I am now officially laughing my ass off at those who thought the upcoming blessed event was going to hurt McCain-Palin.

First, New York mag killed with this headline:

We’re Sorry, But Palin Baby Daddy Levi Johnston Is Sex on Skates

Then McCain greeted Bristol Palin’s baby daddy, who just flew in from Alaska for tonight’s big shindig at the RNC, where his future mother-in-law plans to wow the crowd, at the airport:

Eli Lake reports that they’re religious, and they approve this message.***

[The founding executive director of the Christian Coalition, Ralph] Reed said that Bristol Palin’s decision to marry and give birth to her baby was energizing the conservative base of the Republican party. “The fact that she is marrying the father of the child and she is having the baby is only going to endear this candidate further to the grassroots social conservatives,” Mr. Reed said.

Another segment of the religious crowd in America approves of Palin, too, though this crowd also approves of Obama [e.a. and e.a.]:

While the Alaska governor has been kept out of the public eye, she has met with some key interest groups. According to one Republican source familiar with the meeting, Mrs. Palin was introduced to Aipac leaders here by Senator Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut who endorsed Senator McCain last night. …

The Alaska governor with no record on Middle East foreign policy impressed Aipac. “We got a good productive discussion on the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and we were pleased that Governor Palin expressed her deep personal commitment to the safety and well-being of Israel,” a spokesman for Aipac, Joshua Block, said.

He added, “Now that both Democrats and Republicans have determined their respective tickets, Aipac is pleased that both parties have selected four pro-Israel candidates, and in doing so they have reaffirmed the broad bipartisan support that exists in our country for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.”

(via Kaus, who is dead-on about Fred Thompson’s Boris Karloff imitation): [e.a.]

He’s a politician who’s a bad actor and therefore a bad politician. Last night he had a solid speech to deliver. (As blogger Stephen Green told me, it didn’t just throw some red meat. It slaughtered a small cow.) But except for one line (on Iraq, ending in “and now we’re winning”) and a moving bio section on McCain’s aircraft carrier service, Thompson seemed to be a guy reading his lines.

Some might argue that that one line—”and now we’re winning“—made up for all the rest, since Thompson spelled it out in front of a national audence. There was a lot more red meat thrown out there, too, of course:

“If the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain’s resolve,” President Bush said in a brief satellite-linked address to the Republican National Convention here last night, “you can be sure the angry Left never will.”

A friendly reminder to my readers: I report. You decide.

—————–
*** from “Tevye’s Dream“

A blessing on your head
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)
To see a daughter wed
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)
And such a son-in-law
Like no-one ever saw
…
A worthy boy is he
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)
Of pious family
(Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov)

There’s some triumphalism in the land (or at least on the left side of the blogosphere) about this magazine cover:

Palin detractors have concluded that her appearance in a “tabloid” under the headline “SCANDAL” will hurt her (and McCain) [e.a.].

Let’s say, instead, like millions of working-class Americans, you get your “news” on the political race from the supermarket aisle. Let’s say you’re — I don’t know, a “hockey mom” — and you’re intrigued by this Sarah Palin person you’ve been hearing so much about since Friday.

So you’re shopping this week — and what do you see on the cover of US Weekly? That esteemed journalistic institution is taking it right to John McCain’s running mate — with a hard-hitting piece that details the “scandal” involving her daughter’s pregnancy. …

It should be noted that there is no new reporting here that I can discern — just a greatest hits from what’s out there.

But this, to me, is the clearest evidence yet that the McCain-Palin campaign is losing the battle over Palin’s image. US Weekly readers are the voters her selection was designed to attract. There’s not much to like in this early take — and not much to indicate that the next round will be much better.

I say these detractors are dead wrong, because they don’t know their “tabloids.” US Weekly offers its (semi-respectable) readers a weekly (fake) soap opera. Its readers know that they’re being entertained. And they’re waiting for the next installment: Palin’s redemption.

Of course Palin may never get coverage like this from US:

Going into the Democratic convention one MSM meme was about the “enthusiasm gap” between Obama and McCain and how it obviously favored the former.

Here’s a story from CNN on July 18:

Most pollsters conclude that Obama has a slight lead over McCain when they calculate how people plan to vote. It’s just a few percentage points; too small to decide a race with so much time left to run.

But the pollsters have been measuring the excitement and found that much more one sided.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll last month found that 54 per cent of Obama supporters say they are “very enthusiastic.” Only 17 per cent of McCain supporters said they felt that way.

The CNN site also provides a picture of some enthusiastic Obama fans:

So, yeah, the enthusiasm gap was a favorite talking point of McCain detractors. And right up to the DNC, pundits were pushing this line of reasoning. For example,Marc Ambinder wrote it up in a post at 11 a.m. last Thursday, the day of Obama’s big acceptance speech at the DNC:

The way Obama campaign manager David Plouffe tells it, one of the most important national metrics is way underreported. That’s the enthusiasm gap between supporters of Barack Obama and supporters of John McCain. … This isn’t a McCain-bashing post. McCain’s campaign has got to be concerned about the relative level of excitement that the GOP base feels. One way to generate some heat is to turn Barack Obama into a boogeyman. That’s had a marginal effect so far. Only McCain can close the gap.

Today, the Telegraph picks up on this theme and adds the new plot twist[e.a.]:

A few weeks ago Obama had a monopoly on excitement. Somewhere in July, his campaign began to lose it. But although McCain had a kind of gritty charm, he could not really arouse the crowds as Obama had done. He had respect but not elation on his side.

Then he picked Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate. On all sorts of grounds it was a shrewd pick. … Palin seems to be one of those extraordinary, ordinary people that America throws up at irregular intervals. She combines conservative views with highly unconventional drive and ability. Her appointment has injected real excitement into the Republican campaign.

As I’ve suggested elsewhere, Palin might indeed be an “ordinary” hockey mom, but she is a very ambitious and self-aware “ordinary” person, mindful of her image—which she also happens to put across spectacularly well.

That, of course, is the reason for the hysteria from the likes of Andrew Sullivan, who has devoted dozens of posts to Sarah Palin in the last few days. He obviously senses the huge danger for Obama in this sensationally good-looking and impressively assertive woman hogging the spotlight that has been focused on his chosen candidate. Simply put, Palin matches Obama—and may well even trump him—as People bait. Were Oprah not all in for Obama, Palin would be Oprah bait as well.

It will be interesting to see what kind of media she is sent out to do. (Mark Halperin already has a list of questions for McCain about that.)

Andrew Sullivan is pretty desperate in his desire to see Palin just disappear. His (unintentionally) funniest post is the one where he suggests that a brainwashed bunch of Christianists will vote Palin and McCain into office and turn the country into one big Jesus camp:

The drama that could unfold in the next few days is simply immense. The emotions involved - especially among the Christianist base who have immediately bonded on purely religious and cultural terms with Palin - are epic. What I fear is some kind of pure emotional-religious wave that redefines the GOP for ever as a purely religious party, swamps all genuine questions about governance, celebrates this woman as the epitome of modern conservatism and rides the tidal wave of fundamentalist fervor to the White House. … He doesn’t understand the profound forces he has unleashed with this pick, especially when all the facts are on the table. I predict that as this story develops, it will be Palin who is effectively running for president for the GOP.

What Sullivan fears will happen for Sarah Barracuda is exactly what has happened for Obama: a movement. If the interest she ignited is real, it will not recede. It might just put McCain over the top come November. So Sullivan is left to “argue” that Palin is the next Dick Cheney and the neocons all rolled into one! No wonder McCain picked her—he needs an evil sidekick to blame when things go south!

The Telegraph, however, seens things differently, much the way I did yesterday:

Obama is still ahead in the polls, if only by a few points, and this election campaign has already had more twists and turns than the Amalfi Drive. There will certainly be more twists and turns to come.

Yet that, too, may subtly help McCain. So far, the Obama campaign has consisted of a brilliantly conceived strategy to which the candidate stuck undeviatingly through successes, reverses, and - just recently - the doldrums.

McCain is the candidate who has adapted quickly and ingeniously to rapid changes on the political battlefield. He has shown an ability to exploit his own reverses. He surprises opponents. No one can sensibly predict who will win. But we can say that McCain won’t lose. Obama will have to find some way of defeating him.

That sounds about right to me: McCain knows war, and he’s fighting one.
Fasten your seat belts … and may the best strategist win.

Because this country will need a strategist in the coming years.

(via Marc Ambinder) His name is Barack Obama, and I endorse his message [e.a.]:

Jake Tapper: Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying that their 17 year old daughter Bristol who is unmarried is 5 months pregnant. Do you have a comment?

BO: I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible. I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics, it has no relevance to governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off limits.

A lot of Obama’s supporters do not understand that, but I forgive them [even when they make fools of themselves after being reminded of the fundamentals of biology, and still want a doctors letter? Yes, even then. And I'm not even a Christian! ---ed.] They’re passionate about their candidate, and they’re human.

On one level, it’s good that they care enough to get engaged in the messy process that is our democracy—a process that, alas, also gives rights to those caught up in a mob mentality.

The proper remedy to their antics is to outsmart them, and to accomplish your goals: the success of your cause is always the best revenge.

If you like soap operas, this one is getting better by the hour: VP hopeful Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant.

A statement released by the campaign said that Bristol Palin will keep her baby and marry the child’s father.

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents,” Sarah and Todd Palin said in the brief statement.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family,” they added.

As I write, no retraction yet from Andrew Sullivan. Interestingly, though, Kaus defends Sullivan’s posts as the legitimate work of bloggers, whose function, he implies, is to push “undernews” to the surface:

The Case for Excitability : Andrew Sullivan’s role in publicizing the rumor seems legit too. The feeding frenzy of publicity is what flushes out the counter-evidence quickly (and then it gets a lot of attention).

[Why didn’t kf, self-appointed Guide to the Undernews, write about the rumor?–ed. It seemed more likely that an older woman would have a Down syndrome child. Nor do I see what the huge moral scandal would be if the Palin rumor were true. So I didn’t get to it. I’m not Guide to the Undernews! At least not to All the Undernews. That’s a full time job.** My argument is that the Web as a whole potentially functions as the Guide to All Undernews, as bloggers argue about whatever rumors interest them. …

**–The Edwards/Hunter undernews was also different, from my perspective–I pushed it because I knew with reasonable certainty, from off-the-record sources, that it was true. But I defend obsessed bloggers who hash out undernews rumors about public figures when they don’t know if they’re true or not.

Longtime readers know how cynical I am, so it won’t come as any surprise to them to read that I’m impressed by the immediate, visible impact Sarah Palin has had on the McCain campaign. Jonathan Martin reports:

The Palin effect: crowd size

17,000+ today for the McCain-Palin rally outside of St. Louis, according to a Secret Service magnetometer count provided by the campaign.

As one veteran of Missouri politics said, that’s the sort of crowd usually seen in October for a president — not in August for a candidate.

Call me a simpleton, but that looks like evidence of a bounce.

I am not a fan of John McCain for president (though I am a big John McCain fan). In fact, I find myself leaning toward Obama now. But I do admire McCain’s moxie and his mental toughness, and, purely from a political point of view, his decision to pick Palin.

Noemi Emery laid out the items in the plus column of the decision three days ago (impressive!), and it looks like many of her predictions are coming true—against all odds, since she didn’t take Gustav into account, and even that is figuring to put the GOP at a (relative) advantage: Bush and Cheney won’t be speaking at the convention due to the weather, and yet the worst of the storm happens to be bypassing New Orleans. [Who is stage-managing this show? This dude or dudette is even better than the guys who handled the Beijing Olympics and Obama's acceptance speech performance! ---ed.]

1. Steps on the story of Obama’s speech (and convention), and possibly the bounce coming from them, and wipes them off the news cycle. [ see today's NYT ***---ed.] The Sunday news shows will be all-Palin, all of the time.

2. Sends Republicans into their convention on a huge head of steam. [ Not really, but you can blame Gustav, and/or the media, whichever one is more politically convenient ---ed.]

3. Wipes out the image of McCain as the crotchety elder and brings back that of the fly-boy and gambler, which is much more appealing, and the genuine person. [true dat; see the first paragraph of this post ---ed.]

4. Revs up the base AND excites independents, which no one else in the party, or perhaps in the world, could have accomplished.

5. Puts youth, change, and history on both of the tickets. [yep. I think that's why Obama's fans are so incredibly upset. Palin is, undeniably, an agent of change---both in her actions and her image. She makes Obama less special. Plus: she's fresh meat. We're tired of him. He has used up all his material. She gives us a new character to root for or to deride---or, if you're Andrew Sullivan, to try to ruin. Sorry if you're offended, but that's the way it is in our democracy. It has always been like this. The only difference now is that we're attuned to it. The curtain has been pulled back to reveal fully the behind-the-stage machinations on both sides of the aisle and in the newsrooms of the MSM. The means to report---and to reveal formerly closely held secrets---has been spread to anyone with an internet connection. Likewise, the means to make up lies and spread them instantly across the globe.

And that's as true for Daily Kos diarists as it is for the Russian prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, who is taking advantage of the three-ring circus that is our election cycle to declare a new era, in which Russia has a sphere of influence to compete with America, which isn't so exceptional. Take that! ---ed.]

6. May detach some young people, especially women. [Meghan McCain gave Palin a big endorsement as a "cool role model." ---ed.]

7. May attach some women pissed off about Hillary. [Hmmm. That's complicated. ---ed.]

8. As a pro-life super-achiever, puts feminists in a tizzy.

etc.

Read the whole thing.

Obama built a very impressive organization from the ground up, and created the impression of a pro-Obama movement, which in turn has sparked an interest in politics the likes of which this country (and Europe) hasn’t seen in decades (if the interest of the under-30 crowd around me is any indication … but I have to say that the jury is still out on that, because I live in an unrepresentative bubble in downtown Manhattan and cannot extrapolate much from my immediate surroundings).

McCain, however, seems to have ignited a movement. If indeed he has been mulling over this choice for a long time, you have to tip your hat to his boldness (or recklessness … take your pick). The Republican Party needs a shake-up not only for McCain to have a shot at the White House but in order for the Republicans to have a shot at staying relevant in our fast-moving society.

John Podhoretz hinted at this immediately after McCain picked Palin last Friday:

For the first time this year, there will be some pop-cultural interest in a Republican. Her family story — a conservative Republican with a blue-collar worker of a husband who takes primary responsibility for childrearing with a special-needs baby — is like a dream People Magazine cover.

And indeed, here is People’s immediate coverage.

Podhoretz continued:

Even though her pro-life views will make her anathema to New York City women’s-magazine editors, the possibility of huge newsstand sales in Red State Wal-Marts is just going to be too tempting for them to ignore her or belittle her.

It won’t swing an election, but it’s the kind of thing that can help change the narrative of the election.

It can do more than change the narrative of the election. McCain is confronting the culture war head-on. Suddenly, it’s a little hard to picture rural folk as bitter gun-and religion-clingers now, isn’t it?

Crazy!

A rejuvenation of both brands—Democratic and Republican—would be really healthy for our Republic. Long live the founders!

———–

*** The Democrats’ best-laid plans for a post-convention honeymoon have been derailed, Jeff Zeleny writes:

The Obama-Biden tour, officially branded “On the Road to Change,” drew far less attention than the campaign had envisioned. Before their plane took off Friday from the Democratic convention in Denver, Senator John McCain dropped the bombshell news that he had chosen Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. Then, as Hurricane Gustav churned toward the Gulf Coast, Mr. McCain turned up in Mississippi on Sunday.

Cindy McCain is a doofus, but the motherfucking Russians are out for blood. They’ve just assassinated another journalist.

I’m cleaning out my drafts folder, so … apropos of nothing:

Christopher Beam explains something that I’ve previously referred to as “going there”—the place where no detail is spared and where infotainment takes on a truly vulgar cast [e.a.]:

It’s okay for a candidate to admit he sins multiple times a day in the abstract. But the moment the sins become concrete, he’s pummeled for it. “Sin” covers everything from eating too many fries to murder. That’s why it’s such an easy question to ask and to answer. It sets up the faux-humble “forgive me, I’m human” rhetoric we hear on the campaign trail. But when things get specific—think Jimmy Carter admitting “I have lusted in my heart”—people get squeamish. When things get too specific—I have lusted in a Radisson hotel—that’s when the punishment begins.

With Obama’s exotic background (which, we’re often reminded, is a plus) and in the absence of a core character (or recognizable positive archetype***) that he conveys and pushes out into the world—and, even more important, with its replacement by ingenious campaign tactics and strategy that include “outreach” (via celebrity marketing techniques) to all elements of society, including consumers, instead of just the usual voters, pundits have been forced—or they’re desperate, depending on your point of view—to invest Barack Obama (and the obstacles he faces on his way to the presidency) with meaning.

Phillip Kennicott, deconstructing the prattle about the Temple of Obama, detects racism in an attempt to deny Obama entree into the Old Dead White Guys Hall of Fame.

Closer examination of Obama’s platform (the architectural, not ideological one) suggests some basic neoclassical precedents, including the Oval Office. That may account for part of the criticism he received: It is presumptuous to assume the trappings of the White House before earning the keys to it. This is hubris, the Greek term for dangerous pride.

It’s an idea that Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz emphasized by slyly comparing Obama to a deus ex machina — the divine figure at the end of a Greek play who sets the world in order.

“It’s only appropriate,” Diaz said, “that Barack Obama would descend down from the heavens and spend a little time with us mere mortals.” …

But there’s another architectural reference that may have greater resonance. While neoclassicism was the default architectural style across the United States, it became particularly associated with the aristocratic architecture of the antebellum South. Obama wasn’t just borrowing ancient precedents, he was unconsciously recalling — and appropriating — the look of Tara and dozens of other (real) plantation houses.

Is race involved in the criticism of Obama’s “temple”? Perhaps. [e.a.]

Perhaps not! Why make of this more than it was? a huge self-congratulatory party for the Democratic Party—with staging by the same dude who works with Britney Spears! with fireworks!—and, consequently with a great deal for observers of the culture to mock, or to detail with dispassion.

Left, Hillary Clinton; right, Michelle Obama. (Left, Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; right, Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

The crazy thing is that even as they’re shrewdly planning this visually pleasing extravaganza and taking all the spontaneity out of it, when it unfolds, it is still a momentous occasion—especially for African Americans—and for all Americans who care about equal rights and about creating a more perfect union.

But you run a political campaign with the social and political and media culture you’ve got, not the one you wish you had.

Very, very interesting times.

———-

*** It’s hard enough to run for president as a lefty law prof—just ask Bill Clinton. But a black lefty law prof? Well, no wonder Obama needed a Narrator!

A while back, Andrew Tyndall referred to media coverage of the Democratic primary as Reality Gameshow journalism.

Stop thinking of this election as a race to the wire to be won by the candidate with the finest pedigree, truest form and best connections. Start thinking of it as a cast of larger-than-life characters, scheming against each other while simultaneously trying to appear attractive to the electorate audience. Week by week the group undergoes media trials such as candidate debates and Sunday morning interviews. Each primary election constitutes another potential elimination round.

The winner gets to be a constant television presence in our homes for four years.

Now Alan Jacobs, noting that all four candidates for the top spot have very interesting life stories, elaborates on this notion.

You could make the argument that this is the first election fully to bear the marks of a reality TV world, of Oprah and Survivor and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. And also the Olympics, at least as presented by NBC. We’re perhaps more accustomed than we ever have been to hearing Fascinating and Dramatic Life Stories, stories filled with Conflict and Tension and Obstacles Overcome, preferably in exotic settings — like, you know, Hawaii, or Alaska, or Vietnam, or Scranton. Biden has the bankrupted father, the upbringing in poverty, the stutter, the horrific accident that killed his wife and daughter; McCain has the . . . well, you know all about that; Obama has the — well, you totally know all about that; and now here comes Sarah Palin, just your typical snowmobile-racing, moose-hunting, basketball-playing, beauty-contest-entering-and-almost-winning member of the NRA and Feminists for Life with five kids, one of whom has Down’s syndrome. Other forms of reality TV will never catch up. Looks like the political is the personal — maybe from here on out.

That would be a rash and probably frivolous argument, and I’m not going to make it, but you could. If you wanted to. [e.a.]

Indeed it would be rash and frivolous to make this argument, but I’ve been making it for a while—since February 2006, in fact, when I started this blog! A great deal of public life is about PR (or what I call, less charitably, PRopaganda^TM).

Palin is already getting the People magazine treatment

There’s a lot to know about Sarah Palin, who is John McCain’s surprise pick for his vice president. She’s been governor of Alaska for 20 months and served two terms as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, all while raising five children. PEOPLE sat down with Palin, 44, recently to discuss her life, career and family.

Here are five things you may not know about her:

Item five is the one that I find most interesting:

She has her own style. Palin may be comfortable in a fisherman’s vest or hunting fatigues, but on the job as governor she wears Kazuo Kawasaki designer glasses and black Franco Sarto boots!

How many gun-totin’ mamas do you know who wear designer glasses, huh?
Upshot: she’s authentic, but that doesn’t mean she’s not self-aware, and a clever politician.

This is our politics.
This is our democracy.
Get used to it.

update: by the way, if you want a villain to blame for our collective addiction to soap opera-style stories on TV, look no further than the late Roone Arledge. I discussed him here, after ABC’s Jim McKay died.

Even more interestingly, it seems that Arledge’s signature “up-close-and-personal” sob stories, which moved over to NBC with Olympic coverage, are no longer the done thing.

During the planning, Mr. Ebersol also acceded to a move pushed by members of his staff to cut way back on the now much-mocked athlete profiles, usually known as “up close and personals,” during which heart-tugging tales of overcoming handicaps and tragedy are often recounted. The overall number dropped from about 160 eight years ago to 80 in Athens and only about 60 this year.

“I always loved them,” Mr. Ebersol said. “I sit there and cry at them. I might as well be part of that female demographic we’re seeking.”

Up-close-and-personal stories may no longer be the done thing in sports coverage, but it looks like they’re all the rage in political coverage.

The debut of Sarah Palin, the new gal in town, is still the subject du jour 24 hours later, having wiped Obama’s smashing convention spectacular from the news cycle and thus, for all intents and purposes, from memory. His really big shew didn’t have time to stick, because McCain trampled all over it with fresh meat.

The media’s instant switchover from covering Obama’s triumph to covering the sensational instant celebrity Sarah Palin reveals the danger in relying on the MSM to carry your message (and your momentum, not to mention your water), as Obama did with the convention spectacular: you can be swept aside by the next story that comes along. And if the story introduces an exceptionally telegenic new archetype (who scores) into the tired old cast of the “Mediathon” (see Frank Rich’s brilliant article about the phenomenon)—well then, if you’re Obama, you might just have lost your mini-momentum.

But you had a fabulous moment! Even I thought so!

Wretchard analyzes the meaning and impact of McCain’s VP pick:

One of the more interesting questions for political historians is whether McCain chose Palin before or after Obama chose Biden. After a long period of bleeding numbers at the polls, Obama had a chance at Denver to take the initiative in two ways: first to refocus the election on George W. Bush and second, to dominate the news cycle for at least a couple of days. But several circumstances spoiled the opportunity. First, Denver turned out to be at least partly about the Clintons; an misfortune which BHO endured with gritted teeth. Yet even when the duo had sullenly lumbered off and he strode at last into the limelight before the stage the rumor that McCain was about to select his Veep was beating on the edges of the media’s attention. At first there seemed little to worry about; there were contingency plans in the event McCain selected either Romney or Pawlenty. But now it is clear the old attack pilot pulled a move which aims to exploit several chinks in Obama’s armor: gender and class.

From early indications, BHO’s camp has elected to expend at least some ammunition to attack Palin. Despite its aggressive appearances [it] is a defensive move designed to blunt the potential threat she poses to his narratives. The effort will divert resources away from what should have been Obama’s central focus: attacking GWB and McCain.

Every campaign is about both hearts and minds, of course.

We Americans don’t have much in our minds—we’re an ignorant lot, and apparently don’t care to change our ways—but we’ve got open hearts

There’s a surefire way to capture our hearts—with a great story.

It looks like the Red American hot mama from Alaska has got one hell of a story. And the visuals aren’t bad either.

Whether she’ll make a difference in the election is something we can’t know now. But that she has the potential to make a huge difference in the image of rural, conservative, evangelical Americans is undeniable (just as Obama has already made a huge difference in the image of African Americans).

Who’d a thunk it?

Being a dyed-in-the-wool cynic—somewhat like my favorite director, Billy Wilder, who was of the opinion that there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, and that the difference that really counts among human beings is between human decency and indecency-–I appreciate Glenn Reynolds’s observation:

For me, of course, most of the fun of the past 24 hours has come from watching Democrats get caught up in the whole identity-politics tangle. As the San Francisco Chronicle says, “Republican Sen. John McCain played the gender card like an ace Friday with his surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.”

Should McCain be above tricks like that? Well, maybe, but . . . nah, it’s politics, who am I kidding? And I have to say, this whole election, which a year or two ago looked to be a boring slog between Hillary and Rudy, has been the most entertaining I can remember. Regardless of how it comes out, let’s be thankful for that! [e.a.]

Of course policies do make a difference, and to the extent that political parties can change policies it does matter which party is in power. But the needle doesn’t ever move too far from the center in America. Neither party will ever be the ruin of the country, and neither party will ever be the savior, either.

So … unless we’re out there participating and making a difference (and even if we are out there participating and making a difference), we might as well sit back and enjoy the show.

This is our glorious democracy.

And politics—which includes public circuses and spectacular attempts to influence public opinion while stealing your opponent’s thunder—is indeed the greatest show on earth.

Jack Shafer on the media’s typical coverage of campaigns contains this gem about last night’s spectacle in Denver—and a useful reminder [e.a.]:

Instead of decoding the Obama propaganda, the broadcast press mostly wallowed in it: Flipping the dial, I didn’t hear much in the way of disparagement from the talking heads. Indeed, the fact that the networks paid $100,000 to install a Skycam to hover over the cheering hordes at Invesco Field proves how easily they can be co-opted by a campaign that spends the money to produce a terrific “show.” The Skycam added no journalistic value to last night’s coverage, only buckets of oomph for the Obama-Biden ticket. If you can’t avert your eyes from such spectacles and the network anchors refuse to frame them skeptically, be prepared to discount the emotional effect they may exert on you.

He’s right, of course. What he doesn’t note is that the very next day, the Republicans put on an equally compelling “show” with the very photogenic Sarah Palin:

Aren’t political campaigns fun?

Especially when a resurgent Russia is all but forgotten in the process?

It’s funny how being mugged by reality makes people change their minds:

Santa Barbara County became a symbol of the national environmental movement’s passionate opposition to offshore oil drilling when an oil spill devastated its coastline in 1969. On Tuesday, it became a symbol of the changing national mood as its board of supervisors debated whether to welcome new wells along California’s shores.

The supervisors voted 3 to 2 on Tuesday to end the county’s opposition to offshore drilling, although the vote will have no practical impact on state or federal policies.

But the speed with which opinions have changed in Santa Barbara County as gasoline prices have climbed has been astonishing. The vote there reinforces, at the local level, a shift evident in national polls and in the delicate willingness of Democratic leaders like Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive presidential nominee, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, to open the door to limited coastal drilling.

Three weeks ago, the Public Policy Institute of California released a poll showing that 51 percent of Californians now approve of offshore drilling, a 10-point increase in a single year. “I don’t think any of us expected to see the day when there’d be more than 50 percent support for oil drilling,” said Mark Baldassare, the institute’s research director. [e.a.]

Holy cow—that’s not the Santa Barbara I know! It looks like America’s dependence on foreign oil has now become officially anathema.

In case any of you thought that electoral politics was about issues and policies, read what

this commenter at Ann Althouse’s blog has to say about McCain’s pick of the unknown (to me) Sarah Palin as his VP:

This is a subtle, brilliant choice, and once against shows the McCain camp getting inside the Obama camp’s decision loop. For almost every criticism you can find for Palin can redirected at Obama. The decision will provoke more heat than some others would have, but better to suffer the slings and arrows toward the bottom of your ticket than the top.

Upshot: it’s all about the strategy. So what it is, is war by other means.

And in case you think that Barack Obama really is a new kind of politican rather than an old-fashioned political warrior, consider this story related by Jodi Kantor in yesterday’s New York Times [e.a.]:

In 2006, Mr. Obama backed Alexi Giannoulias, a 29-year-old friend from the basketball court, for Illinois treasurer. Opponents accused Mr. Giannoulias of corruption, citing thin evidence: a loan his family’s bank made to a convicted felon. After Mr. Giannoulias worsened the situation by calling the felon a nice guy, Mr. Obama told him to fix his campaign or get out of the race.

“I was almost crying,” said Mr. Giannoulias, who eventually won. “He was almost upset at how thin-skinned I was.”

It is not that Mr. Obama does not experience emotion, friends say. But he detaches and observes, revealing more in his books than he does in the moment.

Also from the comments at Althouse’s blog [e.a.]:

[Palin] earned the nickname Sarah Barracuda and won Miss Congeniality both before the age of 21.

Sounds like a natural politician to me.

Remember back when I referred to Obama as a reptile?

This, dear readers, is what our electoral politics has come to. Not exactly change you can believe in.

Noah Millman, who cops to being a registered Republican (I mention it in case any of my readers can’t stand to read anything written by a Republican or a conservative, though, frankly, if that’s how you feel, I’d be surprised to find you among my readers), decided to try to write Obama’s acceptance speech.

First, though, he tried to capture the essence of his subject—his elusiveness.

I still, at this late date, have no idea why Obama is running. I mean, I know why: he wants to be President. He’s “got game” – you don’t need more reason. But Obama has done a rather astonishing thing: he’s built an entire movement – he’s built a fundraising and organizing machine comparable to a national political party, in fact – without really standing for anything in particular. He is not, as George McGovern was, running to take the Democratic Party decisively to the left, nor is he, as Ted Kennedy was, running to restore a certain kind of liberalism within the Democratic Party, nor is he, as Bill Clinton was, running to transform liberalism into some kind of new, Third Way synthesis. Apart from his position on Iraq, he in no way distinguished himself from his rivals as representing a particular faction or even a particular worldview within the Democratic Party or the tradition of American liberalism, and Iraq he has forcefully maintained was a matter of his personal good judgment rather than an indication that he thinks about foreign policy profoundly differently from the Washington consensus. Obama has been attacked from various quarters for running a personality-based campaign, all about his own innate wonderfulness and ability to magically bind up all our political wounds and so forth. And while it’s certainly true that Obama has his lunatic supporters who think he’s the messiah, I think the real reason he’s perceived this way is that, lacking an animating cause, the candidate himself perforce became the cause. And that’s a huge problem because, in the end, a majority of voters is simply not going to vote for Obama on the basis of his innate wonderfulness.

To me, that’s about as clear an expanation—for those who really need one—of McCain’s attacks on Obama’s celebrity status—a status Obama sought in order to deflect attention from his obvious lack of stature as a credible political leader with a track record.

John Podhoretz also captures this nicely as we all wait for Obama to appear in his Temple in Invesco Field [e.a.]:

It certainly is nice to see and hear Stevie Wonder on the stage there at Invesco Field. And I know this is happening 90 minutes or more before Obama takes to all the networks with his acceptance speech. But this ellision of a pop stadium concert with a political convention does really make explicit the very problem that began Obama’s descent earlier this summer — the idea being that he is a showbiz idea of a leader rather than being a real leader.

Bingo! And McCain has exploited that weakness—the absence of steak and its replacement with the sizzle of rock star charisma and jelly-kneed fans—very effectively. Now, every time the Obama campaign plans a heavily stage-managed pseudo-event or spectacle, a lot of bloodhounds are on the case.

Maureen Dowd picked up on this:

Democrats have begun internalizing the criticisms of Hillary and John McCain about Obama’s rock-star prowess, worrying that the Invesco Field extravaganza Thursday, with Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, will just add to the celebrity cachet that Democrats have somehow been shamed into seeing as a negative.

But elsewhere in the New York Times! we hear that Team Obama is ignoring the possible pitfalls [e.a.]:

Some aides worried about the setting overwhelming the message. But those closest to the planning said they had no regrets and were sticking to the sort of big-event politics that no other candidate has been able to match this year.

“We are leaning into this, how can you not?” said Jenny Backus, a campaign strategist working on the convention plan. “This is the enthusiasm gap,” referring to what polls show as excitement for Mr. Obama that Senator John McCain’s campaign has not matched.

Well, sure, there’s plenty of excitement for Mr. Obama among his fans. But it’s more than a little weird to watch the spotlights sweeping over Invesco Stadium, to hear the rock music, and to think that this is the Democratic convention rather than American Idol.

Karl Rove is hardly an objective voice, but he explains how this extravaganza feeds directly into McCain’s strategy to deflate the Obama Messiah:

Making your speech in front of 75,000 people at Invesco Field could add to the view that this man is a celebrity, a rock star, somebody who’s fresh in the political scene, been taken by the press clubs. And that’s been a problem for Sen. Obama. Ever since he went to Europe and made the speech that he was running for president of the United States in Europe, in Berlin, he’s been in a slide. And question is whether he will stop that tomorrow night or accelerate it. And it’s a high stakes venue, no if’s, and’s or but’s about it. …

[T]hey had the biggest rally in the history of Pennsylvania just before the Pennsylvania Democratic primary — 35,000 people were in a rally for Sen. Obama in Philadelphia, and he lost the primary in Pennsylvania by almost two to one. So I wouldn’t take his ability to generate crowds. In fact, historically, if you look at this, some of the largest crowds in presidential campaign history were those entertained by George McGovern in the final moments of his horrendous defeat in 1972.

But the show is about to start, so I’m going to kick back and enjoy it!

Just how many people in America are paying attention to the Democratic convention? It’s hard to say, of course, but early indications are that more people tuned in (to the networks, at least) to see Hillary on Tuesday than to watch the action with Biden (and with Bill Clinton) on Wednesday night:

All the broadcast networks’ numbers fell, with NBC holding the largest audience, based on Nielsen’s overnight metered household ratings from 55 markets. NBC brought in a 4.1 rating/7 share, slipping 16% from Tuesday’s numbers.

ABC’s audience declined 24% to a 2.9/5, while CBS dropped by 11% to a 2.4/4.

I’ve only done a bit of convention-watching myself. If I’m representative of the population, the excellent entertainment provided by the Dems for an hour last night may have been for naught.

Here’s what you missed, according to David Gergen, speaking last night on CNN immediately after the end of the onstage events [e.a.]:

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I thought it was a fine speech [by Biden]. It was a serviceable speech. I don’t think it’s a memorable speech. It will never make Bill Safire’s anthology.

But what was most important in the speech, Anderson, and what I think worked both in the hall and on television was the tableau that unfolded here over the past hour.

And that I thought the Democrats had their best hour of television of the convention starting with the moment they rolled out that Spielberg film on the veterans, on honoring the Veterans in a poignant way, moving on to Beau Biden’s speech, which I thought was a home run.

That was a remarkably good speech. And then when the cameras went to Michelle Obama and you saw her tearing up as she heard again the story of the loss of the family early on, I thought that was a revealing moment for television viewers, some of whom have thought she’s an angry woman. That wasn’t an angry woman you saw tonight. She was very human.

And I think it was consistent with her own speech earlier in the week. And then Joe Biden gave a good speech. It was a solid speech but then — but what I think really helped was Barack Obama coming on. And then, it was as if the Democrats brought it all together tonight for the first time.

And I must tell you, I think the importance of tonight is that perhaps the Democrats have begun to reverse the momentum of the campaign.

John McCain has been coming on very strong against them; he’s caught up with them. They desperately needed to reverse momentum if they were to win in November. I think they started to turn it. My one single voice, it’s really the voters who counts about this, it’s the public who counts on this. We’ll wait to see what they did. But I think tonight and tomorrow night if they can reverse momentum, the Republicans will have their chance to take it back next week but I think that’s very, very important as a potential opening for the Democrats to reverse the momentum

Well, it might reverse the momentum if a lot of on-the-fence voters were watching the Dems celebrate themselves, but that doesn’t seem to be the case (outside the blogosphere, that is).

Plus: attentive readers will note that Gergen, the ultimate spouter of inside-the-Beltway conventional [no pun intended!] wisdom, says that the Dems need desperately to reverse the momentum. That should worry Obama fans—oops!—I mean: Obama supporters; they’re in love and so they’re not attentive to the arrows being slung at him from all directions.

And the arrows are coming fast and furious. Obama isn’t oblivious to them. Quite the contrary.

But first things first: he’s got a really big shew to put on tonight, folks!\

I don’t have the patience to read commentary on the convention, which, despite my better instincts, I did watch for a couple of hours last night. Having watched, I feel compelled to note what I picked up in Biden’s call-out to “traditional” Dems—especially because it was so weirdly out of place in the current left/liberal/progressive/Dem “discourse” about foreign policy.

Biden is a total hawk:

And for the last seven years, the administration has failed to face the biggest — the biggest forces shaping this century: the emergence of Russia, China, and India as great powers; the spread of lethal weapons; the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water; the challenge of climate change; and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front in the war on terror.

Ladies and gentlemen, in recent years and in recent days, we’ve once again seen the consequences of the neglect — of this neglect with Russia challenging the very freedom of a new democratic country of Georgia. Barack and I will end that neglect. We will hold Russia accountable for its actions, and we will help the people of Georgia rebuild. [and the crowd roared ---ed.]…

Al Qaida and the Taliban, the people who actually attacked us on 9/11, they’ve regrouped in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan and they are plotting new attacks. And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has echoed Barack’s call for more troops. …

Doesn’t this rather sound as if Biden is on the warpath?

Who’s the warmonger now?

It’s all rather odd.

The only other pundit I’ve read who has noted the foreign policy confusion among Dems is Matt Welch, who wrote this before Biden’s speech at the convention:

All We Are Saying Is, Make Smarter War
Will Democratic foreign policy be built by the hawkish Madeleine Albright?

Here’s one reference to the foreign policy part of Biden’s speech that (spectacularly) misses the obvious:

Looking abroad, Biden slammed McCain repeatedly for his poor judgment on everything from Iraq to Iran to Afghanistan to international diplomacy: “Again and again, on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was proven right.”

Biden did a lot more than slam McCain’s judgment. He laid out an aggressively interventionist foreign policy under an Obama administration.

Are pundits trying to hide this, or didn’t they notice?

Philip Kennicott reviews the movie Traitor, starring the fine actor Don Cheadle:

Once again there are terrorists in our midst, and once again they are Muslims, hiding in sleeper cells, posing as ordinary Americans, waiting to cause mayhem. Heroic action is needed.

To save us from the terrorists?

More pressingly, to save us from films such as “Traitor,” a long-winded thriller starring Don Cheadle as a conflicted Muslim who is either an undercover U.S. operative or a ruthless killer, or maybe both.

Wait. It gets worse—or, rather, better [e.a.]:

The film’s moral reasoning is all parenthetical: There are bad guys out there (but they’re not all irredeemably bad), and while we must fight them, we shouldn’t sink to their level (except when we have to). This doesn’t add up to real nuance. It just encourages people to break the rules and feel bad about it. The film, which borrows a line from Samir as its subtitle (”The Truth Is Complicated”), would be stronger if it thought more simplistically: Terrorism is always wrong, as is breaking the laws of civilized behavior to fight it.

How hard is it for the makers of American popular entertainment to get this? Terrorism is always wrong, and so is the uncivilized behavior sometimes used to fight it.

I haven’t seen The Dark Knight, but from what I’ve read, that movie fails the morality test, too.

The Dark Knight does not provoke profound debate about our methods and purposes. It spectacularly affirms them. “We don’t get the hero we need,” Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon says, with Niebuhrian wistfulness, “we get the hero we deserve.”

Memo to Hollywood: one, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war. Get us rewrite!

TigerHawk notes that despite Americans’ rising confidence in winning the “war on terror” (per this Rasmussen Report), they are still deeply unhappy about President Bush (as they well should be, because he has been a dreadful, incompetent, moronic “leader” despite his having had one correct impulse: to respond forcefully to 9/11—and these are my thoughts, not TH’s; he seems to be a lot more generous toward GWB).

TH writes [e.a.]:

The place of the presidency of George W. Bush in history will almost certainly turn on the state of the Middle East in another generation. If the ruling class in the region remains a teeming hive of scum and villainy, then Bush will land in the lower ranks of American presidents (although not “the worst president ever,” insofar as it would be virtually impossible for Bush to sink below James Buchanan). If, however, the major governments in the region have become more representative, more transparent, less corrupt and less oppressive, history will remember that George W. Bush was the first world leader to declare that end as his aspiration.

Sadly, Bush will not live to see the result. It takes around half a century for history to judge an American presidency. People have to die, records have to be declassified, and, most importantly, the judgment must be rendered by historians who were not themselves caught up in the partisan politics of the day.

That’s an interesting observation, especially in light of George Packer’s comments the other day about LBJ and his persona non grata status in the Democratic Party:

For decades Johnson has been a pariah in the Democratic Party, because
of the disaster into which he led the country in Vietnam. And
today, because of our complex racial politics, even his successes, which partly redeem the sins of his war, can’t be attributed to Johnson. When Hillary Clinton, during the New Hampshire primary, made the historically unimpeachable point that there would have been no Civil Rights Act without a President Johnson to push the bill through, she was accused by everyone from the New York Times to the Obama campaign of somehow denigrating King. These charges were false, but they showed that there is something unmentionable about Johnson’s courage and his accomplishment.

Upshot: it probably takes a lot longer than 50 years for history to make its judgments—and even then they will not always be what we hope.

I’m not in the business of educating whippersnappers—at least not online. (I’ve got a life, you know, and it happens to have lots of young people in it.)

This commenter at Matthew Yglesias’s site, however, is very interested in taking the fight to the whippersnappers. He takes exception to Yglesias’s habit of staking out the proper “progressive” line and claiming (for it, and for himself) the moral high ground … without ever backing it up [e.a.]:

[Y]ou utterly void your argument of any intellectual content when you restort to logical fallacies — in this case, using ad hominem semantics to tar the opposing argument. When you say, “requires people to temper the natural human instinct toward moralistic posturing” you make two ad hominem attacks on your opponent, 1) arbitrarily labeling opposition to international bad actors as mere “posturing” without substantive value (you give no rational argument why this is should be so a priori or otherwise; 2) that your opponents must be resorting to these actions out of “intemperate instincts” rather than on rational grounds - again you give no argument (other than a vain implication of false consciousness). These tendentious characterizations of your opponent’s position give the impression that you have little interest or confidence in arguing the issue on the actual merits.

Your argument claims that your position is moral because the outcome is moral, but you specifically void your position of any morality or rationality when you insist that opposing wrongs is not moral but mere posturing. Perhaps opposition to a bad actor must be curtailed for realistic reasons, but this does not make your silence or the bad act thereby good, merely an unfortunate, unavoidable, but immoral reality.

You also make a generic implied assertion which is demonstrably false historically, that “maintaining a good relationship” will inexorably or even predominantly lead to cooperation and commerce and away from violent conflict. These kinds of things need to be decided case-by-case, on the merits, and can never be decided with certainty. Taking a stand, symbolically, diplomatically, or economically, is not always mutually exclusive with “maintaining a good relationship.” Depending upon its effects on opposing regimes, it may or may not be effective, while “maintaining a good relationship” may or may not turn out to incite conflict more directly. Likewise military intervention is sometimes the path to the least overall violence. It depends.

Since these outcomes cannot be known — either way — in advance, it is wise to be cautious. But your dogmatism on which choices are generally optimal regardless of context, made plain by your unwillingness to state your argument merely in rational terms, totally ignores the fact that there are also moral costs, and often long-term costs to “peace and commerce”, to saying and doing nothing (be it symbolic, diplomatic, economic, or even military).

At least try to state your argument in ways that appeal more directly to reason and less to tendentious semantics.

But Samantha Power reviewed Yglesias’s book, so he must be a very important thinker, right?

Maybe!

Not to get all Gawkerish and conspiratorial about it, but one hand washes the other inside the Beltway, too—even if one hand belongs to a mere blogger and the other to a Harvard professor and journalist. Ms. Power might merely have been acknowledging Yglesias’s defense of her after her “Hillary is a monster” remark was dutifully reported by The Scotsman.

Just sayin’!

No convention coverage here.
Indeed, no convention watching and certainly no convention live-blogging here.

In fact, no blogging here at all till the urge strikes again.

I know you all are just crushed.

Those of us who like to think of our blogs as political diaries get a morale boost from this project, in which George Orwell’s diaries are being reprinted in real time 70 years after he wrote them. What a great idea!

The NYT reports:

The scholars behind the project say they are trying to get more attention for Orwell online and to make him more relevant to a younger generation he would have wanted to speak to.

“I think he would have been a blogger,” said Jean Seaton, a professor at the University of Westminster in London who administers the Orwell writing prize and thought up the idea of the blog. …

Like any good political blogger, Orwell devoured the news, making clippings and looking for shifts in public and government opinion, Professor Seaton said. “He’s partly obsessed by the newspapers because of the start of the world war,” she said. “The diary is written against this almost traumatized understanding that there is going to have to be a second world war.” [e.a.]

Serializing it in a replay of real time is pure genius as a means of drawing people into the diaries, because one of the most enticing aspects of any drama is that you don’t know how things will turn out:

Professor Seaton said the material was full of tension.

“You do know how this story is going to end,” she said, “but one of the brilliant things is that Orwell doesn’t know how it is going to end.”

A most excellent way to tell the story of part of the twentieth century to a new generation: with hyperlinks!

Bravo!

Joe Klein went to a Frank Luntz-led focus group of independent voters and found out—surprise, surprise!—that they want details and specifics and reliability and trustworthiness:

–”Change” as a theme is over. Too vague. And Obama’s rhetoric has begun to seriously cut against him. “No more oratory,” one woman said. “Give us details.” (There may be a racial component to this, by the way, as some white people associate soaring oratory with African-American leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson.)

–What do they want? Given a list of 31 personal attributes the next President might have and asked to pick the eight most important, “Accountability” finished highest with 13 votes, next was “Someone I can trust” with 12, “honest and ethical” was third with 11. “Agrees with me on the issues” got one vote. They didn’t care if the candidate was a Washington insider or outsider. “A dynamic and charismatic leader” got two votes…(Add: When Luntz asked them which was more important, “accountability” or “change,” the vote was 17 to 4 in favor of accountability.)

–What does “accountability” mean? That, I think, is the key to this election. They know that the country is on the wrong track and big changes are necessary, but they don’t trust politicians, or government, to bring those changes about. (McCain’s government waste message resonates big-time with these people.) I got the feeling that if either candidate said, “I’m going to hire a private accounting firm to keep track of any new initiative I offer and make sure that it’s being done as efficiently as possible,” that would have a big impact on people.

Most interesting: it wasn’t about the issues at all for most undecided voters, or about the image and presentation of the candidates; rather, it seems to be about the candidates’ essence, or character.

accountable

trustworthy

honest and ethical

That’s what we seem to want.

Expect a lot more negative advertising to poke holes in the other guy’s character.

Good luck to Barack Obama. He’s gonna need it! (That’s what my gut tells me, but my gut has been known to lie!)

It seems like a shrewd pick if Obama is interested in sending a reassuring signal to Dem centrists (not so much for the netroots, of course, but what are they gonna do? vote for McCain?).

I like Ann Althouse’s take:

I discussed this a couple days ago, and I was guessing that maybe Bob was reflecting his Baptist background, and I my Episcopalian background, while McCain was had a basically Episcopalian orientation, but had, more recently switched to Baptist, and perhaps this could help us understand McCain’s varying levels of expressed religiosity. And now, here is Biden showing what I’d theorized was the Episcopalian style. Biden is Catholic.

Episcopalian, Catholic, whatever… I like this modesty about religion in public life.

Yep, that’s important to me, too. This is a secular society, and I like it that way. Plus, Biden is a liberal hawk, and so am I.

Jeff Bezos has been hyping the Kindle all over the place, and I make it a point not to buy any hype at all. None. Whatsoever. This guy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation isn’t buying Bezos’s hype, either. But it doesn’t prevent him from speculating about the imminent digital revolution in books suggested by a successful wireless device that stores lots and lots and lots of text.

And he’s got a good list of questions for the folks in the book industry to ponder:

• Will e-book readers be open to content from any source?
  So far, it looks like Amazon’s Kindle is limited in the type of file it can read. PDF files, for example, have to be converted before the Kindle can read them (whereas Sony’s reader can handle any type of file). Worse, books downloaded from Amazon appear in a proprietary .azw file format, which can’t be read on other devices. (The Kindle also bizarrely charges users $1 for each blog or RSS feed they subscribe to.) And if you’re trying to read digitally from Canada, you’re out of luck. Users should be able to seamlessly move content from their e-book reader to their computer to their cell phone. The winner of the format wars to come will be the one that can provides the greatest interoperability.
• Will digital books carry DRM?
  After insisting on dysfunctional copy protection for years, the music industry has finally realized that DRM doesn’t work. By making legitimately paid content harder to use than content downloaded for free, DRM punishes paying customers by locking up their content. And, since DRM is always circumvented eventually, it does nothing to prevent piracy (the Kindle’s DRM has already been cracked). Sellers of digital books and the makers of reading devices can save themselves — and their customers — ongoing headaches by avoiding these attempts to restrict customer rights to their content now.
• Will the first sale doctrine still apply when books are digital?
  Book readers are accustomed to passing their dog-eared copies of books without thinking about it. In