May 31, 2003:

Selling the war in Iraq: lessons from consumer behavior research? A close examination of the sell-in for the war in Iraq shows,

• When the President was speaking to the American public in major, televised speeches, the point he stressed over and over was WMDs. (For example, see his State of the Union address, as well as a speech he made in Cincinnati last October. Internal abuses were not really part of what he spoke to the American people about. There was some mention of internal abuses in the Cincinnati speech, but they were especially relevant in the case of Iraq because of the presumed presence of WMDs. That is, take away the WMDs and the abuses become irrelevant.
• Within the beltway, there may have been greater awareness of other Administration reasons for invading Iraq, such as regional stability, internal abuses, and such, but these were not stressed when the President was speaking to the American public.

In the absence of finding WMDs after the invasion, there have been a number of efforts to re-frame the reasons for the invasion: Wolfowitz' statement in a Vanity Fair interview (full transcript of the conversation is here) that WMDs were always the core reason for the invasion, but the only one on which agreement could be reached, as well as a general appreciation for the end of the regime, uncovering mass graves, etc. Without discounting the fact that Iraq is far better off without Saddam Hussein, let's look further still.

Web logger Josh Marshall has heard an argument that the Department of State insisted on the prominence of the WMD argument, as that was felt to be the only argument which the International community would accept. Marshall finds this disingenuous, writing, "without playing the WMD card the hawks never would have gotten within a thousand miles of Baghdad. And they know it."

Marshall raises another point on the domestic front:

"The problem is that there was never any way you were going to get the American people to go to war for a longterm plan to democratize and institutionalize a cultural revolution in the Middle East on the theory it might arguably further US interests in the region. It was only the imminent or near-term threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — and the possibility that Saddam might hand them off to al-qaida-like terrorists — that built public support for the war."

The consumer behavior research angle on the domestic front. Would the American public have been put off by the internal abuse, regional stability arguments, etc., if offered them at the time?

When I was in grad school, there was all sorts of research going on into the decision processes people use in choosing between products, based on attitudes. There were various models hypothesized: that a consumer might insist on minimum acceptable performance across a variety of characteristics (a heuristic model involving simplification of the choice situation, be rejecting those that don't pass), and then somehow choose the best of the lot, or perhaps a consumer might look at how a product performed across a number of characteristics as a whole, and somehow choose the best of the lot, based on the importance they assign to the various features (a multi-attribute attitude model).

There was a lot of research into both ideas, and as for the latter, one big issue was this: let's say a consumer emphasizes one characteristic heavily, and a product performs extremely well on that feature. Is superior performance on the other characteristics just "icing on the cake"? Would mediocre performance on other features denigrate from the overall attitude, or would it just be disregarded because they are of such less importance? (In the lingo I was studying, the first approach was called an "additive model," while the second approach was called an "averaging model.")

The relevance to the domestic sell-in process is this: the Bush administration made a pretty deliberate decision not to emphasize internal abuses when talking to the American public, and only stressed WMDs. Perhaps in hindsight, if they'd had their druthers, they would have mentioned those other arguments more, making it easier to resort to non-WMD motivations after the fact. They certainly could have continued to argue the WMD point, to get domestic approval; but did someone feel that adding on these other arguments would have detracted from the WMD argument?

May 30, 2003:

The Administration of Lies has been with us for over two years. Shall we list the deceit? (Hang on to your seat.)

• Practically everything associated with going to war against Iraq. Whether it was the misinterpretation of available evidence last September, or Colin Powell's misstatements during his February UN presentation, or Bush's selling of the uranium purchase order despite intelligence misgivings, or Paul Wolfowitz' claim that WMDs were merely a mutually agreed upon, convenient cause for war, not really the primary reason, in spite of all that the President said here and here. (Here's another must read, by the way.)
• Donald Rumsfeld's astonishing claim: "I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons." Apparently he hasn't seen this handy dandy set of quotations. He also seems to have missed the fact that President Bush threatened us with this very threat in his State of the Union address, when he said "With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest..." And he certainly wanted us to connect the dots when he said, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." If neither of those statements are close enough for Rumsfeld, then we're being played.
• Denying the flip-flop over nation-building.
• The twisting of economic analyses to support the campaign for a tax cut, all the while ignoring a report that forecast extreme deficits.
• Giving a speech in St. Louis with the backdrop of "Made in America," and taping over "Made in China" labels on surrounding boxes.
• In Cincinnati, Bush and his cronies tried to suggest that they were talking to jus' plain folks by making sure they removed their neckties.
• While trying to garnish himself as 'green' by providing funding for research into a hydrogen car, they did nothing about a huge tax break for SUV owners: "While the tax code allows big business-expense write-offs for SUVs, prospective buyers of fuel-efficient hybrid cars qualify for a tax credit of only a few thousand dollars."
• Bush's retroactive claim that he had said, while campaigning, that he would only allow a deficit under three conditions ("Little did I know I'd hit the trifecta.") He never said it while campaigning.

May 27, 2003:

Paul McCartney's "impromptu" performance. MSNBC.com reports that while in Russia, McCartney gave an "impromptu performance of 'Let It Be' for Vladimir Putin." Hello? He's been playing "Let It Be" every possible opportunity, every television show now, for what, 30 years? Impromptu? I don't think so. Now, if he'd played "'Round Midnight," that would have been impromptu. But "Let It Be"? (Not slamming Sir Paul here, so much as the way MSNBC wrote it up. Spare me the hate mail, please.)

The In Laws wasn't as bad as I expected. But it certainly didn't rise to the level of "must see in the theatre." The lead characters don't have the charm that the original ones did, and the new version layers in a "failed father" motif, as well as bringing the bride and groom out more, which makes the story more complex, and distracts from the comic opportunities in the heist part. But maybe that was a good thing, since this heist wasn't as nearly as funny.

We really wanted to see "A Mighty Wind." We'd actually planned on seeing it for about six weeks, doubling with another couple and cajoling a friend to sit for the kids in both families. But it was not to be: "technical difficulties" canceled our showing, and we had to switch films. Really wish we'd seen "A Mighty Wind."

May 25, 2003:

There's a REASON it's called "the unofficial start of Summer." It means don't count on good weather. New Yorkers seem to be in a great funk over the lack of sun and warmth this weekend. But Summer is almost a month away, four weeks from yesterday. There is no reason to feel cheated.

Still, we do what we can to force the summer's arrival. I'm no different. We made eggplant parmesan twice this past week, trying to conjure up the Summer Gods. It didn't work: we should have put on some Beach Boys music, too, I guess.

May 21, 2003:

I don't know about you, but I sure feel safer now that Saddam Hussein has been dethroned. Just knowing that all those WMDs have been found and are out of commission, along with the way our military protected sensitive sites like those Iraqi power plants, in order to keep all that radioactive stuff out of the wrong hands makes me sleep a whole lot sounder. You, too? Why, it's just like Jay Garner said, "We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: 'Damn, we're Americans!'"

I'm absolutely sure that this thing about us going up to code orange is just another liberal trick. Those bombings in Riyadh and Morocco, and the arrests of the plane hijackers in Jeddah? Just a buncha lib'rul sympathizers hoping against hope that Bush will look bad. Right?

14th wedding anniversary yesterday, but it being a Tuesday, we stayed in. Served up one fine damn meal, though: snow crab legs, corn bread, and asparagus. Then the three of us watched that ever-so-fine movie about getting married, The In-Laws. (What chutzpah to attempt a re-make of this movie!)

May 17, 2003:

Being taken to an out-of-town funeral is no fun for a ten-year-old, that's for sure, but it was never meant to be fun. The Kid Unit survived, though, paid respects, and impressed everyone with the display of patience. There were some pay-offs for the Kid Unit, though, such as seeing uncles and cousins and so on.

We rented "The Bourne Identity" last night and actually watched it, too. Pleasant escapist film, plenty of places to complain about reality gaps. But Chris Cooper, in dark hair, sure did look like US House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. I pick Chris Cooper to star in "The Tom DeLay Story."

And what the hell IS Tom DeLay's story, anyway? Doesn't the man have sufficient circumspection to know when he acts like a complete and total jerk? The list is pretty long, but here are a couple:

• His "walkin' on the fightin' side of me" reactions to others who dissent from the President
• His insistence that is was okay for him to smoke in a federal building, because "I am the Federal Government." (See story here.) Even if you believe he really said "I'm with the Federal Government," and not "am," it's still impudent.

May 12, 2003:

There's more of America in baseball than in football. Baseball may no longer be "America's pastime." That role may now belong to football, or basketball. But I can't imagine either of those sports claiming that they mirror the American 20th century cultural history as strongly as baseball.

Tonight, we were packing for an out of town funeral, one which would send us down to the Washington area for a couple of days. As a result, the Kid Unit's homework pace went into slip time: an accelerated pace this afternoon which meant relaxed evenings, once it was all done. And while we were packing, we had PBS on, which was showing a segment of Ken Burns' "Baseball." It happened to be the segment dealing with the 40s: DiMaggio, Williams, the women's league, and Jackie Robinson.

By coincidence, the Kid Unit happened on my Ted Williams ball; having heard about my Dale Murphy ball the previous night (and what matters most to a kid, the fact that Murph had this incredible appetite), I was asked about Teddy Baseball.

It was fortuitous that Williams was covered in the PBS segment, adding to the Kid Unit's momentum in watching. It was also helpful that the women's league was covered, as we'd all enjoyed "A League of Their Own." (In fact, the Kid Unit was asking "was Dottie real?" and then there she was on TV!)

But then the segment started to focus on Jackie Robinson, and the abuse he encountered. And his resilience. And his cool head. And how it ate him up. And how the willingness of Branch Rickey and Abe Chandler helped to make this the proper time to elevate blacks, and elevate the sport, and elevate America. I can't add to the eloquent words that have already been expressed over Robinson's ascent, but can't help but try: no other sport in America went through this in the same way that baseball did. And the importance of a sport going through this, as a stepping stone for America going through this, can't be underestimated.

May 7, 2003:

Have you ever seen ANYTHING so undignified as the President of the United States playing "dress up" in a pilot uniform? That, of course, is what we were treated to last Thursday when President Bush flew out to the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to make a speech. Granted, he does have pilot experience, but this was all about show business. And the show delayed the carrier's return to port; oh well, they'd only been gone ten months, I bet they weren't that anxious to see their families... And the White House: the White House can't get its story straight: first they said it wasn't a helicopter landing because they thought the carrier would be too far out, but now they say it's because the Preznit wanted to see the landing the way pilots see it. First, how come they can't get it straight? Second, is the navy a video game? Third, maybe he'd have had more experience if he hadn't gone AWOL for a year in the National Guard.

Bill Bennett hasn't rankled me as much as he has others. I don't see how his gambling changes the value of his message, and it might lead to a refinement of it, allowing for more compassion and forgiveness. Bennett certainly isn't the first to commit an indiscretion. Perhaps we all can show him as much tolerance as the Republicans showed Jessie Jackson after his transgression?

eBay had the sheet music for Fleetwood Mac's "Mystery To Me" up again, for maybe only the third time in the last twelve months. I've always been fascinated by the closing song, "Why," and for a while I thought it was in 5/4 time. (I have a crush on 5/4 time.) I now know it's not, it's in 4/4, but still, I want to see how it's done. I bid well, but responsibly, and didn't win it.