Moment, Linger On

Five in a row

Kevin Drum points out the similarity between Bush's 2004 campaign slogan and that of Herbert Hoover in 1932. Besides inviting the fair but unwanted comparison between the Bush and Hoover administrations, is "we've turned a corner and we're not turning back" really such a good slogan to begin with? It leads one to ask some questions that Bush might not want asked, such as "Why is there a corner to have been turned? Whose fault is that, anyway?" and "Have we really turned the corner at all?" and "If we've turned the corner are you sure we've turned the right way?" and "Even if we've turned the corner and headed the right way, why should we trust you that we're not going back?"

Kevin also encourages one to complete the sentence "George Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to _______." His winner so far, and I have to concur.

Made for the radio

So I watched the Kerry speech on Thursday and was initially not impressed. R. was alternately watching and napping and her reaction at the end of the speech was "He's going to lose." I wasn't so pessimistic, but I also thought that Kerry hadn't done enough to close the deal. But then yesterday morning I was listening to NPR on the way to work and their political commentators were raving about the speech. And they played bites from the speech that sounded really good. They sounded much better than I thought they did when I saw Kerry say them on TV. Even the "west wing" joke, which I thought was flat when Kerry made it, sounded funny when NPR replayed it. I still can't say that this was my reaction.

Well of course this is going to happen. Any excerpt is going to sound much better or worse than the speech as whole. But it could be that Kerry is also fifty years behind his time. He may be someone who sounds much better on the radio than he does in person. One of the things that irked me about the speech is that his gestures often didn't match his voice and you don't get that coming through on the radio. Kerry as FDR? I could live with that.

The other thing about this disconnect between my perception and the media perception is that it is the media's perception that matters. Only an estimated 20 million people watched the speech and if the media says it was a good speech then for the other 280 million people in this country it was a good speech

That explains the Carville thing

According to Mary Matalin, Dick Cheney is the thinking woman's version of sexy. I'm sorry, but I refuse to take her word for it. I'm going to have to get some independent confirmation on this one.

Actually, many of the thinking women I know have said that Bill Clinton is their idea of sexy. But maybe I just move in the wong circles. Perhaps there are flocks of women out there who are suckers for dishonest balding corpulent executives.

Good for him

Ricky Williams, the talented but enigmatic running back who most recently played for the Miami Dolphins, has decided, the week before he was scheduled to report to training camp, to retire after only five years in the NFL.

Good for him, I say. He apparently has decided that he has made more money than he will need to last him for the rest of his life and that he wants to walk away from the game while he can, well, walk. He deserves praise for deciding this rather than the bewildered resentment that seems to be eminating from most journalists.

The 800 pound gorilla

So I keep having arguments with these "not a dime's worth of difference" Nader supporting morons and they all seem to have the same blind spot. It shouldn't have to be mentioned at this stage of the game, but in the next four years there will likely be three Supreme Court appointments (O'Connor, Rehnquist, Stevens) and possibly as many as five (Scalia, Ginsberg).

Anyone who is planning to vote Nader just to "send a message" has no concept of responsibility or civic virtue.

Kansas? What's wrong with America?

A current buzz in the media appears to be over Thomas Frank's What's the matter with Kansas? Frank's work has inspired critiques (which largely miss the point, actually) by George Will in the Washington Post and the almost always intellectually dishonest John McIntyre of RealClearPolitics. It has also inspired more reasonable commentary by such writers as Kevin Drum as well as followup op-ed pieces by Franks in the New York Times in which he further expounds upon the thesis of his book.

Frank's thesis is that the Republicans have convinced working class people to vote for them against their class interests by emphasizing socially conservative cultural issues. If this was all Frank's was saying then his book would be a boring tautological exercise and not worth reading at all. But Frank's, using the extreme example of his own home state of Kansas, points out that once in power the Republicans (intentionally, according to Frank) fail to succeed in delivering on any of their cultural campaign promises in order to keep the issues alive for succeeding elections. Instead they use their acquired power to push through an economic agenda which harms the majority of the voters who put them in power in the first place.

It is a compelling argument and one that demands some consideration. After all, the Republicans have been in control of both houses of Congress for all but eighteen months of the past 10 years. They have maintained their power by campaigning on a largely pro-life platform. But have they done anything about it? Have they seriously tried to pass a constitutional amendment overturning Roe v. Wade? (They wouldn't need to introduce a complete ban on abortion to do it, either. They would merely have to introduce an amendment saying that the right to regulate abortion is delegated completely to the states. Such an amendment could well pass through both houses and get sent to the states.) Of course not. And why haven't they? Could it be because they realize that if they were to deliver on their cultural promises then their economic voting record might be called into account and their constituents might realize that thir interests aren't being looked after?

The right choice

I'm excited by the choice of Edwards to be Kerry's running mate. I liked him during the primaries and I think he will be a great addition to the ticket. His "Two Americas" speech particularly resonates with me; I could listen to it every day from now until November.

But am I really expected to take the Republican criticisms of the choice seriously? I mean, really. Is there any choice besides Zell Miller that they would have approved of? They accuse the ticket of "lacking gravitas" (as if more gravitas is what Kerry needed) or Edwards "lacking experience" (as if he had any less experience than Bush did when he was elected president). If it had been Gephardt the criticism would have been that the ticket was "old" and "tired" and "yesterday's politics." But if you read between the lines it is obvious that this choice has the Bush campaign running scared. Like I said, the right choice.

Read this

I haven't figured out anything intelligent to write in response (yet), but Laura has several interesting posts on the subject of balancing raising children with work.

White collar crime

I've often thought that our system of punishing white collar criminals is in need of a bit of overhaul. After all, what is a couple of years in a minimum security prison and a relatively small fine when the upside is millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains? I'd be in favor of much shorter sentences for the Lays and Skillings of the world with the caveat that they have to be served in maximum security prisons in continual close contact with the most violent hardened criminals that can be found. I think that the prospect of 90 days sharing a cell with a life-without-parole Aryan Brotherhood murderer/rapist might actually have an effect on the motivations of potential white-collar criminals.

Nine to one

So our decidedly unpresidential (at least in this photo) President can't take it when people point out how chummy he was with the waste of protoplasm that is Ken Lay. Why anyone would vote for someone who would look out for the interests of such a corrupt criminal is beyond me. Remember that a vote for Bush is a vote for crony capitalism.

But I suspect that the Republicans will be pointing out that Lay gave to both Democrats and Republicans. And like most intellectually dishonest arguments, they are correct in the technical details but off on the substance. You see, most large contributors will give something to both parties. This is called hedging your bets. But in this case he/she will often favor one party by four or five to one or more over the other. In this case, the amount Lay donated to the Republicans outweighed that given to the Democrats by a ratio of more than nine to one. Yeah, Enron was an equal opportunity scandal on both sides of the aisle.