Funhouse

Disney's "it's a small world" was born 50 years ago today, on the opening day of the 1964 New York World's Fair, as the UNICEF pavilion sponsored by Pepsi.

“When we completed 'It’s a Small World' for presentation at the New York World’s Fair, we felt that we had accomplished what we’d set out to do. We wanted to foster a better understanding among the nations of the world by showing the dress, the customs, the language, the music, and a little of the culture of our neighbors around the world - - and we wanted to show it to be a very happy one. And I think it’s safe to say that having fun has universal appeal.”

-Walt Disney

 

The Israelites

President Obama's 2012 Passover Message

Clean Coal

LITD spent a lot of pixelation talking about coal ash a couple of years ago and debunking the myth of clean coal, following the massive TVA power plant coal ash sludge spill. Scientific American reports that Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Integrity Project, and other environmental groups are trying to push the EPA to finally adopt proposed coal ash standards, following the release last week of new data showing that there were previously unknown instances of contaminated groundwater at at least 29 power plants, which contaminated nearby water supplies with arsenic, lead and other pollutants.

Trayvon

I haven't commented on the murder of Trayvon Martin because I didn't think there was anything I could add to the conversation. And because this is where I live. My home is in Central Florida. I don't live in Sanford, but I serve on a board there with some of the most prominent members of the Sanford and Seminole County communities. I got my first Barack Obama for President sign in Sanford while attending the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade.

Because of the connection with Sanford, I didn't want to make this into something personal. But it is. That's why I - although much more infrequently of late - have this blog. Because shit like this is personal. If it's not, why bother talking about it, or thinking about it? If it doesn't become personal, we can detach, think of it simply as information, data points in our preconfigured conceptions. Put it in that box and move on.

But Trayvon's killing - and the public response - has been gnawing at me. It doesn't belong in a box, tucked away for safekeeping.

Recently I sat in a Sanford meeting where, in connection with a comment about holding people accountable for "one mistake," a passing reference to Joe Paterno led to a chorus of angry defenses of the late Penn State coach, of how he was railroaded, hung out to dry, scapegoated. Paterno was the victim there, and in a room full of thoughtful people, nobody - myself included - felt comfortable with stepping in and saying, enough! What about Sandusky's victims? What about leadership and responsibility and ownership and doing the right thing when the neediest of our society were being attacked in the most horrible way? But those kids didn't figure in. Outraged, I pulled one of my colleagues aside a few minutes later - why do we want people who think like that leading our organization? - but the comment hadn't impacted him. That's is the mindset in small-town "conservative" Florida. Those in power are always the victims, and those others - women, children, African Americans, hispanics - if they're not irrelevant, they're not so important either, except as to how they impact the power players. How dare they try to hold the boss accountable. How dare they pretend to rights. How dare they matter? Tragedy, it seems, must always dress up as political statement.

On Wednesday I finally heard the tapes from that fateful night a few weeks ago, where pretend-a-cop George Zimmerman called 911 to report the dangerous sight of a kid walking down the street - obviously with something wrong because, well, because - as he began to hunt down the Skittles-toting child, holster loaded with Arizona's finest tea, because this time those people aren't going to get away with it. And then I listened to those other tapes of a neighbor hearing fighting and screaming for help and, pop!, that single pointless gunshot that unplugged tears that I didn't know were locked up in my eyes, that clap that serves in this absurdist history as Zimmerman's absolute defense in his crime, the terrible irony of the killing itself constituting the unassailable proof, per the Sanford police and their interpretation of the Stand Your Ground law, that Zimmerman was acting in self-defense. The police had no choice, they said, but to believe the gunman, because the gunman's own belief is paramount and the dead boy lay right there, evidence of Zimmerman's state of mind.

That's not enough for the commentariat class, though, out to prove justification and justice, rather than a tragically flawed law. So if the need to be killed didn't prove the threat that Trayvon posed, under a terribly flawed law, then certainly Trayvon's hoodie did. Hood is in the name, for crying out loud. "I'll bet you money," Geraldo Rivera tells us, "if he didn't have that hoodie on, that -- that nutty neighborhood watch guy wouldn't have responded in that violent and aggressive way." The flaw isn't in a law that grants permission to be a vigilante; the fault lie in the victim. I'm not the first to notice that sexy-dressed rape victims have it coming to them, too. How much are we willing to bet that those women are out to get them some, too? That's what women do. They provoke men to have nonconsensual sex with them. They provoke their bosses to ask them to bend over and pick up that box. They make us do it to them. Because: That's. What. Women. Do.

We know that, just like we all know the up-to-no-good that dark-skinned boys in hoodies do. Skinny boys of color, out at night, in a hoodie, doped on Skittles, trafficking in fear and cries for help from men a hundred pounds heavier than they. There's something wrong with those kids. He looked at me with those crazy eyes. He's not going to get away this time. Not this time.

Against this backdrop, the President offered up a few words of understanding and concern and sympathy: "Obviously this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids." Then a call for everyone to work together to figure out what happened and to keep things like this from happening again, and then, making it personal himself, added, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

That was too much for Newt Gingrich to bear. Taking a break from contemplating (because he's a thinker) why someone claiming to be a Christian would be so concerned about always "apologizing" to Muslims, it's left to the man who calls Barack Obama the "Food Stamp President" to also be the last remaining defender of a color-blind society. And what kind of color-blind society can we have when we keep seeing a President who happens to be, you know, so obvious about being, uh, black.

No, the buck stops here and now. Newt is the firewall in these times when a race-baiting President fails to rebuff Robert De Niro for denigrating white First Ladies ("Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white First Lady?" he asked the crowd. "Too soon, right?"). Newt is the last great defender of Dr. King's vision. The GOP is the Party of Lincoln, you see, and the only form of racism is the kind where those people use it as a wedge against real Americans. Stung by charges of historic racial - uh -insensitivity, the conservative cause would have us know (and as Steven Colbert would tell us) that they don't see color. Only liberals see race, and awareness of skin color is clearly a partisan issue. Only liberals want to divide us. Rodney King as the Republican model citizen: why can't we all just get along?

“What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful,” Gingrich said on the Hannity Radio show. “It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

“Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.”

Appalling, indeed.

(Note: To be clear, this is not a post about George Zimmerman.)

Silver Foil Dreamers

The President meets a fellow native Hawaiian. Hilarity ensues.

You're the king today but there's a price you may pay

People seem to think the reason Mitt Romney is so secretive about his tax returns is that they will reveal that he pays an effective tax rate around 15%, because Mitt Romney said that his tax rate was probably close to 15%.

Since when has Mitt Romney been known to be honest. No, really. Is he believable in anything he says? Doesn't he just say whatever he thinks he can get away with?

I think the odds are that, when you take into account his numerous tax shelters, off-shore accounts, estate planning and other mechanisms available only to the mega-wealthy, people with suddenly discover that the problem isn't that he pays an effective rate of 15%. It will be that he has historically paid (as opposed to however he rejiggers his 2011 taxes - and tries to get away with only releasing those) an effective rate well below that. That will be the damning information.

Mitt Romney seems to be achieving something remarkable. He's turning Fox-watching Tea Party Republicans into populists. If he loses the election, his arrogance will have created an opening for tax reform that doesn't advantage capital gains and eliminates tax shelters for the wealthy. Why do you need ultra-low tax rates to incentivize private equity investments that are used to destroy jobs, the meme will go, but significantly higher tax rates on labor are not considered a disincentive to working and growing the overall economy? The argument never made any sense. And Mitt Romney is making it toxic.

Good job, Mittens.

UPDATE: Krugman makes the case that low capital gains tax rates are bad economics. Mitt is creating a class of Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, who (at least today - until they get to turn around and recast those views as socialist), who agree with Paul Krugman. Again, it's remarkable.

Maybe I'll invent the nuclear magnetic resonance stomp

The X Prize Foundation, along with Qualcomm, has announced a $10 million competition to develop a real-life medical tricorder. This story has me debating whether to use an image from Star Trek or the X Men. Fortunately, with Patrick Stewart (aka Captain Picard and Charles Xavier), problem solved.

Get a job

There's a lot of hay being made today over Mitt Romney's (out-of-context) "gaffe" where he said he "likes being able to fire people." The consensus is that this is a very damaging quote, reinforcing the current line of attack against Romney that he made his money by buying companies and eliminating jobs. The other GOP candidates are foaming at the mouth to go on the attack using that line against Romney (he of the "it's ok to use put of context quotes in politics" line coming back to bite him, so no sympathy).

It's amazing that it just takes a filthy rich principle-free front runner to turn the rest of the Republican field into a economic populists for middle America. But anyway.

I'm not one for giving Mitt Romney any help, and deep down I believe that his "gaffe" was pretty Freudian (and also completely dishonest when not taken out of context - but what's new with Mitt Say Anything Romney?), which point everyone is going to be driving home from now until November.

However, if Mitt is as smart as he thinks he is, or his handlers are even remotely competent (and they've been working on thinking up some damage control on this all day, without a doubt), it's going to be pretty easy for him to recover and turn the line into a positive. "It's never easy to fire someone, but you're darn right sometimes I enjoy firing someone who deserves to be lose his job. And that's why I'm in this race. To fire Barack Obama. And I'm not going to apologize for that." The "firing" line is the perfect and natural lead-in for Romney's contemptible assertions and ad hominem attacks on the President.

If that's not red meat for the Tea Party right wing, I don't know what is.

P.S. On the real point that Romney way trying to make - that somehow the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") deprives individuals of the ability to select and change health care insurers in the free market, that's also nonsense, by the way. The key problem is without the ACA, where, if you have a problem with your insurance - generally because you have become ill - you are completely screwed. You are stuck with that evil, poor service providing insurance, because you have a preexisting condition that has now taken you out of the market for any other insurance. And even if you don't have a pre-existing condition, you're still stuck, because you don't get to choose your own insurance, anyway. Your employer does. And it's worse, because Romney knows this. It's his Massachusetts plan. But the man is such a fraud that he can say what he says straight-faced and is rarely called to account for his dishonesty. Good job, mainstream media.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Nashua, New Hampshire (not really)

Candy Mountain Run

It seems to me that most of the analysis of Jon Huntsman's candidacy for the GOP nomination for president miss the main point. Of course he's the most sane candidate. That's been apparent for a long time. And sure, it's a shame, in a huge way, that the current GOP cannot rally behind that relative sanity. But I think the reality is that, for opposite reasons, the "sane" Republicans and Huntsman, on one side, and the fringe right that is no longer the fringe of the GOP, on the other, each realize that this is not a candidate that can run against President Obama in 2012. For the Tea Party and Christianist core of the party, he doesn't represent their vision (or at least their style, since his actual policy views are much more conservative and orthodox and in line with their right-wing views than is generally acknowledged). But on the sane(r) side of the party, there must be a recognition that Huntsman really doesn't want to run against Barack Obama. He worked for Barack Obama. There is an apparent level of respect for the president in Huntsman that is entirely lacking in the remainder of the field. Despite the heartfelt desire of people like Andrew Sullivan (during those rare moments when he's not all warm and tingly for Ron Paul and insincerely rescinding his infamous endorsement) for a general campaign that functions at a high level of decency, that focuses on issues and not personal attacks - that represents the type of campaign they once pretended that John McCain would run - partisans still expect there to be passion, fire, and commitment to their cause. That points to the one constituency that really wants Jon Huntsman to strongly challenge for the GOP nomination: the media. The media is still trying to sell something, and the only GOP primary script that they know is the McCain one from last time around. They need a "maverick" so badly, someone they can pretend is willing to stand up to the radicals, and are so desperate for Huntsman that it's almost dirty. "Huntsman's Time Finally Arrives!" And that sort of passion could - but probably won't be enough to - propel Jon Huntsman forward. It's just that it's not Jon Huntsman's passion. For all Huntsman's qualities, whatever those qualities are (besides sounding reasonable), Huntsman doesn't appear to have that sort of fight in him that the Republicans expect of someone taking on Barack Obama in the general election. The fact that Huntsman cannot channel that passion and anger is indicative of a candidate who isn't really serious about running in 2012. He's a candidate for 2016. He knows it. He doesn't want to run against President Obama. He's running as the dignified man who can save his party in 2016. That's what this candidacy is all about. Even having said all of that, maybe a dignified party (just suspend your disbelief - these are Republicans after all) would still select Jon Huntsman as their standard bearer. The media may, after all, convince the public that he's the real deal, the Anti-Romney other-Romney. But the people they're going to sell that to aren't the hard-core GOP-icans, and the independents aren't going to carry the day everywhere, or really almost anywhere, particularly when Huntsman has to share them with Ron Paul. Then there's that problem of loyalty, an issue that would be hammered at from several directions if Huntsman emerged as a real force in this campaign. The Manchurian Candidate stuff that's being said about him now would become fevered if he were a real threat. Who's team is the guy on? (No, I don't buy into that nonsense, I'm just pointing out what I would expect to see.) America's? China's? Remember, the loyalty that matters isn't loyalty to the country. It's loyalty to the cause. Huntsman can argue that he served President Obama's administration out of loyalty to America. That's all good and well, but it's not how the GOP base must see Jon Huntsman. He served Obama. New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg got the message when he pulled out of heading the Department of Commerce (and then had to forcefully reassert his conservative bona fides to prove is continuing loyalty to the cause). Huntsman didn't get the message. Instead, he worked to advance President Obama's agenda. In China. And what does Huntsman's candidacy say about his loyalty to Obama? If Huntsman is a real candidate, Huntsman is pretty much betraying the President, too, right? What does any of that say of the character of this man, pleasant demeanor notwithstanding. Or pleasant demeanor withstanding. Because Huntsman's approach and personality is much too Obama-like for the party hardcore. And they know, so deeply, that the President's demeanor is just an cover for his devilish schemes to destroy America. Why would they want a candidate that is so Obama-like. Elections are about contrasts. It's the firebrand that cares. And that's not Huntsman. Huntsman knows it too. He's not a candidate for 2012. (And he'll never be mine.) But he wants the GOP to remember what they could have had when the 2016 campaign gets underway.

Two Matchstick Burns

John Boehner called it an “extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab.”

Whatever.

President Obama was right to appoint Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau via a recess appointment, despite the bogus pro forma Senate sessions intended to thwart the President's constitutional authority. Laurence Tribe explains why.

The attempts to apply any sort of negative moral equivalency to the President's actions (oh my, they're an unconstitutional overreach, an expansion of the unitary Presidency) as compared to the Republican game of blocking the President's authority to appoint officials in order to effectively nullify legislation forming the agency by crippling it due to the absence of a director (a director, by the way, that everyone - even Republicans - believes is qualified), are just ridiculous.

Countering obstructionism isn't overreach. Countering obstructionism isn't partisanship. This isn't a failure of the President to bring people together.

On the fringe

Rick Santorum advocates the demographic destruction of Israel.



No, really, that's what this means. "Palestinians" (which Santorum and Gingrich will tell you don't exist) are just Israelis, and the West Bank is part of Israel, too. How long, sir, before these non-existant Palestinians constitute a majority of the State of Israel?

But I'm sure the doctors think he's a genius.

A bed with iron rails

This is....well, just watch.

Blow up and lose my head well I hope I don't (well, I hope I don't)

I think this shows the problem with speaking extemporaneously about something, trying to avoid conflict, and just completely stepping in it.

Here's Coach K, asked yesterday to comment on Joe Paterno:

“Well, I think, unless you’re there, it’s tough to comment about everything,’’ Krzyzewski said. “I just feel badly for him and whatever he is responsible for, it’ll come out and hopefully it’ll come out from him.

“I think one thing you have to understand is that Coach Paterno’s 84 years old. I’m not saying that for an excuse or whatever. The cultures that he’s been involved in both football-wise and socially, have been immense changes and how social issues are handled in those generations are quite different.

“But as we judge, remember that there’s just a lot there. There’s a lot, lot there. I think he’s a great man and it’s a horrific situation.”

Presumably Krzyzewski is trying to be diplomatic, to be a fair-minded man, not to wonder aloud and all, but still.

If he wanted to avoid saying anything negative about Paterno, Krzyzewski should have demurred. No conversation about the Penn State situation should include any form of rationalization or feeling badly for Joe Paterno. And certainly no commentary about Paterno being a great man. I'm pretty sure I know how history should treat JoePa at this point, indelible stains and all. But that's for history's judgement, if it is too horrifying to be history's dustbin. Right now, this tragic situation demands a detachment from Paterno and instead a focus on those abused kids and how the hell this happened in the first place. This being the crimes and the rug that it was all swept under. Under that old man's ethical watch.

(No, I don't trust that the Times has printed the full context of the quote, either. Perhaps Coach K deserves a little bit of wiggle room on this. I would have rather Krzyzewski never said a word on this topic. Now part of me is hoping for clarification, knowing the best thing is that Krzyzewski never utters another public word about Joe Paterno.)

Meanwhile, here's what happens when extemporaneousness meets a vacuum.



This is what happens when you're not even curious, because you know that you are not really expected to know or think through anything, other than that you disagree with what the other guy is doing, simply because that is what the other guy is doing. Instead, you rely on the idea that people will just know that you know enough to listen to someone else who you know knows something. Because of your aura.

Substance is irrelevant. Substantive policy is irrelevant.

That's what is known as leadership.

Why don't you come and lay with me

I'm not sure why I am posting on the Penn State scandal, but I wanted to throw a couple of thoughts out there. I'm not going to make this the most articulate post ever. But, a few things need to be said, if just for me. I might change my mind on some of this, but this is where I am at right now.

1. Paterno.

Joe Paterno had to go. He's getting off, frankly, quite easy. He doesn't deserve it. To get off easy, that is.

Remember, this man, this so-called paragon of virtue, the model for men, the image that every other coach with "integrity" pointed to, couldn't be bothered to protect children - elementary school aged boys - from a predator. This isn't the case of having a small lapse in judgement at the time he supposedly discovered that Jerry Sandusky was raping a young boys in the team's locker room. Read that again, by the way. Sandusky was raping kids. This isn't open for debate. Telling your boss isn't a defense for allowing this to happen, and to continue to happen. How holier-than-thou JoePa could look Sandusky in the eye, or allow in his locker room, or anywhere near his university (because, it was JoePa's university), is simply staggeringly incomprehensible. It would be so if there had only been one "incident."

But that's not the case, either. This wasn't a momentary lapse of judgement. This was a choice that Paterno made for a dozen years, if not longer. Sandusky "retired" from coaching in 1999, after apparently being accused of child molestation in 1998. The top assistant coach in the nation, he was never offered a more senior coaching position, never became a head coach. Because back then, the University and the team (any difference?), and perhaps the broader coaching world, already knew that he was using the university and the team and his "charity" to take advantage of children, to scout them out, to pick his next vulnerable victim. There is no way that Paterno didn't know about this. Yet he still called Sandusky one of his best friends, still honored him and his charitable works that were designed to allow Sandusky to prey on children. Day after day, year after year, Joe Paterno called Sandusky a friend. Day after day, year after year, Joe Paterno knew what Sandusky did, what Sandusky was doing. Day after day, year after year, Joe Paterno did nothing to stop him, to remove him from the campus, or to get Sandusky away from the vulnerable kids that he was abusing. This is a choice made by a man with something rotting in his core, and no amount of good deeds can erase what Joe Paterno allowed to happen under his nose.

Any excuses made for Paterno that he is an old man, or look at all the great things he did - well, they don't cut it. Joe Paterno was capable of coaching one of the top football programs in the nation - or at least of being the face of it. And, he wasn't an 84 year old man when he learned of this. He was no older than 75. And really, he was likely younger than that. This could not have been a surprise. Moreover, the idea that his judgement is worse due to frailty and old age is simply incredible. With age is supposed to come wisdom, I've heard.

Instead of wisdom, Joe Paterno made excuses. His statement that he would retire at the end of the season, and that the Trustees should not spend one more minute thinking about him, may be one of the most galling, self-serving statements I have ever seen, but Paterno clearly believes that he is the Center. Because that's the way it always has been for Joe Paterno. He's a man in a bubble. And, it turns out, a coward.

2. Penn State University.

I don't understand any of what happened at Penn State, why anyone would have covered this up, except that they had to be covering up their prior cover up. The only explanation I can conceive of for ignoring the 2002 locker room rape incident is that the University and the coaching staff feared that their knowledge of Sandusky's prior molestations would come to light. I don't like blind speculation, but nothing else makes any sense.

There's a lot of information flying about right now, and it's hard to determine what is accurate and what is not, but it appears that Sandusky's "predilection" was an open secret. Regardless of how open, it is likely that the Penn State coaching staff had to know Sandusky liked molesting young boys, but were somehow willing to overlook it because he was, in those circles, admired for his coaching and, well, if they didn't see it, it wasn't their business. Which is nonsense, but still. Doing it on campus, in the locker room, that crossed a line, but by then Penn State was already in too deep. They couldn't act then, because by that point, any action would condemn their previous actions (or lack thereof). In for a penny, in for a pound (so to speak).

Every one of those people should go down with Paterno.

3. Hero Worship.

The outcry in support of Joe Paterno by a loud (hopefully) minority is sad and pathetic. I'm struggling with this thought a bit, but I think that if I were an employer, and I was interviewing anyone who was at Penn State at this moment in time, I would Google their name and ensure that the name didn't come up in one of the stories about the riots, or JoePa defenders. Their judgement is so bad as to disqualify them from anything for which I could ever hire them. These kids rioted in support of a man who enabled a predator.

Maybe that's unfair. They're kids, right? It was a sudden response and they didn't have time to think, right?

But I think that that's just nonsense. That's beyond a mere failure of critical thought and judgement. It's a moral failing. Hopefully those kids will come to regret their behavior, but I wouldn't want any of them to ever, ever work for me. They gave in to foolishness and immorality and mob mentality.

Hero worship is like that. It gets rolled up into identity and can blind you to reality, particularly when image and reality, so seemingly in alignment, suddenly don't match up. There's a choice between reality and image, and if your identity is tied into imagery, reality is often doomed. Circle the wagons, our own identities are at stake. If JoePa isn't the awesomest man ever, then what does that make of those who worshiped at his altar?

It seems to me part and parcel with the current Herman Cain scandal and it's accompanying silliness - because it is silly, although that doesn't mean it's not also troubling and dangerous, or that Herman Cain is not a credible (but only because of what it says of the GOP) candidate. I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

But, people choose affiliations, and for many people - the ideologically rigid, the small minded, the paid pundits, the con artists, the gullible - those affiliations are unbreakable. Bill Clinton was a sleaze, of course, for womanizing, but now it turns out that the female accusers of the Hermanator are plants from the "Democrat Machine," are money hungry publicity hounds, and, it also turns out, that there is really no such thing as sexual harassment. It goes the other way, too. I'm not claiming that consistency is the exclusive province of one side of the ideological spectrum.

Consistency and logic unfortunately don't seem have a role when you're talking about identity and affiliation. It's all about defending your cause. So, St. Joe followed the rules, reported what he heard to his superiors, and had no other responsibility whatsoever. And now he's being railroaded. That's the logic of identity, the aura and fanaticism of hero worship. There's a mythology, an almost religious adherence to a narrative of greatness, that is unshakable to its adherents.

4. The NCAA, Sanctions and the U.

One of my initial reactions to this scandal was that - here we have the University of Miami, likely facing dire NCAA sanctions because some kids were getting paid by a booster so that those kid could provide the University with a profitable venture, yet Penn State isn't going to face NCAA consequences for enabling a child rapist. It seems so incredibly unfair. Much of what happened at Miami was wrong, but not criminal (or, where it was, it was within the realm of a technical criminality that is commonplace). Yet Miami will face much harsher consequences from the governing body of the sport than Penn State will face. (Only time will tell what consequence will be imposed by the school or more-level-headed students or alumni or fans. In a just world, the University trustees would dissolve the football program. But that's not the world in which we live.)

I think I'm off that fence, though. Penn State doesn't provide UM with a pass here. At the same time as Penn State was enabling a rapist, UM was allowing someone to pay for prostitutes and abortions. It's hard to believe that the UM coaching staff could have been entirely unaware of what was going on. It's much easier to believe that they chose not to know.

I don't think that this was or is unique to the University of Miami. And I am in no way equating what happened at Penn State to what happened at Miami. There is a disgusting vulgarity to Penn State that is matchless, incomprehensible, vile.

Nevertheless.

I liked Randy Shannon while he was coaching Miami, and had thought he was a class act. He may have not won it all, but he was doing things the right way, right? That's what we were told. Shannon, it was said, was rebuilding Miami's football program with integrity, dignity, increased scholarship, all in the image of Penn State and Joe Paterno.

I don't think the similarities are things UM would now like to acknowledge.

Sticks and Stones

The other day I noticed that the Right was all up in another one of their panic fits because a new Libyan leader stated that Sharia law would be the basis for law in the new Libyan republic. Uh-oh, that means it's a future terrorist state, they are saying.

Juan Cole points out that the constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq, both drafted under the guidance of the Bush Administration, each explicitly provide that all laws must conform to Islamic law:

But there is no hand-wringing about those two “liberated” countries and Islamic law or sharia. I guess if secular, communist Afghanistan was made fundamentalist by Reagan and Bush, or if the relatively secular Baath Party of Iraq was overthrown by W. in favor of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Call Party and the Bloc of Ayatollah Sadr II, that is unobjectionable and not even reported on. But if there’s a Democratic president in the White House, all of a sudden it is a scandal if Muslims practice Muslim law.

Let it go, let it drop

I really should be able to let this issue go by now, but it remains a frustrating thorn for me.

Yesterday, Sully's Ask Me Anything video clip was answering the question, "How Would President Hillary Be Different." Andrew gave what was a pretty meh answer - not so much, blah blah blah. Whatever. It's not the answer that bugged me so much, as the premise.

What's the motivation for that question, anyway? It remains the odd case that a lot of Hillary Clinton campaign supporters still hold on to the idea that Hillary Clinton should have been president. I should resist stereotyping that group as feminists, but...yeah, it's a lot of strong feminists, smart ones even, whom I often respect tremendously - but then there's this issue. Deep down they still seem to hold views almost as irritating as the Republican base view that Barack Obama is an illegitimate president. Remember that Hillary's campaign was the first to stoke the flames of birtherism and Obama-is-Muslim-ism. Those embers have not entirely burned out. Clinton supporters don't still argue that Obama isn't American, but they often remain attached to their view that Hillary/they were entitled, and that all of the Administration's so-called failures are the result of Hillary's destiny having been robbed of her. Obama is weak. Obama's style isn't to their liking. They believe Barack Obama stole Hillary's (and their) victory.

It's all this stuff wrapped around the politics of identity and hope, and the sense that it was Hillary's time and time for a great leap forward for women, and whatever else. And that's all fine, and somewhat understandable, given American history where The Women of the U.S. Government is more likely a Playboy pictorial rather than a statement about elected officials (though it bears mention that there are a record number of women serving in the 112th Congress). Still, to make that more important than everything represented by Barack Obama, well, come on folks. But this isn't about that. This is about the argument that Hillary Clinton was entitled to the Presidency, and that Barack Obama got in her way.

Frankly, I'm calling bullshit.

In simple terms, here's reality. Hillary would not be President today if she had won the nomination.

That's not a comment on Hillary's qualifications, her ability, or what kind of success she could have had as President (though I think much less than President Obama, for a number of reasons). I always supported the Obama campaign, but I never disliked Hillary - well, not until she campaigned the way she did, but her service as Secretary of State has restored my respect.

But let's first discuss electoral reality. I know that reality doesn't much matter in alternative histories, or histrionics, but it matters to me. And the reality is that Hillary Clinton could not have won any states in the South, save perhaps (but not necessarily) Florida - but most of Florida isn't really the South, anyway. A Democrat winning North Carolina or Virginia is simply inconceivable if Barack Obama had not been the nominee. I'm really not even willing to entertain the argument, because it would be disingenuous and silly.

For purposes of argument I would even discount the fact that Hillary's campaign was directed by the ridiculously incompetent Mark Penn, and consider, for this paragraph alone, the possibility of a narrow Clinton victory in a general election, all other things being equal (which, of course, they were not - but more on that in a moment). Even with this hypothetical narrow electoral Hillary Clinton victory, Hillary would have had very different coattails. Hillary Clinton would not have enjoyed the brief and incredibly successful period of a supermajority senate that led (despite - I would actually argue made possible by - the Kennedy-to-Brown switch) to the misnamed "Obamacare" and the slew of other legislative successes of Obama's first two years. Would Hillary Clinton, again all things being equal, have done much the same as Barack Obama? Possibly. But then again, all things would not have been equal.

But that brings us back to whether there was any possibility of Hillary Clinton being sworn in as President. And there are two words that pretty much change the whole picture: Sarah Palin.

John McCain would have never selected Sarah Palin as his running mate if Hillary had been the nominee. Palin was, among other things, a cheap, shallow attempt to attract female voters who were angry (see above) about Hillary losing the nomination. The cynical ploy was aggressive on numerous fronts, as the McCain campaign ran ads, including the infamous "Passed Over" ad, to explicitly woo Clinton voters and simultaneously point out that the Democrat didn't have a woman on his ticket (but John McCain did). And then there was the incredibly dishonest PUMA movement, their anger and insistence that Hillary was treated unfairly (by the media or by Obama? I never could figure it out), and the claim by a quarter of Clinton supporters following Hillary's concession speech that they would vote for McCain. McCain would have a female running mate. The brilliant McCain campaign believed that Sarah Palin would seal-the-deal. The idea that McCain could win the presidency by peeling off Clinton voters might have been terribly poor strategy (or not - it may have simply been a complete failure of execution, their tactics rather than their strategy), but it was in fact one of their most important strategies in the election.

The McCain campaign also thought they could overcome Palin's obvious inexperience by using it to highlight the argument of the Base that Barack Obama had no experience. They thought it was fine to have the issue of experience front-and-center because they truly believed it would hurt Barack Obama more, because a campaign focused on experience would benefit the guy who had been there forever. In that sense, Palin's inexperience as (lack of) qualification was ridiculously perceived as an electoral advantage. Maybe I'm giving John McCain more credit than he is due, although if you go back and read my blog entries from the campaign, including long before Sarah Palin was even firing off starbursts in the eyes and shorts of middle-aged conservatives, you'd see that it was unlikely that I would have ever given that huckster more credit than is his due. Still, it is simply inconceivable to believe that the McCain campaign, as it were, could have tried the Palin trick if Hillary - who also campaigned against Obama on the basis of her experience - was at the top of the ticket. The premise for Palin's ascendancy would have simply not existed.

Now, some may say that is another reason why Hillary should have been the nominee, because the nomination of Hillary Clinton would have prevented the foisting of Palin on greater America. But that would miss the point, too, because the selection of Palin was a dramatically important revelation, about John McCain and about the state of conservatism. It wasn't really that the sorry state was news, but the media felt free to ignore it. A Clinton nomination would have simply allowed a continuation of the old narratives. John McCain was a media darling. John McCain ran against George W. Bush eight years earlier. He was often supposedly at odds with is party. The myth of McCain the Maverick enabled so-called fair-minded people to ignore the intellectual and moral rot of institutional conservatism.

Instead, more than anything else, the selection of Palin, which would have never occurred following a nomination of Hillary Clinton, revealed the real John McCain, his colossally poor judgment and cravenness, which he has only continued to show (plus, bitterness!) in the three years since his defeat. Instead of so-called experience, the campaign turned on temperament and judgement, two issues that the McCain's Palin selection (and Obama's character) put in a different contrast. That's the environment in which Obama was able to present his case to America. That playing field would have been much different for Hillary Clinton. Hillary wouldn't have been campaigning against the creepy get-off-my-grass curmudgeon.

Hillary Clinton would have faced the John McCain that people pretended was a great guy, the war hero they imagined him to be, the buddy of journalists and John Stewart. Hillary Clinton would have faced the John McCain that my friend who was on the leadership of the Florida Democratic Party told me he would vote for in a general election between McCain and Clinton. It's something he told me as he headed to a $500-minimum Clinton fundraising event.

So let's not reinvent history. Let it go.

People Say They've Got The Game Rigged

Supposedly Wall Street hates President Obama. Slate told me so the other day. There are all these quotes from some angry bank executives to prove it. And I'm not saying Slate is necessarily wrong about "Wall Street's" likes and dislikes.

So if that's the case, 'splain this to me, if you would. Why has President Obama received more contributions from financial sector employees than all of the Republican contenders (and not so contenders) combined?

(I know, I know, this just proves to the Progressives that the President is owned by those financial corporations. Because every employee of a corporation is a monolithic reflection of that corporation's mindset - whatever mindset a corporation can have. And support of someone within a "corporation" means you hate the "people." Sigh.)

I Hope Someday They'll Say Hooray For Me

President Obama receives more negative coverage than his slew of Republican challengers. This is not a surprise. His genuine moderation makes him a target from the right and the left. So-called Progressives may claim that this moderation is a sign of weakness, or that he really isn't on their side. They don't understand. It's what enables the President to get anything done - and he has achieved far more for the Progressive agenda than any President in my lifetime - and to hold the line on existing progressive policies.

Get a Job

The Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be gaining some real traction, and reflecting some real anger. But what do you do with that anger? Anger's not sufficient, and misdirecting that at the the current resident of the White House, who isn't perfect but actually gets their point and is too often stuck with the choice of do-less-harm or leave-the-asylum-to-the-inmates (which doesn't, I'll point out, make him weak), is counterproductive. I'm sympathetic to the frustration, but most of the damage is already done and largely irreversible. There is no Robin Hood. How do you move the rudder in a way that changes our course but does it in a way that carries a nation in its current?

One of my closest friends who is an absolute mensch, an incredible parent, a good soul, a progressive thinker, a Democratic voter, thinks that manipulating loopholes to structure annuities for relatively wealthy old people so that they can qualify for government handouts is doing justice. The beneficiaries of these annuities are entitled to restructure their economic reality because the law permits it, and by helping them do it, he's doing right by his family and he's doing right by America. Who gives a darn about where it comes from, who has to pay, or who gets less as a result? That's not the lucky citizen's problem. You take the law as you find it. It's all about getting the most for yourself, whether you're getting paid to make it happen, or getting the fruits of it.

Some people are just entitled. The right-wing argues against "entitlements" designed to lift up those in need, but they have their claws deep in their sense of entitlement to every advantage they can muster. If you get a tax break, or a bailout, or a school voucher, if anything allows you to get a leg up, then you're entitled to it. If a program or a social service helps someone else, it's (speaking in Italics) an entitlement. The privileged don't have to match up both sides of the ledger.

A different friend of mine - one who is reliably, consistently, and (to his credit) a principled conservative, despite the fact that we disagree on just about every issue - argued today that a 20-something begging for debt relief is foolish. He's right, of course. There's effectively no chance this will happen, despite the hole in which current college graduates are finding themselves, as individual student college loan debts have increased five-fold over the past dozen years while job prospects have plummeted in the current recession. But when you see old white teapartiers decrying medicare cuts while opposing universal heathcare, and the hundreds of other ways that the oh-so-aggrieved haves expect their own privilege and resent the way those others expect a have, or even a half-a-have, of their own - because it's their country, it's their apple pie, not yours - well, it's hard not to sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street protester's sentiment. When you see that banks and multinational corporations are entitled to bailouts for stupid decisions but individuals have to look forward to a future of suffering a mountain of unforgivable debt for doing what those institutions told them was the right thing to do - invest in your education, invest in your home - it's hard not to sympathize with their anger, even if the ones expressing that anger haven't earned that sympathy through anything they did themselves.

In a fair world, it shouldn't be that hard to generate some understanding for the counterargument that - kids, just shut up. You may have some college debt, but even if you're living at your parent's home, you mostly have a place to live that's not a cardboard box under a highway. You're mostly not fighting the Nazis in a foxhole (outside of the PS3 in your mom's basement). So sip your latte and get over it, you entitled little brats. Them's the breaks, and there are no guarantees in this world. Life is hard work. Go bake your own triple mochaccino pie. Responsibility means taking care of yourself.

The government used to expect a lot from its people - minor things like saving the free world and whatnot - but the government seemed to have their backs, too. What they got, they got because it was their right, because it was the nation's responsibility to them, even if it was often really their dads and uncles in those foxholes, and (ok, Southeast Asia, anyone?) they were ducking-and-covering while the welfare state irresponsibly wasted our tax dollars pretending to land someone on the moon.

Today, however, the government asks for very little from us, young, old, in-between. Service to your fellow Americans is optional. Yet we all want, and all we want is, more, more, more. More gigabytes. More prescriptions. More healthcare. More regulations. More immigrants. More iPods.

And more. More - and better - jobs. We want more of a role in a system where legislators have abdicated governance to unseen bosses, both theirs and ours. We want more of our elected representatives having-our-backs and not just the backs of those corporations-are-people-too-and-executives-are-the-corporation, who insist that we deregulate the tax code and the work environment and the planet and reward risky corporate recklessness so the bankers and traders and senior executives can get bonuses and the icecaps can melt away and the mountaintops wash out to the ocean, white with foam, all to unburden the economy and unleash the raw power of capitalism and liberty and manifest destiny and reLOVEution. Or something. We all want more of that pie-in-the-sky, and that light from above. We want more responsibility, both from us and for us.

It's a distraction, though. Government isn't the problem. The particular state of our government and governance is a disaster, but the cause is selfishness and empty promises and greed and ask not what you can do for your country or what your country can do for anyone else, but what your country can do for you. Or me. Government can help solve problems, or government can be blamed for problems, or government can create problems, or who the heck knows, governing isn't my problem. I just want what's coming to me, what I'm owed, what's my there's-only-one-true-God-given right as, you know, a real American. The first and last responsibility is to that reflection in the mirror.

But none of this is an answer. At best, and that's maybe giving too much credit, it's a conversation. I don't know that it helps, particularly if nobody - particularly those doing the reporting, and even those doing the talking - is even listening. Expressing anger is important, even without a clear message. It just not enough, and it's definitely not Michael Moore or Ralph Effing Nader.

When I first read those words in the sign above, they seemed like nonsense, a shallow frat-boy crock of whining. But perhaps they're more profound than I perceived, because the more you think about it, the more you realize that Shit is truly, totally, completely fucked up and bullshit.


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Matt on Conservative Nostalgia:

But from a non-bigoted conservative point of view, what is there really to miss about the America John Boehner grew up it? The tax rates were high, but at least they didn’t let Jews into the country club?