"Just two weeks ago, Democrats were chortling over chaos in the G.O.P., convinced that far-right Republican control of the House would help them in 2024."

"Then they experienced the exquisite torture that comes with the slow release of politically damaging information, in this case the acknowledgment of classified documents found in Mr. Biden’s former offices and Wilmington home.... [I]t’s hard to exaggerate the level of Democratic exasperation with him for squandering a huge political advantage on the Mar-a-Lago story and for muddying what may have been the best chance to convict Mr. Trump on federal charges.... Republicans are ferocious attack dogs, especially when they have something to chew on.... It’s not hard to envision an ambitious primary challenger arguing, more in sorrow than in anger, that he or she supports most of the Biden record but elections are about the future and the party needs a more vigorous candidate.... Democratic leaders will be shocked and appalled by the upstart’s temerity in spoiling the party’s impressive unity. But New Hampshire is full of anti-establishment independents.... He could easily lose or be weakened there, opening the door for other Democrats.... Imagine instead that the president.... And the smiling old gentleman in the Corvette — his shortcomings forgotten and his family protected — would assume his proper place as a bridge between political generations and arguably the most accomplished one-term president in American history."

From "Don’t Kid Yourself. The Classified Documents Story Is Bad for Biden" by Jonathan Alter (NYT).

Biden — using his "car guy persona" — drives 118 mph.

Here's a screen grab of my search: 

 

Here's some funny deadpan from the NYT article:

The president has long used his affinity for cars to burnish his workaday origins and, more recently, to conjure an aura of vitality despite being the oldest president in American history. In the run-up to the midterm elections next month — with control of Congress and the future of his agenda at stake — Mr. Biden is hoping his gearhead reputation will appeal to some parts of the Republican base.

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade writes...

Joe Biden is unsafe at any age.

And here in person, Meade nudges me to show you a picture he took of a real-life Corvair (in Decorah, Iowa):

The "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" with President Obama as one of the comedians.

It just went up. Here.

ADDED: "I'm appreciably cooler than I was 2 minutes ago." That's the only quote I wrote down. It's something Obama says after he's driven the 1963 Corvette Stingray for a couple minutes. Obama notably drives with one hand draped over the top of the wheel. He observes that you "can't do 10 and 2" with a car like that.

There's a nice beginning where Obama is at his desk in the Oval Office and Jerry comes up and just taps on the window. Obama claims to have some work to do — like he's always at the desk working — and Jerry flops down on the sofa to wait. Jerry takes an apple from the big bowl of apples on the coffee table and — after taking a bite — asks the President: "Are these washed?" I liked that, because that's how I feel about bowls of apples too.

They end up having coffee in what looks like the White House staff break room. Obama tells Seinfeld to make the coffee, which he does. It's a Mr. Coffee machine. Is that always there? I bet not. I bet they have one of those push-button, single-cup machines. The tables in the place all have those red-and-white checked table clothes that used to be the mark of a neighborhood Italian restaurant. I'm skeptical about those too. I bet that was staged, like the 2 women at the table sitting behind Jerry — although maybe not, because I got tired of that one woman who was positioned to seem like a head growing out of Jerry's neck.

Jerry tried to get the President to be funny by asking him about his underwear (which, I learned, is all the same color) and whether he's somehow haunted by all that's gone on in the White House over the years (Jerry pushed the notion that it's like "Night at the Museum"). There was some talk about whether it's bad to be famous. The President claimed to miss anonymity, but Jerry said he remembered not being famous and it's not that good. And Jerry worked on the idea that those who hold power for too long become crazy, but certainly didn't get the President to concede that he's losing his mind at all, though the President did say that quite a few world leaders are mentally disordered. That's just paraphrase. I'd have to watch again to get the precise quote. Should have written that one down, but writing while watching would have ruined the pacing and I like Jerry too much to do that to him.

How bad was "Cash for Clunkers"?

Really bad.

I've always loathed "Cash for Clunkers." The destruction really bothered me — especially watching this video of wrecking a Corvette.

2 men try to carjack a Corvette at gunpoint, but can't make it go, because it's a stick shift.

The owner of the car — one Mr. Bean — even tried to explain it to them. 

"I had to tell him four different times to push in the clutch... My first thought was I guess we don't have driver's ed. in school anymore... And my second thing was, don't shoot me because you can't start the car," Bean said. "I'm trying to help you out here, you know. Thankfully they didn't."

"I will buy a pink Segway before I spend a nickle on any goddamn government car.."

"... Including a ZR-1. U.S. OUT OF DETROIT."

I had to Google ZR-1. Then, I screamed.

But I've got to say: If the Segway hadn't already been made, the Obama administration would have funneled hundreds of millions of public money into developing it. And it would still only be ridden by that one guy, and as he scoots by, everybody who sees him thinks: No way!

Get up in your grill/grille.

I'm reading the transcript of the oral argument in Summers v. Phelps — the First Amendment case that we were talking about yesterday — substantively! — here and here. This post is about the English language. At page 40, Margie Phelps, arguing in favor of the right to express outrageous opinions in the vicinity of a funeral, is quoted as saying:

I think approaching an individual up close and in their grille to berate them gets you out of the zone of protection, and we would never do that.

(Boldface added.) Then, at pages 47-48, she's quoted saying:

Your body of law about captive audience... where they, by the way, specifically said at footnote this isn't about content. You've got to be up -- again, I will uses [sic] the colloquial term -- up in your grill. The term I think the Court used was confrontational.

And page 49:

I do think that you could have a public event where there was not an element of vulnerability in the people going in. You might even let them up in their grill.

So what is it? Grill or grille?

You cook on a grill (perhaps in a “bar and grill”), but the word for a metal framework over the front of an opening is most often grille. When speaking of intensive questioning “grill” is used because the process is being compared to roasting somebody over hot coals: “whenever I came in late, my parents would grill me about where I’d been.”

All right. So when you get up in somebody's grill/grille, what's the image: getting very close to the front of his car or somehow snuggling under the lid of his Weber? I Googled "what does get 'get up in his grill' mean" and – the world is so strange! — the second hit was to my blog:

k*thy said... I'd have no problem if she'd get up in his grill and then gone after his cycles with a bat.

Well, I didn't write that, and I think it's "grille." We're talking about the car, aren't we? Or do you think it has to do with that hip hop-style jewelry, worn over teeth? But what is that a reference to: the car part or the cooking surface? Wikipedia spells that "grill," but Googling around, I see a lot of pictures of Corvettes with "grille teeth." I even found one that I took:



Have I resolved it yet? If not, I submit the truly humble and unexceptionable request that spelling should be consistent within the transcript (and, if it's not too much to ask, all of the work of the Supreme Court). So pick one. I say "grille." (And I love those old Corvettes!)

Should bloggers who review books have to make a point of saying that they got them free?

Scott Stein writes:

The FTC recently announced that bloggers who review books that they received for free from publishers should make readers aware that the books were provided for free....

Newspapers and print magazines don’t provide disclaimers or tell readers that reviewers get the books for free. Newspapers and print magazines don’t announce that their reviewers often keep the free books or sell them on eBay. There is no presumption on the part of the FTC or readers that a newspaper book review is dishonest just because the reviewer was given the book for free....

[T]he government has no place weighing in on the battle between traditional and alternative media and conveying legitimacy on some and denying it to others....

Readers should base their opinion of the honesty of a review on the quality of the review and the track record of the reviewer — the body of work — and should not assume that a “professional” is somehow more honest or less likely to be bribed than an “amateur.” (And with what little money major publications usually pay book reviewers, really, we might as well all be amateurs anyway. I got free books when I reviewed books for the Philadelphia Inquirer. I didn’t suddenly become more honest because the Inquirer also sent me a small check for my work. ).

I've written book reviews for The New York Times and The New York Sun, and I didn't do it for the money. It's not enough money for all the work it takes. In fact, once the NYT had me review a book, paid me, and then never published it. That irked me no end, because I would never have done that much work for the amount it paid. (Maybe $700.) So I certainly wouldn't read a book and write about it just for a free book. Think about it. It's like when people give you a book for a gift. Don't you think, oh, great, now I have to read it. It's way easier to buy somebody a book than for them to read it. Imagine if when you got a book for a gift, you had to write about what you thought about it. You'd be saying to anyone who threatened to send you gifts, please, no gifts!

Now, some of these other gifts are more potentially corrupting. If companies were sending me steaks or cases of wine or .... hey, remember the time I tried to get Chevrolet to send me a Corvette?

Do you understand the massive destruction the government is paying for?

The destruction of perfectly operable cars?

Here, look, this is a Corvette, being destroyed pursuant to government policy. I'm skipping ahead to the really destructive part:



The government, which took over General Motors, wants us to hate Corvettes?

Look at all that smoke! Does anyone care about actual pollution anymore? (As opposed to carbon dioxide.)

And look at all the waste! What about all the energy was used producing the car? That is being squandered now, on the theory that a new car will use less gas (assuming it's driven the same number of miles). And energy was used to manufacture the new car. Using old things longer — preserving things — is a way to decrease the consumption of fossil fuels that are used in production. I don't see how Cash for Clunkers factored in all the energy use that is involved in destroying one car and making another.

And it really pains me to see the destruction of something beautiful and good.

"Imagine an America with no more Corvettes! No more Caddies, Trans Ams, Camaros or Mustangs."

"No Ford or Chevy pick up trucks; no Jeeps or Suburbans. Not one PT Cruiser. All gone, our shared national automotive legacy and collective memories stretching back a century, and millions of jobs, all looted by ultra-conservatives eager to punish generations of American workers for the sin of not voting for the GOP in acceptable numbers. Gone forever. In their place will be rice burning Nissons [sic] and Toyotas, maybe the occasional German model. Models that legions of newly unemployed Americans, standing on the precipe [sic] of Bush's Depression, will never be able to afford." 

IN THE COMMENTS:1jpb said...

Who cares about the iconic appeal? Losing Duesenberg and Packard (the early Packards, like mine) that was the loss of icons.

Don't get me started. My family's tragedy was the death of Pierce-Arrow!

Music for driving.

As you can see from my last post, I took a long drive yesterday, driving for the sake of driving, and I wrote: "Propitiously, the radio played 'Radar Love.'" A commenter — aptly named Skeptical — challenged me:

Sorry, I don't think "Radar Love" on the radio can count as propitious. That's a song about somebody who isn't driving just to drive; he's driving because there is somewhere that he definitely has to be.

That's a pretty subtle point about the close interpretation of the lyrics. If it's a song about driving and you're driving and the music feels great for driving, does the stress on reaching the destination make it not a great driving song? Of course, there are some great songs about driving that don't stress the destination. I'm thinking of all the songs that rave about the car itself — like "Little GTO" and "409"— or the songs that are using driving as a metaphor for sex — like "Little Red Corvette" and "Mustang Sally." But stressing the destination creates an urgency about the forward motion that makes the song great for driving even when you are driving just to drive. Don't you love to drive to "Six Days on the Road"?

But I'm not so sure "Radar Love" is about the destination. It's in the now. It's about extrasensory powers enabling the singer to hear the voice of his "baby" without a phone or radio at all. "She sends her comfort, coming in from above. Don't need no radio at all." Via radar love, he's able to feel good again, driving now.

Anyway, driving yesterday, I needed a radio. I like the chance combinations of song and landscape. I like it when they fit and I like it when they don't. Here I am driving across the Wisconsin River on Route 14:



"Radar Love" has ranked well on some lists of best driving songs. We could try to make a list, but most people end up with songs that mean something to them, that are from their era. Let's try to transcend that. "Radar Love" is not from my era. I just happened to have the 70s channel on the radio, where I go when the 60s channel is playing one too many Supremes songs. Here's a VH1 list of Top 10 driving songs. There are a lot of things to object to about that list. #10 is something that would make me instantly change channels. But I'm not going to object to the fact that #1 is a motorcycle song. I'm going to use that as an excuse to embed this:



And now that the topic is movies and motorcycles, I have even more of an excuse to put this up, which I was going to put up anyway, because of the way it expresses the idea of driving for the sake of driving:



One last thing. This is my choice of best driving song:

Corvette pics.

1954:





1964:







I get lost in the reflections....



... the relative perfection of a car:

At the auto show.

Yes, there were many beautiful cars, like this 1954 Corvette:



But before we get to the cars, let's consider the people who go to look at the cars. Who are they? What do they wear? First off, one lady takes first place. Compared to her, no one else seemed even to be trying:



But there's a subtle elegance that -- to my eye -- is just as alluring:



And yes, ladies, accessorize...



... perhaps with a dog named Peanuts.

So, the women were beautiful, see:



Ah, but the car! The car!



I'm much more attracted to that.

It's a 1966 Corvette! Mosport Green -- a color that was only available in 1966. Doesn't that break your heart?

"These people are extremely well-suited, by personality and training, to deal with the stresses of being in space..."

Back on earth... not so much. And those "Right Stuff" days are over:

Today’s astronauts find themselves in a world much less glamorous than the original crews. While the Mercury Seven raced Corvettes, today’s family-oriented fliers are likelier to tool around in minivans.

Isn't the Space Shuttle itself sort of a minivan?

They spend much more time in suburbia than in orbit, and there are no more ticker-tape parades for the returning heroes.

Some former officials of the space program said that romantic thoughts and even love triangles were not unknown to the program but that it was up to management to watch carefully and intervene.

Mr. Abbey, the former Johnson Space Center director, said, “You’ve got some hard-charging people...

Hard-charging, in diapers!

"... and you need to manage them.” Problems like this “don’t happen overnight,” and so “you have to be sensitive to what your people are doing.”

Now and then on his watch, he recalled, “I stepped in, and people weren’t happy about it,” he recalled, but it was important to tell them that “what you’re doing is not a personal thing for you — it’s affecting a lot of people around you, and affecting your performance.”

Oh, so it's one big soap opera with them? I await the TV series: "Desperate Astronauts." The possibilities are endless, both on the ground and in the orbiting giant minivan.

Is there no dignity left for that archetypal American figure, the astronaut? Now, they are reduced to whimpering to the media: "we call them urine collection devices."

Is she judging you by your car?

Great topic for an article in the big, thick, advertising-padded "Special Section: Cars" in today's NYT.

And yet... cars do say something about you, don't they? I mean, something more than just how much money you were able and willing to spend on a car. But if you're concerned about your sex appeal, what should you drive? One woman says:

First, an expensive sports car, like a red Ferrari, should raise a red flag. "Something's lacking," she said. "It could be an appendage, but it could mean he has a void in his social skills."

Second, a dumpy car is O.K., but only if the driver makes up for it with something else, like a dazzling personality. Third, a funky car is not only all right but also sexy (like the refurbished taxi owned by a guy in her apartment building) because she thinks it shows a man's passions and interests.

My observation: Most people drive unbelievably boring cars! But what does that say? They need transportation and are not that interested in cars. Still, there is an irrational effect: boring car, boring person. You can overcome that, but you do have to overcome that. The reverse is true. We may think: exciting car, exciting person. But the presumption is easily rebutted.

Bonus info:

The idea that there are "chick cars" and "guy cars" is real to many people, said Joe Wiesenfelder, 37, the senior editor of Cars.com, a Web site that reviews automobiles and is affiliated with the NPR program "Car Talk." The radio show did an unscientific survey of favorite chick and guy cars, based on thousands of e-mail submissions from listeners. The survey found that the Top 5 Ultimate Chick Cars of All Time are the VW Beetle, VW Cabriolet, Mazda Miata, VW Jetta and Dodge Neon; the Top 5 Ultimate Guy Cars are the Ford Mustang, Chevy Corvette, Chevy Camaro, Ford F-150 pickup and Dodge Viper.

Roberts and prescience.

The NYT reports:

In 1984, [Supreme Court nominee John] Roberts twice wielded his wit to stop other White House staff members from writing letters for Mr. Reagan lauding Michael Jackson for charitable work.

"I recognize that I am something of a vox clamans in terris in this area, but enough is enough," he wrote in a memorandum in June 1984, using the approximate Latin for "voice crying in the wilderness." He added, "The Office of Presidential Correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson's P.R. firm."

Three months later, Mr. Roberts was batting away a new request. "I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson's records, constantly repeating the same refrain, but I recommend that we not approve this letter." He noted that a press report said that some young fans were turning from Mr. Jackson "in favor of a newcomer who goes by the name 'Prince.' "

Mr. Roberts asked, "Will he receive a presidential letter?"

1983 was pre-"Purple Rain," the time of "Little Red Corvette," "1999," "Delerious," and "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" ("Some people tell me I got great legs/Can't figure out why u make me beg"). Meanwhile, Jackson was at the peak of "Thriller" idolatry. Recognizing back in 1983 that Prince would overtake Michael Jackson — that's nicely prescient.

Nowadays, it's so obvious, Chris Rock gets a huge laugh saying:

"Remember back in the day when we all would argue who's better, Michael Jackson or Prince? Well, Prince won!"

Someday, maybe we'll be saying, remember back in the day when we all argued whether John Roberts would be as good as Sandra Day O'Connor? Well, Roberts won.

On buying a product that makes you think of a song.

Back when I was contemplating buying a Corvette, I thought about how, if I had a Corvette, it would make me think the song "Little Red Corvette" every time I got near it. But I love that song enough that I think I'd always feel good about it. But I do not like the song "Kodachrome" enough to want to have it run through my head every time I pick up my new D50:

I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph

I really could do without that.

Ever had an object that kept making you think the same song?

Or maybe you met a person with a name that's in a song. That might ruin a relationship. I wonder if anyone's ever even changed her name because she (or he) got tired of having people croon that song to her. I wonder what the worst name for that problem would be. And what would be the best one?

What is the first name equivalent of Corvette? (And don't suggest that there probably are some kids out there actually named Corvette.) I remember back during Beatlemania days being jealous of a girl lucky enough to have the name Michelle. But would I be sick of it by now if every boyfriend had sung it to me? I don't know -- depends on the boyfriend.

Shopping.

Nina has a nice post commemorating our shopping trip today, complete with photos of: the black Corvette that passed us, cute kids at the Apple Store children's table, and the two of us as photographed by a really nice digital movie camera at the Sony Store. By the way, I don't agree with her interpretation of the mentality of the man in the Corvette. I think he just wanted to hang around with another cool car. Nina was convinced the car looked "like a gun." In the Sony Store picture, you can see the carrying case I bought for my laptop. It's orange with three-dimensional dots!

Car shopping!

As you know, I wrecked my car. I don't know if it will be declared a total loss yet or not, but whether it is or not, I'm going to get a new car. If the old one is to be repaired, I'll repair and sell it. It is time for the new car. I blogged about replacing my cosmic green New Beetle not that long ago, but then I decided to keep it. I'm getting some email saying now I can get that Corvette. I know people are into the idea of my buying a Corvette. Do you really want someone who just squashed a Beetle driving around in a Corvette? I think it's time for the Audi TT. If you think I'm making a mistake, now's the time to stop me.

Nina was kind enough to give me a lift to work and is coming back to pick me up later, when we will head out to the Audi dealer. Not only do I need a ride to the place, but I am well aware of how having a shopping companion helps overcome inhibition. Remember when Tonya, Nina, and I all went into Tiffany's and caused each other to buy jewelry, when, it seems, if we'd been alone, we'd have browsed around a bit and breezed out. I tried to get Tonya to come with us car shopping too. Wouldn't it have been cool if we'd all gone to the car dealer today and come out with spiffy Audi TT coupes? It would be just like us with our matching Paloma Picasso zigzag hoop earrings.

UPDATE: A reader writes: "Consider that here in Madison the two newest car dealerships are: (1) Hummer; and (2) Jaguar/Land Rover." That doesn't sound like the Madison you non-Madison readers have been picturing, now does it? Maybe I do need something up off the ground to get through the deep snow? What do you think?

UPDATE 2: Poll removed. It was causing a loading problem.

Another thing I'm not keeping up with.

I'm not keeping up with the snow shoveling and exam reading, as the last post shows. I also cannot properly keep up with my email. I lost my grip on it yesterday. The only other time I lost my grip on all the email from my readers was when I was debating the relative merits of keeping my Beetle (seen, kept, in the photo just below) or replacing it with either an Audi TT Coupe (the car I really want) or a Corvette (an absurd fantasy brought on by a brochure that came in the mail that many readers decided to encourage me to plunge insanely into). Yesterday, I lost my grip on the email because of two posts that were, apparently, highly provocative.

The first was the little thing about "crazy old aunt in the attic." I've done two updates, and really, that's that. I don't know why it provoked people so much. Maybe, they've been saying "crazy old aunt in the attic" and they need to feel that it's a good expression and here I am forbidding it, repressing them. But then James Taranto is repressing people who want to have fun mixing metaphors like mad. People who write safirically about language are such party poopers. Okay! I'm sorry!

The second thing that unleashed the email was the set of posts yesterday about beauty, and it's easy to see why these were provocative. I appreciate all the comments, but can't answer all the email personally. I'll post on this subject again in the future. I know it is something people really want to engage with. The feminist position that everything is patriarchal culture is offset by an extreme sociobiologist position that everything is evolution. I'll just say for now, in answer to all the people who emailed to tell me the sociobiology side of the story: I find both extremes highly implausible. Quite aside from email: I liked reading responses to those two posts in other blogs, especially this one in The Sheila Variations (which, speaking of beauty, is a really nice looking blog).