SOME PEOPLE HAVE HAD TROUBLE streaming 18 Doughty Street (here’s Jeff Jarvis’s rant) but it’s worked fine for me.
Archive for 2006
October 15, 2006
THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT doesn’t support blogs?
ADVICE FOR BOB CORKER in the Tennessee Senate race. Plus, how Harold Ford, Jr. used a hard-line stance on immigration to defang right-wing talk-radio hosts.
PRESS RELEASE OF THE DAY: The publicists for American Mourning have hit on a novel approach, comparing its Amazon ranking with that of Cindy Sheehan’s book, Peace Mom. Excerpt:
Most compellingly, “American Mourning” offers a potrayal of another American family that lost a child in the war on terrorism – Joe & Jan Johnson of Rome, Georgia. Their son, Justin, dies one week after Cindy Sheehan’s son, Casey, died. And to make things more amazing – Justin and Casey were best buddies in the U.S. Army.
But unlike Cindy Sheehan, Joe & Jan Johnson honored their son and his sacrifice for his country. In fact, Justin’s father, Joe, re-enlists in the Army at the age of 43 and goes off to Iraq to fight the Islamic militants who had killed his son.
Is it any wonder then, why Sheehan’s “Peace Mom” is getting clobbered in the sales charts by Morgan & Moy’s inspirational “American Mourning?” Check out the sales ranks for yourself – it’s not even close. And for the past few weeks, even though their book had yet to be released, Morgan & Moy were still outselling Sheehan’s “Peace Mom.”
Cindy Sheehan’s book, Peace “Mom” (ranked # 155,717 as of 7:00 PM Sunday 10/15/2006)
Melanie Morgan’s & Catherine Moy’s “American Mourning” (ranked # 836 as of 7:00 PM Sunday 10/15/2006)
As I post this, the gap’s actually widened a bit. It’s possible to make too much of Amazon rankings, and people often do, but this is a big difference, and it’s a cleverer-than-usual press release. And I get enough of them to judge . . . .
A PILOT’S PERSPECTIVE on the Cory Lidle crash.
HEY, MAYBE THIS IS AN ARGUMENT FOR GAY MARRIAGE: “Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.”
No, I’m actually serious here. The article suggests that as the proportion of married couples declines, support for marriage from employers, etc., may decline as well. More marriages = more support.
UPDATE: Not everyone is persuaded. I’m even charged with “bizarre logic.” It’s not clear what’s bizarre about it, though.
EARTHQUAKE IN HAWAII: Roundup here.
BRENDAN O’NEILL looks at censorship of scientific speech.
UPDATE: It’s backfiring. But hey, here’s someone standing up for free speech!
DAVE KOPEL, CALL YOUR OFFICE:
More than a dozen teachers and public school employees will spend part of their UEA weekend in a classroom — learning how to use a gun.
Clark Aposhian is offering a free class today to public school employees seeking to get their concealed- weapons permit.
“It is self-defense,” he told the Deseret Morning News on Thursday. “But because teachers and school administrators and custodians are typically surrounded by students all day, any threat to any individual with a firearm would also be a threat to those students.”
The concealed-weapons instructor’s offer was met with opposition from some teachers and union representatives at the Utah Education Association’s conference in Salt Lake City.
“We’ve always resisted the idea of arming school employees,” said Susan Kuziak, executive director of the 18,000-member teachers union.
Indeed they have. But not everyone is listening: “So far, about 2 dozen teachers and public school employees have signed up for his class.”
A PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH JOHAN NORBERG: He’s generally worth listening to.
SOMEHOW I MISSED THIS: Another record high for the Dow on Friday.
MICKEY KAUS notes another missed issue for the Republicans.
KARL ROVE’S SECRET WEAPON: C.J. Burch emails: “This is probably why Karl Rove is up beat. Every time the Republicans are in trouble a Democratic mouth breather steps forward to save them. It’s feaking uncanny. And it’s not helping the Republic, though it is a big favor to the Republicans.”
It was Burch who wrote a while back that: “I grow more and more convinced the Republican majority will end itself by 2006 if the Left will just shut up for five minutes.” That may be what decides the elections.
UPDATE: TigerHawk notes an upside: Murtha is disagreeing with The Lancet: ” I wonder if any reporter will ask Murtha whether he supports the findings of The Lancet studies? I’m not really holding my breath, but the political consequences of his answer would certainly be interesting.”
Plus this: “Murtha is obviously running for Majority Leader when Pelosi moves up to Speaker, but he’s also reinforcing Bush’s points about the Democrats’ being unserious about terrorism.”
MORE: Tom Elia notes that Nancy Pelosi is smart enough to take C.J. Burch’s advice.
OUCH: John McCain’s spokesman: “I never expected the Clintons or their allies to know much about Vietnam.”
UPDATE: Reader John McKay emails:
The interesting thing (to me, a military historian) is that no-one has
stated the obvious about any supposed statement McCain gave in Vietnam, “reciting the names of his crew mates.” It would be a mighty short speech, as McCain was flying an A-4 Skyhawk, a single-seat
fighter-bomber, when he was shot down, and had no other “crew mates”!
Heh. Like the man said, they don’t know much about this stuff . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: A different kind of Vietnam history.
INSTAPUNDIT: SHILL FOR THE DEMOCRATS! Reader Rob Burg emails:
Your GOP Pre-Mortem post differs little in my view from what you’ve otherwise decried as Laphamization. Call it, for the techno-babble enthusiasists or jargon lovers, Insta-Laphamization. For those who are a little more sanguine about Republican prospects, or for those who are jargon-impaired, call it what it likely is: BS.
Hmm. I offered an explanation in light of expected events, not a falsely labelled account of events that hadn’t yet occurred. So I don’t think “Laphamization” fits.
He also challenges me to: “Come out with some tough criticism on your blog of Harold Ford for claiming to be a lawyer when in fact he isn’t–something you’d be singularly placed to do.”
He’s talking about this:
The Corker campaign has acknowledged Ford’s oratorical skills but is hoping to take advantage of what they have alleged as Ford’s embellishment of his resume.
At issue is whether Ford should be allowed to call himself a lawyer. He has referred to himself as a lawyer to several media outlets, but Ford senior adviser Michael Powell has denied that the candidate has represented himself as a practicing attorney.
Ford earned his law degree the University of Michigan in 1996, the same year he was elected to Congress. He failed the bar exam the following year.
This has gotten Ford some flak, but it doesn’t seem that huge to me. I ran it by my wife — who’s a strong Corker supporter — and she didn’t think it was a big deal. It’s true that “lawyer,” strictly speaking, means someone licensed to practice law, but the term is often used to refer to anyone with a law degree. Compared to Tom Harkin’s phony Vietnam-vet status, it doesn’t even register.
More damaging for Ford is the corollary to this, something he’s never made a secret of: that he went straight from law school to his father’s seat in Congress at the age of 26. But the voters know about that, and can make up their own minds.
UPDATE: Reader John Bragg emails:
Given that a large percentage of voting Americans tend to confuse “lawyer” with “dirtbag”, claiming that he’s not a lawyer is supposed to hurt Ford? “Come out with some tough criticism on your blog of Harold Ford for claiming to be a dirtbag when in fact he isn’t….” Somehow that doesn’t strike me as a brilliant strategy for the anti-Ford brigades.
I’m wounded at the notion that some Americans lack the high regard for lawyers that . . . Oh, hell, he’s right. Accusing your opponent of not being a lawyer isn’t exactly cutting to the bone.
Likewise, charging someone with partying with Playboy bunnies seems like pretty weak tea. I was talking about that with a Republican friend the other day, who said it was the best thing he’d heard about Ford so far. He’s not alone: Few people will really be offended by that, and other voters will find partying with bunnies to be amusing and perhaps even appealing, and if nothing else it undercuts potential voter worries that Ford is a goodie-two-shoes or — post-Foleygate, a risk for any unmarried male member of Congress — gay, which would seem to do his campaign more good than harm.
Ford’s somewhat Clintonian answer, though, “I’ve never been to a Playboy Mansion party,” (it was a Playboy party, but not at the Mansion) is an unforced error on his part.
UPDATE: Reader Chris Barr emails:
It’s the silly season. I’m a rock ribbed Republican, but I think it’s crazy not recognize Ford’s considerable skills, and he seems like a decent guy, to boot. Back when I listened to Don Imus, Ford was a fairly frequent guest. He always struck me as fairly reasonable, genial, and very intelligent and articulate. Sure he tended to parrot the talking points of the day, but they almost all do that. I could vote for him—he’s one of the very very few Dems with a national reputation that I can stomach.
His “lawyer” problem is a little troubling, but not much. He was lawyer enough to graduate from the University of Michigan. If the Instawife is cool, then I’m good to go. And I agree with your correspondent about the Playboy party. He like girls! And goes to Church. Where’s the beef?
It’s all part of the game, I know, but it’s easy to see how many highly qualified and talented folks don’t want to play that game. More’s the shame.
I said a long time ago that no sane person would want to be President. As campaigns get uglier (and Ford/Corker isn’t all that ugly, really), that’s working its way down the chain of office.
PORK AS A CAMPAIGN ISSUE: It’s surfacing in the Diana Irey vs. John Murtha campaign, where Irey says: “Perhaps Mr. Murtha is scared to debate me because he knows I will hold him accountable before the voters for his long history of ethically questionable behavior in trading hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked federal appropriations for millions of dollars in campaign contributions — behavior so flagrant that even a liberal congressional watchdog group listed him just a few weeks ago as one of the 25 most corrupt Members of Congress.”
She’s hit this issue before.
THEY EXPECT TO WIN VIA HIGHER TURNOUT: “Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats — shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush’s second term.”
So do they know more than the rest of us, or are they out of touch with reality? We’ll know in a few weeks.
CHEERING MOB VIOLENCE at the Los Angeles Times: Patterico is not amused.
Reap what you sow, etc.
JOHN WIXTED: “The rich were better off under Clinton than Bush.”
This has a man-bites-dog flavor, but when you look at the donor bases of the two parties it shouldn’t really be a surprise.
ANN ALTHOUSE: “The NYT wonders if Hillary Clinton will ever have ‘a profile-in-courage moment.’ The answer is no, isn’t it? Wouldn’t she admit that to a confidante? She will probably some day have something that looks like a ‘a profile-in-courage moment,’ but when she does, it will be because never having one is perceived as more of a political risk than having just the right, precisely calculated one.”
HARRY REID ON THE HOT SEAT: The Las Vegas Review-Journal writes:
Senate ethics rules require members to file annual reports that must include information on all investment property transactions. A former official with the Federal Elections Commission told The AP that Sen. Reid had violated his chamber’s ethics guidelines.
By Thursday, Sen. Reid was a bit more contrite while awaiting a ruling from the Senate ethics committee on his actions. “I don’t want to try to be flippant about this,” he said. “If the ethics committee wants me to file a technical correction, then I will be happy to do it.”
On the scandal scale, Sen. Reid’s handling of the land deal hardly rises to Watergate status. But even several left-leaning newspapers — including The Washington Post — criticized the senator. The Philadelphia Inquirer went so far as to urge Democrats to boot Sen. Reid as their leader barring additional evidence in his favor.
All this raises the question: How does a savvy political operative such as Sen. Reid make a bush-league error and find himself ankle deep in the manure pit? For the past few years, Sen. Reid has been railing about a Republican “culture of corruption” — and has eagerly sought to exploit the Foley mess for his party’s political gain. Oops.
Perhaps after Sen. Reid scrapes the dung off his shoes, he’ll tend to the egg on his face.
Our political system doesn’t attract the best people — who, I guess, go into business or whatever. That’s good: A society where all the best people go into politics and government is a society in trouble. But I can’t help feeling that maybe we’ve gone just a bit too far in the other direction.
I kind of liked this one.
JULES CRITTENDEN looks at the October Follies. This seems to happen every October in an even-numbered year . . . .
LIBERTARIANS AND POLITICS: Interesting discussion over at Hit and Run, and this comment seems dead-on to me:
The fact is, libertarians aren’t generally joiners. Yet to influence people, you have to go to their meetings, bring a snack, raise funds for them, and listen to their ideas before they’ll listen to yours. Politics is about people, after all, and people don’t often think in policy paper terms. If you want to change minds you have to engage others in a positive way.
The evangelical right captured the Republican Party by joining it and working hard for it, eclipsing the paleocons that had enjoyed elder statesmen status. If libertarians really want influence, they’re going to have to work for it instead of taking for granted that “if the Democrats are pro-government, the other party must be anti-government.”
You know how many libertarians it takes to change a lightbulb? Only one, but you have to get him to show up.
Plus this: “It would be nice to see the Grey Lady and other major papers pay more attention to the incredibly shady dealings that keep third parties out of debates all over the country; hell, it would be nice just see them mention that third parties exist as anything other than comic relief.”