The moon is blue.

Over the bridge to Hutchinson Island.



Earlier, at dusk:



The sky, the dunes:

What do you think? Should I learn how to fly?

Maybe. If I had this $450,000 airplane...

ADDED: I don't actually want to own a plane, even if I had an extra $450,000 to spend. But if one of my millionaire readers wants to hit the PayPal button for $450,000... well, don't impetuously give me $450,000 and think you've made a contract that obligates me to do any particular thing. I may eat an egg salad sandwich for $200, but I don't want anyone giving me $450,000 and then thinking they've bought the right to tell me what to do, with access to courts to enforce the obligation. Paying for the plane would only be the beginning. First, it might be taxable income, and I'd have to pay for a lawyer to advise me on the subject (unless TaxProf wants to give me free advice). Second, I'd have to get insurance and pay and pay for it. Third, I'd have to pay to keep the plane somewhere and to use various airports. Fourth, I'd have to use it to go places, with all the expenses of travel. Do you know how expensive hotels and restaurants and clothes are for a person with a $450,000 plane?

Therefore, I think I would need several million dollars before I could learn to fly. But if you love this blog and would love to see more travel and adventure blogging here and if you are very rich, you see the PayPal button over there. I say this, worrying that anyone who gives me several million dollars might feel entitled to intrude into my private — and mysterious! — life. I would really prefer more of a John Beresford Tipton character. A John Beresford Tipton who operates via PayPal. Isn't there some web geek turned billionaire who would find fulfillment giving $1 million PayPal donations to the bloggers he loves?

Anyway.... the inside of this Cirrus airplane looks and feels very much like a car (a very nice car). I thought the design was beautiful, and I enjoyed sitting in it — which wasn't my idea. The guy showing off the plane invited me to get in. His idea was to get lots of people to sit in the plane. Most wouldn't buy, but the company is surely correct to assume that there were a lot of rich people walking by here at a PGA tournament and that seeing the plane close up would plant the idea of owning it in the heads of some people who might actually buy it.

I think the plane was designed to make an ordinary car driver feel safe, at ease, and capable of flying. I can drive, so why can't I fly? The seats are constructed to adjust to your height, so as you pull it forward so your feet reach the pedals, the height of the seat changes according to an assumption about the length of your torso. I got into a discussion with the guy who was demonstrating the plane about leg-torso disproportion, and he admitted the design only took account of the average proportion. But he swiftly called attention to the way my eyes were at exactly the same perfect level as the eyes of the tall man sitting in the other seat, and had had me close the door to see how the comfy armrest put my hand in exactly the right place to hold the throttle. I've never considered learning to fly, but I had the real sensation that with a plane like this, I could do it.

ADDED: Hey, I got linked by Daily Aviator. Thanks. And a special hi to anyone who hasn't read this blog before.

After waiting eons....

... the dune rouses itself and takes one step toward the ocean.

I'm in Stuart.

Your humble blogger is all worn out from traveling. Where am I? I'm in Stuart. Stuart, you say. Yes. I am in Stuart. (Not a guy! A place.) I hope you're happy that I travel to the ends of the earth to procure material to entertain you and this effort has brought me to Stuart.

More later, presumably. Meanwhile... carry on without me.

Let me get my hand around a giant cup of coffee.

There is so much to do today. Get some early morning blog posts up. Reabsorb McCulloch v. Maryland... contemplate the way it looks to a first year law student.



Teach a 2-hour Conlaw class....

Pack my bag for Port St. Lucie, keeping an eye on the cut. You watch your sport and I'll watch mine. I'll either be in Port St. Lucie or somewhere around Orlando or Palm Beach by nightfall. As Paul Simon used to sing: I'm on my way. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way....

"LGBT Americans who know..." and "African American ministers and citizens who believe...."

The LGBT Americans "know that their sexual orientation is an innate and treasured part of their being." They know. That is, they are right. The African American ministers and citizens "believe that their religion prevents them from fully embracing their gay brothers and sisters." They have a belief. That is, we'd like to be respectful and inclusive and simultaneously signal that they are wrong.

These quotes are from a joint letter from Barack Obama's African American Religious and LGBT Leadership Teams, in response to criticism of him for sharing the stage with Donnie McClurkin — a pastor and a popular gospel singer who presents himself as saved from what he believes is the sin of homosexuality.

From the letter:

[A] great many African Americans share Pastor McClurkin’s beliefs. This... cannot be ignored.

[W]e believe that the only way for these two sides to find common ground is to do so together.

Not at arms length. Not in a war of words with press and pundits. Only together.

It is clear that Barack Obama is the only candidate who has made bringing these two often disparate groups together a goal. In gatherings of LGBT Americans and African Americans of faith, Obama has stated that all individuals should be afforded full civil rights regardless of their sexual orientation, and that homophobia must be eradicated in every corner of our nation. If we are to end homophobia and secure full civil rights for gay Americans, then we need an advocate within the Black community like Barack Obama....

We also ask Senator Obama’s critics to consider the alternatives. Would we prefer a candidate who ignores the realities in the African American community and cuts off millions of Blacks who believe things offensive to many Americans? Or a panderer who tells African Americans what they want to hear, at the expense of our gay brothers and sisters? Or would we rather stand with Barack Obama, who speaks truth in love to both sides, pulling no punches but foreclosing no opportunities to engage?

This sounds like to me like a specific example of the general idea that Obama has been purveying all along. Were you excited about the abstraction, but put off by the concrete manifestation?

John Aravosis hates it:

Keep digging, Senator....

I'm aware that some people claim that there's a lot of homophobia in the black community - frankly, I wouldn't know - but Obama is now saying that a great many African-Americans agree with McClurkin? Meaning, they agree that gays are trying to kill our children, that America is at war with the gays, and that homosexuality is a "curse"? I'm willing to believe that we may have to do some educating of a lot of Americans of all races and creeds, but I'm having a hard time believing that a "great many" of them believe the kind of wacky stuff that McClurkin does....

[Are we] to believe Obama would not exclude anti-Semites or racists from his campaign either?...

I simply don't believe that Obama would have the same reaction, be just as welcoming, if we were talking about racists or anti-Semites. He wouldn't say that we're all one big tent. He would kick the racist or the anti-Semite to the curb....

I mean, we're to believe that the fact that Obama, alone among Democratic candidates, is willing to openly welcome bigots into his campaign, and that fact makes him the best candidate for voters concerned about civil rights. And the corollary, the worst candidate for someone who cares about civil rights is the candidate who actually stands up against the bigots. So the best way to promote tolerance is to tolerate and embrace intolerance. And I suppose the best way to tackle the issue of domestic violence is to not exclude wife beaters from your campaign either? That's just wacked.

Obama made his name as a brilliant, inspiring speaker. So why am I reading a verbose letter by his supporters and a rambling rebuttal by an angry blogger?

I want to see Obama, on easily accessible video, putting in words exactly why he's doing the right thing, and I want to hear it and be able to say, yes, that's great.

If that doesn't happen, then the whole premise of Obama's campaign is delusional.

***

And I had a hard time even finding the letter I was looking for on Obama's website. Why don't they have a search function? After wasting time searching for a search function, I decided my only hope was trial and error hitting the buttons along the top of the page to get pull-down menus. The "Issues" button looked like a good bet, but no. I finally found it under "People."

People? "LGBT" appears on that menu. So does "Women." Just as I had to go to "People" to find out about gay rights, I would have to go to "People" to find out about abortion.

When is an issue not an "issue"? When it's associated with a particular interest group? But "Honoring our veterans" gets to be an "issue," as does "Fulfilling our covenant with seniors."

This is not great communication.

"Your day will come, vile one. As long as we live, you won't be safe, Jazeera."

Bin Laden fans suddenly annoyed by bad press.

"They didn't have to read Dostoevsky, they had to read critiques and deconstruction of Dostoevsky."

What's what's wrong with these kids today. Peggy Noonan looks at Scott Thomas Beauchamp and sees a whole twisted generation.

"Tabs sock Giuliani over Sox"

Muffi&Tiger, originally uploaded by Mats&Muffi.

I thought Rudy had got into trouble with a couple of kitty cats — Tabs and Sox. But it turns out to have to do with newspapers and baseball.

Like George Bush, Hillary Clinton "presides over an office of intense and focused workaholics, protective of their patron and wary of outsiders."

Mark Leibovich writes near the end this big NYT piece. The idea of this article seems to me to be to portray Hillary Clinton as possessing solid management style, and you have to wade through a lot of flattery before you get to the interesting negative stuff:

“The Clinton campaign seems to be dominated by the same old people,” said William Mayer, a Northeastern University professor who is an expert on presidential campaigns.

Having a tight inner circle can cut both ways, Professor Mayer said. With Mr. Bush, he said, “it looked fine to have this group of loyal Texans in there, until his approval ratings went under 40 percent and there were no fresh eyes to see the mistakes.”

Mrs. Clinton, not surprisingly, bristles at such comparisons. She contrasts what she calls the “echo chamber” around the president with her own willingness to expand her own circle, hear disputes and solicit opposing views.

“I’m very interested in how you reach and implement decisions in a very efficient way,” she said.

The people who thrive within Mrs. Clinton’s “process” are those who best provide the currency of choices. “She wants to know, ‘O.K., what are my options here?’” [says Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle]. “She wants a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C. She wants recommendations. Then she’ll make a decision.” She and Mrs. Clinton speak two, three or four times a day, in a kind of shorthand.

Ms. Solis Doyle said she knew intuitively which items required the senator’s attention. When news surfaced of the criminal record of Norman Hsu, a Democratic fund-raiser, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers suggested a range of responses, including defending him, keeping the money he had raised for her campaign, or returning it.

In the end, Mrs. Clinton decided to refund $850,000 in contributions linked to Mr. Hsu.

“Her overriding sentiment was to move on and not get bogged down in the matter,” said a person familiar with the deliberations.

That was a departure from how Mrs. Clinton might have handled a comparable situation in the 1990s, when she might have been more “lawyerly,” dug her heels in and said little — generally her default method of crisis management back then. Today, “it is what it is” has become a favorite phrase of Mrs. Clinton.

So, how do we put together these 3 things? 1. surrounding oneself with a tight group of loyalists, 2. having others present a set of options so you can, efficiently, perform the "decider" role, 3. accepting what is.

It certainly sounds Bush-like. But remember, this is how her people portray her management style, so this is campaign spin. Who knows what she is really like as a "manager"? What have we seen her manage in the real world?

Mrs. Clinton has never led a large enterprise, a point her Republican rival Rudolph W. Giuliani has made in recent days. She has overseen a Senate office (staff of 55), a first lady’s office (staff of 25), an ill-fated “health-care task force” (involving 511 people), a presidential campaign (staff of more than 500) — and attended many, many meetings....

It seems we've only seen her manage one thing, and it was a spectacular failure.

Alone again... in October...

Another latte lunch with my Federal Courts book....



Looking to see if all that arcane doctrine will...



... crystallize.

"If this were a wedding, we'd be at the 'speak now or forever hold your peace' part."

"If you're a candidate hoping to get past her, the time for nuance and veiled references has passed."

Weddings... veils...

This woman for President business... it's driving you crazy, isn't it?

Too damned bad! It's too late! Maybe if you act fast... that's what they're saying... because they're political analysts — the quote above is from Steve McMahon, a former advisor to Howard Dean — and they'd like to have some relevance. So they're saying hurry, hurry, hurry... or it will be too late.

But it is too late. She's the Democratic candidate — unless you've got some dramatic new scandal... and even then....

Adjust. Give up. Deal with it. Resign yourself. It will be so much easier if you don't resist.

Beautiful...

... night...



There's very deep serenity tonight, here in New York.

"The late Gambino crime boss John Gotti was for ordering the hit [on Rudy Giuliani], and had the support of the leader of the Colombo crime family."

This was back in 1986, back when Giuliani was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and had indicted the heads of the five families. The Gambino and Colombo families said yes, but the other 3 said no, and it did not happen.

I doubt if any blogger will consider it inapt for me at this point to note that Bill and Hillary Clinton once did a commercial where they play-acted roles associated with the fictional TV crime family "The Sopranos."

In this world, there is the real and the fake.

"Michelle Malkin lives for this. At Hoover, Blackfive was unimpressed."

At Hoover? Please, somebody help Andrew. Oh, I'll just sit back and wait for Uncle Jimbo to respond.

And as long was we're trashing journalists this morning...

Beauchamp! Foer! TNR!