James Carville watched a few minutes of the Biden/Trump debate, then turned it off, "ate two pot gummies and started listening to some Hank Williams."

"He said he realized at that moment that Mr. Biden would have to drop out. By every account, Mr. Carville’s decision to act against Mr. Biden came after extensive consultation with a network of friends he has been talking to daily for 30 years. 'I went into this with what you would call in the law malice and forethought,' he said.... 'I could have been embarrassed,' Mr. Carville said. 'He could have run and won. But it never occurred to me that I was wrong.' At this stage in Mr. Carville’s life, there was not much to lose and it is hard to imagine him remaining quiet. 'He can’t help it,' said Paul Begala, Mr. Carville’s partner on that 1992 campaign and one of his closest friends. 'It is who he is. His income does not depend on being hired by politicians. Nor has it been for 30 years. He can say whatever he wants.'"

Writes Adam Nagourney, in "James Carville on Aging, Edibles and His Anxieties About Harris/At 79, the Democratic commentator is the subject of a documentary that captures his musings — and his warning to President Biden — about the toils of age" (NYT).

What Hank Williams song did James Carville cue up?

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (because JC was sad)

Jambalaya (because JC is Cajun and the song begins "Goodbye, Joe")

Hey Good Lookin' (because no one ever said that to him)

Other (make your argument in the comments)

 

pollcode.com free polls

"Jill Biden, lacking the detachment of a Melania and enjoying the role of first lady more, has been pushing — and shielding — her husband..."

"... beyond a reasonable point. After Thursday’s embarrassing debate performance, she exhorted the crowd and played teacher to a prized student: 'You did a great job! You answered every question! You knew all the facts!' This, to the guy who controls the nuclear codes.... The Democratic strategist Paul Begala... explained on CNN: 'The first Democratic politician to call on Biden to step down, it’s going to end their career... None of them are going to say, 'Hey, let me step forward and knife Julius Caesar.' Biden is a beloved man in the Democratic Party.'... James Carville... told me Biden should call former Presidents Clinton and Obama to the White House and decide on five Democratic stars to address their convention in August.... Carville said the president should give a July 4 speech announcing he will let the next generation of Democratic leaders bloom.... And what if Joe and Jill cling on? In reply, Carville quoted... That which can’t continue, won’t."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "The Ghastly vs. the Ghostly" (NYT)(boldface added).

I don't get to use my "Julius Caesar" tag too often. I can't believe Dowd planted that in the text and then ended with "That which can’t continue, won’t." 

The adage is attributed to Herb Stein. See "Is Stein’s Law real?" (Robert J. Samuelson, WaPo, May 30, 2013):

"Would a third party candidate named Trump or Reagan have instant appeal with Republicans?"

Asks Paul Begala, in "RFK Jr.’s VP pick is a missile aimed at Biden" (CNN).

And: "As a former Clinton strategist, the dumbest myth I’ve had to deal with was that Ross Perot’s independent candidacy swung the 1992 election to Clinton. To believe that, one must ignore that Perot, like Clinton, was a change candidate; like Clinton, he was pro-choice, and like Clinton, Perot supported campaign finance reform."

Of course, Begala wants to believe that Clinton would have beaten Bush I in a 2-man race.

"The bargain a staffer strikes has always been this: You get to influence the decisions of the most powerful government in the history of the world."

"In exchange for that influence, you agree to back the final decision even if it goes against your advice. If confronted with a decision that crosses one’s ethical, moral, social, political lines, the choice is clear: Shut up and support it, or resign."

Said Paul Begala, quoted in "Bosses in the Biden admin are pressed over young staffers’ anonymous letters/Protest letters, like those over Israel, were rare in past administrations. White House veterans can barely contain their disdain over how times have changed" (Politico).

In the Trump presidency, unauthorized leaks became a form of political currency, with anonymous officials writing op-eds, and wild bits of drama routinely finding their way into the news. Inside the current White House, there’s a feeling that the culture has now irrevocably changed....

So... it didn't work to change the culture temporarily, to deal with Trump, that horribly abnormal President. The old culture didn't just pop back into place when Trump was gone. You have to take care of a culture and maintain its values in good times and bad.

RELATED: "Impeachment frenzy hits Capitol Hill" (WaPo)(noting "impeachment projects centering on President Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin"). 

I love the sigh at 0:11...

Does anybody believe this man? Caught! https://t.co/WfnIqs6BsE

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2020

ADDED: Remember how sighing got Al Gore in trouble debating George W. Bush in 2000? Paul Begala remembers (quoted in the NYT in September 2016):

Right away I picked up a problem about Gore during debate prep: a raw, unbridled contempt he had for Bush. It wasn’t the usual “my worthy adversary and I have different ideas.” He would sometimes sigh when I was talking, or frown, or roll his eyes. And his tone and language too — it all communicated that Gore thought Bush was an idiot. “You don’t deserve to be on stage with me” was Gore’s basic attitude.

So what we saw was after they did what they could at the prep stage. I am so eager to see how Biden — if he really is the Democratic nominee — deports himself at the debates with Trump. It would be quite something if he makes the Gore mistake and relies on sighing to let us know what he thinks of Trump.

AND: I created a "sighing" tag, and going back to add it to old posts, I discovered that I'd already remarked on Biden's sighing — and in the debate context. Of course, Biden was horrible in the debate he did in 2012 with Paul Ryan. The laughing, I remember well. But there was also sighing. From my simulblog of the event:

8:36: While Ryan is talking about Medicare helping his mother and grandmother, Biden sighs long and loud. Sighing! Remember when Gore got in no end of trouble for sighing? How can Biden not know that?!

The Clintons kick off their national speaking tour, and the NY Post writer thinks it reenacted "why Hillary lost: Over-promise, under-deliver, avoid accountability, and expect the masses to nonetheless be satisfied."

Maureen Callahan says she spent $210 for a balcony seat and got "90 minutes of longtime Clinton lackey Paul Begala launching such softballs" at the Clintons:

Is the two-state solution dead?
What is happening to American politics?
How did it feel to watch the bin Laden raid?
Why are the Dems losing rural voters?
How did you raise such an amazing daughter?

I wish I were exaggerating. The only current event touched upon was that day’s arrest of Julian Assange — astonishing given the surfeit of recent headlines really worth discussing: Jussie Smollett, race relations and hate crimes; the one-percenters caught up in the college admissions scandal; the push to federally legalize marijuana and reform the criminal justice system; the role of Silicon Valley in curbing, if not eliminating, foreign governments hacking our elections [ahem]; Elizabeth Warren’s call to break up Amazon, Google and Facebook — to say nothing of the 20 or so declared Dem candidates for president....  Oh, and #MeToo.

The best part for Callahan was when a guy in the front row stood up and yelled "Bill, this is boring!" and "Why don’t you talk about... Jeffrey Epstein!"

When Hillary boasted of her support from "Americans, white Americans... whites... who had not completed college."

May 2008.

“These are the people you have to win if you’re a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that,” she said in the interview....

In Indiana alone, six in 10 white voters went for Mrs. Clinton, where she narrowly won the primary.... Mr. Begala, a Clinton supporter, said the party could not win in November with just “eggheads and African-Americans,” that the party could not ignore white middle-class voters....

ADDED: Meade read this and said: "These are the deplorables." And then, re Begala's "eggheads": "Does anybody have more of an egghead than Paul Begala? Just call him Paul Egg-gala."

"If you want to stump a Democrat, ask them to name an accomplishment of Hillary Clinton," said Carly Fiorina.

And Politico collected some answers, in "What Is Hillary’s Greatest Accomplishment?" I haven't read any of the answers yet, but I think the obvious answer is getting and staying married to Bill Clinton. It doesn't say much about whether she should be President, but it's a very grand and amazing accomplishment.

The most common response at the link is the one put most pithily by Paul Begala: "Iran sanctions. Sec. Clinton accomplished the nearly impossible mission of getting China, Russia, the European Union and the civilized world on board with crippling sanctions against Iran. This is what brought Iran to the negotiating table."

"I am a person of faith — and the Donald’s entry into this race can only be attributed to the fact that the good Lord is a Democrat with a sense of humor."

Burbled Begala.

WaPo's "30 of Washington’s ‘Most Beautiful’ people."

The first face that comes up in the slide show doesn't strike me as even somewhat beautiful, so I'm afraid to keep clicking.

ADDED: This made me think of the old line: "Washington is Hollywood for ugly people." Who started that?

The phrase appears to be an immediate descendant of one that took off in the early '90s: "Politics is show business for ugly people." It is frequently credited to Jay Leno -- but when we checked the record, it appears the late-night host always presented it as someone else's witticism: "It's like they say, 'Politics is. . .' "

Who were "they"? While James Carville uttered the phrase in a 1996 Playboy interview, we found what may have been the first in-print usage of it, in a 1992 Washington Post interview with Carville's fellow Clinton-Gore strategist Paul Begala.

But Begala doesn't claim to have originated it. Rush Limbaugh says it a lot. Maybe he knows. It seems related to his longstanding aphorism "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society." Nice of him not to say "ugly," no?

"There is a dichotomy of elitism. Republicans' downfall is economic elitism."

"For generations they've been seen as the party of the rich. Democrats don't have that problem. Their Achilles' heel is cultural elitism: the sense that they value highfalutin' Ivy League degrees more than practical experience; that they look down their noses at folks who go to church, hunt and fish, and salute the flag."

From "Does America like its candidates poor?" by Paul Begala, who is trying to explain why it's okay that Hillary Clinton is rich.

The Democrats and Rush Limbaugh: An intriguing symbiosis.

Jonathan Martin describes the dynamic:

The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned [that he had an 11% approval rating with voters under 40]. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.

Rush's "I hope he fails" line was big.

... Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

Limbaugh is embracing the line of attack, suggesting a certain symbiosis between him and his political adversaries.

"The Administration is enabling me,” he wrote in an email to POLITICO. “They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama's policies and intentions, a ‘story’ I own because the [mainstream media] is largely the Obama Press Office.”

The bigger, the better, agreed Carville. “It’s great for us, great for him, great for the press,” he said of Limbaugh. “The only people he’s not good for are the actual Republicans in Congress.”

Now, of course, Carville, as usual, is crowing about the fabulous Democrats and mocking those dismal losers on the other side. But he must also secretly be scared of the Democrats' powerful, fearless, articulate critic. Those Republicans in Congress were conveniently cowed, and the last thing that needed to be done was to ruin Rush. But Rush gets energy from the attention. If only those under 40 folks would actually listen to his radio show and find out what he's really saying. It's easy to hate him from afar, to regard him as poison, not to be touched at all. I felt that way myself. But if they were to overcome that barrier and actually listen — as I did — they might get hooked in — as I did.

By February, Carville and Begala were pounding on Limbaugh frequently in their appearances on CNN.

Neither Democrat would say so, but a third source said the two also began pushing the idea of targeting Limbaugh in their daily phone conversations with Emanuel.

Conversations and email exchanges began taking place in and out of the White House not only between the old pals from the Clinton era but also including White House senior adviser David Axelrod, Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Woodhouse.

The White House needed no more convincing after Limbaugh’s hour-plus performance Saturday, celebrated on the right and mocked on the left, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he re-stated his hope Obama fails....

By Sunday morning, Emanuel elevated the strategy by bringing up the conservative talker, unprompted, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and calling him the “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”

Even Republican National Chairman Michael Steele joined in with a surprising critique of Limbaugh as a mere “entertainer,” who is “ugly” and “incendiary.”

“He took a little match we had tossed on the leaves and poured gasoline on it,” said one Democrat of Steele.

Steele was forced into calling Limbaugh to apologize Monday, an embarrassing climb-down following the RNC chairman’s criticism of the conservative talk-show host.

But Democrats kept at it in rapid-fire succession, thrilled that Steele had validated their claim that Republicans were scared to cross Limbaugh...

“I want to send Rush a bottle of vitamins,” said Begala. “We need him to stay healthy and loud and proud.”

Oh, really?

It’s something of a back to the future tactic for Democrats: painting the GOP as the party of the angry white male. But unlike Newt Gingrich or other prominent Republicans, Limbaugh doesn’t have to mind his tongue.

So let's have a free-wheeling outsider voice reviving conservatism. In fact, with all this newfound power, Rush is likely to concentrate on explaining conservatism. He's not out of control, and it would be naive to think he's going to say outrageous things that can be used to hurt Republicans. He's more likely to throw stink bombs when he's not getting enough attention. What he will do now, I think, is highlight things Democrats say and show you why those things are outrageous — and he is at his best and most entertaining when he does exactly that.

“The television cameras just can’t stay away from him,” Carville said Tuesday.... “Our strategy depends on him keeping talking, and I think we’re going to succeed.”

It's a risky game, and Limbaugh can't lose it. We'll see what happens to the Republicans he means to help.

"He's got this big old pair of brass balls, and you can just hear 'em clanking when he walks down the halls of Congress."

I'm just reading a Rolling Stone article from 2005 about Rahm Emanuel, who's going to be Obama's chief of staff. The quote is from Paul Begala. [There should be quote marks in the post title, but for some insane reason they were screwing up the format of the whole blog. Who knew Rahm Emanuel's balls were so powerful!]

Friends and enemies agree that the key to Emanuel's success is his legendary intensity. There's the story about the time he sent a rotting fish to a pollster who had angered him. There's the story about how his right middle finger was blown off by a Syrian tank when he was in the Israeli army. ..."

A finger? Hey, watch this. [Embedded video replaced by link.]

Back to the old Rolling Stone piece:

And there's the story of how, the night after Clinton was elected, Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting "Dead! . . . Dead! . . . Dead!" and plunging the knife into the table after every name. "When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape," one campaign veteran recalls. "It was like something out of The Godfather. But that's Rahm for you."

The stories are all true, except that the finger was lost in a meat slicer and he wasn't in the Israeli army. (But he is the son of an Israeli immigrant.)

His younger brother, Ari, is a Hollywood talent agent who served as the inspiration for Ari Gold, the fast-talking agent played by Jeremy Piven on HBO's hit series Entourage....

"After about the sixth episode, I finally caught it," says Rahm... "I called Ari the next day and said, 'Hey, I finally saw the show, and you know what? I like that guy better than I like you.'"

Ha ha.

ADDED: Here's today's NYT piece about Emanuel:

Mr. Obama has been close to Mr. Emanuel since arriving on Capitol Hill; Mr. Emanuel considers David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, to be one of his closest friends. The three share a common policy view and would make a formidable triumvirate in the White House....

... Mr. Emanuel’s stint in high finance and his experience in the banking world opens him to some criticism of being too allied with Wall Street... Since he is part of the Daley circle, Mr. Emanuel’s appointment as chief of staff could also create the appearance of a White House that is too Chicago heavy. His manner can also create enemies, and Mr. Emanuel has ruffled the feathers of many on Capitol Hill, particularly black and Hispanic lawmakers.

“Eggheads and African-Americans."

A memorable phrase, a classic encounter:



Man, if my head looked like Paul Begala's, I would not use the term "eggheads." But anyway, isn't he right? Donna Brazile does an excellent job of getting mad on camera, but it's pure pretense. Everyone knows a political strategist has to analyze the various demographic groups.

Advice for Giuliani.

From four political consultants. His biggest problem seems to be dealing with the social conservatives well enough to get through the primaries.

Mary Matalin: "[C]arefully evolve, but don’t be a phony. Social conservatives are conviction voters. And social moderates will reject political opportunism. Indicate your respect for conservative convictions and try to 'refine' your own. A late-life reversal on late-term abortion is entirely plausible and mandatory. Try to keep focus on constitutionalist judges."

Paul Begala: "You can’t switch on everything. So surrender to the far right on one issue: abortion. But the only way to do it is whole hog. Use your trump card: 9/11. Tell them the death you saw that day gave you a greater appreciation for the sanctity of life. You’re Saul on the road to Damascus. Praise the Lord and pass the delegates."

Mark Halperin: "Giuliani would seem to have two choices — try to back off of his previously held liberal positions on social issues, or confront the party by arguing that his conservative record on crime, taxes and national security should be sufficient for a party serious about being a big enough tent to win national elections. Giuliani watchers say they have no doubt that if he runs, he would pursue the latter course."

Rich Galen: "As to Rudy’s positions on social issues, I would interview the staff who ran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign. California Republicans are decidedly conservative. Notwithstanding Arnold’s very moderate stance on most social and environmental issues, he got (according to one exit poll) 91 percent of the G.O.P. vote. That tells me Republicans want to win much more than they want to lose on the point of an ideological sword."

I'm very interested in this strategic problem, because I want more social liberals to succeed within the Republican Party -- just as I want more national security hawks to make it in the Democratic Party.

Colbert and the dissonance between religion and comedy.

Steve Colbert describes the set of "The Colbert Report":

Everything on the show has my name on it, every bit of the set. One of the things I said to the set designer—who has done everything, I mean even Meet The Press, he does that level of news design—was "One of your inspirations should be [DaVinci's painting] The Last Supper." All the architecture of that room points at Jesus' head, the entire room is a halo, and he doesn't have a halo." And I said, "On the set, I'd like the lines of the set to converge on my head." And so if you look at the design, it all does, it all points at my head. And even radial lines on the floor, and on my podium, and watermarks in the images behind me, and all the vertices, are right behind my head. So there's a sort of sun-god burst quality about the set around me. And I love that. That's status.

Speaking of Colbert and religion: Did you see his show on Thursday, with Paul Begala as the guest? Begala is going on about how he needed to teach Bill Clinton how to get his ideas across in short, simple form for the news. Begala describes how he made his point to Bill Clinton, who was bellyaching about how his wonky policies couldn't be condensed into sound bites. Begala reached in his back pocket and pulled out a copy of the New Testament that he's been carrying since 1979. At this point on the show, Begala actually pulls out the tattered, taped-together book and says he highlighted John 3:16 and handed it to Clinton. Begala hands the opened book to Colbert, points to the verse, tells Colbert to read it, and says he's going to time him to prove -- as he proved to Clinton -- how much can be said in 5 seconds. Colbert takes a slight glance at the book, flips it shut, looks straight at Begala and says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that those who believe in him shall not die but have eternal life." Begala says, triumphantly, "Four and a half seconds!" And Colbert says "That's the Christian sound bite."

I was struck by this moment on the show. The interview was going very well -- Begala speaking crisply (about speaking crisply) and Colbert slipping in perfect zingers. And then Begala wants to use the New Testament to prove a point about how he got through to Clinton. I felt that, reciting the verse, Colbert was not being the Colbert Report character but that his own religion was dictating that he had to say the verse as a demonstration of his own faith, and it wasn't right to fool around with that. I can't say why I feel so sure. The Colbert character would, I think, have been more pleased with himself to know the verse. You'd have felt the preen. I experienced this moment as a startling statement of faith, the kind of thing you don't normally see on TV.

The subject of Colbert and religion is an interesting one. He used to do "This Week in God" on "The Daily Show." When he was on "Fresh Air" a year ago, he talked about religion with Terry Gross:

Mr. COLBERT: This Week in God is--you know, This Week in God is, for me, a tightrope, because I--while I'm, you know, not a particularly religious person, I do go to church, which makes me kind of odd for my profession. You know, most people can't understand why I do, other comedians. And I have to walk that thin line because I don't want to criticize anyone's religions for the fact that it is a religion, and what's funny to me is what people do in the name of religion. ...

GROSS: Now you grew up in a family with--What?--11 children?

Mr. COLBERT: Yeah, I'm one of 11 kids. I'm the youngest.

GROSS: And was it a religious family? You say you go to church and...

Mr. COLBERT: Oh, absolutely.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. COLBERT: We're, you know, very devout and, you know, I still go to church and, you know, my children are being raised in the Catholic Church. And I was actually my daughters' catechist last year for First Communion, which was a great opportunity to speak very simply and plainly about your faith without anybody saying, `Yeah, but do you believe that stuff?' which happens a lot in what I do.

GROSS: Can I ask you a kind of serious question about faith?

Mr. COLBERT: I've been turning all of your funny questions into serious things for an hour or so. I don't see why you can't do the same to me.

GROSS: In the sketch we heard earlier from "This Week In God," you talked about the Christian pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription for birth control.

Mr. COLBERT: Right.

GROSS: Now the Catholic Church opposes birth control, which...

Mr. COLBERT: They do.

GROSS: ...I presume you do not and...

Mr. COLBERT: Presume away.

GROSS: ...so how do you deal with contradictions between, like, the church and the way you live your life, which is something that a lot of people in the Catholic Church have to deal with?

Mr. COLBERT: Well, sure. You know, that's the hallmark of an American Catholic, is the individuation of America and the homogenation of the church; homogenation in terms of dogma. I love my church and I don't think that it actually makes zombies or unquestioning people. I think it's actually a church that values intellectualism, but certainly, it can become very dogmatically rigid.

Somebody once asked me, `How do you be a father'--'cause I'm a father of three children--`and be anti-authoritarian?' And I said, `Well, that's not nearly as hard as being anti-authoritarian and being a Roman Catholic,' you know? That's really patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. I don't know. You know, I don't believe that I can't disagree with my church and I'll leave it at that.

I don't have a conclusion I'm driving at here. I love Steve Colbert and "The Colbert Report," and I'm fascinated by religion and comedy and the way the dissonance between the two affects a performer who is actually a believer.

UPDATE: Ambivablog questions my use of the word "dissonance." So let me say that I mean it in a good way. It's more difficult to be comical around a subject you respect, and working through a difficulty makes what you do more interesting. By contrast, when George Carlin jokes about religion, his comedy on the subject feels cheap and thin, because it's just flat-out obvious that he hates religion. I'd much rather listen to Colbert on the subject, and not just because I'm not entertained by hate. Colbert has to struggle with a problem, and he chooses to make comedy out of a subject that is complicated for him. I love that.

ADDED: You can listen to the great interview with Terry Gross here.

Politics and storytelling.

Rational Explications had a post (via Instapundit) a few days ago that sorted occupations into two columns. Column A listed several occupation -- Actor, Lawyer, Teacher, Writer -- and tied them, first, to "the ability to tell a story well" and, second, to the Democratic Party. The Republican Party by contrast was tied to other occupations -- Business Owner, Physician, Engineer, Soldier -- and to "the ability to perceive the facts of a given situation clearly." The election results were explained as "a clash between the realm of talk and the realm of action."

With that in mind I was struck by this passage from the today's Boston Globe article, "On the Trail of Kerry's Failed Dream," describing Paul Begala's advice to Kerry:

Begala, knowing the senator was a former prosecutor, asked the candidate to present his case to voters to hire Kerry and fire Bush. Kerry responded by naming six issues, according to Begala's notes of the conversation: Jobs, taxes, fiscal policy, healthcare, energy, and education.

This was a list, not a "case," Begala fretted.

That is, Kerry was failing to put his issues into a story form to persuade the voters (like a good lawyer).

Today, on "Meet the Press," James Carville had this analysis of why Democrats keep losing presidential elections:

By and large, our message has been, we can manage problems, while the Republicans -- although they say we can solve problems, they produce a narrative, we produce a litany. They say, I'm going to protect you from the terrorists in Tehran and the homos in Hollywood. We say, we're for clean air, better schools, more health care. And so there's a Republican narrative, a story, and there's a Democratic litany.

So is Rational Explications wrong about the Democrats being the "storytelling" party, or are Begala and Carville just coming up with a story -- the story of the lack of a story -- to explain Kerry's defeat? I know what Carville means. Kerry was going around listing things everyone cares about, as if people would vote for him simply for naming the problem. Yet, what is the main thing Carville says Bush did differently? Is it that he specified that he was going "protect you" from various problems, or that Bush had a different list of problems? I don't see how saying "I will protect you" from the problems is much more than the implicit promise of a solution when a candidate cites a problem. Neither is enough. The candidate must inspire trust in his competence and willingness to solve those problems. And in the end, saying things is not enough. But, of course, the belief that the solution lies in telling a better story -- as opposed to doing things that inspire trust -- is what "Column A" types do.

"Why is it it's only liberals that boo?"

Former New York mayor (and Democrat) Ed Koch asked last night on "The Daily Show," where the audience booed him when he said he was supporting Bush. Jon Stewart nicely chided the audience: "Don't make me come out there." (By the way, Stewart, who began the show explaining the big "Crossfire" incident, seems to be trying harder to make fun of both sides. Keep it up, Jon. I'll notice.)[UPDATE: He's right about "Crossfire"--the partisan yelling is horrible. I would add though that Paul Begala is at least as annoying as Tucker Carlson.]

Here's some news coverage of Koch's announcement:

"While I don't agree with Bush on a single domestic issue, they are all trumped by the issue of terrorism, where he has enunciated the Bush Doctrine and proven his ability to fight this war," said Koch. "The Democratic Party just doesn't have the stomach to go after terrorists." ...

"I saw Kerry [at the Democratic National Convention] surrounded by radical politicians like [former President Jimmy] Carter and [Sen. Ted] Kennedy. ... I know Kerry will succumb to their pressure if elected. They are with Kerry not because they like him, but because their true candidate Howard Dean couldn't get elected, and they wanted someone who they can have elected and dominate," charged Koch.

"As long as Kennedy and Robert Byrd are considered major leaders of the Democratic Party, and while we're seeing radical candidates like Howard Dean, whose radical-left supporters have been described by the press as 'Deaniacs,' the Democratic Party will be limited in its ability to serve the country well in times of crisis and war like we face now."

Well put.

UPDATE: Brian O'Connell thinks I'm being too kind to "The Daily Show." He notes--and I don't disagree--that Stewart is still far from treating both sides equally.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Stewart certainly has his defenders. Look how Jim Treacher's comments went wild after he offered a sound criticism.

Remember when Nixon said "Sock it to me"?

Here's Kerry today:

"I've got two words for companies like Halliburton that abuse the American taxpayer and trust, 'you're fired.'"

He didn't do the cobra strike hand gesture though. He did a double karate chop. And he didn't use Trump's inflection. Nixon did do his own inflection of the old catchphrase, making it a question: "Sock it to me?" And saying it like that really was hilarious, because because he seemed to be making fun of himself. Kerry just imposed the usual leaden Kerry cadence "You're ... fired," adopting the pop culture phrase to express the usual indignation.

I wonder if some of Kerry's many advisors are telling him he needs to use pop culture references to make himself likable, the way Nixon used "Laugh-In" in 1968. Here's an article from The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert from last spring about Presidential candidates using pop media. This is interesting:

[The Nixon episode of "Laugh-In"] was broadcast at the height of Nixon’s (ultimately successful) campaign against Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, and was an immediate sensation. George Schlatter, the creator of “Laugh-In” ... told me that Nixon had been extremely reluctant to be on the show; although the producers had repeatedly entreated him to appear, his campaign aides had even more insistently urged him not to. Eventually, the race brought Nixon out to Los Angeles. He gave a press conference, and Schlatter and one of “Laugh-In”’s writers, Paul Keyes, who happened to be a close friend of the former Vice-President’s, went over to watch it, bringing a TV camera with them.

“While his advisers were telling him not to do it, Paul was telling him how much it would mean to his career,” Schlatter recalled. “And we went in, and he said, ‘Sock it to me.’ It took about six takes, because it sounded angry: ‘Sock-it-to-me!’ After that, we grabbed the tape and escaped before his advisers got to him.

“Then, realizing what we had done—because he did come out looking like a nice guy—we pursued Humphrey all over the country, trying to get him to say, ‘I’ll sock it to you, Dick!’” Schlatter went on. “And Humphrey later said that not doing it may have cost him the election. We didn’t realize how effective it was going to be. But there were other factors in the election, too—I can’t take all the blame.”

Nixon on “Laugh-In” is often cited as a watershed moment in the history of television—the unthinking man’s version of Nixon in China.

But Kolbert's theme is that Presidential candidates need to make fun of themselves and be a bit self-deprecating--as Bush was when he went on "Saturday Night Live" to say "offensible" and the “Tonight Show” to say “flammamababable.” The thing about Kerry saying "You're fired" is that it isn't in any way self-deprecating. He just sounds pissed about Halliburton. (Halliburton seems to be the issue of the day for some reason: Paul Begala was fussing about Halliburton today on "Crossfire.")