Al Gore will launch a $300 million campaign whose sole purpose is to influence public opinion.

“The whole idea of the campaign is to be inclusive and to be bipartisan and to bring people together to a place where meaningful change can happen,” an organizer said. “It aims to be a game-changer in terms of the politics of climate.”

I wasn’t in fact aware that there is a “politics of climate.” I thought climate is a given. Of nature.  Foolish me!

Clinton-haters forget that Bill Clinton is the only Democrat in the last three decades to have gone up against the Republicans and succeeded. In part, he owed it to old-fashioned bare-knuckled butt-ugly politics, which the Democrats of 2008 are far too delicate to embrace and way eager (they say) to move beyond.

For all the rest of you (and even if you don’t admit it, I’ll bet you know there’s nothing new under the sun): Karl Rove has suggestions on how to win in the knife fight in Denver. Here’s my favorite bit:

Rule #5: Focus on Staging. Conventions are elaborate made-for-TV productions. We live in a culture of the visual. Every moment and every event should be scripted. The media will complain about it, but think through what messages you want and when you want them. This script must be visually powerful and interesting enough to keep the cameras on your candidate and not somewhere else. Make the spectacle personal. The Al and Tipper Gore kiss, for instance, did him a lot of good. And be sure to provide fresh content all the time. In the era of cable TV, talk radio, the blogosphere and YouTube, someone is watching and talking all the time. If you’re not pressing content into all available channels, someone else will.

National political conventions are equal parts carnival, prime-time soap opera, policy lecture and weeklong party. They are easy to caricature and increasingly anachronistic. But they have been an important element of the liturgy of democracy. And while in recent decades conventions have become antiseptic, predictable and largely ignored by the national press, this year, for the Democrats, could be different.

Interesting. Wait, though.

The kiss did Al Gore a lot of good?

Then how come he isn’t president?

Plus: ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

I haven’t been following along closely this weekend—who can keep doing that and have a life?—but the bits and piece of media that I’ve taken in (from all over: TV and blogosphere) reveal something fascinating: the MSM (from Chris Matthews to George Stephanopoulos to Howard Kurtz and their panels this morning) now says that there’s no way that Hillary can win.

Indeed, Kurtz quoted a Politico story that says the press has been misleading the public (and “partnering with the Clinton campaign”) by even pushing the notion that Hillary and Obama are in a close race.

Meanwhile, there are ever more detailed dissections, analyses, and speculations being presented by Obama dissenters who do not appear on TV but who offer much more nuanced ways of assessing him than what he offers freely to his adoring audience in the media elite and beyond.

Then there’s Nora Ephron, who wants Hillary to get out of the race in the worst way:

[Nnow that we're down to two contenders, it's turned into an unending last episode of Survivor. They’re eating rats and they’re frying bugs, and they’re frying rats and they’re eating bugs; no one is ever going to get off the island and I can’t take it any more.

Got that? Nora wants Hillary to get out because Nora ends up spending too much time thinking about Hillary, who Nora no longer likes.

And that’s funny, because I was thinking just the opposite.

Barack is unquestionably the hero of this story—placed there by a media that bought in to this ready-made narrative (and who wouldn’t? it’s perfect!).

Photo by Getty Images

We’re rooting for him (who wouldn’t, when the media frames him as the Kid Who Came Out of Nowhere?).

Until she begins to fade.

And then the electorate in New Hampshire and Ohio comes through for her, and the opposition tries to wear her down.

They call her Tonya Harding!

And yet, the more appetizing they try to make him,

the more we find ourselves clapping for her as if she were Tinker Bell.

Because we’re having so much fun!

Because the outcome is totally unpredictable. It’s the very essence of (melo)drama! No one knows what will happen.

Her continued presence holds out the promise of a surprise ending!

The script hasn’t been written!

He may be the hero of the story, but she provides the best drama.

(And for those of you who are politically inclined rather than romantically taken with this delightful entertainment: the hero of this story has nowhere to go but down, but the nemesis can only improve with time …)

Illustration by Darrow

(New York magazine)

Just for the record, I wanted to preserve what’s on Google News at the moment in reaction to the Geert Wilders’s nasty provocation (but, I fear, a necessary inoculation) and challenge to Islamists to back off:

Dr M: United Muslim boycott is the way to ‘punish’ Holland
Malaysia Star, Malaysia - 1 hour ago
KUALA LUMPUR: Muslims can only effectively take action against the Dutch for releasing a film that puts Islam in a bad light if they unite and boycott Dutch …

Dutch businesses mull suing Wilders over anti-Islam film China Post, Taiwan - 1 hour ago By Gerald de Hemptinne, AFP THE HAGUE — Dutch businesses warned Saturday they would consider suing far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders if his anti-Islam film …

Fitna “could be a film by the Mujahideen” EuropeNews, Denmark - 2 hours ago Preeeeeee-cisely. The formerly UK-based jihadist hits the nail on the head: for all the rage from Muslims about how Fitna “links Islam with violence,” that …

Anti-Islam film ‘Fitna’ draws Dutch Jewish condemnations Ha’aretz, Israel - 3 hours ago By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz Correspondent The newly-released anti-Islam film by right-wing Dutch legislator Geert Wilders drew condemnations from the …

Dutch Muslims show tolerance to Islam film Washington Times, DC - 4 hours ago By Leander Schaerlaeckens Associated Press Mohammed Rabbae, a prominent Dutch-Moroccan leader and chairman of the National Moroccan Council, urged Muslims …

News in brief The Observer, UK - 4 hours ago Liveleak.com, the British website that posted an anti-Koran film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders has removed the film after threats to its staff. …

Arabs Denounce Dutch Anti-Islam Film The Associated Press - 5 hours ago DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Islamic and Arab leaders denounced a Dutch film Saturday that portrays Islam as a ticking time bomb aimed at the West, …

Dutch businesses mull suing Wilders over anti-Islam film Daily Times, Pakistan - 5 hours ago THE HAGUE: Dutch businesses warned on Saturday that they would consider suing far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders if his anti-Islam film led to a commercial …

An insult to Islam and our intelligence GulfNews, United Arab Emirates - 7 hours ago The anti-Islam film by Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders has drawn widespread international criticism and has also been roundly criticised by the …

Dutch businesses threaten to sue over anti-Islam film AFP - 7 hours ago THE HAGUE (AFP) — Dutch businesses Saturday threatened to sue far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders if his anti-Islam film led to a commercial boycott, …

EU foreign ministers condemn release of Dutch anti-Muslim film Xinhua, China - 7 hours ago BRDO, Slovenia, March 29 (Xinhua) — European Union (EU) foreign ministers condemned on Saturday the release of an anti-Muslim film by a Dutch lawmaker. …

Egypt: Dutch anti Islam film repulsive PRESS TV, Iran - 7 hours ago Egypt says that the anti-Islam film of Dutch MP Geert Wilders was revolting and calls for legislation that would ban offenses against religion. …

Dutch businessmen warn Geert Wilders PRESS TV, Iran - 7 hours ago Dutch businessmen warn Geert Wilders if his anti Islamic movie provokes an economic embargo against Netherlands he may be sued in court. in an interview …

The flood gates have opened Kuwait Times, Kuwait - 8 hours ago By Ahmad Al-Khaled, Staff writer The anti-Islam film by right wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders hit the Internet on Thursday and the protests have already begun. …

Film Fitna: An Incitement to Hatred against Muslims JURIST - 8 hours ago Ali Khan [Washburn University School of Law]: “The film “Fitna” is an assault on the religion of Islam. It wounds deeply-held spiritual feelings of millions …

Parliament denounces Dutch anti-Islamic film Yemen News Agency, Yemen - 9 hours ago SANA’A, March 29 (Saba)- The Parliament denounced in its session held on Saturday a film produced by the Dutch Parliament member Geert Wilders that abuses …

EU rejects tone of anti-Quran movie, but defends filmmaker’s right … The Canadian Press,  Slovenia - 9 hours ago BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia — EU foreign ministers rejected the tone of a new anti-Quran film, saying Saturday it equates Islam with violence, but defended …

Website yanks anti-Qur’an film after threats to staff CBC Toronto, Canada - 10 hours ago A British-based website said it had removed an anti-Islamic film by a Dutch politician because of what it called “serious threats” to its staff. …

EU supports Netherlands in rejecting anti-Islam film EUbusiness (press release), UK - 10 hours ago (BRDO PRI KRANJU) - European foreign ministers on Saturday supported the Netherlands in rejecting an anti-Islamic film by a far-right Dutch lawmaker. …

Dutch movie ‘Fitna’ roundly accused of offending Muslims Taipei Times, Taiwan - 11 hours ago A Dutch legislator’s film that portrays Islam as a ticking time bomb aimed at Western democracy prompted denunciations from Muslim capitals and street …

Editor Behind Cartoon Controversy Discusses Islam, Free Speech RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, Czech Republic - 11 hours ago Journalist and author Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the Danish newspaper “Jyllands-Posten,” became famous internationally in 2006 for having …

For me, this is the frontline in the “war on terror”: preserving our right—certainly in our own countries, but it should be the right of people everywhere—to say what’s on our minds. Even if it’s offensive.

As Bill Clinton said in another context the other day:

‘I Don’t Give a Rip About All This Name-Calling….Let’s Just Saddle Up and Have an Argument’

 

Hollywood can’t get a break with its Iraq movies. Nikki Finke reports on the latest effort:

I’m told #7 Stop-Loss opened to only $1.6 million Friday from just 1,291 plays and should eke out $4+M. Although the drama from MTV Films was the best-reviewed movie opening this weekend, Paramount wasn’t expecting much because no Iraq war-themed movie has yet to perform at the box office. “It’s not looking good,” a studio source told me before the weekend. “No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It’s a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that’s unresolved yet. It’s a shame because it’s a good movie that’s just ahead of its time.”

And here I thought the movie had a chance. Tony Scott gave it a good review in the NYT, and specifically drew attention to the difference between this film and previous Iraq war movies:

Ms. Peirce’s movie, which she wrote with Mark Richard, is not only an earnest, issue-driven narrative, but also a feverish entertainment, a passionate, at times overwrought melodrama gaudy with violent actions and emotions. The sober, mournful piety that has characterized a lot of the other fictional features about Iraq — documentaries are another matter — is almost entirely missing from “Stop-Loss,” which is being distributed by Paramount’s youth-friendly label MTV Films. Not that the movie is unsentimental — far from it — but its messy, chaotic welter of feeling has a tang of authenticity. Instead of high-minded indignation or sorrow, it runs on earthier fuel: sweat, blood, beer, testosterone, loud music and an ideologically indeterminate, freewheeling sense of rage.

I was particularly encouraged by this bit, because it rings true:

[The young soldiers'] teasing is raucous and rude, and it is clear from the start that they are neither saints nor monsters, but rather the impure products of American pop culture. With exaggerated bravado, they sing “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),” Toby Keith’s anthem of 9/11 payback, which threatens righteous whuppings for America’s enemies: “And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you.” [e.a.]

One of Nikki Finke’s sources gives his unvarnished battled-hardened showbiz opinion:

“No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It’s a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that’s unresolved yet. It’s a shame because it’s a good movie that’s just ahead of its time.”

Back to the drawing board. Meanwhile, it would be nice if Hollywood would entertain us.

The picture doesn’t need words.

But the NYT’s Alessandra Stanley has her exceedingly dull version of color commentary, if you’re interested.

For politicians, “The View,” on ABC, is a halfway house in between a CNN interrogation and the razzing of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” The five women mix spirited debate of what they call “hot topics” with vivid description of hot flashes. The talk show is neither totally serious nor completely frivolous, but it is an estrogen-intense zone. For a male guest, the hardest part is navigating the diverse and somewhat prickly personalities who sit on either side.

Mr. Obama, who has run the gamut of news shows in recent weeks to defuse the ado over his relationship with Mr. Wright, had no trouble finding longwinded words to demarcate his allegiance to his longtime pastor. “Had the Reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws,” he said, “then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying there at the church.”

I was much more taken with Obama’s clever remark of the day:

Barack Obama publicly alluded to the various calls for the Democratic race to be over soon, telling a Pittsburgh crowd today that the Democratic race was like “a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long.”

And then I heard Clinton’s rejoinder:

“I like long movies.”

Cut and thrust.

Before I even got a chance to post about Stuff White People Like, I find out that the blogger behind it got a $300K book deal. Not bad.

It is only fitting that Kurt Andersen, the godfather of attitude, was instrumental in helping bring the blog to the attention of the publisher.

Kudos to everyone involved—it looks like a winner, though the price tag was pretty steep, as noted in the New York Times story:

It will be difficult for the publisher to make a profit, said Sara Nelson, editor of Publishers Weekly. Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, she figured Random House would have to sell about 75,000 copies, a total that would likely land the book on best-seller lists, to earn back its $300,000 advance.

I’ll try to revisit this later, to see what happens. This one makes my nose twitch. It smells like a winner.

It’s sassy and its target couldn’t be any safer: white people! We love to laugh at ourselves. And we could all use some laughter about race.

Curiously, though, the publicist sees the book somewhat differently:

The publishing house is not worried about any accusations about the book being racist because it’s not really about white people, Ms. Fillon said.

Come again [e.a.]?

“A lot of different people are relating to this,” she said. “It exposes pop culture in general on a level everyone can relate to no matter what their race is.” 

More, please.  Even if it is too MOR for some:

Racist or not [surely not!  ---ed.], others are not such fans. The site’s satire does not hit the scathing heights of irony, but wallows in the simple scorched-earth attack of snarkiness, said Jon Winokur, the author of “The Big Book of Irony.”

“Snarkiness is contempt before investigation,” he said. “It’s just a pose that rejects everything in its path, and that’s what I take this to be.”

Putting contempt before investigation—that sounds like a great tagline. I may just have to adopt it.

Carla wows the Brits:

However, perhaps the biggest proof of the statuesque 5ft 9in Miss Bruni’s admiration for Mr Sarkozy is her willingness to give up high heels.

Although her Dior pumps were sure to be the envy of many a woman - along with her shiny black leather handbag called The Babe, also from the Dior accessory stable - her shoes were notably flatter than her 5ft 5in husband’s stacked heels.

I predict a new Era of Good Feeling between the former enemies France and England.

If Obama were as convinced as his fans that he had put his pastor problem behind him, something tells me he wouldn’t be making a stop on The View in his continuing apology tour. But that’s where he’ll be today:

Obama’s ‘View’: Defend Man, Not Words

The Senator, who is currently leading Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in the pledged delegate count for the 2008 Democratic nomination, agreed Wright’s remarks are “rightly offensive.”

Obama described Wright as a “brilliant man who was still stuck in a time warp.”

“View” co-host Elisabeth Hasslebeck expressed concern that Obama’s choice of pastor may show a lack of judgment.

The candidate explained, “Part of what my role in my politics is to get people who don’t normally listen to each other, to talk to each other, who [say] crazy things, who are offended by each other, for me to understand them and to maybe help them understand each other.”

Obama said he talked to Wright after the controversy erupted.

“I think he’s saddened by what’s happened, and I told him I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way, and people haven’t seen this broader aspect of him,” Obama said.

I see he stopped by and talked to ABC’s Charlie Gibson, too:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., defended Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor for 20 years, telling ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson that it’s unfair to judge him based only on the controversial remarks of a few sermons and not his entire career. (Ida Astute/ABC)

Will this stop the bleeding?

Tom Maguire doesn’t think so:

Can someone help me with what looks like the latest fantasy from Obama as he explains his Reverend Wright (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON - White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama’s campaign, not stepped down.

“Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church,” Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, “The View.” The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Let’s make the working assumption that this excerpt is accurate and in context - time will tell, since the show airs tomorrow.

So, when did Wright acknowledge that what he had said was deeply offensive and inappropriate? The AP story recounts some of Wright’s controversial comments but oddly omits to mention his apology, as does all other news coverage with which I am familiar. And I am strangely certain that a Wright apology would have made the news - unless he never made it publicly.

In case you think I’m being too hard on Obama, think again: I’ve been talking about his hollow PRopaganda^TM image for quite a while. Now I’m just watching it unravel.

Barack Obama and his handlers are apparently so arrogant that they thought they could ignore the first rule of celebrity-image construction: the man must consistently reflect the message. Unfortunately, with Obama, you scratch the highly polished surface and you get a bundle of contradictions that you cannot make consistent with his message, no matter how hard you try.

He says he’s a uniter, and yet for 20 he has chosen to stay inside the bosom of a church whose pastor a) promotes the nursing of grievances in the black community and b) routinely says all kinds of crazy shit. And then, instead of addressing this issue (which, of course, he cannot address in any way that will make him, as a man, consistent with his messiah image), he chose to lecture us about American racism.

I don’t know about you, but no matter how much I admire the political dexterity, I find his politics very old school. If this is change, I don’t want any part of it—particularly since I still don’t know what he stands for.

And if you think I’m cynical, read Kaus. But do not fail to note his reasoning, because it’s sound [e.a.]:

e) The “profound mistake” of this sermon is not that Wright “spoke as if our society was static”–Obama’s analysis on Feb. 18th. The problem is that “white folks’ greed” is not the main cause of a “world in need.” I’m not saying voters shouldn’t cut Obama a lot of slack on Wright’s anti-white fulminations. But the Senator should have spoken up publicly against the semi-paranoid “white greed” explanation a long time ago, no? And he could show a little humility. Again, this wasn’t the occasion for him to be lecturing everyone else. …

Me, I’m thinking that Obama agrees with the Reverend, at least partly. And guess what? I agree! He’s right! (After all, the evils of capitalism—and there were evils of capitalism—were all perpetrated by white people, because white people ruled America.)

But if you’re planning to run for president of the United States, you evict people like the Reverend from your life. You disown them—yes, even if you’re black and you have a long list of righteous reasons to be aggrieved.

Because it’s nasty shit, and no one wants to think of their president as having breathed in that polluted talk—even if he was only nodding in tune to the atmospherics—for 20 years.

Buried under an avalanche of glowing headlines hailing Obama’s having survived his Rev. Wright problem

Obama Weathers the Wright Storm, Clinton Faces Credibility Problem 

(something I doubt, but that’s a topic for another day) and buried inside the Pew report itself is this bit of bad news for Obama-maniacs:

One of the few negative trends for Obama following the Wright affair is that a larger number of conservative Republicans hold a very unfavorable opinion of him in the new poll than did so in February. The survey also finds that Obama no longer enjoys the favorable image rating advantage over McCain among independents that was apparent in previous polls.

USA Today links to a bunch of other polls that show the same trend—or, at least, which are being reported (or spun) as showing the same favorable trend for Obama. There’s also the usual caveat:

As always, we remind you that these polls are snapshots — not predictions of voter behavior in elections.

Snapshots, not predictions of behavior. I must remember that.

Taylor Marsh spins the pseudo-event another way.

Must run now …

Due to a cyber-accident, I deleted a post. Apologies for any inconvenience. Here it is again, lifted from my feed:up against the wall

Today, March 27, 2008, 2 hours ago | hepzeeba  

update: added a link and subtracted extraneous text

After my little “ephiphany” [ouch] and because the madness of trying to keep up is getting to me and because rather than stick to the relationship between media and culture, which is what I’m really interested in, I find myself getting sidetracked too easily, I’m going to try something new today:

Instead of madly doing the rounds of the blogosphere, I’m going to post on the basis of having read only the dead-tree New York Times and one blog post.

Ready? Here goes.

Brendan Nyhan clarifies the obvious reason for Hillary Clinton’s continued presence in the race [emphasis in original]:

Matthew Yglesias seems a bit puzzled that Democratic party elders haven’t stepped in to force Hillary Clinton out of the race. He writes that “insofar as it’s really true that [Nancy Pelosi] and ‘other leading members of Congress’ think [don’t think Hillary can win and want her to give up], they need to communicate it more clearly.”

By contrast, Marc Ambinder suggests that party elders have intentionally decided not to step in because “in their minds, the racetrack is open and horses, to beat that metaphor to death, are still trotting around” (via Michael Crowley):

John Edwards, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid - if these folks came together and threw their weight behind the nominee, Hillary Clinton would probably drop out by the end of the week. But the party elders have in some cases explicitly abstained from making such a determination because in their minds, the racetrack is open and horses, to beat that metaphor to death, are still trotting around.

But there’s actually a third possibility — that most party elders would prefer that Hillary withdraw but don’t want to pay the cost of pushing her out of the race.

Indeed! This isn’t because they are Democrats. It’s because they are politicians. Politicians never want to commit until they see where things are headed, because their first concern is always themselves.

Nyhan wrote the original post a couple of days ago. This morning, he updated it [italics in original; bold is mine]:

[M]y claim isn’t that the leaders would “defect… to Hillary’s camp” but that they would defect to a position of neutrality. Expect lots of mumbling about letting the process go forward, etc etc. The reason to do this that, while Hillary is likely to lose, her supporters (financial, activist, etc.) are and will remain powerful within the party. If you don’t believe me, ask Nancy Pelosi, who just got an ominous letter from Hillary’s top fundraisers:

We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August. We appreciate your activities in support of the Democratic Party and your leadership role in the Party and hope you will be responsive to some of your major enthusiastic supporters.

So: The folks holding the purse strings in the Democratic Party are having their say. Is anyone surprised?

The NYT also made that point today [e.a.]:

Leading contributors to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton intensified their effort to keep the Democratic presidential contest alive on Wednesday and urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to stay out of the superdelegate fight, admonishing her for suggesting that the candidate ahead in pledged delegates - now Senator Barack Obama - should become the nominee. …

“This dynamic primary season is not at an end,” said a letter to Ms. Pelosi, which was signed by 21 top Democratic fund-raisers. “Several states and millions of Democratic voters have not yet had a chance to cast their votes.” …

The letter was signed by some of Mrs. Clinton’s largest fund-raisers, including Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, and Maureen White and Steven Rattner, longtime friends of the Clintons.

The letter, which carried threatening overtones in noting that many signatories were major Democratic donors, highlighted the deepening rift inside the party among supporters for Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. While Ms. Pelosi has declared her neutrality in the race, she has said that she believes that the party’s superdelegates should not overrule the will of the voters and should back the candidate with the most pledged delegates.

Note that those holding the purse strings are only forcing Pelosi back into a position of neutrality. Even that is a win, no matter how short-term, under the circumstances.

And now a side note, which is more in keeping with the subject matter of this blog. ((And here I insert yet another reminder that I am not a politico; I’ve only gotten caught up in this, like everyone else, because it has gone viral throughout society and our culture, as noted in this piece in today’s NYT, and because it is now clear that the national conversation that Tina Brown tried to capture in her failed venture Talk magazine has moved entirely online, and that it is having a profound effect on public life.))

When I went to the NYT site to link to the article about Dem donors (”Clinton Donors Warn on Superdelegate Fight“), which I read in the dead-tree paper today, I discovered a curious thing. The website carries two different versions of the story: the one I linked to above, carrying a Times writer’s byline, and a Reuters story, posted three hours earlier on the Web.

That Reuters story, carried on the NYT’s website, has a slightly different cast to it [e.a.]:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of prominent Hillary Clinton donors sent a letter to House of Representatives Speaker

Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday asking her to retract her comments on superdelegates and stay out of the Democratic fight over their role in the presidential race.The 20 prominent Clinton supporters told Pelosi she should “clarify” recent statements to make it clear superdelegates — nearly 800 party insiders and elected officials who are free to back any candidate — could support the candidate they think would be the best nominee. …The signees reminded the House leader from California of their support for the party’s House campaign committee and said “therefore” she should “reflect in your comments a more open view” about superdelegates. …Among the signees of the letter were prominent Democrats and Clinton supporters like Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television; Bernard Schwartz, former chairman of Loral Space and Communications; and venture capitalist Steven Rattner.

In the text of the latter story, there is no mention of “threats”; the heavy lifting is done by the headline (”Clinton Backers Warn Pelosi on Superdelegate Rift“). This is, on its face, a more neutral article, but it leaves a curious (and probably unintended) disconnect of logic in the story.

Considering that the Reuters story paints the Clinton backers (politely) asking for “clarity” from Pelosi, the Obama camp is made to sound petulant and whiny when they complain about it:

“This letter is inappropriate and we hope the Clinton campaign will reject the insinuation contained in it,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Is this the tone from the Obama camp that Reuters wanted to convey? Because the same Reuters story has the Clinton camp firing back (virtuously):

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Clinton had made the case superdelegates should exercise independent judgment about who would be the best for the party and the country.

“Few have done more to build the Democratic Party than Bill and Hillary Clinton. The last thing they need is a lecture from the Obama campaign,” he said.

The proprietary Times story, on the other hand, has Bill Clinton “warning” folks to get ready for more [e.a.]:

As former President Bill Clinton warned voters in West Virginia to “saddle up” for a heated duel between the candidates, …

Neither Times-website-sponsored story quotes him in full, however; but the HuffPo does [e.a.]:

Speaking to voters in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the 42nd president Wednesday said, “I don’t give a riff about all this name-calling that’s going on. They’ve been going on ever since Iowa. I’ve heard them say all these things about her….

“Let’s just saddle up and have an argument,” he continued. “What’s the matter with that? That’s what America’s about, right?”

And the proprietary Times story adds two additional bits of information, but you have to dig deep to find them—an indication of the pressure Bill Clinton knows how to apply and a hint of Barack Obama’s growing impatience to get this thing over with.

Clinton [e.a.]:

As he campaigned in Parkersburg, W.Va., on Wednesday, Mr. Clinton dismissed concerns that the increasingly bitter nominating fight could wound the party. He said the race should not end until all voters - and superdelegates - had a chance to weigh in.

“I think your vote should be counted, don’t you?” Mr. Clinton said, speaking to voters who are scheduled to cast their ballots May 13. “I know Hillary’s gaining on them when they say, ‘Oh, let’s shut this down now; we don’t want to be divided.’ “

Obama [e.a.]:

“I think giving whoever the nominee is two or three months to pivot into the general election would be extremely helpful, instead of having this drag up to the convention,” Mr. Obama told reporters as he flew to New York.

These are the developments that I picked up on. They’re really interesting, and I find myself able to empathize with both sides: Clinton wants to draw it out, and Obama wants to shut it down.

There are power plays and low blows and people all over the cable shows keep saying that it’s tearing the party apart (it’s too boring to link to them all) but the cable networks can’t get enough of this stuff!

When Larry King turned to a different subject the other night—World Wrestling—it made me stand up and take notice of what a fraction of the population’s attention politics is getting compared to entertainment:

Fight Night with Larry: WWE In King’s Ring!

Aired March 26, 2008 - 21:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: Tonight, there’s nothing bigger, nothing badder, nothing more brutal — and 16 million people a week can’t get enough of it. It is the business that dominates TV in 100 countries all over the world. Meet the muscle behind the mayhem — Triple H, John Cena and Big Joe, who aims to put the big hurt on boxing champ Floyd Mayweather.

We go behind-the-scenes with the WWE mastermind Vince McMahon and his cast of in your face heavyweights, next on LARRY KING LIVE.

I didn’t stay tuned to the show, but I made note of those numbers:

16 million people a week

dominates TV in 100 countries all over the world

Compare and contrast to TVNewser’s latest figures:

The Scoreboard: Tuesday, Mar. 25

25-54 demographic: (L +SD)

Total day: FNC: 246 | CNN: 198 | MSNBC: 113 | HLN: 100

Prime: FNC: 436 | CNN: 290 | MSNBC: 224 | HLN: 168

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	ElectionHQ:	Hume:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	H&C:	Greta:	O’Reilly:
	161	278	319	470	494	344	317
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Dobbs:	Brown:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	211	219	386	348	249	275	264
MSNBC	Hardball:	Gregory:	Hardball:	Countdown:	Abrams:	Countdown:	Reports:
	140	154	194	364	147	160	128
HLN	Prime:	Prime:	Beck:	Grace:	Beck:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	46	72	124	163	147	206	144

Total Viewers: (L +SD)

Total day: FNC: 917 | CNN: 545 | MSNBC: 337 | HLN: 253

Prime: FNC: 1886 | CNN: 881 | MSNBC: 654 | HLN: 418

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	ElectionHQ:	Hume:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	H&C:	Greta:	O’Reilly:
	778	1323	1407	2404	1729	1524	1255
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	Dobbs:	Brown:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	658	798	1238	852	884	907	597
MSNBC	Hardball:	Gregory:	Hardball:	Countdown:	Abrams:	Countdown:	Reports:
	558	524	609	1027	495	439	315
HLN	Prime:	Prime:	Beck:	Grace:	Beck:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	223	173	337	478	429	377	344

Once upon a time in the late 1950s, there was a TV game show with that ungrammatical name, hosted by Johnny Carson.

These days, it’s a question we have to ask ourselves every time we open a newspaper. Howard Kurtz reports in the WaPo:

The Los Angeles Times has acknowledged that it unwittingly relied on fabricated FBI documents, created by a con man, for a report that implicated associates of rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs in the 1994 shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur.

The story’s author, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chuck Philips, said in a statement late yesterday: “In relying on documents that I now believe were fake, I failed to do my job. I’m sorry.” Deputy Managing Editor Marc Duvoisin also apologized, saying in a separate statement: “We should not have let ourselves be fooled. That we were is as much my fault as Chuck’s. I deeply regret that we let our readers down.”

The embarrassing admission came hours after a report by the Smoking Gun. The Web site, which specializes in law-enforcement records, said the Times “appears to have been hoaxed” by “an accomplished document forger” in its story last week tying Combs’s associates to the non-fatal shooting of Shakur 12 years ago.

Once more, online triumphs over print. Increasingly, the Web is a check on the MSM.

Across the Pond, a more traditional check on the media brought judgment to bear last week. In a first for the British media, the tabs apologized to one of their victims:

The headline, splashed across the top of the front page of The Daily Express on Wednesday, could not have been clearer or more jarring: “Kate and Gerry McCann: Sorry.”

The paper indeed had something to be sorry about. In the ensuing article, it admitted that much of its coverage of the case of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared shortly before her fourth birthday during a family vacation in Portugal last May, was completely wrong. Especially the part where it had repeatedly accused Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry, of murdering her and then covering up their crime.

I don’t follow the British media to know what kind of effect this had, or is expected to have in the future. But at the very least it’s a kick in the pants for the outrageous British press … for now.

Meanwhile, we’re all left with the ungrammatical and nagging question: who do I trust?

Not ephiphany.

Epiphany.

Yikes.

Are you surprised that publishers sign up books (including fake memoirs) that they think the public will buy? Chris Lemann is shocked, shocked:

How can editors–let alone readers–reasonably expect to encounter anything resembling “the truth” on a printed page, anyway? …

As observers fret over how it is that a major house like Riverhead could be gulled by a scheming prevaricator, it seems at least as worthwhile to ask what makes fictions such as Love and Consequences so compelling to publishing professionals in the first place.

The market, dear Sherlock, the market. Dysfunction sells! And the more dysfunctional you start out and the grander your arc into respectability (and a book contract!), the more delectable your story seems.

I wrote about the latest inauthenticity scandal here, where I noted:

Why does this keep happening? Because mundus vult decipi: people want to be deceived. …

In this particular case of the faked memoir, sophisticated readers—including agents, editors, copy editors, lawyers, and highly qualified reviewers—wanted to believe (no matter how unlikely it is) that a former fringe-dweller in American society is also very, very gifted author.

See? It’s not that complicated. The story of how the New York Times got fooled is an even more interesting one:

WITH a few computer keystrokes last week at my request, Jack Begg, the supervisor of newsroom research at The Times, showed me that there was no record of a Margaret B. Jones in Eugene, Ore. With a few more keystrokes, he brought up property records showing that the house Jones said she owned was bought by Margaret Seltzer and another person in 2000 and now belongs to Stuart and Gay Seltzer after an “intrafamily transaction.”

All of this should have been a huge red flag about Margaret B. Jones, the author of a memoir in which she said she was abused, taken from her family at age 5 and shuttled between foster homes for three years before winding up in a world of gangs, violence and drugs in South-Central Los Angeles.

The book, “Love and Consequences,” was a fake, and had Begg been asked to do five minutes of checking in readily available public records, or had reporters and editors done it themselves before the newspaper bit, The Times could have been spared the embarrassment of falling for yet another too-good-to-be-true memoir from a publishing industry unwilling to accept responsibility for separating fact from fiction.

By the time Begg did any checking, The Times had been taken in, as had National Public Radio, The Los Angeles Times and other news organizations.

Caveat lector! (And enjoy the ride!)

While eating lunch today,

it occurred to me to look around and wonder how many of my fellow diners know—or care—about the things that stir up the blogosphere, as noted by Memeorandum at the moment:

If McCain vs. Obama, 28% of Clinton Backers Go for McCain

Oops!… She Did It Again- Michelle Obama Bashes Ignorant America!

Samantha Power Unapologetic About Iraq Remarks, Hints At Return

Pastor Of Clinton’s Former Church: Don’t Use Wright To Polarize

None, I decided. And then I went back to my delicious lunch and my excellent conversation with my agreeable companion.

Be gone, politics!

Dennis Prager asks a provocative question: “Why Do Palestinians Get More Attention than Tibetans?

He lists a bunch of reasons: terror, oil, Israel, China, the left, and the UN. My favorite answer is last [e.a.]:

The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.

Setting aside Prager’s pro-Tibet sympathies and his Palestine fatigue, it’s worth paying attention to his last argument, which is as profound as it is simple. I repeat:

No video, no TV news.
No TV, no concern.

That is, I believe, an underexamined (so far) reason for the American public’s lack of interest in the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, of course: there is little to no video, except when some American luminary is visiting (and then the usual terrorist suspects in Iraq piggyback on the media coverage and put on a really violent show).

As if on cue, PEJ releases a report about how last week’s “news” was dominated by a pseudo-event (Obama’s race speech) rather than by events on the ground that have an impact on how Americans live their day-to-day lives (which, once upon a time, was the province of the “news”). ETP’s Rachel Sklar notes that the over-the-top Obama coverage totally eclipsed the five-year anniversary of our engagement in Iraq.

Well, the PEJ just released its fifth annual State of the News Media report, in which I read this notable bit [e.a.]:

Citizens suggested that the press failed to deliver sufficient coverage of some basic bread and butter issues, such as rising gas prices, toy recalls, and the legislative battle over children’s health insurance. … To the extent the press covered distant parts of the world, people in some ways thought even that was too much.

PEJ suggests that we Americans just aren’t that into anything that doesn’t touch our daily lives:

This suggests that the media, in not covering Iraq, is merely giving the audience what it wants. Apparently, the majority of people who watch TV don’t want to think about Iraq. That seems to be the consensus.

I’ve noted this before, of course: the “infotainment” in Infotainment Rules refers not so much to the fluffy content offered by the MSM as to the type of coverage that the MSM gives the “news”—that is, stories are chosen for their entertainment value and they are presented with entertainment values (conflict, dramatization, exaggeration of the importance of personality traits in the “characters” [public figures] who are featured in news stories [which makes them into caricatures but also into recognizable archetypes for a mass audience], an emphasis on emotion, etc., etc.].

Turning away from our apparent lack of interest in Iraq and to the general question of what we are interested in leads to questions about our jam-packed attention economy, in which a gazillion items from a bazillion entertainment and “news” outlets compete for just a fraction of our individual focus. As a society, we suffer from information overload and information pollution, and yet as individuals we also want to be informed about the things that might affect our daily life (the “news” is an early-warning system for possible dangers ahead).

Though we say we want “news,” we force the news media (which we depend on) to compete with everyone else who’s got something to sell. We are in control, through our attention span. They are all vying for a bit of our attention.

Those who want to get our attention have to give us a valuable intangible that cannot be reproduced at no cost, says Kevin Kelly. Among those intangibles is trust. There are a bunch of others. It’s fascinating stuff; read all about it here.

There’s an ongoing saga between the New York Sun and the novelist Nicolson Baker, who has written a seemingly batty book (which I haven’t and won’t read—why bother?) positing a world in which the pacifists and appeasers “won” and the Allies did not go to war against Hitler (and thus we did not kill lots and lots of innocents).

You can read all about it here, in the Sun’s latest salvo against Baker.

The editorial writers reprise the situation in Europe in June 1940:

German armies were rolling practically unopposed through France, and the British Expeditionary Force had just been evacuated by the skin of its teeth at Dunkirk. The swastika already flew over Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Holland, and Norway; on June 17, after Marshal Petain capitulated to Hitler, it would be raised in France. Nazi Germany was the unchallenged master of the Continent, and the full might of its military was about to be turned on Britain.

And then they ask an interesting question:

Why is it, then, that in the summer of 1940, even Winston Churchill’s fiercest critics were glad to see him in office?

Could it have had anything to do with his famous speech in the House of Commons?

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail,” he told the House of Commons on June 4, 1940. “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. …”

Indeed, that might have done the trick [e.a.]:

Mr. Baker’s antipathy to Churchill can’t hold a candle to that of George Orwell, who as a socialist and anti-imperialist had been a fierce critic of the Tory Churchill during the 1930s. Yet “from the collapse of France onwards,” Orwell wrote, “nearly everyone who was anti-Nazi supported Churchill,” for the simple reason that “there was nobody else … who could be trusted not to surrender.”

Got that? When the appeasers finally figured out that Britain was done for, they turned to the only one who could be trusted not to surrender.

Despite the state of delirious denial in which most of us live (thanks to our extraordinary wealth, which buys us a lot of leisure time in which to indulge ourselves, and thanks to our distance—so far—from the frontlines of the GWOT or whatever you want to call it), we too live in perilous times.

Perhaps there will come a time when voters are forced to grapple with Orwell’s situation when he was confronted with a politician (Churchill) that he loathed [e.a.]:

To Orwell, a passionate democrat who lived through the hour of democracy’s greatest danger, Churchill possessed the indispensable qualification for the leader of a democracy in wartime: he was “able to grasp that wars are not won without fighting.”

The time may not be upon us yet—and I am lucky because I don’t have to worry too much about the bread-and-butter issues that concern most voters—but I know my litmus test for voting from here on out: the one who can be trusted not to surrender.

Using David Brooks’s heavy-handed Hillary Hit Job in today’s NYT (which I wrote about here) as a launching pad, Ann Althouse sketches out the contours of the Uncivil War Between the Supporters:

Brooks must have thought that last line was too clever not to use, but it’s actually only a childish flipping of a phrase to its opposite, and, worse, it’s not even true. She has the audacity of hope. By calling hope hopelessness, Brooks enables himself to ask why she goes on and to pretend there isn’t the obvious answer: she has hope of winning.

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish…?

How is what’s she’s doing any different from what every other candidate does as long as there’s a chance? To say it’s “selfish” or “narcissistic” to think you’re special is to criticize everyone who has what it takes to campaign for the presidency.

And the real issue:

Brooks challenges her to step outside her own machine and stop it, to “surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice.” Why? Why should she behave differently from every other politician?

Indeed—especially since she is the kind of politician from whom we expect exactly this kind of grit, which is why some of us like her (I don’t actually like her, but I do like her in a match-up against the messianic-narcissistic holier-than-thou commie-lite Obama, whose proposed policies sound to me like the road to perdition, and I do like her in a match-up against McCain, because she can match her competency to his competency).

At TNR, Michael Crowley is less passionate than Althouse, but he also sees through Brooks’s “logic” and answers the question easily:

I think it’s quite possible that Hillary simply doesn’t think Obama is electable. (See Bill and “all that other stuff.”) *** Now that may be a delusion. But if you believed it to be true, you would soldier ahead. She also does have quite a lot of passionate supporters cheering her on, and is roughly tied with Obama in national polls; that’s not easy to ignore.

Once more I issue the caveat that I’m not a politico, but I’ve long been of the opinion that the Clintons don’t believe that Obama is electable (or, rather, they believe that he is unelectable). And I agree with them: he’s waaaaaay too much to the left, and he gives no indication of even wanting to do the necessary pivot, as Kaus pointed out recently.

But “progressives” seem to want to convince themselves (not to mention the rest of us) that Obama’s the one. And former conservatives have been converted (see Andrew Sullivan’s entire blog of the last few months; here’s one of today’s encomia.

Whatever. It’s their party!

And they’re welcome to it, says Kaus today, because an Obama win sounds like four years of insufferable pedagogic condescension.

After last Tuesday, I’m not sure I want to be instructed and elevated any more by Prof. Obama. I’d kind of like to rearrange his mental furniture on welfare and affirmative action, where his vagueness suggests incoherence more than brilliance.

Yep. And the Obama critics on the Dem side haven’t even begun to address the fatuous foreign-policy gobbledy-gook of the forthcoming “Obama Doctrine,” which features something called “dignity promotion”:

This ability to see the world from different perspectives informs what the Obama team hopes will replace the Iraq War mind-set: something they call dignity promotion. “I don’t think anyone in the foreign-policy community has as much an appreciation of the value of dignity as Obama does,” says Samantha Power, a former key aide and author of the groundbreaking study of U.S. foreign policy and genocide, A Problem From Hell. “Dignity is a way to unite a lot of different strands [of foreign-policy thinking],” she says. “If you start with that, it explains why it’s not enough to spend $3 billion on refugee camps in Darfur, because the way those people are living is not the way they want to live. It’s not a human way to live. It’s graceless — an affront to your sense of dignity.”

The Doctrine is sliced and diced by Dean Barnett today in the Weekly Standard. Barnett is not a Democrat, I suppose, but at least he is a rational observer of reality, unlike the dreamers on Team Obama [e.a.]:

If the Obama Doctrine held that President Obama would send a fleet of Navy vessels to the shores of every country where dignity wasn’t being adequately promoted, that would at least be a Doctrine worthy of the name. It would be a stupid Doctrine, but at least for once Obama would be matching his rhetoric with a plan for action. As it is, the Obama Doctrine is of a piece with the rest of his campaign. It’s an attractively outlined set of worthy goals unsupported by any apparent plan of action to realize those goals.

The Obama Doctrine dovetails nicely with Obama’s promise to begin an aggressive round of–what else?–talking with all our enemies. Once again, no clearly expressed goals preceded Obama’s promise to talk. Almost needless to say, Obama has offered no elaboration on how the talking will advance specifically defined American interests. The talking is itself the point.

These are just a few of the reasons why Obama Dissenters see him as unelectable: he’s full of hot air.

Meanwhile, while I was composing this post, Hillary has decided to go nuclear on Obama, via Wright:

Clinton: Wright ‘would not have been my pastor’

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor made.
“He would not have been my pastor,” Clinton said. “You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.”

At Contentions, Jennifer Rubin deduces why Hillary launched this attack:

This also tells us two things: that Clinton believes the media could not continue to run with this story without some added fuel from her and that she thinks this issue is a winner.

And one of her commenters describes the box Obama is in now:

Hillary is smart enough not to touch the Reverend, unless it is Obama getting burned. Obama camp is helpless. To engage in the ‘debate’ would continue to prop the story up.

Isn’t this fun?

————
*** the link is to the MSNBC site First Read:

*** “All this other stuff…”

Bill Clinton’s Friday afternoon comments about why he thinks a Clinton-McCain contest will be better for the country has been viewed by Obama supporters has an attack on the candidate’s patriotism. But be sure to focus on this phrase, “all this other stuff” intruding on the campaign and less on the “loves America” line. Wasn’t Clinton sending another message to the crowd of older, white male voters? (Remember, he was at a VFW and there was barely a member of the audience under 60, according to our reporter in the field)? The message: That if you don’t want to talk about race, then Clinton’s the candidate; if you do want race intruding into the campaign, then support Obama. There are many older, white voters, while sympathetic to Obama’s message on race, don’t want to be reminded to take their medicine and the subtle message Clinton may actually have been sending was just that, support Clinton and avoid taking your race medicine.

I saw Chuck Todd float this theory on Hardball last night, although he didn’t mention anything about “race medicine.”

That’s my best guess, anyway, after reading this item at Publishers Lunch ($$):

How Many More eBook Releases Will We See?

The press release from Ectaco draws on a variety of cliches (”kiss your
old-fashioned, dusty library goodbye”) to announce the company’s new jetBook ereader. The cheap-looking device weighs just 7 ounces and has a five-inch screen (smaller than Kindle and Sony Reader) and appears to handle only .txt, .pdf and .jpg text files, along with mp3s. The company specializes in translation dictionaries and those are a focus feature of this device as well, which sells for $350.

Mostly you look at their site and realize how relatively easy it must be to design and produce a reader like this, and how many similar products must be on the way.

Duh.

From the press release:

jetBook(R) is an incredibly sophisticated e-book reader with a built-in
mp3 player that allows users to listen to AudioBooks as well as keep up
with their reading. Preloaded with translating dictionaries, you can
simultaneously enjoy a good book, improve your vocabulary by looking up and
translating any words you want, listen to your favorite audio files and
check out photos — all in the same device! With an incredibly simple to
read, large 5-inch, high-resolution display that is easy on the eyes, users
can now read for hours without the eyestrain that comes from ordinary
computer screens. And those with trouble reading normal-sized print books
will benefit from the different fonts and sizes you can change to
instantly. Weighing in at a remarkable 7 ounces, the super-slim device fits
easily in the palm of your hand for a truly comfortable reading experience.

I don’t yet own an e-book reader. (I don’t have a commute, so there’s no urgency. I’m waiting for early adopters to tes