The Pie and Thomas Friedman

Or, as another blogger put it: "Don't Pie Me, Bro!"

I don't like the NYTimes' Thomas Friedman at all. He's a pompous ignoramous, especially about Israel. Par for the course for the Times which now appears to have NOBODY of value on the op-ed page. Anyway, some pissant group of puerile environmentalists threw pies at Friedman right before he was to give an Earth Day address at Brown University:


A few thoughts:

1. As a professional public speaker, watching this video put me in a cold sweat. I don't like thinking that I can get attacked on a podium and I don't condone it - even for the pie attack vs. Ann Coulter. It's the mildest kind of terrorism - near the level of vandalism - but still terrorism. And I condemn it.
   
2. I still don't understand why Friedman was targeted. Evidently it has to do with his bad attitudes about environmental policy. "Greenwashing" so I'm told. Yawn.
   
3. Brown University should prosecute the terrorists to the full extent of the law. They caught one of the schmucks. No joke: Brown should expel the student - for the assault on an invited guest, and for embarrassing the students, faculty, and alumni. If I were Friedman, I would bring suit against the student for assault, public embarrassment, etc.

h/t Yglesias.

Update: If you really want to mock Friedman, read this. (h/t RBC)

Celebrities vs. Pundits vs. Journalists

I am cleaning up my hard-drive and I saw an old clip (at least June 2006) of a Charlie Rose interview with George Clooney. Rose spoke about how Clooney challenged Bill O'Reilly to a debate. It's a weird combination of talking heads and it reminds me of a standard Right-Wing talking point: that celebrities have no right and/or no place to be commenting on political matters.

Why should anybody care about what Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, Al Franken, Rosie O'Donnell, or George Clooney have to say about politics.

On one side, I agree. I think actors are, for the most part, vain and stupid. The job requires vanity as part of it's skill set and there's no reason to believe an actor is any more intelligent than a person engaged in any other type of physical profession. I don't think athletes are presumed to be intelligent, and acting is just another form of athletics.

Comedians are generally pretty intelligent (it's a brutal business), so maybe they should be able to offer their political views. But then the second aspect of the Right Wing Point is: these people are famous for making people laugh, what expertise, experience, training, or skills do they have that would allow them to offer political positions?

Here's where I differ from my Right Wing brethren. Cuz, uh, what expertise does any specific journalist have that would allow them to offer *their* opinions about politics. When a journalist does actual journalism - ya know, find out facts and report them accurately - then I will give them credit for being a specific and separate profession. [This is holding aside the fact that journalists, by and large, seem to be unintelligent, conceited, and as a group not very good at what they are supposed to be doing; exhibit A: the lead up to Operation Iraqi SNAFU]

But what in the world is the difference between a pundit - a talking head who offers his/her opinions about politics - and an actor? Opinions are opinions. And when you recognize that the 'pundits' are themselves in the entertainment business, then you realize that the reason why the Right Wingers don't like celebrities talking about politics is because the real celebrities (e.g. Clooney) are more believeable and convincing than the Right Wing celebrities (e.g. O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter).

State of the 2008 Race - Analysis

As many of my avid reader(s) know, I am pretty bad at predicting mass human behavior. Give me an individual and I can predict their behavior pretty well... but masses of unknown dolts? I am worse than Lotto. Can't help it, it's just an ability I lack. And I also can't help myself from MAKING predictions. All I can do is warn you that my predictions stink.

You may ask "Why, then, do you feel compelled to make these (ironically) predictably bad predictions?" Good question, voice in my head. Because while my conclusions are almost always wrong, my analysis is often right. So I want broadcast points for my deductive skills even when my inductive skills blow.

Overview

All logic should state that the next president will be a Democrat. A Democrat won in 1992, 1996, and in 2000 - and came very close in 2004 and that was a very poor candidate against a wartime, post-homeland strike, opponent. In the three subsequent years the GOP have shown themselves to be corrupt incompetent hypocrites. Their support seems to come entirely from flat-earth fundamentalist xenophobes. So logic says it will be nearly impossible for the GOP to win in 2008.

The nearest example of this election would be 1976, when a very poor Democratic candidate defeated the scandal-ridden GOP. There are lessons for both parties since it was a remarkably close election. Quoth the wiki:

Carter defeated Ford by two percentage points in the popular vote. The electoral vote was the closest since 1916; Carter took 23 states with 297 electoral votes, while Ford won 27 states and 240 electoral votes...

Despite the stink of Watergate, the GOP installed an honest-ish dolt as President and he was able to run on a clean slate. And he almost won! What undid Ford? The fact that in 1976 the American electorate actually cared that their president not be a moron:

During the second presidential debate on October 6, Ford stumbled when he asserted that "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." He added that he did not "believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union", and made the same claim with regards to Yugoslavia and Romania. Ford compounded his error by refusing to retract his statement for almost a week after the debate...

Side note: burn this fact into your cerebrum - in 1976 a visibly stupid Ford wasn't (re)elected despite an impressive record of leadership and valor (WWII veteran, in the House for 24 and Minority Leader for eight, and sitting as president for 2 years); yet in 2000 an even more obviously stupid candidate, George W Bush, with a pathetic resume (drunk, drugged and unemployed until he was 40, then - after his father had served as VP and President, being elected governor in a state known for having one of the weakest executives in the Union and serving one term) came dangerously close to being elected president against an accomplished & talented, albeit irritating as hell, incumbent VP of a very popular president.

Ford lost in 1976 because he was (moron + scandal) while Bush was almost elected because he was a (moron - +scandal) i.e. minus the scandal that hung around the neck of his rival.

The GOP could win in 2008 if they extrapolate the 1976 lesson - get a competent candidate who can push the scandal of the past 8 years onto a rival and run against a weak Democrat. The Democrats need learn from Carter's shaky '76 run:

When Carter left the Democratic National Convention, he held a huge 33-point lead over Ford in the polls. However, as the campaign continued the race tightened, and by election day the polls showed the race as too close to call. Carter's decline in the polls, and Ford's surge, is usually credited to three events. First, Carter promised a "blanket pardon" to Vietnam War draft dodgers ... Second... Carter admitted to having "lusted in his heart" for women other than his wife [in Playboy Magazine]... [Third], Ford performed well in what was the first televised presidential debate since 1960.

The lessons again? (1) Don't be a crazy liberal, (b) don't be arrogant and stupid in your sanctimony, (c) Any stumble can cost dozens of points no matter how stupid your opponent is.

Primaries vs. Generals

An added problem is the decades-broken primary process. True, the primary system was developed to fix what was perceived as an even worse process (the Fat Balding Party Boss System), but in general it appears that the primaries have been worse for Democrats (see: 1972-2004) than Republicans (see: uh, 1996?). Sadly the only people who vote in the Primaries are wild-eyed freaks on the fringes of both parties, and the candidates know that. Which means Republicans bank rightward and Democrats bank left.

The candidates will need to fringe themselves up only as far as the fringe requires. In 1992, Clinton didn't have to go too far left because after having a Republican president for 20 of the past 24 years, the Left wasn't as strong and the Center was ripe. So too, now: the Democrats don't need to be so far left because the Centrists of the party are as fed-up with the past few years as the Liberals are.

The GOP is in trouble, though, thanks to Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and Karl Christian Rove. The Rove Strategy was to take a country that is pretty centrist - as reflected in 1992, 1996 & 2000 - and pump up "wedge issues" so as to create a massive, but illusory, Red-Blue split. This grotesque polarization started with Newt's Crew who were shocked by a JFK/LBJ style Centrist Democrat in office. Their attacks on Clinton were designed not only to weaken a strong Democrat but were done so in a hyper-partisan way. And just as the Israelis, while being victims of terrorism, are blamed as aggressors for retaliation, so too Clinton was blamed for being "partisan" after he was dragged through the mud for every idiot possible thing that he maybe kinda shoulda woulda coulda did. And so in 2000 the country, which was unified in a desire for a centrist (like Clinton), was persuaded to believe that the victim of the partisan assaults (Gore) was the cause... while a mop-topped 'outside the beltway' Gucci-cowboy dunce would be a 'unfyiter not a divdinger.'

The politics of radical division was then AGGRESSIVELY pursued by Karl Christian because he knew (I think) that the "Centrist" mantle could easily be adopted by the Democrats as well as the Republicans. It was 50-50. So Karl needed an edge - the 1% or 2% that is all that will matter in a tight, close race. Karl then pumped up his rabid fringe to show up and vote (while also preventing likely Democrats from getting to the polls and forcing the Justice department to investigate talented Democratic rivals; cf. the Attorney Scandal).

Karl Christian was a success in 2004, but the price is being paid in 2008: the fringe now dominates the Republicans. Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are the spokesmen and any deviation from their venomous blather will cost a GOP hopeful in the primaries. You need to be a jingoistic soldier for Christ or you're not a proper Republican.

Note, the fringe-voter imbalance that skews the Primaries are also reflected in any of the polls taken before the primaries - because most people don't pay attention to the race until it becomes "necessary" - which for some is right before the primary, or possibly post-Labor Day 2008.

I will continue this analysis for each party in the next few posts.

Update: Woops, I forgot the most important lesson from 1976 and that is 1980. That no matter how scandal ridden the GOP was post-Watergate, the almost complete idiocy of Carter made it possible for an even more right wing Republican to win just FOUR YEARS after the population "threw the bums out." And Reagan was so popular that he even got his nebbish Vice President to win in '88. What I would suggest, then, for Republicans is to pull a 1964 - choose an upright and outstanding candidate who can never ever win the general election but will make the GOP look good after 8 years of idiocy, and then run the A-list in 2012 so to pull of a 1980. The Democrats can help the GOP by having an idiot win in '08...

{2009 Update: moving gif from here.}

Ann Coulter - Not Good for the Jews

Holy freakin' cow. See this transcript (originally from Media Matters) from Monday night of an interview between Ann Coulter and Donnny Deutsch (a Hebrew) on CNBC

DEUTSCH: Christian -- so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

DEUTSCH: So I should not be a Jew, I should be a Christian, and this would be a better place?

COULTER: Well, you could be a practicing Jew, but you're not.

DEUTSCH: I actually am. That's not true. I really am. But -- so we would be better if we were - if people -- if there were no Jews, no Buddhists --

COULTER: Whenever I'm harangued by --

DEUTSCH: -- in this country? You can't believe that.

COULTER: -- you know, liberals on diversity --

DEUTSCH: Here you go again.

COULTER: No, it's true. I give all of these speeches at megachurches across America, and the one thing that's really striking about it is how utterly, completely diverse they are, and completely unself-consciously. You walk past a mixed-race couple in New York, and it's like they have a chip on their shoulder. They're just waiting for somebody to say something, as if anybody would. And --

DEUTSCH: I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that at all. Maybe you have the chip looking at them. I see a lot of interracial couples, and I don't see any more or less chips there either way. That's erroneous.

COULTER: No. In fact, there was an entire Seinfeld episode about Elaine and her boyfriend dating because they wanted to be a mixed-race couple, so you're lying.

DEUTSCH: Oh, because of some Seinfeld episode? OK.

COULTER: But yeah, I think that's reflective of what's going on in the culture, but it is completely striking that at these huge megachurches -- the idea that, you know, the more Christian you are, the less tolerant you would be is preposterous.

DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not -- we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or --

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly -- you're too educated, you can't -- you're like my friend in --

COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

DEUTSCH: No, no, no, but I mean --

COULTER: We have the fast-track program.

DEUTSCH: Why don't I put you with the head of Iran? I mean, come on. You can't believe that.

COULTER: The head of Iran is not a Christian.

DEUTSCH: No, but in fact, "Let's wipe Israel" --

COULTER: I don't know if you've been paying attention.

DEUTSCH: "Let's wipe Israel off the earth." I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think -- we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners --

DEUTSCH: In my old days, I would have argued -- when you say something absurd like that, there's no --

COULTER: What's absurd?

DEUTSCH: Jews are going to be perfected. I'm going to go off and try to perfect myself --

COULTER: Well, that's what the New Testament says.

DEUTSCH: Ann Coulter, author of If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, and if Ann Coulter had any brains, she would not say Jews need to be perfected. I'm offended by that personally. And we'll have more Big Idea when we come back.

[...]

DEUTSCH: Welcome back to The Big Idea. During the break, Ann said she wanted to explain her last comment. So I'm going to give her a chance. So you don't think that was offensive?

COULTER: No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to, you know, live up to all the laws. What Christians believe -- this is just a statement of what the New Testament is -- is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament.

DEUTSCH: You said -- your exact words were, "Jews need to be perfected." Those are the words out of your mouth.

COULTER: No, I'm saying that's what a Christian is.

DEUTSCH: But that's what you said -- don't you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic --

COULTER: No!

DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You're an educated woman. How do you not see that?

COULTER: That isn't hateful at all.

DEUTSCH: But that's even a scarier thought.

To sum up: Coulter: "we just want Jews to be perfected." There's not much to add to this except to remind everyone that she is basically the face of the Republican Party. The GOP, according to her, stands for being against Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, and now non-Christians. Yeah, we knew this to be the case but not actually SPOKEN ALOUD.

{2009 Update: Pic from here.}

British Holocaust Education Hoax

I've already received from a few people this news story from the British "Daily Mail":

Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims

By LAURA CLARK

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

Yet, despite coming from the (never incorrect) Internet, I had the sneaking suspicion that this was a hoax.

First off, this sounds impossible in the real world but totally plausible to the deranged black-white extremism of bigots and/or tabloid readers. E.g. "Bill Clinton impregnates Panda!" Me: 'Impossible'; Tabloid/Bigot: 'Well of course he did, the randy bastige!'

The bigots somehow think that Muslims deny the Holocaust as a matter of faith. They don't; it's a socialization problem not something in the religion and only a right-wing-wacko would think the leftist wackos would be so self-sacrifically stupid to legislate Muslim hatred. This is Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Ann Coulter country. Stupid on as many levels as stupidity can be.

Second of all, I hadn't heard of this earth shattering news from any of the daily papers I read - mainstream Israeli and US stuff - who would pick up this atrocity rather quickly.

Third of all, after I searched for the original piece online, I saw that the article was dated "1/4/07"

Fourth, I search for the news story in a quick google-news search: nothing. Grand google search: only right wing wacko blogs.

Fifth (and what I should have done at the beginning): I went to the ADL website. Where they say this:

False E-Mail Claims UK Has Ended Holocaust Education

Friday, April 13, 2007

A much circulated e-mail claims that the United Kingdom has 'removed the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offended' the Moslem population.' There is no truth to this claim. Holocaust education is mandatory in British schools and continues to be part of the national curriculum.

Thank you [deep bow], thank you.

Kurt Vonnegut & Don Imus

Well Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at 84. This happened the same day that Don Imus was fired by MSNBC (and suspended by CBS) for saying nasty stuff.

The contrast between these two is instructive. Vonnegut was (until yesterday) the most important living American writer - because he was imaginative, knew how to write true satire, and generally he knew right from wrong. He was often compared to Mark Twain - and that's a fine comparison because the two were fine-thinking humorists. As such, even though I often disagreed with Vonnegut's politics, he was a hero to those of us who try to see the world realistically and communicate that realia to others. He was successful while most of us aren't. Hence, a hero.

Seeing Vonnegut a few months ago on The Daily Show was a defining nexus of this moment in time's highest culture. It was like witnessing Einstein meeting Freud (which never happened) or Twain meeting Churchill (which did). True, Jon Stewart and Kurt Vonnegut aren't at the stature of the above four, but we take what we can get.

Then there's Don Imus. I have not listened to the show for any decent length. I first heard of him from a relative, back in the late 80s, who liked the show because Imus told sick, racist jokes. Since that description, I have steered away from anything to do with him. Which was why I was so surprised a couple of years ago when I heard that he was a powerful interviewer of the powerful political elite. Huh? The racist-joke slimeball interviews presidential candidates and NYTimes reporters?!

Naturally, I am happy that Imus has finally been hoisted by his own petard. But the more important question is why he had been able to continue for so very long? Related to that question is: why did this obviously noxious and racist bonehead get caught LAST WEEK for what he has been doing for years?

The same holds true for Ann Coulter. She has been saying unconscionable things for years. Yet she gets smacked down for calling Jon Edwards a bad word. Huh? Especially since, if you've seen the footage, she actually did not call Edwards the fg-word. It was actually a botched joke. [Which, when it's as obvious as it has been in the case of Kerry and Coulter is a valid defense; it also applies to a recent flap over Garrison Keillor and can even apply to Imus's last straw.]

Why does it take so long to catch on to the vile nature of people like Imus and Coulter and why does the tide turn, often, on a small action and not on a grand error?

The same is holding true for the current government, by the way. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc were obviously criminal incompetents from day one. Yet America only figured this out around September 2006. Not after Katrina, not after no WMD, not after the economic policies written by Daddy Warbucks. It was before the Foley scandal, too. It just kinda happened. And the big revulsion - the one that should be in place now - has yet to happen. What I mean is that just as Imus and Coulter are now exposed for being the kind of people I knew they were years ago, so too Bush & Cheney will be exposed... it's this freakish new law of perception... but I don't know how or when it happens.

It does fall under the Tipping Point kind of dynamics, for sure. It's frustrating to me because until the point tips, the slimeball in question is given honor and access. Imus and Coulter were given respect, Bush and Cheney still are, yet when the point tips people will see them and revile them just as I see them and revile them now. Yet my revulsion, before the point tips, is heretical and unacceptable.

This is why it's an irony that Vonnegut dies the day a slimeball is unfrocked. Because Vonnegut saw the truth and was able to tell people about it. Yet his books were often and still are banned and reviled. While people like Imus walked free, Vonnegut's books were even burned. But I, like Twain and Vonnegut, can look at these ironies, inconsistencies and infuriations and find solace in the attempt to tell the truth of it all.

Lieberman & TPM, Round II

After sending my analysis of the political ire surrouding the Lieberman-Lamont race, I sent another email (which will never see the light of day) to the TPM about the antagonism toward Lieberman from the hard-left:

Hello Dr. Josh,

I want to clarify one point about anti-Lieberman "anti-Semitism." It is clear nonsense to say that the opposition to Joe is because he's Jewish. I mean, nobody is cursing out Russ Feingold the way they do Lieberman.

What's working against Lieberman is not that he's Jewish but that he is *openly religious.*

And not just religious, but it is in a *traditional* movement (the Jewish equivalent to Baptists, maybe). Open religious values are considered dangerous and suspect by the Liberal wing of the Democrats. Religion is clearly the motivation against abortion and it's assumed to be the source against women's-rights, gay-rights, etc. And especially under the presidency of Deacon Bush, the GOP has become identified as the religious party. All this plays into the suspicion against Lieberman.

Ironically, those who are not members of an organized religion can still be as wild-eyed crazy about their beliefs as the thumpingest of the holy-rollers. Just replace the word "religion" with "ideology" and the hard-Left (especially the Naderite purists) are as intense as the Christianists.

The hard-left Democrats do not want to have openly religious politicians - look what happened to Barack Obama recently. I don’t believe that hard-left hates religion (that's a Coulter screed), but I do think orthodox religion is not understood by the non-religious (and vice-versa), and considering that so much evil to groups and individuals is committed in the name of religion, it's not hard to see why there's a stigma.

But just as there is an uneasy alliance in the GOP between the cultural conservatives/Christian right and the libertarian anti-government types, there's this fragmentation among Democrats between the Ideological Liberal and the wing and the Disempowered Core (what I described in my previous email as the blue-collar, non-white, female majority of America). The Disempowered Core is defined not as much by ideology but by the desire to get conservatives out of power. And the DC does not fear religious politicians like the hard-left does.

One aspect of the Democrat platform is, or should be, a definite separation between Church & State; but the establishment clause cuts both ways - most Americans feel there's a legitimate place for religion in the public sphere.

As I said in my last email, "Democrat" does not mean "Liberal" and to succumb to another ideology of the hard-left is foolish for us as a party. And I want us to win in 2006, impeach the running dogs in the White House, and start repairing the world.

How the Lieberman stuff fits into the venom against Israel is another essay entirely (oh, but it does fit in).

Thanks again
JC

P.S. The anti-religious attack, in my anthropological opinion, is revealed by the code words of "smug," "sanctimonious," or "Holy Joe." A good example of these smears can be seen in Hendrik Hertzberg's New Yorker piece. One crazy example is where HH makes a moral equivalency between Clinton's adultery and Lieberman's divorce, stating that Lieberman: "had the gall to cite differing 'levels of religious observance' as the only specific reason he was willing to give for the divorce." Gall?! Whoa. Only someone who discounts the concept of differing levels of religious observance could make such a claim. But that explains why Hertzberg was full of such bile against Lieberman.