American Ministry of Propaganda

The right to be relentlessly negative and partisan while having your checks paid by the government and avoiding any responsibility to stakeholders: This is the halcyon vision set forth by Tony Long at Wired News. After genuflecting at the alter of dissent and bemoaning the trend towards conglomeration among media companies he goes on to suggest that the feds should intervene to break up the media oligopoly. And then:

After handing the power back to the press, hold journalists to the highest ethics of their craft. It's not about being objective -- let's face it, objectivity has always been a straw horse in this business -- but it is absolutely about being accurate. If you're reckless with the facts, you remove the justification for your own existence.

Here's something else for the wish list, something we've never seen, or will see, until hell freezes over: Remove the profit motive from professional journalism. Newspapers, TV news departments, news radio and news websites are the tangible defenders of our free society. Something so vital to the safeguarding of our collective well-being should not be encumbered by the vulgar need to turn a profit.

So who pays? The government pays, how about that? All legitimate news organizations would be licensed and subsidized by Uncle Sam.

Long seeks a vision of state-sponsored media that would do Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro proud - the complete removal of the free market and any pretense of objectivity at the same time. Once the offending political party is evicted we can expect a never-ending barrage of praiseworthy and self-serving propaganda from the Ministry of Information – lest those Neanderthals return to power.

Markets must terrify people like this. Markets give rise, in their minds, to monstrosities like the Fox Network – which somehow tricked millions of Americans into becoming viewers. They give impetus to the investors Silicon Valley, who the sponsor innovative technologies that have entirely transformed the media and empowered millions of participating citizens. And like all systems based on competition, they eventually guarantee turnover, as new and more persuasive voices join the process and usurp the entrenched authorities that have maintained the status quo.

And most disturbing to people of this mindset – markets put power in the hands of average people. Whether it be choosing among the dinosaurs of the old media or navigating the ever-changing currents of the new sources of information, the regular citizenry - weak, deluded sheep in the minds of folks like Tony Long – they actually get to make choices for themselves!

Very dangerous indeed …

Tags: Media, Wired, Tony Long, Journalism, Delusional Collectivism

Hyperdemocracy and it's Discontents

David Broder's WaPo column today describes the Democrats latest scheme to alter the 2008 selection process by adding Nevada and South Carolina to the crush of primaries and caucuses that will occur within a short cycle at the beginning of the election year.

All this effort to force-feed four contests in four different parts of the country into a two-week period at the start of the year is designed, the sponsors say, to make the presidential nominating process more "representative."

What they mean is that Iowa and New Hampshire, which have led the nominating process since 1976, are overwhelmingly white -- and notably short of the African American and Latino voters on whom Democrats depend in the general election.

The problem here is that we can expect to witness a process that is so front-loaded that the candidates will be decided very rapidly in a flurry of activity in 2007 and 2008. Democrats in other parts of the country, regardless of color, sexual orientation, or Union membership, will be forced to add their stamp of approval - a mere formality by that point. Instead of a field of candidates that is gradually winnowed down over time as states add their imprint, we've got a mad rush to appeal to select constituencies - groups which don't even meet the ever-shifting standard of "diversity" since large swaths of the country and other special interests won't be "granted a voice".

Broder observes:

What was lost in all this was any sense of public deliberation about the choice of the next president. In the general election, people have two months or more to evaluate two or maybe three candidates. In the early primaries, eight or 10 people may be vying. What is most needed is time -- and a place -- for them to be carefully examined.

He almost sounds like a misty-eyed conservative, pining for the less frenetic pace of yesteryear.

Technology and mass customization have lulled many people into the false expectation that something like direct democracy can be achieved, that all "voices can be heard". This has never been the case, wasn't baked into the Constitution, and has always been problematic in terms of the formal nominating process. You get to vote, but you are always depending on your fellow citizens, who have frequently constrained your choices - whether you like it or not. From straw polls to the arcane rules that govern caucuses - American democracy is weird, selective, and imperfect.

(Takes me back to my first very first post.)

Tags: Elections, Presidential Nomination, David Broder

Review: Miss Little Sunshine

Went to see Little Miss Sunshine a few days ago, and I recommend the movie to anyone can handle off-beat, bittersweet comedies, the type of sub-genre developed to greatest effect in recent years by directors like Wes Anderson (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums).

The common feature of his movies, and Little Miss Sunshine - directed by big-screen newcomers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, a husband and wife team - is that at the center of the film are single-minded eccentrics, possessed by some form of mania. The brother, in Sunshine, is a Nietzsche-reading, sullen teen who has taken a vow of silence while seeking to join the Air Force. The father, brilliantly constructed by Greg Kinnear, is a wanna-be self-help guru who preaches intolerance for losers. And at the center of the family is Olive, a little girl who wants to be in a beauty contest - and whose innocent ambitions the rest of the family is willing to protect. The final scene, an over-the-top beauty pageant , manages to be more clever, ironic and (for lack of a better word) simply heartfelt than anything I've seen in recent memory.

Ultimately the movie is about the continuing affection of our families, no matter how bizarrely constructed. These people, if we are lucky enough to have them, are often the final precarious buffer against the cruelty that often result when our passions smash against the world at large.

A review of this movie wouldn't be complete without the mention of Steve Carell, who plays a suicidal gay Proust scholar. The role, I've heard, was originally pitched at Bill Murray, who undoubtedly could have done the job. But Carell turns in an excellent performance, and now we know that not only is he a gifted comedian - but he can also hit that wide expanse of dramatic notes between serious and funny, like Murray and so many of the great performers.

Finally I'm pleased this movie was made in the first place. How did this screenplay look on the page, and how did the producers have the confidence required to envision the final product? This must have seemed like a risky proposition, but somebody had courage in Hollywood, and whenever that happens we should be grateful, especially if we want better films.

Tags: Movies, Little Miss Sunshine, Steve Carell

New Media and the Muckraker's Lament

The Cincinnati Enquirer, my local paper, is pursuing various methods of adding user-submitted content. Average people have been given interfaces with the news pipeline - and everything from sports articles to church festivals may be published, on the web or in print, after some editorial review.

It's an understandable move. Most newspapers are in survival mode these days. The Internet does wholesale national and global news much more efficiently, and opinion-oriented, editorial discussions are increasingly taking place in the blogosphere. Media companies recognize that local content - weather, neighborhood news, sports - these are the only niches in which they can compete with original, relevant information for their readers. Prodigious amounts of ink have been spilled on this topic, but take The Economist, from last week. After obligatory statistics on the decline of old media, this:

“Our research shows that people are looking for more utility from newspapers,” says Sammy Paper, chief executive of Belden Associates, a firm that specializes in research for American newspapers. People want their paper to tell them how to get richer, and what they might do in the evening.

Few newspaper companies like to hear this and they tend to ignore the research they have paid for. Most journalists, after all, would rather cover Afghanistan than personal finance. But some are starting to listen. Gannett, the world's biggest newspaper group, is trying to make its journalism more local. It has invested in “mojos”—mobile journalists with wireless laptops who permanently work out of the office encamped in community hubs.

Sounds mildly innovative, right? At least they're trying to change with the times (and Gannett owns the Enquirer, so that makes sense). After itemizing other various other ways newspapers need to commercialize in response to a more competitive market, the article finishes with this conclusion, about old media:

Over the next few years it must decide whether to compromise on its notion of “fine journalism” and take a more innovative, more businesslike approach—or risk becoming a beautiful old museum piece.

Foul ball, cry the activist journalists! The role of the newspaper, puffs the Dean at the Cincinnati Beacon, is to pursue investigative journalism and maintain the "intellectual climate". Readers - who are compared to children and idiots by the Dean - are just too simple to understand what's good for them. The suggestion here is consumers might only want box scores, weather, and local concert listings, but these are only "feel-good puff pieces". Left to choose for themselves, sheep-like citizenry will be mesmerized and confused by greedy corporations, and lured away from any potential sense of outrage that they might otherwise feel about our corrupt public officials and capitalist masters.

All of this is core, foundational progressive dogma. Independent media types are not famous for their intuitive grasp of a marketplace economy. Of course the changing business tactics of old-guard media companies will seem opaque.

But if they believed their own hype, and if they had a better handle on the dynamics of business, they would celebrate, enthusiastically, any perceived mis-step by the corporate media that is their natural rival. Isn't there some old adage along the lines of - when your enemy is busy doing damage to himself, sit back and watch? If they really, truly think that these are wrongheaded efforts, and if market for investigatory journalism will be grossly underserved in the new environment, shouldn't agitators and activists be rubbing their hands gleefully at all of the readers who will be seeking a new home in alternative publications?

Tags: New Media, Cincinnati, User Created Content, Gannett, Economist

Pluto and the Galaxy Song

From Monty Python's "Galaxy Song";

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.

During my recent trip to Maine we looked up one evening into a night sky that brought to mind Van Gogh. We were so far removed from any serious light pollution that we could see an ocean of stars - and most impressively, the bright dusty cloud of the Milky Way itself. Against the deep black sky you could imagine the bulging disk which we can only witness edge-on from our vantage point out in the western spiral arm. It was a breathtaking view.

We routinely forget our place.

When I heard the news about Pluto I was not surprised. The scientific press has had articles for years about how this distant frozen object doesn't really qualify as a planet. Compared to things like Saturn or Venus - even the moons of Jupiter - it simply isn't much more than two dusty hunks of ice - orbited closely by it's 'dwarf moon' Charon. After all, Akron and Los Angeles may both technically be considered cities, but they have very little in common.

What's exciting about the news, however, is the reminder that we are floating along in a busy solar neighborhood in the depths of space, one which we are continuing to study, classify, and analyze. It's always seems ridiculous and profound to think of ourselves spinning along on a planet while we go about our daily lives - doing dishes, driving to work. But I think it's important to remember once and a while. In some respects it's the ultimate context in which we are living out our physical lives.

Now if somebody will finally recognize that, for all practical intents and purposes, tomatoes really are vegetables. (I know it sounds like blasphemy.)

Tags: Pluto, Astronomy, Monty Python

The Cakewalk Express

From Erick Posted at RedState ...

At the end of the day, John McCain and his new found friends on the left might win the media primary, but they will have a hard time winning a Republican primary, where voters tend to actually be conservative. Being middle of the road means you are easily persuaded to jump into the left lane or the right lane depending on the issue flow. And Republican voters are so tired of the GOP's fondness for jumping into the left lane, I expect they'll run him over should he run in their primary.

This is the big talking point from the hard-line Right when it comes to McCain. He's a media darling and he's willing to throw his Republican friends to the sharks if he thinks it might mean more invitations to Manhattan dinner parties with the fourth estate. But I think there's something more serious at play here, and Glenn Reynolds (who rarely blogs at length with political analysis) says it concisely:

To the GOP, Bush is a wasting asset; like Reagan at the same part of his term, he's expendable. They'll use him up, and if the best way to get value out of him over the next couple of years is to bash him, then they will. That's just politics, and McCain's just ahead of the curve.

The "bashing" in this case was McCain's recent criticism of the war. He suggests that we should have known better, in the early days of the conflict, about the difficulties of occupation, the recalcitrance of the infamous "dead-enders". He lays blame squarely on the current administration for creating the illusion of a likely military "cakewalk".

The only problem here is that McCain isn't bashing Bush for the current management of the war. He's flat-out contradicting himself. This excerpt from an interview with, you guessed it, Chris Matthews, indicates that, whoopsy-daisy, Mr. Strait Talk himself was one of the cakewalkers from back in the early days of the invasion.

This much is true: Nobody's going to win the Republican presidential primary in 2008 by strictly and unquestioningly adhering to the Bush party line on Iraq. It's a golden opportunity for a new direction on the war on terror - not Kerry-like defeatism, not self-loathing, but a genuine "under new management" honeymoon for tactics on the ground and even some diplomacy with allies.

McCain still could be the guy to inherit that stance. He can recover from this - it's the type of kerfuffle only wonks care about - but the old man better learn his lesson. Weaseling hypocrisy immediately renders irrelevant the image of principle and backbone that has been his biggest strength. If we wanted a politician who can be on all sides of the issue at once we already have the perfect candidate for 2008.

Her name is Hillary Clinton.

Tags: McCain, 2008, Election, Instapundit, Redstate, Hardball

Educational Self-Assessment

Today's New York Times covers the difficulties inherent in making an apples-to-apples comparison between charter and public schools - if you read past the editorial headline.

A recently-issued report suggests that students attending charters are lagging behind "traditional schools" in reading scores. Critics have condemned the study for failing to consider the academic background of the students at charters - who, in many cases, have left public schools behind after a history of poor achievement. So the report doesn't accurately answer the question - are these kids doing better than they would have otherwise?

Nevertheless, the inadequacy of this conclusion didn't prevent teachers unions from making very predicable noises about the "unchecked expansion of the charter school experiment". This is the same group who frequently brays loudly in protest against any kinds of standards whatsoever, regardless of who makes them up. Since the results of this study served their self-interested policy goals I'm guessing that the standard they used was somehow entirely acceptable by the unions.

On another alarming note, Peter Bronson in today's Enquirer can't make any sense of the standards used for scholastic success in Ohio. In attempting to raise the bar to a 10th Grade achievement level the State Board has effectively lowered the passing criteria to 50% or less - provided you account for all of the various unintelligible fudge factors. And, as is too often the case, African Americans are doing the worst by these convoluted standards of measurement. All of us should be ashamed when any segment of the community can only graduate from high school half the time.

Mrs. Spacetropic (who is in the profession) may leave my pillow and blanket outside at the estate for saying this ... but I wonder at times if everyone in the field of education should be barred from any kind of comparative statistical self-assessment until they demonstrate more proficiency with numbers and the scientific method. I don't care if the standards are set by teachers, bureaucrats or policy makers - but they need to be crystal clear to everyone, arithmetically sound, and demonstrably useful in the production of an increasingly better educated citizenry.

Tags: Education, Ohio, Peter Bronson

Raw Liberty and Fierce Individualism

Via The Corner, some quotes from Joss Whedon about the politics behind Serenity/Firefly:

And people are always like, "They're fighting an evil empire!" And I'm like, "Well, it's not really an evil empire." The trick was always to create something that was complex enough that you could bring some debate to it — that it wasn't black-and-white. It wasn't, "If we hit this porthole in the Death Star, everything will be fine!" It was messier than that, and the messiest thing is that the government is basically benign.

and

...if the movie's about anything, it's about the right to be wrong. It's about the messiness of people. And if you try to eradicate that, you eradicate them.

Jonah Goldberg adds:

Serenity would be seen — exactly as Whedon intended it — as a denunciation of collectivism, root and branch. And, even though fascists were collectivists to the core, people who opposed collectivism were called "fascists" by the left — as they are today.

An argument which nails, inadvertently, why the virulent strains of textbook liberalism are tremendously annoying and intrusive. Instead of structuring society on the rights and responsibilities inherent to the individual - regardless of whether or not the individual amounts to anything - this philosophy contends that the social greater good can be determined, inflicted on people, and the outcome will be happiness (if only the corporations and religious people will get out of the way). They seek a government that not only provides overall domestic security and basic services, but one which ensures a comfortable material well-being for all citizens, even protection from hurt feelings - and federal "help" within hours of a massive hurricane.

True liberty doesn't come with a guarantee of civility. If applied equally to all men and women - which it should be - then there won't be a balanced outcome. But here's Oliver Wendell Holmes, often celebrated as one of the forefathers of the ACLU:

Some kind of despotism is at the bottom of seeking for a change. I don't care to boss my neighbors and to require them to want something different from what they do - even when, as frequently, I think their wishes more or less suicidal.

That's the right to be wrong coupled directly with a denunciation of collectivism. This quixotically "liberal" notion is foundationally present in an older, and some would say more conservative conception of American society.

Tags: Pragmatism, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joss Whedon, Firefly

The Breeders

In today's Journal Arthur C. Brooks crunches the numbers on the difference between Right and Left when it comes to reproduction:

Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020--and all for no other reason than babies.

The fertility gap doesn't budge when we correct for factors like age, income, education, sex, race--or even religion. Indeed, if a conservative and a liberal are identical in all these ways, the liberal will still be 19 percentage points more likely to be childless than the conservative.

This pattern holds true when I consider personal experience.

My single friends are more often liberal, and the married ones have frequently changed to be more conservative, or were that way from the start. This is by no means a universal rule, and there are some thoughtful and interesting exceptions - such as young conservatives who have a vigorous intellectual understanding of history as a result of contending with quasi-socialist professors - and conversely, older folks with grown children and a Volvo bumper full of lefty causes - folks frequently quite engaged in community and service to others.

Justin Gardner at Donklephant thinks that issues like abortion and gay rights are going to decrease in significance over time, and the phenomenon will "even out". Like many self-professed moderates (myself included) he himself much feels less strongly about the conservative social agenda than about rightward positions related to economics and foreign policy.

But regardless of my own biases, I'm not convinced that people who vote their religious faith are going to be a constricting demographic. Brooks' numbers seem like less of an opinion and more of a fact: The red states have growing, powerful blocks of church-going, baby-making folks, and in the bluest neighborhoods of America all of the nuevo upscale bohemians own an expensive bike, a pair of exotic shoes, and an iPod - but a child in a stroller is a rare thing.

Tags: Demographics, Arthur C. Brooks, Red States, Blue States

Isa, al-Mahdi, and Uranium

Let's hope it's only hype.

Pajamasmedia has coverage of doomsday, today August 22nd - a day on which, according to some versions of Muslim history (notably the Shi'a, who rule Iran), the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, is supposed to reappear and bring justice to the world. This day notably coincides with the deadline for Iran to respond to the United Nations demand that it cease uranium enrichment. According to CNN/Reuters:

"I can confirm, there will be a meeting at 4 p.m. for the EU3 plus Russia, China and the Swiss representative for the USA," one of the diplomats told Reuters, after the news was first broadcast by an Iranian television station.

The response will be handed over at Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which handles the nuclear file, they said.

Iranian officials have said it would be a written reply and have said the reply will be "multi-dimensional," Reuters reported.

Hype bolding mine.

This would certainly be fine and significant day for Tehran to test a nuclear weapon - giving a final, definitive answer to those folks who espouse endless rounds of talky diplomacy and pleading. And a fringe benefit of such a test (one with more damaging short-term implications) would be to provide defensive strategic cover to every radical group from Hezbollah to the hills of Pakistan.

The Wikipedia link above is very informative. It's the confluence of religious lore and present-day geopolitics that appears so alarming. And, an interesting footnote, some Shi'a believe that the return of al-Mahdi will coincide with the reappearance of the prophet Isa - the Muslim name for Jesus.

Tags: Iran, Nuclear Weapons, Apocalypse

Message to George W. Bush

This is what our president said today:

These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country. I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists.

Nobody likes to see an unchanging, static situation that costs so many lives with so little apparent progress. People are more than willing to turn on their TV each day and see the havoc wrought by terrorists -- provided they don't turn on that same TV a year later and see that nothing has changed. Everyone's more than willing to have their psyches "strained" while doing the "hard work" to support our troops in the pursuit of people who want to re-establish oppressive religious (or Stalinist) dictatorships.

But what causes the most "strain" is the lack of any kind of measurable results with so little apparent change in tactics - sometimes 10 massacred in Baghdad, sometimes 100 - and every indication that the whole Middle East is about to go thermonuclear because of Iran - a situation for which we apparently have no meaningful strategy whatsoever, aside from "send in the Euroweenies" - which is darkly amusing, but ultimately useless as the storm clouds gather and radicals show every sign of gaining strength.

Nobody likes the choice between a brainless, "stay-the-course" single-mindedness and a willfully naive and dangerous appeasement from the other side that amounts to little more than "not Bush" instead of a coherent alternative strategy. But likewise, nobody really gets a kick out of having a leader that can't articulate a policy, one whose speeches would confuse the Word spell-check, a man who doesn't bother to engage his critics on any terms whatsoever. Everybody remembers presidents like Clinton and Reagan, who, regardless of how we felt about them, spoke directly and consistently to the American people in times of crisis – even when they caused the crisis – looking right above the reporters heads into the cameras to the folks at home and never pushing their subordinates out ahead of them.

Everybody knows the difference, and it’s straining our psyche.

Tags: Bush

My Tyrannical New Comments Policy

After some careful consideration I have decided to enable moderated comments on this blog. This will be of interest to various other bloggers, geeks, agitators, smart alecks, pinheads and loudmouths who have begged, in the past, for the opportunity to deface this website with their so-called opinions.

But this is not a democracy. This is tyranny.

Profane, idiotic or repetitive comments won't be tolerated. Nor will diatribes that contain the latest partisan factoids from Kos or Malkin, replete with trite verbiage about "wingnuts" or "demon-crats" or "cryptofascists". Rants about Bush-Iraq will very likely be deleted on sight, unless you have something magically original to say - which you won't, in all likelihood. Many posts won't have comments enabled whatsoever. And don't expect me to "debate" you with endless back-and-forth commentary. I simply don't have the time. If you feel that strongly about anything I say get a Blogger account - it takes about a minute - and then you can type away to your hearts content and invent all kinds of clever fictitious names for yourself.

People who contribute thoughtfully will be allowed more leeway over time, and occasionally I may allow some high-spirited discussion with sparks a-flying, but this will be the exception not the rule.

If we are living amidst a culture that has, in the worlds of the great Democrat Patrick Moynihan, "defined deviancy down" - then we have also defined "rights" upwards well past the point of sanity. Some people claim the right to sputter the most nasty, vulgar, nonsensical speech in an anonymous way in any setting imaginable. You are hereby denied that right in this forum.

Other than that - I welcome your feedback.

The Androscoggin Beastie

As a blogger I feel compelled to mention the hot story that everyone is talking about here in Maine, where I am vacationing with the family. Some horrific creature was discovered dead in Androscoggin County, Maine earlier this week - one which fits the profile of a beast which has been reported to have killed dogs and haunted local residents:

Michelle O'Donnell of Turner spotted the animal near her yard about a week before it was killed. She called it a "hybrid mutant of something."

O'Donnell tells the Sun Journal of Lewiston, "It was evil, evil looking. And it had a horrible stench I will never forget," adding that, "We locked eyes for a few seconds and then it took off. I've lived in Maine my whole life and I've never seen anything like it."

All of the old salts at the local lunch counter (as well as tourists and summer people) are gabbing about this over clam rolls and ice cream. Needless to say this is exactly the type of local wierdness that has so inspired one of Maine's favorite sons, Steven King, over the years.

Of course, an expert is suggesting that it may only be an ugly dog, but the popular imagination has already been provoked.

Maine

Light blogging this week as the family and I enjoy our yearly vacation around midcoast Maine.

Despite the misty picture above we’ve been mostly lucky with the weather – intermittent sun, temperatures in the 70s and 80s, and occasional cloudbursts that are followed by rainbows. Activities for the younger crowd include collecting sea glass, swimming (if they can brave the cold), boating, and exploring coastal islands. A nice break from the humidity of southwest Ohio.

Gee Your Bomb Smells Terrific

Yesterday, when the news broke about the new terror threat, Mrs. Spacetropic was busy packing our luggage for travel. When they announced that shampoo, gel, contact lens solution and such were now on the list of verboten carry-on items, she began removing them from our bags.

"We'll have to hit a Target when we land," she announced.

Me: "You might not want to put it that way when we get to the airport."

So now we're at Columbus International Airport, and possibly the only person at the facility who isn't nervously scrambling to comply with the new TSA rules is the girl in the Bath and Body Works store, who wasn't moving a lot of product. The security procedures were time-consuming and invasive, but not much more so than they were previously, and we drew the friendly old duff, who systematically dismantled the carry-on luggage of my 11-year-old daughter.

The plane boards in the next few minutes, and we're off on our vacation, undisrupted by terrorism. We dodged a bullet yesterday, and it may be a while before we process the implications.

Hawky Joe and the Naderites

The revolution will indeed be televised, analyzed, and blogged ad nauseum between here and November, and probably until 2008. Ned Lamont is the unlikely standard bearer, a rich schlep who happened to be standing around when hardcore anti-war Democrats needed a candidate who would meet their highly orthodox criteria for going up against Hawky Joe in the Connecticut nomination ballot. Now that the “hard-to-left” political tactic has been validated we can expect fireworks leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections. Raw disgust for George W. Bush and contempt for interventionist foreign policy have a new gust of political oomph, and Cindy Sheehan is out on the dance floor showing off her moves.

Of course, Ned Lamont only won the nomination. Now his views will be scrutinized, and even the most ardent antiwar Democrats may be forced to admit that this guy has the right ideology on paper, but lacks substance. If the citizens of Connecticut wanted a seasoned defender of their interests on the senate floor and in the cloakroom – what they got in Lamont might have be more of a nice haircut and a stuffed shirt. He can nevertheless be counted as ‘yes’ vote for impeachment.

But where does this leave Hawky Joe?

The old centrist isn’t going away. He’s running as an independent.

This creates a moral dilemma for a certain swath of our domestic political tapestry – the hardcore indie-rock socialists and Greens who have previously yelped and dickered over the lack of choice between the political parties. Back in the days of Nader a high-minded ideology emerged that maintained that voters deserve more choices in the form of third party candidates. The media should have less say in which candidates are elected, and the voice of the people should be heard over the wishes of fixers and insiders who otherwise govern the political process.

The jury is out on whether Lamont was delivered to the doorstep of the electorate by insiders in “the media”. The newfangled ‘netroots’ - the bloggers and Blackberry-wielding upstarts – they certainly played a role in the Connecticut race. They share one common feature with bloggers on the Right – they want ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ status depending on what suits them at the given political moment. The extent of their influence will be hotly debated, since the answer has such a large potential impact on the how, in the future, politics are done in America.

But another question persists: Will the most vocal advocates of third party “choice” have the slightest amount of sympathy for Hawky Joe? People like my friend Andrew Warner regularly make an impassioned defense of independent candidates – and the time-honored principles of civil liberty - defending our right to express even opinions that others find reprehensible (such as, for example, defeating terrorism). Joe Lieberman has been set aside by his political party and is now running as an independent. He is without question a conservative on foreign policy - and everyone forgets the issues about which he is liberal, since the war is the only issue that matters. He may not be what the Greenies have in mind when they express their principles, but he’s an independent just the same.

In the next three months there will be many, many pundits, politicians and commentators in both public and private who will be urging Joe Lieberman to drop out of the Senate race. That should be very familiar to the hardcore Naderites who spent the last two elections getting harangued by their Democratic friends. Will any defenders of choice stick to their principles and support Hawky Joe’s right to stay in the game, or does the hardscrabble polemics of the antiwar cause trump everything else?

This article has been cross-posted to the Cincinnati Beacon, which always features lively debate in the 'comments' section.

Filters, Effects, and Propaganda

Okay, so the right-wing blogosphere is going banana-shit over the fact that a Lebanese Reuters photographer has had his work, as a whole, withdrawn from publication, after finding some very obvious instances of Photoshop fraud.

Of course these media "oopsies" always mysteriously go in one political direction. Try finding a retracted story that mistakenly casts the current presidential administration or it's allies in a favorable light. None can be found. But I think editors and TV producers as much swayed by the soft-focus “humanitarian” angle as they are by their own partisan filter of news events.

Oh look - a sensitive NPR reporter was granted special access to a pediatric infirmary inside Lebanon! The story that ensues is very thoughtful and interesting and the listeners in Cambridge and Madison will pause in their driveways, with the engine still running on the Volvo, to wait for the poignant interview to conclude and the minor-chord acoustic guitar interlude that tells them, with Pavlovian timing, that they can go in the house.

What actually transpired, of course, was pure manipulation of the reporter by locals who understand the diffusion of propaganda through the media better than people who have actually gone to J-school. Whereas the slightest amount of spin from the Bushies, for example Rumsfeld, is regularly (and even accurately) decried as cynically slapping lipstick on a pig, an almost laughable gullibility comes into place when the propaganda comes flying from the other direction.

All it takes is a mother of a civilian casualty weeping away, and journalists shift into sympathetic humanist mode. They feel no need to ask officials why evacuations of a war zone weren’t made mandatory, and no compelling interest in interrogating the Hezbollah PR guy escort who carefully scripted the whole interview under the auspices of looking out for the reporters "security".

Kudos to inquisitive bloggers for once again doing the media's work for them – but the Reuters photographer is chump change in the propaganda war.

Lamont On Iran

Martin Peretz is publisher of the New Republic and one of the few, soon-to-be extinct, centrist Democrats. His biography notably includes support for the 1968, anti-Vietnam presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. Writing in today's Wall Street Journal about the senate race in Connecticut he offers a withering perspective on the newest darling of the hard Kossack left:

[Ned Lamont's views] are also not camouflaged. They are just simpleminded. Here, for instance, is his take on what should be done about Iran's nuclear-weapons venture: "We should work diplomatically and aggressively to give them reasons why they don't need to build a bomb, to give them incentives. We have to engage in very aggressive diplomacy. I'd like to bring in allies when we can. I'd like to use carrots as well as sticks to see if we can change the nature of the debate."

Oh, I see. He thinks the problem is that they do not understand, and so we should explain things to them, and then they will do the right thing.

Read the whole article.

He goes on to say that a Lamont win would be "Karl Rove's dream come true". The hard lefties will claim that most of the country is against the war, according to polls. Again this is probably true to some extent -- but it does not mean the majority of the country endorses the views of naive, foreign policy featherweights like Lamont -- views which will be thrown into stark relief by the glare of the November elections.

What depresses me about Lamont's comments about Iraq, above, is that many people are seduced by this rhetoric. Who wants war, especially one carried out by the same ineffective people who apparently can't make progress in Iraq? True communication with the mullahs, if we really work to understand them, might turn the tide of hostility towards America, right?

This perspective wins me no friends from either party, but I can't help it: I'm very afraid that the only foreign policy categorically worse than what we've got right now is the knee-jerk appeasement and naiveté of people like Ned Lamont.

Non-Sequitur Diplomacy

The United States and France have finally reached agreement over the crisis in the Middle East. I guess that's good news, except ... neither one of these countries is actually engaged in the war that is the subject of this "agreement".

At least not directly. Sure the U.S. is indirectly involved, via Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. When the IDF soldiers storm though villiages in Lebanon their M16A1 rifles literally have the words "Property of the United States" on the side - in case there's any doubt who the "Bigger Satan" might be in the minds of the impressionable and non-evacuated Lebanese children who may be watching.

But France? Why is the U.S. striking a deal with a decrepit former colonial power over the conflict in Lebanon? Many third parties at the United Nations have strong feelings, but the countries that are fighting have demonstrated a robust indifference to world opinion.

All I can think about are other ludicrous examples: Denmark Strikes Deal With Burger King Over Australian Land-Rights. And so forth.

As I type, Condoleeza Rice is currently on TV trying to express her tepid support for the draft resolution, but it's an underwhelming performance. There must be some sober understanding behind the scenes that, without the direct support of Olmert and Nasrallah, everything else is just fluffy make-nice talk. The Lebanese government - which is also, essentially, a third party, since they have so little influence over Hezbollah - is already on record as saying the resolution is unacceptable.

Back to the violence, folks.

Blue State Warfare

The Washington Post, in their breezy, Style-section feature story about Ned Lamont's bid for Lieberman's senate seat, sees a recipe for a more muscular, Blue State politic in the November mid-terms:

No matter what happens, the Lamont surge looks and sounds like a towel snap at the status quo. This is not merely about the war, say strategists with both camps, but the larger question of what Democrats should do to regain power -- and in the absence of power, how they should behave in opposition. Should they move to the center and accommodate the red-state voters who have sidelined them two elections in a row? Or move to the left and fight, consequences be damned?

Leftward and fight, say a bunch of highly agitated bloggers, who have been pouring their fury into cyberspace and whipping up money and crowds for Lamont.

Bring it.

Because frankly, I'm quite tired of pointing out to my hard-left friends that their politics are out of the mainstream. Let's unleash the contrarian, anti-war, Bush-frantic rhetoric that has previously been contained in the echo chamber of the Kossack blogosphere and see if it will work at full amplitude in a national election.

For too long I've said to these folks things like "I know you and your friends feel strongly about these issues, but you're a loud 20-25% of the country, and you're repelling the rest of us." In response they usually say "How can a smart guy like you support Bush?" Not only is this wrong, it misses the point to such a spectacular degree that there isn't much more to say. (With us or against us, I guess.)

Democrats are polling very well in many races. It's possible they'll have a strong showing in November and re-take the Hill. But a victory might be pyrrhic if it's viewed as an endorsement of the bottled-up ferocity and unhinged rhetoric of the lefty blogs. The politicians who are swept into office may overreach so massively with impeachment hearings and so forth - not to mention a foreign policy agenda that doesn't amount to anything more than hollering "Not!" at anything uttered by the administration - that backlash from the public will be felt within two years, in time for the presidential.

So let's do the experiment, and see if this hardcore lefty ideology can win an election and govern the country.

Update: Some supplementary linkage. One of the Kossacks is convinced that, according to CBS/NYT polling numbers, the rest of the country is behind them all the way. And over at the Huffington Post it's apparently considered funny to have a laugh at Lieberman's expense using offensive racial stereotypes.

Update 2: The Huffington Post item has been edited, obviously after complaints. It had included a picture of Clinton with Joe Lieberman, doctored such that Lieberman appeared to be wearing minstrel-show 'blackface'.

Enjoy the Sirens

Atop all the other suffering and warfare comes the news that Depeche Mode will be cancelling it's concert in Tel Aviv. Instead of spending a night with everyone's favorite twee keyboard band from the 80s it looks like Israeli fans will get a ticket refund. The culprit here? Nope, not the pale, gothy lads themselves - who, depite what you might think, are apparently a bunch of fearless hardasses.

No, it's the roadies that are apparently to blame. They refuse to perform their technical whizbangery in an environment where they could get Katyusha-ed before the encore.

Questioning Qana

The Qana bombing doesn't quite add up. Perhaps it's as simple as Israeli forces deliberately or carelessly dropping bombs on a building filled with Lebanese women and children.

But perhaps we should be willing to be more questioning, more cynical.

We can't be willing, even eager to assign the darkest motives to our own government while giving groups like Hezbollah and Al Qaeda a free ticket. We can't insinuate that perhaps Alberto Gonzalez sanctioned Abu Graib, or the military "allowed" Gitmo prisoners to kill themselves, or the CIA gleefully sends enemy combatants oversees for some vicious, Bauer-esque rendition* ... but then, after demanding answers, retreat to a more noble conception of humanity when it comes to the other players in these conflicts. This is asymmetrical warfare, and lets be real clear about it: The people who understand the imbalance with the most alacrity are the folks without the JDAMS and satellite imaging and F16s. In fact, the only real way to re-balance the scales when you're so badly outgunned is to pursue public relations campaign with ferocity, and without mercy.

So when the IDF claims to have bombed Qana eight hours before the building collapsed - well, sure, it could be a bogus claim. And when somebody else says that the man onsite pulling children’s bodies from the rubble and waving them in front of the camera looks identical** to a man who pulled children’s bodies from the rubble and waved them in front of the camera after an incident in 1996 - that could be coincidence or misinterpretation too. Or when conservative bloggers point out the full-process color banner which appeared very soon after the Qana bombing condemning the action - that banner takes at least 5 or 6 days to create, according to print shop professionals -- well, this anomaly might be explained by the fact that the claim is made by conservative bloggers, and ipso facto, must be outlandish crazy talk.

But if we're going to question our news, and view events with a healthy skepticism, then we are obligated to consider the possibility that Hezbollah, at the very least, played some role in orchestrating the events at Qana. We should support an honest investigation, both by journalists and international groups - one which isn't predisposed to believe either the Israeli or the Hezbollah version of events.

* This one is actually true. We outsource brutal interrogations.
** I have links, if you want them, but they are incredibly graphic.