"How did everyone like the salad? I thought it was OK, but it needed just a little more scalp oil and a pinch of dandruff."

Look out! It's the wit of Amy Klobuchar. She'll never shake that eating-salad-with-a-comb story, so she's going with self-deprecating humor.

You never know. I once thought Donald Trump could never be elected President because his hair was so weird.

Maybe there's something mystical about hair — connecting celebrities to the people. I remember how The Beatles got to us with hair. And in politics, it does seem that the candidate with the best hair wins.

It might jinx you to come out and say it, of course. John Kerry, on his first day of campaigning with his veep choice, the ill-fated John Edwards, proclaimed:

"We've got better vision. We've got better ideas. We've got real plans. We've got a better sense of what's happening to America. And we've got better hair. I'll tell you, that goes a long way."

My blogged reaction at the time, July 2004, was:

That bulbous wig of a hairdo Kerry's been using to offset his lengthy face is good hair? That flappy, fine fringe accentuating Edwards' babyish looks is good hair? Please! For decades, I've been groaning about the outdated Beatle haircuts worn by aging Baby Boomers. Long hair is a young man's style that makes an older man look like an unattractive woman! Beatle styling, with combed down bangs in front, belongs in the 1960s--early 70s at the latest. It's as if 20 years from now, some guy were to run for President and wear his hair like this. I realize practically every man in Congress is making the same mistake of keeping the Beatle do alive, but could someone please tell these people how terribly estranged from any sense of style these men are? The only one of the current candidates with a respectable hairstyle is George Bush....

And George Bush won, so by my lights the candidate with the best hair did win in 2004, as in all the other elections, including the ones with our last bald president, Dwight D. Eisenhower.



The question of Trump's hair was immensely complicated in 2016, when his opponent was a woman whose oft-changing hair had been a matter of public inquiry for a quarter century. But she chose to forefront the hair comparison. She made a whole routine out of it with Jimmy Fallon...

She says (slightly garbling what must have been a prepared line): "Have you ever been able to let him touch — let you touch his hair?" And then: "Have you ever really touched it?" When Jimmy says no, she says: "You wanna touch mine?" Jimmy grabs a hank and gives it a sturdy pull. The gesture says: This is not a wig. And he shouts: "It's real! It's real!" He waves his hands about joyously and — with the band playing celebratory music – adds: "And it's got wave and it's fantastic, you guys, and it smells great!" He's laughing heartily and she's laughing heartily.

... and that led Jimmy Fallon — when Trump later appeared on his show — to grab Trump's hair the same way he'd grabbed Hillary's. And that normalized Trump's ultra-weird hair.

But back to Amy Klobuchar. That comb is the most famous thing about her, and she can't lose it. She's got to find a way to work with it. And the Democrats need a way to defeat the President with the absurd hair. Well, Amy's got the comb. If rock breaks scissors, and scissors cut paper, and paper covers rock, then surely, comb conquers hair.

"Better hair."

John Kerry, on his first day of campaigning with John Edwards, makes this claim:

"We've got better vision. We've got better ideas. We've got real plans. We've got a better sense of what's happening to America," Kerry told thousands of supporters here in the first of two stops in Ohio. "And we've got better hair. I'll tell you, that goes a long way."

That bulbous wig of a hairdo Kerry's been using to offset his lengthy face is good hair? That flappy, fine fringe accentuating Edwards' babyish looks is good hair? Please! For decades, I've been groaning about the outdated Beatle haircuts worn by aging Baby Boomers. Long hair is a young man's style that makes an older man look like an unattractive woman! Beatle styling, with combed down bangs in front, belongs in the 1960s--early 70s at the latest. It's as if 20 years from now, some guy were to run for President and wear his hair like this. I realize practically every man in Congress is making the same mistake of keeping the Beatle do alive, but could someone please tell these people how terribly estranged from any sense of style these men are? The only one of the current candidates with a respectable hairstyle is George Bush. Cheney ought to wear much shorter hair: he's making the same mistake as Edwards, but he's unable to pull if off because of baldness. It's especially important for balding men to wear their hair quite short. (Bonus fashion advice for Cheney: get smaller glasses.)

Kerry on Meet the Press--a few observations. Kerry has been working on his face. As Chris put it, "He made himself orange." Why did he do that? Going orange didn't work too well for Gore. I supposed it's the Tanned-and-Rested image, which he seems to be striving for generally. At least he went with brown rather than red rouge. Chris adds:

He has the Charlize Theron tan. You realize it's like a major Hollywood fad. All the big Hollywood celebrities, especially the female celebrities, are getting an orange tan. Britney Spears got it. ...He's gone way too far. I mean, it's hard to even take him seriously."

Why did Kerry get his eyebrows waxed half off? They now begin directly above the inner edge of the iris. Once you notice it, it looks really weird. I assume they thought you wouldn't really notice but would just subliminally think he had stopped scowling.

The degree of facial reconfiguring that has gone on is made clear whenever Russert puts one of Kerry's old quotes up on the screen: there's a little picture of Kerry looking quite pallid and withered. The fact is, he does look a hell of a lot better now, despite weird eyebrows and orangeness.

Most insane exchange:

RUSSERT [after playing a 1971 clip of Kerry stating that he took part in war atrocities in Vietnam]: You committed atrocities?

KERRY [laughing]: Where did .... Where did all that dark hair go, Tim? That's a big question for me.

He does then go on to deal with the issue of his characterization of the fighting in Vietnam as atrocity: it was the "over the top" language of the time. As to "all that dark hair"--as if he's gracefully accepting the effects of age and wouldn't use artificial means to regain youthful looks!

Russert asks him a direct question, maybe the single most important question: What would you do different from Bush in Iraq? Kerry's "response" is to launch into an anecdote with no apparent connection to the question (about a Vietnam vet--of all things) and gradually work his way toward something that will seem to be an answer. The strategy is to put the "answer" as far from the question as possible, in the hope that you'll forget the question and accept the proffered "answer" as an answer (or just hope that he'll stop talking already). Does Kerry ever answer the question about the future of Iraq? He always substitutes assertions about mistakes in the past. The most I'm hearing about the future is that Kerry will pursue all the same goals, but in a "smarter way." I'll just do it better. Trust me! Why? Because Bush hasn't been good enough.

Untame my hair.

Let's ask the experts about the deep meaning of the presidential candidates' looks. That's sure to be helpful. Caroline F. Keating is, according to the NYT, "a professor of psychology at Colgate University who has studied status cues transmitted by facial features." She worries that Kerry's "droopy brows and hooded eyes send an unwelcome signal of age and lethargy," and that he ought to "show more animation and smile more." You can make up for your tired, old eyes not only with smiling, but also with "exciting hair," which Prof. Keating thinks Kerry has. She says "This wild, untamed hair is something we associate with youthfulness." But what do we associate a sculpted, lacquered helmet of hair with? Because that's what some of us see topping the craggy Kerry face. Maybe it's not that seeing the hair affects what we think of the man, but that what we think of the man affects how we see the hair.

"How do you ask John Kerry to be the fall guy, go on all the Sunday morning talk shows, and try to cover up for your own leadership mistake?"

Asks Meade, in the comments to "How do you ask a man to be the [first] man to die for a mistake?" — which was yesterday's post, titled after Meade's rewrite of Kerry's famous question, " How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

So, we watched the talk shows today, and in addition to Kerry, on "Meet the Press," there was Rand Paul, and just about the first thing he said was:

... I think it's a mistake to get involved in the Syrian civil war. And what I want would ask John Kerry is, he's famous for saying, "How can you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?" I would ask John Kerry, "How can you ask a man to be the first one to die from a mistake?"

I'm not saying Rand reads the Althouse blog, but hi, Rand. Rand was remarkable — or seemed remarkable in contrast to Kerry, who preceded him — because he listened to the questions and appeared to think in real time and then verbalize actual answers.

Kerry filibustered, evading David Gregory's questions, such as "If Congress says no [to an attack on Syria], the president will act regardless of what Congress says?" Nonanswer: "I said that the president has the authority to act, but the Congress is going to do what's right here." Note the "I said," like he's already answered and now he's forced to repeat himself.

Somehow I started feeling sorry for Kerry, having to be the one to go around to all the talk shows. And he looked so weary. He looked awful, weirdly different from usual, like something wasn't right. His hair was fine. (It's a wig, right?) But his eyes were mismatched, and he kept sticking out his tongue like this:



Is there some tongue-out disease going around this week, some virulence of chapped lips? (Cf. "21 Obnoxious Photos of Miley’s Tongue.") That particular shot was taken immediately after he said the words "the American people," which annoyed Meade so much that he backtracked to pause it so I could photograph it.

What I really want to do, now that I have the transcript, is go through and find all the ways Kerry managed to say that the President needs to go to Congress and doesn't need to go to Congress. I'll update this post and show you soon.

ADDED: Here's how Kerry avoided saying the President needed authority from Congress:

Drudge links...

... to this chapter of Mark Halperin and John F. Harris's "The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008" that's reprinted in the Washington Post. I wonder what motivates him. Who can fathom it?

Deep thinkers might say Kerry was beaten by history, since Democrats for nearly forty years had been at a stark disadvantage when national security was the dominant issue in voters' minds. Here is another nominee for who beat John Forbes Kerry: Matthew Drudge.

If you are reading this book, you probably know who Matt Drudge is. It is a guarantee that most of the reporters, editors, producers, and talk show bookers who serve up the daily national buffet of news recently have checked out his eponymous website, and that www.drudgereport.com is bookmarked on their computers. That is one reason Drudge is the single most influential purveyor of information about American politics.

Drudge, with his droll Dickensian name, was not the only media or political agent whose actions led to John Kerry's defeat. But his role placed him at the center of the game -- a New Media World Order in which Drudge was the most potent player in the process and a personification of the dynamics that did Kerry in. Drudge and his ilk made Kerry toxic -- and unelectable.

Anger, prurience, invective, conspiracy theory -- all are native flowers on the American landscape. What is new is the greenhouse in which these blossoms are cultivated and sold. This greenhouse was built on two beams. The first was the disintegration of editorial filters in the Old Media, which in an earlier age prevented the most salacious tales and bitter accusations (though certainly not all) from entering the public arena. The New Media -- talk radio, cable television, Internet websites -- for the most part never had these editorial ¿lters.

(Gee, I wish I had some Old Media editorial ¿lters to clean up my writing!) [ADDED NOTE: The editing nightmare at the linked page has been cleaned up, so I've replaced the block text except the last one, which is needed to understand my wisecrack.]

Many of its leading voices, Drudge among them, are openly contemptuous of the very idea. The Old Media, faced with ¿lter-free [sic... this is getting tiresome] competition, responded by loosening or discarding its own....

I could go on, but I'd have to reprint too much. Suffice it to say, the Drudge name appears about 20 more times on the linked page. It was Drudge, you know, that got us all laughing at John Kerry's hair, "the thick mane atop Kerry's lean, craggy face [that] should have registered in the strengths column." Mean Drudge. Bad Drudge. Kerry's a looker, and you messed with our minds!

First Lady hair.

What's the most amazing thing about Teresa Heinz Kerry? It's that she's getting away with wearing her hair like that. Consider this passage from a NYT report about Heinz Kerry:

Noelia Rodriguez, who was until seven months ago Mrs. Bush's press secretary, said Mrs. Heinz Kerry's outspokenness was refreshing.

"Teresa is comfortable saying things that are off the script, and Mrs. Bush would never do that, or rarely do that," Ms. Rodriguez said. The two could have an intriguing dinner conversation - or, perhaps, a summit meeting on "Oprah!" - Ms. Rodriguez observed, adding that Mrs. Heinz Kerry "definitely needs to see Mrs. Bush's hairstylist" to tame the unruly mane that often hides her eyes.

Has anyone with hair that moves around ever gotten to be First Lady? Classic First Lady hair--sculpted and lacquered--symbolizes the steely self-control we've come to expect in a First Lady.

Debate style.

Go somewhere else if you want substance. This post is about style.

Both candidates were different from their usual selves at the debate last night. Kerry had his skin-tone properly readjusted for the TV cameras, and his hair was less obtrusive than usual, less bulbous, leaving his long, lean face looking razor-sharp. He often laughed when Bush was speaking, which was just one of a number of things that made him seem well-rested and completely up for the debate. His voice sounded better than usual, crisper in a way that makes me less likely to write "intoned" or "oratorical" and words like that.

I think the time restrictions helped Kerry a lot, even if he's the one who didn't like them. And those three little lights on the front of the lectern helped too: you knew they would come on, and when the first one came on, your heart lifted, you knew he would stop, and that made it much less likely that you'd start thinking "When is he ever going to stop?"

(By the way, that lectern was awfully ugly. It's fine to use wood, but pick something other than oak, with its offensively loud grain pattern. And did the lectern need to be so bulky? The candidates looked like they were packed into big boxes. And speaking of the set: who picked out that garish old-fashioned eagle with the banner in its beak? Ridiculous patriotism kitsch! I wonder if the 32-page debate agreement provided that the eagle would face Kerry rather than Bush.)

Bush was different from his usual self in that he lacked much if any of the impishness and humor that he displays at campaign stops. He seemed irritated and annoyed, as I wrote last night, and others have written. Yet if he had displayed his usual light-hearted facial expressions, people would have accused him of smirking, of not taking a sober enough attitude toward the deadly serious matters of war and security. Chimp analogies would have been made. So even as Kerry seemed lighter than normal, Bush seemed heavier than normal. And he looked tired, as some have noted.

Why was Bush so much more tired than Kerry? Maybe because his regular job is far more taxing than Kerry's. How much effort does Kerry put in at his Senator post these days? Bush is and should be preoccupied with his duties as President, and if he looked too well-rested we might say he's just trotting around campaigning and not taking his role as President appropriately seriously. He let it show last night that he didn't like having to stop by and share the stage with the Senator, and he'll have to forfeit a few style points for that.

UPDATE: An emailer writes:

[Y]our comments about Bush seeming more tired and maybe having a harder job got me thinking about something else I'd read today: There was a pretty big assault on Samarra last night that probably was happening during the debate. Could that have been on Bush's mind? Could the reality of what he had probably authorized (that was happening right then) vs. the theater of the debate been weighing on him? Some wouldn't want to give him the credit, but personally I think that's silly. Anyway, it seems plausible. I kind of liked the anger and the passion he showed. Seemed more like the way a real person would behave - like how I would be if I was defending my family from something deadly and someone came along and told me I didn't know what I was doing.

ADDED: At some point, a President would have to cancel the debate. At some point a President shouldn't be out campaigning at all. But if the demands of office are invoked, the opponent will respond with predictable criticisms. The derisive phrase "Rose Garden strategy" will be deployed, and the strategy itself has a bad track record:

Jimmy Carter complained President Ford was using [a "Rose Garden strategy"] in 1976. That year, Ford basked in the glory of the White House, signing bills, making pronouncements, getting free publicity, while Carter had to fight for attention. Carter used the same Rose Garden tactic four years later; They both lost.

Kerry on Letterman.

Kerry cranked out a dismal performance on David Letterman's show last night. He alternated between rerunning lines from his stump speech and plodding through scripted jokes. Unlike Nixon on "Laugh-In" and other candidates who've used pop culture shows successfully, Kerry did not use self-deprecating jokes. He attacked Bush and Cheney and used "Halliburton" as a punchline.

Read the abysmal "Top Ten" list written for him to recite, which he did without saying "Number 10 ... Number 9" in the Letterman way, proving that he does not know the show and thus severely limiting the goodwill he might have picked up through association with Dave. The items on the list are nearly all grousing about Bush and Bush people. The only references to Kerry were indirect (#7 referred to his "lustrous, finely groomed hair" and #4 referred to his wife's wealth). Most awkwardly, he caught himself beginning to pontificate about September 11th with a statement to David Letterman telling him to remember how people felt at that time. He then realized that the man sitting next to him had played a prominent role expressing the feelings people had at that time, so he switched to fawning over Letterman. Letterman had a pained wide smile on his face.

I'd love to know what Letterman really thinks of candidates using his show. Is he just wondering if this is good for ratings (because it's such a big deal) or bad for ratings (because the candidate is droning and turning the show into a campaign ad)? Or does he really sympathize with the candidate, who ought to be able to run for office without the indignity of appearing on a late night comedy show and pretending (badly) to be campanionable and funny?

UPDATE: If you'd like to see a good--and self-deprecating--Top 10 list read by a candidate, check out "Top Ten Ways I, Howard Dean, Can Turn Things Around." Number 1 was "Oh, I don't know -- maybe fewer crazy, redfaced rants." Dean read it really well too. Ah ... Dean nostalgia ... How many people have Dean nostalgia?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here's how the New Republic summed up the Kerry performance on Letterman: "a long and meandering trip through Hideous Remains of Stump Speech Lane."

"We've got better vision. We've got better ideas. We've got real plans. And we've got better hair."

Flashback to 2004. Remember when John Kerry said that... about himself and John Edwards? I wonder what the best hair combination is among the current group of Republicans... and if Obama ought to oust Biden and go with Hillary for a hair upgrade.

Radiating all the vigour and enthusiasm Kerry had surgically removed at birth, the honey-toned Edwards found himself adored by the media for his "two Americas" stump speech, a Disraelian portrait of Dickensian gloom conjured in the tones of a Depression-era sob-sister.

Ha ha. I came up with a Mark Steyn column when I Googled for what I was looking for:

Even if you have never heard it, you know how it goes: there's one America where Dick Cheney's oil buddies are swigging down Martinis and toasting their war profits; but there's another America where "tonight a 10-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm".

Oh, what a huckster that John Edwards was!

I embarked on that Google search as I was writing the previous post, disapproving of reasoning/arguing with empathetic anecdotes. I thought it might help you, as you steel yourself against the political rhetoric that comes in the form of anecdotes, to remember that disgraced prettyboy John Edwards and his 2-Americas mascot, the (nonexistent) coatless little girl.

I've been writing about the shortcomings of the human imagination as we get hung up on one thing — such as a person in the room pleading with us — and neglect to think about all the people who aren't here in our presence. But when politicians use anecdotes, they merely paint a picture for us to see in our minds, and the thing that we fail to see may be more real in the world than what's painted in that picture, such as Edwards's nonexistent coatless little girl.

There must be a little girl, you were supposed to think, because her story is specific. She's 10-years-old and I see her there, kneeling by the side of the bed, and it's a cold night. 

You can see it — the unseeable nonentity — in your imagination. The anecdote-purveyor clogs up your head with phony pictures. Fight the fake little 10-year old that the ultra-fake politician would use to gum up the imaginative mechanisms of your mind. Feel the oiliness of the fakery as it lubricates those mechanisms, and visualize the things they'd prefer to be left unseen.

Talking heads who can talk. In Entertainment Weekly, Jessica Shaw recounts the behind the scenes drama of the Barry Manilow episode of American Idol:

"I would never nix a song and say, 'That's not for you,'" vocal coach Debra Byrd says. ''I might say, 'Okay, you don't sound so good right here. Let's rearrange it or change the key or leave out that part.''' This week, a high note at the end of ''Mandy'' was plaguing John Stevens, she adds, so ''I said let's get rid of that gorilla sitting at the end of the song waiting to kick your butt. You know you're gonna screw it up."

Okay, Fox, what I want is a reality show that follows Debra Byrd around! Or alternatively, I'll take a reality show following around Dean Banowetz, the hairstylist:

[re: flower-wearing Jasmine Trias] ''I have been working on de-flowering that girl since day one.''

[re: the problem with John Stevens's hair that requires some burgundy hair dye:] ''the Howdy Doody Idol thing''

[re: his plans to redo Fantasia's hair to look like Whitney Houston's in "The Bodyguard" after Simon said LaToya's hair looked like a "dead cat":] ''After the whole cat comment ... we have to think twice ... But at the end of the day, he's a white guy from the U.K. What does he know about a sista's weave?''

To all TV producers, of fiction and reality shows: I want to watch people who have a way with words! TV is talking heads. Put on people who are good at talking!

And in this light, I have a request for the Presidential campaign: Senator Kerry, President Bush, could you please submit your campaigns in writing?

Going orange for the debate.

So John Kerry seems to have gotten one of those dark spray-on tans. He's done this before. Back when he was on "Meet the Press" in April, Chris commented:

He has the Charlize Theron tan. You realize it's like a major Hollywood fad. All the big Hollywood celebrities, especially the female celebrities, are getting an orange tan. Britney Spears got it. ...He's gone way too far. I mean, it's hard to even take him seriously."

Well, he's gone and done it again!

You just know it's his debate look. Whenever presidential debate season comes around, the one thing you can count on pundits to talk about is the 1960 debate when Kennedy looked tanned and rested and Nixon looked pasty white. There are any number of reasons why Kennedy was more appealing on television than Nixon, but the one thing Kennedy had that anyone else can get is a tan.

Other more recent debate memories have faded. Why don't Kerry's people remember how Al Gore was ridiculed for looking way too orange in the first debate in 2000? Here's what Camille Paglia had to say back then (this link and those that follow are to Salon, so prepare for an ad if you click):

As for Al Gore, if I had had any doubt about whether he deserves my vote, he managed to run right over it with his out-of-control, ham-laden 18-wheeler. What a loathsome, smug, preening, juvenile character! The supposedly great debater babbled out of turn; snickered, snorted and sneered; panted and sighed like a bellows; and rocked to and fro and ripped paper like a patient in a mental ward. And Gore looked positively repellent with his dark mat of dyed hair, garish orange makeup and flippantly twisting, strangely female features: I kept on thinking of the bewigged, transvestite Norman Bates as Mother in "Psycho."

Yeah, the part about orange is in there. Here, let me highlight it. Hmmm.... amusing. Paglia had quite a number of problems with Al Gore there, didn't she? I suppose I could have found a quote more focused on the orangeness of Al Gore, but it would not have been have contained as many fascinating words. Like "ham-laden" and "bewigged." Aw,poor Al didn't deserve all that. On the other hand, come back Camille! That was fun to read.

Here's Ben Stein's ridicule of Gore's looks:

Gore was comically overmade-up, I guess because he was so nervous about sweating. I work in show business every day, and I don't think that I've seen that much makeup on anyone besides a Las Vegas showgirl. I kept waiting for his false eyelashes to fall off.

Orangeness aside, Gore's first debate offers many lessons that Kerry might want to learn. Here's Andrew Sullivan summing up the first 2000 debate in a few sentences:

The best way I can think to describe the last hour and a half is assisted suicide. Gore was wooden, condescending, boring, preachy, very liberal. Bush was a human being, good-natured, reasonable, smart, sane. It was a knockout.

I have a feeling those sentences, with the appropriate changes, will probably be reusable after this week's debate.

"Consultant Raised Cash for Hillary Clinton, Used Access to Seek Meeting for Coal Giant, Emails Reveal."

Reports The Intercept.

The "Coal Giant" is Peabody Energy.  The political consultant is Joyce Aboussie, who wrote to Huma Abedin:

“Huma, I need your help now to intervene please. We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton, who has been there now for nearly six months,” Aboussie wrote. “It should go without saying that the Peabody folks came to Dick and I because of our relationship with the Clinton’s,” she added.

Dick is Dick Gephardt, who was House Majority Leader from June 6, 1989 to January 3, 1995 and House Minority Leader from January 3, 1995 to January 3, 2003. That is, he led the Democrats in the House of Representatives during the entire Bill Clinton administration. Gephardt started a lobbying firm in January 2006, the month he left office.

Gephardt ran for President in 1988 and 2004, and he was considered a strong candidate for VP in 2004. There was even a New York Post cover saying that John Kerry had picked him:



(Kerry picked the now-disgraced John Edwards, who had better hair.)

IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said:

“It should go without saying that the Peabody folks came to Dick and I because of our relationship with the Clinton’s,” she added.

Huma must have rolled her exotic eyes and thought "what kind of amateurish influence peddler so consciously violates the rules of pay to play omertà?"

I imagined her rolling her eyes over something else — the illiteracy of "to Dick and I" and "the Clinton's." In my hypothetical scenario, she's saying:

How stupid is Peabody to pay big money to a guy who can't avoid making rank grammatical errors and sending them to me? To me! It's one thing to be married to a man who impulsively sends dick pics to skanky women, but to craft to-Dick-and-I email and send it to me! Ugh!

My opinion of Kerry's speech.

Too long. Too many flubs:

We will double our special forces to conduct terrorist operations ... anti-terrorist.

What does it mean when 25 percent of our children in Harlem have asthma because of hair pollution?

... it's not the story of senators and menators ...

Too many overrehearsed hand gestures. Not enough balloons. I wasn't sure how to feel without the sight of tumbling balloons to symbolize overflowing excitement. I want a President who will never ask me to sit through an hour-long speech without a plan for releasing the balloons.

UPDATE: I corrected the first of the quotes above. I had: "We will double our special forces to conduct terrorist operations ... anti-terrorist operations," but in fact Kerry did not repeat the word "operations" when he corrected himself.

Before the parade.

After an hour or so of grading exams in a café on State Street, I decided to walk up to the Capitol Square, and there I happened upon a gathering parade--a gay pride parade.

Some people had the casual but painted look:





Others were more formal:



There were plenty of signs for Tammy Baldwin and John Kerry:



The religious counterpoint was also represented:



Those holding religious signs were being relatively pleasant, at least during the pre-parade period when I was there. They would smile and say "hi" if you made eye contact. I saw and overheard quite a few real conversations between persons who supported the parade and those who showed up with signs to register their objection. Although I doubt that anyone's mind was changed, I was encouraged to see people having some serious face-to-face discussions that did not get ugly.



Some paraders called out "Jesus loves everyone!" and at one point, they sang "Jesus Loves Me." These two saw the religious character as a good photo op:



For all the parade pictures, go here. For Tonya's description of the parade, go here [Dead link.]

UPDATE: Prof. Yin thinks the green woman in the first picture looks like classic Star Trek woman Vina!

And here's the Wisconsin State Journal article about the parade.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Prof. Yin seems to think I recognized the character Vina, but I just clicked on the link he provided. So don't be thinking I keep track of Star Trek information. I have viewed some episodes of the original series, but that was back in the 1970s, and I can't remember much of anything except the basic look and demeanor of the characters and the general cheesiness of the sets. In the 70s, the show was of course already reruns. Did I watch the show when it was originally aired in the 60s? I watched at least part of one episode and concluded it was bad. I can't remember why. Either it seemed too phony or I didn't like the way they wore their hair. If I was going to watch a TV drama back in the late 60s, I think I wouldn't have been interested unless the characters wore their hair more like this.

"'Joe may have tamped down his public bedroom declarations winning the presidency, but he has joked to aides that ‘good sex’ is the key to a lasting and happy marriage...'"

"'... much to his wife’s chagrin.'... [I]n 2004 when Biden was considering getting into the race to challenge John Kerry[, d]uring a meeting when aides were begging him to jump in, Jill walked into the room wearing a halter top with the word 'No' scrawled on her stomach. Biden followed that sexy veto.... Some — including Jill — might find the 81-year-old Golden President’s frisky comments about the first lady cringey. But at least he is celebrating sensuality. Conservatives seem determined to stamp it out."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Sex and the Capital City" (NYT). She's quoting and drawing on a book by New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers, "American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, From Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden."

There's doing and there's talking. Do, but you needn't talk about it, and you certainly don't need to get high-profile columnists to celebrate you for "celebrating sensuality"... whatever that is. Does it include that hair-smelling stuff?

"What Would the Democrats Do?"

Honestly, though that title for a Week in Review piece by John M. Broder grabs me, it was the illustration by Steven Brodner that made me want to open the old "create post" window. I love this exuberantly distorted image of various Democrats ... though I had to read the caption to tell that was supposed to be Biden. It kind of looked like Henry Jackson. What would Henry Jackson do in the current situation? I wonder. The James Webb caricature is especially cool, reminiscent of John Tenniel's Tweedledee (or is it Tweedledum):



John Kerry's head has the look of a toby jug, set off in the background. Hillary Clinton has Little Orphan Annie irisless eye dots. And Ned Lamont -- hilariously drawn with a long neck and a pointy nose -- stares off to his right and points left.

But let's see what Broder has to say:

“It’s a dog’s breakfast,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which has done extensive polling on public attitudes toward the war. “The reason that Democrats aren’t talking about specific plans to end the war is because it’s hard to figure out what to say without alienating a broad swath of the electorate.”

Distractable me: What exactly is "a dog's breakfast"? According to this, it's a poor job, a mess. Presumably, it's a wisecrack about how bad dinner is, right? One source says it's a variation on "a dog's dinner," but here we see that "a dog's breakfast" and "dog's dinner" are two completely different phrases. "The dog's dinner" means "Dressed or displayed in an ostentatiously smart manner." (Can't say that about the Dems plan for Iraq.)

Why a dog's breakfast is synonymous with mess or muddle and dog's dinner with smartness isn't at all clear. It appears that the two phrases were coined entirely independently of each other.

'Dog's dinner' is first cited in ‘C. L. Anthony's play 'Touch Wood', 1934:

"Why have you got those roses in your hair? You look like the dog's dinner."

See also: the dog's bollocks.

See also the dog's bollocks? Really! No Clinton jokes! "The dog's bollocks" means excellent. Just an update on "the bee's knees." Would that the Democrats had some ideas that were the dog's bollocks. We're advised at the link that polite -- and rhyme-loving -- folks can say "the mutt's nuts."

But enough of this linguistic digression. We can't be all scholarly all the time here. We've got to pay some attention to the goofy world of politics some of the time. (And lord knows, it does bring the linkage.) So, back to Broder:

Among the Democrats trying to find the right message on Iraq is Eric Massa, a United States Naval Academy graduate who spent 24 years on active duty and then worked as a staff member in Congress. He is challenging a freshman Republican representative, John R. Kuhl Jr., for a seat in western New York State. Mr. Massa offers a thought-out critique of the Bush policy in Iraq, based on his years in uniform and his service as a senior NATO officer dealing with the civil warfare in Bosnia.

“We will never be successful in creating a Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq at the tip of a bayonet,” he said. “That’s a fool’s errand. The longer we try it, the more dire the consequences.”

Linguistic detour: "a fool's errand."

The Kuhl-Massa debate, if you can call it that, illuminates the difficulties at least some Democrats are having talking about Iraq. The more specific they are in proposing solutions to the impasse in Iraq, the more they open themselves to Republican charges of defeatism, or worse....

A Pew Research Center poll released last week found that Democratic candidates attract strong support among Democratic voters by advocating immediate withdrawal, but that position tends to repel independents. The safest position appears to be supporting a timetable for withdrawal, which independents favor by 35 to 20 percent.

Calibrating your policy like this doesn't really inspire us moderates.

Bruce W. Jentleson, a professor of public policy at Duke University and an official in the State Department’s office of policy planning under President Bill Clinton, said ... “Many of them think it’s enough to run on negativity on the Bush policy. I’m not convinced that’s true. That feeds the perception that Democrats know what they’re against but not what they’re for.”

So, yeah, it's a dog's breakfast.

Against anti-lookism.

Here's a piece -- via Memeorandum -- saying we shouldn't make witty observations about the way public figures look. It's too mean, like some Mean Girl seventh graders who would deserve a scolding.

While healthy civic discourse involves disagreement on issues of policy, too often people are prone to bully and harass their opponents with attacks on physical appearances when they are unable to articulate a valid and logical opposing argument....

The fact that women fought for many years to be taken seriously in the arenas of government and public policy makes the "lookism" attacks on successful women reveal a deep double standard -- not of men against women, but of women against their own gender.

Where are the feminists? Their silence speaks volumes about their convictions and partisan leanings. After all, it is mainly conservative women who have been the victims of this sort of media slashing. Sad to say, with few exceptions, the circling vultures are left-leaning women.

Has our culture become so shallow, and our sensibilities so numb, that we will accept from adults the sort of vicious behavior that we would never accept from our children?

Where are the feminists? Well, this feminist says women will do better when they value humor and free expression and when they show they can take the same shots men take. We make fun of the way male public figures look all the time. Bush looks like a chimp, Kerry like a horse. If a woman wants to be a powerful political figure, she needs to be up to the full package of ridicule that comes with the territory. I don't see how it helps the cause of women to be known as oversensitive prigs who want to spoil the fun and enforce a smothering, boring niceness on everyone.

Bonus opinion: Making fun of a woman's makeup is not the same as making fun of the size of her nose or the texture of her hair. It's making fun of her judgment. And that's actually relevant to the question whether she should be trusted with political power.

So much for moderation.

After writing a post on Saturday, expressing my dismay at seeing Andrew Sullivan showing disrespect toward Mormons (and denying it), I did another post on Sunday, linking to The Moderate Voice, which, like Sullivan, had printed a photograph of Mormon undergarments and wondered about how people would respond to a Mormon -- Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney -- running for President. (I intend to follow this issue closely in the coming months.)

The author of the post at TMV, Shaun Mullen, chose -- immoderately -- to lash out at me, calling me names, in a way that was just weirdly out of line. (Details below, at "Let me just remind you about how Shaun acted.")

Co-blogger Greg Piper wrote:

Shaun's post on the coming media circus surrounding Mitt Romney's likely run for president as the first serious Mormon (properly speaking, "LDS") candidate is generating some upset comments from the LDS faithful who appear to not like the posting of people in the temple underwear....

But I'd remind those that consider the shot offensive that it indeed illustrates (literally) what is coming in 2008 - if Romney keeps hinting he'll run, a slew of stories for the next 2 years about the LDS church, its history, controversies and role in America and abroad, including its rather secretive leadership structure....

Yes, a bit crude - but the underwear shot gets attention, and is something that a lot of folks like myself never even heard of. Let's also consider the difficulty of describing temple underwear without something visual. If "South Park" can make fun of Latinos selling "Native American" tampons made from their hair to a gullible, progressive audience, and secular and faithful alike can pillory the Christian merchandising trend of the past decade, I don't see how LDS temple underwear is off limits. LDSers could take a page from certain Middle Easterners that self-identify as Muslims (the efforts I make to be PC!) and start killing people that highlight temple underwear, but they're too civilized for that. I happen to agree with the commenter in Shaun's post that implied this was a side issue as long as people were dying over offense.

That said, I found Shaun's three responses to Ann Althouse's criticism to be in poor taste, especially patronizing a serious, intelligent blogger as "Annie Pooh." A public apology from Shaun, many of whose readers at TMV probably didn't see his responses at Althouse's blog, wouldn't be inapt.

Thanks, Greg. And let me add that Shaun's invented nickname for me is sexist. He needs to be called on that. I know there are some folks who seem to think sexism doesn't count when aimed in a rightward direction -- you should see some of the things they said in the comments -- but it does, and I'm keeping score.

Co-blogger Andrew Quinn writes:

In short, I'm shocked.... When I came back to blog here after a recent and extended leave of absence, I quickly and easily noticed a less moderate tone. Every coblogger that posts with any regularity offers an extensively left-wing viewpoint, and (here's the real offense) often stooping to ridiculous levels to claw at the knees of the Republicans....

I'm appalled. This site is too rapidly becoming an echo chamber like those we once were proudly able to sneer down at.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised to see religious bigotry from a new coblogger who wrote on his own blog the following gem of "moderation" :

Just do me a favor: If someone tells you how proud they are to be an American this Thanksgiving, don't bother to get tangled up in some long winded discussion about what The Decider has wrought. Just ask to have the cranberry sauce passed to you and throw it at them.

Well, Shaun, the Moderate Voice once used to stand for civil debate ("long-winded discussion") and not so much for throwing of food. But I guess acting like children is in vogue now - it just doesn't seem so moderate to me.

Okay. Let's post pictures of what others consider sacred for a cheap laugh because "it was coming anyways." Let's be ashamed of being Americans. And let's devolve our debate to the point where we're arguing that the Administration plans for the maximum casualties.

I love this site and what it has stood for. I really do, and that's why it sickens me to see us take this path. Because if we continue along our current trajectory, a name change will be in order....

I'd like to preempt any criticism or calling me a "neocon," a Halliburton puppet or anything similar by saying that I supported Kerry in 2004, supported mostly Republicans in 2006, and that this post was not based on any specific opinions but rather a yearning for the educated and civil debate we used to have here. Not a forum where cobloggers respond to intelligent criticisms of their work by calling respected lawblogger Ann Althouse "Annie Pooh." Is this a joke?

Thanks, Andrew.

Joe Gandelman, the founder of TMV, writes a post, ostensibly for new readers, where he explains his site, what moderation means, and what the co-bloggers are:

We are adding some new cobloggers. Each has a different perspective and style. This weekend passions ran high, even among our cobloggers. I have asked everyone who writes on this site to email their concerns to me in the future about the site and we can discuss it privately.

Nothing specifically about me there. And Joe has a second post, a short one, where he links back to Shaun's original post and to Greg's post, the one that suggests Shaun should apologize to me, but again, Joe says nothing about me.

I think Joe had a nice blog going, one that lived up to its title. Maybe it's not a good idea to have a blog title that makes such a distinct claim, but anyhow, I think Shaun Mullen is hurting Joe's reputation. I don't know why Joe hasn't addressed the way Shaun treated me.

Let me just remind you about how Shaun acted. Here's his first appearance in the comments to my blog:

Hi Annie Pooh:

Thanks for the drive-by-hit hit on The Moderate Voice post. I wrote it. You took it out of context to suit your own ends.

While I'm not surprised, I'm kinda sad. But it is so much easier to flail than think something through.

Your readers can judge for themselves:

http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1164544870.shtml

Best, Shaun

As several readers immediately pointed out, my post did link to his post. I mistook his comment for private email and wrote back:

What "ends" are you referring to? Preserving civility and opposing
bigotry? Yes, I did. You should be glad I wasn't harsher to you as I
believe was justifiable.

And why are you acting like I didn't link to your post? People can go
over there and see how far you went. You went seriously wrong when you posted the photograph.

You really don't sound too moderate. You sound insulting and
mocking... and unconcerned about religious persecution.

My email prompted Shaun to comment in the post thread again:

Ann has replied to be me privately, but has not posted her response to me in the comments section of her own blog. Or maybe Blogger is acting up again. Oh, well.

Anyhow, my advice for Ann remains the same: Stop flailing.

I discussed some of the issues that Mitt Romney will draw, most of them frivolous and unworthy of discussion, in the context as a preview of Things to Come, not a knock on the Church of Latter Day Saints or their underwear.

Chill, Ann, chill. Go play with that squirrel in your yard.

When I saw that, I added this comment:

Shaun: You really don't come across as moderate at all. As for replying to you privately rather than here, I saw your private email to me first and didn't yet see that it was also a comment here. What I responded privately was:

[Text of email omitted.]

Does Joe know you're screwing up his blog?

Shaun then commented:

Annie Pooh:

I did not send you a private email. Somebody copied me in on your screed.

It is a beautifully sunny day here on the East Coast. I have just come in from a bike ride.

Do you have a bike? If so, I'd suggest you get on it and pedal away your demons.

I commented again to say that I really mistook Shaun's comment for private email. (The comments on the blog come to me as email, allowing me to keep track of things.) I don't think Shaun returned. But what a strange performance! What was it about my original post that even arguably called for his attitude? I think it's truly weird, especially for someone who is given the stage of a blog someone else created and built up under the name "The Moderate Voice."

But Joe's later posts demonstrate that Joe knows Shaun is "screwing up his blog" or has the basis to know that but has drawn a different conclusion. Frankly, Joe's failure to call Shaun on his ridiculous abuse or to reach out to me in any way really says something. I haven't been keeping track of his blog that well, and I really don't know why he's loaded it up with co-bloggers after creating such a distinctive persona for himself. But something is awry.

I suppose I should say something like: These people who call themselves moderates are usually playing some game. They really are partisan -- otherwise why are they writing about politics? -- and they're just posing under the label "moderate" to try to pull you in and put one over on you. Be very suspicious.

But then that's what people keep saying about me.

"One day in early June, Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, tapped the glass of the bakery case at a Blue Bottle coffee shop on a non-iconic block in Beverly Hills."

"No one seemed to know who she was—another polished professional woman, grabbing an afternoon coffee—which was fine by her. She had chosen the spot, presumably for the anonymity. A few minutes later, her body woman delivered her a cookie: caramel chocolate chip, covered in a light snowfall of flaky salt. As Harris broke off small pieces and popped them in her mouth, we talked about her early life, rummaging through the layers for identifying details. The child of immigrant academics who divorced when she was young—her mother, a cancer researcher, came from India, and her father, an economist, from Jamaica—Harris grew up between Oakland and the Berkeley flats, but also spent time in college towns in the Midwest and a few years in Montreal, where her mother was teaching. 'A very vivid memory of my childhood was the Mayflower truck,' she told me. 'We moved a lot.' She speaks some French. She loves to cook and enjoys dancing, puns. She tells her own story uneasily. 'It’s like extracting stuff from me,' she apologized. 'I’m not good at talking about myself.'"

The inauspicious beginning of "Kamala Harris Makes Her Case/The Presidential candidate has been criticized as a defender of the status quo/Can she prove that she’s a force for change?" by Dana Goodyear (The New Yorker).

Here's my screen shot of one of the 2 Blue Bottle coffee shops in Beverly Hills (from Google Maps):



Where do you go when you want to look like just another polished professional and you want to pop a light snowfall of flaky salt and talk about yourself without talking about yourself?

Did I read the rest of the article? Okay, I'll force myself to skim, but I take that opening to mean that Goodyear got nothing out of her. Let's see...

Harris, who is fifty-four, has a billboard smile, and brown eyes that soften easily but just as readily turn skeptical.