Obama and the war.

Three video clips.

UPDATE: Obama apologizes:

"Well as I said, it is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any of them felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they'd shown."

I mean he would apologize... if you were to misinterpret what he meant to say.

Nowadays, every politician will be defeated by exactly one word. Kerry got "stuck." Biden had "clean." Obama gets "wasted."

The candidates must lie awake at night and wonder what will be my word. In amongst all the torrents of words that flow out of me, what will be the one word that will destroy me?

"I think this is the end of Edwards's campaign. He's through!"

So said Bill O'Reilly on his TV show last night, referring to the debacle over the two lefty bloggers the Edwards campaign hired, fired, and unfired. (One of the bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, has now resigned.)

O'Reilly put the focus on Edwards: he lacks the judgment to be President, he would allow "Christian-haters" to serve in his administration, etc. There were two guests on the show, one represented Democrats (and agreed that Edwards showed poor judgment) and the other was Michelle Malkin. Malkin was given one opportunity to speak and impressively nailed her position. Man, that was crisp! (Watch the video at the first link. It's a nice lesson in how to do TV.)

I particularly liked the way Malkin helped TV viewers understand the difficult relationship Democratic candidates have with the left blogosphere. The story must look quite weird to people who don't spend time reading blogs. For them, it might seem that Edwards made an odd mistake, followed by some strange indecision. The big picture is that the Democratic candidates have to interact with and please or at least appease the raging force that is the left blogosphere. No one has yet shown that they know how to do that well.

But some folks are learning faster than others. Look at this, from Kos, noting that a top adviser to an Edwards opponent told Slate's John Dickerson: "Apparently they're more afraid of the bloggers than they are the Catholics." Kos is desperate to find out which Democrat -- Dickerson confirms that it was a Democrat -- took that shot at the lefty bloggers:

[I]t's telling that whoever offered that blind quote to Slate was clearly more afraid of the bloggers than the Catholics that his or her campaign would supposedly win over by bashing Edwards....

[I]t's hypocritical to attack the Edwards campaign for "being afraid of bloggers" when this person was obviously too afraid of bloggers to put his or her name on the quote.

Ooh, everyone's afraid of the bloggers. I mean, the Democratic candidates are afraid of the lefty bloggers. I don't think the Republican candidates are afraid of the righty bloggers. Think that's a problem?

You can really tell that Kos wants the candidates to be afraid of him. It's an interesting dynamic. There's a real paradox to this lefty blogger power. They are so powerful that they are able to hurt the Democratic candidates in all sorts of strange new ways. Meanwhile, the non-lefty bloggers will amuse themselves watching and describing it all.

Who's the extra-quick learner out there? My guess: Hillary!

Marcotte resigns from the Edwards campaign.

"The main good news is that I don’t have a conflict of interest issue anymore that was preventing me from defending myself against these baseless accusations. So it’s on. The other good news is that the blogosphere has risen as one and protested, loudly, the influence a handful of well-financed right wing shills have on the public discourse."

So now she's free and pissed.

I favor independent blogging, and I like to see things get interesting. Interesting... hot... sticky... whatever! Just not boring.

The Parable of the Gloves.

Obama has compassion on the multitude.

"The most evil and dangerous woman in West Germany," given five life sentences...

... will be released after serving only 24 years:

Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, qualifies for early release after serving a minimum proportion of her five life sentences.

[The Baader-Meinhof gang], also known as the Red Army Faction, were behind kidnaps and killings in West Germany....

Mohnhaupt was convicted of involvement in nine murders. Victims included a judge, a banker and the employers' federation president.

She is being released because it's been determined that she is not viewed as dangerous. She never even showed remorse.

If a bear fell from a tree in suburban New Jersey...

... would anybody hear it?

When a blogger goes to work for a candidate, she's bound to become boring.

Dan Drezner:

[A]s much as I used to care about these intersections between the blogosphere and the real world, I can't get worked up about this kind of thing anymore. Who cares about campaign bloggers? They are little more than good PR stylists.

If you don't believe me, check out this Amanda Marcotte post on Edwards' health plan -- turns out she's happy that Paul Krugman likes it. Well, blow me down!

I guess it's too bad when a good blogger gets a job like this. But bloggers are often people who need jobs and want to get into politics. It's their choice, but it is a choice to be boring.

Link via Glenn Reynolds, who observes that the key to blogging is not taking it seriously, which, if true, means that blogging for a candidate is never going to be any good. I think the key to blogging is to do it for its intrinsic value, that is, motivated by the reward of writing itself. I don't think you can do that if you're working for a candidate. You may still find your job intrinsically rewarding, but the writing itself won't be intrinsically rewarding, and therefore, it won't be good in the way I want blogging to be good.

ADDED: Stephen Bainbridge notes that Marcotte is maintaining her un-boring ways on her personal blog and wonders what Edwards thinks of that.

R is back.

My ex-husband Richard Lawrence Cohen has returned to blogging. He's shortened his name to RLC and lengthened his profile. Let's check out the movies:

Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Maborosi, Vertical Ray of the Sun, The Terminator, Terminator 2, Alien, Alien 2, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (70s remake), Body Snatchers, The Fly (70s remake),The Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Divorce Italian Style, The 400 Blows, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, My Dinner with Andre, The Searchers, My Darling Clementine, Unforgiven, Once Upon a Time in America, It's a Gift, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup

Only two matches with the favorites in my profile. But with all that Japanese animation, where is "Grave of the Fireflies"?

For some annoying reason, he's excised his Site Meter. Well, that's no fun. Don't you know this is a game? I like to know the score!

Anyway, welcome back.

You're conservative because you're such an unsavory person quite aside from your politics, right?

Here's a little article in today's NYT about one of my favorite subjects: the way an individual's personality type determines his political affiliation.

(My interest in this subject was, you may remember, at the core of my big argument with Ron Bailey. He thought I was being unintellectual to want to consider such things, and I thought he was being shallow to exclude them.)

Anyway, what's so amusing about the article -- astutely written by Patricia Cohen -- is that the social scientists doing the research are pretty much all liberals, and as they try to figure out what sort of human psychology produces a liberal and which produces a conservative, their own psychology seems to leak all over everything.

For anyone who assumes political choices rest on a rational analysis of issues and self-interest, the notion that preference for a candidate springs from the same source as the choice of a color scheme can be disturbing. But social psychologists assume that all beliefs, including political ones, partly arise from an individual’s deep psychological fears and needs: for stability, order and belonging, or for rebellion and novelty.

These needs and worries vary in degree, develop in childhood and probably have a temperamental and a genetic component, said Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland....

What [John T. Jost of New York University] and Mr. Kruglanski say is that years of research show that liberals and conservatives consistently match one of two personality types. Those who enjoy bending rules and embracing new experiences tend to turn left; those who value tradition and are more cautious about change tend to end up on the right.

What’s more, these traits are reflected in musical taste, hobbies and décor. Dana R. Carney, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, who worked with Mr. Jost and Samuel D. Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin among others, found that the offices and bedrooms of conservatives tended to be neat and contain cleaning supplies, calendars, postage stamps and sports-related posters; conservatives also tended to favor country music and documentaries. Bold-colored, cluttered rooms with art supplies, lots of books, jazz CDs and travel documents tended to belong to liberals (providing sloppy Democrats with an excuse to refuse clean up on principle).

I agree with the basic assumption about personality types -- though I think people also learn their political affiliation from their families and develop it interacting with friends and are influenced by many complex factors, including some pure reason. I also think there are more than just two personality types. For example, there are people on both the left and right who hate to be told what to do and resist authority.

The neatness/messiness thing is interesting, and I note that everything is relative. For example, my office is pretty messy. I never put anything in drawers and have often joked that for me to put something in a drawer is the equivalent of throwing it in the trash. As a result, I have piles of things everywhere, including five or six piles on the floor. Nevertheless, people are constantly exclaiming, "Wow, your office is so clean!" (Pause to add the label "Madison.")

Madison windowscape and graffiti.

Windowscape:



Graffiti:



Just a couple things seen in my little town as I walked from the car to this café.

The sleazy sexism that's served up...

... under the heading "moderate": here and here. Great work, guys.

"I have decided to remain unmarried because, frankly, divorce and the scrutiny that goes with it scares me."

Says a 24-year-old woman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia:

"Over the past few years I have witnessed numerous schoolmates of mine as well as family members who have divorced young or have been mistreated by their husbands. After a girl divorces in this country people are anything but kind, and they look at her differently — as if she’s to blame, lacking what it takes to keep a husband and marriage happy. I can’t put myself through that."

A 27-year-old:

"My family and friends always try to change my mind telling me that not all men are the same, but I can’t help but hate them to the extent that I was even reluctant to have children fearing that I might have a son who might one day continue the cycle of violent abuse."

Refusal to marry is a classic tactic in the fight for women's rights. Giving women their rights should be necessary in the defense of marriage, though some people think the opposite is true.

Special problems in Saudi Arabia :

“Technology when used properly can be a positive achievement. However, nowadays many people are living their lives without observing piety,” [said Dr. Parveen Sultana, a Jeddah-based psychologist and marriage counselor.] “I feel that the country needs to get back to Islamic principles in order for the situation to change. Many men’s manipulative attitudes are another reason for the turmoil. They are Islamically permitted to marry up to four women, which they do. The problem begins when they don’t treat them with equality or work to support them, instead marrying professional women who can support them.”...

Salma, an English professor [said,] “At first I was hesitant to talk about the subject of marriage, but I indulged the students. They told me that for some it wasn’t the idea of nuptials that abhorred them [sic]. It was the thought of marrying a Saudi man that they disliked. One girl casually said that her dream is to marry a foreign man, saying that foreigners are more open-minded, romantic, and share in responsibilities as a partner. They don’t become liabilities, she told me. Saudi men tend to be unaffectionate, fickle and just plain selfish.”

"Engineering marvel" or "colossal eyesore" or scariest tourist attraction in the United States?

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is supposed to help the finances of the Hualapai Indian Tribe, but even assuming lots of people want to walk on a gigantic glass walkway incomprehensibly jutting out over the deep canyon, there are many problems with this:

[Some] in the tribe have been critical of what they say is the development's lack of sustainability, pointing out that water used here is trucked in over miles of unpaved, rutted roads, and that there is no sewer, trash, telephone or electrical service. The airport, which is expanding, operates on diesel generators....

Tribal officials admit it will be difficult to operate a full-service resort without upgrading infrastructure and finding a local source of water. Hualapai officials said last week that they were considering taking water from the Colorado River.

Pumping water up nearly a vertical mile from the river to the rim of the canyon could be fraught with financial and legal challenges. Joseph Feller, who teaches water law at Arizona State University, says no tribe has ever taken water from the Colorado without first negotiating with the federal government.

It sounds like a disaster all around.

Here in Madison, we have a building with a beautiful, dramatic, long glass stairway:



The glass is even frosted, so they're not encouraging you to stare down, and I know a lot of people who are afraid to walk on it.

"Wearing an overcoat but gloveless on a frigid morning, Mr. Obama invoked a speech Lincoln gave here..."

More amazing feats from Barack Obama. The man went gloveless on a frigid morning. It reached 25° in Springfield, Illinois yesterday. And look at the photograph, which shows a big crowd of people reaching out toward him. Lots of hands, most gloveless.

Speaking smoothly and comfortably...

But don't say articulately!

... Mr. Obama offered a generational call to arms, portraying his campaign less as a candidacy and more as a movement. “Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done,” he said. “Today we are called once more, and it is time for our generation to answer that call.”

I await the substance. I want to hear what he says when he metaphorically takes off the gloves:

It was the latest step in a journey rich with historic possibilities and symbolism. Thousands of people packed the town square to witness it, shivering in the single-digit frostiness until Mr. Obama appeared, trailed by his wife, Michelle, and two young daughters. (“I wasn’t too cold,” Mr. Obama said later, grinning as he acknowledged a heating device had been positioned at his feet, out of the audience’s view.)

Who knows what other devices he is using to create the impression of superhumanness people keep getting?

Anyway, Obama took the stage around 10 a.m., and the temperature there was 12°, according to the official reports. Yeah, it was 0° for you wind-chill sissies.

Mr. Obama has glided to his position in his party with a demeanor and series of eloquent...

Don't say articulate!

... speeches that have won him comparisons to the Kennedy brothers and put him in a position where his status as a black man with a chance to win the White House is only part of the excitement generated by his candidacy.

But with perhaps one major exception, his plan to disengage forces in Iraq, he has avoided offering the kind of specific ideas that his own advisers acknowledge could open him up to attack by opponents or alienate supporters initially drawn by his more thematic appeals.

So he's got one issue he's willing to talk about: Dropping our commitments in Iraq quickly. Build a believable position on national security out of that (and your shocking lack of experience with foreign affairs).

Mr. Obama went so far as to tell Democrats in Washington last week that voters were looking for a message of hope, and disparaged the notion that a presidential campaign should be built on a foundation of position papers or details.

“There are those who don’t believe in talking about hope: they say, well, we want specifics, we want details, we want white papers, we want plans,” he said then. “We’ve had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we’ve had is a shortage of hope.”

Translation: Don't you realize how dumb people are? I do.

In an interview before he left for Illinois, Mr. Obama said he realized his powerful appeal as a campaigner would take him only so far...

“If a campaign is premised on personality, then no, I don’t think you can stay fresh for a year,” he said. “But if the campaign is built from the ground up and there is a sense of ownership among people who want to see significant change, then absolutely. It can build and grow.”

So... some kind of netroots vibe will carry him beyond the pure personality thing?

“That is why this campaign can’t only be about me,” Mr. Obama said. “It must be about us. It must be about what we can do together.”

Translation: I am here to help you emotive dummies feel your way to the voting booth.

"The GOP has morphed from a party that reveres limited government to a party that is girlishly infatuated with executive authority."

Writes Steve Chapman (in the Chicago Tribune), trying to emasculate those damned Republicans who always seem more masculine than the Democrats. See, their masculinity is really feminine, because when they like a really masculine character like Rudy Giuliani, they're acting like girls (or gay guys) lusting after a macho man. I love sexual imagery in political analysis. There's also a lot of talk about Shakespeare in the linked piece. I love literary crap in political analysis too. And, if you go to the link, good luck wading through it. Let me give you a quick translation: Hey, no fair nominating such a strong candidate!

Are you, like me, always clicking on news stories about speeches given by Supreme Court justices...

... and finding that nothing interesting was said? It's so predictable. Sometimes I wonder why I have the Google Alerts I have. Actually, I have one for "Rehnquist" that has malfunctioned and become undeletable -- kind of like life tenure, but for an undying reputation.

My Google Alerts are meant to feed me bloggable nuggets. I have some that reliably turn up good material. But the ones for Supreme Court justices regularly turn up stories like this. I'm not picking on Ruth Bader Ginsburg here. But when justices go out and give speeches at law schools they say anodyne things like: "The benefits of a diverse student population are not theoretical but real."

Oh, yes, maybe Justice Scalia will say something cutting, but it will be the same cut we've heard before.

All the same, I'm not asking them to be more interesting. It's not their job to amuse me. In fact, I think they are required to be that special, judicial kind of boring.

Oh, let me be that special, blogger kind of predictable and reprint this anecdote I tell at the beginning of an article called "Late Night Confessions in the Hart and Wechsler Hotel" (47 Vand. L. Rev. 993 (1994)):

Chief Justice Rehnquist visited my law school last year to deliver a lecture entitled "The Future of Federal Courts." The University Theater filled: overdressed alumni in the front rows, respectful students in the balcony, camouflaged professors here and there. I sat in the middle and hunched over a folded-up sheet of legal paper. I scribbled notes and hoped for some insight into the tangled mass of problems I had made my life's work. Would the Chief Justice perhaps explain the Court's new habeas corpus jurisprudence? I wanted a little accounting for Butler v. McKellar, in which he had denied federal court relief to a man who faced the death penalty after a conviction based on a confession that the Court's own case law would, without question, exclude.

The Chief told some jokes, elaborated on his ties to Wisconsin, and discoursed at length about the workload of the courts. The issues were neutral, administrative, managerial, structural.

"Did he say anything provocative?" asked a colleague who had missed the speech.

"He never got any more provocative than to say he's against diversity."

My friend was shocked. "He's against diversity!?"

"Diversity jurisdiction," I said, realizing she was not a proceduralist.

Maybe in the style of an evolving Constitution, the judicial norms change -- even though they retain that sober feeling. It would have been surprising in 1993 if Rehnquist had opined on racial diversity, and now it seems utterly conventional for Ginsburg to say "The benefits of a diverse student population are not theoretical but real."