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Random commentary and senseless acts of blogging.
The first Republican president once said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can seriously injure the government in the short space of four years." If Mr. Lincoln could see what's happened in these last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement. Blog critics Gryffindor House Slytherin House Ravenclaw House House Elves Beth Jacob Prisoners of Azkaban Muggles
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Friday, August 20, 2004
It's fashionable, and not unjustified, to trash NBC's coverage of the Olympics. Last night, I know before turning it on the Patterson had won the All-around Gold, since the final routine was showed in California something like 10 hours after it took place. Any number of perfectly sound criticisms can be made of the cheerleading, the selections of what to show, and the silly little bio pieces they slip in. And yet, that fails to kill the event. Hamm's incredible work to pull out the All-around a few days back, perfectly nailing a spectacular high bar to make up for the ground he lost falling down on his vault, was the best television I've seen this year. Last night, the endlessly-hyped Michael Phelps proved once again that he deserves the promotion with a feat that was even more amazing: after winning the Gold in the 200 IM by a few seconds, he had only 30 minutes to rest up before swimming the semi-final heat in the 100 breaststroke. No problem; he won the heat - and set a new Olympic record doing it. It seems unfashionable to admit to this, but I watch the Olympics for hour after hour. As bad as some of the broadcasting is, the athletes keep giving me reasons to come back for more. Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Matthew Dowd needed some quick facts on Sunday to support Bush's feeble economic record. How to get them? How else - make them up. The number of jobs created in the first six months of this year, almost exactly the same as it was in 1996. In fact, the number of jobs created in the first six months of 2004 was 1.205 million; in 1996 it was 1.437 million, 20% higher. To get even that substantial discrepancy, Dowd had to pick his period cautiously; if he had just changed to the last 6 months versus the same period in 1996, 56% more jobs were produced under Clinton. Looking over a longer period, the contrast is even starker: in 2003, job creation was negative for 7 months and never exceeded 94,000 in any month; in 1995 job creation was positive for 11 months and at least 140,000 for 10 of those. Inflation... is lower than what it was up in 1996. Inflation wasn't too bad in either 1996 0r 2004, but for the 6 months Dowd used as his basis for job creation comparison, it was 2.4% in 2004, 1.8% in 1996. For the most recent 6 months, it was 2.3% vs 2.0%. There's 5.5% unemployment in 1996. There's 5.5% unemployment today. Actually true, but done by weaseling. The unemployment rate is the same, but labor participation is lower (66.9% vs 66.2%). So the number of unemployed has gone up, but they're no longer counted as unemployed. One other Republican who showed up on Sunday morning was miles off his talking points. Senator Chuck Nagel was actually talking honestly about what a mess Iraq has become, using both of the Forbidden Words, 'quagmire' and 'Vietnam'. He also came very close to directly saying that uniformed military was bullied out of giving Bush proper advice about Iraq: We've got a big problem on our hands. Many of us were concerned... and questioned a lot of these things before going into Iraq.... If you do put more troops in, then you sink deeper into that terrible word, quagmire. And it is not unlike what we found in Vietnam over the years. You just keep putting more and more troops in, propping up governments, propping up governments, and, in the end, if the people are not with you, you lose.... I think we have to rely on our commanders' analysis on the ground. I think we should be careful of that, that those commanders are not nuanced or compromised by the civilian leadership in the Pentagon saying, 'I said we'll listen to the commanders, but the commanders say, wink, wink, `We don't need more troops.`' This is a time for uniformed military to show some courage, step up.... It is now very much up to the courage and the leadership of the uniformed military to be very straight with our policy makers. Friday, August 13, 2004
Atrios points out that the New York Times has finally admitted their false claim that American casualties in Iraq have declined since the handover. Let's take a moment to salute the delicate language that was used in this 'correction': An article on July 21 about President Bush's campaign plans for the rest of the summer referred imprecisely to the trend in American military casualties in Iraq after the transfer of sovereignty there on June 28. From the transfer date to the date on which the article was written, casualties increased compared with the same length of time before the transfer; they did not show "some reduction." In other words, the Times asserted that up was down. I suppose that could be decribed as "imprecise". Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Avedon at Sideshow has the best blogger's remembrance I've seen of the 30th anniversary of Nixon's resignation. Clearly a woman who was raised properly by parents who managed the rare feat of despising Nixon even more than mine did. I was a teen then and can remember vividly. I was at a summer camp that focussed on camping and wilderness activities. With no electricity or TV available, a bunch of us were listening to the speech over AM radio in a camp van. I must have really loathed Nixon because my excitement was not so much that he was being driven out of office as enjoying the thought of how utterly crushed and humiliated he must have felt as he delivered the resignation speech. The moral so often drawn after the crisis, that the system worked, looks about right to me with a few decades of hindsight - more right than it did at the time, when I felt that Nixon being pardoned and spared a prison sentence was a catastrophe. The leadership of both the 'Establishment', such as it was, and the Republican Party agreed to cut loose a man who had become an impediment, and who clearly was guilty as charged of high crimes and misdemeanors. Allowing for the fact that no real precedents existed, it was a relatively clean operation. The famous 'smoking gun' tape of June 20 that finally pushed Nixon out has never seemed to me very important. In reading the transcript, I didn't see that it provided overwhelming new evidence, certainly not enough for every member of the House Judiciary Committee and most members of the Republican leadership in both House and Senate to give up the cause simultaneously and publicly, which they did. Unfortunately, we've gone mostly backwards in the 30 years since. One very large change, which is profoundly destructive, is that the congressional Republicans of Nixon's era felt a duty to hold one of their own to accountability. They played a hesitant, not completely willing, but ultimately positive role in the investigations into Watergate. Their current successors view congressional oversight as an entirely partisan activity, not really distinct from campaigning. Friday, August 06, 2004
The Old College Try Robert Kuttner thinks that Kerry has trouble with the Electoral College: Kerry could win the popular vote by piling up huge majorities in New York, California, and the rest of "blue" America, but still lose the Electoral College and the White House if he can't carry two out of three crucial swing states -- Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. Certainly that's a possibility, but the situation looks somewhat better than Kuttner allows for. A lot can change in 3 months, but the EC seems to presently lean to Kerry. Starting from the red/blue split of 2000, the current EV total would go to Bush, 278 - 260. But the real question is how firm each side's votes are. Kerry seems to have a good chance of winning everywhere that Gore won. The most comprehensive list of state by state polling I know of is here. It shows that in the two largest blue electoral prizes Bush had been hoping to take, PA and MI, Kerry seems to be safe - 13 polls in the past month and he leads in all of them, with the trends moving in his favor and recent polls showing leads of up to 11 or 12 points. In fact, Kerry isn't in serious trouble in any blue state. The only poll in the past month showing him trailing in any blue state was a poll in Wisconsin, where the results have varied from a 53 - 44 lead to a 45 - 46 deficit. Bush's best shot at a pickup is Iowa, where one recent poll showed a tie; the other 7 all showed thin leads for Kerry. Polls in Minnesota have swung between a tie result and a decent 8 point Kerry lead. Kerry is the favorite in all of these states; he has a pretty good chance to run the table. In the small red state of New Hampshire, Bush is in deep trouble, trailing in 7 straight polls, the most recent showing a 9 point deficit. And the trend seems to be moving against him: in the most recent polls by Zogby and ARG, he trails by more than in earlier polls by the same firms. Bush also trails in one or more recent polls in all of the following red states: Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia - 89 total EV. In addition, Arkansas is extremely close, very winnable if the undecideds break for Kerry. Virginia, which Bush should be able to take for granted, is close in some polls. North Carolina is an upset possibility. If Kerry is able to hold the blue states and NH, Bush probably has to sweep every contested red state to win. (He can afford to lose one, but only if it is NV or WV and, even then, only if he wins every district in Nebraska, where one vote is awarded to the winner of each congressional district.) Looking at the electoral count, one other conclusion leaps out: Bush just can't win without Florida. Even if he somehow holds Hew Hampshire, wins all the other problem red states, and grabs both Iowa and Minnesota, losing Florida still sinks him. As others have pointed out repeatedly, Florida 2004 is shaping up with a lot of potential to repeat Florida 2000. What would the impact on the nation be of another stolen election? Democrats would likely not accept it as easily as we did 2000. Bush will consider any challenges to his legitimacy unpatriotic at best. One very possible outcome of this election is the worst national crisis since 1876. Monday, August 02, 2004
Kerry's speech was strong, but for us unreformed Clarkies, Clark's speech was the real highlight of Thursday night. The conventional wisdom, wrong yet again, was that Edwards was a better choice than Clark because, although Clark had the better resume, Edwards coud give a strong speech and Clark couldn't. In fact, Clark was far better at the convention than Edwards. Is the conventional wisdom ever right? Is it just me or is the DNC not entirely comfortable with the strong grassroots support still enjoyed by both Dean and Clark? All through the main speeches, signs appropriate to the speaker were handed out and shown on TV. None for Dean or Clark, though - they were the only speakers I saw who had delegates waving signs that were obviously home-made. Having indulged in this final plate of sour grapes, I will now do my best to forget what could have been and focus on supporting the very strong ticket that we actually have. |
