Month: July 2009

Barron YoungSmith makes the connection:

Although he has more political experience than McNamara did, this critique could easily apply to Romney as well. As Nick Lemann has written about the consulting business, the "metrics" used by companies like Bain endow their practitioners with what feels like the capacity to solve any problem, no matter how shallow one's understanding of the actual business at hand: "[I]t is more a simulacrum of intellectual mastery than intellectual mastery itself, but what's more important is how it feels. It feels as if you'd been given a key that opens up everything." That's an almost perfect description of Romney's foreign policy address, in which he transmuted absolute gobbledygook about international politics into a set of rationalistic axioms.

That, of course, undermines the most important rationale for Romney's candidacy: the idea that he has a special capacity to assess America's problems and develop reasonable solutions to them. If Romney is superficially competent, but unable to question the underlying premises of the position papers he gets from the Joint Chiefs, the Heritage Foundation, and his own advisers, then like McNamara he will end up applying his efficient mental machinery in the service of absurd, even disastrous assumptions.

Chris Good looks at the Gallup poll. Large numbers believe healthcare reform will hurt them personally, but support it for the good of the nation. Obama has tried to argue that it will help most people personally. It's the worst sales job he's ever done – because, I suspect, we all know it isn't true.

Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano defends Gates and American civil liberties. Napolitano is one of the few conservatives allowed on Fox who actually believes that individuals should be protected from the power of the police state. The whole thing is worth watching:

It makes some sense in theory. In practice, she's so incoherent and devoid of any knowledge of any issues, including energy, that she could barely sustain interest past a few minutes. Say what you like about the rabble-rousers of the radio right, like Medved, Levin or Limbaugh. But they're nowhere near as uneducated and as inarticulate as Palin. Her job is as a hood ornament for neocon manipulation of Christianist voters. She can't actually argue. As Kerry Golds points out:

[I]f radio becomes a reality for Palin, it seems likely that any calls she takes from listeners will be screened heavily.

Nate Silver calls it a failure and he makes some excellent points. I understand why the president took a hands-off approach. But leaving anything to the party of Reid and Pelosi is a recipe for failure.

Vinalhaven, Maine, 8.29 pm

A classic case of what it's like to live in today's America:

Police in Mobile, Ala., used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf, mentally disabled man who they said wouldn't leave a store's bathroom …  Police tell the Press-Register of Mobile that officers shot pepper spray under the bathroom door after knocking several times. After forcing the door open, they used the stun gun on Love.

Then they tried the Crowley option: arresting him for disorderly conduct. Mercifully a judge threw the charge out. But notice the disorderly conduct charge filed even after all the facts are known. The crime – disabled while taking a shit – is just asking to be tasered and pepper-sprayed.

A must-read.

The whole birth certificate issue gets weirder still:

But why are we supposed to rely on the testimony of Dr Fukino, whom I believe entirely. It is not my job as a journalist or yours as a citizen to take public officials on trust. They are not to be trusted, whoever they are. It is our job to demand all the evidence we want or need. I know the electronic record is legit. I have no doubt that Obama has every constitutional right to be president. I think the Birthers are nuts. But there is no reason on earth that the original cannot be retrieved and shown. Jon Klein and CNN were wrong, and I retract my apology of yesterday.

Obama promised total transparency. Where is it? Or will it arrive at the moment when he tackles the deficit, and withdraws from Iraq?

The O’Reilly Factor disses Amsterdam. A resident responds:

The issue O’Reilly has with Holland is that, compared with the US in many respects, it values individual liberty.