This is the Great Hall, within Shepard Hall, at CCNY. Harlem, Manhattan.
Me: Frank Lynch. Bio These are my daily rants, mostly political. For something less spontaneous, I maintain The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page (over 1,800 Johnson quotes), perhaps your best online resource for insight into his thinking.
KEY IRAQ SPEECHES/REMARKS: Bush: 9/19/02, on the vote to authorize force 10/7/02, Cincinnati 1/28/03 State of the Union 3/16/03 Bush, Blair, and Salazar 3/21/03 statement of goals 5/1/03 Ship speech, "Mission Accomplished" 7/2/03, Bring 'em on 10/21/03, WH veto threat on troop support 10/27/03, Bush on threat to veto troop support Cheney: 8/26/02, "Simply stated, there is no doubt..." Kerry: 9/6/02,New York Times' op-ed piece. 10/9/02, on the authorization of force 7/29/04, DNC convention speech 9/20/04, at NYU Powell: 2/5/03, U.N. speech Rumsfeld: 3/30/03, "We know where they are... Tikrit..." Wolfowitz: 1/23/03, on disarmament Debates: 9/30/04,
Bush-Kerry 10/5/04,
Cheney-Edwards 10/8/04,
Bush-Kerry 10/13/04, Bush-Kerry
Palin's offensive on Obama's "connection" with William Ayers. At a Colorado airport appearance yesterday, Governor Palin segued from a claim that she actually reads newspapers to cite an article in yesterday's New York Times on an old, peripheral association Obama had with William Ayers, of the Weather Underground. Palin's remarks were kind of like a fork in chess, pressing two arguments at once:
"There is a lot of interest, I guess, in what I read and what I’ve read lately. Well, I was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago.
"I get to bring this up not to pick a fight, but it was there in the New York Times, so we are gonna talk about it. Turns out one of Barack’s earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, and they are hardly ever wrong, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that quote launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and US Capitol. Wow. These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes.
I'm not sure what to make of all of this; is it meaningful that she doesn't mention Ayers by name? Was it deliberate, or had she already forgotten it? Does mentioning details get in the way of her basic claim that Obama can't be trusted? Or is she thinking that by not mentioning Ayers' name she's made it more difficult for people to learn that the Times discounted the significance of their brief time together on a board?
Or, like I asked, is it possible she'd forgotten his name? We know from her an interview she conducted with Fox that she can be bothered with learning details she'd flubbed in a prior session with Katie Couric. So what gives here? And how come she couldn't be bothered with the Times' conclusion of insignifcance? Did she read the article, or not?
One way or the other, it's a scurrilous attempt to use incomplete knowledge about Obama as a wedge; the McCain-Palin ticket has realized that their idea of "reform" and promises of change aren't working, possibly having met with skepticism due to McCain's many years in Washington and close association with Bush's policies. So this is what they need to resort to, and they show no compunction about doing so.
Palin is really a typical politician, willing to say anything to get elected.
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10:23 AM
Friday, October 3, 2008
Get more out of your iPod. (This may also work for other MP3 players, I don't know.) Get your iPod to dig deeper into the nether regions of its drive: first, rank your tunes by the number of plays; second, find the threshold for the bottom third or fourth; third, create a 'smart playlist' (this is what iTunes calls it) for the songs that don't meet that threshold.
If you like what you hear, cool: you're slumming in neighborhoods you've ignored. If you don't like what you hear, then, well, you're into Walden territory. Simplify! (Be more discriminating about what you load.)
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9:19 PM
Brooklyn Heights. Ah, I'm going to make you feel like you paid too much for your ticket with this post. Brooklyn Heights is the neighborhood you'd hit if you were visiting NYC, felt obliged to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and took a right. I've been through it many times for photography, investigating its residential stuff and its industrial remnants. If you were one of those people with a tendency to click links, this would be a link to click. I mention this because The New York Times has an interesting video on Brooklyn Heights, which you can see here. (The NYT doesn't let me embed the window, but don't worry. it's still just one click.)
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8:58 PM
I don't want my VP winking at me. In a situation where Governor Palin wants us to believe that she's ready to be "one heartbeat away," she winks at me in one of her first answers? Hell, I betcha they tried negotiating a spitoon onto the stage so she could try and make it ring. You darn betcha they did.
What a lot of claptrap and nonsense came out of her mouth last night:
Repeating a charge McCain attempted and Obama refuted last Friday, that Obama had voted "against funding the troops." That dog won't hunt. (If you need telling, they both voted for and against funding the troops, when other details such as timelines differed. By durn, even the White House threatened to veto a bill funding the troops.)
Basically staking out a claim that we were going to have to drop our expectations that she was going to answer the moderator's questions. I think she forgot that this debate was for us, not for her. And that's pretty much what she did throughout the night, treating moderator Gwen Ifill's questions like a diving board to another pool. I don't know about you, but I've already had it up to here with the last eight years of evasion, and I don't need another four; I want people who are accountable, who will sit down and talk to me straight, not someone trying out for the role of the pig in the greased pig contest.
Saying she wants extra powers for the Vice President? What happened to original intent of the founders? I have the feeling she thinks Cheney's the tree and she's the apple, and she doesn't want to roll very far. Scary. She's got another think coming.
By trying to avoid so many of Ifill's questions last night, she showed us how little she knows, far better than she did in those Katie Couric clips. And I'm sorry, that pitiful canard about the "Main Stream Media" was a lame attempt at blaming the messenger. The GOP should be ashamed of themselves for this travesty.
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7:18 AM
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
OK, the Couric-Palin segment on the Supreme Court isn't so deadly. The details which came out earlier in the week about this segment were scant, and made it seem as if it was going to be excruciatingly painful (couldn't name another Supreme Court case other than Roe v Wade, couldn't discuss another Supreme Court case other than Roe v Wade, stony silence when asked)... I prayed there would be more details that would make the inability to answer less damning. Talking Points has put the video up, and it's far less damning than it was reputed to be.
First, Palin is talking about Roe v Wade in the sense that it should be up to the states, and while she discusses it in the context of her being pro-life, she clearly puts it in the framework of something that should be up to individual states to decide. So it's clear she's thought about it from a couple angles. (There's a "but," which I'll get to.) When Couric asks her about other cases, she asks about other cases she disagrees with, not just a general history of the Supreme Court. And while Palin doesn't list any, it's not stony silence; her answer reverts to the conceptual framework on which she has an issue with Roe v Wade: she's confident there have been other decisions which were better left up to the states than the federal government.
Consequently, I can forgive her lack of a list here: Bush v Gore, for instance, is probably not a case she would have wanted to see overturned since it would have put Gore in office, so she's not going to mention that one, even if her bias is towards states' decisions. (It would have been interesting to hear her weigh in on the Terri Schiavo case, since the "state's rights" position was not in line with the core GOP position.)
Working from Governor Palin's framework, I don't know what recent Supreme Cout decisions I would have mentioned as wanting to overturn: the Connecticut case on eminent domain (Kelso) goes against conservative values, but the SCOTUS decision was in keeping with the state court's decision. So I don't know. And I'm pretty well read. (Have there been some school voucher decisions, maybe?)
Now, I did say there was a "but" worth mentioning. Palin acknowledged a right to privacy, and Couric pointed that out as the basis for Roe v Wade. Palin didn't attempt to reconcile her inconsistent beliefs here. Maybe she's just at a point where, when it comes to being pro-life, the inconsistency doesn't matter (does she contradict herself? very well then, she contains multitudes). When it comes to issues of faith (such as when life begins), resolving contradictions isn't always that high a priority.
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9:55 PM
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Blaming the left, thoughtlessly. Bloomberg will apparently be seeking a third term as NYC Mayor; some think his stewardship will be especially valuable during financially tumultuous times. Doing so would require a change in the law, as there's a two term limit for the Mayor's office here.
The idea is inviting unfair comparisons with the behavior of Rudy Giuliani in the days following 9/11, as Giuliani was ending his second term. (You may even remember that 9/11 was the day of the mayoral primary.) Over at NRO's The Corner, Andy McCarthy goes so far as to predict that the concept of a third term for Bloomberg won't raise the same ruckus, presumably because of local political bias, media bias, and similar claptrap:
Bloomberg Will Seek To Blow Out Term Limits Law and Run for Third Term as NYC Mayor [Andy McCarthy]
NYTimes has the story here. There has been speculation about this for months, but apparently Mayor Bloomberg will exploit the timing of the credit crisis demands, arguing that his steady hand is indispensible.
After 9/11, the mere suggestion that the emergency conditions made it appropriate for Rudy Giuliani to seek a term-limit repeal and run for a third term spurred great howling. But Bloomberg is a liberal much loved by the Times. I'm betting the tsk-tsk'ing will be muted.
But McCarthy has forgotten a crucial difference: Bloomberg is supposedly going to work to change the term limit law first, and then run for a third term. All on the up and up. Giuliani, however, was considering getting his second term extended, rather than change the law first:
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, reconsidering his position that the mayoral election should go on without him, believes that New Yorkers should be able to decide who leads the city out of these troubled times, even if it includes an extension of his term, people close to the mayor said last night.
While Mr. Giuliani is barred from serving another consecutive term under the city's term limits law, he has rebuffed questions about his view of the matter in recent days. He is expected to address the issue directly as early as today, less than 24 hours before voters are to go to the polls in the rescheduled mayoral primary.
...
Last night, two officials who work closely with the mayor said they were told that Mr. Giuliani would publicly state his support for allowing voters to seek a way to choose him in the general election. The officials would not be more specific.
Any announcement by the mayor that even suggests he will personally insert himself into a battle to interfere in the term limit law would not come as good news to the other men running for mayor. All of them have had to carefully pivot between echoing the resounding feeling in the city that the mayor has handled this crisis in a masterly way and building the case that they are able to pick up his mantle, all while barely campaigning.
Even if Giuliani abandoned the hope for something so, uh, extra legal as a "term extension" and sought instead to repeal term limits, there was only a blink between the rescheduled mayoral primary and the November vote. At best, Giuliani's efforts would not have allowed reasonable time to consider the issues involved in setting aside a term limit law; and the concept of him extending his term was a laugh at the time.
[W]ith six weeks until the general election, the Republican mayor would have to find a way to get his name on the ballot. If he did not, he would have to rely on the extremely difficult route of trying to win election as mayor as a write-in candidate. That would be hard in almost any city in this country, but casting a write-in vote is so cumbersome in New York that the city's Board of Elections has posted a video on its Web site demonstrating how it is done.
Mr. Giuliani's advisers declined to say how they might overcome these obstacles. But there was no shortage of suggestions yesterday for ways that Mr. Giuliani might attempt to circumvent existing election law. And there were offers from political figures -- among them, Michael Long, the chairman of the city's Conservative Party, and Herman Badillo, a Republican candidate for mayor -- to help the mayor at least get his name on the ballot.
Giuliani's efforts would have been in no way orderly. It's completely different from the timeline Bloomberg would face, with the mayoral elections a year away.
So yes, Mr. McCarthy, I wouldn't expect a ruckus over Bloomberg either, but not for the reasons you cite.
UPDATE: Those examples from 2001 don't really do the issue justice; Giuliani really did try to extend his term, and strong-armed candidate Mark Green:
Even as the fires burned at ground zero, Democrats and Republicans campaigned in a mayoral election. In late September Mr. Giuliani summoned Mr. Green, who was running in the Democratic primary, to his command post.
Mr. Giuliani, as Mr. Green recalled, was blunt: I want to remain in office three more months. I have a great team, I can lobby Washington. I’m being reasonable, he cautioned; my supporters want me to run for a new term.
Oh yes, he added, I need your answer tonight.
Mr. Green was taken aback. Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish holidays, was hours away. His closest advisers, many of whom were Jewish, would not pick up the phone.
"He made it clear he would invest his Churchillian popularity in hitting whomever did not go along with him," Mr. Green said in an interview.
That many wanted the mayor to stay on is undeniable. But American electoral democracy rarely pauses. Abraham Lincoln held elections in 1864. Franklin D. Roosevelt stood for re-election as World War II raged.
"It was a very dangerous idea," said Mr. Schwarz, the former corporation counsel. "The knight on the white horse is always indispensable in his own mind."
I sure hope there's more to this story. Word has it that in an interview with Katie Couric, Governor Palin couldn't name another major Supreme Court case besides Roe v Wade.
Is it wrong of me to be skeptical about this? Like, she couldn't even come up with Dred Scott? Brown vs the Board of Education? I do pray that there had to be some qualifier in the question... Please?
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10:42 PM
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Call out to New Yorkers... and those visiting next weekend. Next weekend is "Open House New York" - - the weekend when plenty of places open their doors and obscure backrooms; many are open through the year, but many offer access to special areas.
I'm tellin' ya, if you're in town, this is the real thing. Open House New York.
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8:29 PM
Foreign policy is John McCain's home court? My morning-after opinion of last night's debate is that for an area where the Republicans have been claiming such superiority for Their Man McCain, Obama did well enough that independents and the inquisitive are going to dig deeper into the details of the points of disagreement, and that McCain's advantage will, before the weekend is over, have eroded.
For instance, there was enough to and fro over what Kissinger actually said about preconditions for negotiations, that no one could draw an educated conclusion by referring to something more independent than the campaign web sites, or their "tried and true" blogs which salve their consciences. Eventually, they'll hit the analysis of a site like factcheck.org or content which is similar or derivative:
Obama said McCain adviser Henry Kissinger backs talks with Iran "without preconditions," but McCain disputed that. In fact, Kissinger did recently call for "high level" talks with Iran starting at the secretary of state level and said, "I do not believe that we can make conditions." After the debate the McCain campaign issued a statement quoting Kissinger as saying he didn’t favor presidential talks with Iran.
(There's more detail at that link above, I only clipped a summary analysis.)
I think it's impossible to say who "won" the debate, because a lot of it depends on whether or not people will dig into what the candidates said. When Obama reported that McCain said he wouldn't meet with the leader of Spain, what was the audience thinking? If they believed Obama that McCain actually said it (he did), did they register this as another slip of the tongue on McCain's part, or did they see it as an expression of genuine policy? Moments like this called John McCain's superiority on foreign policy into question, and I think that alone is significant. So in the end I'm not sure if it's 'won' the debate versus best achieved objectives.
I also think Obama didn't go far enough with one of the seeds he was trying to plant: when he was talking about the McCain focus on Iraq, I don't think he did enough to point out how disadvantageous that's been not just with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan (he did that, sure), but with respect to Iran and North Korea. McCain said a couple times that leaving Iraq would make Iran more prominent in the region; but they have become more prominent thanks to the failed Bush policy. (The Bush policy dug us into this hole, and it's time to rethink whether or not we should continue digging this way. Sadr isn't taking his cues from Miss Manners, and he's not going to go away, and he's not going to switch to Miss Manners no matter what we do.) We all know that North Korea kicked out the UN inspectors this week, and while liberals crowed that Bush had adopted Clinton's policies in dealing with North Korea, and while I don't know what might have worked better, we all know now that Iraq wasn't the menace.
I have to leave soon, but I think Obama certainly put the ball into play, and that was great. In the meantime, if you here people crowing about how McCain "won," in 2004 Kerry "won" the firt debate, and there was this 2004 post from NRO's Corner on that point:
INTERESTING [KJL]
More of what Bush camp is noting:
How important is "winning" the first debate? Since 1984, when Gallup began asking the question, "Regardless of which candidate you happen to support, who do you think did the better job in the debate?", only one candidate to win this measure in the first debate went on to be elected. In 1996, Bill Clinton "won" the first debate and went on to be elected President. Candidates Gore, Perot, Dukakis, and Mondale all "won" their first debates, but failed to win election.
Sept. 30, 2004: Kerry 53/ Bush 37 (-16)
Oct. 3, 2000: Gore 48/Bush 41 (-7)
Oct. 6, 1996 Clinton 51/Dole 32 (-19)
Oct. 11, 1992 Perot: 47/Clinton 30/ Bush 16 (-17, -31)
Sept. 28, 1998 Dukakis 38/ Bush 29 (-9)
Sept. 28-30, 1984 Mondale 54/Reagan 35 (-19)
That 84 example is a tad relief.
Of course, 2004 is one more example of the first debate "winner" losing the election. We'll have to see how much they talk about this in 2008.
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9:37 AM
Friday, September 26, 2008
Some Bill Monroe for ya... Uncle Pen.
I heard he wasn't a nice guy, though.
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8:58 PM
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
John McCain's "postpone the debate" is grandstanding, of course. McCain has suggested that the first debate, slated for Friday night, needs to be delayed because of the financial bailout sitting on Congress's desk. Obama has rejected the idea, and appropriately so. McCain has forgotten that financial issues are not his strong point and never have been; his opinion is not so important here, and it's not "leadership" when you overreact and grandstand like this. It all smacks of Al Haig's "I'm in control here, now" when Reagan was shot; Haig was in no Constitutional position, as Chief of Staff Secretary of State, to assume control.
McCain seems to have lost his humility: he's not important here. It's more important for him to play his assigned role as a candidate for the President and debate on Friday night.
Now, on that note... what can we expect from McCain on Friday night? I think we're bound to hear lip service mention of the Anbar Awakening, and in the right chronology vs. the surge this time (similar to Bush's "of course I remember who attacked us on 9/11" in that debate with John Kerry). But I also figure that immediately after the lip service reference, McCain will go to a statement like "but the fact is" and introduce some fact as being a result of the surge, when in fact the result can't be factually tied to the surge. Look out for that phrase "the fact is." It's generally anything but, just used to buttress a questionable position.
UPDATE: Corrected text above thanks to Joel (in the comments).
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6:40 PM
But, Senator McCain... McCain has positioned his campaign as lobbyist-free, and last week pounced on Obama for supposed ties to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (I forget which, but a honcho there was an Obama donor). But et tu, John: the New York Time is reporting that the lobbying firm of Rick Davis, McCain's advisor, was getting $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac. Even in recent months, when Davis has been on leave in order to make McCain's campaign 'cleaner,' Davis has continued to benefit, because he's an equity stake holder:
The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years. (Ed: "undercuts"?)
...
[Sources] said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than to speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of his close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.
The article also says nobody but Davis worked on the account. Little effort... $15,000 a month. Nice work if you can get it!
(It's worth reminding, or noting, that on Monday the McCain campaign held a telephone conference call whining that the New York Times was off base in their allegations about the camp's lobbyist ties.)
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8:17 AM
