By Patrick Appel
Obama responds to the ad:
We want to have a serious debate. But so far, we’ve been hearing about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. I do have to ask my opponent: is that the best you can come up with? Is that really what the election is about? Is that worthy of the American people? …
In other news, the McCain campaign retracts and then de-retracts its claim about Obama "snubbing" the troops.
By Patrick Appel
A Crown Point coffeehouse:
Ann Coulter books sit stacked by the fireplace, and a picture of Ronald Reagan hangs on the wall. Fox News plays on all the televisions, and stock market quotes scroll along an electronic ticker above the cash register.
Behind the counter, owner Dave Beckham smiles proudly in a khaki T-shirt that reads "Zip It, Hippie." The shirt is for sale at the Crown Point, Ind., cafe, along with ones that say "Peace through Superior Firepower."
"It’s a change from the traditional liberal bastion coffeehouses," Beckham says. "No one is going to bad-mouth America in here."
By Patrick Appel
"The executive’s current claim of absolute immunity from compelled Congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law,"—Judge John D. Bates, who ruled on Bolten and Miers trying to evade Congress.
By Jessie Roberts
…the name goes on trial. Take the case of Weather’by Dot Com Chanel Fourcast Sheppard:
The Court: All right. Now, do you have some objection to him being renamed Samuel Charles?
Sheppard: Yes.
The Court: Why? You think it’s better for his name to be Weather’by Dot Com Chanel … Fourcast, spelled F-o-u-r-c-a-s-t? And in response to that question, I want you to think about what he’s going to be — what his life is going to be like when he enters the first grade and has to fill out all [the] paperwork where you fill out — this little kid fills out his last name and his first name and his middle name, okay? So I just want — if your answer to that is yes, you think his name is better today than it would be with Samuel Charles, as his father would like to name him and why. Go ahead.
Sheppard: Yes, I think it’s better this way.
The Court: The way he is now?
Sheppard: Yes. He doesn’t have to use “Dot Com.” I mean, as a grown man, he can use whatever he wants.
The Court: As a grown man, what is his middle name? Dot Com Chanel Fourcast?
Sheppard: He can use Chanel, he can use the letter “C.”
More here.
By Patrick Appel
Prop 8 supporters are suing to make the formal ballot description of the measure more Orwellian. Badtux summarizes:
The proposition is truthfully described on the ballot as, "Eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry". But the truth, they apparently fear, is something that is too inflammatory. So they sued the State of California for telling the truth about what the ballot proposal does.
By Daniel Larison
Not enough has been said about John Schwenkler‘s fine TAC essay on culinary conservatism, and unfortunately too much of what has been said has been ridiculous, so it is gratifying to see my Scene colleague Alan Jacobs taking up the subject in this first of two posts. Before I say anything more about the essay itself, there is something that needs to be addressed whenever we try to discuss the relationship between food culture and philosophical and political persuasions. Something that culinary conservatives and their good friends the "crunchy" cons and agrarians generally take for granted, as John notes in his essay, is that eating is a political act.
This scandalizes and terrifies many modern conservatives because they seem to have a limited or debased understanding of what it means to say that something is a political act, and they tend to associate it for the most part with the government and the business of electioneering and passing legislation. Were you to say that there is so much more to the life of a community, ta politika, than its government, laws and elections, these same conservatives would agree wholeheartedly and would probably make a point of saying admiringly that most people who would call themselves conservatives today are not activists and are concerned mostly with their families and churches. Their conservative politics derives not from movement boosterism or extensive familiarity with the texts of the postwar American conservative canon, but from their habits and the virtues they try to cultivate in their own lives. If you pressed these conservatives a bit more, they would acknowledge that it is better for families to eat together for many reasons, and many would recognize the integrative role that shared meals at religious celebrations have. Some would even allow that it matters that the Eucharist is a re-enactment, or at the very least a commemoration, of the Lord’s last meal on earth. Even so, to then say that it matters in some important way what they eat, where it comes from or how the animals and soil that provide them sustenance are treated is usually to lose much of their interest. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the language of unfettered desire and autonomy crops up: "I want what I want, and who are you to say otherwise?" At least with many libertarians, this is to be expected, but it is a strange reflex for those who are supposed to prize restraint and wisdom.
To say that eating is a political act worries conservatives because many seem to cling, oddly enough, to an old liberal conception of private, personal life that they wish to preserve free from outside interference, including ultimately the "interference" of neighbors, relatives and local community. Where social conservatives are often keenly aware of the effects that individual choices concerning marriage, child-bearing and child-rearing have on society as a whole, there often seems to be a strange disconnect when it comes to eating, as if an act that ties us into an elaborate web of economic relationships has no greater significance and no other implications other than providing nourishment. It is one kind of activity, perhaps the only kind, where many conservatives act as if the consequences of personal choices do not extend beyond the front door.
At the same time, eating as a political act is nonetheless also a question of how we are governed, whom we choose to empower and how we choose to govern ourselves. As John says:
“Eating is an agricultural act,” writes Wendell Berry. But Slow Food International founder Carlo Petrini argues that it is also a political one—a deed no less significant than the ways we cast our votes. Hence even the smallest acts of resistance to the hegemony of the present system, where corporate representatives and industry-funded scientists at public universities collaborate with government officials on regulatory policies and nutritional guidelines, are crucial steps in recovering local culture and reconstituting our “little platoons.” This will nurture the ability to govern—or resist being governed.
Cross-posted at Eunomia
By Patrick Appel
Karl Giberson rightly bashes Myers:
Myers’ confident condemnations put me in mind of that great American preacher, Jonathan Edwards, who waxed eloquent in his famous 1741 speech, "Sinners [in] the Hands of an Angry God," about the miserable delusions that lead humans to reject the truth and spend eternity in hell. We still have preachers like Edwards today, of course; they can be found on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. But now we also have a new type of preacher, the Rev. PZ Myers.
Bogota, Colombia, 6 pm.
By Daniel Larison
The campaign controversy of the moment seems to be whether McCain has been telling lies about his opponent, with the additional accusation from the opposing camp that he is also engaged in race-baiting. Of course, he is telling lies, and he isn’t engaged in race-baiting, but in this bizarre election cycle you can be sure that he will be rewarded or at least forgiven for the former and then punished for something that he isn’t doing. This is exactly what happened during the primaries when McCain lied about Romney’s views on the war and Obama’s campaign and supporters denounced the Clintons for exploiting racism, and it is all happening again just as it did earlier in the year. It is happening again mainly because this is how the two campaigns seem to operate when they are in closely-contested elections, which means we will continue to see more of this until November.
Trivial as they seem, these episodes sum up both campaigns and the media’s treatment of both remarkably well. As he did in the primaries, McCain is simply making things up about his opponent’s positions and actions, and just as his campaign did during the primary fight against Clinton Obama and his supporters are pushing fantastic claims that McCain is exploiting racism. (As with Clinton, McCain may be benefiting from prejudice, but attempts to show that they are actively exploiting it have been laughably weak.) Remember the memo the Obama campaign circulated documenting the instances of how the Clintons allegedly politicized racism? Then as now, the things that have provoked criticism have typically been entirely or mostly unrelated to race, and even when there is some small connection it requires hysteria and hypersensitivity to find something malevolent in that connection. This line of attack on Obama’s opponents is not a new one, but the Obama campaign may be making a serious mistake in assuming that this attack will work as well in the general election as it did in the Democratic primary. Regardless, it will receive more attention and gain more traction in the press on the assumption that they have been using all year long, which is that whatever race-baiting the Clintons were supposedly employing, the GOP would use it even more extensively.
Back in January, the media criticized McCain for his lies about Romney, but ultimately forgave him on the twisted grounds that he doesn’t enjoy lying, and so he remained their hero. The same will happen concerning McCain’s lies about Obama. Meanwhile, McCain will suffer more damage from sustained media criticism that he is supposedly trafficking in racist tropes, despite the self-evident absurdity of the charge. The phony controversy about the alleged racism in McCain’s horrible ads will distract attention from their insipid quality, but it will still generally work to McCain’s detriment if journalists accept the idea that McCain’s campaign is trying to promote or use racism in the election. If their response to the accusations against the Clintons is any indication, many will accept this idea, and Obama will profit from this sort of scurrilous charge. One thing seems likely: as I guessed a few months ago, the election will turn heavily on the biography and character of the candidates, and it will therefore be one of the more divisive and unpleasant general election campaigns we have experienced.
Cross-posted at Eunomia
The Dish 