PyeW.

October 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Bush Administration, Iraq War, Movies, Presidents | Leave a Comment 

Professor Stone and his latest victim

In Oliver Stone’s “W.,” you can see George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) wipe himself after defecating. You see him eating constantly and showing hunks of food oozing between his teeth, spitting it at people as he talks, and nearly choking on a pretzel (true story). The constant sloppy drinking before he turns 40 goes without saying.

Stone and his writer mock Bush’s faith, suggesting that he embraced Christianity after losing his race for the House so he wouldn’t be “out-Texas’ed and out Christian’ed” again. They make up “Dallas”-like dialog between Bush and members of his family designed to show that he was jealous of his brother Jeb and obsessed with invading Iraq to show his father up as well as obtain his affection.

Everybody is a caricature except Laura ( Elizabeth Banks), the elder Bush (James Cromwell), and especially Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright), shown strenuously resisting the Iraq War. Along among Bush’s advisers — Rice, Rumsfeld, and Rove are carefully rendered in cardboard — Gen. Powell comes out of “W.” smelling like a member of Barack Obama’s cabinet.

And yet “W.” isn’t really about Bush at all. It’s about the subterranean vein of bloodthirsty imperialism Oliver Stone identifies as an integral part of the American character. In “JFK,” the darkness took the form of shadowy business interests whom Stone falsely said were behind the President’s assassination (in which Stone disgustingly accuses Lyndon Johnson of complicity). In “Nixon,” which didn’t contain a single completely honest moment, the evil gremlins provoked the invasion of Cambodia.

In “W.”, the third film in Stone’s paranoid trilogy, the evil finally has a face. Dark America is personified as Dick Cheney, self-proclaimed architect of a new empire of oil. During a Dr. Strangelove turn in the situation room, Cheney tells the President and his aides that since the U.S., with five percent of the world’s people, consumes a quarter of the world’s energy, the obvious solution is an invasion of Iraq as a prelude to conquering Iran and colonizing the Middle East. “Good meeting,” says Bush, who nonetheless is shown believing that there really are WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein’s fall will bring democracy to the region.

As it may yet do. When Stone was making the movie and planning an autumn release, Iraq was going so poorly that everyone assumed it would dominate the election. It hasn’t, both because of the economy and the success of Bush’s policy over the last year. The Vietnam-obsessed Stone assumed Iraq was going the same direction as South Vietnam and Cambodia. As of now, it isn’t. In this sense, W. looks smarter than “W.”

As for Stone, now that he’s made this mean, boring movie, 129 minutes of relentlessly detailed “Mother Jones” historical and policy analysis, maybe he’ll do us and especially history a favor and lay off the Presidents. After all, no one will want to see Obama going to the bathroom while talking to his wife. Instead, Stone should use his vast influence to get Richard J. Barnett’s early books back into print — the ones about how the United States started the Cold War instead of the Soviet Union — and finish out his career doing the work for which he was truly born: Teaching international relations at Sarah Lawrence.

TNN Weekly Weekend Reward

October 31, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Music, Weekly Weekend Reward | Leave a Comment 

This weekend’s reward is the Billboard  Number One hit single —”Live Your Life” with T.I. featuring Rihanna—- from the Number One hit album — T.I.’s Paper Trail.  The album debuted in the #1 spot and the single leapt from #80 to #1, replacing another song from the album,  ”Whatever You Like” — making  T.I. the first artist to replace himself at #1 in the last four years.

T.I. is an Atlanta-based rapper, writer, producer, actor, entrepreneur; he has currently facing a year in prison as a result of a federal firearms conviction.    Rihanna is a Barbadian model and singer.

By way of introduction, allow me to paraphrase Kathryn Murray’s words before she presented Buddy Holly and the Crickets to the viewers of The Arthur Murray Party:

And now we have some young singers who are creating a great deal of excitement in the Paramount Theater here in New York all across America.

Now if you haven’t heard of these young men people —T.I. and Rihanna— then you must be the wrong age because they’re rock and roll rap specialists.

Now no matter what u think of rock and roll rap, I think you have to keep a nice open mind about what the young people go for.

Otherwise the youngsters won’t feel that you understand them.

Now if we’re ready for our rock and roll rap specialists, we have Buddy Holly and The Crickets T.I. and Rihanna.

What you need to do is be thankful for the life that you got. 
You know what I’m sayin’. 
Stop lookin’ at what you ain’t got 
and start bein’ thankful for what you do got. 
Let’s give it to ‘em baby girl. 

You’re gonna be a shining star 
With fancy clothes and fancy ca-ars 
And then you’ll see, you’re gonna go far 
‘Cause everyone knows who you a-are 

So live your life (ay), ay ay ay 
Instead of chasing that paper 
Just live your life (oh), ay ay ay 
Ain’t got no time for no haters 

Just live your life (ay), ay ay ay 
No telling where it’ll take ya 
Just live your life (oh), ay ay ay 
‘Cause I’m a paper chaser 

Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh) 
Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh) 

Never mind what haters say, ignore ‘em ’til they fade away 
Amazing they ungrateful after all the game I gave away 
Safe to say I paved the way for you cats to get paid today 
You’d still be wasting days away, now had I never saved the day 

Consider them my protégé, homage I think they should pay 
Instead of being gracious they violate in a major way 
I never been a hater still I love them in a crazy way 
Some say they sold yay and no they couldn’t get work on Labor day 

It ain’t that they black or white, it has an area the shade of grey 
I’m west side anyway, even if I left today and stayed away 
Some move away to make a way, not move away ’cause they afraid 
I brought back to the hood and all you ever did was take away 

I pray for patience but they make me want to melt their face away 
Like I once made them spray, now I could make ‘em put the K’s away 
Been thugging all my life, can’t say I don’t deserve to take a break 
You would rather see me catch a case and watch my future fade away 

You’re gonna be a shining star 
With fancy clothes and fancy ca-ars 
And then you’ll see, you’re gonna go far 
‘Cause everyone knows who you a-are 

So live your life (ay), ay ay ay 
Instead of chasing that paper 
Just live your life (oh), ay ay ay 
Ain’t got no time for no haters 

Just live your life (ay), ay ay ay 
No telling where it’ll take ya 
Just live your life (oh), ay ay ay 
‘Cause I’m a paper chaser 

Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh) 
Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh) 

I’m the opposite of moderate 
Immaculately polished with the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid 
Allergic to the counterfeit, impartial to the politics 
Articulate but still I’ll grab a nigga by the collar quick 

Whoever having problems with their record sales just holla T.I.P. 
If that don’t work and all else fails then turn around and follow T.I.P. 
I got love for the game but ay I’m not in love with all of it 
Could do without the fame and rappers nowadays are comedy 

The hooting and the hollering, back and forth with the arguing 
Where you from, who you know, what you make and what kind of car you in 
Seems as though you lost sight of what’s important when depositing 
Them checks into your bank account and you up out of poverty 

Your values is in disarray, prioritizing horribly 
Unhappy with the riches ’cause you piss poor morally 
Ignoring all prior advice and fore warning 
And we mighty full of ourselves all of a sudden, aren’t we? 

You’re gonna be a shining star 
With fancy clothes and fancy ca-ars 
And then you’ll see, you’re gonna go far 
‘Cause everyone knows who you a-are 

So live your life (ay), ay ay ay 
Instead of chasing that paper 
Just live your life (oh), ay ay ay 
Ain’t got no time for no haters 

Just live your life (ay), ay ay ay 
No telling where it’ll take ya 
Just live your life (oh), ay ay ay 
‘Cause I’m a paper chaser 

Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh) 
Just living my life (ay), my life (oh), my life (ay), my life (oh) 

 

Now I Understand…

October 31, 2008 by David Emig | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

You know, I try to learn something new every day. This morning while having breakfast, I learned something quite interesting that I thought I would share.

I was watching the ticker of Fox News. One of the items on the ticker was that U.S. Senator Ted Stevens doesn’t consider himself a convicted felon. Even after a jury of his peers (if that’s possible) found him guilty of seven felony counts of failing to report gifts on financial disclosure forms. That doesn’t matter to Senator Stevens though. He doesn’t consider himself guilty until the appellate process is complete.

I am sure for the thousands of people who have been found guilty of a felony, but haven’t been through the slow wheels of the appellate process; this is very good news. I guess they aren’t ‘convicted felons’ either. Under the Senator’s logic, I imagine that all of the murderers and others convicted of capital crimes wouldn’t consider themselves convicted felons either — since their appeals can run ten years or longer. That would cut down on the amount of convicted felons in prisons. They aren’t convicted felons!

Along the same lines, I learned another interesting fact a few days ago. While it is the law in most of the country that convicted felons cannot vote, there is nothing that says that convicted felons who happen to be U.S. Senators cannot vote in Congress. So that would mean that while the Senator from Alaska may not be able to vote for himself next week — he is nevertheless able to vote on the most important issues of the day in the United States Senate. You know, stuff like war and peace.

Seriously, the most important thing that I learned is another example of the senior senator’s arrogance. Richard Nixon had the courage to ‘impeach himself’ and give up the very thing he valued most. In sharp contrast, Ted Stevens wishes to ignore the verdict of a finder of fact and hold on until the very end.

However, I am hopeful that the Senator doesn’t do the right thing and resign. Let the people of Alaska do that for him. A Democrat needs the seat.

Link: FoxNews.com: “Stevens says he hasn’t yet been convicted“

It’s Never Dull

October 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Frost/Nixon | Leave a Comment 

This New York Times feature on the making of “Frost/Nixon” has a neat photo feature you can use to go back and forth between the actors and the real people.

Names Obama Doesn’t Want You To Know?

October 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Democratic Party, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

Sen. Obama refuses to release the names of over two million small donors, and even John Dickerson and Chris Wilson (two of the 50+ journalists at “Slate” who’ve already revealed they’re voting for Obama) say it’s bogus:

According to campaign officials, it would be too difficult and time-consuming to extract this information from its database.

So how come we were able to do it in a couple hours? Not literally—we don’t have access to the campaign’s list of donors—but we created a database of similar size and format in a Web-ready file and posted it online. (You can view a sample text version of it here. The full version is 824 MB.)

The Next Senator From Minnesota?

October 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

A Referendum on Economic Liberty?

October 31, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Economic issues, Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

E.J Dionne thinks so:

Yes, economic populism is thriving right now and if Obama wins, his election would not simply be a non-ideological verdict against the status quo. It would be a clear repudiation of conservative economic ideas and of McCain’s claim that a more-egalitarian approach to growth constitutes “socialism.” McCain’s attacks on Obama’s thinking have been so forceful and direct that they require this election to be seen as a referendum that will settle a long-running philosophical argument.

But wasn’t the issue of Hurricane Katrina supposed to culminate into a referendum on smaller government? Following the category four, the MSM and leftist punditry clamored that the same uncompassionate conservative ideology was responsible for the deaths of thousands of neglected victims. For instance, the Washington Post on the conservative position that Katrina was largely a self-inflicted wound of welfare state politics: 

To those who wonder why so many stayed behind when push came to water’s mighty shove here, those who were trapped have a simple explanation: Their nickels and dimes and dollar bills simply didn’t add up to stage a quick evacuation mission.

The popular left-wing website Alternet a year later:

Bush 43 governs under the considerable shadow of conservative icon Ronald Reagan, who famously said in his 2001 inauguration speech, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Bush 43’s inept embrace of Reagan’s maxim has resulted in the literally deadly combination of negligent government and record government debt. The negligence continues to hamper the effort to repair New Orleans and other Katrina-damaged communities.

Ultimately we never did see a permanent realignment to the left and the defeat of conservative ideology. Conversely, we saw individuals wholly embrace it. That’s why — without runoff — Louisiana voters elected Bobby Jindal as their governor to reign in ethics reform after generations of incessant spending and political graft.  And because middle class voters are fully aware of the fallacy of goo-goo government, they might just elect John McCain.

Brenda Starr, 2008 Edition

October 31, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, Internet, Media, News media | Leave a Comment 

Ana Marie Cox is a journalist in Washington who first gained notice in 2004 when Nick Denton, the Englishman who oversees the Gawker.com family of blogs, hired her to write the politically-themed Wonkette.com.  After two years offering her sassy style of reporting to innumerable readers online, she moved on to co-write Time.com’s “Swampland” blog.  This work was initially full-time but earlier this year Time recontracted with Cox on a strictly freelance basis, so she joined Maer Roshan’s magazine Radar as Washington correspondent.

Radar, a magazine founded in 2003 (with funding from friends and family of Roshan, formerly of Tina Brown’s Talk) died after two issues that year, was revived in 2005 with backing from Mort Zuckerman, died again after three issues, and, in 2007, was relaunched yet again with funding from Jesse Jackson’s son Yusef and (reportedly) supermarket mogul/Clinton crony Ron Burkle.  In this incarnation Radar lasted, very remarkably in an increasingly unfavorable climate for print media of any kind, for a year and a half as a bimonthly, although the magazine’s website attracted more comment than what appeared on paper.  Cox’s articles and posts at both the magazine and site kept her in the public eye; last week she appeared on Larry King Live.

And, last Friday, Radar abruptly gave up the ghost; its backers dismissed the staff and sold the name to American Media, publishers of the Star and various other magazines, which promptly remade the Radar.com site as an imitator of TMZ.com.  Cox, who had been planning an article for the magazine about the last days of Sen. John McCain’s campaign, was left with a wish to cover the story for whoever would buy such an article, but no way to pay her expenses and no time to pitch to an editor.

Presumably inspired by the example of Sen. Barack Obama’s and Sen. Howard Dean’s online fundraising, she hit upon the idea of appealing to her readers in cyberspace, via her personal blog (and its PayPal feature), to send her whatever they felt like contributing to help her cover the last of the campaign, specifying that her expenses would come to $1000 for each of four days and $1500 for Election Day.

Her appeal was posted on Saturday morning.  Within 24 hours she reported receiving $2000 in contributions, and by Tuesday morning she said she had gotten $7000, enough to secure a seat in Gov. Sarah Palin’s press section and go back on the road.  Today she is to board McCain’s plane and finish covering the race for the Washington Independent.

What do Cox’s readers who contributed receive in return? Well, for a $1000 contribution she promises a one-on-one dinner and in-depth postmortem of the campaign; for $500, a phone call from McCain HQ on election night; for $250, an MP3 of her asking a “senior McCain staffer” the question of one’s choice and the reply; and so on down to a thank-you email for a ten-dollar contribution.  (However, today she asked permission to add $10 contributors to her Facebook page instead of emailing them.)

Time will tell if other journalists, left out in the cold by abrupt magazine closures (and they’re going under left and right now), will attempt similar strategies to keep going.  But anyway, it’s another indication that media is entering a whole different era.

Wink, Wink

October 31, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

Team Sarah PAC responds to the Obama campaign’s charge of symbolic ineptitude:

“The Greatest President In The History Of Our Century”

October 31, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Election 2008, Nixonland Nitpicks, Presidents, Republican Party, Richard Nixon | 2 Comments 

Following a period in which some liberals claimed that Dubya’s misdeeds made them wish Richard Nixon were still in the White House, this year has seen the resurgence of the customary derogation of our 37th president.  For example, horror novelist Stephen King, speaking recently to Salon.com, remarked that his recent reading of Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland had brought to mind many parallels between RN’s 1968 campaign and Sen. John McCain’s current one.  I haven’t yet seen a post pointing out the ominous fact that Ohio, the home of Joe the Plumber, was also the place where RN saw the “Bring Us Together” sign that helped inspire the “Silent Majority” speech, but I feel reasonably sure some left-leaning blogger has drawn that connection.

The latest proof that RN can cause liberals to think and say the darndest things was manifested this week.  Rep. Don Young has been Alaska’s at-large congressman since 1973 when he was elected to fill the seat left vacant when Rep. Nick Begich disappeared in a plane over the state’s wilderness. (Begich’s son Mark is now challenging the embattled Sen. Ted Stevens.)  He is an unabashed apostle of the earmark, and strongly supported the ”Bridge To Nowhere.”  Although the Wall Street Journal reported last year that Young was under Federal investigation for bribery, he has been charged with no crime and, despite winning this year’s GOP primary by just 300 votes,appears fairly likely to achieve re-election.

This week, the Anchorage Daily News published an article on the reaction of various lawmakers to Stevens’ conviction for filing false financial disclosure forms.  Young unhestitatingly expressed his belief that the charges against his colleague were “trumped up” and continued:

I can remember Richard Nixon, you know, his years of service, what he’s done. And everybody was ridiculing him and he ended up being the greatest President in the history of our century.

This remark has gotten considerable response from bloggers, including Swing State Project’s flabbergasted amazement that Young could set RN “Above Kennedy? Above Eisenhower? Above Truman? Above (gasp)….Reagan?”  A number of other bloggers have cited other twentieth-century presidents in this context – Wilson, FDR, Johnson – and nearly all have mentioned the Gipper as well. Which goes to show that the surest way to get liberals to start speaking of Reagan’s virtues, instead of decrying Gov. Sarah Palin’s frequent references to him, is to say something nice about Nixon.

More Popular: Liberalism or Conservatism?

October 31, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Election 2008 | Leave a Comment 

John Podhoretz:

 

What happened with the Joe the Plumber story is that Obama has now been effectively outed as a liberal, not a moderate; and because liberalism is still less popular than conservatism, that’s not the best place for Obama to be.

On The Run Again In The Congo

October 31, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, International Affairs | Leave a Comment 

As we panic about every new predicton of a fractional reduction in sales of Christmas booty, we may pause for a thought about those who are truly bad off in our broken world and gain perspective and freedom from fear and find the heart to serve. The “Economist“:

[T]ens of thousands of Congolese [are] on the run, thirsty and hungry, caught between [Tutsi rebel leader Laurent] Nkunda’s forces and the demoralised and ill-disciplined Congolese government troops. Some were heading for Goma, others for the Virunga National Park. By some estimates, there are now 1m people displaced in the green hills and diminishing forests of North Kivu, a region in the east.

Charisma and Promises to Keep

October 31, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under American Politics, Bush Administration, Democratic Party, Economic issues, Election 2008, History, National Security, Presidents, Republican Party, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

I voted early this week – but just the once. We are being told that one of the unique things about the election this year is the fact that about one third of all ballots cast are via various forms of early voting. This is certainly unprecedented. The Commonwealth of Virginia, where I live in Fairfax County, requires someone desiring to vote early to affirm a reason for not being able to do so on Tuesday, November 4th. They range from being responsible for the care of another, to travel. It is a travel issue with us. My wife and I head to Ohio to watch all the fun there this Tuesday.

The trend toward such significant early voting is also uncharted territory for the integrity of elections themselves. It remains to be seen if this development will lead to greater voter confidence in the process, or further confusion, conflict, and potential destabilization. All indications are that early Democratic voters far outnumber Republicans. Part of this is due to a determined effort on the part of the Obama-Biden campaign to get out the early vote.

By definition, early voters are not undecided. We have not only decided, we have expressed that decision through the sanctity of the secret ballot. It follows, therefore, that those still undecided have not yet voted. Therefore, with more than 30 percent of decided voters already finished with the only poll that really matters, the portion of undecided voters may actually be statistically significant.

It also means that both campaigns still have an opportunity to win converts.

I suggest that one important question every voter – especially those yet undecided – should ask is: “Will John McCain or Barack Obama be better at keeping promises made during the campaign?” It has been a year of promises. “Ask not what your country can do for you – demand it!”

We have been promised tax cuts, spending cuts, new programs, war plans, and much more. Every American needs to remember that it is a very rare thing for a politician to keep every promise. Sometime next year, no matter who wins on Tuesday, our new president will have to face the American people with the news that it can’t all be done.

Sorry folks. Forget how we will be doing four years from now. How will the new occupant of the White House be doing in four months? Will Obama stay closer to campaign message or will McCain?

History tells us that voters do not always take unfulfilled promises in stride. George Herbert Walker Bush never recovered from the outcry after he broke his “read my lips” pledge and, in fact, raised taxes. Lyndon Johnson promised not to send American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. The Vietnam War broke him. They even came up with a name for the breaking of a presidential promise back then – “credibility gap.”

Mr. Johnson might have preferred the more benign: “I uttered a terminological inexactitude.”

The granddaddy of all promise breakers to become president was Franklyn Delano Roosevelt. When he ran against Herbert Hoover in 1932, much of his rhetoric and emphasis had to do with things that never actually happened in his administration. Just a few weeks before his election, he was calling government spending “reckless and extravagant.” He told Americans: “I regard reduction in federal spending as one of the most important issues of this campaign.” He also promised to “reduce the cost of current federal government operations by 25 percent.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

When FDR took office in March of 1933, he raced to the left and stayed there. He sold the people on it because circumstances had gotten worse. He was prepared to ask for broad “executive” powers to lead the nation out of the crisis. And he sacrificed his promises of fiscal responsibility on the altar of populism.

By doing so, he ensured that times would not get better. But he got away with it. The man who became president during our nation’s greatest economic crisis did not at all resemble the man who asked for votes in the prior election. Will the same thing happen if a man who talks about current problems as being the worst since The Great Depression is elected this time around?

Once elected, leaders tend to default to their real selves and comfort zones. There is a certain hubris, a “we won” or “it’s our turn” kind of spirit. It happens to Democrats and Republicans. Remember when George W. Bush spoke out against “nation building” in the 2000 campaign? How about his promise for “compassionate conservatism” and the disappearance of “partisanship” in Washington?

What does this all mean for us right now? Well, again – we must choose a person who can be trusted to keep as many of his promises as possible. We also need someone who, when having to make the tough choices about what promises to keep and the ones to discard during difficult times, will have the courage to resist the clamor from core constituencies.

Does anyone really believe that Barack Obama, when faced with a push-to-shove kind of choice, will opt to do anything that would risk his image as a populist hero of the downtrodden? He will move, with lightening-speed, to the left if given the chance.

He will be the kind of president Huey Long would have been, but instead of the Kingfish’s “Share the Wealth” mantra, it will be “Spread the Wealth.” And he will have another thing going for him that both FDR and Long had.

Barack’s got charisma. It is that magic something that gets people to want to believe on the way to believing. It is fascinating to watch, but whenever it has emerged in chaotic times, it has been ultimately ugly.

A discussion of charisma, as part of the study of sociology, was first introduced by Max Weber early in the 20th century. He identified it as “an extraordinary quality of a person, regardless of whether this quality is actual, alleged or presumed.” He indicated that it implied “a relationship between the great man and the followers.” In a charismatic environment, “whatever the leader says, whatever he asks, is right, even if it is self-contradictory. It is right, because the leader has said it.” The follower develops “a devotion born of distress and enthusiasm.”

He also suggested that charismatic leadership tends to rise up against the backdrop of a chaotic “social milieu.” In other words, bad times, confusing times, chaotic times are fertile moments for this kind of leadership.

During the Great Depression the nation was ripe for demagogues. They always turn up when leading cultural and economic indicators trail down. Huey Long was one such man. In his excellent book, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and The Great Depression, historian Alan Brinkley describes the man from Louisiana as someone “evoking an almost religious adulation from many of the poor and struggling.” He quotes one reporter at the time as saying: “They do not merely vote for him, they worship the ground he walks on. He is part of their religion.”

Of course, it remains to be seen what will happen, but if Barack Obama is elected and the economy has not improved by the time he takes the oath of office, watch for him to move left and stay there. He will keep the promises that tend to enhance his charismatic stature as a champion of the frustrated. He will sacrifice promises he made about tax cuts as irrelevant to the new reality he will inherit.

Mr. Obama’s meteoric rise to the threshold of political power should give Americans pause. A man who would likely not be able to get a security clearance if he tried to get a job with the CIA or FBI, may very well be elected president on Tuesday.

We live in “interesting times,” as Robert Kennedy used to say. But, of course, he was quoting an old Chinese curse.

Featured Articles — October 31, 2008

October 31, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes From Home and Abroad:

McCain for President, Part II By Charles Krauthammer
Last week I made the open-and-shut case for John McCain: In a dangerous world entering an era of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation, the choice between the most prepared foreign policy candidate in memory vs. a novice with zero experience and the wobbliest one-world instincts is not a close call.

Which Obama Would America Get? by Stuart Taylor Jr.
The Liberal Ideologue Could Be A Well-Meaning Failure; The Pragmatic Reformer Could Be A Great Leader.

A Message From The ‘Mainstream Media’ By Peter Robinson 
Hi. My name is Anonymous, and I’m a reporter in the mainstream media. Like a lot of my colleagues, I’m nervous.

Liberals and the Surge By Peter Wehner
In early January 2007, 71 percent of Americans said the Iraq war was going moderately badly to very badly. Indeed, the war had been unpopular for much of the previous years, at times deeply so. But by this past September, a nationwide Pew survey found “a striking rise in public optimism about the situation in Iraq.” According to the poll, 58 percent of Americans now believe the war in Iraq is going well or very well, and the same percentage now also say that the U.S. will definitely or probably succeed in Iraq.

America isn’t about to become liberal heaven By Gerard Baker
Yes, Americans will be voting for Obama and change. But they don’t want radicalism, just competence and decency.

Obama and the Runaway Train By Peggy Noonan
The race, the case, a hope for grace.

The End of Journalism By Victor Davis Hanson
Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place.

Bush’s booby traps for Obama By Rosa Brooks
The Bush administration is leaving behind foreign policy tripwires that could blow up on the next president.

If It Redistributes Like a Duck… By David Harsanyi
Barack Obama is going to fix the economy by “spreading the wealth around”?

My Room’s Full Of Gloom

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture, Music | Leave a Comment 

Just look over your shoulder — I’ll be there

The great Levi Stubbs, 72, lead singer of the Four Tops, died Oct. 17 in Detroit after a long illness. Here’s a good live version of their classic “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” which is consistently ranked as one of the greatest songs of all time. Listen to the superbly arranged and orchestrated studio version here. I first heard it in 1966 in the gym of Detroit’s Miller Junior High School. According to the Nov. 13 “Rolling Stone,” Holland-Dozier-Holland, songwriters who mass-produced hits for Motown, purposely wrote this melody at the top of Stubbs’s range so that he’d sound especially urgent.

The “Stone” obit had this detail:

Stubbs consistently rejected lucrative offers to leave the group. “I often heard people say, ‘Why doesn’t Levi sing by himself?” remembers [Eddie] Holland. “Levi was a loyalist who believed in sticking with the group he grew up with.” And even when he did take an outside gig — as when he voiced the plant Audrey II in the 1986 movie Little Shop Of Horrors — he shared the income with the group.

They called this the “sound of young America,” and for a few precious years, it surely was. Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

It’s Not the Economy, Stupid!

October 30, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under American Politics, Economic issues, Election 2008, International Affairs | 1 Comment 

Frederick Kagan on how over worrying emotion about economic considerations has global implications à la WWII:

One problem with this emotion is that it ignores the sequel to the Great Depression — the rise of militaristic Japan marked by the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1933, both of which resulted in part from economic dislocations spreading outward from the U.S. The inward-focus of the U.S. and the leading Western powers (Great Britain and France) throughout the 1930s allowed these problems to metastasize, ultimately leading to World War II.

Mother Jones v. Tito The Builder

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Election 2008, News media | Leave a Comment 

Curatorial Bipartisanship

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under History, Nixon Library, Presidents, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

The Nixon’s Library’s new exhibition, Called Upon By The Voice Of My Country: Inaugurations As History, Ritual, And Celebration, opened tonight. Above: RN sworn in by Earl Warren, 1969; and Bill Clinton by William Rehnquist, 1997.

The Corps, And The Corps, And The Corps

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Book Review, Military, Nixon Library events | 5 Comments 

Vietnam War scholar Bob Sorley, third-generation West Point graduate, brought his copy of the 1952-53 Bugle Notes (indispensable handbook for each class of plebes, or freshmen, at the U.S. Military Academy) to the Nixon Library last week. He was in Yorba Linda to talk about his new book, Honor Bright: History And Origins Of the West Point Honor Code And System. Copies of Honor Bright were on sale. The Bugle Notes were not. Sorley would just as soon give you his right arm. The well-worn volume contains this answer to the question of what advantages an Army career has to offer, which he read out to his audience:

The answer is, paradoxically, practically none; [but,] in another sense, everything that is worthwhile in life. It depends entirely on your viewpoint….If you measure success by things accomplished, by a niche well filled, by the gratification of duty well and faithfully done, if your joy in life finds fulfillment in playing the game for the game’s own sake, of winning the love and respect of the men serving under you…, if you do not count the work, the trouble, the cost to yourself and do not stop to think of where the credit will go, but only of the success of the team, then in the Army you will find contentment.

Bolstering this countercultural vision of community and mission-critical interdependence is West Point’s honor code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” Cadets violated the code most famously in 1951, when 90 were dismissed (with the personal acquiescence of President Truman) after one revealed the existence of an academic cheating ring designed to help members of the football team, and in 1976, when an instructor read this on a cadet’s computer science paper: “This is not entirely my own work.” Over 150 cadets were involved that time, though many were permitted to return after a redemptive year off. Sorley says the returning cohort did just as well making colonel (an important benchmark in an Army career) as those who weren’t involved in the scandal.

The friendly and phlegmatic scholar choked up just once, and just a little, as he talked about his and Virginia Sorley’s (his wife and a former CIA librarian) friendship with West Point graduate Dawn Halfaker, severely injured while leading troops at Baquba, Iraq in June 2004. Among many other activities, Halfaker is now vice president of the Wounded Warrior Project. Recruited to play basketball at West Point, she had no special calling to military service until she arrived at the academy and got to know her instructors and coaches and her brother and sister cadets. Sorley said she told him later, “I’d found my tribe. These were the people I wanted to be with.”

After Sorley’s talk, the last question was posed by Orange Countian Lee Hobbs, who’d brought his son, Tobin, West Point ‘96, a veteran of service in Bosnia and now a Chapman University law student as well as a major in the Army reserves. Such is the bond in the long grey line that, before the applause had died, Bob Sorley was making his way up the aisle to shake the hands of a fellow cadet and his proud father.

 

Boo!

October 30, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Nixon Library | Leave a Comment 

“OC Weekly” says we’re still scary!

 

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