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Thomas Edsall

Reading Thomas Edsall's op-pieces during his current tenure as a guest columnist at The New York Times is sort of  a tense experience for me.  The same kind of anxiety was provoked when I saw a Tennessee Williams play this summer in Williamstown, MA.  As the show begins everyone on stage has a perfect southern accent, but starting in the second act you're anxiously waiting for them to lose it and their true voice to emerge.

Edsall is still in his first act; and I can feel him striving to appear reasonable. But if he gets a permanent slot, how long before we discover that he's as much a wing-nut as  Safire, without even that hint of charm from being a word smith?

In today's piece he paints a picture of a Republican Party that should never have been allowed behind the wheel of a car.  It's a completely accurate and damning portrait that we mustn't forget when we need to define just who it is that we oppose.

The G.O.P. is the party of risk, aggression, military assertion and dominance - an approach that led to the implosion in Iraq and the Republican's defeat in November...

While inflicting destruction on the Iraqis, Bush multiplied America's enemies and endangered this nation's military, economic health and international stature. Courting risk without managing it, Bush repeatedly and remorselessly failed to accurately evaluate the consequences of his actions.

The embroilment in Iraq is not an aberration. It stems from core party principles equally evident on the domestic front. For a quarter-century, the Republican temper - its reckless drive to jettison the social safety net; its support of violence in law enforcement and in national defense; its advocacy of regressive taxation, environmental hazard and pro-business deregulation; its 'remoralizing' of the pursuit of wealth - has been judged by many voters as essential to America's position in the world,. producing more benefit than cost...

In November, voters concluded that the Bush administration had run one risk too many.

So let's hope that I'm wrong about this Edsall guy, and that  he's not actually the wolf in sheeps clothing.

 

Winning Tips

Yesterday AdNag was kind enough to consult with four consultants on how Giuliani can win the Republican Nomination in 2008. The shorter version?

Rudy, Start Lying Now.

If you want the full version, here you go.

Harridans Attack

"Henny Penny Harridan', today's piece by Maureen Dowd in the NY Times, is demonstrative of an unattractive little corner of Ms. Dowd's mind. Luckily the vast majority of the landscape of her brain is wondrous; it's only when she has to deal with women in power that the purple loose-strife and the fragmiaties become invasive.

Much of her piece today is correct. Sen. Clinton is in a difficult predicament in triangulating her position on the war in Iraq.  By why is it necessary to use words like "harridan", and "henny penny?"  Dowd asserts that the need for Rumsfeld to leave is obvious to all but W. and Cheney - so why compare Clinton's articulation of this fact to the "Queen of Hearts, delivering her climatic demand for his head."

The fact that Sen. Clinton's position on whether or not we should got to war in Iraq was the wrong one, does not make Rumsfeld's gross incompetence irrelevant. Clinton was right to insist on Rumsfeld's appearance before the committee, and she was right to lambaste him for his pathetic performance as Secretary of Defense. I have no problem with Dowd's delight in mocking Sen Clinton, even though she was more forceful than any other committee member in calling attention to the failures of this administration.

My problem is that Dowd chose a moment when Clinton was doing the right thing to make fun of her, thus taking the chance that the mockery of the person would be mixed up with the mocking of the person's position. Using sexist stereotypes only muddles the mix further.

Brooks Attacks Bush, again

While Maureen Dowd prepares for her trip to Stockholm where she'll collect her justly awarded Nobel Prize,we have to ask:  Isn't there a candidate for the prize in medicine who wants it badly enough to discover how to reverse the lobotomy that David Brooks received in his youth?

Since readers of the New York Times appear to be stuck with his idiocy until the paper is bankrupt or the Rapture arrives, we really need someone to do something.

Today, this ardent Bush supporter, M. David Brooks, wrote of his concern that:

• This country's educational system does not sufficiently use insights garnered by a European immigre,an Ivy League  Psychology Professor who studied learning and self control in 4 year olds. Brooks implies that tragically, the knowledge gained by this sort of research is valued by our Republican adminsitration, but rejected by teacher's unions. The studies were done at about the same time as Bush was an undergraduate at Yale, so we can sure that he is aware of them. Of course.
• The failure to integrate this knowledge into our educational system hinders our ability to engender greater levels of self control in more of our kids - which translates into better life outcomes.  What the test looked at was how long a 4 year old could refrain from eating an available marshmallow, knowing that by waiting a bit longer, he would get additional marshmallows. How long does anyone think that W. would have waited? The Study's findings? Those with less self control were more likely to be addicts and bullies and have poor impulse control. Addictions? Impulse Control?: How about the night he drunkenly smashed up the car and then offered to fight his father "mano a mano"? Bully? How about blowing up frogs?

  "'We were terrible to animals,' recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. 'Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,' Mr. Throckmorton said. 'Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'"

If the Times is going to persist in publishing Brooks, the least that they can do is to make some grants to some brain surgeons. Bush needs no more friends like Brooks.

P.S "Put firecrackers in the frogs"

DeLong Denies Truth.

No one could have expected that they would use planes to fly into buildings. No one could have expected the levees to break.... Right.

Here we go again.

The Op-Ed in yesterday's NY Times by Michael DeLong defending Rumsfeld argued that "The outcome and ramification of a war, however, are impossible to predict. Saddam Hussein had twice opened his jails, flooding the streets with criminals..... We did not expect" this development.

The larger "amnesty" and release of prisoners in Saddam's Iraq occurred on October 20, 2002 - five full months before we invaded the country. Even U.N. Resolution 1441, the supposed justification of our pre-emptive strike - was passed AFTER the release of the prisoners.

The only thing that is "impossible to predict" is how this administration and its supporters will rewrite history, and to lie about what transpired in Iraq, and how the main stream press is co-dependent.

Friedman Go Home!

I have often pointed out fallacies and flaws in op-ed pieces penned by John Tierney. I would be grossly remiss not to mention those times when he gets it right.

In yesterday's NY Times he contributed a piece called "Border of Insanity," in which he provided the transcript of Lou Dobbs' recent depiction of a visit he made to the border-proof North Korea. I didn't think it hilarious, but I do have to give Tierney credit for showing just how absurd are many of the anti-immigrant positions. It was well done.

Tierney is usually far to the right of my position on many issues, and it hurts to have to praise his article, and to condemn the one by Thomas Friedman today. For reasons absolutely beyond me, Friedman is often described as a liberal. But it is the pre-cosmetic-work Joe Klein kind of liberalism, and it doesn't represent me at all.

Pompous as always, Friedman voices his support for the great wonders good immigrants can offer us, and yet, at the same time, he sees the real need for strong borders. An amazing intellect. Oh yes, and the world is getting flatter. But it is still very,very complicated.

I do have two questions for Mr. Friedman:

1. Why does he select CNN to condemn as being a shameful demagogue? Did he not realize that FOX has been at least as bad? Michelle Malkin on O'Reilly knows that "the vast majority of mainstream Hispanic politicians believe that the American Southwest belongs to Mexico." (even O'Reilly was tempted her to question her on those "facts") John Gibson says it's all about "reconquista," while Brit Hume found the demonstrations in L.A. "a repellent spectacle." Dobbs at least was consistent in saying he didn't approve of the Mexican flag at the protest, but nor does he like Irish flags on St Patrick's day. Why is it that a Friedman will strongly condemn CNN, which admittedly has few redeeming features, but ignores FOX, which has none?
2. There are lots of plans out there that involve financial penalties for the immigrant. Friedman prefers the one presented by Sen. Specter, and it does seem less onerous than some of the others. Yet I have read nothing of the fines to be imposed on the illegal employer of that illegal immigrant.  Similarly, a lot of people want the immigrant to pay back taxes, which at their pay level mostly involves FICA taxes.  Who is calling for the illegal employer to pay his portion of FICA?

'Tis a sad, sad day for a good liberal when he has to pick the tyranny of a right-wing Tierney over the illusive freedom of an alledgedly left-leaning liberal like Friedman.

Dick Cheney: Ice Man

In today's Times, Maureen Dowd comments on Dick Cheney's travel requirements, as well as the popularity of college psych courses that try to teach people to be happier.  People can be happier if they "escape the culture of victimology... as well as drugs." She notes the work of some researchers who found that money can in fact buy happiness, and wonders "how much it will cost us to get rid of Cheney and end his trillion dollar war, because that would buy us happiness?"

Sadly, I think Cheney is a problem that no Harvard psychologist could cure.  He is constantly depressed, in spite of having taken more money than he probably could have dreamed of. His paranoid system of victimhood appears boundless. And although he may not do drugs, there's lots of evidence of alcohol, and I'm not only referring to a shooting incident in Texas. One of Mr Cheney's travel requirements is that every hotel room where he will spend the night be equipped with a full bucket of ice.

Tom Friedman vs. Reality

It's all well and good that Tom Friedman's planet is flat, but the one I live on is quite round.

In today's Op Ed at the NY Times, he describes his recent trip to Mumbai where he attended the yearly meeting of India's high tech association, Nasscom. He left the Oberoi (average room price US$249.) pretty early yesterday, and hopped into the waiting car, bid good morning to his driver, and quickly dialed home on his cell. The eleven and a half hour time difference made finding a time to talk with his wife and daughters back in the States a little tricky. Catching up on his kids' news, he was oblivious to the incredibly horrendous traffic, as well as the large dhobi ghat near the train station.  There are several of these scattered around town, and at this one there are about 200 families running their individual laundry businesses. Clothes are washed by hand, pounded on stones, rinsed, hung out to dry and then neatly ironed. These businesses are hereditary, and often customer and laundry relationships last for generations. It's an amazing site, and you can see the photo here.

Tom got onto the lush campus where the conference was being held and jumped right in. He learned that the education of too many Indian and Chinese students was tilted too heavily science and math, and speculated that "we're at the start of a global convergence in education: China and India will try to inspire more creativity in their students. America will get more rigorous in math and science.... It's a win-win."

You can see that the world is really getting flat as a pancake (more like a crepe actually). I'm convinced!

But try convincing the Dhobi and his children. Or the 40% of India that is illiterate. If Tom spends 11 days at the Oberoi, his hotel room alone will be greater than the per capita GDP in India. On his next trip from N.Y. to Beijing, Tom will spend 50% more on his business class American Airlines Flight than the per capita GDP in China.

In 2005 there were an estimated 2.4 million Africans flattened by Aids. They died of it.Yesterday 58 people were killed in Iraq. And of course, we are all waiting to hear whether or not our friends in Afghanistan hang a man for becoming a Christian.

 

During George "Not on My Watch" Bush's watch 400,000 are dead in Darfur. And it is estimated that 18,000 Americans died last year because they had no health insurance.

We knew that George Bush had neither interest in nor knowledge of any foreign cultures when we elected him. We knew that despite his "devotion" to Christ,he had only disdain for the poor and the sick.

But Tom Friedman is paid to be smart and to inform us of the world - supposedly the whole world. Not just the world which bemoans the lack of PhD candidates in the study of  Sanskrit in India, as his utterly useless column did today.

Brooks on Bush

When David Brooks of The N.Y. Times attacks W., you know something has happened. Just as Grover Norquist and WIlliam F. Buckley recently deserted Team Bush, Brooks has begun taking potshots at our great leader.

Today's piece purports to be about falling standards at elite colleges, but it's really a thinly veiled commentary on the ignorance of Bush.

Brooks lists courses that anyone who wants to be considered educated must take. Bush's behavior gives no hint that he ever learned any of the lessons Brooks considers essential.

One of his suggestions is that a student spend a year abroad. Bush certainly ranks as one of least well traveled Presidents ever inaugurated. A year abroad by the time you're 21? Bush may have spent two weeks abroad by the age of 50.

The requirement that Brooks lists first is that one study the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, whom he quotes as writing "The devout would learn that public piety corrupts private faith." Was there ever a President more public with his "piety" than W? Was there ever one more corrupt?

"Read Plato's "Gorgias" - insists Brooks. "You need it to understand the "superiority of philosophy (the quest for wisdom or truth) to rhetoric (the art of persuasion in the cause of victory)...rhetorical skills are dangerous, potentially soul-imperiling,gifts." Two Words: Karl Rove.

"Take statistics", "Take a course in neuroscience," "Take a course in ancient Greece," are more Brooks recommendations. Is there any reason to believe Bush absorbed one scintilla of knowledge from any study that he might have done in any such course? (Assuming he ever took one.)

To be fair Brooks also says that you should "learn a foreign language," and it seems that Bush can speak a form of Spanish. But still, we have to give Bush a failing grade on this instruction. According to Brooks the purpose of learning another's language  is for one to "annex a another culture and discover unseen sides to themselves." I doubt that Bush would be able to recognize a single side to himself, let alone plural sides.

His Op-Ed today is subtle, especially for the heavy hand of David Brooks, but undoubtedly an attack, and a fair one, on George W. Bush.

Tierney on Tyranny

In today's NYTimes, the (male) libertarian John Tierney discusses the study by two (male) sociologists that examins what "women" want.

In sum, Mr Tierney finds the Stockholm Syndrome still operative.