The Green[e]house Effect: a Weblog

Poster Children for Bad Behavior

Asparagirl’s post last weekend about the kids at her high school in Scarsdale reminded me of my own — including the drinking and the drugs. The campus wasn’t a uniform bastion of privilege, but the parents of most kids there had a pretty good lot in life, and it showed. Especially in the parking lot, considering the number of SUVs and Beemers scattered around.

Anyhow, Asparagirl made a good point:

[W]hen Scarsdale parents seem to honestly think that their privileged lives somehow insulate them from life’s realities, that their “position” (and other euphemisms for wealth) gives them some sort of pass on having to actually watch out for their kids, that galls me. It’s ironic, too, because their “position” also creates all sorts of new pressures and influences that can be just as harmful to their kids. It’s just more easily glossed over, that’s all.

That said, those students were in the minority. I still keep up with plenty of friends and alumni, and they’re good people . . . but then, they had good parents. When it comes to character, that counts for far more than cash.

Are They Smoking Something?

Is it me, or does a huge swath of the conservative/libertarian blogiverse seem to be coming down with a case of the vapors? I thought Glenn Reynolds had gotten his liberal panic out of his system yesterday with his post on the Democrats’ supposed immolation on This Week yesterday, but he’s kept going:

We saw Gore’s speech last week, which was roundly denounced, followed by Daschle’s overheated speech, followed by this. . . . Are the Democrats’ tracking polls so bad that they think they’re going to lose everyone but the Nation/NPR hard core among their base, so they’re just trying to energize that regardless of the cost among swing voters? . . .

This is a risky game. It’s likely to do a lot of damage in the coming elections. And if there’s another big terror attack, it’s going to kill the Democrats for years. What are they thinking? Are they thinking?

For starters, contrary to blogospheric opinion, Gore’s speech was hardly “roundly denounced,” unless you mistake Sean Hannity and Michael Kelly for the voice of the country. Daschle’s speech, which by any measuring stick except his own fell well short of ‘overheated,’ seems to have had an effect. As for the Democrats tracking polls: surely Reynolds doesn’t think the party’s that far gone. He can look at these polling numbers, which bode well for the Democrats, as well as anyone else. Besides, the Big Pun — smart though he is — hardly makes a plausible stand-in for America’s swing voters.

[On a side note: a terrorist attack would kill Democrats for years!? Who spent a year holding up an independent investigation of intelligence failures? Who’s bungling airport security? Who took six months to even acknowledge the need for a government reorganization? Who made a top FBI priority of investigating brothels in New Orleans? Who spent the first eight months of the Bush administration reworking old recommendations on dealing with terrorists? Who’s in charge here?!]

But there’s more: Sully is in on the act now. [Quelle surprise.]

Congressman Jim McDermott has just accused president Bush of wilfully lying to the American people about national security threats from Saddam or Al Qaeda. He said this not on the floor of the House or in his district — but in Baghdad, the capital city of a despot who is on the brink of war with the United States. At a time when the U.S. government is attempting some high-level diplomatic maneuvers in the U.N., when Saddam is desperate for any propaganda ploy he can muster, these useful idiots play his game. I think what we’re seeing now is the hard-core base of the Democratic Party showing its true colors, and those colors, having flirted with irrelevance and then insouciance are now perilously close to treason.

Besides, in this hothouse atmosphere, it’s easy for political junkies to lose sight of some important truths. How much do average Americans think about politics? Five minutes — per week. What percentage of registered voters outside Washington state could pick Rep. McDermott out of a lineup? Don’t bring out both hands – you won’t need ’em. Would the GOP really clip the tape from yesterday’s This Week into a nationwide generic ad against Democratic candidates? Don’t make me laugh. [They don’t have to, when they have Rush Limbaugh & Co. to do that for them.] So how much chance is there that this story can turn into a tsunami, sweeping Democrats from the political landscape? Hmmm?

The Democrats are just fine, the Bonior/McDermott misstep notwithstanding. Sullivan could stand to follow some advice from White House spokesman Ari Fleischer: “take a deep breath . . . stop finger-pointing and . . . work well together.”

Cheney the Armchair Colonel

I just read a vintage 2000 article from Suck about Dick Cheney’s lengthy education in the ways of war. All I have to say is: wow. Oh wow.

Having figured out that the general [Norman Schwarzkopf] was being too cautious with his fourth combat command in three decades of soldiering, Cheney got his staff busy and began presenting Schwarzkopf with his own ideas about how to fight the Iraqis: What if we parachute the 82nd Airborne into the far western part of Iraq, hundreds of miles from Kuwait and totally cut off from any kind of support, and seize a couple of missile sites, then line up along the highway and drive for Baghdad? Schwarzkopf charitably describes the plan as being “as bad as it could possibly be… But despite our criticism, the western excursion wouldn’t die: three times in that week alone Powell called with new variations from Cheney’s staff. The most bizarre involved capturing a town in western Iraq and offering it to Saddam in exchange for Kuwait.” (Throw in a Pete Rose rookie card?) None of this Walter Mitty posturing especially surprised Schwarzkopf, who points out that he’d already known Cheney as “one of the fiercest cold warriors in Congress.”

Bush: Imperator?

Jay Bookman writes the best columns at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and today he wrote a piece that sounded overwrought, but thought-provoking:

The President’s Real Goal in Iraq: As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions.

This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the “American imperialists” that our enemies always claimed we were.

Easy There, Glenn

Glenn Reynolds, on today’s This Week interview with Reps. David Bonior (D-Mich.) and Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) : Just looked for a transcript, but there’s not one online for either show yet, but these accounts suggest that the Democrats’ hopes for the midterm elections just took a fatal blow — from Democrats.

Random Notes

• Max Sawicky does a great job today of casting a skeptical eye on the worst-case Iraq scenario that Prof. Eugene Volokh wrote for the latest National Review.
• Nick Denton plays up one kind of ‘fair trade’ worth considering: giving third-world countries a better chance to trade with us.
• The Los Angeles Times says this year could be the year of the woman (registration required) in governor’s races; women could double their hold on state houses from five to ten.
• Atrios, Jeff Cooper: Hearty thanks for the links.

Uprooting the Bushes, One Step at a Time

I’m sure many of you readers are ready to get rid of the Bushes — Dubya and his presidential sibling. I want to make a contribution to the Democratic challenger in the Florida governor’s race, Bill McBride, but need to keep my money in Georgia this year. So I had to think of something else to do.

If you look over to the left-hand side of the page and scroll down a bit, you’ll see a button I whipped up this weekend urging voters to ‘Dump Jeb.’ It’s just moral support, and given how much the blogosphere can resemble an echo chamber, it’s small moral support at that. But this race is important enough that all Democrats need to do their part to win it, whatever that happens to be.

The button’s yours for the stealing. Hope you all get good use from it.

Baby, He’s Cold Inside

Vladimir Putin, world-class romantic? Hardly — in fact, in his wife’s new book, he comes off looking like a grade-A cad. For starters, when they were dating, he would meet up with her in the Moscow subway as much as 90 minutes late:

‘I couldn’t come late, because I thought he could be on time,’ she said, remembering the agony of waiting for Putin in subway stations. ‘I would bear the first 15 minutes normally, a half-hour would also be OK. But after an hour would pass, I would nearly cry out of humiliation. And one-and-a-half hours afterward, I would feel no emotions at all.’

‘Look, honey, you know that my character is pretty hard. Now you must make your choice in life,’ she recalled.

She said his words plunged her into instant panic because she first thought he wanted to split up.

Speaking of world leaders and their love lives: John Major had an affair?!! Good grief — has the world gone mad? =,

Whoo ‘Hoo!

Thanks to a romp of a comeback against Wake Forest yesterday, the Virginia Cavaliers have earned themselves a 3-2 win/loss ratio, getting into positive territory for the first time this season. As the K.C. & the Sunshine Band used to say, that’s the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it. =,

Face the Music

In the latest issue of PC Magazine, columnist John Dvorak tells the music industry to grow up. “[L]et’s stop lecturing people about legality and morality. Students in particular are not moral reprobates, nor are they fools. They are pragmatists, and they stretch the rules along with their budgets. This is a crowd that worships the fake ID and is taught to question authority. So you’re going to lecture them about copyrights? Give up. Rethink your business model. The problem will be solved.”

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Steven Den Beste made merry hay a few days about Jacksonianism, and how Jacksonians — including the Bush administration — take umbrage at German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s rhetorical disrespect of the United States. Respect, though, is a two way street, and plenty on the outside of the Bush administration – in America and elsewhere — haven’t felt much of it from the White House lately.

Dwight Meredith covered much of this ground in a post yesterday, and I want to expand on it later. But think for a second — how have we treated the Germans lately? With a brushoff of the support they provided under the North Atlantic Treaty after Sept. 11, except for some special forces; with a barrage of criticism after the government, following German law, declined to pass evidence regarding Zacarias Moussaoui to U.S. prosecutors seeking the death penalty; with contempt from some conservative quarters for its military capability; and with a flick of the hand to some treaties that a majority of Germans care a great deal about, including the Kyoto climate change agreement and treaties on nuclear testing and biological warfare. And when the Germans carped, Bush and company couldn’t be bothered to care — just as they didn’t care, until recent weeks, what Germany or most other European allies had to say about going to war against Iraq. So tell me, who’s seen the brunt of disrespect here — Germany, or the United States?

That pales beside the stories you could tell about recent debate in this country. After Sept. 11, in those days of unity, fellowship, and liking arm-in-arm to sing “God Bless America,” Democrats stood foursquare with the rest of the country as we prepared to beat Al Qaeda back into the caves from whence it came. But what’s happened since? The adminstration trotted out a stimulus package built around a huge package of retroactive cuts in the corporate alternative minimum tax, in an attempt to sneak a treasured campaign goal into an ostensible response to terrorism. Bush’s attorney general told the Capitol that questions about the Patriot Act “aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies and pause to America’s friends.” Karl Rove, senior advisor to the president for policy and strategy, drafted a PowerPoint presentation that urged Republicans to “focus on war” as a campaign wedge issue. And this week, we heard the President tell a crowd “the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.” When Senate majority leader Tom Daschle condemned the statement, the president’s spokesman asked “everybody concerned to take a deep breath, to stop finger-pointing and to work well together.”

Does any of that carry the ring of respect?

Jacksonians don’t forgive, Den Beste says. Perhaps that’s right — and that bodes ill for Bush. After all its slights, great and small, the White House somehow expects blithe respect from overseas for its policies on Iraq, and Democratic respect for administration views on Iraq and homeland security. The German public just responded with a one-fingered salute. That might only have been the first, unless Bush learns to try doling out some respect of his own.

The End of the End of an Era

The National Debt Clock in Times Square — unplugged for good during President Clinton’s second term, or so we thought — is back up and running.

Radical Words from a Cautious Man

David Broder — the mild-mannered columnist — said this?!

The Washington Post: Radical Conservatism.

The restatement of the United States’ fundamental defense doctrine issued by the Bush administration last week — substituting preemption of potential threats for containment of aggression — is probably the most dramatic and far-reaching change in national security policy in a half-century.

But it is also part of a pattern of radical revisionism in basic governmental philosophy and structure engineered by President Bush, who is quietly rewriting the classic definition of conservatism.

The word, as this president uses it, has little or nothing to do with the traditional conservative inclination to preserve the status quo. Instead, it suggests a very bold and risk-taking readiness to reexamine, revise and restate basic tenets of government. It is a pattern that now pervades Bush’s economic, social and foreign policy and makes this, in some respects, a truly radical government.

Consider economics. The centerpiece of Bush’s policy is his belief in the efficacy of tax cuts under any and all circumstances. It was hardly novel for a Republican president to push for lower tax rates early in his term, as Bush did last year. And the budget surpluses then accumulating caused opposition Democrats to agree that revenue reductions, slightly smaller in scope, were appropriate.

What is different is Bush’s insistence that tax cutting should continue, even with the return of budget deficits and even with the prospect of staggering, long-term additional spending on the military, homeland defense and the war on terrorism. Facing deficits in his second year, Ronald Reagan acquiesced in Congress’s rollback of some 1981 tax cuts. In a similar situation in his second year, the president’s father made the same concession to a Democratic Congress. This President Bush has broken the pattern.

Consider education. The hallmark of conservative thinking has been the insistence on local control of schools. Bush has pushed through the largest expansion of the federal role in education of any president since Lyndon Johnson, not just in dollars but in standards of performance and measures of achievement, backed by real sanctions.

Consider social programs. Bush has backed a continuing effort to shift the line on church-state relations, bringing civil and religious authority much closer together. He proposed direct public funding of parochial schools and applauded when the Supreme Court approved the Cleveland voucher plan. He has lobbied hard for legislation that would route much more federal money aimed at meeting the needs of troubled individuals and families through churches, synagogues and mosques. For good or ill, he is trying to narrow a gap that has existed between the clergy and the government since the start of this republic.

Consider retirement security. In the face of cautions from members of his own party and strong criticism from the Democrats, Bush has kept on his agenda the proposal to change the Social Security program — that staple of New Deal policy — to permit individual workers far more freedom to devise their own basic pension plans, with all the potential risks and rewards such a change might entail. If Republicans regain control of Congress in this election, he almost certainly will try to make this concept law.

And now Bush has put before the world, first in his West Point speech and last week in a formal state paper, a fundamental revision of American foreign and national security policy.

That policy developed in stages, from the imperialism that marked the decades before World War I, to the isolationism that prevailed between the wars, to the bipartisan “containment” policy that evolved during the Cold War. The common characteristic of the whole 20th century was the readiness of the United States to respond to threats to its security and its reluctance to initiate conflict or issue ultimatums to anyone. When aggressors pushed forward, we pushed back — hence Korea, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War. But we did not start fights ourselves.

Now, with the doctrine of preemption justified by the all too real threat of terrorism, Bush is proposing to scrap that distinction. Instead, he asserts the right of the United States, as the only superpower, to judge the degree of potential danger itself — and to take whatever action it deems necessary to eliminate that threat.

You may think any one of these changes is wise or foolish. What is remarkable is that all of them have come in so short a time from the hand of a man whose campaign seemed so bland and whose election was so narrow. Bush is redefining what it means to be a conservative.

I’ve heard an earful of comment today

about two topics: war and an Al Gore speech. I’ll save war for later, but I thought I could weigh in on Al Gore by reworking some of his older remarks.

Poverty is up; family income is down.
Personal bankruptcies are up; the stock markets are down.
Personal debt is up; consumer confidence is down.
Foreclosures are up; housing starts are down.
Health-care costs are up; health-care coverage is down.
Everything that should be down is up. Everything that should be up is down.

Toy Time!

Jumpin’ Jehosophat! Lego just dropped a toy sure to rank atop every geek’s wish list this Christmas: the Imperial Star Destroyer. All 3,000 pieces of it. It’s the biggest Lego kit ever.

Jarrett put it best: “[w]ords are inadequate.”

The Blog of the Moment

Drop what you’re doing and read the latest from Dwight Meredith. The man is en fuego. His latest posts:

• choice words on revered thinker Rep. Dick Armey’s musings on how Jews who vote Democratic have “shallow, superficial intellect”;
• an essay explaining how Bush’s pratfalls stem from his predilection for “mak[ing] a decision first and then “manag[ing]” information to support the decision”;
• a smart write-up of a copyright battle over . . . silence. No, really.

Food. Mmmmmmmmmm.

It’s too bad that no one’s come up with a smell plug-in for web browsers yet. I’ve found a couple of sites lately that provide the next best thing, though, and I’m loving it.

First off, let’s talk about Simmer Stock, where the blogger-in-residence talks about great cookware, books, other food geeks, recipes — you name it. Here’s a post he wrote about a fish:

What do you do if you see something at the store that you’ve never heard of before? Buy it and cook it, damnit! Today the fish department of Bread and Circus had this fish called Opah. It’s from Hawaii and the fillet in the display case looked like a cross between swordfish (it was clearly something you cut into steaks) and salmon (it had this beautiful pale rosy pink color). What does it taste like? Well, like a cross between a salmon and a swordfish, actually (sometimes appearances aren’t deceiving. It was very good: pan seared and served on top of stir-fried orzo with chanterelle mushrooms and onions, and honey and soy sauce braised baby bok choy.

Just as mouth watering: The Making of a Restaurant, written by two Chicago guys who want to start their own place, In the time, they’re eating their way through one of America’s culinary paradises, and they’re having a jolly time telling the tale. I’m a little worried that no one’s told them yet how hard setting up a restaurant can get, but if dedication counts for much, these two have nothing to worry about.

‘Course, I wouldn’t mind setting up a restaurant myself one day. Maybe a roadhouse. A couple of years ago in a conversation with Tim and his wife Lisa, I had an idea for a tech-geek spot up in the Dulles corridor — I thought about calling it “.root.” That was back when the tech sector was rocking, though, and that’s about as over now as bellbottoms. <--sigh-->

If all this restaurant talk scares you, or you just want to cook some comfort food of your own, try ‘Googlecooking’ — the new craze out of the kitchen of Meg Hourihan’s mother.

Recently I’ve become a Google cook. What I mean is, shortly before supper time I look around for some combination of foods I’ve got on hand and which seem like they might go together. Then I ‘google’ them (an expression I heard for the first time on WXRV the other day) and browse through the results until I find a recipe that appeals to me. My tastiest success was Spicy Corn and Tomato Salad but that was partly just because the farmers’ market corn was so super sweet. I can especially recommend Google cooking when you need possibilities for somewhat odd combinations, like leftover salmon and swiss chard, though in such a case the result may be more pecunious than tasteful.

Note: Hey, Avedon — sorry about all that food pornography up there. I’ll give you a heads up next time. =,

Update:Looks like Tim and I crossed wavelengths today — he has a food porn post of his own. Great minds think alike.

Going Nowhere on a Train

London fans of the Green[e]house are minding a huge gap today — the trains aren’t running. Not on the Underground, at least. Blame it on a strike. This morning, only 15 of the Tube’s 600 train drivers showed up.

I feel for the commuters who had to fend for themselves — some lined up for buses, some for taxis, and some for jam-packed trains from the suburbs. One account even described “pedestrian rage” breaking out among people who, after riding a commuter train, had to wait about an hour just to get a bus to work. The Underground set up free Thames boats, and a few smart cookies ditched it all for a bike or a pair of sneakers. Or just stayed home.

I’m with that last group. No way would have bothered commuting there today, if I could help it. In the middle of a traffic meltdown, why battle the madness when you can phone it in?

Driving Along in My Automobile

Things are looking up down here in the Green[e]house, yes indeed. A couple of months back, “car trouble” meant a wheel all but falling off. Nowadays my only worries are a stuck headlight and a stuck window, both of which I’ve been dealing with for months. And I’ll get those fixed this week. Suh-weet!

I know most folks would get exercised about a stuck window, but naaaah, I’m feeling pretty blithe. When you find out your dealer left your car outside the shop with windows open on the day of a hurricane, a few droplets here and there just don’t seem so bad.

Drips and droplets are the order of the day here in Atlanta right now, where we’re seeing some well-needed gray, lousy days full of mist and downpours. It all makes me feel a little like pulling on an old black t-shirt and listening to The Smiths, but complain I won’t. After watching the new grass I spent weeks tending early this summer dry up like Spanish moss, I say we need any rain we can get. Georgia just wrapped up one of its driest 12-month periods ever — the more rain, the merrier.

Later tonight I do my part for the youth of America with my LSAT prep class over at Morehouse — but before then I think I’ll slink over to the record store to check out the new releases from Beck, Steve Earle and Peter Gabriel. I can only buy two — curse these crowded release dates! — but with artists like these, I can pick at random and still win.

But for now, back to working on a web site I’m developing for another political project. Can’t talk about it now — maybe I’ll shed light on it some other time. But trust me, it’s a good one. Even if it does cut into my blogging time. =}

Senate Democrats Fell ‘Healthy Forests’ Initiative

The Bush administration plan to stop forest fires by stopping forests has run into hard times, and might not make it through the Senate this year. Hallelujah.

The White House plan, dubbed the ‘Healthy Forests Initiative,’ was of a piece with the adminstration’s other flashes of policy brilliance. Just as Bush wrote an energy plan with corporate giveaways and an economic plan with tax giveaways, he wrote a forest fire plan with tree giveaways. The initiative would have given loggers a fast-track through the regulatory process, including guaranteed protection from the possibility of enforcement suits under the National Environmental Policy Act. White House officials hoped that foresters, given free rein to haul more old-growth trees off federal land, might find it within themselves to clear fire-prone underbrush.

Democrats have balked, though, and say the plan would “[do] little to address the problems of tinder-like underbrush and fire-prone trees near heavily populated areas while giving loggers greater leeway to cut larger, more commercially valuable trees in remote regions that pose less of a fire hazard.” Their alternative: an expansion of an existing forest-thinning plan, paired with a relaxed regulatory regime that would still let citizens sue to enforce the laws when necessary. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) insists on settling the impasse with a 60-senator supermajority vote — a feat neither side looks likely to achieve anytime soon.

We need to stop forest fires, but we can do that without destroying the forests in order to save them. Let’s give Daschle and company a hand.

From the ‘He’s Not an American, He’s a Democrat’ Dept.—

“The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.”

—President Bush, sharing his take on congressional reaction
to the homeland security bill with an
audience in Trenton, N.J.

The New Kid on the Block

Psssst — The New Republic has a blog. Tell your friends.

Why I’m a Democrat

Last Friday, after receiving the gift of a one-month severance, my cousin C. joined the ranks of the jobless. Once upon a time she planned to make a career at the company. She’d worked there for more than ten years.

The company? WorldCom. Her parachute? Tattered. Her stock options went underwater long ago. By now they’ve probably drifted into the Marianas Trench. Same with her 401(k).

Holding the parties responsible for every tick in unemployment is a fool’s game. In the months since the Worldcom scandal broke, though, I’ve heard Republicans:

• blame Bill Clinton for setting a terrible moral example for his slavish 50-year-old CEO followers;
• blame congressional Democrats for giving otherwise confident investors a case of the heebie-jeebies; and
• change the subject.

And no, the kabuki show economic summit in Waco last month doesn’t count.

A Quick Clarification

Despite all rumors to the contrary, I have not — not — been sent packing by the Chicago Tribune. You can all breathe out now. =,

Iraq: We Break It, We Buy It

Josh Marshall and Tapped beat me to the punch with posts on this, but James Fallows spends a good number of paragraphs in the next issue of The Atlantic detailing how America’s duties in Iraq would continue long past the close of a war.

[T]he day after a war ended, Iraq would become America’s problem, for political and practical reasons. Because we would have destroyed the political order and done physical damage in the process, the claims on American resources and attention would be comparable to those of any U.S. state. conquered Iraqis would turn to the U.S. government for emergency relief, civil order, economic reconstruction, and protection of their borders. They wouldn’t be able to vote in U.S. elections, of course — although they might after they emigrated. [Every American war has created a refugee-and-immigrant system.] But they would be part of us.

How to Scramble a Senate

If Robert Novak didn’t mess up your head yesterday with his column on a possible Republican push to run a lame-duck session of the Senate, just wait — Wyeth Ruthven, with an assist from U.Va. political scientist Larry Sabato, has cooked up a possible outcome that sounds even weirder.

The Doomsday Scenario

Nov. 4: The current Senate (50 Dem - 49 GOP - 1 Ind) DEM CONTROL
Nov. 5: Talent beats Carnahan, Dems only pick up one other Senate seat, Murkowski wins in Alaska.
Nov. 6: Talent is seated. (New Senate: 50 GOP - 49 Dem - 1 Ind) GOP CONTROL
Dec. 2: Murkowski resigns to become governor (New Senate 49 GOP - 49 Dem - 1 Ind) DEM CONTROL
Dec. 7: Murkowski appoints a GOP Senator (New Senate 50 GOP - 49 Dem - 1 Ind) GOP CONTROL
Jan. 7: New Senate convenes, Dem pickup Senator is seated (New Senate 50 Dem 49 GOP 1 Ind) DEM CONTROL

The Man’s Full of Surprises

Jason Rylander sings? Wow, what a multitalented guy. Best of luck at the audition.

You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me

An FBI agent was what?!!

[Link courtesy of Tom Tomorrow.]

Pot Kettle Black

“It’s unfortunate that Sen. Daschle would seek to politicize such an important issue as the environment.”

—White House spokesman Taylor Gross, commenting on
last night’s remarks by Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) at a
League of Conservation Voters dinner

Avast, Ye Scurvy Mates!

Today, according to NPR, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrrrrrrrr!

Note: Charles Kuffner went to town on this yesterday, and then some. The boy’s starting to scare me. =,

What to Make of This?

What to Make of This?
I learned late this morning that Atlanta’s mayor and city council president have both found invitations in their inboxes to have a sit-down lunch with . . . Donald Rumsfeld. Yep — the SecDef himself.

He probably wants to talk about Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem, two local posts that host the headquarters of the First Army. No need to fear. Of course not. I just wish I could get the peach fuzz on my forearms to quit already with the horripilation.

On the Web Today

Lots of great information popping up all over the place this week. Here’s a roundup:

• Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) dropped the H-word on the president in a speech yesterday: addording to The New York Times, Daschle “cit[ed] a ‘tragic trend’ of two million lost jobs, weak economic growth and a stock market decline he called unparalleled since Herbert Hoover.”
• Hank Perritt, dean of the Chicago-Kent School of Law and a Democratic candidate for Congress from the Illinois North Shore, weighed in with what might be the first cogent liberal critique of war in Iraq I’ve seen.
• On the Wired website, you can read a profile of Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law’s in-house cyberlaw guru, from the magazine’s October issue. Read it for the commentary on the Microsoft case and the coming Supreme Court appeal in Eldred v. Ashcroft — and while you’re at it, check out his blog.
• Jessica at the Blog of Chloe and Pete tells us what’s really on the mind of Mickey Kaus.
• At the Daily Kos: A labor hero gets a stamp. It’s about time.
• Quoth the Sahara Desert: “Re-treeeeeeat!” [Courtesy of Nick Denton.]
• Eric Raymond writes about another risk posed by war in Iraq: “I’m not joking about the moral hazards of imperialism, either. They may be a more serious danger to a free society than the short-term exigencies of war. Witness the fact that I, a radical libertarian anarchist for more than twenty years, find myself arguing for a position not all that easy to distinguish from reactionary military expansionism. Urgent survival threats make strange bedfellows. And it is all too plausible that. if we take this path, we might degenerate from imperialists by necessity to imperialists by habit and predilection.”
• Sam Heldman offers sharp thoughts on how to handle the Senate confirmation hearings of conservative law professor Michael McConnell — then posts about one of my favorite bands ever. [Did I mention that he went to my high school? Good grief — what a small world. =, ]

Out With the Old, In With the New

My blogroll had started to get seriously out of whack this month, so I worked with it this morning to get it current, adding some great sites I’ve stumbled across since starting this blog. I had to toss a few links aside, too. The biggest change: no more Sully. I might explain why in another post. [Nick Denton, of course, beat me to that decision — he dropped that link yesterday.]

Anyhow, I’m way more comfortable with this new set of links, and I think some of the sites over there are the bees’ knees. Get to reading ‘em.

I’ve also toyed with the design in the last few days, as you might have noticed — I got sick of the old template, and opted not to switch back after going half-dark on Sept. 11. I think I’ve taken a step up, but something’s missing — the color scheme and the layout don’t play off well against each other, leaving the page looking a little wan.

Any suggestions? Fire away.

Giving the Debit Card a Workout

In between blogging, work, procrastination and all that, I’ve neglected a few of my responsibilities lately — like, for instance, my responsibility to keep my collection stocked with new music. Now there’s a job I’ve fallen down big time on; I haven’t plunked down for much since picking up Yankee Hotel Foxtrot back in April.

Since I didn’t feel like heading straight back home after the blogger meetup, I walked a couple of doors down to check out the shelves at Criminal Records. I’ve spent a few weeks stuck in a music rut, as I said, so the challenge was holding myself back from buying half the store.

I fared pretty well by that standard, but I couldn’t resist the urge to ditch my alt-country leanings for a second to play some catch-up. I picked out the new DJ Shadow right off the bat, but then found myself getting tugged by the latest Flaming Lips CD. Not to mention the other discs trying to get my attention: Koop, Neko Case, Beth Orton, Solomon Burke, Los Lobos. Just too darned many to pick from. [And that’s after having forgotten some.]

Eventually I whittled out the Flaming Lips record — good as it sounded, it felt too pretentious tonight. I needed to hear some straight-on sounds. So on top of the DJ Shadow record, I threw in the Trail of Dead disc, which blew me away with just a couple of cuts. To round out the threesome, I went mainstream: I bought the import version of the Strokes CD, hype notwithstanding. So what about all the hot air? The songs sound plenty good, if you ask me.

The new Steve Earle hits the street next week, so that means I’ll make another trip to the record store in the next few days. To whet my appetite, music critic Robert Christgau wrote a column about the CD in the latest Village Voice:

What has been the chief domestic casualty of this war on terrorism that keeps changing its spots? The Bill of Rights as exemplified by political dissent, most believe. How to fight back? Exercise the right to dissent. That’s the joy of this record, which . . . gives off a sense of freedom and defiance that’s rock and roll, not protest music. This artistic effect is made possible in part by all the play Earle has relinquished — by what might be construed as his ultimate political ineffectiveness. The Rising [by Bruce Springsteen] is dragged down, with a few magnificent exceptions, by the overburdened emotions and conceptual commonplaces of the great audience that inspired it. Jerusalem travels light and gets where it’s going.

[Village Voice link courtesy of Brian Linse.]

Speaking of Southern Democrats: Don’t even think about cajoling me into taking up NASCAR, people. Every man’s got his limits. That’s a few parsecs past mine. =,

Evening Update

After work, I dropped by the Atlanta blogger meetup in Little Five Points on a lark, and had a pretty good time. Only four of us were there, but we ended up talking for a couple of hours about all sorts of fun stuff: the joy of TiVo, the SxSW interactive festivals, wish lists, blogging for profit, the warblogger/tech blogger divide — you name it. If tonight was any indication, these meetups are definitely worth spending some time to check out.

Cynthia Loses It

Breaking news from Max Sawicky, kung-fu economist extraordinaire: at a speech last weekend at the Congressional Black Caucus annual conference, Cynthia McKinney finally, demonstrably, took leave of her senses. Bathing in the glow of her brave stance against — what was it? Oh, yes — deliberately allowing terrorist mass killings to happen in order to let family profit, the deposed congresswoman told the audience about:

• the conspiracy linking the deaths of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr.;
• the “mortal blow” her defeat dealt to “the future of independent black leadership”; and
• how vindicated she feels about asking the question “[w]hat did the Bush Administration know, and when did it know it?”

F-F-F-Foolin’

Sage words from the President today on the need to train a watchful eye on Iraq: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee.  I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee.  It says fool me once . . . shame on . . . uh . . . shame on . . . you. . . . Fool me . . . can’t get fooled again.”

I want to do a favor for the country and the president. I want to get Bush more into reading books, and I want to spare us the flush of embarrassment that hits us every time Bush does yet another hatchet job on the English language.

In short, I want a win-win solution here. I want to buy the president one of these.

The collection fund starts tomorrow. Anyone with me?

Note: You can hear an audio clip of the president’s latest malaprop here, courtesy of Media Whores Online.

Peace Breaking Out All Over

In a development at the other end of the Axis of Evil, Yet-Not-Quite-So-Threatening-As-It-Looked-A-Few-Months-Back, North Korea has struck up a rapprochement with the Japanese government, confessing to the kidnapping of 12 Japanese nationals and signing deals that lay the groundwork for billions of dollars in reparations to North Korea for Japan’s wartime occupation. [The kidnappings are absolutely contemptible, and should be investigated and condemned.] In return, North Korea agreed to terminate its ballistic missile testing program — the existence of which, as you might recall, the Bush adminstration said proved the need for national missile defense.

That’s two down in a week. Iran, got anything interesting to say today?

Bush, Rove: “What Do We Do Now?”

The Daily Kos has the definitive take on what happens now that Saddam has pulled the rug out from under the Bush war party:

From a campaign standpoint, Iraq is a dead issue. Bush could’ve declared victory and embraced Iraq’s offer with a variation of Reagan’s “trust but verify”. Instead, the UN (and even Democrats) can take credit for averting war, while the nation and its press turn their attention back to Enron, 401(k)s, ballooning deficits and rising unemployment.

In Washington today, Vice President Dick Cheney lobbied Congress for swift action on a resolution authorizing force against Iraq, and the Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, who had earlier said a debate might take a long time, predicted a vote “well before the election.” Asked why, Mr. Daschle said that the administration had done much of what Democrats wanted, by going to the United Nations and consulting Congress, and that “now we are reciprocating.”

Georgia Politics Roundup

I need to get y’all caught up on Georgia politics, don’t I? Well, since I lost the script last Wednesday:

• Political novice and card-carrying Sons of Confederate Veterans member John Noel, 31, beat the ur-Cynthia — Billy McKinney — in a primary runoff for the state House of Representatives seat he’s held for 30 years. When asked, the elder McKinney blamed blacks for staying home in droves, and everybody else for voting for a “Klansman.”
• His daughter blames the Democrats, and spends her time these days musing about running for president on the Green Party ticket. It wouldn’t be the first time a politician failed upward, of course. How do I know? Check Harken Energy’s stock price.
• GOP gubernatorial nominee Sonny Perdue preaches about self reliance and cutting “unnecessary bureaucracy,” but longtime political observer Bill Shipp tells us that Perdue and family — including his late father — took in nearly $280,000 in farm subsidies between 1996 and 2001, enough money to put him in the top fifth of subsidy recipients. Property taxes on his Houston County farm haven’t risen a cent in ten years, and he owes Peach and Gordon counties thousands of dollars in back taxes dating back to 1997. Those pesky facts, always getting in the way . . .
• But wait, there’s more: hints from the National Rifle Association have Perdue losing the gun lobby’s endorsement to incumbent Roy Barnes, who earned its blessing in 1998. The GOP challenger has a plan, though: hey, governor, let’s duel!

  According to the Associated Press, Perdue sent a note to the Barnes yesterday challenging the governor to a clay pigeon shoot-off, with he who cracks the most clay taking home the NRA endorsement. In comments to the press, Perdue urged the NRA to “choose wisely” before endorsing Barnes a second time around.

  The governor’s campaign office, oddly enough, has yet to issue a response.

. . . and the Cookie Monster, Too

If cartoonist Mike Luckovich has it right, the Feds have found yet more Al Qaida:

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

It had been a while since my last trip, but I’ve finally rested up from spending the weekend in Washington. As always, I had a good time.

And that’s the problem.

When I ditched the law firm in Chicago, I thought I’d spend a couple of weeks airing out, then hop right up to Washington. I had an offer from a cool company an old friend set me up with, friends galore to get back to — all was right with the world. I got a case of butterflies, though, about whether quitting private practice was the right decision.

That was two and a half years ago, and I’ve gotten way more comfortable with the choice I made. Thing is, though, I’m nowhere near Washington. Every time I go there, I get seriously reflective — I think about everything from goofing around in Adams Morgan to reading the Post on the Metro, dabbling in Virginia politics, walking around Old Town, noshing at Chesapeake Bagel . . . all the stuff I used to do more often. It’s like feeling homesick — ‘cept I’m homesick for a place I’ve never lived. =,

I’m fine living down South, but my home’s in Alabama, not Atlanta. The town has lots to offer, but it isn’t where I grew up. Don’t get me wrong — I work with a great outfit, and I don’t mind having the family around. Whenever I fly back here, though, I keep waiting for that fuzzy sensation you get when you’re heading home. It never comes.

Last month at Denise Majette’s victory party, the thought occured to me that I might want to follow her to Washington. She’ll need a staff, after all. I’ve got the phone number of one her strategists sitting in my inbox. Come tomorrow, I think I’ll call it.

No Need to Feel Bummed

The Daily Mail [London]: “Why your bum looks big in this.” What gives Jennifer Lopez her well-covered assets? According to researchers, it’s all in the genes. The chief study had to do with sheep, but according to the article, “far from worrying about the size of their bottoms, women with the curvaceous shape of a Marilyn Monroe or Jennifer Lopez should be aware that a fuller derriere is often a sign of good health. A recently completed 25-year study of women showed those with large bottoms were less likely to suffer heart attacks, diabetes or cardiovascular disease.”

In other news, at a Seattle press conference today, Sir Mix-a-Lot announced plans to relaunch his career with a series of health-oriented public service announcements. =,

Are You Ready for Some Football? Mais Non!

This might seem strange in the land of soccer moms and Brandi Chastain, but The New York Times reports today that the French are about as perplexed at girls’ soccer as we Statesiders are about Jerry Lewis. Only one in 25 kids who play on organized teams in France are girls, and “[t]he stigma they suffer,” the paper reports, “often makes them feel they have to keep it a secret.”

Wait — is this the same France that forces political parties to guarantee that half of their candidates for local, legislative or European posts are women? The mind reels at the disconnect — a country with rigid gender quotas for a matter as basic as political representation can’t loosen up enough to handle the thought of girls wearing cleats.

Call America imperfect, but it’s managed to introduce women to team sports without going through a full-fledged societal collapse. Heck, women’s sports haven’t just survived, they’ve thrived — most bellyaching these days comes from men’s teams in lesser sports who’ve been run over by the Title IX onslaught.

At the same time — sacre bleu! — we’ve managed to find some potent female political talent without passing a law. In my town, Atlanta, women run the show, serving as mayor and city council president. Up in Washington, meanwhile, electing women has all but become a cottage industry — Emily’s List, a group dedicated to putting women in office, has managed in a few short years to turn itself into one of the most feared political action committees in the land. France? It once had a woman prime minister, Edith Cresson — but she got herself fired in ten months, then managed to bring down the entire European Commission when she took her act to Brussels.

Comical, but quintessentially French. While Americans went after gender inequality on the playing fields, French officialdom made war on gender inequality in the places of state. In a place where the most sought after college admission letter comes from a school for civil servants, and where even today, officials can kick up a dust storm over the notion of selling of a textbook and dictionary company to foreign interests — that probably makes sense. But that sort of top-down government management, or dirigisme, hardly worked wonders for French industry. Why expect better results here?

Memo to France: relax about political quotas, and concentrate on helping young French women get a chance to kick a football before the age of 13. Plant ideas with them when they’re young, and there’s no telling how far the girls might go.

Note: Whatever we do, though, we have to keep quiet about women’s football and boxing. Methinks the French can’t handle that yet.

As Good As It Gets

• If I were running for office, I’m not sure how I’d explain to the American people — say, vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I’m going to wait for [the United Nations] to act.
  President Bush, September 13, 2002
• Iraq has told the UN it is ready to readmit weapons inspectors.
  UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the offer — in a letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri — was unconditional.
  BBC News, “Iraq Agrees to Weapons Inspections,” September 16, 2002

There Are Some Things In Life Money Can’t Buy

Price of a round-trip plane ticket from Atlanta to Washington Dulles: $208.00
Price of a turkey sandwich, Utz chips and an IBC for a Saturday lunch spent hanging out at the Potbelly in Ballston: $6.71
Price of a Washington Post picked up at a paper box just across from the Ballston Common Mall: $0.35
Seeing this shot of Sept. 11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh’s sorry mug blazed across the front page:

Priceless.

Pillsbury Winthrop Sends a Howler

Headhunting and poaching is par for the course among major law firms, and most of them don’t get ruffled over it. When Los Angeles-based Latham & Watkins snared a partner last month from the corporate group of Pillsbury Winthrop, however, tempers flared in a hurry.

Maybe in too big of a hurry, in fact — too fast for the managing partner to hold back from firing off a scorching press release. As you’ll see, it didn’t offer well wishes.

The Legal Times [Washington]: “PR Pros Amazed by Pillsbury Press Release.”

“Pillsbury Winthrop, in response to a press release issued by Latham & Watkins on September 3, 2002 announcing that Frode Jensen, a corporate securities partner in Pillsbury Winthrop’s Stamford Connecticut office is joining the New York office of Latham & Watkins, would like to correct some possible misperceptions caused by the Latham release,” the Pillsbury release states.

“Pillsbury Winthrop previously had intended not to comment on Mr. Jensen’s departure in order to downplay the event,” it continues. “However, as a result of Latham’s press release Pillsbury Winthrop Chair, Mary Cranston, explained that Mr. Jensen’s departure comes on the heels of sexual harassment allegations involving Mr. Jensen and a significant decline in his productivity. According to Ms. Cranston, Mr. Jensen has been largely absent from the Stamford office since the start of this year.”

The release then quotes Cranston as saying, “Our firm values respect and integrity above all else. We investigated the harassment claims, concluded that there was a reasonable likelihood that harassment had occurred and responded with a variety of measures. It is always sad to lose a friend and colleague to another firm, however, under the circumstances of the past year, Mr. Jensen’s move is probably in the best interest of all concerned, and we wish him well with his new firm.”

The parting shot: “Latham & Watkins did not contact anyone in Pillsbury Winthrop’s management in connection with a reference check for Mr. Jensen.”

. . . [An] in-house public relations expert at a large international law firm [was] blunt. “Common sense must have gotten up and walked out of the building on the day Pillsbury wrote that,” this person says, calling it “ill-tempered” and “mean-spirited.”

The moral of the story: when you’re angry, don’t click ‘send.’ Even if you do run a law firm.

Moving Right Along . . .

Sorry for the postless Thursday. I’ve had a frantic week at work, which can cut just a wee bit into my blogging time.

I’n a few more hours, I’ll fly out to Washington for a friend’s wedding this weekend. If any of the usual suspects there want to shoot the breeze and catch up tonight or on Sunday, call me at my [conveniently local] cell phone — (703) 371-6794.

When the Walls Fell

Tom Friedman, in his column today, described Sept. 11 as a hole in the wall between civilization and the worst in human behavior. He stole my metaphor — but he explained it so much better, I’ll let him have it.

I always thought the World Trade Center would fall down sideways. Not that I thought it would ever fall, of course — but in 1993, the year of the first bombing, I interned at the White House. Watching all the security made me start having terror dreams. I only had a few, but they were enough to plant the image — I’d see the World Trade Center, then snap! one tower would go, keeling over to one side, its heft smacking the buildings around it to the ground, toppling and planting itself into the Hudson River, head first.

But that’d never happen — I should just block it out. I got those out of my mind by becoming a fatalist. I just quit worrying about it, at least as a personal risk. We should stop terrorists wherever we find them, yes, but if some nutcase breaks through and my number comes up — well, that’s that. Everyone goes sometime. Better to live a great life than to shiver in fright about the risk.

I played another trick on myself — in my mind’s eye, I separated terrorism from its consequences. Towers could fall, sure, and bombs could go off — and that would be it. Vamoose. Exit, stage right. No need to worry about what comes later.

That was imagination, though. What we’ve just faced is a year of cold truth, and imagination doesn’t hold a candle to it. Collapsing straight down? No, no. Can’t happen. How does anyone make two buildings like that disappear, like you’ve stuffed them in a hole? And the people. Those missing people. My God. When I read Portraits of Grief I still feel wrenched, and it’s a year later. Now I almost wonder what’s worse — terrorism itself, or its aftermath.

I’ve heard talk about the meaning of Sept. 11, but no thanks to that. Better to look for its meaning ourselves. People have feelings of their own — strong feelings, if these are any measure — and they can’t be argued with.

I don’t even know how I feel about it, not completely, and I doubt I ever will. We’ll think about what happened — we’ll think about that for the rest of our lives. But I don’t know how to feel.

I have no conclusions today, just thoughts. And memories.

I remember hitting the snooze button and spending an hour fading in and out of sleep, listening to the radio. I was between jobs and in no big hurry. Laying on the pillow, I tune back in just in time for a celebrity fluff segment, listening to the bouncy guitar riff in the background. A minute of that . . . nothing unusual, ho-hum, back to . . .

“something just came on the television on CNN, it’s saying that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center — “

That was 8:53.

I remember thinking back to the story of the B-17 slamming into the Empire State Building, and thinking: “hmmph —this is a blast from the past; wonder how they’ll put the fire out?” Was I worried? As if. I saw the smoke and thought it would fade off while sprinklers put the fire out. It’s a tough building, after all. Solid as a rock.

I remember hearing Katie Couric referring to a small plane, and for a few minutes, I thought that was right — but the camera zoomed in, and I wondered. Couldn’t be a jet, of course — air traffic control is too good, no one could make that mistake — but it was an awfully big hole, wasn’t it? Had to have been some small jet.

I remember talking with my dad about terrorism — “maybe someone put Semtex in a Piper Cub,” I said — and phoning my brother at work to tell him to turn on a radio. I gave him a running commentary from the TV, but started multitasking, thinking while I talked — why isn’t the fire going out? What’s up? A small plane did —

Whap.

Holy shit, did you see that? Dad, did you see that? It just flew right — did you see that? A small plane did that? I call my brother: “turn the radio on now, someone flew another plane into the other building. This shit’s on purpose. That doesn’t happen twice in the same morn —”

“Hold on, calm down, boy, watch your language —”

“I just saw a fucking plane hit the fucking Trade Center — you’re watching language?! Turn the radio on. Get to a TV. Now.”

I still thought that it was a Piper Cub.

I remember watching Aaron Brown on CNN talking about another explosion while a grey-black cloud swept across lower Manhattan — was that a side slipping off? I just watched him talk, flipping back and forth between him and Brokaw and wondering what was going on. Fell? What do you mean, the tower fell? I can see it right there, behind all the smoke. See? There it is. I can see it right there. I can see it . . .

And then I couldn’t.

I remember watching the other tower fall, like clockwork — only thirty minutes later, at least victims didn’t suffer any longer — and spotting a shard of splintered steel on the west side of the building, 50 to 60 stories tall, wavering in the wind in a final act of defiance, sitting there for almost a minute until it snapped off, bit by bit, and fell.

I remember deciding to go to Emory University Hospital and donate blood, just to get out, do something, see how people are handling it — and then hearing that someone called in a bomb threat at the Centers for Disease Control, just up Clifton Road. Another evacuation. Great. That plan’s shot. Say, what if that is a target . . .

I remember a bevy of things, but none of it makes sense. It still doesn’t make sense. Killing 3,000 people for committing the sin of feeding their kids cereal and sending them off to school will never make sense — not to me. Not in any world I live in. As for the people behind it, I’ll quote John McCain: may God have mercy on their souls. I won’t.

But beyond that, I have no answers, just thoughts. That’s all. That’s how I’ve spent the day — thinking about what happened, remembering to honor the dead, and pondering the responsibilities of the living.

It’s up to you, dear reader — it’s up to all of us — to decide what those responsibilites are. If we want to find some meaning in Sept. 11, that’s as good a place as any to start.

Though . . . America

Though . . . America is often ignorantly caricatured as a land of impoverished rhetoric its public speech has often been the glory of its democracy.

And now it needs to sound off. Starting in New York, starting now, we need to do what the people of this astoundingly irrepressible city do best: stand up and make a hell of a noise.

From The New York Times:

From The New York Times: a portrait of grief over the brother of a friend.

On a whim I decided

On a whim I decided to cross Sixth Avenue and then I turned south. I saw a huge mass of dark smoke at the south end of Sixth. Wow, a building is on fire, I thought. That must be why all these people are standing around staring south. Two women were staring at it and talking, and I went up to them and asked what building was on fire.

“The World Trade Center just collapsed,” one of them said to me. “It was a terrorist attack. Planes crashed into both towers and then they went down. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon.”

Holy fuck.

Now that I thought about it, it had seemed like something was missing.

On Slate: former poet laureate

On Slate: former poet laureate Robert Pinsky on poetry and Sept. 11.

I’ve turned to music every

I’ve turned to music every time something in my life has turned upside down. Last September was no exception. I rifled through my collection for about a week. I didn’t hunt for solace or peace songs; I just looked for some songs that could at least suggest my state of mind. It still feels raw to listen to this collection a year later, but to me, that means it still stands up.

1. ”The Star-Spangled Banner,” Jimi Hendrix
   -crossfade-
2. ”Pyramid Song,” Radiohead, Amnesiac
3. String Quartet in c# minor, Op. 131, Mov. 1: Adagio, ma non troppo e molto espressivo, Ludwig van Beethoven
4. ”Another Man’s Done Gone,” Billy Bragg & Wilco, Mermaid Avenue
5. ”Mothers of the Disappeared,” U2, The Joshua Tree
6. ”Half a World Away,” R.E.M., Out of Time
7. ”Last Goodbye,” Jeff Buckley, Grace
8. ”Let’s Get Together,” the Youngbloods
9. ”Fanfare for the Common Man,” Aaron Copland
10. ”America,” Original Broadway Cast, West Side Story
11. ”America the Beautiful,” Ray Charles
12. [optional] “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”

William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming,” 1922.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Rolling Requiem

A choral group in Seattle has come up with a brilliant idea: commemorating Sept. 11 by having Mozart’s Requiem [K. 626] sung at 8:46 a.m. in every time zone on Earth. I heard about the project, now known as the Rolling Requiem, through Tim Jarrett, who’s scheduled to participate in tomorrow’s Seattle concert.

I’ll have to catch it on streaming audio — as far as I know, Atlanta won’t have a concert. Friends in Charlottesville should head to First Presbyterian on Park Street, though, where the Virginia Consort will assemble tomorrow morning at 8:30. Wish I could be there.

Memo to Bush: The Buck Stops Where?

Law professor Jeff Cooper makes a cutting observation about the Bushies obsession with getting rid of civil-service protections at the new security department:

A thought prompted by a Nick Denton post, which Glenn Reynolds cited yesterday, about the failure to overhaul the security agencies despite their obvious failings both before and after September 11: The president’s insistence that employees in the proposed Department of Homeland Security should not have civil service and collective bargaining protections, so that they can be fired as needed, would have a lot more credibility if he would actually fire a few of the higher-ups with responsibility for the domestic security and counter-terrorism bunglings of the past year. As long as all those folks remain on the job, the Homeland Security proposal looks like union-busting, pure and simple.

Jamie Lee Curtis: “Will Endorse for Food”

Jamie Lee Curtis caused a stir last month when she bared herself to the world, flab and all, in the pages of a monthly. “Ninety-five percent of the women have done something to themselves,” Jamie reflected in a phone call to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “[T]here’s this constant adding on of things that are not real. Feeling good about yourself comes from inside; knowing who you are, what your honest abilities are and what your honest flaws are and learning to work within that.”

She might be right, but one of her employers seems to have a slight difference of opinion. VoiceStream, the mid-sized cell-phone carrier, drafted Curtis as a corporate spokesperson a few years back, trotting her out in print, radio and TV ads that — here in Atlanta, at least — got downright ubiquitous. She was everywhere, honest flaws and all.

Deutsche Telekom bought VoiceStream lock, stock and barrel last year, and last Friday it finished the changeover by redubbing the company with its worldwide mobile service moniker, T-Mobile. Take a close look, thought, and you’ll spot another change: Jamie Lee got the boot.

Deutsche Telekom ditched Jamie Lee, who swore off cosmetic surgery for a less synthetic look, for a new model: the preternaturally — some might say supernaturally — radiant Catherine Zeta Jones. My eyes don’t mind — but to T-Mobile, that’s probably the point. To sell more product, follow three simple rules: keep ‘em young, keep ‘em svelte, and keep ‘em cute. It’s nothing that X10* doesn’t know already.

Poor Jamie. She makes a bold stand for pride in self image, only to have a pink slip undermine her point. She makes a valid point, but most women don’t have the advantage of a Hollywood trust fund and a SAG pension to fall back on.

*: You didn’t think I would link those pop-up ad spraying hosers, did you? =,

The World Ahead

Enough of wall-to-wall politics week here at the Green[e]house. I bore myself.

If you went through Sunday without picking up the New York Times Magazine, you missed out. Big time. James Traub wrote a cleverly reasoned article that points out an emerging paradox: while black voters have started to let go of civil-rights era orthodoxy and move toward candidates in the political center, the GOP has somehow managed to become yet more white. I won’t spoil the article for you — go read it, it’s worth the time — but Traub draws some conclusions that should make fans of a potential Democratic Majority smile.

The main event, though, came in the form of a multi-page extravaganza that showed how an all-star squad of architects would revive lower Manhattan. Rafael Viñoly dreamt up a jaw-dropping reimagining of the kind of space a rail station should be, and a few participant threw in a design for new towers whose graceful, curved lines provide exactly the jolt of energy downtown needs. Peter Eisenman threw in a proposal for three office towers resembling nothing so much as — get this — half-crushed Coke cans; “the crunched profiles,” the Times wrote, “echo the devastation wrought on 9/11 and offer a striking memorial to the fallen towers.” Moving and brilliant — except, perhaps, that I can’t imagine a tenant aside from Frogdesign who would move into them. =,

On the other side of the world, you can find a towering response to the modern world’s problems just as thought provoking as anything in New York. The Australian government thew its weight last week behind an effort to build a big wind-power plant. Unprecedentedly big. A thousand meters of sheer verticality, in fact. The towers would act as a chimney, drawing greenhouse-heated air through a turbine and producing electricity. A single tower could throw off 200 megawatts of power — about the output of a small nuclear reactor, and enough to light 200,000 homes.

Since I’ve always loved skyscrapers and I’m a fan of energy efficiency, this story has me giddier than a kid in a candy store. Bring it on, Australia, and send a few our way before you’re done.

Thanks . . .

. . . to Atrios, Avedon Carol, T.C. Mits and Matthew Yglesias for linking two posts I wrote here last Friday. I’m much obliged — it’s the first time I’ve gotten spontaneous traffic that hasn’t come from the wrong side.

[Not that I mind Free Republic and National Review readers, mind you. The attention just made me wonder how I could so widely miss my target market. =, ]

Yeeee-haaah!

It’s amazing what quadrupling your computer’s memory can do for your blogging. Now, all those endless seconds spent watching a wheel spin away or an hourglass siting have gone with a flash — I can quit wasting minutes twiddling my thumbs, and actually put that time to good use writing instead. Imagine that. [The fact that the upgrade only cost $16 . . . well, what a bargain.]

Next, we purchase Jaguar — not the X-Type, silly, the operating system. I’ll follow that up with a quick bid for Links Championship Edition. But I digress . . .

Happiness . . . Is a Warm Broom?!

New in the toy stores: the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 broom, Muggle Edition. It can fly you up, up and away — um, in a manner of speaking.

Where did they make ‘em — the Forbidden Forest? =,

One Way the Nation’s Changed

A year on from Sept. 11, the government may still have a problem or two with airport security, but it’s learned a great magic trick: making rights disappear.

Some of the fundamental changes to Americans’ legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:

• FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.
• FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.
• FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
• RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
• FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.
• RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
• RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.

A Good Old-Fashioned Court Packing

Ahhhh, life tenure — what a fringe benefit. It’s one of the perks of being a federal judge, and the bane of a few of America’s hypertensive talk show hosts. Which, of course, makes it a great thing.

Seriously, though, have you ever wanted to fire a judge? The one who nailed you for that 90-in-a-65-zone ticket you were sure you could bluster out of? The one who sent a sex offender home to live with the stepdaughter he abused?

Sorry, you can’t. But yesterday in this great, great land, a lucky gent with that fantasy got his wish.

His name? John Ashcroft.

Now, he didn’t fire an honest-to-God Article III judge. Only Congress can do that. In the sprawling organizational chart known as the Department of Justice, though, there exists a little-known court called the Board of Immigration Appeals. Its job: deciding which immigrants get to stay in the country, and which get seen off.

An awesome duty, that. The court can upend lives with a stroke. But because its judges work for the Department of Justice . . .

The [Washington] Legal Times | In the Line of Fire ::
According to new regulations recently announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft, the jobs of eight of the 19 members of the Board of Immigration Appeals will be slashed, and the board must eliminate its entire backlog of cases by next March. Speculation is already swirling about who will be ousted. The board also has to immediately institute a new case management method that will result in far fewer judges reviewing each case. . . .

“The Board of Immigration Appeals needed a complete overhaul,” Ashcroft said in an Aug. 23 announcement. “The board had become a bottleneck in the system, undermining the enforcement of our country’s immigration laws.”

But the immigration rights community is outraged and says the new regulations will mean less due process for those hoping to make a new home in the United States.

“This is an exercise that is not just streamlining,” says Elisa Massimino, director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. “Ultimately, the Justice Department wants to ensure that the [board] doesn’t present an obstacle to any of its objectives, which include swift and scanty reviews of the deportation of immigrants.” . . .

Ashcroft’s regulations are substantially the same as those he proposed in February. Although he received significant opposition, the DOJ altered little in the regulations.

In addition to cutting the board’s size, Ashcroft’s new rules expand the streamlining efforts and require that almost every appeal be reviewed by a single judge, rather than a panel. Only cases that present “difficult or novel” issues will get a three-judge review. . . .

The looming ouster of the judges is generating the largest outcry.

“This is an effort to get rid of certain board members,” says University of Southern California law professor Niels Frenzen, who has worked on several high-profile immigration cases. “By going to the single-board-member review, one board member would have much more power. The only way [Ashcroft] can neutralize the liberals on the board while going to a one-board-member system is to get rid of them.”

Several board members are seen as likely targets because of their dissents and opinions. At the top of the list is Lory Rosenberg, who served on the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s board of governors and frequently dissents. Others seen as vulnerable include Cecelia Espenoza, Juan Osuna and Paul Schmidt. All were appointed by Clinton Attorney General Reno. . . .

“[The board’s] legitimacy in the eyes of the public and among the immigrant community is based on its ability to act in an independent and fair-minded way,” says T. Alexander Aleinikoff, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and former INS general counsel. “If the attorney general uses his authority to pack and stack the board with members who tend to agree with the immigration service, that is not impartial justice.”

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

In the latest campaign missive from Saxby Chambliss — the Republican congressman running against first-term Senator Max Cleland — the campaign staff went on at length describing Cleland’s perfidy against elderly Georgians. “In a press conference after his primary victory,” the bulletin reports, “Saxby said: ‘Max Cleland pretends to be a friend of senior citizens, but he is anything but that.  He has consistently voted to raise taxes on the Social Security benefits that senior citizens receive.’”

Need convincing? Just wait, there’s more: “[t]he Chambliss campaign notes that Cleland voted in 1996 to raise taxes on seniors’ Social Security benefits by over 30%!”

Sounds like a humdinger, eh? But here’s a pop quiz: when was Cleland sworn into the Senate?

On January 2, 1997.

Which raises a question: if Cleland really knows the secret of time travel, why in blazes does he waste so much time in the United States Senate?

Note: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Political Insider chimes in: “He wasn’t at the grassy knoll, either.”

Ashcroft’s Little Black List

For Steven J. Hatfill, the Justice Department’s perennial ‘person of interest’ in the anthrax case, life keeps getting worse. Agents searched his girlfriend’s apartment over the weekend, and on Thursday the New York Times reported that the Justice Department told his employer to have him fired.

Louisiana State University, its federal grants in jeopardy, dutifully complied — leaving the uncharged non-suspect out of a job. Whether he committed the crimes, I can’t tell you; considering the glacial pace of the investigation, I doubt the FBI could either. But just as with supposed wannabe dirty bomber Jose Padilla and ‘unlawful combatant’ Yasser Hamdi, Justice would rather bypass the courts of law in favor of a trial in the court of public opinion. If, that is, Justice deigns to go public at all.

We can’t consider this a surprise. Given the high standing of indefinite jailhouse vacations in Ashcroft’s vision of justice, he probably sees measures like public shaming and blacklisting as the picture of restraint. Bringing a life to casual ruin, though, is just wrong, flat-out wrong, whether it’s done in the quiet of a brig or the hothouse of a media fury.

If Justice has evidence, it should show it. If it doesn’t, it should get it. If it can’t, it should investigate somebody else. This is a murder investigation. The government has more pressing business at hand than having a non-suspect fired out of spite.

In California, They Hate the Guv’nah . . .

My old friend Tim Fox, in his role as the WyethWire’s California correspondent, served up some great notes today on the state of Left Coast politics. Bon appétit!

Davis, Simon heartily disliked
The candidates of both major parties in the California governor’s race are growing ever-more unpopular with voters as the campaign progresses. Both candidates’ “disfavorable” ratings are at or above 50%, with incumbent Davis (D) slightly more despised than comically beleaguered challenger Simon (R). Nevertheless, Davis leads strongly in head-to-head polling. Davis will be reelected by a landslide and will continue to face his constituents’ contempt. Look for the majority of the 22% of undecided voters to hold their noses and pull the Davis lever, then deny it in exit polling. LINK

Current joke making the rounds: How do you persuade Gray Davis? Tell him the other guy’s check bounced.

Meanwhile, Davis’s political advisors have him poised to sign nearly a dozen bills to appease the left, including seven bills placing
limitations on private dispute resolution so stringent that the nation’s largest arbitration firm threatens to pull out of the nation’s largest
state, and one bill giving illegal aliens drivers’ licenses (!). And Simon (R) is backpedaling on gay rights; says he didn’t read Log Cabin
Republicans’ questionnaire on his gay-rights position before he signed it. The sound you’re hearing is millions of right-wing sphincter
muscles relaxing — slightly. LINK

And in one of the most important (in my humble opinion) statehouse train wrecks, the legislature narrowly defeats a popular landmark consumer privacy bill - partly because of a grudge over a daughter’s lost race for her term-limited father’s legislative seat. Expect this issue to reappear as an overwhelmingly victorious ballot initiative, and to spread to several of the other blue states before Congress steps in and pre-empts with federal regulation. LINK :: LINK

Sometimes disappointing, but never dull.

The Illinois Republican Meltdown Continues

Up in the Land of Lincoln, where you can motor down the Dan Ryan Expressway, voters have a chance to replace a disgraced governor named George Ryan with an attorney general named . . . um, Jim Ryan. To Jim’s chagrin, the voters still get him and George mixed up, leaving Jim fighting a 17-point poll deficit with just two months left to campaign.

Showing voters how to tell the Ryans apart boosts Jim’s showing by seven points – not bad, but hardly a quantum leap for a candidate behind by double digits. Hearing Jim go from town to town saying “I’m not George!” tried the governor’s patience, though, and in mid-conversation with reporters yesterday, George flew off the handle.

. . . George Ryan said it was “an insult to the voters” for Jim Ryan to blame his underdog status on his last name.

“[Jim Ryan] ought to quit hiding behind me and start talking about what he’s going to do for the kids of Illinois; what are you going to do for the seniors; what is he going to do for education and health and public health; and what’s he going to do to make sure the state works right,” George Ryan told WBGZ-AM in Alton. . . .

“Jim Ryan’s been a lousy candidate,” George Ryan said. “Jim Ryan has been attorney general for eight years. If he hasn’t distinguished himself now, he probably never will.”

Earlier this summer, Jim Ryan called for George Ryan to either resign or tell what he knew about a [commercial driver’s] licenses-for-bribes scandal in the secretary of state’s office when he ran it.

“Gov. Ryan presided over probably the worst scandal in Illinois history. So I don’t need any suggestions from Gov. Ryan about how to run my campaign,” Jim Ryan said.

“George Ryan sounds like a bitter man to me. Doesn’t he sound that way to you?” the attorney general asked reporters. “Gov. Ryan ought to worry about himself and what’s happening around him and let me worry about my campaign.”

All this while the party’s top candidate is running behind by 17 points. Somewhere out there, Democratic nominee Rod Blagojevich must be smiling.

The Club for Growth . . . of a Democratic Majority

Republican poll numbers have gone wobbly around the country, and from Florida to Illinois and California, sure opportunities for the party have started to slip away. So what are core GOP groups doing to meet the challenge?

Well, the Club for Growth just made its battle plan clear: it wants to spend money on beating other Republicans. Suh-weet!

Apparently a little Star Wars-addled, the supply-siders at the Club for Growth have made a mission of electing an army of ideological clones, no matter who pays the price. “If there is any single role that Club for Growth plays, it is to hold Republicans accountable for votes that betray the Republican agenda,” its president told the Associated Press. “We think we play an important role in disciplining the party.”

The latest target for club “discipline”: Wayne Gilchrest, a twelve-year Maryland congressman under fire for working with environmentalists and supporting the occasional tax. Although Republicans in Maryland already risk losing a House seat to Democrat Mark Shriver, Club for Growth members have doled more than $300,000 out to Gilchrest’s opponent — forcing a moderate Republican fund to spend $100,000 on shoring the Gilchrest campaign up.

Whoever takes the Republican primary should win that seat in November, but look at the bright side: the money burnt here amounts to $400,000 that won’t get spent on beating Democrats. Which means that we ought to send the Club for Growth a thank-you note.

Note: Looks like I echoed The Daily Kos on this. Great minds think alike.

McKinney: The Tantrum Continues

The Georgia filing deadline for write-in candidates came and went yesterday without incident, sparing state Democrats the nightmare of a kamikaze campaign against Sen. Max Cleland by Rep. Cynthia McKinney. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, however, some McKinney supporters can’t quit thinking about revenge.

[T]his year, as Cleland seeks re-election, many south DeKalb voters are grumbling. They’re upset that U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney lost to Denise Majette in the Democratic primary partly because of Republican crossover votes. And some say they’re upset that Democratic leaders failed to support the controversial congresswoman. . . .

“Some people are saying they’re not going to vote,” said [Imogene] Archer, a computer programmer who voted for McKinney and is mad at the Democratic leadership. “They didn’t help her and they knew she was in trouble.”

In trouble? Sure she was — with other Democrats. Without their votes, the Republican crossover on Aug. 20 would have been a flash in the pan. As for the lack of intervention by Democratic higher-ups: contrary to Congressional Black [Incumbent Protection] Caucus expectations, candidates in a party primary have to sink or swim on their own. McKinney may have thought herself the people’s choice, but we have primaries because we believe people should make that choice themselves. They went for another Democrat over McKinney, as it turned out — but that’s hardly Zell Miller’s fault.

Blogger Reid Stott posted this analysis:

What [one McKinney supporter] fails to realize is that it was McKinney who was not able to mobilize black support. If she’d managed to get just one third of black voters to the polls, she might have won. 117,000 people voted in the primary. And there’s 197,000 registered blacks. McKinney only got 49,000 votes, which represents a number that is less than 25% of those registered blacks.

So, exactly who is it that can’t get out the black vote? In the vaunted McKinney south DeKalb stronghold of the Stoneview Elementary precinct, 169 people voted in the primary. In the 2000 election, 1,767 people voted in that same precinct, ten times as many.

. . . Excedrin™ Written All Over It

I wish the blogging weren’t so light today, but my sinuses went haywire over the weekend. Right now I have a headache this big and a tonsil the size of a grape — which, as you can imagine, gets a little tough on the intellect.

When I finally organize some coherent thoughts, you’ll be first to know. In the meantime: does anbody know how to get Martha Stewart to bring me some of this?

Greatest Hits: What I Want

[Note: For me, mid-year 1998 was the summer of the bar exam, and after spending months in law libaries with my nose in a book and spending my birthday writing essays on property, I fled the States for a five-week drive through western Europe.

Ken Starr stayed busy in the meantime, taping a deposition of President Clinton that the independent counsel’s merry pranksters later handed over to the networks for public airing. After spending more than a month eating at cafes, staring at monuments, and talking with Aussies who couldn’t give the slightest whit about the scandal, I got back to the United States and jotted down a few thoughts.]

To: [ . . . ]
From: Greg Greene
Subject: What I want—
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: 9/21/1998; 9:51 PM

What I want is to see a few [say, 487 or so] prime-time replays of the Iranian delegation — along with the Cuban delegation and virtually every other misbegotten delegation at the U.N. — standing up today to give the President a standing O.

What I want is to give props to the House Republican crew for keeping the whole country huddled around their TV sets — to watch the President’s calm, well-reasoned outrage over the Paula Jones team’s dumpster-diving legal tactics.

What I want is to thank the White House spin center for convincing everyone that the deposition was going to be the worst thing to happen to a sitting president since John Wilkes Booth.

What I want is to see more of Lucianne Goldberg, John Ashcroft, Joseph DiGenova and Bob Barr freezing their crow-eating grins across their mugs while they mouth platitudes about the need to “keep the process moving.”

What I want is for Henry Hyde to spend time hunting down some more tape.

What I want is for Laura Ingraham to watch the tape, and then say “this is not about sex” fifty times with a straight face.

What I want is for George Will, Charles Krauthammer, or any editor of the Weekly Standard or the National Review to explain how any party that calls itself the party of limited government and the rule of law could shove out a neck-high pile of piping hot grand jury material without so much as a pause for thought.

What I want is to fly back to London, stop in at Ladbrokes, and place odds that Ken Starr ever makes it to the Supreme Court without a visitor’s pass.

What I want is to point out that Congress managed to blow a fair amount of money on itself this session without doing much more than renaming an airport.

What I want is for someone to tell me how not telling the truth can get you impeached, when telling the truth [about Henry Hyde, Dan Burton or Helen Chenoweth] can get you a house call from the FBI.

What I want is to look at a cigar without having post-traumatic flashbacks.

What I want is to know whether it was worth $50 million, an ill-timed disruption to the world economy, and more months than it took to win World War II just to find out that the President enjoys the occasional hummer.

What I want is to get back to my regularly scheduled program.

Best—
Greg Greene

China: Fixing a Hole, Missing a Different One

In a crackdown apparently timed to the approach of a Communist Party conference in November, the Chinese government has blocked access to Google. “China’s media censors tend to be particularly edgy during politically sensitive times,” Reuters reports. “[A] Google block may be an attempt to sweep up ahead of the Party congress, which is expected to see sweeping leadership changes.”

Only one thing: the wizards behind the Chinese firewall apparently forgot about this. Oops.

11th District Update: The ‘God Squad’ Blowback Begins

Cecil Staton, last seen giving himself a born-again Christian conservative makeover, woke up today with some enemies: old church friends with long memories.

One minister of Virginia Highland Baptist Church, which has many gay deacons and members . . . endorse[d] [Staton’s Republican runoff opponent Phil] Gingrey. In 1997, Gingrey opponent Cecil Staton founded a church within the Alliance of Baptists, an association of churches to which Virginia Highland also belongs.

“I’m a liberal Democrat willing to endorse Phil Gingrey now to keep anyone with that profound lack of integrity out of office,” said Joshua Villines, associate pastor of Virginia Highland Baptist.

It’s not really Staton’s current beliefs that have upset Villines, he said. It’s the denial of his past.

“The progressive Baptist community in Georgia is very, very small and Cecil Staton was once considered a leader in that community,” Villines said.

On Friday, Staton was quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution saying he was unfamiliar with some of the beliefs of the Alliance of Baptists, notably the church’s stance on affirming gay members and ordaining gay ministers. He had accused Gingrey of being supportive of gays.

Staton, an ordained Baptist minister who has a doctoral degree from Oxford, said his beliefs and opinions have remained constant. He considers himself to be “a traditional mainstream Baptist.” The attacks on his integrity, he said, are unfounded and have been made because he chose to run as a Republican.

“There may be some very liberal pastors who would like to make everything about politics. Not everything in the Baptist church has to do with Democrat or Republican,” Staton said.

He maintains that he was unfamiliar with the Alliances’s stance on gays at the time he joined. “When our little congregation involved themselves in the Alliance,” he said, “there was no understanding on my part that the Alliance was a pro-homosexual organization.”

. . . The Rev. Tim Shirley, pastor of Virginia Highland, said, “everyone has the right to change their mind and evolve” on issues. “But pleading ignorance,” he said, “I strongly question that. He’s a household name among moderate Baptists.”

Now he tells us. =,

Sad to say, Staton’s tactics might lead him to victory. When I spoke last night with someone familiar with 11th District Democratic nominee Roger Kahn, she pointed out that a Republican rally in a rural part of the district last week met Staton’s red-meat stump speech with whoops and rousing applause. Gingrey, by contrast, got a tepid reception at best.

That should give Democrats reason for some whoops of their own. Even the state GOP admits that Democratic voting performance in the district easily surpasses 50 percent. The more conservative the Republican nominee, the greater the chance Kahn wins. And remember: to win the House, Democrats only need to pick up six seats.