Cruise control

Derek Thompson blogs about the cash for clunkers program on The Atlantic's Business page. But what got my attention was this comment by "Jimminy" rationalizing not purchasing a hybrid:

FURTHER, they promote an air of complacency, especially among the well to do who buy them, thinking, "There, I've done my part. Environmental crisis over."

Which has to be the farthest from the truth. Maybe that's what the future holds as more and more people buy hybrids, but I doubt it.

The reality is this: early hybrid adopters are strong environmentalists who were already bringing eco-consciousness into all aspects of their lives. Those who don't really care about the environment, or who claim to care but don't want to feel guilty about it, like to kvetch and moan about hybrid drivers, how they hate their holier-than-thou, smug, moralistic attitude, even though the hybrid driving environmentalists are just behaving like concerned citizens, and rarely with any preaching. Sure, ask them about their hybrid, and they'll talk for hours, telling you how far they can go on a tankful, how they didn't realize gas was so expensive this week 'cause they haven't bought any yet this month. So they're smug.

And those who make the decision to buy hybrids but who are not already avid environmentalist? Well, they tend to become avid environmentalists. Or at least avid gas savers.

They spend ridiculous mental energy focused on saving automobile energy. They work on seeing how far they can coast to stop lights without using any gas. They drive without air conditioning, to eek out a few more miles per gallon. In the summer. In Florida. What's a sweaty back if you can break last month's best mileage record? They push the limits to see how infrequently they can go to the gas station, and so they generally drive less, not more. For example, non-environmentalist James Woolsey, former CIA director, drives a converted plug-in Prius as part of his quest to reduce reliance on foreign oil (bankrolling terrorists is his concern) - and obsessively tracks his use of gasoline and his electric bill for charging the car up, getting frustrated when his car doesn't quite get the hoped-for mileage. Not how most people define complacent, is it?

To minimize fuel use even more, hybrid owners, more often than others, ride bikes to the grocery store. To get their organic, locally grown food that used less fuel to grow and arrive at the market.

And they carry that near obsessive behavior into the home. Inside, they run the home air conditioning less. Outside, they mow their lawn with a push reel mower (I love my Brill), instead of using gasoline powered mowers which are inefficient and lack catalytic converters, and are responsible for five percent (no joke) of all U.S. pollution, according to the EPA. In fact, since gas mowers cause up to four times more pollution than some of the oldest cars on the road, an electric mower for gas mower clunkers program would be wildly more beneficial for the environment than C4C!

And while the hybrid owners are checking out their people-powered lawn mowers, they'll sometimes end up with a composter, and, while visiting the local green fair, get a trial membership with their local organic food co-op.

Sorry, hybrid owners are not complacent, they're hyper-conscious. Smug and morally superior? That's a personal thing - smug folks are smug folks; yet my experience is that hybrid drivers - and environmentally concerned people in general (not to be confused with activists, who are always, by nature and definition, more, um, vocal) - are modest, internally-focused and thoughtful. They're people trying to do the right thing.

It's really the defensiveness and smugness of those who complain about them that should raise eyebrows. And anyway, who's more deserving?

But it's easier to hide behind an excuse than to do the right thing, right?

Iambic pentameter

A week and a half ago I brought you William Shatner's brilliantly poetic rendition of Rocket Man. Last night Shatner took it to a whole new level of genius on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, in what has become an instant classic and a reason to occasionally choose Conan over Colbert (OK, I don't really expect that to continue, but you've gotta give him his due).

Learn about the world while they're fighting in the aisles

Expanding on what I said a few days ago about Walter Cronkite, Frank Rich finds the right reasons to remember him.

Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank.

In my dreams I can fly

Last night - to be accurate, early this morning, because the dreams before I wake up are the only ones I truly remember - I had a dream in which, among other things, I had my bicycle locked up with a combination lock, and I couldn't quite remember the combination. It's the variation on the dream I've had since I was a teenager: it's final exam time, I haven't been to class in gosh-knows how long, and, even though I somehow found my locker (I think it's my locker), darn if I have any idea what the freakin' combination to my lock is, so I can't even get my book out to cram for the exam! The only thing I can remember is that there's a 42 in the combination. Which, now that I think of it, may have something to do with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was a geek when I was a teenager. Hold off on the smart aleck commentary; there's plenty of opportunity later in this post. And anyway, if you get the reference, you were (or are) a geek, too. So, enough.

Actually, don't hold off on the commentary, smart aleck or otherwise. Comments. Please! On anything.

Back to this dream. I got the lock partially opened, but not all the way; the lock had extended a long stringy cable that was still attached, and I was trying the combination again. Something, 42, something. Spin it fast enough and maybe the lock will think you got it right. Next thing I know - I'm not making this up, and it wasn't some deep, repressed white male fantasy thing going on - as I am struggling with the combination, I looked up and, leaning against a pole (shut up) next to me was Sarah Palin. I grinned and said "So, how does it feel not being governor anymore?" My grin, just to be clear, was because she wasn't governor and was making a fool of herself, not a cheesy, flirtatious grin. OK? OK. I'm just being honest. Hey ya.

Anyway, she said she felt great, you betcha.

To the extent that there was any fantasy involved in the dream, that fantasy is coming true. While you can never rule out any bizarre turn of events when it comes to Sarah Palin, today is her last full day as Governor of Alaska. Her resignation takes effect tomorrow. Birthers and borderline racists can swarm around the FoxNews chum that this is some fantastically brilliant plan to set herself up for the 2012 race for President (spin it fast enough and maybe the FOX Nation will think you are right), but at least Alaska's wolves can sleep better tomorrow night.

Oh, wait! Now she'll have nothing better to do than fly around in her plane and shoot. That screws up my entire rationale for thinking this was a good thing. Oy. I think I might need those blacked-out peril-sensitive cardboard glasses that came with my TRS-80 version of The Hitchhiker's Guide text game, because if I can't see the danger, it can't hurt me. Don't panic.

Regarding the lock, right after my brief conversation with Palin, someone pointed out to me that I had actually opened the lock, and I needed to just press the end of the extended cable to pop it off. Which I did, letting me retrieve my bike.

Back on the ground

The Apollo 11 crew returned to Earth forty years ago today, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about 15 miles from the recovery ship, The Hornet, which dispatched its helicopter and recovered Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins about an hour later.

Over these last nine days, we've had fun looking back at the historic mission of Apollo 11 and the first moonwalk. During that time, we've lost a legendary journalist, Walter Cronkite, famed for his honesty and serious journalism while bringing a human touch to the events of the day, one of the most iconic being his coverage of our first manned mission to the surface of the moon.

Cronkite, as we've also seen, narrated Spaceship Earth, itself that iconic geodesic sphere marking the entrance to EPCOT Center, an attraction reflecting back on the history of communications, how progress in methods of communication have helped create the world we live in today, and where it can take us to tomorrow.

For most people, the space program promised progress on a grand scale, inspiration to excel in science and mathematics, to learn the secrets of the universe, to solve the myriad problems we faced at home on Earth, the political, social, ethical, humanitarian, cultural, religious, scientific and even mundane issues that confront humanity on a day to day basis. Or maybe that's just the impression of my generation, whose memories begin with man on the moon and proceed from there, for whom even the Vietnam War was not a strong cultural influence, whose first real memories of a President are of Gerald Ford. (My first real-time, vivid political memory is Richard Nixon's resignation and the jubilation that the criminal would no longer be our president. Although I had a vague awareness before that date that Nixon was a bad guy - I'm sure discussions of Watergate filled my home - which probably affected my political orientation growing up, I don't recall ever watching any of that on television or really being in touch, as a 4 and 5 year old, with the issues of the day.)

Perhaps for people older than me, the space race was a critical test of America in the Cold War, and the moon landing merely a victory over communism. The beeping of Sputnik as it passed every 98 minutes excited a dystopian vision for some of the Cold War generation that the Soviet's would destroy America under the threat that they could just zap us away from their orbit in the skies. It took our steps on the moon put us back in charge of the heavens and world destiny.

Maybe my vision is more Gene Roddenberry and Walt Disney. But I don't think so, having just watched Walter Cronkite's coverage of Apollo 11 again and for the first time. I saw that same wonder and amazement and hope and vision. In two simple, heartfelt words, Cronkite reflected a true American spirit, a spirit embodied in the way that JFK transformed a space race given birth by fear into one of exploration and ingenuity and accomplishment. "Oh boy!"

Scientifically, we've come a long, long way since 1969. Some look at the fact that we haven't been back to the moon since 1972 as a failure of vision or motivation or science. I'm not sure I would agree. We continue to explore our solar system, our galaxy and our universe, through the extraordinary Mars exploration rovers Spirit and Opportunity and the Phoenix Mars lander, through the Galileo mission to Jupiter and Cassini-Huygens to Saturn and Voyager 2 continuing on to the outer reaches of the solar system, and through the Hubble space telescope; and though ongoing scientific exploration of the universe at the microscopic level through particle physics, particularly with the completion of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Europe. If these incredible explorations of our universe fail to inspire the collective imagination, it's not because of a failure of scientific vision.

Back on Earth, we seem to have given up on hope and inspiration and wonder, in exchange for quick thrills and manufactured drama. The visions of Roddenberry's Star Trek and Disney's Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow have given way to JJ Abrams' Trek, and a theme park called "Epcot." The inspirational visions borne out of exploration in Trek are replaced by a darker vision of young men thrust into the unknown to fight against genocidal lunacy. EPCOT's Horizons was replaced by the thrill of being a test track dummy (OK, this replaced the dreadful World of Motion pavilion, but you get the point) and a ride that creates G-force sufficient to trigger life-threatening heart failure in a tiny portion of its guests. The Wonders of Life at EPCOT is just shuttered up.

Yet buried in that quest for the explosive thrill is something deeper, the idea that people working together can make great things happen. Lurking behind the crass commercialism of branding all elements of Disney's kingdom is the return of a new Hall of Presidents that takes pride in the America it represents, a revamped and modernized Spaceship Earth, and simple touches designed to immerse guests into something more than a spinning ride.

This weekend we're going to try to get the kids to put down the DS and the iPod, and head out to the Kennedy Space Center, and try to get another taste of what the wonder was all about.

See the stars come out

I thought about posting the Elvis version of Blue Moon of Kentucky, but this song belongs to the Big Mon.

Fly, fly high

For grandpa.



This was actually played for the Apollo 10 astronauts on their mission.

Big talk

President Obama is currently giving his prime time press conference focused on health care reform - aka health security.

From the dishonest (or stupid) reporter desk, ABC's Jake Tapper, and then a guy pretending to be Stephen Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer (yeah, the President called on Koff - who he obviously didn't know personally, but since the President is visiting the Mayo Clinic tomorrow, he was giving a local guy the chance to ask a question - but some other dude on the other side of the room stood up and asked him a question; I think there's a reporter that's never going to get to ask another question), both press the President on the idea that the government plan is going to ration or deprive Americans of health care to which they'd otherwise be entitled.

Someone needs to clarify to these guys - who reflect little more than the know-nothingness of celebrity journalism - that the proposal on the table is not a single-payer, government rationed health care plan. It is a government option, as an alternative to the stubbornly inefficient private insurance run health care system. Private insurance policies are not eliminated under any of the proposals; if an individual or an employer decides that a private insurance plan is better for them, they are free to choose the private insurance plan. Pick what you prefer.

Or, to put it into language that our media overlords can understand, the principle is to offer more choices, not fewer.

Even worse, in NBC's post-game, David Gregory is now saying the President needs to answer that rationing question, to address what Americans are going to have to give up as a result of health insurance reform.

Hacks.

The Way It Is, part 2

I had almost forgotten that Walter Cronkite wasn't just connected to Disney World through his narration of Spaceship Earth at EPCOT Center. He also worked with Robin Williams on the film "Back to Neverland" that introduced the The Magic of Disney Animation attraction at what was then Disney-MGM Studios, in which Williams and Cronkite gave a walking tour of the animation studios. Cronkite played the straight man, explaining how the animation worked, while Robin Williams was, well, animated.



Uncle Walter - who, not coincidentally for why the Walt Disney Company used his voice and image and reputation for dignity and seriousness, strongly resembled Walt - also provided the booming voice that echoed around the park throughout the holiday IllumiNations fireworks and light show that ran during the holiday season for many years, a piece of which can still be heard each year at the end of the holiday version of IllumiNations: Reflections on Earth.

Craters

For my girls.

Ain't my home

The Netanyahu administration kicks sand in President Obama's face, and won't stop building settlements in east Jerusalem.

On Sunday, Netanyahu told his Cabinet there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in "unified Jerusalem."

"We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn't be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem," Netanyahu declared, calling Israeli sovereignty over the entire city "indisputable."

"I can only imagine what would happen if someone suggested Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a major international outcry," Netanyahu said.

Speaks for itself.

Circus on the Moon

As I have been highlighting this week, today, July 20, is the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk. To mark the occasion, the crew of Apollo 11 - Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins - visited with President Obama, and astronauts on the International Space Station, showing hospitality for the 7 Space Shuttle Endeavour astronauts currently visiting the station, fixed a broken toilet. Houston, the Eagle has landed.

Country Doctor

I haven't really said much about health care reform. I am not an expert on the various proposals, I don't really have the time to become an expert, and accordingly I don't have the depth of knowledge to get into the weeds of the various proposals, some of which are designed to make health care work; some of which are designed to preserve industry growth for doctors, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies; and some of which are cynically designed to scuttle a bill.

That being said, however, American health care right now is a disaster for working Americans, despite the claims that American medicine is the "best in the world." American medicine is the pinnacle, in the sense that it is the most sophisticated for those dealing with disease. But that focus comes at an incredibly high cost that deals with medical emergencies at the margins, but is terribly inefficient when it comes to preventive care and care for the unprivileged masses.

Laying my views out on the table, the best of all plans would be a single-payer plan. Nothing else comes close. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen.

The next best plan is a plan with a public option, although in its current formulation that option just creates a government-owned insurance company. And any plan without a public component is a scam; a governmental role is the only way to ensure the provision of health care and manage cost. Everyone knows this, despite the scare tactics and insular self-interests of those who have dollars at stake in the current system.

But if the public option plan is the only viable plan that offers progress - and it is - the plan must not pander to the medical-pharma-insurance complex. Some found it shocking that the American Medical Association announced its support for the House plan. However, the AMA's support really shouldn't be a surprise at all. The House plan does very little to control costs. So the AMA is thrilled by such a plan. But, while such a plan is a boon for the AMA - whoopie, guaranteed growth! - it is a failure for the average American.

As a fundamental matter, American workers should not be tied into jobs just because of employer-provided health insurance. It's bad policy, and bad economics. It creates inefficiencies and unhappy employees, strains the budgets of small business, makes American products more expensive and less competitive with foreign products, creates incentives to move industries overseas, and creates more perverse incentives for retail businesses to avoid providing permanent positions, stacking their payroll with part-time employees to whom they don't provide health care insurance. Among the results - lower quality work from unhappy, uncommitted employees who stuggle to get in enough hours to make ends meet, who still face the risk of economic catastrophe from an ill-timed injury or sickness.

"Conservatives" argue that a goal of universal health care is socialism. That's ridiculous. Rather, it is, or should be, part of government's basic duty of providing security. Securing a basic level of health for Americans is, at its core, about justice, fairness and sound economics.

Perhaps it is time to rebrand health care reform as "Health Security". So-called conservatives, to the extent they pretend to consistency, argue that one of the few acceptable roles of government is to provide security. It's time to drive home the point that this is what the debate is all about. American children, American workers, our parents and brothers and sisters and friends, all deserve a basic level of security, the knowledge that when they need care, they won't be left without needed medication or hospital care or a visit to their doctor; that when their child gets sick, they can get them medical care and maintain their dignity and self respect.

The current health care system, which is rooted in employer-subsidized private health insurance, is a failure for those who don't have access to it, and an albatross around the necks of innumerable Americans who are trapped in unhappy working conditions, a hinderance to entrepreneurship, and an anticompetitive burden on American business. The status quo discourages risk-taking ventures that form the backbone of capitalism; it encourages low wage, part-time employment instead of full-time employment with full benefits. It makes workers less productive and less committed to their employers. It makes our products more expensive and less competitive against foreign products and encourages the (almost complete) shift of our nation's manufacturing base offshore. The current system makes us less stable and less competitive as a nation, and less moral as a people.

Health security is the most fundamental security issue Americans face on a day-to-day basis, and to continue to deprive a subset of Americans of that right is fundamentally un-American, and beneath us as a nation that likes to claim that we are comprised of the most generous people in the world.

At the end of the day, I don't care where I see the cost for the plan; if per capita costs are controlled, who cares (or, who should care) if it is paid for out of "taxes" rather than as a paycheck deduction? But the plan must be built around providing necessary care while managing costs, reducing the inefficiencies of the medical-insurance complex which is currently built on ensuring maximum profit rather than insuring basic health.

Do I believe lawmakers can be grown-ups and do health care reform right?

Who writes the campaign checks?

The Moon

Carry the Water

Greenwald has an excellent post on why Cronkite mattered, and what has changed in the media since he retired - the substitution of thoughtfulness, honesty, independence from those about whom he reported, and informed curiosity, contrasted with the obsequiousness and sycophancy, shallowness, celebrity and credulity that has taken its place at the highest levels.

Sunlight Moon

The Way It Is

My favorite part of Spaceship Earth at EPCOT Center was Walter Cronkite's narration, from 1986 to 1994. To this day, whenever we go to EPCOT and ride on Spaceship Earth, I say, in a pretty good Cronkite imitation (although at times, I admit, it could sound almost Nixonian), "And that's the way it was." My kids had no idea what I was doing, and my wife, well, I think she just tolerates me without appreciating it.

Nevertheless, like television journalism, the ride has not been the same since Cronkite's voice was retired.

Fortunately, this clip was posted by someone on YouTube last night, after my first search for it. I am sure I have some video of it, as well, buried somewhere deep in my VHS-C archives.



Walter Cronkite also had another role with EPCOT Center - he introduced the park to us in 1981 in a TV special, Walt Disney — One Man's Dream.

The other side

Sad moon

Walter Cronkite has passed away.

Keeping with this week's theme of focusing on the 40th anniversary of Apollo XI, here is Walter Cronkite's legendary marathon "Walter to Walter" coverage of the moon landing, one of the highlights of his career. I've watched the video of the moon landing and Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the moon probably hundreds of times, but I hadn't seen the live CBS News coverage again (and again meaning that I was less than a year old when it happened, so, however formative that original viewing may have been for me, I obviously have no memory of it). I am a bit taken aback to realize how sterile the typical clips are, and how emotional and dramatic it really was when it happened. The moon landing has been taken for granted by my generation - it just is something that happened. We can recognize the technical brilliance, but it's hard to reflect on how big a deal launching people on the back of a giant missile and traveling to and walking on the moon and coming back to Earth was, how risky and remarkable and awe-inspiring. These clips drive that home, as well as the passion in America for even more exploration of space, the hopes for and faith in science and ingenuity, that marked that era.

And through all of that, Walter Cronkite was America's and the world's window to a new frontier. Incredible stuff. Oh boy!

Fly closer to the sun

On a stroll and looking to the Pale Moon with Uncle Earl:

So high in the sky

Fly high

On the Moon

President John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961:

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11, the first manned mission to land on the moon, launched from the Kennedy Space Center. Four days later, on July 20, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

Latin dancing

I'm fairly certain that we're learning a lot more about the hypocrisy and idiocy of Jeff Sessions and Lindsey Graham then we are learning about the wise Latina's judicial philosophy.

I'm also curious - why aren't we hearing anything from the Republican members of the Gang of 14 about how they will stick with their agreement to not exercise the filibuster now that we have a nominee for the Supreme Court by a Democratic president and a Democratic-majority Senate? Yeah, I thought so.

Spirit Trail

President Obama is right - pressure is absolutely necessary if Israel and the Palestinians are ever going to find any type of peace (and that peace is essential for Israel's continued existence) - and despite his conviction that he speaks for all of us, Abraham Foxman's views are not representative of the majority of Jewish thought.

Call me foolhardy

Back when I was just around 15, our American History class was studying the historical and cultural events of the 20th Century, and various groups of students were assigned decades about which to do reports and make presentations. My group was assigned the 1970s. We focused on integrating the events and culture, and rather than do it as a report in a costume of the day, like all of the other groups had done until that point, we used the key entertainment and cultural attitudes of the period to convey the historical events. We started off with a Family Feud segment, complete with light-up board with flipping answers that we built using reinforced poster board and Christmas lights triggered by hidden switches, in which the Bunker family competed against the Jefferson family. Okay, think about Al Jolsen and then Neil Diamond in the Jazz Singer and then go ahead imagine everything that could be so wrong about a skinny teenage Jew (not me) in blackface, then forget about the blackface 'cause we weren't that crazy, but still. And then a commercial break starring me as Mark Spitz, fake mustache and all, on video before video editing was easy - I think we perfected the art of daisy-chained VHS recorders and timing with the pause button.

Like most groups, although we did a pretty good job of selecting key historical and cultural events, we had the fortune (really, the obligation) of relying on events that actually, you know, happened, and in our lifetimes, no less.

Our friend Philip's group, on the other hand, was assigned the 1980s. We didn't really have that much of the '80s under our belt at that time, however, so in addition to looking at the few years or so of the 1980s that had actually been written by history, Philip had the opportunity to write the future and predict what the rest of the '80s would bring. Lots of people would have fallen into the trap of political predictions at the start of the Reagan era, or focused on international affairs like the Soviets in Afghanistan, tensions with Iran or the Solidarity movement in Poland, or the space shuttle, or Star Wars (the movies or the space-based missile defense system), Pac-Man, Madonna and Michael Jackson, Charles and Diana, Luke and Laura.

Not Philip, though. A true visionary, he unconsciously or brilliantly - we, of course had no idea of his genius back then - predicted the era of the high concept. And what a high concept. You could basically build his anticipated decade (and his entire personal character, down to the bleached white hair) on two words: Billy Idol.

Which is relevant only to this - today's musical break, which I caught on the radio today.

Billy Idol - Cradle of Love
by Discodandan

Down with that

Jerry and Bruce.

Man of the world been everywhere

Sullivan points to this post from Matt Steinglass. Since it succinctly makes the point that I have been talking about since almost my first regular post on this blog (it was, in fact, as much as anything else - along with the fact that Wes Clark's comments on McCain were and remain true - the main unifying theme of this blog at its inception) - despite the general population's celebrity-media-distorted impression of John McCain - I am going to quote it in full.

Andrew Sullivan has been trying to explain over the past few days that Sarah Palin matters because the decision to elevate “this unstable, erratic, know-nothing beauty queen” to a potential Vice Presidential or Presidential spot reveals tremendous cynicism and irresponsibility on the part of John McCain, FOX News, and the Republican establishment. I think that’s largely true, but perhaps not entirely the way he’s thinking of it.

Sullivan writes “McCain knew full well that Palin was unqualified to be commander-in-chief.” But here’s the thing: John McCain is unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief. McCain is a guy of rather mediocre intellect, little curiosity, and very poor and impulsive decision-making skills. He’s vain and headstrong, and he easily turns opposition over matters of policy or politics into personal vendettas. He became a political commodity in 1973 because he embodied the right-wing working-class value of patriotism under duress at a moment when patriotism and the white working class felt under attack for their complicity in a disastrous foreign war. And he was seized upon by a desperate Republican Party in political free-fall; in the thick of Watergate, the Nixon administration launched him as a political celebrity. He then parlayed that notoriety into a political career a few years down the road. He certainly has a substantial amount of charm and an instinct for playing the press, and he’s hardly the dumbest guy in the Senate. But he is not a responsible or serious person. And to a great degree, when he met Sarah Palin, he probably felt he was looking at a younger version of himself. Which is to say that the “rot” in the GOP, the eagerness to substitute celebrity and resentful pseudo-patriotic gibberish for real political discussion, goes back a lot longer than 8 years.

Here's what I was saying back in the beginning:

Andrew Sullivan keeps telling us how a campaign between John McCain and Barack Obama would be a dignified campaign of ideas, principles and substance and a break from the partisan hackery that we've experienced for much too long. But this quote is another example of the deep misjudgement of John McCain's dignity and honor that is so pervasive in the minds of many. If Hillary Clinton made anything resembling that statement from McCain, Sullivan would be apoplectic.

Or this:

When it comes to McCain, I don't think Sullivan, or much of our media, gets it. There is no "Good McCain, Bad McCain." It's just John McCain. That's who he is. He feeds what he believes will be eaten up. He is portrayed as a man of principle. But he's not. He's a man who knows how to play the media. Sullivan got punk'd by McCain, and when the evidence was presented, he just gave a soft rebuttal (because, as we know, that's just not the real McCain, right?). McCain makes a half-hearted (and likely disingenuous) statement to the purveyors of the North Carolina attack ad, and gets praised profusely for his integrity. He equates Obama with Hamas and Sullivan basically just notes the comment for the record. Because it doesn't fit the narrative of John McCain as an honest, straight-talking man of principle.

If either statement came from Hillary Clinton, Sullivan would be all over her. But, like Chris Matthews and the bulk of the broadcast media, he doesn't share the cynicism about McCain's condemnation of the North Carolina ad because, well, nobody wants to believe that McCain is like that. He's a maverick, a war hero, who tells it like it is.

But the evidence that McCain is indeed the type of person who plays dirty politics, twists facts and will do anything to win is all over the place. In what sense has John McCain, in his words, "done everything that [he] can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not continue"? By making a statement and sending an email regarding the North Carolina race-baiting ad, but keeping the story alive so the ad keeps getting play in heavy rotation on the cable news channels? McCain is vying to be the leader of the Republican Party and, more importantly, the nation. So either he's too weak to stop his surrogates, or he doesn't want to stop them.

As always, McCain is getting the best of both worlds -- Obama gets smeared, but McCain gets to look like the good guy who stood up to those mean folks who are saying all those nasty things In the meantime, McCain uses the cover of his stand-up guy comment to launch an attack of his own, which will, in typical fashion, be dismissed as meaningless, just campaign stuff.

Cause we all know that McCain is a good man, right.

Classic John McCain, all of it.

Or this:

Count me as one who doesn't ascribe great leadership (but does ascribe great media savvy) to the man saying exactly what the polls indicate the public wants to hear, given the general consensus on issues such as the problems with money in politics or the risks to the environment.

But the argument that McCain is so bold and bipartisan with respect to the Gang of 14 is just absurd. As Pawlenty points out, the Gang of 14 led to the placement of Justices Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. It effectively eliminated the judicial filibuster from the Democratic arsenal, getting the agreement of a sufficient number of Democrats to vote for cloture -- to abandon for their party the right to "filibuster" -- and put through the conservative selections to the Court. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, it was a great tactical move by McCain (made great by the decision of some Democrats -- either due to poor tactics on their part or an attempt to legitimize their weakness on blocking the nominations by hiding under a banner of bipartisanship) which enabled the appointment of conservative justices. McCain didn't go against conservative Republican principles; instead, he advanced them in a way that created an illusion of bipartisanship.

All to the benefit of nobody more than John McCain.

Or this post, discussing Matt Tiabbi's Rolling Stone article on McCain:

Beyond the profiles in McCain's cowardly abandonment of anything resembling principles, the profiles of his supporters really bring the direction of the McCain campaign home:

Even the briefest of surveys of the supporters gracing McCain's events underscores the kind of red-meat appeal he's making. Immediately after his speech in New Orleans, a pair of sweet-looking old ladies put down their McCain signs long enough to fill me in on why they're here. "I tell you," says one, "if Michelle Obama really doesn't like it here in America, I'd be very pleased to raise the money to send her back to Africa."

One of these lovely elderly ladies, blessed with the surname Berg, goes on to make sure that the author does not confuse her for a Jew.

That last post quoted about could have easily been about Sarah Palin and her rabid supporters, but for the fact that nobody other than animal rights organizations appalled at her policies of shooting wolves had any idea who she was back then. Which makes complete sense because the frank reality is that John McCain - with all due respect for having been a prisoner of war - has never been any better than Sarah Palin. The fact that Sarah Palin's cynical selection as McCain's running mate convinced enough Americans that there was too much risk in electing McCain was fortunate, but not because of the risk of a Palin presidency, but rather because you would have gotten the exact same thing with McCain.

Fat gaps in my teeth

What in the world was Matt Yglesias thinking when he decided this morning to do a post about how the Soviet Union did, and Cuba still does, a good job of providing health care? Is that an argument that is going to convince Americans that (1) the Obama ideal of universal health care is a positive objective, and (2) Obama's not a socialist? First, it's apples and oranges - no proposals on the table resemble any communist-type health care structure. Worse, it's tone deaf. Notwithstanding - or because of - the commentary that under the communists, "everyone’s dirt poor and generally leave crappy lives with few goods."

Of course the wingnut conclusion from that is going to be that Obama wants to turn us into a communist country, and that, once he's done with healthcare, he's going to make us all dirt poor and lead crappy lives with few goods. And we'll all have bad orthodontics.

Yglesias usually has more sense than that.

I've been waiting for you

Senator Al Franken.

What a time

Technically, this is a couple of weeks late, I guess. But, it is the 30th Anniversary of The Muppet Movie.

Smile.

Come together

A few days ago I complained about the logic of the filibuster:

I was not one of those who opposed the cynical Republican attempt to enact the "nuclear option" a few years ago and get rid of the filibuster, because despite Republican motivation at the time, the filibuster is just not fair. It is at best an anachronism of an age where Senators took their role in legislating, rather than partisanship, seriously. There is no constitutional requirement for a 60% majority in the Senate, and the sooner we can get rid of it, the better.

Today, Matt Yglesias, responding to Richard Posner's statement that "the filibuster is an incomprehensible device of government," also goes there:

On the filibuster, Posner gets at the crucial point. Even without a supermajority rule in the Senate, the United States would still feature many more veto points at which legislation can be blocked (you need concurrent majorities in two legislative houses, plus at least two committees, plus the assent of the president) than most advanced democracies. There’s no systematic reason to think that this feature of our system is conducive to the public interest over the long term.I think much of the liberal commentariat boxed themselves in on this issue, going to a full court press against the Republicans when they threatened the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster a few years ago. The right answer, of course, was to let them do it. But then those two phony moderates John McCain and Joe Lieberman, along with their Gang of 14, had to go and exercise their consistently foolhardy, but media praiseworthy, Broderesque substanceless bipartisanship, and now we are where we are.

So complicated

David Broder, wrong again.

"The Dean," Mr. Class Act, opens his latest tom-foolery with an insult of Al Franken ("the loud-mouthed former comedian"). Then he gets really stupid. For Broder, the tune is always the same.

Scholars will also make the point that when such complex legislation is being shaped, the substance is likely to be improved when both sides of the aisle contribute ideas. And they will argue that public acceptance of the mandated changes in such programs will be greater if the law comes with the imprimatur of both parties.

Which scholars, David? Because in both of your examples - the stimulus package and the climate change bill - the substance of complex legislation was clearly undermined and weakened by the need for (or perceived give-away for) bipartisanship.

As for public acceptance, that comes from success, not from process.

But substance isn't actually relevant to David Broder.

Matt Yglesias, quoting Scott Lemieux, nails it right on the head:

Scott Lemieux, meanwhile, reminds us of Broder’s classic attack on Al Gore for being too interested in public policy:

I have to confess, my attention wandered as he went on through page after page of other swell ideas, and somewhere between hate crimes legislation and a crime victim’s constitutional amendment, I almost nodded off.

My guess is that that’s the nub of the matter. It’s somewhat difficult to try to understand policy proposals on the merits. It’s easy, by contrast, to just look at who’s supporting legislation. You can just say, “good bills are bipartisan bills, partisan bills are bad” and then look at whether or not a proposal has bipartisan support. It’s simple if you’re the kind of person inclined to nodd off if forced to listen to a discussion of policy. Personally, I’m not sure why so many people who find policy so dull are in the field of political journalism. I find it perfectly understandable that it’s not something everyone’s interested in, but it seems to me that people who aren’t interested in policy debates should be in some other line of work rather than writing columns for David Broder.

How to cook

The family wanted to fire up the charcoal grill on this Fourth of July. Having already gotten into a stupid argument over relative nonsense (yes, I need to learn how to keep my mouth shut), I didn't challenge the request.

Of course, unless they read the blog, they'll never know that I actually did exercise some self control about something.

Anyway, here's Grist's explanation of why charcoal grillin' isn't good for the planet. (Note: we grilled Tofurkey brats and veggie dogs and corn on the cob and onions and peppers. No problem with the food. Does driving the hybrid offset the CO2 the grill pumped into the atmosphere? Nice try, right?)

The flag is flying high

In accordance with tradition here at Line in the Dust, our tribute to America. Have a fantastic Fourth of July.

Listen to my heart break every time she runs away

Since they call Sarah the Barracuda....

Dreamland

Sarah Palin decides to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

Most gracious explanation: she's completely friggin' insane. That's undeniable, regardless. Time to speculate on what scandals are driving this sudden resignation, as well. (The only decent rationale I can imagine would be a huge new health problem, for herself or a family member. But then, you'd have to mention that in your speech, wouldn't you? That is, if you're not completely friggin' insane.) Take this as an opportunity to comment with unsupportable supposition and outrageous ideas as to what is driving this latest move by almost-former Governor Palin.

Nevertheless, I have to admit that there is a certain, uh, genius, to having the gall to say that not resigning would be the quitter's way out. Really, she said that:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow."

Perhaps the genius is actually in the confidence that the wingnuts will buy it.

To quote one of my Republican law partners who likes to pretend to be moderate: "McCain could have done worse." Yeah. (Honestly, I agree with that; given McCain's lack of judgement and his choices in the Republican party, he actually could have done worse; it just may have not been as blisteringly obvious.)

What'll you do?

Every once in a while, Thomas Friedman makes me say "right on."

There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.

Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.

Why? Because, for all its flaws, this bill is the first comprehensive attempt by America to mitigate climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere.

More important, my gut tells me that if the U.S. government puts a price on carbon, even a weak one, it will usher in a new mind-set among consumers, investors, farmers, innovators and entrepreneurs that in time will make a big difference — much like the first warnings that cigarettes could cause cancer. The morning after that warning no one ever looked at smoking the same again.

I could keep quoting, but this is exactly what I was getting at the other day. Do what we can to make it better in the Senate, but don't let perfect be the enemy. The time is now, because there is no other time.

You show me love but maybe I don't deserve it

Larry Wilmore made Jon Stewart apologize for Neil Diamond's The Jazz Singer. But I think Governor Sanford needs some Love on the Rocks.



Of course, it's all subjective, since Sanford is instead trying to play himself off as the Solitary Man ("I know it's been done, having one girl who loves you, right or wrong, weak or strong").



OK, here's the Daily Show clip:

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Take care of myself

Just in time for Al Franken to finally get his nameplate on his Senate office, Joe Lieberman, the most honest man in America, who also happens to represent the state of Connecticut, the "Insurance State," home of 106 insurance companies including The Hartford and Aetna, lets it be known that anything he said about supporting a public health care option during his Senate campaign is no longer operative and that he cannot be counted on as a 60th vote for the Democrats.

Anyone surprised?

Don't tell me she don't love me

Josh comes around today:

Everything he's said seems geared to reach back out to his mistress in Argentina (to perhaps re-cement the possibility of continuing the relationship?) and force a final breach with his wife. It is almost as if his upbringing, culture, religion and simply familial obligation require one thing but he's doing everything he can to make those requirements beyond his capacity to fulfill. Put simply, it's like he wants his wife to cut the cord for him.

That's what I told you the other day, Josh. Sanford is a coward, who constantly is handing out the tools to undo his marriage, but is too chicken to do it himself. Be a real man, Governor, and stop dancing. 'Cause if I were your Argentinean soul mate, you'd be all alone by now. But I guess that's okay when you can say "I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate."

I'm serious when I say this. What kind of woman would have this man?

(Here's audio of his ridiculous AP interview: "It was wonderful." Enjoy it or squirm. Or both.)

And just to be complete, I also learned today that the real missus but in the truer sense of the words the other woman, Jenny Stanford, the one who Sanford is trying so hard to fall in love with while professing his love for another woman, told him that he was not going to get to see his boys if he didn't stop seeing the lovely Maria. His response, as we know, was to leave his kids over Father's Day weekend on a South American hike. No surprise from the guy that keeps parading his love for a woman other than their mom in front of the world.

I'm almost too embarrassed to keep writing about this, but whatchagonnado now that you don't have Norm Coleman to kick around any more?

Going back again

Tom Jones channels Mark Sanford.