these data portray a picture of the journalistic processes of news gathering and news reporting in which any meaningful independent journalistic activity by the media is the exception rather than the rule  . We are not talking about investigative journalism here, but the everyday practices of news judgement, fact checking, balance, criticising and interrogating sources etc., that are, in theory, central to routine day-to-day journalism practice. News, especially in print, is routinely recycled from elsewhere, and yet the widespread use of other material is rarely attributed to its source (e.g. ‘‘according to PA. . .’’ or ‘‘a press release from X suggests that. . .’’). Such practices would, elsewhere, be regarded as straightforward plagiarism. [italics in the original, bold mine --J]

---Lewis, Williams & Frankin: “A Compromised 4^th Estate?” Journalism Studies Feb 2008 p. 1-20

The problems are systematic.  The rot goes deep.  The only bright side is the ferocity of the criticism, but it would be fantastic if journalists actually took it to heart even once.

Friday Frank: When the Lie's So Big; Barcelona, 1988; Bonus--Planet of the Baritone Women

Maestro Zappa, ahead of his time--again--musing out loud about that which has been troubling many of us these days.

Me, I'm swamped with all manner of, uh, stuff right now, but I do have some projects in the works and I'll be back soon (hoping...always hoping.)

In the meantime, let me wish everyone Happy Spring and a very Bon Weekend.

XXX
D.

(Terrific lyrics after the jump.)

Also at litbrit.

McCain "to do" Stephanopoulos this Weekend

Well that's the headline at TPM Election Central.

Hey, I report -- you snicker sophomorically.  [Or perhaps I'm projecting.]

It seems only appropriate that after metaphorically handling McCain's dirty work at the debate, L'il Georgie give it up for the straight talker.  Larry Craig will be jealous. 

Here We Go Again

Does anyone remember this post I wrote and all the flack I got for it in comments?  I thought Kos was going too far in criticizing Hillary Clinton, and was chastised for being, what was it?  Oh yes, "divorced from reality."

Good times.

Standards

I'm not sure what Matthew Yglesias has been "scanning" today, but it seems to me that there are actually very few "media people" (though I'm not exactly sure who that encompasses) arguing "that the performance of the debate moderators was, in fact, very good."  Tom Shales at The Washington Post said they "turned in shoddy, despicable performances."  The editor of The American Journalism Review said the questioning was "a vivid illustration of what is so wrong with so much that passes for political coverage today."  The editor of Editor & Publisher pronounced it "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years."  A writer for The Columbia Journalism Review argued that "this debate was among the worst, if not the bottom of the lot" and that it was "largely the fault of ABC News."  Time magazine's Michael Grunwald seemed to agree, as did (perhaps predictably) various lefty observers.  With the exception of David Brooks -- who ridiculously argued that ABC's questions "were excellent" -- I'm not really seeing any media observers defend Gibson and Stephanopoulos' performance last night.

Yglesias also says he's had "a million conversations navel-gazing conversations [sic] about the decline of 'old media' like newspapers, magazines, and network television and never once has anyone suggested that declining audience might be in any way related to the quality of the product."  In fact, there are serious media observers who very clearly argue that the quality of the product is correlated with the industry's fortunes.  In this year's State of the News Media, from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the authors argued for the second year in a row that if you reduce news investment, people eventually flee because the product gets so bad.  (See "News Investment," here.)  Michael Massing wrote a whole article in an obscure publication called The New York Review of Books titled "The Press: The Enemy Within."

In some ways, this ties in with my earlier item on James Fallows.  I'm hardly suggesting that everyone needs to obsess over media commentary -- most of it's bad anyway -- but the fact that you don't read it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Update: Howard Kurtz, who has a rep in the liberal blogosphere for being an apologist for elite media, surveys the reaction to the debate's moderators.  He (or "Even he") notes that "it is rare for ostensibly neutral media writers and television columnists to pile on with such fervor" and that, although "[s]ome commentators praised ABC's handling of the debate," "the critics were far more vocal."  Indeed, he seems to have had trouble finding neutral supporters.  He comes up with the aforementioned Brooks; Laura Ingraham, who has an obvious and partisan interest in seeing Obama subjected to idiotic questions about his "character"; and Jake Tapper, who, um, works for ABC News.

Professor Me

It's been a big couple of months for me -- in March I defended my dissertation, and just this morning I officially accepted a tenure-track job as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore! John Holbo of Crooked Timber fame will be among my departmental colleagues. Current plans are for me to move to Singapore in July, right after Netroots Nation. I can't wait to eat all the amazing food.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled public flogging of idiotic debate moderators.