Month: June 2010

The Dish’s 1.5 Million-Reader Research Team

That would be you. Just reading the in-tray can be a magical tour of free association. A reader writes:

Eminem's observation reminds me of this 2004 Michael Shaw cartoon in The New Yorker. 

Another:

I found your latest "Creepy Ad Watch" for fart control medicine hilarious, but something kept tickling my brain about the soundtrack. It isn't "cheezy background porn music" … it's Vangelis' "Love Theme" track from Blade Runner!  To my mind this makes the whole thing even more gloriously weird.

Another:

Here is a super creepy ad for you. Four out of five BP execs recommend it.

Another:

Not sure if you've already seen this, but these ads are unintentionally funny. Listen carefully at the end.

Getting Shit Done, Ctd

James Joyner counters:

The problem with all this is that, while being “tough” and “kicking ass” and “twisting arms” may well be politically popular, especially when the target is so unpopular, it’s well beyond the legitimate power of the presidency.  …BP is being forced to assume liabilities to which it is almost certainly not legally obligated and doing so outside the judicial process by which such things are supposed to be decided.   Presidents have enormous power, though, because they can threaten to harm a company’s business.

Please. Jawboning is not unconstitutional. BP has a choice, and could have refused to make this offer, and I see no broader threat to their business – just to the way they have done business. And the way they have done business has been sickening. Here, in a nutshell is what has gone wrong with corporate America:

In response to a U.S. senator’s questions in a letter, BP said it never follows a federal law requiring it to certify that a blowout preventer device would be able to block a well in case of an emergency. The inquiry stemmed from a hearing in May into the Gulf oil spill from the explosion and fire which sank the Deepwater Horizon rig.

But, at the same time, the British oil giant blamed the federal oversight agency, Minerals Management Service, for not asking it to comply with the law.

So: a citizen with full knowledge of the law need only obey it if the regulator specifically asks. If they don't, the citizen is blameless. Really? Now, I'm not excusing the MMS here. What I'm noting is the absence of any core civic responsibility by BP.

When Saying Nothing Says Something

Bagehot writes that the British coalition government is "an administration that is marked by tact":

In opposition Mr Cameron vowed that, were he to become prime minister, politics and government would not be "some demented branch of the entertainment industry". So far, he has been as good as his word. This seems to be a government that speaks up when it has something to say, but when it hasn't, or when keeping quiet is more sensible, it doesn't. It is both quiet and dramatic at the same time.

Can it last?

I sure hope so. That's a fantastic phrase, by the way, about politics as "some demented branch of the entertainment industry". Cameron has much more in common with Obama than he does with most of today's GOP leadership.