[updated with a link, and with a repeated sentence cut]

I’m beginning to see a future where we poor consumers of the entertainment nation will no longer be flooded with quite as much shit as we’re seeing now.

First, the NYT’s David Carr reports what we all know, because there are no goddamn movies that are worth seeing—namely, that indies are no longer king:

Why are there no independent movies worth seeing? As Yogi Berra might say, there are just too many of them.

At least, that’s the view of one veteran independent film executive, Mark Gill. In a speech he gave at the Los Angeles Film Festival a little over a week ago (a speech that set tongues to wagging after it was published by IndieWire, a Web site devoted to independent film), he pointed out that the number of films submitted to Sundance, the Valhalla of the indie film industry, has multiplied by 10 in the last 15 years to a total of 5,000. But that embarrassment of riches is really just an embarrassment.

“Most of the films are flat-out awful,” said Mr. Gill, the head of the independent company The Film Department. “Trust me, I have had to sit through tons of them over the years. Let me put it another way: the digital revolution is here,” he said, and boy, is it underwhelming.

Meanwhile, veteran publisher Jonathan Karp, fessing up that he has “sinned” too, notes that what’s coming out of book publishers’ warehouses is also mostly dreck:

Visit your neighborhood superstore, and you will be overwhelmed with ephemera: self-aggrandizing memoirs by recovering addicts; poignant portraits of heroic pets; hyperbolic ideological tracts by insufferable cable TV pundits; guides to staying wrinkle- and toxin-free; odes to Warren Buffett and Jesus Christ; manifestos for fixing America in 12 easy steps; manly accounts of the best athlete/season/team ever; and glittery novels about British royalty, love-starved shoppers, mournful cops and ingenious serial killers. (There are more novels about serial killers than there are actual serial killers.)

I can’t be sure, of course, but he may have been thinking of books like the one being celebrated here. Okay, cheap shot.

Karp digs deeper to analyze the phenomenon:

Popular formulas repeat themselves for a reason: They have visceral, even mythic, appeal. A talented author can bring new vision to the most tired subject, so there’s nothing wrong with trying. Nor is there anything new about the syndrome. But what does seem more pronounced today is the relentless, indiscriminate proliferation of these books — and the underlying cynicism of the people acquiring, publishing and selling them.

That’s when he cops to having sinned:

I am, of course, mindful that people who work in glass publishing houses should not throw stones. I too have sinned. In weaker moments, I’ve been seduced by tales of celebrity, money, gossip and scandal.

Then Karp gets to the heart of the matter [e.a.]:

Books of this ilk have always existed. But in the past, they’ve been balanced by substantive books, crafted by monomaniacal authors who devoted years to the work. I can’t prove it empirically, but when I talk to literary agents and fellow publishers, they acknowledge an unarticulated truth about our business: Fewer authors are devoting more than two years to their projects. The system demands more, faster. Conventional wisdom holds that popular novelists should deliver one or two books per year. Nonfiction authors often aren’t paid enough to work full-time on a book for more than a year or two.

His prescription? Publishers should leave timeliness and buzziness to the newsbiz and focus on quality and longevity and posterity.

In any event, Karp writes, with the barriers to entry in the publishing biz lowered to the point where anyone can join in, publishers soon won’t have much of a choice if they want to survive. So they should protect their natural preserve [e.a.]:

There are thousands of independent publishers and even more self-publishers. These players will soon have the same access to readers as major publishers do, once digital distribution and print-on-demand technology enter the mainstream. When that happens, publishers will lose their greatest competitive advantage: the ability to distribute books widely and effectively. Those who publish generic books for expedient purposes will face new competitors. Like the music companies, some of those publishers may shrink or die.

Many categories of books will be subsumed by digital media. Reference publishing has already migrated online. Practical nonfiction will be next, winding up on Web sites that can easily update and disseminate visual and textual information. Readers of old-fashioned genre fiction will die off, and the next generation will have so many different entertainment options that it’s hard to envision the same level of loyalty to brand-name formula fiction coming off the conveyor belt every year. The novelists who are truly novel will thrive; the rest will struggle.

Consequently, publishers will be forced to invest in works of quality to maintain their niche. These books will be the one product that only they can deliver better than anyone else. Those same corporate executives who dictate annual returns may begin to proclaim the virtues of research and development, the great engine of growth for business. For publishers, R&D means giving authors the resources to write the best books — works that will last, because the lasting books will, ultimately, be where the money is.

This is an important essay—a warning—from an important New York City publisher, just as Mark Gill’s observations are an important warning from a veteran film producer.

We’ll see what happens. (For the record, I predict no earthquakes.)

Glenn Reynolds:

OUCH: In ’survival mode,’ newspapers slashing jobs. …

No wonder they’ve been telling us we’re in the midst of a second Great Depression. For them, it’s been true.

Later, Glenn explains his attitude:

It’s not “glee.” And, in fact — as I’ve said repeatedly — I think the reason that newspapers are tubing is that they’re replaced the kind of hard-news reporting described above with editorializing and “attitude,” often in support of political positions that many people don’t agree with. I’d much rather see them flourish while doing a good job, but they’ve been cutting budgets for actual reporting for decades.

I like it when newspapers do a good job, too. For example, when I read this straightforward piece in today’s NYT about the situation between Israel and her many enemies, I thought: Huh! Why can’t the NYT report like this (factually and straightforwardly) every day?

I reprint a few paragraphs to mark it as a sort of baseline of respectable, neutral MSM reporting on the Middle East.

Hezbollah seized the two Israeli soldiers shortly after the Palestinian group Hamas captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in southern Israel, and it was the one-two punch of such actions that partly pushed Mr. Olmert to order such a fierce response against Hezbollah in 2006.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are armed and supported by Iran, which has repeatedly urged that Israel be forced out of existence.

Nevertheless, apart from the prisoner deal with Hezbollah, negotiated through a German mediator, Israel also agreed with Hamas on a six-month truce that started June 19. The deal, mediated by Egypt, has been violated by dissident Palestinian groups that have fired rockets or mortar shells at Israel.

But so far, both sides seem committed to the truce, which involves Israel opening border crossings and reducing its siege of Gaza. On Sunday, about a third more goods were let through than had previously been, according to Hamas officials in Gaza. The goods included animal feed, diesel fuel, fruit, vegetables and frozen meat.

The acting Hamas interior minister, Said Siam, said in an interview that he had formed an emergency group to monitor truce violations by various factions. Clerics associated with Hamas spoke at Friday Prayer in favor of the truce, saying it was in the interest of the people that it not be violated.

Andrew Sullivan is nostalgic for the McCarthy years, and he thinks William Kristol should be the first one made to account for his errors:

But when you’re this prominent a war-backer and you get things this wrong on a subject this important, don’t you think a smidgen of self-criticism or self-analysis could be in order? (I’m omitting the fact that the WMD casus belli Kristol also asserted as fact was a total chimera, but given the number of Kristol’s errors, this now seems small beer). …

It seems to me that we demand accountability from our politicians and we should demand accountability from our intellectuals. Not that they always get things right - but that they give a full accounting when they are wrong. Instead we reward and celebrate those who not only get things wrong - Kristol and Rove now have prominent columns in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal - but those who have never taken personal responsibility for their own mistakes. Until we purge all these tendencies from Washington, we will not learn from history and we will keep repeating it.

Somehow I doubt that Sullivan’s idea to put the neocons to the screws will get very far. But the urge to purge, to punish, to flay the evil-doers in our midst, to exorcise the demons, reminds me of this movie.

Here’s something Sullivan ought to ponder—that some of those who were purged in this country didn’t weep for themselves; they took it on the chin:

In spite of the subsequent loss of Trumbo’s livelihood and stature (”He probably was the best writer of that time,” Kirk Douglas offers, not inaccurately, in an interview), not to mention the aftereffects of a seminomadic existence with his family and the injustice of seeing his work produced under assumed names, “Trumbo” clearly proves that, if nothing else, its subject endured the deprivations of the blacklist with more wit than any of the rest of the writers in the original Hollywood Ten.

“Get ready to become nobody” is how Trumbo describes the process of divestiture that followed his HUAC adventure.

But since he’s the punitive sort and because the stakes are so very high, perhaps Sullivan has more exquisite tortures in mind for his neocon victims, ways to force them to recant and repent? Waterboarding, perhaps? I hear it’s all the rage.

[reposted, with a new title, cause WordPress is acting up]

Obama rebukes Wesley Clark for saying that McCain’s service to his country was no biggie when it comes to deciding who should run the country.

Josh Marshall thinks it’s a cop-out and that Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to take on McCain’s war record.

John Aravosis wants to know: “Honestly, besides being tortured, what did McCain do to excel in the military?”

For his part, Barack Obama is now not only the proud bearer of a flag pin on his lapel but also a true-blue American patriot, who is offended by MoveOn.org’s accusing General David Petraeus of betrayal.

Now, that is a pivot. And Obama is very smart to execute it, and to run like hell away from attacks on John McCain’s record and character.

p.s. For the record, here’s something John McCain wrote in his 1974 thesis. I’d lay odds that Obama has read it, and everything else McCain has written, and knows a lot better than to attack McCain on his strengths [e.a.]:

[McCain's] fellow prisoners say his [forced] capitulation only redoubled his determination to provoke his captors. “Acts of defiance felt so good that I felt they more than compensated for their repercussions,” he wrote, “and they helped me keep at bay the unsettled feelings of guilt and self doubt my [false] confession had aroused.”

Anyone who ventures to interpret the mood of the country is wading into roiling waters. Still, I note for “progressive” Dems that—Americans are allergic to “income redistribution” as a means of fixing the economy.

Gallup:

When given a choice about how government should address the numerous economic difficulties facing today’s consumer, Americans overwhelmingly — by 84% to 13% — prefer that the government focus on improving overall economic conditions and the jobs situation in the United States as opposed to taking steps to distribute wealth more evenly among Americans.

As the numbers indicate, the sentiment crosses party lines:

Americans’ lack of support for redistributing wealth to fix the economy spans political parties: Republicans (by 90% to 9%) prefer that the government focus on improving the economy, as do independents (by 85% to 13%) and Democrats (by 77% to 19%). This sentiment also extends across income groups: upper-income Americans prefer that the government focus on improving the economy and jobs by 88% to 10%, concurring with middle-income (83% to 16%) and lower-income (78% to 17%) Americans.

There’s even more bad news for “progressives”: about half of all Americans think that the government is already interfering too much in the economy:

A separate question finds Americans more likely to believe government is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses (50%) as opposed to saying government should do more to solve the country’s problems (43%). This broad question is not directed specifically at the economy, but reinforces the general idea that many Americans are leery of too much direct government intervention in fixing the country’s problems.

This philosophical issue appears to divide Americans by both political party and income groups. Republicans think the government is currently doing too much, by 72% to 24%; independents are split, with 47% saying the government is doing too much and 44% saying it is not doing enough; and Democrats say the government needs to do more by 58% to 36%.

Actually, this isn’t only bad news for certain Democratic politicians (namely, “good government” types); it should also send a signal to the MSM, which relentlessly peddles the line that we Americans are perpetually the victims of bad government, unprincipled politicians, nefarious conspirators who secretly serve the interests of a foreign power, oil barons, crony capitalists, etc. That message is getting tiresome, and besides—the people aren’t buying it.

Dennis Jacobe, who wrote up the results of the Gallup report, concludes with only a hint of optimism for “progressives”:

In sum, free-market advocates can take considerable solace in Americans’ overwhelming belief that the government should not focus on redistributing income and wealth, but on improving the overall economy. And, to a lesser degree, Americans also believe government continues to do too much — not too little — to solve the nation’s problems. On the other hand, the economic turbulence of 2008 could end up getting government into significant new income and wealth redistribution programs unless the Treasury and the Federal Reserve act soon to stabilize and reduce today’s unmanageable food and energy price increases.

In other words, just as “another 9/11 would be ‘good’ ” for John McCain’’s presidential prospects, Jacobe says that the roiling markets could be “good” for Obama’s presidential prospects (and thus for “progressives”). That’s what he says, without spelling it out.

However, take note: Lawrence Kudlow, if I read him correctly, seems to agree that the government should do something. :

On the day after an unusually important Fed policy meeting both gold and stocks severely rebuked the central bank’s decision to take no action in support of the weak dollar or to curb rapidly growing inflation.

Gold spiked $30, a clear message that Bernanke & Co. won’t stop inflation. Stocks plunged over 200 points, an equally clear message that the Fed’s cheap-dollar inflation is damaging economic growth.

These market warnings are two sides of the same coin. Inflation, which is caused by excess dollar creation, is the cruelest tax of all. It is a tax on consumer and family purchasing power. It is a tax on corporate profits. It is a tax on the value of stocks, homes, and other assets.

Crucially, the capital-gains tax — the most important levy on all wealth-creating assets — is un-indexed for inflation. Hence, long before Barack Obama or Congress can legislatively raise the capital-gains tax rate, rising inflation is increasing the effective tax rate on real capital gains. That’s an economy-wide problem.

So, no, we’re not a nation of commies. We like the free enterprise and free market system. But under the pressure of economic turmoil—which may endure for a sustained period—some of us will feel compelled to push for our government to do something.

What would Obama do (with or without excessive turbulence)? Paul Krugman (who was once a vocal Obama skeptic) still doesn’t know:

Mr. Obama looks even more centrist now than he did before wrapping up the nomination. Most notably, he has outraged many progressives by supporting a wiretapping bill that, among other things, grants immunity to telecom companies for any illegal acts they may have undertaken at the Bush administration’s behest.

The candidate’s defenders argue that he’s just being pragmatic — that he needs to do whatever it takes to win, and win big, so that he has the power to effect major change. But critics argue that by engaging in the same “triangulation and poll-driven politics” he denounced during the primary, Mr. Obama actually hurts his election prospects, because voters prefer candidates who take firm stands.

In any case, what about after the election? The Reagan-Clinton comparison suggests that a candidate who runs on a clear agenda is more likely to achieve fundamental change than a candidate who runs on the promise of change but isn’t too clear about what that change would involve.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that Mr. Obama really is a centrist, after all.

One thing is clear: for Democrats, winning this election should be the easy part. Everything is going their way: sky-high gas prices, a weak economy and a deeply unpopular president. The real question is whether they will take advantage of this once-in-a-generation chance to change the country’s direction. And that’s mainly up to Mr. Obama.

Um, no. It’s up to voters, who will decide if they’re willing to go with a “change” candidate who doesn’t clearly spell out what he wants to change and how it will affect them.

And the Republicans seem to have settled on their line of attack, and it has nothing to do with Americans’ feelings about the role of government in fixing the economy. Instead, it’s that staple of old politics [e.a.].

Sen. John McCain’s allies have seized on a new and aggressive line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama, casting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as an opportunistic and self-obsessed politician who will do and say anything to get elected.

I guess Obama is not exactly believable as the Messiah anymore. Not only that. We still don’t know who he is, apart from being a star—someone upon whom we can project our own fantasies.

Jennifer Rubin expresses it a little differently, but she gets to the heart of the matter:

It is remarkable that now two savvy guys like Krugman and Brooks can’t figure out what Obama is. And neither seems to be playing coy to make a rhetorical point — they really don’t know.

But maybe that’s no accident. Obama has told us there is no there, there. In his book he wrote: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” So perhaps searching for Obama’s “core” is a fool’s errand. He is glib and clever and seized upon a clever formulation (Agent of Change) to attract young and idealistic people longing for meaning. But perhaps that is all there is.

We don’t know how he will act under pressure and in real circumstances demanding definitive action because he has never developed, stuck with and acted upon a fixed set of principles. So voters will have to figure out for themselves which polar opposite vision of Obama is the real one. The fact that both could be in contention is startling and sobering.

Feh—not that sobering. Obama is no Manchurian Candidate. He is a pragmatist (though so far only in the service of his own political career, and not in the service of any principle or platform or policy prescription), and he has supreme confidence in his own judgment (and in his temperament). He’s just trying to be all things to all people.

Will it work?

Who the hell knows?

I think all feelings of panic (on both sides of the aisle) are misplaced.