Did I hear my name called?

A. I think that everyone whatsoever should have access to humanities education, through school or otherwise, and that government should support this. What I'm talking about is formal humanities schooling as a supposed expert specialty in a competitive setting.

B. Much of what I said is customized to the present state of U.S. education funding. I support increased funding for higher education, but the fact is that in this world all but the best (financially) poor students nowadays have trouble financing education, and they often end up in debt. It also tends to be true that poor students drop out more often, making 4-to-9-year-long programs not a good idea for them. It's also true that poor students usually only have one chance; they often can't take a shot at philosophy and then switch over to computer science after four years.

C. Most of what I said was directed at the whole college population, the vast majority (3/4? 7/8? 15/16?) of which goes to sub-top-twenty schools. Probably top-twenty humanities education is an OK foundation for the future, though it's still less usable than various tech and applied fields. (PGG said something like "it's not necessarily a big impediment".)

D. A free ride at a top-twenty grad school has been proposed as a sort of bottom line for philosophy. Anything less is a long chance. How many philosophy students nationsally get that. (IIRC there are 50-60 PhD-granting Philosophy depts. in the U.S.

E. That's my right hand. My left hand is a general dissatisfaction with the disciplinary methpdologized paradigm-ruled humanities in the university. However, I claim that A-D stand on their own.

Bzzzt. Believing that humanities education is important for the poor != believing they should major in it to the exclusion of all else. I, self-interestedly, believe that everyone should take two philosophy courses as an undergraduate. There's quite a large philosophy department that thrives on this requirement, yet nets only 20 or so first majors per year.

A few quick thoughts, John: I think college rankings affect BA's prospects more by (a) general prestige & reputation and (b) networking, rather than quality of dept. This is more true for humanities BAs, since the skill set is less job-specific. (Example: Pitt and Rutgers have fine philosophy depts, as does Princeton, but I bet Princeton's BAs do better economically than do Rutgers', and it's not because of Michael Smith.)

I also suspect that many college professors want very much to believe that anyone can do anything, that one should dream the impossible dream, and so on, and this leads them to give advice accordingly.

Oh bzzt yourself, Cala; undergrad majors are not "to the exclusion of all else" because they're usually about ten-15 courses.

Given that professors in the humanities who are not too far over 40 should have experienced first hand the frank terrible-ness of market conditions, I find it depressing that they would be giving pie-in-the-sky do-whatever-you-want advice about career choices. I am one of the least miserable people within my group currently finishing lit PhDs, least miserable despite having not gotten a job, and I still wouldn't really throw in with a student's decision to go to grad school for English unless that decision was very rigorously dissected.

Wait, we need to keep "come major in English" and "go to grad school in English" separate.

I think college rankings affect BA's prospects more by (a) general prestige & reputation and (b) networking, rather than quality of dept.

Right. Far and away, the biggest obstacle to any accord with Emerson is that he insists on treating a gigantic population (approx. 16 mil., apparently) as a uniform or near uniform population, going through a uniform or near uniform experience. This seems a bit like insisting that we should instruct everyone in the US to never make financial commitments that require an income of greater than $50 K because the median HHI is about 50K.

Right, that's true, I slipped them.

4: And it's the one that shows up on the transcript. And though it's only 15 courses or so, it requires at least another two years' worth of prerequisites that are about as marketable. Plus, the focus on pie-in-the-sky means a lot of people go into college thinking they'll never take something that isn't fun again.

5: Good for you, Sybil, but I don't think you represent the norm in your industry. It's very easy to be idealistic for others when idealism coincides tidily with one's own professional interests.

Plus, college professors are, by definition, academic success stories. They are going to have a bias toward believing that their success is repeatable.

Also, there is real merit in this belief. In my own field, I have seen mediocrities succeed by dint of prodigious effort. Is it the proper function of the professoriat to kill this sort of dream? I'm not sure.

Is it the proper function of the professoriat to kill this sort of dream?

Yes. Though it's not the least bit clear to me that this would result in a better, more viable dream.

Wait, Cala, what requires two years of prerequisites? Even our natural science majors require only a few courses (math, associated sciences) outside the dept.

Anyone else smell smoke near Sybil?

I want to keep the graduate school thing separate, not only because I don't want to smash my diamonds and pearls in the faces of the poor again (it's so hard on the gems), but because it's really a different choice.

My cousin went to a small private school and majored in art history. Small-town PA is not the best place for using one's art history degree, and the school doesn't have a lot of connections, so she's working at the mall. It seems to have been a great experience for her, but her dad pays the bills. Is she better off having had the education. Sure. Would she have been had she had loans to pay? Ehhhhhhhhh. Tough call.

(Also, I continue to think, in the face of all contrary evidence, that HRC matches up better with McCain.)

I've been away for a day so might have missed it, but has anybody here linked to this yet?

The blacker the college, the sweeter the knowledge.

12: Humanities degrees at my institution and some others require that you meet certain core requirements: history, social science, foreign language, composition, English, mathematics, basic science, etc. By the time you get through most of those, you have about enough room for one second major in something non-humanities. If you were to major in the sciences or engineering, you'd have some of the same humanities requirements, but not as many.

FL, I was in a used book store earlier today and happened upon a copy of Truth, Logic, and Language which I bought. I blame you and your post on Ayer for this and hope you feel guilty if I become a verificationist.

But will you blame him if you becoming flamingly heterosexual?

Did anyone see the California debate? Both Obama and Hillary were oh so impressive. Really good.

But: near the end Hillary twisted helplessly on the rope of her Iraq vote. That was really something to see. Even though she deserves to suffer for it, there was something tragic (in the Greek-tragedy sense) about watching the realization in her eyes that the vote could end up costing her lifelong dream of the Presidency. All the more ironic since one reason she made it was because of her Presidential ambitions.

I think McCain is not as strong a candidate as people think (in part because of his age). But it is certainly the case that Hillary is less well positioned to attack him on Iraq than Obama is.

Aren't core requirements a wash if the alternative is an AA degree with a proportionally equivalent core? I don't know how CCs work on this but I imagine the ones that are feeders for 4-year universities would have an overlapping core.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

that HRC matches up better with McCain

I think you may be right about this, Timbot. Clinton strikes me as the the tougher campaigner. Obama has the potential to sweep to victory via a groundswell of charisma and unicorns, both runs the risk of appearing insubstantial compared to the grizzled war hero.

I thought this election was shaping up as a Democratic cake-walk, but now, barring some surprising result (like it turning out that white men really don't want to vote for HRC given an option), I would expect this to be a state-by-state hunt. What's the State Kerry won that either Obama or HRC obviously loses? So we are down, yet again, to Ohio, Florida, and maybe Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. Maybe one of our Minnesota correspondents can tell us if Pawlenty is popular enough to put those 10 votes in play...

Believing that humanities education is important for the poor != believing they should major in it to the exclusion of all else.

This. And also: Not just poor folks. Lots and lots of folks. In the current environment, college puts a lot of people in very serious debt. I don't encourage anybody to take on serious debt unless there is a reasonably realistic plan for getting back out.

You can solve this issue by creating access to humanities education outside of college. You can solve it by ensuring better financial literacy and outlawing some of the most obscene violations practiced by colleges and admissions people. You can solve it by better subsidizing the costs of college. You can solve it by de-coupling vocational and avoctional studies.

But I'm with Emerson. Unless and until the system changes, I'm going to advise the young people I know to be as practical as they can. That doesn't mean crushing dreams just for the sake of it, but it sure as heck doesn't mean enabling unrealistic ideas that are going to see a 23-year-old staggering under $70K in debt.

But will you blame him if you becoming flamingly heterosexual?

Don't see how Labs could cause this, for a number of reason.

My claim about Obama/McCain was arrived at through a bogus methodology: I consulted the heard of someone overprone to the McCain hero-worshipping BS (me) about what it would feel like to vote in November for Clinton (endorsed by my head, so limited in its finitude, but a doubt in my heart, boundless in its love for the human family) vs. for Obama (yes we can).

The blacker the can'date, the sweeter the mandate.

will, you will be happy to know I am leaving for yoga right now. I will zen those cravings away at 105 degrees!

25, 27: My take is that it depends on what ends up being more important: stealing votes from the independents or mobilizing new voters to vote. Shorter me: how many unicorns we talking about?

It's really hard to say. Clinton is positioning herself as hawklike enough to protect the country, but I wonder how her fauxhawk compares to McCain's warhawk.

Great, now I've got a song from Spinal Tap stuck in my head.

HRC cannot possibly outhawk McCain. If that's the game, we've already lost.

Cala, would it have been better to call McCain a "mo'hawk" to keep hairstyle parallelism?

I think you may be right about this, Timbot. Clinton strikes me as the the tougher campaigner. Obama has the potential to sweep to victory via a groundswell of charisma and unicorns, both runs the risk of appearing insubstantial compared to the grizzled war hero.

Yeah, that's in the same neighborhood as I am. Further, for me, it's a question of exactly how quickly McCain is getting old. If age isn't enough of a problem, I can see him splitting the charisma vote with Obama and (obv.) winning the not-quite-comfortable-with-a-black-President vote. And, as a putative Dem, beyond the problems directly associated with a McCain presidency, I don't want to give the Republicans a chance to do the reorganizing they need to do.

28: Hot yoga? I have a friend who tried that, but got really sick each time.

baa, somewhere there is a video of me (and several others) performing that song. Or so I have read.

32: Nice.

Cala, I was an English major. True story.

McCain's weak point seems to me to be that his 'maverick' routine has him appealing to the anti-war Republicans (I'm pretty sure that's what the stats say -- he's doing best among voters who think the war is a bad idea.) I hate to insult the electorate, but that seems unlikely to be the result of solid information given that he's Mr. "I want blood, blood, and veins in my teeth..", and even more unlikely to stand up when he's up against someone who's trying to run against the war, whether convincingly or unconvincingly.

I figure he's got these voters because he's got the maverick rep, so they thoughtlessly assume he's bucking the party line on the war, and the Republican primaries aren't about the war because everyone serious is gung ho about it. That ignorance about him can't last, and the anti-war Republicans have got to be the ones who are readiest to split for a Democrat.

The tighter the afro, the higher we can go.

It's like, "How much more black could he be?' and the answer is none. None more black.

has him appealing to the anti-war Republicans

I'm not sure if that's the same as "do not support the war," which is what I think they usually ask. And I can never tell if people are interpreting that as "the war, as it was waged" or the "the decision to invade," etc.

I don't think you have to break it down that exactly. I think the main difference is between people thinking "Jesus fuck, what a disaster, what the hell are we going to do?" and "We're going to WIN this thing!!" And McCain's clearly in the second camp -- with all sorts of reservations about how badly prior management ran it, but he's all for pushing forward to Victory! And I'm guessing, that for Republicans describing themselves as 'do not support the war', this looks as delusional as it looks to me.

And I'm guessing, that for Republicans describing themselves as 'do not support the war', this looks as delusional as it looks to me.

I think this is where we disagree. And since I have the magic power of knowing what the American populace will think....

(I hope that comes off as snark directed at myself.)

But McCain can phrase the choice as "give us a chance to win" vs. "surrender." That's a decisive win for him, I think. Hillary is horrendously place to argue the war, given her vacillation. Obama much more so. Altough even then I think insofar as anyone is talking foreign affairs in a McCain/Obama race, McCain wins. If it's an economy/domestic issues election (which I think it will be), that favors either Democratic candidate.

Seriously, you think he's outperforming the Republican field among 'do not supports' because they know his positions on the war? Or you just think it won't hurt him when they figure it out?

I have no idea. I don't think we'd hear a peep about Iraq if we were winning, and I also think the Bush administration has been such a colossal failure at everything that it's hard not to believe that if McCain looks competent, we could snap back to the "Republicans are clear-headed about the Dangers We Face" narrative very easily.

It's not like we have a competent administration fouling up a stupid war.

I think "do not support" correlates highly with lack of satisfaction with Bush. Romney is winning the people still in Bush's bunker. McCain is winning those who are some version of disgusted/let's move on. That doesn't correlate with a specific policy position about what exactly to *do* about Iraq.

(or basically, what Cala said)

Prediction: limited troop levels will lead to reductions in the spring and summer after all; violence will increase as a result; political reconciliation's failure will become more apparent. Disadvantage: the old white dude.

I also think the Bush administration has been such a colossal failure at everything that it's hard not to believe that if McCain looks competent, we could snap back to the "Republicans are clear-headed about the Dangers We Face" narrative very easily.

Here, I'm way beyond anything I actually know. But I'm wondering if Republican voters have the same impression of the Bush administration as freakishly incompetent in a way that's cleanly separable from their actual policies (that is, I'd call them freakishly incompetent and also somewhere between horribly misguided and evil, but those are two different things) as left-wing political junkies.

If McCain's hoping to rely on "I'm going to do everything Bush said he was going to do, but I'm going to do it right and so it'll work when I do it," he needs the voters to have an underlying belief that Bush is a hopeless moron, and I don't think that belief is strong among anyone who there's a shot in hell is going to vote for McCain.

Could be Labs. Although I continue to think that, absent disaster, the more people are talking about foreign policy, the greater the benefit to McCain.

My 48 crossed with baa's 50.

I think "do not support" correlates highly with lack of satisfaction with Bush.

This is fair, but the question is whether the lack of satisfaction is due to a belief that he's an incompetent fuck-up, or to having arrived at a belief that his goals were misguided all along?

I guess I would count increased casualties & anarchy in Iraq as disaster, baa. Sorry that sounds snarky.

The "McCain appeals to anti-war voters" meme seems pretty overblown. It's based on, what, one exit poll from New Hampshire? Even if that was a meaningful snapshot of the New Hampshire electorate, a long general election campaign would bear out the differences between McCain and either Democrat pretty effectively.

Anecdatum: I've been able to convince my somewhat Republican, Straight Talk-loving mother of a Marine to vote against McCain in the time it takes to play one YouTube clip.

He won antiwar voters in Michigan too.

All the more ironic since one reason she made it was because of her Presidential ambitions.

Which makes it all the sweeter if it's true (and costs her the nomination). Anyone playing the game with a constant eye to that seat in the future should be excluded from consideration, imo.

Anyone playing the game with a constant eye to that seat in the future should be excluded from consideration, imo.

Specifically about Hillary's pro-war votes, yeah, she should twist in the wind for them, but I don't get this generally. Anyone with a shot at being president has been scuffling themselves into position for it for decades -- how can that be a disqualification at all? Doing bad stuff to position yourself for a future run is bad, but positioning yourself for a future run is every candidate always.

50: Seriously, what did Bush get done while in office? Domestically or foreign? Seems to have batted 0 for a billion. Very easy to believe, absent being sensible, that the only problem with Iraq was the execution of it.

The other worry in the no-one-I-know-voted-for-Nixon category is that no one I know, even those planning to vote for her in the primaries, is excited about HRC. She's winning on a boring experience narrative and I'm not sure boring stacks up well against McCain.

the more people are talking about foreign policy, the greater the benefit to McCain

This seems right to me. The fear vote hasn't disappeared, and crazy soldier man wins it, pretty much no matter what. And I think Hillary is hurt less than Obama if the campaign focuses on foreign policy. Best case, from where I sit, is that it's not a foreign policy campaign (unlikely) and Obama is the nominee who wins and can pretend that he has an anti-war mandate.

I know people who are excited about HRC, but (this is going to sound bad) they're not particularly politically engaged.

Doing bad stuff to position yourself for a future run is bad

Oh, this is what I meant, I guess I wasn't clear. Any candidate has been jostling for position. But you shouldn't get away with a record of bad calls that may have been seen as politically useful at the time.

Best case, from where I sit, is that...Obama is the nominee who wins and can pretend that he has an anti-war mandate make everyone be Shi'a.

Seriously, what did Bush get done while in office? Domestically or foreign? Seems to have batted 0 for a billion. Very easy to believe, absent being sensible, that the only problem with Iraq was the execution of it

I think (and I'm generalizing about people who are not me) that that's a Democratic political junkie thought process. I don't think most Republican voters perceive Bush as generally a fuckup.

HRC matches up better with McCain

This is so very, very wrong. Clinton and McCain basically have the same position on foreign policy: they both subscribe to the neocon worldview, but think that everything that's gone wrong in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan/etc. over the last seven years is merely a matter of shoddy implementation, and that all the war needs is their competent and experienced leadership. Now: given that both Clinton and McCain will be making this "I'll be the competent warmonger" argument, which one of them do you think will be able to make it more effectively - Mr. Straight Talk War Hero McCain, or Hillary Clinton?

Obama has the advantage of being able to make the argument that the overwhelming majority of Americans actually agrees with at this point - that the war was wrong from the start, and make it convincingly. Clinton versus McCain, on the other hand, will be a repeat of Kerry versus Bush - the pretend hawk versus the real thing - and unless Iraq drops off the radar entirely by November, which it won't, Democrats will lose the presidential election again.

I don't know...I can't get over thinking that Atrios is right when he says that people hate the war.

And I think Hillary is hurt less than Obama if the campaign focuses on foreign policy.

What's your basis for thinking that?

Or, what Stras said.

I don't think most Republican voters perceive Bush as generally a fuckup.

Which is a bit worrisome, because certain amount of the fucking up is just objectively true.

I know people who are excited about HRC, but (this is going to sound bad) they're related by blood or marriage to HRC.

65: Yeah. I really do think this is true, to the point that it's going to be impossible to sell being gung-ho about Iraq as a plus to voters. Even fear of terrorism has dropped way off, I think.

68: Well, yeah, but you have to (a) be following the news (b) from sources other than Fox to think that.

71 hence the worrisome part. I think there are a significant number of people in the country who do not believe that Bush has been a fuck up. This is pretty convincing evidence that the rest of their grasp of reality may be shaky too.

Obviously we're all just speculating and constructing the narratives that make the most sense to us, but I think Hillary does ok against McCain because fear isn't at maximum levels and people will be satisfied with moderately hawkish, which is how Hillary comes across, rather than insisting on maximally hawkish, which is what Bush offered and McCain is offering. Which is to say that beyond a certain threshold of hawkishness, people will be willing to look at other issues, and Hillary passes the threshold and Obama doesn't. I don't think people really care about the war beyond whether we're winning or losing, and insofar as "the surge is working!" holds up through November, that's good news for McCain.

59: Playing "I'm just as mean as the Republicans, only I have a blue tie instead of a red one" hasn't worked as well, and I think stras is right about the dangers of pitting Hillary against McCain. Why would you vote for the cheap imitation when you could have the real McCain?

I'm not sure anyone can pull off being anti-war when there's a war going on, but Obama might have enough unicorns to do it.

Ogged, you're killing me. I think that fear is less clearly right-leaning, at this point, than it has been in the past; I think Hillary's being a woman is relevant as well.

73: This is fair. My speculation depends on hawkishness being actively unattractive when people aren't scared enough to be attracted to it, which I think is now. But I honestly don't know.

insofar as "the surge is working!" holds up through November

Will we even be able to maintain surge troop levels through November?

64 is right. I'm trying to think of a time that I've disagreed with Stras in recent months. Nope, can't do it. All is lost.

77: Spackerman promised he was writing something to explain this, but I haven't seen it yet. Anyone know if he's published something on this, and if so where?

Unfogged is clearly superior to my own blog.

I think "do not support" correlates highly with lack of satisfaction with Bush. Romney is winning the people still in Bush's bunker. McCain is winning those who are some version of disgusted/let's move on. That doesn't correlate with a specific policy position about what exactly to *do* about Iraq.

Agree almost entirely, including the props to Cala. I think in politics (and more generally), we're mostly talking about candidates offering narratives that are sufficient to explain inchoate feelings held by the voters. And I think McCain can do that on Iraq, even for people who have deep unease about the war. After all, a number of them, on the left and right, were OK with the war at the time of the invasion. Note, relatedly, that the mess of the war has been the issue that resulted in a resurgent Democratic Party, and yet the candidate who voted for the war and will not admit a mistake on that vote remains the (prohibitive) favorite.

I don't think most Republican voters perceive Bush as generally a fuckup

In my experience many of them do. But many off them would vote for him tomorrow against a Dem. Supreme Court & tax cuts are the two things my Repub friends and co-workers point to as having "worked", but just about everything else they admit was pretty messed up, or the real nutters just get red in the face and clam up or start the "Bush not really a conservative" BS.

79: I was just looking for this on his new website last night but couldn't find it. I am also very curious what happened to the "even if we surge, we can only do it for this long" angle that was so prominent way back.

Crap. If anyone is listening, PLEASE delete 80. I meant to put that up using a pseud. Please.

Also: sorry.

Obama has the advantage of being able to make the argument that the overwhelming majority of Americans actually agrees with at this point

If I thought that's how the average voter decided which candidate to support, I might agree.

Ogged doesn't account for age. "Crazy soldier man" is different from "crazy old man."

Aril, it's a little gushy, but I don't see the problem.

"Crazy soldier man" is different from "crazy old man."

That's right; McCain's age could be a big issue; depends on how well he can hide it until November. If he has to take a day off because of "exhaustion" or is he seems really old in HD during one of the debates, that could be curtains for him.

84: Heh -- I was in the comment trying to change the pseud to preserve the substance, but someone clearly beat me to it.

86: Yeah, he's looking pretty creaky. I do wonder how that's going to affect him in the general.

Ogged, I think you have just single-handedly set me back nine months in my quest to convince myself to get a HDTV.

I don't think most Republican voters perceive Bush as generally a fuckup

My unscientific sample says a least some do, but because of uncontrolled spending, not because of the war. That they don't quite see the connection between the two means something, but I'm not sure what.

Face your fears, Nathan.

he's looking pretty creaky

I keep reading this, but honestly he doesn't look any different to me than he ever has.

His weird jowl swelling thingy is growing. He reminds me of that woman on that law show whose character was married to a guy played by that dude who was also a pro soccer player.

I do wonder how that's going to affect him in the general.

HRC should hit the gym starting today. Then, in the general, when someone questions her toughness, she should offer to bench press McCain.

If anyone (and in particular the author) wants 80 changed in a different way, email me within five minutes or so (I'm out the door soon) or get LB to do it. It was just the first strategy that came to mind.

88: Some should write something about McCain in HD. Seriously, that's a great point. Half of his face is missing. And he looks like absolute hell. This well might be the equivalent of Nixon's flopsweat in the 1960 debates.

He reminds me of that woman on that law show whose character was married to a guy played by that dude who was also a pro soccer player.

Ally McBeal?

93: He looks a little trembly to me. Not much, but it's enough to make the difference between late middle age and old.

Courtney Thorne-Smith.

Yglesias is a McCain-in-HD fetishist. He loves that point. I bet he's into McCakke.

96: No, I like it now. The comment accurately reflects my true self-loathing. You get me.

Some should write something about McCain in HD.

I think Yglesias did. Someone/everyone should post a screen cap of him on HDTV. (NB: Didn't someone mention that Obama has skin like butter?)

For me, his graphic design has made the age thing worse. So many of his banner ads have been entirely black and white with him looking ponderously off into the distance. I can't find a good example right now, but the outer page on his website retains the same problems, although there they've added a smile and a splash of color. It's hard to see that much black alongside a black and white photo of an old man and not think of death.

104: It's even harder to hear a McCain stump speech and not think of death.

I wonder if there's a WW I type of 'sick old men sending our brave young soldiers to die pointlessly' style of attack to be made on McCain along these lines? Probably not, come to think, given his own service and injuries from that service -- he's got the "I'm not asking anyone to do anything I didn't do" comeback.

104: Yeah, that black and gray flag graphic is pretty damn funereal.

John McCain: the Heidegerrian Candidate.

The palette is "Greatest Generation Charcoal."

"When I Was A Kid, All I Had Was Chalk And Slate."

Didn't Atrios call it Stormtrooper Chic? Seems right.

Don't try to bait me, Labs.

Time to swim!

It's so convenient his pool has wireless so he can argue online and have quick exits.

You would not believe how many laptops he goes through.

Truth, Logic, and Language

Is that the second edition, with all the gross errors removed?

On the crushing dreams thing, I've especially been thinking all along of two brothers, friends of my son, who did go to college and studied humanities, and found their dreams crushed by debt. It's a complicated story, but their shot at education was wasted.

If you think McCain looks old now, imagine how he'd look campaigning against Obama.

imagine how he'd look campaigning against Obama

I imagine this all the time. With a smile on my face.

Squeeeeee! EofTAW made a bumper sticker!

On the college humanities thing generally -- I dunno. I did the terribly prestigious random humanities degree, no idea how to turn it into a job (which is how I ended up in law school) thing, so I sympathize with the general uselessness. But I'm not sure what's more useful, barring very specific technical training, like a associates' degree in audiology or something. Does a business degree from an okay school leave you better off than an English degree from that same school? Or even a hard-science undergrad degree?

I don't have answers -- this is just an area where I have literally no idea what the safe play is for a kid without money or support. (And I have a bunch of nieces doing this now, so I'm interested.)

100:I don't know why that was linked, but CTM is hot, and I knew back when Mark Harmon was a star, which is before most of you were born.

Now let's see

1) Art is quite useless, but more useful than money & good credit. Get your Kant, and default.

2) Been there, done that. McCarthy & RFK would been beaten like a drum in 68. Clinton, is of course HHH. stras & ari are as wrong as wrong can be. Surrender does not win elections

3) yes we can. Yes we can. YES WE CAN!!!
No we can't.

I like the little people in that video, the singers and actors, and can't stand Obama. I like fucking humans, not whatever that apotheosis avatar of striving might be. And he may be sincere and authentic, and I don't like him anyway.

Hypothesis: the part of my brain that responds to the McCain tough-guy honorable-man image is roughly the same one that responds well to the Obama transcend-the-divides image

Precisely. And once you are committed to him, it is gonna be hard to turn away. 2) Above is a source of hate after 40 years. Obama may be successful & beneficient in every way, but he remains the dangerous politician I have ever seen. It could go very very bad.

Unless it is all hype, some kind of retro irony for the zeros I don't get. That would be cool.

I would really push someone toward a two-year program in something like audiology, some area of IT, some other medical area, with the understanding that it wouldn't be a terminal degree. Working your way through school at $30/hr. is way better than $10/hr.

This is conditional on the rare kid who actually wants advice and will take it. Pretty hypothetical, really. "Gee whiz, Unka John! You sure are smart! That's exactly what I'm going to do with my life!"

And once you are committed to him, it is gonna be hard to turn away.

I think what Bob's trying to say is that once you go Barack, you never go back.

and I don't like him anyway.

Ironically, the strongest possible case for Obama.

Dammit. I don't care what the polls say. 90% of America will walk into the voting booth and realize this ain't Bush's war, or the Republican war, but America's war. They will vote hawkish always

There are two other kinds:Those who can say the war is the fault of some "bad guys" like Rumsfeld & HRC, not our fault not America's war, because, ya know, America is Obama America is good in its heart of hearts.

Then there are people who hate America. Hi!

So your picture of higher ed is high-school to technical degree in something, then if you want to actually go to college in the liberal artsy sense you can more effectively work your way through. While this sounds sensible, one of my nieces has done something like this (associate's degree in social work, thinking maybe she'll finish a bachelor's later), and while it's probably contingent on the incredibly depressed area she lives in, it hasn't moved her out of the $8/hr category. Of course, it was probably the wrong associates degree.

118: As a general rule of thumb, once you get out of the 'name schools', you have to do a little more work to market yourself with a humanities degree. It's not easy as a humanities major anywhere, but if you're at an Ivy and have good grades you can probably land a very good career making lots of money if you know where to look. (Part of the problem is not knowing where to look, too, and this compounds with being a non-networky school from a non-networky background.) Once you move down in either grades or prestige, it becomes a little harder to get your foot in the door. Not that it's impossible, but, e.g., were my sister to major in philosophy at That Regional Catholic School in Pittsburgh and just squeak by, she'd have a harder time getting interviews. With a business degree she might get more of a look.

The big deal is large amounts of debt, not just because of its soul-crushing properties, but because a lot of good but lower-paying options won't pay the bills.

McCain's age could be a big issue; depends on how well he can hide it until November. If he has to take a day off because of "exhaustion" or is he seems really old in HD during one of the debates, that could be curtains for him.

I don't know, Bush has demonstrated that it's possible to treat being president like a hobby. Plenty of old guys work twenty hours a week just to keep the blood circulating.

Hey, did anyone see where Exxon just broke its all-time record for quarterly profits? $8billion. What a great country.

122:There are comments at ari's place that express discomfort over that video for a bunch of reasons. I can connect emotionally with Eric Balfour & Scarlett Johansson, they ain't superbeings from another plane, just working folks with looks & talent. And with all the charisma and attractiveness of the actors & singers, Obama leaves them in the dust.

There is something wrong there. I feel it even if I can't articulate it. No it is not the kind of loathing I had for Bush. Of course not. But my local TD Jakes may be a saint, and I don't want to go near him.
I don't like powerful preachers.

I don't like charisma, at least not on the world-historical level. It scares and maybe shames me. Sue me.

Maybe McCain is running for President instead of bagging groceries. So he can have health care.

nd while it's probably contingent on the incredibly depressed area she lives in

I suspect this is enormously important. And as you ascend the prestige ladder, I suspect you will run into more people who will move to NYC, DC, etc. even without particular means, and those people will become a model for how to manage that for later graduates in the most specific of ways ("room with my friend, b/c I'm leaving the house"), etc.

a very good career making lots of money

This is another part of the problem. It sometimes seems that Emerson thinks the choices are bus driver or head of hedge fund.

I promised myself not to fight with Bob anymore, but to argue that Scarlett Johansson isn't a superbeing is beyond the pale. How much more super can a being be?

(And, in case there's any doubt that I'm just kidding around, I'm just kidding around. Johansson is Plain Jane. No, really, I'm just kidding, Bob.)

129: I don't think those are the only choices, but it's good to remember that the average of $52K/annum for a college grad includes the engineers out of MIT as well as the art history majors out of Seton Hill. And I took Emerson to be speaking from the experience of friends whose expectation ran with the average number when their school & major & whatever made it a lot less likely their loans (e.g.) were a wise investment.

Ok, last one. We have a good idea what say Clinton or Gore would have done after 9/11. Managed effectively.

What would Obama have done? With his rhetorical skills, what could he have done? Maybe nothing but good, but maybe HUGE HUGE things with huge mistakes.

Too much personal power to attach to that much institutional power. Scarey. We don't need him.

You need to watch her Woody Allen movies.

And speaking of which, would admitting how long I spent googling when I heard of the sex threesome Scarlett Johansson does with Penelope Cruz and some male piece of meat in Woody's new movie get me banned as a Roue?

Bus driver actually isn't that bad a job. Far better than barista. My PhD friend worked his way through school driving bus, and now he's a PhD bus driver! (And my postal worker linguist friend is now a PhD postal worker linguist!)

Still another kvetch, of course, is that many of the the jobs you get with a BA degree (consultant, PR, advertising) require humanities-type verbal skills but are not related to the things that drew you to the humanities and sometimes diametrically opposed to them. Or law, if you go on to that.

And I took Emerson to be speaking from the experience of friends whose expectation ran with the average number when their school & major & whatever made it a lot less likely their loans (e.g.) were a wise investment.

I think Emerson would have a pretty good point, if only he'd cabin it a bit. And even then, it would be a starting point for some further inquiry, not a justification for some simple set of rules to follow. A lot of people I know, of varying income backgrounds, started out premed. They didn't stop being premed out of love for poetry.

132 was me, as if you couldn't guess. I gott go get groceries, and get back to stuff like this:

Kalecki and Steindl suggested that lower profits occur because investment is
reduced by rising financial liabilities, a growing liquidity preference of
companies that is implicit in the principle of increasing risk. Minsky had
picked up the connection between investment and profits but, rooting his
theory in the work of Fisher and Keynes, did not make the connection between
liquidity preference and financial liabilities.

I bet you thought I din't have a life.

I think that it's sensible to worry about electability to precisely the degree you can predict what the major news stories of the 3 days before election will be, since that's what'll influence the swing voters. Anyone want to offer up predictions?

For the rest of us, it's all moonfairies and dustbeams, or something of the sort. We have no idea how powerful people who aren't like us will spin the trends we can see now, nor what context-changing events and processes will kick in between now and election time, nor any of a bunch of other things. In certain grouchy moods I think that people who go on too much about electability should be subjected to the Old Testament standard for false prophets, if their vision of the electorate doesn't come true. (Being crushed by rocks, for those of you playing along at home.) Somewhat less bloodily, but still grumpily, I think it's part of the general public-forum prejudice in favor of sounding like an expert and against sounding like an individual without expertise.

I saw Match Point, which I liked. Until, that is, a friend point out that it's a watered-down version of Crimes and Misdemeanors. But then I remembered that I didn't like Crimes and Misdemeanors, so I went back to liking Match Point. Which I had liked in the first place mostly for the scenes of London and the English countrside. It was a relief for me to have Woody Allen get out of New York, about which he's said plenty already. The city (The City?) no longer helps his films; it hems him in.

Anyway, I think she's absurdly beautiful, regardless of the role. Still, she's not my type. Honestly, I was just kidding around, trying to be nice after I was such a jerk, again, the other night.

In certain grouchy moods I think that people who go on too much about electability should be subjected to the Old Testament standard for false prophets, if their vision of the electorate doesn't come true.

Was that in the Book of Nader?

90% of America will walk into the voting booth and realize this ain't Bush's war, or the Republican war, but America's war.

Precisely. We're nowhere near Vietnam levels of disaffection. And even that elected Nixon.

bus driver or running a hedge fund

That's how it shook out for Ron Paul and Romney, though.

maybe HUGE HUGE things with huge mistakes

This is pretty interesting; I think I understand your distaste for Obama now. I do find it curious, though. Why do you prefer a cautious institutional manager when you believe our institutions are dooming us? Why not take a chance on some radical individual leadership?

And even that elected Nixon.

With a secret plan to end the war that Democrats began. That's a little different from someone pledging 100 years of war that was started by his own party.

I think that it's sensible to worry about electability to precisely the degree you can predict what the major news stories of the 3 days before election will be, since that's what'll influence the swing voters. Anyone want to offer up predictions?

"Seven Arrested in NYC Terror Plot"

"Threat Level Raised to Burnt Umber"

"DHS Issues New Regulations to Combat Terra"

It's different, sure, but I think too much has been made of the '100 years' comment. McCain did, and can, qualify his way out of that. It may be illusion, but the perception is that post-surge, Iraq is trending up, not down. In that context, I suspect McCain can win the Iraq argument against Obama, who is young and has no foreign policy credentials, and Clinton, who vacillated. Of course this is just speculation -- I can't back this up with anything more than my intuition about the way people think. But I don't think that the Iraq position that plays best in the democratic primary plays best in the general.

Yeah, I'm not resting on the 100 years comment so much as his general gung-ho-ness. Nixon ran against the war. McCain isn't going to do that.

Possibly the widespread opposition to the war will evaporate in the voting booth. But it doesn't seem likely.

It may be illusion

Heh.

We're nowhere near Vietnam levels of disaffection.

Not true at all. On the question of whether it was a mistake to send troops to..., Iraq has reached 57% while Vietnam topped out at 61. Furthermore, Vietnam didn't reach the Iraq percentage until two years more than we've been in Iraq.

Dude, we had the draft. It's not close.

It's not close. Percentage disapproving is not the same as how strongly that percentage wants to burn shit down.

That said, I think Obama's strength on the war comes not from Iraq, since anyone who gets into office is going to be there a while, but on how gung-ho he is to solve the problems in Iraq by deciding to drum up a war with Iran.

There's a difference between how intensely upset people are, and how many people are opposed. I'll give you (I wasn't around at the time, but it seems reasonable) that people were more bent out of shape about Vietnam. But if just as many people think invading Iraq was a stupid idea that we need to walk away from, even if their intensity on the issue isn't as great as it was in Vietnam, it means that running on "I'm going to win this thing, whatever it takes" isn't going to affirmatively get McCain votes from those people. If they wanted to vote for him for some other, more important reason, they might overlook his position on the war, but being bloodthirsty is really all he's got.

since anyone who gets into office is going to be there a while

Not necessarily. Admittedly, Obama's not talking like he's going to get out fast, but there's no practical reason we couldn't be out in a year or so, and if Democrats get a stronger majority in Congress, we might roll him.

Obama, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Deval Patrick rally in Boston Monday 8pm, Seaport WTC, free- anyone want to go?

148 should say he 'isn't' for invading Iran, obviously, though I look forward to defending that for the next few days along with how we're burning shit down if Obama doesn't get the nomination or whatever.

The question of whether the war will be a huge issue in the general election pivots, to a very great extent, on what happens between now and then in Iraq. And on how the media chooses to spin the issue. If the current cultural climate holds, in other words, neither Democrat is going to get a great deal of traction by attacking McCain for his whackjob views on foreign policy. That's not to say that fear of the Muslim hordes won't loom over the campaign. But I do think that trying to game out the impact of the war on how people will vote is next to impossible. Not to be a spoilsport. (Is that one word?)

LB, I think you're letting your own take (and your own evocative characterizations like "bloodthirsty" an "veins in the teeth") color your view of how the average voter thinks. Maybe McCain comes off to you as a crazed warmonger, but this does not appear to be a general impression. Perhaps a clever campaign could make him appear that way, but I think it would take work. Given how artfully McCain deploys his own biography ("I know the costs of war" etc.), this seems to me like an unfruitful path

It's important to note that the sentence "Iraq was a stupid idea that we need to walk away from" contains two distinct ideas. McCain can, actually, win people who think the decision to invade Iraq was an error. Especially vs. Clinton, but even vs. Obama. He cannot, I would not think, win people who think we should walk away. My guess is that the former group greatly exceeds the latter.

The city (The City?) no longer helps his films; it hems him in.

The City is in London, Ari.

If it's Obama v. McCain, Obama will take away McCain's mr. many war hero advantage by cuckholding him.

154: Don't you have that backwards?

155: Ontario?

154: Oh, I'm being comic with my descriptive terms ('veins in my teeth' is Alice's Restaurant, if you thought it was something I'd come up with on my own) -- I'm sure the electorate perceives McCain as a noble warrior and all that jazz. But the point of the argument isn't in the pejoratives, it's that his whole selling point is a strong foreign policy, where strong means use of military force, particularly in Iraq. And if the use of military force in Iraq isn't something that makes voters happy, which the polls suggest it does not, this isn't much of a selling point to rely on -- he hasn't got anything but foreign policy as a positive reason to vote for him.

I have a feeling that the best way to approach the war angle, for the Dem nominee, is not just to argue the impossibility of progress in Iraq but to also harp on it's cost and talk about what else we could have done with that money. Talk about collapsing bridges, poor schools, problems with health care, rising competition from China and the EU.

on second thought, strike 160

160

>'veins in my teeth' is Alice's Restaurant

I had no idea! This made me think: what are the classics of the pinko pop-culture cannon? And what are the corresponding polestars of the right wing nut-job cannon? Red Dawn, Rocky IV, anything with Charles Bronson are the first that come to mind, but these seems like a good job for Jonah Goldberg.

Hah. And I was worried I'd look snide at pointing that out. But I suppose if you weren't brought up an Eleanor-Roosevelt-commie-pinko-liberal, Alice's restaurant probably wasn't a Thanksgiving tradition.

You didn't grow up listening to Free To Be You And Me, either, did you?

I think Emerson would have a pretty good point, if only he'd cabin it a bit.

Emerson don't cabin shit nohow.

(Also, at least for the pinkos, there are only two 'n's in canon.)

Pinkos might win more if'n they used a cannon.

The numbers of people against this war is clear after years of polling. However, what is probably more important is what people think as the most important issue. There we're talking only 25ish% versus the high-sixties for Vietnam. So rather than Bob's assertion that 90% will call this war America's and vote hawkish, what's more likely is someone thinking 'I don't like this war, but we are in a recession'.

My guess is that the former group greatly exceeds the latter.

Most polls say the reverse of this. Withdrawal is the mainstream position; McCain is making (thank God) a very stupid error in tacking away from it. A Dem who made a similar error would be even stupider.

I saw Al Franken tonight, and he's definitely running against the war. (For Senate, against Norm Coleman, an odious and loathsome necrophile.)

(Actually, I wasn't raised on Alice's Restaurant either. My folks always had left-wing politics, but didn't think much of hippies. I got that as a teenager from friends being raised by hippies.)

Is there anything more pinko than harping on spelling? To Quote the SNL Dukakis/Bush debate in 1988:

Bush (Dana Carvey): I have a new plan. We will build a time machine!
Dukakis (Lovitz): What I don't get is, if a time machine is possible, why hasn't anyone come from the future to tell us to build a time machine
Bush: "well OK, Mr. East coast liberal, Mr. Harvard Yard braniac. But some of us would rather see a time machine flying the stars and stripes than a hammer and sickle!

170: Yay, Al! I should send him some money.

(Not that election's going to be decided by anyone but Diebold anyway. But it always seems to spoil people's fun to mention that elephant in the room.)

what are the classics of the pinko pop-culture cannon?

The classics of what a Republican would think of as "pinko" pop culture, or the classics of genuinely left-wing pop culture?

Why do you prefer a cautious institutional manager when you believe our institutions are dooming us? Why not take a chance on some radical individual leadership?

History's to blame.

harping on spelling

And I normally wouldn't, but in context, 'cannon' was too funny to pass up.

Bob, Ann Coulter is campaigning for Hillary. Does this set off some of Obama's undesirable support?

177. what? i'd just google it, but i find it hard to type her name. it's unclean.

Here.

From the comments there:
"Good. We need some way to rid ourselves of Ann Coulter and her screeching, idiotic rhetoric. Giving her to the Dems is just as good a way as any."

I suppose it's too obvious to say that Coulter's main criterion for endorsement in the Democratic primary is anti-electability.

144:

But I don't think that the Iraq position that plays best in the democratic primary plays best in the general.

Agreed. To the extent that Republican and swing voters are confused about the hawkishness of McCain's position, that will presumably be ironed out a bit in the general election debates between Dem & Repub candidates.

What remains true, I think, is that the Republican framing of Dems as weak on foreign policy, not just experientially but in disposition, hasn't lost significant ground in the minds of those murky swing voters + less-hawkish Repubs. If the electorate becomes once again more fearful than it currently is, it will again prioritize an aggressive foreign policy.

In other words -- and this is far from an original thought -- if the pivotal general election issue is foreign policy, the Republican candidate has the advantage; if domestic issues, the Dem does. I think this will be the case regardless of who the Dem candidate is.

Obviously we can't predict how the national mood will shift in the run-up to November, in part because we can't predict events. It's nearly as difficult, but more interesting, to consider the outcome of the inevitable battle we'll see between Dems & Repubs to manipulate the narrative (i.e. foreign policy? how afraid should we be? domestic issues? how afraid should we be?)

177:There are levels of irony implicated that even I can't appreciate. My guess, if she goes with it any distance, is that she is trying to rehabilitate herself with the media by pretended clownishness.

If it is Clinton vs McCain, there will be plenty of comedy. Zombie Pat Paulsen?

181: if the pivotal general election issue is foreign policy, the Republican candidate has the advantage

I just... I don't see how this can be.

Ummm, 184 to 182.

182:foreign policy? how afraid should we be? domestic issues? how afraid should we be?)

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

With apologies to flipper.

184: You're Canadian.

but even vs. Obama.

It will be, I think, harder for him to accomplish that vs. Obama than I gather you think. OTOH, the experience thing will come up much more. And worst of all, McCain is exactly the white guy you feel comfortable voting for without worrying about whether your decision was driven by unconscious racism.

Yeah, I know the general idea that the electorate perceives Dems as weak and Reps as strong on foreign policy, but I can't picture that operating unaltered in a political world where the most salient 'strong' Republican foreign policy is something the voters overwhelmingly disapprove of. If we were going to lose on those grounds, wouldn't we have lost in 2006 as well?

(I suppose you could argue that the surge changed everything, but is there any evidence that voters think so?)

187: I mean, Canucks have mayfly attention spans with the best of them, but... eight years of Clinton foreign policy, followed by eight years of watching Bush fumble the ball to put it politely? While the likes of McCain did this? Seems to me that would have some sort of impact on the lizard brain.

An interesting McCain question is whether he can motivate the church base (which does a lot of the grassroots organizing) without alienating the independents who think he's a liberal. Without having any issues beyond being a mo'hawk.

suppose you could argue that the surge changed everything

The surge and the fact that McCain is not Bush.

Has anyone posted this yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

Has anyone posted this yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

184: I'd love to think that's sarcasm.

But I'm using "foreign policy" in general to indicate that if the discussion focuses on how best to deal with the acknowledged mess in Iraq, potential threat from Iran, blah blah, while it's not necessarily the case that the public embraces a hawkish position, it will listen closely to proposals involving long-term presence in the region, permanent bases ... roughly a US imperialist position. The Republicans have the advantage there.

184: I'd love to think that's sarcasm.

But I'm using "foreign policy" in general to indicate that if the discussion focuses on how best to deal with the acknowledged mess in Iraq, potential threat from Iran, blah blah, while it's not necessarily the case that the public embraces a hawkish position, it will listen closely to proposals involving long-term presence in the region, permanent bases ... roughly a US imperialist position. The Republicans have the advantage there.

DS does not understand our culture.

The proud Canadians must be humbled. Kos just revealed that the War of 1812 was our cheapest war. Sure, we lost, but this time around I think we'll do much better. Especially with our Quebecois fifth column!

154

"... He cannot, I would not think, win people who think we should walk away. ..."

Why not on the only Nixon could go to China theory? I don't see HRC at least getting us out of Iraq anytime soon.

The Republicans have the advantage there.

You seriously don't think they take any credibility damage from having created the mess we're in? I mean, maybe they don't, but I figure there's got to be at least some Iraq War belongs to Republicans, Iraq War is unpleasant and I want it to go away, I distrust Republicans on this issue. I'm hearing a lot of people sounding serious and saying it doesn't work that way, but I can't figure out why it wouldn't.

198: You're thinking that he's going to win voters who hope he flipflops from his stated intention to do whatever it takes to win, and instead pulls out fast? That seems awfully baroque.

193, 194: Scarlett Johansson? Carly Simon?

I don't have audio.

I'm hearing a lot of people sounding serious and saying it doesn't work that way, but I can't figure out why it wouldn't.

For the same reason that HRC remains the frontrunner in the party of those that oppose the war. I don't know what it is, either, but X seems to exist.

189:

we were going to lose on those grounds, wouldn't we have lost in 2006 as well?

I don't think so, but this is utter speculation: voters consider mid-terms elections far less important than presidential ones. It's just congress, you know.

Isn't this a fairly known phenomenon on a state level? Voters sticking with, say, a Republican (fiscally conservative) governor but supporting Democrats at lower levels?

200

Just saying, as a member of the out now contingent, I don't see much difference between McCain and HRC on this issue. Neither supports out now.

199: Because reality is totally insane,and you aren't. Get with the program, lady.

200: McCain is openly committed to "As long as it takes!" and "More wars!" Hillary, much less so.

Scarlett, and a bunch of others. It is an amazing video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

Nah. The HRC thing makes perfect sense to me as low-information voters not realizing how hawkish she's been. The war is very Republican-associated; she's a Democrat, and I'm certain she's getting credit for being reasonably anti-war from most voters. She's not out there vocally supporting the war, she's making peaceable noises, and then saying stuff that makes anti-war political junkies sick to their stomachs but that most voters never notice.

McCain is running as the war candidate -- while lots of voters haven't caught on to that yet, it seems impossible that they won't in the general.

207: I think Apo linked above. And atrios just linked to it on a non-youtube site (better picture).

207: Obama is so going to get shot.

Do we have any plans of what shit to burn down?

211: We talked a little bit about it on this thread I think...

208

If HRC spends the whole campaign denying she is going to cut and run the distinction may not be all that clear.

199:

You seriously don't think they take any credibility damage from having created the mess we're in?

Actually, I don't, necessarily. This, in a way, is the danger in blaming the entire thing on Bush as a fuck-up. It absolves the rest of the party from responsibility. It's why the current Republican line that it was merely the execution that was flawed is, in its way, brilliant: there was no party machine (or whatever) behind the foreign policy approach Americans are seeing now. Nay, Bush & his cabinet just messed up.

She's not out there vocally supporting the war,

Well, she not a Republican. But she won't disavow her vote. Obama has started to make an issue of it in the last month or so, and it's not clear to me that--if he's closing--he's closing because of that. She remains the favorite. As Shearer suggests, her position isn't substantively that different from McCain's.

I guess my position is that if she can win the Dem nomination given her position(s) on Iraq, it's not the least bit clear to me why a Republican--and Maverick McCain in particular--couldn't count the war in the plus column. (Note that I've seen discussion on righty sites (and maybe Chait, however we're classifying him) arguing that there is a case to be made that McCain would not have invaded Iraq had he been President.)

Obama's a good speaker, but what's actually more notable is that he's a good WRITER. It's not just charisma; it's also the language, which is the antithesis of the "Joe & Eileen Bailey" school of democratic politics that depresses me so. (This is also part of why he has problems w/ the debates--not enough time.)

she can win the Dem nomination given her position(s) on Iraq, it's not the least bit clear to me why a Republican--and Maverick McCain in particular--couldn't count the war in the plus column.

It's the difference between despite and because of. If she's going to win, she's going to win despite her hawkishness, not because her hawkishness has done her any favors with the electorate. McCain has to win because he's a hawk -- there's no other positive reason to vote for him. And I think this is going to be a hell of an election for anyone running on being a hawk.

216: Obama has problems with the debates?

218: Until a couple of nights ago, yes. But his "problems," I think, have been overstated because his debate performance gets counterpoised against his oratory, and, as Katherine notes, prose. And by that measure, in the debates he has been relatively pedestrian.

LB, there's no other reason. But there's another "reason" that the press has done a lot of work on shoving up our asses.

anything with Charles Bronson are the first that come to mind

Of course I'm willing to share pop-cultural icons with my wingnut compadres, but, in fact, people like Bronson, Van Cleef, and Savalas (and for good measure, let's throw in Eastwood, Reynolds, and Tessier) are practically gods in my own largely left-wing circle of friends.

Claiming them for the right is merely Republican zhdanovshchina.

It's the difference between despite and because of.

I think, in my head, the argument goes like this:

Rounding the "unsures" off, about 30% of the population supports the way that GWB has managed the war. McCain gets those people. Give him another 10% because he's well situated to make the incompetence dodge, and HRC's not well situated to argue against it. HRC's ability to win the nomination despite her position on the war suggests it's a smaller issue than I might otherwise think, and seems like a harder thing to accomplish, in a country that split the last two elections 50/50, than McCain getting 10+% of the vote. So he gets 40% of the vote because of his hawkishness, and 10+% despite it.

That said, this is total speculation, and I still think HRC beats him, if narrowly.

Yeah, I'm doing a similar calculation, but I think he tops out at the 'incompetence dodge' 40%. I can't see many people who aren't voting for him because of his hawkishness voting for him at all. But again, rank speculation.

it's also the language

Yeah. That's something that's been amazing me. Obama seems to hark back to an earlier age of rhetoric. In some ways, a lot of Obama's campaign rhetoric seems to have been mined from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. I don't regard that as a flaw--his acquaintance with the Bible and Lincoln and MLK, etc., is one of the reasons why his speeches are so moving; but I can't think of another Presidential candidate who has mixed those sources so effectively.

In some ways, a lot of Obama's campaign rhetoric seems to have been mined from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.

Oh, come on now. The Second Inauguaral is one of the greatest pieces of prose ever written by an American, and Obama's stuff is fluently written but windy generalizations that he delivers really, really well.

The greatness of the Second Inauguaral is that it is extremely *specific* about the nature and causes of the war, places blame, and has a sense of the tragic. Obama's rhetoric, like almost all modern political speeches, is evasive and non-specific and bends over backward not to offend anyone.

199: I'm hearing a lot of people sounding serious and saying it doesn't work that way, but I can't figure out why it wouldn't.

202: For the same reason that HRC remains the frontrunner in the party of those that oppose the war. I don't know what it is, either, but X seems to exist.

The question is why some say that the electorate doesn't seem to divide as sharply between pro- and anti-war stances, between Democrat and Republican party allegiance, as some think they should?

a. They see less and less of a difference between the parties, and they're right.

b. They distrust federal government in general, regardless of party. Corruption, back-room dealing, personal gain. Lying.

c. The country's going down the tubes, and the people who are supposed to be taking care of it seem not to be.

A couple of things: I do think we've been engaged in a politics of fear for quite some time now. Government has become crisis management. The electorate is ultimately moved by whatever it fears the most. The media and political spin machines encourage it, obviously; on the other hand, it's not clear what a different approach would look like, hence how they could do things differently. This is one reason Obama's interesting (in a positive way).

About the perceived difference between the parties: we're clearly corporate more than anything else, and I don't think the public is stupid about that, though it may not realize the extent of it. Triangulation, compromise and bridge-building are the name of the game, for the sake of keeping the economy moving; and Bill Clinton, of course, built his reputation on that. Obama's interesting again here, for his rhetoric of healing divisions (read: working with the Republicans).

They see less and less of a difference between the parties, and they're right.

This sounds like 2000/2004 to me. You don't think that's turned around some in the last four years?

Not, I hasten to add, because the Democrats are any better or less corporate owned than they've ever been. I just think the new heights of crazy the Republicans have reached differentiates them even in the eyes of most voters.

The problem for Democrats who'd like to distinguish themselves from Republican right now is their own party's leadership. If you look at votes, the difference is sharp: most Democrats are voting on the right side of most issues. But if you look at how the leadership talks and who gets airtime, the gap shrinks nigh unto invisibility. If you're a low-information voter with a revulsion toward the war, unlimited executive power, and the like, you're not going to see an opposition party opposing much of anything. Certainly the Democrats can point to fuck all success in opposing anything Bush wanted.

Sorry (a little) for 225. I wasn't meaning to put down Obama so much. I just really love the Second Inauguaral, it's an amazing piece of writing. Try reading one of Obama's speeches on the page sometime and you'll see how puffed up and vapid they read compared to someone like Lincoln (while still being better than 90 percent of modern political rhetoric, which is beyond horrible). They have that combination of vague, overwrought phrasemaking plus check-the-box lists of policy initiatives that are so typical in political speeches today. It's true that Obama does that combination better than anyone, and he does draw on the rhetoric of the black churches (MLK is a better comparison than Lincoln). If you read his first book he can be a truly remarkable writer. But he's working within the conventions of current political rhetoric, which is a debased form.

#225. I'm not suggesting Obama's speeches are as great as the Second Inaugural, just that there are obvious echoes. Obama's whole "in the Blue States we worship an awesome God, etc." thing sounds like a modern paraphrase of "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." And if any candidate is running on the "With malice toward none, with charity for all" ticket, it's Obama. (Which is exactly why Bob hates him so.)

No. I'm not suggesting that Obama is as great an orator as Lincoln (or MLK, even), but I am struck by how he seems to be much more comfortable using these traditional models of rhetoric than Presidential candidates have been (at least in my lifetime).

223- That's how I see it. The economy and health care combined rank about 15 points higher than Iraq and terrorism combined. He won't be competitive there.

I just don't see the war being a plus except for a small segment. Clinton's got her problems on the issue, but it doesn't compare to McCain's outright enthusiasm for war. To say McCain is strong on foreign policy is a misnomer. He is strong on military policy. He has no foreign diplomatic skills to speak of. After Bush, voters may want a more sophisticated foreign policy.

Thus far, he's been campaigning against a very weak field. In the general, he's going to look horrendously old, especially against Obama. Democrats are turning out the vote much better than the Republicans this year.

I know McCain has been polling about even against Clinton, but I think the indicators are showing that once the general campaign starts, it will be the start of a strong Democratic victory.

This sounds like 2000/2004 to me. You don't think that's turned around some in the last four years?

Alright, to be fair, yes I do. (Um, the Dems are doing a better job hiding their corporatism, for one thing.)

I just think the new heights of crazy the Republicans have reached differentiates them even in the eyes of most voters.

The "heights of crazy" on the part of the Repubs is what: staying the course in Iraq, and revelations about the extraordinary degree of lying/manipulation that got us there? As long as what's wrong with the Republican party remains confined to that, it's attributable to a momentary lapse in the form of the Bush administration.

What about the Republicans' christian rhetoric, or its family values schtick? Does that seem crazy to the electorate? It seems, unfortunately, not so much.

Other possibility for heights of crazy is the curtailing of civil liberties. I'm not sure the general public is alarmed at that, maybe finds it regrettable.

231: OK, but it's worth noting that in the Second Inauguaral:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other

is immediately followed by

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.

Then a major point of the speech as a whole turns out to be that North and South are both equally guilty of the sin of slavery and God has therefore chosen to visit a savage punishment on both equally. Rather different from, hey, we have churches, little league, and apple pie in red and blue states both!

Obama does draw on some of those rhetorical forms though.

230: If you just read the speeches, the cadence (?) of Obama's speeches follow MLK's as if they were a template. Talk talk talk. Repeated line, talk talk. Repeated line, talk talk. Repeated line (my brothers and sisters, put your hands ON the radio!), talk talk. Big finish. It is a preacher style, and it suits him.

It's not Lincoln, but Lincoln didn't have YouTube to worry about.

I'm teh sexist too. I decided today (or was it yesterday? I forget) that I can't vote for Clinton because her connections to the Wall Street/banking/big money people, in light of the mortgage crisis and the bankruptcy bill and Enron and banking fees and credit card lobbyists and all the rest of it.

And I realize that this is a total Catch-22, because if she *didn't* have the big money folks in her pocket, she wouldn't *be* the "first serious" woman presidential candidate. She'd be like Pat Schroeder or Carol Mosley Braun or someone like that--yeah, that's nice, little lady, now bring on the serious candidates.

Sigh.

235: yes, very true. "Dreams From My Father" is basically the story of Obama's adult refashioning of himself as an African-American, when he actually had no contact in his upbringing with the black American descendents-of-slaves traditions. (It's a terrific book, deeply intelligent and well worth reading). Joining a black church in Chicago in I think his mid 20s was very much part of that, and I think learning the cadences of church oratory was too.

Lincoln was supposedly a mediocre orator, with a high-pitched voice and an undramatic delivery.

118: I don't have answers -- this is just an area where I have literally no idea what the safe play is for a kid without money or support. (And I have a bunch of nieces doing this now, so I'm interested.)

Wouldn't a 4-year engineering degree (say EE or MechE) or business degree (say accounting) be a safe play?

236- Illinois goes to Barrack, then.

Barack

I can't vote for Clinton because her connections to the Wall Street/banking/big money people, in light of the mortgage crisis and the bankruptcy bill and Enron and banking fees and credit card lobbyists and all the rest of it.

Just logically, this is somewhat odd, since Obama has at least matched Hillary's fundraising on Wall Street and the banking industry (in fact, I think he's raised more from financial interests than she has). Obama's stated plan for dealing with the mortgage crisis is not as tough as Hillary's is. Both Hillary and Obama opposed the 2005 bankruptcy bill, although Obama was more vocal and Hillary did vote for the 2001 version, which she said was better. There's not much evidence that I know of that favors Obama on the issues and connections you mention, unless you just generally trust him more as a person.

The war and foreign policy is another matter.

Obama does draw on some of those rhetorical forms though.

Sure. It goes without saying, but I said it anyway. Possibly, the last eight years have lowered my expectations of political discourse even farther than I realized.

My people! The 21st century is not ready for a true orator who combines oratory skills with substance!

That's not snarky. We don't want to talk about electability, but Obama is electable precisely because of his presence, rhetoric and affect. Put a less personally compelling candidate up there voicing the same policy positions, and he'd likely tank.

241: Great. I was basically deciding to vote against Clinton, rather than for Obama. Now I gotta go do *more* research? By Tuesday?

AARRGGHH.

I'm going Obama just on the war. Other than that, they seem about the same, except on health care where she's a clear winner, but I can't vote for someone who was voting for war in 2002, and still voted for that stupid "The Iranian Revolutionary Guard are teh terroists!!!11!1!" resolution last year, when there's an alternative.

If you saw the California debate, you saw how much trouble Hillary has explaining her initial pro-war vote and later war support. It was amazing to watch her squirm on that, after a great performance up till then. She tried legalistic moves, the "I trusted the President" thing, on and on, and nothing worked. You could see this confusion and frustration in her eyes. Obama is definitely better positioned to go after McCain on the war.

On the other hand, I saw McCain on Leno later that night and came away thinking that either Hillary or Obama can beat him. A funny-looking elderly war-monger. Nice if he were your uncle, not so much for a President. He actually stood behind his "in Iraq for 100 years" line. It got no applause at all, just an uneasy silence.

230-31: Obama borrows from Lincoln, very clearly and quite often, but he's not as good. Of course, the place of oratory and rhetoric in our culture has completely shifted. So perhaps he's as good as we have a right to expect. And PGD is right, Lincoln was actually supposed to have been awful live.

By the way, if it sounds like I'm putting Obama in Lincoln's class, rest assured that's not the case.

246: McCain is also the size of a lawn gnome.

If he wears a fetching hat with a pompom, I might vote for him.

I saw McCain on Leno later that night and came away thinking that either Hillary or Obama can beat him.

I still have no good sense of how McCain plays with the electorate at large (I should read some very mainstream newspapers, maybe USA Today? the Leno show is a good choice).

That said, I wonder why Romney's not being taken more seriously as the Republican candidate (he has a youthful advantage). I obviously haven't been paying enough attention, however.

249: This is a very good idea. Especially in HD.

Here's McCain on Leno:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6ETm4W1Gac&feature=related

The Iraq/war on terror stuff starts around 5:05 of the video (right before then he says some stuff about the economy is unimportant compared to the war...stick with that line, John!). At about 6:00-6:05 he tries for an applause line about how we need to stay in Iraq and win to give meaning to the sacrifice of our troops, how the Democrats want us to surrender, etc. Dead silence from the audience.

I mean, you come away respecting and liking McCain, he's likable...but you sure don't want him to be President. At least that was my projection when checking with my hypothetical internal Average American Voter.

hypothetical internal Average American Voter

How much does one of those eat?

I'm not worried about McCain, I'm confident that the Times will come out with Jeff Gerth blazing away with some indignant half-truthful articles on McCain's Keating 5 role in the S&L scandal. That's like fair game, right?

I am actually curious if this will get any play at all. Probably not, in addition to IOKIYAR McCain has worked hard to immunize himself via McCain-Feingold and the Abramoff hearings.

how the Democrats want us to surrender, etc. Dead silence from the audience.

He just doesn't have Bush's "um, you know, not a political -- I mean, it's a religious struggle -- the, the Almighty ... an ideological struggle between freedom. And those who murder innocent people, because the Almighty promises freedom to every man, woman and child" patter down.

Your internal Average American Voter would have gone for that, right?

256: no, the average American voter despises Bush. You know, Parsie, but you may have the same Democratic Intimidation Syndrome that leads so many DC Dems to be afraid of taking on the Repubs even when the liberal position is the majority one.

The great thing about politics this year is that the Republicans may have finally burned through all their "trust us because we're not hippies!" credits they had left over from the 60s. It's morning in liberal America!

256: Your internal Average American Voter would have gone for that, right?

Remembere that that line generated applause in a front of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a minor league conservative think tank. I'd say everyone's internal Average Wingnut Welfare Recipient would have gone for McCain's line as well.

you may have the same Democratic Intimidation Syndrome that leads so many DC Dems to be afraid of taking on the Repubs even when the liberal position is the majority one.

Fighting words! (And actually I don't even know where that's coming from.)

You kin call it intimidation or you kin call it caution or you kin call it keeping your eyes open to the fact that many of us are pretty unclear on what rhetoric moves the average american voter (a non-existent being).

But I was being sarcastic in 256, you know.

I'm with the "McCain is overrated" crowd. McCain might have been something to worry about 10 years ago, but man that guy is old, and he sounds like Grandpa Simpson. "Osama? I'm a gonna git him!" (shakes cane at neighboorhood kids)

Gah, "neighborhood".

"Obama's stuff is fluently written but windy generalizations that he delivers really, really well."

No, some of it isn't. The Iowa speech yeah, but others not.

the freeze on interest rates thing sounds like NOT a good idea to me but I can't claim to know in detail.
LB, there is no comparison between them on civil liberties. much bigger gap than health care.

Has it been noted that Obama uses the phrase "straight talk" in some of his speeches? It's going to be Obama/McCain vs. nobody. Then: end times.

Also, about the average American:

Gradually, the average American takes form. He (or she) spends 95 percent of the time indoors, thinks abortion is morally wrong but supports the right to have one, owns an electric coffeemaker, has nine friends and at least one pet, and would rather spend a week in jail than become president. He (or she) lives within a 20-minute drive of a Wal-Mart, attends church at least once a month, prefers smooth peanut butter to chunky, lives where the average annual temperature is between 45 and 65 degrees, and believes that Jews make up 18 percent of the population (the actual figure is between 2 and 3 percent).

Given voter turnout not being all that great (before this year, and even then it's not that great, from a high percentage standpoint, I don't think), the average American and the average American voter are probably different people.

Shit, I'd rather spend a week in jail that become president. I mean, think about it.

B, if you ever are offered that choice, I'll volunteer to assume the presidency on your behalf.

Let me go on record here, as well as at Apo's, as being totally turned off by the Obama music video that seems to make everyone else melt, but that I think he's the Democrat with the best chance of beating the incomprehensibly popular McCain.

Shit, I'd rather spend a week in jail that become president. I mean, think about it.

I'm thinking about whether I'd be giving or receiving the blowjobs, and being President is looking pretty good on that score.

223

"... I can't see many people who aren't voting for him because of his hawkishness voting for him at all. ..."

If he runs against HRC lots of people will vote for him just because he isn't her.

More on Obama's electability versus Clinton's:

If you want the best case for Obama's electability in November, here it is. The Clinton people are conceding that the more time spent with both senators airing their messages, the worse it is for their candidate. The general election race might go on for eight months; wouldn't it be best to have a nominee who wears well?

Reading the whole article, stras, I'm not sure that conclusion follows. Obama gets a huge boost when he campaigns in a state, and otherwise is crushed by Clinton. The campaign says they'd be happier with just a few extra days rather than a few weeks (the opposite holds true for Obama, presumably.)

But all that shows is that when Obama campaigns, he's more impressive than HRC and steals away voters previously committed to her, not that when she campaigns, she loses support. Remember, she has pretty overwhelming support just on name recognition where she doesn't campaign, so Obama has nowhere to go but up.

That dynamic (obviously) can't hold in the general if Clinton is the nominee, for the simple fact that Obama won't be running. So the question should be whether eight months of McCain wears better than eight months of Clinton, and I don't think we have enough information to answer that.

Sorry for the length of this comment, but I'm catching up with the whole thread. I think Hillary is misunderstood here.

Tim offers in 215:

Well, she not a Republican. But she won't disavow her vote.

In fact, she's done the next best thing to disavowing her war vote - she has lied about it. She says she didn't vote for war, she voted to give Bush the means to force inspectors on Saddam. Had Bush done what he promised to do with that vote, blah, blah, blah ...

Those of you wondering why she is getting votes in an anti-war party need to remember that she's pretty much as anti-war as Obama, and while she explains her regret on her war vote more legalistically than Edwards, Edwards also voted for the war and regrets it. Her critique of Obama on the war is not that Obama was wrong to oppose the war; it is that Obama, benefitting from hindsight, overstates his actual opposition to the war.

If, as Shearer says in his Tim-endorsed 204, there's not much difference between Hillary and McCain going forward on Iraq, then there's also not much difference between Obama and McCain. Hillary and Obama's stated positions are strikingly similar, and strikingly different from McCain's.

In that vein, I think I agree with what apostroper said way back in 31:

HRC cannot possibly outhawk McCain. If that's the game, we've already lost.

What apostropher didn't need to add was that despite Hillary's alleged hawkishness, McCain won't be able to out-dove Hillary, which is what I suspect the game will be come November. Which brings us to LB in 217:

If she's going to win, she's going to win despite her hawkishness, not because her hawkishness has done her any favors with the electorate.

Hillary's calculation was that, as a Democrat and especially as a woman, she wouldn't be regarded as credibly "tough" by the media/public if she did things like opposing war and admitting error.

That may or may not be the correct calculation, but when it comes to political expediency, I'm prepared to defer to Hillary's judgment. She seems to have done well for herself as a presidential candidate, despite some formidable obstacles.

From a campaign point of view, Hillary might be doing the right thing, but she seems stubbornly committed to an aggressive international posture. I'm not will to support someone on the idea that theydon't really mean what they say on what is for me the major issue. Hillary has said nothing so far that would require her to refrain from invading Iran, for example. She will be able to ask critics "Where did I ever say that I wouldn't do that?"

McCain won't be able to out-dove Hillary, which is what I suspect the game will be come November.

The only way out-doving wins in November is if the electorate is really opposed to the war, and I don't think the media will get us there, especially if they've got the McCock in their mouths.

In fact, she's done the next best thing to disavowing her war vote - she has lied about it.

Oh, fucking spare me. Precisely how corrupt do you have to be to make that argument? Fuck, maybe McCain isn't so bad: he might well argue that if we didn't invade Iraq, the US would have faced continual terrorism in the continental US. That's ridiculous, so we'll be able to credit him with having the decency to lie to us, as well as having a congenial foreign policy, since past actions are no longer any indication of future decision-making. As I said above, people on the right are already ramping up arguments claiming that McCain wouldn't have invaded Iraq. Compelling? Don't know. Certainly no less intellectually honest than what's apparently on offer on the Dem side.

Don't trust a word Repubs say about HRC or Obama. Which doesn't mean ignore what they say, or assume they are lying, just try to use multiple perspectives and overinterpret what they say.

They might want you to think they are lying. Or they might be lying, want to you to assume they are lying, and and and and and and and

John Edwards withdrew from the race Tuesday, saying only, "I am not worthy."

277 me.

As I said above, people on the right are already ramping up arguments claiming that McCain wouldn't have invaded Iraq.

If McCain adopted this line and added direct, repeated statements that he plans to draw down American troops dramatically by the end of Year 1, my concerns about his war policy would be allayed considerably. It's puzzling to me that you would think worse of McCain if he publicly reinterpreted his past in order to suggest he'll behave more according to your policy preferences in the future.

It's puzzling to me that you would think worse of McCain if he publicly reinterpreted his past in order to suggest he'll behave more according to your policy preferences in the future.

He doesn't have to do it, as I understand it. He just needs to have his supporters do it. Which is starting to happen. So, if you're right, we're all good on FP whether there's a Dem or the Republican in the White House, because there is a broad consensus on the shape of such policy and judgments that should inform it. Woo hoo!

Y'all arr aware that Obama doesn't write (all) his own stuff - right?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20speechwriter.html?_r=1&ref=style&oref=slogin

Don't trust a word Repubs say mcmanus says about HRC or Obama.

What pisses me off is that most people don't realize what an anti-abortion zealot McCain is.

Y'all arr aware that Obama doesn't write (all) his own stuff - right?

Well stop the motherfucking presses.

There Will Be Blood ...Maureen Dowd, while I was at the Times

"At some point, an Obama intimate recalled, he "gently put his hand on her arm to chill her out." The tall senator often leans down to put a friendly hand on the shoulder of his fellow senators -- male and female -- on the Senate floor, and they seem charmed by the gesture.

But Senator Clinton and her circle were not. They had been surprised and troubled by what they saw as his attempt to grab her arm and hold her in place while they talked, an unpleasant flashback to Rick Lazio getting in her space. As Queen Bee of the Clinton hive, Hillary has created a regal force field that can be breached only with permission, so something that wasn't even a jostle was perceived as a joust."

And HRC gets blamed for Obama groping her.

That is it. It is over. I cannot vote for a man who thinks he has the right, the privilege, to put his hands on a woman without her consent.

In a confrontational situation, Obama "put his hand on her arm to chill her out".

He's all bullshit. It's all an act. A man who gets physical with a woman during an argument cannot be trusted. Period.

I have never ever touched a woman during an argument. That motherfucker.

286 was me

I want my cookies back.

That is it. It is over. I cannot vote for a man who thinks he has the right, the privilege, to put his hands on a woman without her consent.

I'm confused as to who exactly you're trying to get to sleep with you, mcmanus.

"This is it."

Oh, come on Bob. You already didn't like Obama.

I'm sorry, this just fucking enrages me.

Who the fuck does he think he is, to grab a woman, his elder, a Senator and Candidate for President, to grab her by the arm to calm the little out of control woman down?

I learned it before I was 10. Course I had sisters.

Obama is a piece of shit to me now.

It's ok if you're Obama?

If George Bush had grabbed Senator Clinton during a heated argument...aw fuck it. It is ok if he's Obama.

You already didn't like Obama

My intuitions fucking rock, Emerson.

Rage, on bob! It's clear that if Obama had held back you would have been enraged that He was such a cold inhuman bastard that He could not have shown the human decency to offer some comfort to an upset colleague.

Whose pants are you trying to jump into again?

Whose pants are you trying to jump into again?

The funniest possible meme in the blogosphere is that I am trying to be popular.

I know how the feminists around here will react to this. IOKIYO. Just like HRC was the "Queen Bee" I will be turned into the bad guy for not seeing how loving and tender Obama was being when he tried to calm her down, to shut her up.

They hate Clinton. Clinton probably deserved a slap, or even a punch, for messing with the Prince of Peace.

"Obama, who came away feeling that, for all of Hillary's outer strength, she was afraid of him in some ways, and for all of her supposed poise, she had a more spiky temperament than he had realized."

Maureen Dowd is obviously a monster. I think Obama is also a monster.

"But on Thursday, when he leaned down to whisper and put his hand on her shoulder, she looked up at him with a glowing smile."

I guess she learned her place. She better smile.

I know how the feminists around here will react to this.

They hate Clinton.

Can you specify who you're talking about, bob?

The funniest possible meme in the blogosphere is that I am trying to be popular.

Even funnier is that it's clear you don't know what "funny" means. But anyway, it's clear you do protest too much.

Regardless, the "I'm 2 radikal for u" role is its own kind of popularity contest, and of long pedigree too.

Who the fuck does he think he is, to grab a woman, his elder, a Senator and Candidate for President, to grab her by the arm to calm the little out of control woman down?

Don't be such an idiot. Leaving aside for a moment that the source is Dowd, the piece makes it clear he often puts a hand on a shoulder when he talks to people, male and female. I'm not big on being touched by strangers either, but you're being a huge spaz.

Who the fuck does he think he is, to grab a woman, his elder, a Senator and Candidate for President

Such considration for heirarchy and authority is truly touching, bob, especially from you!

Um, "consideration". And despite my typos, still truly touching!

I just checked with the lady, who has more office experience than I, and she has not seen it in twenty years. The CEO and CFO would both get written up at minimum.

Touching is not good.

Touching during an argument, when a woman is likely already feeling threatened or vulnerable, is absolutely inconceivable.

Take the story, with names removed, to human resources. See what they say.

IOKIYO. The lady & I were discussing why Obama thought he could get away with it, he surely knew it was wrong. What did he think he was doing?

What did he think he was doing?

He was clearly signalling to Dowd that he was the candidate of the rich.

Hey bob, did he "grab her arm" or did he "gently touch her"? Your nanny state human resources department might not think it makes a difference, but it does to me.

The brothers just can't keep their hands off the white women.

301:"At some point, an Obama intimate recalled, he "gently put his hand on her arm to chill her out."

"But Senator Clinton and her circle were not. They had been surprised and troubled by what they saw as his attempt to grab her arm and hold her in place while they talked"

To me it doesn't make a fuck's difference. When I am arguing with a woman, I watch my stance, distance, posture, and hands very carefully. It can help keep me calm, for one thing.

Aw hell, the Obamabots won't care about this. This will tell them nothing about his character.

Who am I kidding?

But there was a while I thought he might be for real, or real enough. All bullshit. He was seeking a psychological advantage through physical intimidation.

This is a bad man. Better than Bush maybe, but worse than Bill.

When I am arguing with a woman, I watch my stance, distance, posture, and hands very carefully. It can help keep me calm, for one thing.

McManus for President!

Better than Bush maybe, but worse than Bill.

Yeah, that Bill sure knows how to keep his hands to himself.

To me it doesn't make a fuck's difference.

That's because you're a raving loon.

Aw hell, the Obamabots won't care about this. This will tell them nothing about his character.

Whereas it will tell the AntiObamaBots everything about his character.

307:Tells me enough.

He's Jim Bakker, folks. Jimmy Swaggart. It will come out under stress. What? I don't know. But Obama is a con.

308: Or so the HilaryBots would have you believe.

bob is hilarious.

310:(bows and winks)

Yeah, 6 months into the Obama Presidency Michele shows up with bruises and the Feminists-for-Obama would split between "Lying witch is trying to destroy our Leader" and "OOoooooh but I trusted Obamaaaa."

And I will be laughing my ass off. Not at Michele.

You do not touch a woman during an argument. Bad sign.

Don't give up your day job.

Spousal abuse is a new one. Probably will make bob happy though.

312: Based on you awesome oracular powers, I've now decided to come over and join you as a HilaryBot. Thanks, bob!

Hey bob, did he "grab her arm" or did he "gently touch her"?

From the same media that had Clinton 'crying' a couple weeks ago?

304: This is a bad man

Bob:Obama::Lynne Cheney:John Kerry

Could take it to twisty. If twisty saw the story and "Looks ok to me, no patriarchal assholery round Obamer." I might listen.

Might. I am not a follower.

This is at least the second time men have gotten aggressive with HRC in public. And there is all the hatred out there, even if not expressed with physical violence. And invading a woman's physical space without permission is fucking violence

The Patriarchy can't stand her, I guess. Something interesting.

Might. I am not a follower.

That's what all the Hilarybots say.

The funny thing is that none of what bob's saying is even Dowd's point, if you read the article.

And invading a woman's physical space without permission is fucking violence

Authorizing the invastion of Iraq is fucking violence.

Advocating the continued occupation of Iraq is fucking violence.

Constantly paying lip service to The Revolution!™ is almost fucking violence.

"invasion"

Could take it to twisty.

That should be enlightening.

I bet Hillary occasionly says "NO!" to dogs.

That's violence too.

320:Maureen Dowd is a monster. I read her maybe once a year. Discerning her intentions is like lifting a rock in a swamp.

The facts, and the quote from the Obama camp does indicate that there are facts, seem fairly clear. There was an argument, and Obama touched HRC's arm during the argument.

Dowd's description of the event would seem contemptuous of HRC ("Queen Bee"), but reading that piece was a view of a really sick mind.

Obama's "nurturing daddy" style kinda fits, like a televangelist. Ya know, part of the key to getting people is at least part of time not listening to the words. Words are intended to deceive. I notice Obama looks upward a lot.

323:I don't think twisty cares very much about "politics" within the Patriarchy. Smart woman.
Smarter than me.

Why am I reminded of a joke about a hamburger and a blow job right about now?

Hey, Mineshaft!

Anyone have advice about introducing your cat to a new feline member of the household? We just moved my girlfriend's cat in. We've got the new boy sequestered in my office with all his needs. Any fun tricks? How long should the sequester last?

In a few days, when we do combine forces, we'll have a problem: new cat has slimming food, and because he's a big ol' nosher, he's on a restricted feeding schedule. My cat has sensitive-tummy food, and eats a little at a time -- I just fill the bowl when it's low. Any one have any success with getting cats to respect each other's food bowls?

328: Remember, Wrongshore, that if the new cat touches the old cat in any non-consensual way, that it's irredeemably evil and should be immediately put down.

328: See if you can feed the non-fat kitty on a countertop and keep the restricted diet kitty on the floor.

Also, good luck.

330.2 is exactly right.

(330.1 was the original plan -- unfortunately, the fat kitty's diet has been so successful that he can now jump onto countertops.)

Heebie's got two cats on incompatible foods -- she should have tips.

And you know, without endorsing Bob's take on Obama's implicit violence and the gender issues and all that, putting your hands on someone to calm them in an argument is an asshole move unless you've got the personal intimacy to back it up. It seems to me to be a claim of dominance, and a claim that the other person is irrationally angry and needs to be calmed.

If you're very very charming and have excellent interpersonal judgment, I could see being able to do that sort of thing under circumstances where the message you're trying to get across is that you and the angry person are on the same side and need to work together. Under circumstances, like with a rival candidate, where you're formally opposed to each other, I can't see it as anything but an asshole move.

If opposing counsel, male or female, put a hand on me to 'calm me down' during discussion of something substantive, I'd take it as either an attempt to cut me down psychologically, or from someone who had me sized up a little better as an attempt to make me angry enough to screw up.

(All that said, I'm still voting for him. As people, I've got issues with both of them, and he's winning on the war and on civil liberties. Losing on health care, but not by as much.)

331.2: But he's new to the house, right? How much of a countertop-jumper *is* he? I was thinking maybe the old cat could define the countertop as *his* (her?) territory and the new cat would stay off it?

It seems to me to be a claim of dominance

It seems to me that none of us have anything close to sufficient information to say what it was.

Oh, come on. I'm assuming it was the nicest friendliest laying on of handses possible. 'Calming' someone is still going to be a putdown, unless you've got the intimacy to back it up.

I'm saying that I don't have any idea whether it even *was* a calming move coming from somebody who routinely touches people when he talks to them, not just during tense moments. All I've seen so far is spinning of a second-hand story by non-neutral parties.

Actually, come to think of it, I am relying on the assumption that she was angry on some level, and he touched her "to chill her out" as the quote said. If it didn't happen at all -- they were just having a friendly, entirely unheated conversation, and he touched her because he's like that, nothing wrong with that.

Also, Bob's maniacal flailing aside, this sort of media-filtered interpersonal inside baseball is so very irrelevant to the question of who makes a better candidate/president.

337 crossed with 338. Even if you're a warm touchy person generally, though, being warm and touchy with someone who's angry at you is a problem.

339 is right too. I just wanted to react to Bob's commentary, and while I couldn't buy most of it on any specific level, I found myself wanting to agree with something about it. I don't know that what I think was close enough to what Bob said to call it 'agreement', but there's something.

334: The older cat is spry, but has never gone on the countertop. Capable of it -- he can jump onto a high closet shelf -- but not inclined. Worth a shot, though.

All I've seen so far is spinning of a second-hand story by non-neutral parties.

This is a pretty concise description of the state of US politics,.

Yeah. I do have a hard time remembering, as Apo very truly pointed out, that for stories like this there's a perfectly good chance that they didn't happen at all, or at least not in any recognizable form.

Glad to have this heavy burden lifted from my shoulders.

Showed the lady the Obama video. She cried. I cried. She's voting for Clinton.

All over the Internet Eric Balfour is remembered as "Claire's sleazy boyfriend". The guy gave his life to save others in "24". I feel a mission.

From today's Times:

"They're worried about the nuts and bolts," said John Emerson, a Los Angeles investment executive who oversaw the courtship of California as a Clinton White House aide. And the Clintons, he adds, "have demonstrated an ability to deliver."

Tough talk, coming from a movie star-cum-messiah.

Glad to have this heavy burden lifted from my shoulders.

Don't stop now, Bob; this is just getting good. Take this thread to 1000 comments by all by yourself if you have to!

348:Thanks for the encouragement, but I think the Obamabuser meme will go viral without me.

Eric Balfour Loves Dogs

"Eric Balfour is also an entrepreneur who, along with his girlfriend Francoise Koster, co-owns a trendy little store in Hollywood called Lou Lou"

"One day Petey was hanging out with Eric during a music rehearsal at the house, "and we started playing this one really high pitched guitar note when Petey just started singing along. (Eric starts to howl.) Then later I just howled at him and he howled back. Now whenever I sing or I'm practicing for a show he just starts howling. He wants to sing!"

I will googlebomb "Claire's boyfriend" away!

I just wanted to react to Bob's commentary

That's a warning sign, LB.

This should probably be a post in its own right but I'm in a hurry, so here comes the loony.

Liberals make and promote and distribute and champion films about assassinating Bush, sex with animals, and sympathizing with child molesters, but it's torture to save American lives which most offends them. How so very revealing...

It is over. Conservatives will no longer have even a single show on network television anymore.

Not. Even. One.

In a heartbreaking Wall Street Journal article, the death of 24 as we knew and loved it has arrived in the form of a left-wing "reinvention" which is obviously determined to remove everything which made the series special: it's unabashed patriotism and determination to protect that which is most worth protecting, America and Americans, at any cost.

344: Right. The trouble is that all of the cues that I would normally use to judge someone's behavior based on their actions aren't really available to me, especially when the actions are described as "showed emotion" vs. "teared up" or "grabbed an arm" or "gentle touch." I don't know HRC well-enough, for example, to judge whether her voice cracking was a sign she's unfit to lead or an honest, appropriate display of emotion. I don't know Obama well enough to know whether he can pull off an arm touch without it coming across as offensive or condescending. It might be relevant information if I could trust it and had a context in which I could judge it. (E.g., if Hillary were my sister, I'd know what the voice crack meant.)

bob watches 24?

I printed out this thread and showed it to my cat. She peed on it. I peed on it. She's voting for bob mcmanus.

God, that article's great. The show suffers from declining ratings -- off by a third -- yet it's being reformulated not because the viewer are bored with the wait-until-XX:50 and then torture someone and go dootditdootdit -- but because liberals hated it so much? So the liberals control market forces?

These are the sorts of people that think that if a bird shits on their car, it's because God hates them, aren't they?

From the comments:
"If you are a Hollywood conservative/libertarian, never tell anyone. Ever. That New Yorker "profile" of Surnow was in reality a hit piece. It did exactly what it was intended to do. That, and the show's formula growing stale over time, is what killed it."

Christ, after five seasons, the show's formula gets stale. THAT NEVER HAPPENS.

354 is awesome. I'm voting for Standpipe.

353:Just to root for the terrorists

354:Standpipe Bridgeplate is not the man I thought he was.

Nobody is, bob.