Month: July 2008

By Patrick Appel
Jaime Sneider does Very Important research into the campaigns’ coffee expenditures: 

Before its June report was filed, the Obama campaign had spent about $1,800 at Starbucks and $1,400 at Dunkin Donuts. The McCain campaign, on the other hand, has spent a mere $498 at Starbucks and $970 at Dunkin’ Donuts. It is also well known the Straight Talk Express is stocked with Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

If coffee is a heuristic for the presidential election, the McCain campaign is in good shape. While Starbucks is in the process of closing 600 locations, Dunkin’ Donuts is opening dozens. Because Americans are pessimistic about the economy, they’re more likely to spend only a buck or two on a cup of coffee than they are to splurge on the mocha chip frappuccino. There is also some dignity in being able to say small, medium, or large as opposed to tall, grande, or venti. Customer surveys also show that Dunkin’ Donuts is out pacing Starbucks for the first time in years.

Ooookaaay.

By Patrick Appel
Charles Bethea has a piece on Guru Raj, who, on a lark, registered barackobama@gmail.com back in 2004. The e-mail really started to pour in during the primaries:

The letters expressed a range of sentiments: simple incredulity (“R U REAL?”), electoral reassurance (“Don’t worry about California, they’re old fogies anyway”), mystical backing (“You represent the spirit of the Lotus sutra”), conspiratorial opposition (“Obama might not be a U.S. citizen and not qualified to run for president”), niggling criticism (“You were losing your OOMPH delivering your speeches in Texas and Ohio”), sound advice (“Don’t lose your humility”). Raj’s favorite e-mail was a nursery rhyme that went, “Hillery Dillery Dock / Obama will clean her clock / Monica’s a sin / Bu Ba fell in / Now she’s gotta deal with Barack.”

by hilzoy

From a CBS interview with John McCain today:

“Couric: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

They were out there. They were protecting these sheiks. We had the Anbar awakening. We now have a government that’s effective. We have a legal system that’s working, although poorly. And we have progress on all fronts, including an incredible measure of security for the people of Iraq. There will still be attacks. Al Qaeda’s not defeated. But the progress has been immense. And to not recognize that, and why it happened, and how it happened, I think is really quite a commentary.

Couric: A commentary on what?

McCain: That Sen. Obama does not understand the challenges we face. And … not understand the need for the surge. And the fact that he did not understand that, and still denies that it has succeeded, I think the American people will make their judgment.”

Well, that’s funny, because Spencer Ackerman happens to have Marshall McLuhan Col. (now Brigadier General) McFarland right here:

“With respect to the violence between the Sunnis and the al Qaeda — actually, I would disagree with the assessment that the al Qaeda have the upper hand. That was true earlier this year when some of the sheikhs began to step forward and some of the insurgent groups began to fight against al Qaeda. The insurgent groups, the nationalist groups, were pretty well beaten by al Qaeda.

This is a different phenomena that’s going on right now. I think that it’s not so much the insurgent groups that are fighting al Qaeda, it’s the — well, it used to be the fence-sitters, the tribal leaders, are stepping forward and cooperating with the Iraqi security forces against al Qaeda, and it’s had a very different result. I think al Qaeda has been pushed up against the ropes by this, and now they’re finding themselves trapped between the coalition and ISF on the one side, and the people on the other.”

That’s from September 29, 2006. Here’s Gen. McFarland, writing about the surge in 2008, described (pdf) a lot of work in Anbar province throughout the summer of 2006, culminating in a “tipping point” (h/t Seth Colter Walls):

“On 9 September 2006 Sittar organized a tribal council, attended by over 50 sheiks and the brigade commander, at which he declared the “Anbar Awakening” officially underway. The Awakening Council that emerged from the meeting agreed to first drive AQIZ from Ramadi, and then reestablish rule of law and a local government to support the people. The creation of the Awakening Council, combined with the ongoing recruitment of local security forces, began a snowball effect that resulted in a growing number of tribes either openly supporting the Awakening or withdrawing their support from AQIZ.”

The surge was announced on Jan. 10, 2007. That’s four months after the “tipping point” at which the Anbar Awakening really got under way, and three and a half months after the briefing at which McFarland described the success of the Awakening. McFarland and his troops left Anbar in February of 2007 (pdf; p. 51), before any of the surge troops would have arrived. So I don’t see how this could possibly be true: “Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening.” Unless, as Matt Yglesias notes, McCain credits the surge with enabling time travel.

Spencer Ackerman says that McCain’s statement is “either a lie or professional malpractice for a presidential candidate who is staking his election on his allegedly superior Iraq judgment.” Ilan Goldenberg is even harsher:

“This is not controversial history. It is history that anyone trying out for Commander and Chief must understand when there are 150,000 American troops stationed in Iraq. It is an absolutely essential element to the story of the past two years. YOU CANNOT GET THIS WRONG. Moreover, what is most disturbing is that according to McCain’s inaccurate version of history, military force came first and solved all of our problems. If that is the lesson he takes from the Anbar Awakening, I am afraid it is the lesson he will apply to every other crisis he faces including, for example, Iran.

This is just incredibly disturbing. I have no choice but to conclude that John McCain has simply no idea what is actually happened and happening in Iraq.”

Note to self: if I ever run for President and decide to stake everything on my understanding of one thing, I should familiarize myself with the basic facts about it. I should be especially careful to do this before I say something like this about someone who got it right: “I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened.”

By Jessie Roberts

“Putting the Country First”, July 4, 2008:

Patriotism is deeper than its symbolic expressions, than sentiments about place and kinship that move us to hold our hands over our hearts during the national anthem. It is putting the country first, before party or personal ambition, before anything.

Worth The Fighting For, p. 373, published September 2002:

I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president.

by Chris Bodenner
Responding to my post on the relative nature of economic distress, a reader writes:

Here’s the thing about wealth and poverty: declines are what kills you.  I don’t care how wealthy you are or how poor you are, to have your wealth decline is painful.  All of us make plans for our lives based on assumptions about our future prosperity based on our current prosperity.  If I make $100K/year this year and make $100K for the next 10 years, I can plan out my life around that.  But if this year I make $100K and next year I make $50K, then I suddenly have to change my lifestyle in pretty dramatic ways. … I’ll still be better off than a lot of people in the world even if I’m bankrupt but it will sure feel awful to me.

A 50% drop in income is an extreme example, naturally.  I had written that a 12% wage decrease counted as disposable income (for most people, not all).  By disposable income I don’t mean pocket money, but frivolous consumption: a Lexus over an Accord, an extra bedroom in the McMansion, a TV in the kid’s room, bling.

I get the broader point the reader is making — while wealth is relative between groups, it’s also relative within an individual’s life —  but I disagree with his conclusion.  He concludes that any decline is painful, while I think most declines don’t have to be — and some could even be healthy.  In other words, a modest drop in wealth forces one to examine the wastefulness or frivolity in one’s life, reevaluate one’s priorities, and cut back on what isn’t necessary.  (I speak from personal experience.)  Not only will one value greater what he or she does have, any eventual increase in wealth will be valued that much more.  Obviously any sudden shocks to one’s income can be devastating, no matter what your station.  But a little austerity can be a good thing.

Of course, because Americans are notorious for living beyond their means, no matter what income level, even the slightest loss of money can be jarring.  But our cancerous credit culture is partly a sign of our Baby-Boom success; those who lived during the Great Depression were far more likely to save for a rainy day, regardless of their post-war wealth.  If America today valued long- and short-term savings, and eschewed debt, most could weather unforeseen jolts.

By Patrick Appel
Jeffrey Goldberg gets a scoop writes:

Two sources, one in Iraq, the other in Washington, told me that Ahmed Chalabi was key in Maliki’s decision to rather ostentatiously endorse Barack Obama’s Iraq withdrawal time-line. Chalabi, of course, has been in and out — mostly out — of favor with the Bush Administration, but it’s not merely revenge that motivated his advice to Maliki. "Chalabi knows American politics better than nearly every other Iraqi politician, and he knows it’s time to line up with the candidate who has the better-than-even shot of becoming President," one source told me.

[Update]: Eli Lake broke the story this morning.

[Update II]: Goldberg e-mails:

Isn’t it still a scoop if you have no idea that Eli Lake reported it?

David Knutsont distributes fliers for US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s public speech in Berlin. Barack Obama is expected to give a speech on July 24, 2008 next to Berlin’s Victory Column, a 19th century monument to wars with of France, Austria and Denmark and more recently, a venue for the wildly popular Love Parade techno parties. During his visit, Obama is also due to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. By Sebastian Willnow/Getty.

By Patrick Appel
Zvika Krieger gets some info from a Der Spiegel writer:

The reason the magazine scores so many high level interviews is that the editors agree to allow the subjects to "authorize" the interviews before they go to press. It wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, in other words: Maliki not only endorsed Obama’s plans for withdrawing from Iraq, but his office then explicitly approved the endorsement before it was printed. The denials, then, were doubly facetious. Spiegel couldn’t say so, though, without revealing its embarrassing authorization policy.

by Chris Bodenner
In response to my earlier post, which stated, "a recession technically requires two quarters of economic contraction," a reader writes:

Technically, no, it doesn’t. That is not the definition used by the [National Bureau of Economic Research] whose job it is to define the start and end of a recession. This is merely a business press rule of thumb. The NBER considers factors other than GDP, such as falling employment (which has been the case for six months straight) and how far GDP falls. Also, they use a definition which requires only several months of significant slowdown, not two quarters. Whether we’re in a recession right now is undetermined. The measley fractions of a point of GDP growth in recent months may end up being revised downward.

by Chris Bodenner

(H/T Zach Klein)