Charlie Crist for Senate

Evidently it's going to happen. This might well wind up being a win-win for Democrats--getting a more moderate Republican Senator from Florida (who happens to be good on the environment, non-Hooverite on economics and principled with respect to voting rights) while increasing the likelihood of winning the governor's mansion as well. Ought to be interesting...

Torture and Terror

E.D. Kain offers a key insight into the torture debate:

Torture is intended to utterly break down a human being, to strip away their humanity and self-determination, to make them utterly and completely powerless. That is a psychological state, and thus the violence of the act is in a sense peripheral. That is why physical and psychological torture need to be viewed as the same thing - neither better or worse than the other.

Terror operates similarly. Terrorists attempt to kill as many people as possible but only because higher death tolls create more fear, more panic, and ultimately more reaction than smaller death tolls. Again, the violence of the act is secondary to its psychological end. Ironically, terror seems to have been far more effective than torture in achieving its goals. Perhaps this is because in the end torture is ultimately only good for the same thing terror is - to inspire fear and loathing, not “useful intelligence.” Maybe this is why a “reign of terror” so often describes totalitarian leaders who brutally torture their own populaces rather than the actions of terrorist organizations.

Torture is terror.

Yes, it is. In a war, one must always struggle to avoid becoming the thing against which one is fighting. I remember in the film Training Day Denzel Washington's character said something along the lines of "only a wolf could catch a wolf", which meant that you could only defeat evil by essentially giving into it. And there's no doubt that situations like this will require compromises to be undertaken, difficult choices to be made, etc. The danger is always in losing sight of what we are fighting to protect, as Dick Cheney obviously did.

The temptation of torture is actually pretty simple to understand: it's easy. Easy to do, easier to order. Not easy to live with, as it turns out. Savagery, it turns out, is pretty easy. Civilization is much more difficult, and it entails restraining some of the darker human impulses in the service of lifting humanity out of the primordial ooze. It's easy to say that it's just too difficult and do whatever you want, but that approach (as we have seen) leads invariably to chaos and madness. That's why torture isn't a show of strength against terror, but a pathetic act of desperation that demeans everyone involved without too much in terms of a benefit.

And why on Earth Dick Cheney would think he's an appealing messenger for this kind of message is beyond me. My guess is that he's in denial on a great many things.

Finding the next Reagan (or not)

The GOP is well-known for its antipathy for Hollywood--except when the Hollywood denizen in question is right-leaning:

One Republican I know suggested...that actor Gary Sinise might be our savior. According to news reports, he’s part of an underground group of conservatives in Hollywood—an act of bravery in itself. His stated belief in American exceptionalism might end up being a powerful contrast to Obama’s “American apologist” mantra.

So what the GOP needs is...another actor-politician? I'm not convinced that actors generally make good politicians--all the money in the world hasn't made Warren Beatty or Rob Reiner even close to plausible candidates for public office here in California. It's true that Arnold Schwarzenegger managed to get elected governor here, but considering that the entire state (save for Maria Shriver and his kids) loathe him virulently I wouldn't say that he's a successful test case). Granted, a lot of that has to do with California being a big real estate collapse state, but it also has much to do with budget fights and his complete lack of connections with his party's legislative delegation. In any event, I wouldn't call Arnie a success, exactly, and the jury's literally still out on Al Franken, though it can work, as Ronald Reagan was obviously a pretty effective politician.

This just makes me wonder the extent to which the right is interested not only in finding candidates who share Reagan's views, but also someone who shares Reagan's background. I actually do think that this is largely on the mark. This supposed Reaganism was supposedly the impetus behind Fred Thompson's fizzled nomination, as well as the only plausible reason for the push for Mel Gibson to enter politics (which has admittedly cooled recently). I'm not against actors being political, though I can't help but feel that this renders GOP attacks on Hollywood more than a little hollow. "Hollywood is a destabilizing force on our culture and its values are alien and hedonistic, except for the ones that agree with us" is not exactly the sort of thing to raise folks' hackles in Middle America.

Because, with all the problems in the world, mustard is the most pressing

David Frum tackles the inanity of Dijongate:

A 2000 survey of members of Congress by the National Hot Dog Council found that 73% of Republican lawmakers preferred mustard to ketchup, as opposed to 47% of Democratic lawmakers.

I guess I really am a Republican.

Seriously, though, I wonder what it is about Barack Obama that turns everyone that opposes him absolutely insane. Because it invariably happens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain--people both noted for sobriety and sanity before going against Obama--turned into complete basketcases once having to go up against the guy. Hillary seems to have shaped up well enough, but I guess the sheer extent of Obama's cool is daunting--the dude simply will not be rattled, he's charismatic, with an innate sense of the image he projects to the world. I get the sense that this comes from a deep well of self-knowledge and self-awareness, something that our previous president decidedly didn't have--in fact, aside from Reagan, I don't think too many modern presidents have had that sort of self-knowledge or inner strength. Maybe that's what fucked up both of their opponents so good.

In any event, the punk rockification of conservatism is nearly complete. I posited this theory some time back, but the idea is this: Johnny Rotten decided that rock 'n roll needed to be put out of its misery and set out to do that by upping the ante and creating music that was so uncompromising that anything less uncompromising would be considered selling out, but going further than Rotten would be too uncommercial. I don't know that it worked--in the end, it was rap and R&B that killed rock--but a similar dynamic is shaping up with respect to conservatives, albeit unintentional, in which shouting outlandish craziness is necessary to be heard above the din of Obama hatred, but said shouting merely pulls conservatism more outside the mainstream as others need to top each other. It truly is a vicious cycle. And it's not going to last forever--in fact, there's every indication that it's being ignored.

You have your god, and I have mine

Jon Chait illustrates the difference between Reagan worship and Kennedy worship here. Money quote:

The Democratic obsession with the Kennedys is/was primarily stylistic. It recurs whenever a young, stylish presidential candidate makes people feel inspired. It is not, and really never has been, common for Democrats to argue that a certain course of action is wise simply because a Kennedy once advocated it...

When conservatives debate the Reagan legacy, it is not to dispute its merits but to lay competing claims to its mantle. Witness this year's intraconservative debate over expanding trade with China. Proponents of permanent normal trading relations pointed to Reagan's support for free trade; opponents invoked his anti-communism. Had someone dug up a forgotten diary entry laying out Reagan's position for such a future contingency, it might have settled the argument then and there. The premise underlying such debates was explicated by Reagan hagiographer Dinesh D'Souza, who wrote that "the right simply needs to approach public policy questions by asking: What would Reagan have done?"

And thank God that Democrats don't actually try to implement Kennedy's ideas--from Cuba to Berlin, no man brought us to the brink of nuclear war so often. The truth is that Kennedy is mostly a symbol for progressives of hope and optimism. In reality, he was an average to above-average president, certainly not one of the greats, though he certainly had his successes. JFK wasn't especially progressive, truth be told, but I have heard the argument from some Republicans that JFK would be a Republican if he were alive today, which is absurd, unless offering tax cuts and being hawkish is all that being a Republican is these days...wait, I take it back.

So, liberal worship of Kennedy doesn't really make much sense as a matter of policy. He wasn't an advocate of what Democrats want these days. But the Reagan influence in the GOP seems largely self-serving to the politicians who invoke him for their own reasons but ignore him for the ones where they don't match up. The surreal moment during the Republican debates last year was when one of the hopefuls (I forget which) said that he knew that Reagan had signed the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty bill, but that if Reagan were alive today he'd be anti-immigration. Actually, one sees that quite a bit, especially in foreign policy. Reagan stood tall, and so should we. In reality, of course, Reagan pulled the troops out of Lebanon after our barracks were bombed there, and engaged in aggressive diplomacy with the Soviets. Both were, to my way of thinking, good moves. But that's not what the neocons want to remember. Basically, Reagan has become all things to all conservatives--everyone from Paulites to Huckabeans claims him as their own, interpretations differ and facts are ignored.

Fundamentally, this strikes me as very, very weird. I mean, I think Franklin Roosevelt was a pretty good president, one of the best in fact, but I would be extremely unimpressed if a politician were to say that we should have strict price controls because, "That's what F.D.R. did", even more so if they were advocating something that Roosevelt never actually advocated, like trade barriers. I guess I take an evenhanded approach to viewing Franklin Roosevelt--his heart was always in the right place, and his vision proved to be good, but he made lots of mistakes during his time in office. He did, of course, learn from them and kept trying new things if something failed, but he was a human being who wasn't perfect. I generally think that Reagan is overrated and wasn't a terribly great president--he wasn't a great manager and tolerated an awful lot of corruption in his higher ranks--but he was pretty good on things like foreign policy. But even if I were a conservative I would be forced to admit that he made mistakes--Iran-Contra comes to mind--and that since he wasn't actually Jesus it's probably not a good idea to act as though he was. Then again, I tend to think there's a strange sort of cult of popularity that takes root among conservatives that doesn't really happen with liberals--Barack Obama being something of an exception that proves the rule--it was so noteworthy because it almost never happens. It certainly didn't with Bill Clinton or John Kerry.

Specter says he can't be counted on for procedural votes

I must say that I don't understand Specter's strategy here. He's not really giving Democrats much reason to support him, aside from that he can win (and since Tom Ridge isn't in the game anymore, I doubt that he's the only one who can). Specter needs the Dems way more than they need him. Someone has surrendered their senses to their egotism. Joe Sestak 2010!

Obligatory Star Trek post (as I am, indeed, a nerd)

In honor of the release of the new Star Trek movie, Rotten Tomatoes has listed the Star Trek movies in order of their critical reputation. First Contact is, appropriately, first:

A sequel that both paid tribute to longstanding Trek traditions (TNG vet Jonathan Frakes directed, proving Leonard Nimoy wasn't the only member of the Enterprise crew who could successfully pull double duty) and broke them (Paramount ended decades of parsimony by breaking out $47 million for the budget), First Contact earned the praise of critics like Time's Richard Corliss, who wrote that "it stands proud and apart, accessible even to the Trek-deficient" before decreeing that "this old Star, it seems, has a lot of life in it."

I remember when First Contact came out in 1996. I was quite young and still in my intense Star Trek nerd phase. I was really excited about the movie, and wow, did First Contact deliver the goods. This was long before I became more discriminating and realized that quite a few of the movies sucked. I do still have more affection for The Final Frontier--perhaps more than I should. But to a nerdy middle-schooler, it was manna from heaven. And, unlike a lot of the other stuff I was watching during those days, it actually holds up pretty well today.

One of the things that I liked about The Next Generation was how sparingly the Borg were used...there was usually about one Borg episode per season. By Voyager every episode was a Borg episode as the franchise started to wear thin on ideas and stick with the formula, but that hadn't happened by the time First Contact came out. They were still relatively novel and awesome. And while the movie had the possibility of descending into decidedly non-awesome territory, everything was assuredly and competently handled. The best Star Trek movies are the ones that transcend the series and First Contact certainly does that, and while there is some suspension of disbelief required (as with most all films), it's a pretty exciting ride. Plus, it positively courses with energy, as opposed to its flanking films that tend to be a little less than alive.

Generally speaking, the Star Trek movies aren't great cinema. The shows tend to be better--The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine in particular both represented interesting paces forward for the franchise, and both were entertaining and had their rewards. It is interesting that Star Trek really seemed to crest in the early 1990s--between First Contact, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine there was quite a bit of it around, and it was generally good. It's interesting how so many people who are almost exactly my age tend to be Trekkies, but the percentage goes down significantly once you get a little older or a little younger (I'd imagine it goes up if you get a lot older, but anyway). People like to point out the diferences between generations but there are, of course, intragenerational wrinkles like this too. I remember when I was tutoring freshman comp sci students and I made some sort of reference to Cheers (another time I did it with Full House) and I got blank stares. In high school I'd be able to make a roomfull of students laugh uproariously easily, though in college it was a little harder--different frames of reference, even down to the individual year, since not everybody was exactly my age. Someone a year younger than me wouldn't even remember the M.C. Hammer craze--I only barely do, as I caught the tail end of it.

So, anyway, the new Star Trek movie is good according to reviews, though it sounds like they went for more of a generic actioner. Very well. I figured they'd have to do a crowd pleaser to revive the thing, and I suspect that this movie will do some very good business, which might lead to another movie? Another show? I suppose we'll see. At least it looks like they did right by their source material instead of Lucasing it up, if you know what I mean.

The right and hypocrisy

Gherald makes an important point:

There are two mutually-exclusive possibilities. Either:

1) Republicans did govern conservatively, and their genuine conservative solutions failed.
2) Republicans stopped governing conservatively ("lost their way"), and genuine conservative economic principles haven't been operative for the last decade.

He adds the necessary caveat:

Admittedly, this is a little too neat. Perhaps half their ideas have been a failure, and the other half have were hypocritically untested, or some other proportion.

I'll admit that the notion of conservatism as fiscal austerity--let's just say the domestic/discretionary spending aspects of Goldwaterism--were not operative during the Bush years. Liberals hate those ideas but nobody that I know of is really blaming these ideas for the collapse. However, the deregulation aspects of conservatism, going back to Goldwaterism, have definitely and predictably failed us. Such ideas emanate from the notion that capitalism is, in some way, an extension of nature and therefore self-correcting. Sometimes it does this, but capitalism isn't natural--it's a system we've constructed based on assumptions and principles (such as the rational economic actor model) that don't form a completely perfect system, but for all intents and purposes, it's good enough most of the time. Herb Simon proved this in the 1970s and got a Nobel for his work. Capitalism is the ultimate satisficing system, and as it was created by humans it will inevitably have flaws, since we're all flawed people. I'm ambivalent toward capitalism in general, but I appreciate that it produces efficient outcomes and with some government intervention it can produce broadly shared prosperity. The same cannot be said of agrarianism, mercantilism, or communism, so I guess that means that I'm a capitalist by default.

The hypocrisy on the right, as I see it, is mostly limited to the following groups (okay, that's too broad, so let's limit this to economics):

1. People who give earnest pleas about how deficit spending is "destroying our children's future" (what sort of future will they have if there's a multiyear depression that destroys the economy?) while never having raised a peep during the enormous deficits Bush spent during a time of relative peace and prosperity. Yes, that $1 trillion deficit was Bush's TARP program, which had nothing to do whatsoever with Obama. Bush could easily have balanced the budget at any number of points during his term, but he didn't. It would have meant less gaudy tax cuts for the rich, or actually asserting a firm hand on pork barrel spending with Congress. Bush did neither.
   
   
2. People who insisted that we should let the banks do whatever they wanted, free-market, laissez-faire and then started insisting that we bail their asses out when things inevitably went wrong. Larry Kudlow comes to mind for this category. To be fair, most Republicans in Congress opposed the bailouts. This is, at least, a consistent position. But a lot of them didn't and never really gave an accounting for why they acted as they did, aside from Alan Greenspan.

These people should have scorn heaped upon them. Of course, there are many other examples of this on the right--for example, how we went into Iraq in part because of Hussein's torturing and then became arch practitioners of torture ourselves. And there's clearly hypocrisy in terms of how Palin's daughter was treated by the same right that called Dina Lohan's youngest daughter a slut and a whore for doing the same damn thing. Oh, I could go on and on. But in terms of the economic element that Gherald is talking about, that's how I see it.

Obama words

A cool comparison of how often certain words are used to describe Obama by the public, and how they've changed since September. I remember they did this with Bush, and the top two were, if I recall, "idiot" and "incompetent". Obama does just a bit better here.

Grover Norquist does think his life's work is important

My man Grover spits it out old school. You'll never guess the example he uses to show why Americans, contrary to objective measures like opinion polls, aren't too thrilled with their taxes:

Well, we just had 600,000 people in the streets protesting big government, inflation, and the promise of higher taxes. You could not get 600,000 people to do that after four months of Jimmy Carter. You could not get them to do that after four months of Bill Clinton.

You could get people to protest about illegal immigration or the Iraq War in much greater numbers, but that's beside the point.

The right has decided to use the tea parties as proof that there is grassroots opposition to every element of Barack Obama's agenda. There isn't, of course. Obama is still broadly popular, as are his policies. I suspect, though, that movement conservatives subsidized those events largely so that they'd have a comeback to, "What do you have to say about polling that says that President Obama's policies are popular?" Protests are supposed to move the debate forward by influencing public opinion and giving unknown causes sympathetic faces. It seems that all the tea parties did was to give Republican officials another talking point. In other words, it's just more spin to avoid accountability. And since there was no discernable agenda to these rallies--some people didn't like current tax rates, others didn't want higher future tax rates, some people didn't like brown people, others just didn't like Obama in particular--makes them these amorphous blobs that can be deployed for any rhetorical opportunity.

"So, Pat, what do you say to polls that show that President Obama's social security plan is popular?" "Well, Chris, there were over 600,000 people who took to the streets..."

"So, Newt, why do you think reorganizing the census bureau is a winning political issue?" "Well, Dan, there were lots of census signs at the tea parties..."

"Well, Billy Bob, why don't people like The Boxmasters?" "Joe Bob, we wanted to perform at those tea parties. It would have been an enormous crowd. Too bad." "What does that have to do with anything?" "I don't know what you mean."*

But it all gets better with this: "The left is always busy explaining that taxes don’t matter. It’s like the bad guy in the action movie telling the good guy, 'Put down the gun and we’ll talk.'" I'm not familiar with that kind of scene in "the action movie", so I'm assuming he means the scene where the bad guy is holding the little girl hostage and tells the good guy to put his gun down or the girl gets it in the face. The good guy puts the gone down, holds his hands up, and his partner shoots the bad guy in the back. This is all boilerplate nonsense, though evidently we learned that Grover Norquist has never actually seen an action movie--social butterfly that he is--and that he's likely only heard plot snippets here and there. But it does end with this gem: "When class enemies warn you off something, it’s for their benefit, not yours.”

Seriously, guy? Wait, I thought that only the Democrats engaged in class warfare? At least we now have an open declaration of the class conflict from a conservative--this class Cold War shit was getting old.

*Yes, that was an imaginary conversation between Billy Bob Thornton and Joe Bob Briggs. You know you wish that existed in real life.