Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Friday, July 18, 2003

Everybody's Doing It - Blogging, that is. Even my son, Sam, the little comic-book fan.

Here's his blog.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/18/2003 10:15:43 PM

Their Finest Hour - I've said it before. America has it all over so many countries in so many areas. We should be proud of what we, as a people, have wrought.

But there is one area where America trails our friends in Britain; political oratory.

The British Pariliament is a tumultuous, clamorous place. If a speaker can't move the (often hostile) crowd with the force of his or her oratory, they marginalize themselves. It behooves an MP to become good at oratory.

Some Americans get it, of course; Reagan, Clinton, Kennedy, all had their moments. Some more than others.

But the British political tradition stresses great oratory - and pols like Tony Blair deliver.

It seemed, as I listened to it, to be more than just a great speech. It felt like the tide began, every so slightly, to turn against the naysayers, the anti-US cultists that have bogged down our national agenda for the last two months.

Sullivan said it well:
This is what the carpers and nay-sayers still don't understand. The West is at war with a real and uniquely dangerous enemy. When the consequences of negligence become catastrophic, the equation of intervention changes. The burden of proof must be on those who counsel inaction rather than on those who urge an offensive, proactive battle. Does it matter one iota, for example, if we find merely an apparatus and extensive program for building WMDs in Iraq rather than actual weapons? Or rather: given the uncertain nature of even the best intelligence, should we castigate our leaders for over-reacting to a threat or minimizing it? Since 9/11, my answer is pretty categorical. Blair and Bush passed the test. They still do.
But hearing it from Blair was so much more reassuring than hearing it from, say, Bill Frist.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/18/2003 07:29:51 PM

On the Road - More posting tonight. Or tomorrow.

Or Monday.

See you then!
posted by Mitch Berg 7/18/2003 09:35:09 AM

Pacifists - I've rolled my eyes in disgust at the moral equivalency shown by many liberal American churches - the Catholics, the Lutherans, and my own Presbyterians. A devout Christian, I am also a realist; Einstein's "You Can Not Simultaneously Prepare for Peace and War", a Twin Cities bumpersticker meme, is belied by the real-life stories of Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands (all of which are intensely pacifistic countries; all of which learned that pacifism without the will and means to enforce peace against aggression is worthless; all maintain relatively large, modern militaries) and Switzerland and Sweden (who have long known that pacifism without teeth is suicidal in the real world).

But blithely unpolluted by any memories of occupation, American liberal Christians continue to insist, at best, that waging war makes all belligerents equally guilty. At worst, they blame America and shun the pesky details. The assistant minister at my own church tosses constant anti-American references into her homilies (did you know that if we were only more G-dly, all those poor North Koreans wouldn't be starving? Me either).

Katherine Kersten has a great article on the subject. While the whole thing is worth an urgent read, here's the part that I knew, but needed a memory jog about; it's not a new phenomenon:
In the years leading up to World War II, church leaders were also in the forefront of America's peace movement. In a recent issue of the Weekly Standard, Joseph Loconte of the Heritage Foundation details this embarrassing and largely forgotten episode in American church history.

According to Loconte, as Hitler rolled through Europe, many American church officials seemed more interested in denouncing their own nation than in protesting the Führer's crimes. John Haynes Holmes, a New York Unitarian minister, was typical. "If America goes into the war," he intoned in 1940, "it will not be for idealistic reasons but to serve her own imperialistic interests."

Like their counterparts today, World War II-era church leaders called repeatedly for "peace at any price." Between 1938 and 1941 -- as Hitler bombed London and marched into Paris -- church groups issued 50 statements insisting that a just and durable peace was possible. Harry Emerson Fosdick, the famous Baptist preacher, insisted that American entry into the war could not be justified. "We see clearly," he wrote, "that a war for democracy is a contradiction in terms, that war itself is democracy's chief enemy."

Predictably, Christian leaders also urged Americans to meet Hitler's aggression with love and forgiveness. Here's Albert Palmer, president of the Chicago Theological Seminary: "If your enemy hunger, feed him -- and understand him." Some leaders claimed that Hitler would respond positively to worldwide peace marches, which would show him that violence was unnecessary. "Without military opposition," Palmer wrote ingenuously, "the Hitlers wither away."
The article cites the great German theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr - a major dissident from the "Peace at any Price" school of theology.

Read it. You'll be glad you did.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/18/2003 09:34:55 AM

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Peace, Quiet - Tonight is the last night of my "vacation". Tomorrow, I drive to Alexandria to meet Dad and get the kids.

They've been gone 11 solid days. And as much as I like being able to get away and do what I want, when I want to do it, I miss them horribly. The house seems so big and empty without their happy clamor. I even miss the fussing and fighting.

My only regret - no job offer to tell them about when they come back. Our buying a new puppy is predicated on my getting another gig. They've been very patient. Too patient.

Waiting on word from three gigs any day now. Enough is enough.

But enough of that, too. The kids will be home by dinnertime tomorrow, and that big quiet hole in the house will be full to overflowing.

And I will love it more than when they left.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 07:30:30 PM

Due To Gun Control, Volumn MCMLXI - The British Home Office has released their new crime figures - and they're not pretty (the London Sun article is called "A Nation Stalked By Fear").

Violent crime jumped 22 percent in one year, and nearly every category of crime is up by double digits.

"But you can't tie it to gun control!", the left will answer!

And, as usual, they'd be wrong:
Last night’s statistics followed the revelation in January that the use of firearms was rampant.

A report showed a 35 per cent rise in gun crime, to 9,974 offences.

And officials admitted yesterday that possession of firearms, including sub-machine guns, was “out of control” in Birmingham, Manchester and three London boroughs.
Wait'll Citizens for a ~~Supine~~ Safer Minnesota hear about this!

(Via Instapundit)
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 04:25:56 PM

The Faint Thread of Continuity - Atomizer, from Fraters Libertas, comments about a Lileks Bleat from a few days ago. Atomizer quotes Lileks:
…nothing I make in the Mexican realm will equal the Chili Cheese Burrito at Taco Bell. (Gasps of horror from the audience.) True. It is perhaps the only menu item so fine it survived a merger and acquisition. The Chili Cheese Burrito was a specialty of the Zantigo chain, a far-superior purveyor of FauxMex food. The meat was finely granulated, stirred into a cheesish fluid imbued with peppers, and served in a thin burrito. Mm mm. When Taco Bell took over Zantigo they killed the Chilito dead, but the people rose up and demanded their rights, and in a rare act of corporate wisdom they brought it back, for good. You can still ask for a Chilito by name, and they’ll make it. Ten years after the death of Zantigo. Amazing.
I was addicted to these things. When my friends and I were in high school, we used to bike 5 miles to the nearest Zantigo (the restaurant formerly known as Zapata) almost nightly to get our fix. When we heard the news that the restaurant chain was being converted to Taco Bell in 1986 we went into full survival mode and scoured the Twin Cities area for any remaining franchise that was still operating to stock up.
While Zantigo/Zapata had its merits, neither could hold a candle (one of those Mexican devotional candles you get at Rainbow) to Taco John's. For good, greasy, cheap faux-Mex, they were far and away the top of the mystery meat pile. There can be no rational argument.

Still, Zan/Zap was a loss.

Atomizer discusses other substitutes that don't quite stack up to the real thing:
McDonalds’ New Chicken McNuggets - I like dark meat. It’s juicier than white meat and it just plain tastes better. I’ll take a deep fried chunk of chicken gristle with extra skin over a tasteless preformed mass of breast meat any day. If I cared about eating what is good for me I wouldn’t be going to McDonalds.
At this, Atomizer is correct.
Van Halen - While I was not a huge fan of these guys, I can’t stand them since Diamond Dave departed. Consider this bit of lyrical genius shrieked by Sammy Hagar: “Only time will tell if we stand the test of time.” Good one, Sammy.
As long as Eddie is alive and playing, Van Halen will be worth a listen. But Sammy was really a wretched choice to replace Diamond Dave.

And I can't believe I'm having this discussion, 17 years after the fact...

And speaking of which, it's here that Atomizer tips his whippersnapper hand, and comes up wanting:
Yes - This band’s lineup has changed more times than Michael Jackson’s nose, but the worst had to be Trevor Rabin and Geoff Downes replacing Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman. Yes just didn’t sound right without the pretentiousness of Anderson’s vocals and Wakeman’s keyboards.
I looked at this for a while and had to think - Trevor Rabin? The technically-wonky-yet-kinetic South African guitar player that replaced the somnolent, insufferable Steve Howe, giving the band its only, brief, period of pop listenability?

Then I realized, Atomizer was probably not born when the crime was committed. He's referring to Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, AKA "Buggles", the band that gave us "Video Killed the Radio Star", who filled in on vocals and keyboards for about a year in the early eighties. And he's right, to a point - Horn as lead singer was a disaster for Yes. But the period of Yes' music he produced - 90215, 90215 Live and Big Generator, were distinguished as the only three Yes albums that I could listen to without chundering. It helped that they had Jon Anderson, who's vocals really define the band - but lacked Howe and Wakeman, two of the most tedious, party-killing presences in "rock" music. With the savvy, unpretentious Rabin on guitars and the vastly more economical Tony Kaye on keys, the band bordered on listenability (and if you disagree, you probably also listen to Pink Floyd albums other than "The Wall" and "Final Cut". Admit it. I knew it).
1988 Minnesota Twins - Tom Brunansky traded to St. Louis for Tommy Herr? Who needed Bruno’s subsequent 105 home runs and 444 RBI. Herr, on the other hand, smashed out 9 homers and 139 RBI. Brilliant move.
No argument there.

But there are other bad substitutions and replacements throughout history, leading with:
The Bobless Replacements - Slim Dunlop's a great guitar player - but he wasn't the foil against Paul Westerberg's growing mellowness that the 'Mats needed. Which was one reason he got fired, of course, but the Dunlop-era 'Mats weren't the same. That's not a bad thing - but I missed Stinson.
The E-Street Band without Miami Steve - the Born In The USA tour was a watershed moment in my life when I saw it's second night, here in Saint Paul in '84. And Nils Lofgren had been a guitar idol long before he hooked up with the boys. But nobody - NOBODY - does backup vocals like Steven.
Minute Maid in place of Nesbitts - Replacing the delectable Nesbitts brand of orange soda with the neavy, syrupy, but brand-friendly "Minute Maid" brand goo turned me off orange pop forever. There will never be a substitute.
Bruce without the E Street Band - "Lucky Town" is an underrated album. "Human Touch" was maybe the most disappointing record Springsteen's 's ever released. But the tour that followed can be summed up with four words; Shayne Fontaine on guitar. Not pretty.
More as conditions warrant.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 12:49:20 PM

Hewitt's Nod - Hewitt gives Lileks a huge, deserved plug:
Steyn and Lileks are laugh-out-loud writers and pundits with punch. Lileks, incredibly, delivers five mirth-inducing reads for free each week on his website. His Sunday column for the Strib is a homey, chatty, and unfailingly amusing look at the ordinary absurdity of life--a welcome break from the sermons and raised eyebrows of the opinion sections and book reviews. It is written for an audience of Minnesocoldians, but it absorbs the attention of even jaded California denizens. Like his Newhouse columns, Lileks's Strib work could run in every paper in America.
I'm looking forward to Hewitt and James at the Fair...

...holy cow, is that next month already?
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 10:32:16 AM

Kazemi - Zahra Kazemi was a Iranian native, and a citizen of Canada.

She was also a photographer. She went back to her native Iran to document the human rights abuses of the theocracy.

She became one of those abuses, after being beaten to death by a group of pro-regime thugs.

David Warren writes about the murder...
The very people who hired the thugs to pummel Ms Kazemi until she was comatose, and would die of a brain haemorrhage -- thugs themselves too stupid to check if she were a foreign national first -- are hardly going to prosecute themselves. (The Iranian vice-president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, at least had the candour to admit how she died.) The most we will get from them is a few scapegoats offered up to appease our fury. And that, only after unrelenting pressure from our Foreign Affairs Ministry, or a send-up in the international media (and this story has had no wings beyond our own borders).
But he writes even more tellingly about the reaction of the Canadian government - which is, after all, among those doing its best to appease the theocracy, in the name of "Dialogue" and "Peace":
In this case Mr. Graham, who doubles as a politician, was caught somewhat by surprise. Only when he gets home will he discover that he's a bit out of tune with the electorate on this one; and then the little fellow will start puffing and jumping and fuming against the "lack of co-operation" he will be continuing to receive from the Iranian side. It will be funny to watch, as when your kitten arches up and attacks your ankle...

... What we can do is open our eyes. Canada (as France and several other European countries) has gone to great lengths to maintain good relations with the Iranian theocracy, to advance trade and encourage "dialogue". We have publicly rejected the American, confrontationist position. In the name of Zahra Kazemi, it is time to switch sides.
The whole thing is short, and very much worth a read.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 09:38:07 AM

Moderation In the Defense of Liberty... - The Moderate Republican blog minces no words about its mission:
This is blog for an endangered species-the old Rockefeller Republican.
As a Reaganite, I should add "late and unlamented", but that's neither true nor nice.

Today, Dennis has a posting on the constantly-brewing inter-party fight:
Sometime during the Reagan years, it was said that Republicans should never speak ill of other Republicans.
Well, we were the minority in both houses for much of that period. We did have to stick together.

I think that's an important difference.
On the surface this seems a good attempt at civility, but these days I wonder if it is really a way of silencing dissent. If you look at groups like the Council for Growth and their attacks on moderate Republicans ( remember their slur, "Franco-Republicans?") you can see this rule is not being honored by the far right. Reading this Salon story about the brewing fight in the Democratic Pary makes me think that dissent is not always bad. Back in the 1950s the GOP always had strong debates between conservatives such as Robert Taft and moderates and liberals such as Dwight Eisenhower.
Back in the fifties - years as closely removed from the New Deal as we are from the Reagan Years today, if you think about it - conservatism was a decided minority opinion. There were indeed debates, but they were essentially moot - at the polls, the "moderate" (and, let's not forget, war hero) Eisenhower trumped all debate within the party. He essentially stamped out conservative Republicanism for a generation.

Sure, the Boll Weevils began their drift that culminated in their breaking from the Democrats in '72, and Barry Goldwater maintained his lonely vigil for genuine conservatism. But the "debate" in the GOP in those days was akin to the "good old days of Minnesota Nice" that so many pine for here in Minnesota these days: "moderates" got their way, "conservatives" kindly shut up and sat in the corner.

That changed nationwide in '80, and twenty-odd years later, in Minnesota as well.

The "civility" of the fifties was the civility of imbalance; "We'll talk, You listen".

Things, obviously, changed:
These days moderates are considered traitors to the GOP and are driven out.
There's a difference, though; in the fifties, "moderate" and "conservative" Republicans agreed on some key things; economic growth and anti-communism being key among them (and the Democrats weren't that far removed in those days, either). Today, there are more key issues - and wider differences.
Any moderate that is pro-choice or pragmatic is considered not a "real" Republican and targeted during the primaries.
Which left us, in the 2002 elections, with Governor Brian Sullivan.

Oh, wait. You mean the pragmatic (on social issues) Pawlenty actually overcame and won the nomination against the opprobrium of the baaad conservatives? How could that have happened?
We have become a party of yes men. It would be nice if there were some debate in the party, but there is none. And the moderates that remain are too scared to stand for what they believe in. Debate, not obedience, is an important part of democracy.
I'd love to know what district Dennis caucuses at.

In my district, the battle seems to be between
social conservatives, on the one hand, and
Fiscal conservatives and social libertarians on the other.
"Moderates" - pseudo-DFLers - are much less in evidence.

So I'll reiterate the big question: If you oppose holding the line on government spending, and oppose getting government off the backs of the citizens, and think government should have a bigger, more intrusive role in society, then precisely why not join the DFL? Because they already believe these things!
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 07:40:21 AM

Growing Impatient - Doug Grow holds forth on the latest "scandal" in today's Strib. In so doing, he pounds another spike through the forehead of the notion that he's anything but a shill for the DFL.
Last fall, Tim Pawlenty's gubernatorial campaign was penalized an unprecedented $600,000 for clear-cut violations of Minnesota campaign laws.
There was nothing clear about the law, but we digress.

But in a twist that must have stunned even him, Pawlenty managed to turn that blast on his integrity into a political triumph by refusing to protest the ruling of the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

"A strong leader takes responsibility," he said of the violation and fine.

With those words, Pawlenty wasn't seen as just another cheating pol. Instead, he was applauded as a refreshing, stand-up guy.
Re-read that last paragraph. In other words, he wasn't really a "stand-up guy", doing the right thing. He was (Grow presumes) just another cheating pol. No debate about it - not in Doug's world, anyway.
This fit the image Pawlenty long has cultivated. He has pounded on the themes that he's a God-fearing, rock 'n' roll-loving, joke-cracking, hockey-playing guy with blue-collar roots from the working-class neighborhoods of South St. Paul.

With help from the media, he has sold the image well. Minnesotans may disagree with some of his political stances, but gee, isn't he a swell guy?
Unmentioned by, and perhaps unknown to Grow, is the fact that he is, by every account I've heard from everyone, everywhere, a generally swell guy. To convert him into anything else requires some clever reconstruction of history.

Which is Doug Grow's specialty.
In the past few days, however, it has become apparent that the image is way too simplistic. Overnight, Stand-up Pawlenty is looking a lot more like Slick Tim.
Sorry, Doug. "Slick" is already taken - your ex-president earned it.
We've learned that Pawlenty is secretive about his dealings, keeps vague records and does business with a very small circle of friends who played major roles in putting together his administration.
News Flash: Political associates look out for each other. Unless Doug Grow believes Dorsey and Whitney hired Walter Mondale for his courtroom skills.
He held a two-hour conversation with reporters Tuesday afternoon. Clearly, this session was meant to charm reporters and buff up the tarnished nice-guy image.

Typically, when a governor and reporters gather, the governor keeps a lectern between himself and the media wretches. On Tuesday, we were invited to sit at a huge table with the governor and ask as many questions as we wanted.
Again, stop the presses - the governor knows how to handle the media. Media people have egoes as large as, and generally larger than, that of the great outdoors (and I include myself in those days). He's good at it.
During our nice chat -- where were the cookies? -- the governor was affable, never once showing his temper.
In Doug Grow's world, I'm sure that could only be a sign of supreme artifice.

To many of us, this might be seen as a sign that Pawlenty doesn't think temper is needed - that the truth sets him free.
Still, for most of the two hours, this was Slick Tim talking, not Stand-up Pawlenty. The governor spent far more time talking about what's legal than about what's right.
And this year's "Les Nessman Recognition of the Screamingly Obvious award goes to...Doug Grow, of the ~~DFL~~ Star-Tribune!

Sheesh, no kidding, Doug. In a week in which the press and the DFL punditry has attacked the legality of what he and his associated allegedly did, why indeed would Pawlenty, a lawyer, focus on legality?

Why indeed?

Especially if he's a "stand-up guy?"
For example, he summed up news accounts about roles he and other friends and political appointees played in such companies as NewTel, New Access and Capitol Verification, with the classic lament of all embattled pols.

"What did anybody do wrong?" he asked. "What did anybody, in their role as a government official, do wrong?"
The Governor asks. And Grow responds:
Time may answer those questions.
Ah, a non-answer. So let me get this straight:
Pawlenty asks the assembled horde to tell him what he actually did wrong, and
Doug Grow has no answer, deferring it to some future investigation (that will, the Governor must know, reveal absolutely no wrong-doing on the Governor's part)...

...but Pawlenty is the slick one?
Grow continues:
Meanwhile, the new surprise that Gov. Slick dropped on Minnesota Tuesday concerned the so-called job he had leading up to, and during, the campaign.

Pawlenty revealed that he was hired by his friend, Elam Baer, to act as legal counsel for Access Anywhere, one of many companies Baer controls. (Recall, Pawlenty served as a board member of another Baer company, NewTel. Pawlenty claims to have had no knowledge of illegal sales tactics being used by New Access, a subsidiary of NewTel, while he was on the board of NewTel.)
And again, not only has no evidence come out that Pawlenty would have known about the "slamming", or that his capacity as legal counsel had anything to do with sales tactics.

Board Members select corporate officers. They do not run call centers. They do not interact with the company at a tactical level. If the company's officers aren't delivering at the bottom line, the board ejects them and replaces them. That is what board members do.
Pawlenty was paid $4,500 a month to "work" for Baer and Access Anywhere. But this was not exactly the employee-employer relationship most regular Minnesotans relate to.

The checks weren't made out to Pawlenty, nor were they signed by Baer. Instead, checks went to BAMCO (Business and Management Consultant). BAMCO was a one-employee company. The single employee was Pawlenty. BAMCO had just one client. The one client was Access Anywhere.

What made the relationship real special is the fact that Pawlenty/BAMCO has no record of the hours spent working for Baer/Access Anywhere. All Pawlenty says is that he worked from 10 to 30 hours a month to collect the retainer. He's vague about what he did.
Question for Doug Grow: Precisely what do you think a retainer is? A fee to retain services as a lawyer, not to use them. It's paying for a lawyer's availability.

What does Doug Grow think the lawyers that McClatchy Newspapers retain do for their time? Deliver newspapers?
There may be nothing illegal here. Certainly, other pols have had sweetheart jobs during campaigns, but typically the public has known about them.
Another question for Doug Grow: Does he think that Pawlenty wasn't listed in the company's annual report as a board member?
It's secrecy that makes this deal smell. Until the headlines hit, none of us knew about Pawlenty's spot on the mini-board of directors of NewTel. Not until Tuesday did any of us know of this funky little one-client firm, BAMCO.
Note to Doug Grow: I'm sure you're also clueless about my little one-person, zero (at the moment) client firm, Humanware Design. It's a legal construct to allow income from freelance or consulting work to be taxed at corporate rather than personal rates.

Or have you been working for the Mommypaper your entire career, and never needed to learn how freelancing works?

What we have here, at least, is less an issue of Pawlenty's secrecy than Grow's ignorance.
Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, is a longtime friendly foil of Pawlenty. He put Pawlenty's political problem succinctly.

"I liked the guy because I thought we came from similar backgrounds," Rukavina said. "But I didn't forget where I came from. I think he has. I don't think there's anybody in his old neighborhood who would be paid $4,500 a month and forget what he did to earn it."
What does it mean to be "from the neighborhood?"

If you're Tom Rukavina, it means talking in an accent that the Coen Brothers would have cut from Fargo as "too over the top", and acting no more literate or knowedgeable than the deadenders that stagger out of the bars at 1AM in Virginia, and waving your "roots" in people's faces, as if they, themselves, were a qualification. It means treating one's "blue collar roots" as a licence to be an ignorant buffoon, or at least to talk like one from the floor of the House.

If you're Pawlenty, it means that no matter how far one goes in life, one keeps some of the values of the place you came from. Including hard work, resourcefulness, and using your talents to their full extent.
Pawlenty left the neighborhood long ago. Now it appears he may have forgotten where it was.
One of the great glories of American Civilization is that one is not bound, any more than one chooses to be, to one's "neighborhood" or upbringing or social class, or much of anything else.

"It appears" Doug Grow has forgotten that.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 07:04:34 AM

Backlash, Part II - The more I read, the more convinced I am that the Dems jumped on the Yellowcakes Uranium story too soon, and that before the year is out the punditry will be looking on it as a Dem debacle.

This WSJ piece (via Sullivan), indicates there's a lot less doubt, even inside the Beltway, than skimming the national media would have you believe:
One of the mysteries of the recent yellowcake uranium flap is why the White House has been so defensive about an intelligence judgment that we don't yet know is false, and that the British still insist is true. Our puzzlement is even greater now that we've learned what last October's national intelligence estimate really said.

We're reliably told that that now famous NIE, which is meant to be the best summary judgment of the intelligence community, isn't nearly as full of doubt about that yellowcake story as the critics assert or as even CIA director George Tenet has suggested. The section on Iraq's hunt for uranium, for example, asserts bluntly that "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" and that "acquiring either would shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons."
Sullivan adds:
The president and the prime minister should go on the offensive soon. Maybe Blair will in front of Congress.
In my own mind, I always worry that I ascribe too much prescience to others. Still, given the way the President has played the game against the Democrats and the Media so far, I can't help but wonder - has Bush been planning this? Did he let this "crisis" blow up, knowing that he'd soon be pulling the rug out from under the naysayers to yet more political advantage?

It's hard to maintain astronomically-high approval ratings. But it's not hard to bounce back - Clinton taught us that.

"They Want to Win Wimbledon!" - On Monty Python's Flying Circus, only a Scotsman could save the world from a group of extraterrestrial blancmanges winning Wimbledon.

According to Mark Steyn, things haven't improved much for British tennis. The high point, according to this exerpt?:
In 1877, [Wimbledon] introduced the first Gentlemen's Singles lawn tennis championship, won by an upper-class boarding-school rackets player called Spencer Gore.

Gore was very different from today's star champions: He wore long cotton trousers with vast acres of empty white advertising space that Nike would die for. At that time, the British dominated the tennis scene, thanks to their grueling training regime: On the day of the big match, a chap would take the train up to London, drop in at the Savoy for a haunch of venison and some spotted dick washed down with a couple of stiff ones, toddle down to Wimbledon, change into the heavy underwear and a thick long-sleeved pullover, and dispatch Johnny Foreigner in three sets. Unfortunately, the Americans and Australians then introduced radical concepts like getting up early in the morning and practising.
The whole thing is worth a read.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/17/2003 06:25:31 AM

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Pack vs. Herd - Walking about the cities, I've been amazed, really, at how few business have actually posted themselves to bar handguns (in the hands of legally-permitted gun owners) on the premises. The response seems to have been, in the great scheme of things, genuinely minuscule.

I noticed this while walking around the Minneapolis Warehouse District after my interview today. I filed it in my mental junk drawer, until I noticed this on Kim Du Toit's site today - a quote by Massoud Ayoob, made after Israeil decided to fight terrorist attacks on schools and students by allowing (and in some instances requiring) teachers and volunteers to carry concealed handguns - a measure that's cut school attacks in Israel to roughly zero:
"Of course, the politically correct hand-wringers want nothing to do with this. Sadly, being helpless themselves, sheep tend to instinctively fear anything with canine teeth. Many of them cannot distinguish between the wolf and the sheepdog, and thus fear them both equally."
I'm feeling rather like a peevish schnauzer today.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/16/2003 01:22:05 PM

Lies About The Iraq War - Or were they really just intelligence lapses?

Porphyrogenitus examines them. The synopsis:
1) The Iraqi Army would fight much harder to defend its country than it did in Kuwait.
2) Iraq is not Afghanistan - it will take half a million American troops and at least six months to capture Baghdad, resulting in 50,000 American casualties (of which approximately 10,000 would be deaths).
3) Iraq will draw Israel into the war, leading to a larger Middle East conflagration.
4) There would be massive resistance from the Iraqi population defending their country from invasion.
5) There would be street by street, house to house fighting in Baghdad that would destroy the city, cost thousands of American casualties, and drag on for six weeks or more.
6) A war would create a huge humanitarian crisis as millions of refugees fled Iraq, overwhelming neighboring countries ability to deal with it.
7) A war would create such disruption in the food distribution system and so destroy the water infrastructure that it would result in hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Iraqis dying of starvation and disease.
8) That mythological boogieman, the "Arab Street", would rise up against us and destabilize friendly, pro-Western regimes in the region.
9) Saddam Hussein has no ties to terrorism, but if we attack him then he will launch terror attacks in the U.S. and we will thus produce the very thing we're trying to avoid.
10) War with Iraq would distract from the war on terrorism and it would derail any chances for the Middle East Peace Process.
Porphyrogenitus' response to each of these "lapses" on the left's part are, natch, on his site. Check it out.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/16/2003 01:07:16 PM

The Hokey Pokey, As Written By Shakespeare - This is credited to Jeff Brechlin, of the Washington Style Invitational:
O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.
And now, I'm off to my interview.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/16/2003 09:01:56 AM

Light - I'm waiting for my shirt to dry, and going on another job interview in a bit here.

More posting later.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/16/2003 08:27:04 AM

Kulcha Watch - Instapundit notes Lileks' observation about a cultural watershed for which some of us have been waiting a lifetime:
...there’s been a sharp decrease in the Boomer Uber Alles effect. If an ad agency suggested using a Joe Cocker song for a car commercial they’d be met with rolled eyes. There’s a marked decrease in tie-dye nostalgia and dead rock-star hagiography. Culturally speaking, I think that pig in the python has finally been digested.
Has the pig been digested? Partially. But it's also been joined by a goat.

Because while the baby boomers enter their Buick-buying, digestive-products-consuming phase of life, those of us who immediately followed them are finally hitting (in theory) our "peak earning years". If I'm seeing fewer references to the Doors and the Beatles, it's because they have to make room for enough Ramones (Blitzkrieg Bop's "Hey, Ho, Let's Go" is popping up in ads all over the place), Iggy Pop (can't swing a cat without hearing Lust For Life on a commercial) or, for the real ex-hipsters, the Soft Boys (I Wanna Destroy You was the hilarious soundtrack for an Amazon.com ad last year).

So little air time. So many market segments.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/16/2003 07:46:49 AM

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Fun - The California Coastline Project is photographing the entire shoreline of California.

Their website allows you to tour the entire coastline in all of its amazing splendor. I can now see what some of the fuss is about.

I was drawn to this story, of course, because Barbra Streisand wants to put the project out of business.

Look the site over while you can.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/15/2003 03:43:57 PM

We Rule - Fraters noted the Northern Alliance of Blogs' domination of the airwaves - during the 5PM hour yesterday, anyway. Their story notes that the hour started off with a shout out to Lileks and Powerline during the first segment of the Hewitt show, then the Monday Lileks segment (which included a softball-related nod to the Fraters), and then their switch of the dial that brought them to my little call-in on the Lewis show yesterday.

At the risk of immodesty, they missed one - I also called in to Medved yesterday, talking about Liberia.

Gaaa. I need a @#$@#% job.

Hey, gang - let's do a show!
posted by Mitch Berg 7/15/2003 03:11:56 PM

Small Day, Big Week - I'm spending the day dolling up my daughter's room.

Tomorrow, interview for a job that popped up last week.

Also - hopefully, this week - word on two other fairly immiment job leads, plus (please, please), word on a third interview for the gig I really want, plus starting a little two-week job at a local company.

And on Friday, the kids come home from Grandma and Grandpa's.

Light posting today - I have to work my way into pretending I'm even remotely domestic.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/15/2003 09:35:43 AM

Return of the Mind - Jesse Ventura's finally talking with a local media jackal.

Today's interview with Neil Justin in the Strib provides more of Ventura's endless prattle - or, as Justin calls it:
...the same swagger, humor, griping and confidence that made him one of politics' most colorful characters.
Most interestingly, the interview talks about Ventura's long-delayed MSNBC talk show:
The gamble: a much looser show with guests offering competing viewpoints on a topical subject and Ventura acting more as a judge than as a moderator.
I'm trying to picture the McLaughlin Group, only with a big, lunkheaded wrestler in the John M. role.

Still trying.

Nope. Can't quite do it.

Remember the scene in This Is Spinal Tap, where Derek St. Hubbins' (Michael McKean) new-agey wife comes to manage the band? And you can see Nigel Tufnel (Christoper Guest) and much of the rest of the crew does a pronounced slow burn, a la Paul talking with Yoko in Let It Be?

Meet the next star:
There probably will be a field of reporters, including Ventura's son, Tyrel.

"MSNBC was so enthusiastic about him," Ventura said. "Ty is only 23 and he's jumping up a whole level."
From peeing in the Governor's Mansion to jumping up "a whole level". Not bad.
A title and a premiere date have yet to be determined, but Sorenson said the show should be ready to go in late summer or early fall.
Didn't they say that last fall?

More as things develop. Assuming they do.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/15/2003 09:32:59 AM

Gay Marriage. Again - I've talked many times about Gay Marriage. While the idea bothers me on a religious and moral level, our government's decisions aren't always made for reasons that match any given person's - or group's - religion or morals.

And, to be honest (especially to those of you who've emailed to excoriate my prior takes on this subject), while I still believe that the best, most equitable solution to this conundrum is to get government out of the marriage business, the "culture war" aspects of this bother me as well. It would be a big victory for the cultural left - and we don't want that, either.

Medved was talking about the subject last night. He made the point (which Virginia Postrel of all people disputes) that the family, fundamentally, is an institution in which children are created and raised. He's right, of course (sorry, Virginia).

And I started thinking - where does government interact, not with a married couple, but with its children? Where can we strengthen the notion of marriage where it actually interacts with its most important impact vis-a-vis children?

Taxes.

So why not play it like this. Cultural liberals - you want Gay Marriage (or gay Civil Unions, anyway)? Fine. Then let's jack up the child tax credit while we're at it. Double the deduction per child.

How much is gay marriage worth to the left - enough to give ground on "Subsidies of the the family?"

I think the market will eventually settle this. Are there really so many gays that want to "marry" (and, eventually, divorce, with all the attendant legal and financial anguish to go along with the emotional distress)? In the grand scheme of things, I doubt it, but I remain to be convinced.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/15/2003 08:03:16 AM

Monday, July 14, 2003

Minnesota Is Hell - Part CIX - Laura Billings columns are like potato chips - you can't fisk just one.

Last Thursday, she wrote about the Naomi Gaines case. It wouldn't be a Laura Billings column without a swipe at the New Right, of course; in this case, those bloody talk shows:
Radio callers all week have been suggesting, in that politely intolerant way some Minnesotans have when talking about people who aren't from here [emphasis from the original article], that her religion and race played some part in her decision.
The thin film of callers to "conservative" talk radio that suggest being Black and Moslem were factors to this tragedy make a nice, comic-book boogyman to draw attention away from the part Billings did get right; people not from here. Minnestoa's entitlement-driven public health system is overtaxed, and people coming in from out of state for our excessively generous benefits and nonexistent residency requirements don't make matters any easier, least of all in the chronically-underfunded mental health area.

Reasonable people can have a reasonable disagreement about that, of course. What is less reasonable is that Laura Billings is sniping at people who talk about "people not from here" on this issue - but herself leads the sniping against "people not like us" on other issues. She's assigned the demise of "Minnesota Nice" to "people not like" her - Volvo-driving, Wellstone-worshipping, "moderate" liberals who are "willing to pay for a Better Minnesota."

Onward:
In fact, two details of her case hint at a much simpler explanation for her isolation.

The first, her brother's observation that having her first child at the age of 16 seemed to turn Gaines into a different person, not just newly burdened, but deeply depressed. Gaines may simply be reflecting the grim statistics that go along with teenage pregnancy: 80 percent of those pregnancies are unintended; two-thirds of pregnant teens drop out of school; 80 percent of unwed teen mothers end up on welfare.
She "may be reflecting the grim statistics" that buttress Billings' inevitable swipe at the budget-cutting movement. But as a single parent, I'd suspect she may more likely be reflecting the crushing workload, the endless demands, the fatigue, the implacable responsibility of being a mom - so unlike the world any 16-year-old inhabits until that baby is born.

But as long as Billings is going to try to link Gaines' initial bout of depresion with her crimes via a facile "perhaps...", perhaps I'll do the same. Perhaps Gaines' situation reflected that significant part of "urban" culture regards knocking up women as a form of counting coup. And Afro-American society devalues fatherhood, one of the most noxious social holdovers from the days of slavery and Jim Crow. Our social service system completes that devaluation.

Perhaps, as long as we unbidden third parties are hijacking Naomi Gaines' voice for her, my explanations are just as good as Billings' are.
The second, her statement to police that she would "rather be dead than live in a place where I'm not free to walk around, I'm not free to be who I am, I'm not free to see other moms out, single black moms with their kids, enjoying their kids." As court records have shown, Gaines was battling serious mental health problems.
And racism.
And yet, her assessment of life as a single mom hints at the contradictory messages we send to women like her. Our political culture these days "celebrates life," while heaping judgment on poor women ("Why have so many kids if you can't afford to pay for them?"), reducing their access to health care, child care and all the other supports that make single parenting more bearable.
Leave aside for a moment the fact that the budgets for such programs haven't been slashed at all.

If you subsidize something, people will go where the money is. If you build stadiums for sports franchise owners, there will be more sports francise owners. If you give tax breaks for buying houses, more people buy houses. If you subsidize single parenthood (or, to be more accurate, unwed teenage single parenthood - I'm a single parent, and I'm not seeing any benefits), you'll increase your supply of unwed teenage single parents. If we stopped making the life of the single, unwed parent so "bearable", perhaps more single, unwed people (male and female) would quit creating children.

It's that heartless - attacking the problem at its source? Why, if we did that, teenagers would have fewer children - which would create fewer jobs for social workers.

Billings wafts back into irrationality:
No wonder if Gaines wasn't seeing a lot of single moms, black or otherwise, enjoying their kids the way she might have wished.
I'm not sure what this means. She wasn't seeing them because:
she was mentally ill? or
there's no program to bring single (and black!) mothers together?
I'm confused.
Neither detail excuses Gaines from her alleged crime. Not at all. And yet, they ought to make us feel more compassion than derision for this young mother, who pushed her stroller through the crowds at the Taste of Minnesota and still felt entirely alone in her troubles.
Compassion? Absolutely. The mentally-ill deserve a lot of it - not only doesn't the general public understand them, either does most of science or the "mental health community", really. The psysiology, psychology and chemistry of mental illness is more opaque to science than is the geography of the dark side of the moon.

But for the benefit of Laura Billings, let's put this in perspective; her crime may have been spurred by mental illness. It was not abetted by the erosion of that mythical "Minnesota Nice". Without that "Minnesota Nice", we'd likely have more Naomi Gainses waiting until they were ready to have children.

I know. I'm such a heartless conservative bastard, what with wanting parents to be ready and all, aren't I?
posted by Mitch Berg 7/14/2003 11:58:38 AM

News Flash - Telemarketers are Sleazy! - The St. Paul Pioneer Press is hot on the trail of corruption in the GOP-led administration. Again.

The story begins: "Some of Minnesota's top Republicans, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Auditor Patricia Awada, have had business ties to a Minneapolis-based telephone company accused of cheating consumers in seven states."

The story itself notes the connection between the Republican leadership and New Access Communications. New Access was charged by regulators in three states with the process of "slamming" - inducing people via telemarketing to switch phone companies for ostensibly lower rates, but hiding higher rates and fees in the bills - and ended up paying over $200,000 in consumer protection settlements in three states.

The story lists a number of complaints against New Access (owned by NewTel, which was founded by GOP figure Elam Baer, and on whose board Pawlenty sat).

One immediate question: Do board members, concerned with the hiring and firing of executives, have anything to do with the day-to-day operation of a sleazy telemarketing operation? Eventually, sure - if the fines and settlements cross the threshold of "inevitable costs of doing business in a regulated market" to the point where the executives (approved by the board) are having trouble at the bottom line. We don't know the specifics - and either does the Pioneer Press' article, beyond a number of quotes from academic experts from several business schools.

The story notes:
Last year, New Access Communications paid $222,000 to settle charges it violated consumer protection laws in three of those states — Washington, Oregon and Indiana — by overcharging some customers and tricking others into changing their telephone services.

Each case involved complaints filed while Pawlenty was one of three directors and an investor in New Access' parent company, NewTel Holdings. Directors are legally responsible for overseeing the management of a company and its subsidiaries, experts say.
And there's another question: the complaints were filed when Pawlenty was a director - but the story mentions neither when Pawlenty was a director, nor if he was director when the cases were settled, or any of the actions Pawlenty took (or didn't take) that bore on the settlements.

Here's the interesting part:
New Access is also the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Minnesota attorney general's office, according to company officials, who said it agreed last year to stop telemarketing here until the case is resolved. A spokeswoman for the agency said she could not discuss any investigations that may be under way.
To me, as in the American Bankers story, the real story is in the story itself.

Just as the heat from the American Bankers story, the "Pawlenty Will Release Sex Offenders" story (which eventually tanked), and the Gang Strike Force stories - all of which seemed to some observers to have been stage-managed by Attorney General Mike Hatch - died down, along comes another story with ties to the Attorney General's office. It comes to us via the same team that broke the American Bankers story, working for the same newspaper that dropped the story as soon as it swerved back to point to Mike Hatch.

More as the story develops.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/14/2003 08:35:51 AM

Fitting Tribute - Fraters (among many other bloggers) took due note of the commissioning Saturday of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan - the seventh supercarrier of the Nimitz class.

They also cast aspersions on the planned commissioning, next year, of the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter, the latest Seawolf-class submarine.

The Fraters duly note Carter's incompetence as a commander-in-chief, with this Norman Polmar quote:
”Naming the SSN-23 for President Carter further proclaims the bankruptcy of the Navy in assigning names and designations to submarines. According to a leading Pentagon reporter, it also reveals "that Clinton-appointee Dalton is - at best - politically tone deaf.

...as president [Carter] disappointed many senior officers in the armed services, especially the Navy. His personnel policies helped fuel a mass exodus of senior enlisted personnel that at times was so critical that ship deployments were delayed. In 1979, President Carter vetoed the entire fiscal year 1980 defense budget because it contained an aircraft carrier.

For many who served [in the Navy] then, Mr. Carter is at fault for having presided over the hollowing-out of the U.S. military," wrote a Pentagon reporter.”
Friends who served in the military during Carter's administration agree. Still, if you have to name a warship after Carter, better a submarine than a carrier (Carter was apparently a much better submarine officer than President).

No, the real political tone-deafness involved in this story lies not with Carter (whose transgressions were real - but we recovered from them!). No, indeed, the real sleaze in this story lies in - where else - the Clinton administration.

The Seawolf class submarine was the ultimate Cold War weapon. It was designed in the eighties to fight the latest, greatest Soviet attack and ballistic missile submarines, under the Arctic ice. It's big, very fast, and incredibly expensive. The first unit, Seawolf, had just started building when the Berlin Wall fell. The Navy, eager to stretch the budgets that were already starting to shrink, tried to cancel the Seawolf contract. This, in turn, threatened the Electric Boat Company - one of the US' two surviving submarine builders, located in Groton, Connecticut, and one of the state's larger industrial employers.

In the 1992 Presidential campaign, running slightly behind in Connecticut, Bill Clinton promised that if elected, he'd guarantee the construction of at least two more Seawolf-class boats, one of them to be named U.S.S. Connecticut. Clinton came from behind in Connecticut - largely on the strength of this promise, say some analysts - and it may have been this that put him over the top.

The third of the three units, of course, is the Carter.

So - three submarines the Navy didn't want (it wanted to free up money for the newer Virginia-class boats, which are built for the shallow-water, special-forces-heavy operations that the Navy actually expects to encounter in the near future), built at the cost of about $2 billion apiece for purely political gain by the most anti-military administration since the one for which the third boat is named...

If the Reagan is a carrier, and the Carter is a submarine, what kind of ship should the navy name the U.S.S. Bill Clinton? Input is eagerly solicited.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/14/2003 08:35:01 AM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive