Month: January 2011

When New Yorker staff writer Ryan Lizza went on Hugh Hewitt's radio show to discuss his recent profile of Congressman Darrell Issa, he got the classic faux-polite Hewitt treatment. Introduced by the Republican activist as "one of the premiere political reporters of the United States working at this time," Lizza was peppered with compliments: "You do a good job for a reader who doesn’t know anything about him," he says at one point.

So it was interesting to see how Hewitt referenced the interview on his blog. The New Yorker article "shouldn't be missed," he tells his readers:

It demonstrates, however, that the GOP needs much better thinking on how and when to engage the Manhattan-Beltway media elite.  The New Yorker is a unique platform with which to engage with that elite, but the profile doesn't advance Issa's agenda and does some damage to his ability to make a strong start … The timing would have been much better if Issa had already conducted some effective oversight, but what is done is done and now the question is will the Chairman begin to use all available media to push an agenda of reform.

The Beltway GOP has always felt the need to seek the approval of the MSM, and there appears to be no way to cure that impulse even when the media revolution is so far advanced and its results so obvious. 

So a journalist argues that Issa shoud not have cooperated with Lizza because "the profile doesn't advance Issa's agenda and does some damage to his ability to make a strong start." So the fair respectful interview is inherently disingenuous.

Obviously you're always going to have political operatives whose job is to advance Team Red's agenda, the truth be damned. But think about Hewitt's job. He is a law professor and a broadcaster. Is it really healthy for the right's broadcasters to lament instances when the public is given accurate information that makes them think less of Republican officials?

The conservative movement's strategy is to delegitimize the media regardless of its fairness and accuracy. In its place, we've seen the rise of  broadcasters whose foremost loyalty isn't to informing their audience. What we have are propagandists masquerading as journalists.

Gallup has a new interactive map on global employment (screenshot above). Felix Salmon's summary:

US unemployment, on this measure, is in the double-digit range — significantly above the global average of 7%. Meanwhile, Germany, with a much stronger social safety net, has unemployment of less than 5%. (Remember, these aren’t official national statistics, they’re Gallup’s attempt to apply the same yardstick to all countries.)

Beinart says that Tunisia teaches us democracy can spread without Charles Krauthammer hurrying it along:

The reason democracy may yet break out in the Arab world has less to do with the trajectory of American power than with the reality that even if American power declines, democracy still has no compelling ideological competitor. Jihadist Islam can’t answer people’s desire for economic progress. Chinese-style authoritarian capitalism isn’t something most authoritarian regimes can import, certainly not in the Middle East. In other words, it’s too early to count Fukuyama and the optimists out. It’s a good thing for the U.S. government to want democracy in the Middle East. But the important thing is that young Arabs want it even more.

And we will advance it by keeping ourselves out of it as much as we can, and helping only when asked.

A reader writes:

Oh come now, Andrew. It's a store, not a church. Though if you are implying that Christianity might benefit from a slicker marketing campaign and more broadly appealing products well, then, what wouldn't?

But to the point: the Apple store is not meant to elevate or inspire; it's meant to move product, and Apple does that brilliantly.  You have bought into the myth that somehow all of the Apple products are superior to their competitors.  Not at all. 

Exhibit A, look at the iPhone.  Great gadget, lots of fun, but one of the worst phones I have ever used. Dropped calls, garbled conversations with people in buildings I could see from where I was standing.  By contrast, the Droid phones rock as telephones, and are pretty close on all of the other stuff.

I'm not saying Apple's stuff isn't good or fun, but where Apple has truly been brilliant is by keeping everything cozy and insular, and by appealing to the broadest consumer base possible by making its products the easiest to use (though easiest does not mean best).  Apple has created this world of products, and has connected them in a way that makes each product seem familiar (reminds me of Microsoft Office).  The Apple consumer can sit back in the bubble and have all the toys connected and sync up up with iTunes and the iStore and the apps. It's all very easy and familiar, making it comforting to the consumer.  The experience is comforting by virtue of its familiarity and consistency.  That doesn't mean it will be the best experience, just the most risk averse while holding to some minimum standard of quality.

Another links to Umberto Eco's "Mac is Catholic, DOS is Protestant" essay and writes:

Just admit it; you love Apple because it appeals to your Catholic background.

I've complained about the iPhone myself. But if those translucent, airy, elegant stores do not evoke a secular kind of church, then I don't know what does. And I'd add a rather Postrel point here: style is also a product, in some ways the most sublime and mysterious of products. And nothing beats Apple's style.

(Above decal available at Etsy)

A reader writes:

You blegged, "I wonder if readers can track down comments on Ferguson by some of those on the right now denying any conceivable connection between acts of violence and incendiary rhetoric." I offer this article written by Pat Buchanan after the Virginia Tech shooting. He doesn't connect violent rhetoric and Colin Ferguson; he simply states that Ferguson's immigration status is to blame. The evidence Buchanan presents is pretty overwhelming though. Since the Immigration Act of 1965, 36 million immigrants have been unable to assimilate properly. As a result, a baker's dozen or so have committed mass murder! Money quote from Buchanan:

[The politically correct media] seem to believe it is socially unhealthy for us Americans to see any correlation at all between mass migrations and mass murder.

For the record, Buchanan chastised those who drew larger connections to the Tucson tragedy:

Elements on the left are now connecting the dots – the words of Palin and Fox News – to the deeds of accused mass murderer Jared Loughner. This is not political hardball. This is political dirt ball.

Nyhan puts Palin's unfavorables in context:

If Palin is indeed considering running for president, it's worth noting just how unsuccessful she's been at building the necessary public profile. Since last year, I have been tracking her poll numbers relative to the most obvious comparison — Hillary Clinton, another polarizing female politician. Clinton could never fully shed the high unfavorable ratings she acquired during her husband's presidency, but she worked hard to improve her image and maintained higher favorable ratings during the period before the Democratic primary campaign began in 2007. By contrast, Palin's ratings have been consistently worse during the comparable 2008-2011 period, and the gap between her and Hillary has widened dramatically in recent months (data from Gallup).

Her unfavorables are indeed impressive. They just reached a new high in CNN's poll of 56 percent. But what I'd note as well is that her favorables remain at 38 percent, which is obviously concentrated in the GOP base. The poll of polls puts it at 35 percent – again roughly the core GOP vote. Huckabee is more popular as a person among Republicans, according to Gallup, but when you combine star power and favorability in the GOP, Palin is very much in the running:

Vigilance, Smithers. Vigilance.

Tom Junod's profile of Roger Ailes is pinging around the blogs. As usual, it's a rich treatment from a master of the profile. This judgment call seems on the mark to me:

[Y]es, on the one hand, Fox News has been good for America, because it has energized the argument, broadened the sense of what's allowable in the debate, and pushed the American experiment in radical democratization farther along. On the other, Ailes's experiment in free speech has also become an experiment in propaganda, and his attempt to redefine the mainstream has led the mainstream to become radicalized.

We have had many media outlets that have been biased before FNC came along. Most were biased toward a condescending liberalism that ran away from difficult topics, blurred the contours of others, treated conservative ideas as inherently suspect and religious people as, well, easily led. But I have never watched a television network in a free country like Fox. With a few exceptions – Shep Smith, Andrew Napolitano, John Stossel – it is dedicated to pure propaganda.

Has any network ever put almost every possible Republican candidate on the air as paid employees and then interviewed them as if it were journalism? Could you imagine any serious news network broadcasting the Hannity-Palin interview, which must surely have made even Ailes cringe a little at its lugubrious fawning and cult-worship?

By many accounts, Ailes is a warm and humane man. His network is a sick and menacing joke.

"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," – the newly inaugurated governor of Alabama, hours after he was sworn in.

It's real – and I hope doesn't lead to complacency or excessive caution on the debt. I've repeatedly argued that Obama "needs to embrace Bowles-Simpson, or a variation thereof, and challenge both parties to come to a long-term budget deal he can sign." Bernstein does the political calculus:

If the White House thinks that deficit reduction will help short-term (that is, through November 2012) economic growth, then it's probably better to do that from an electoral point of view even if it will mean adopting unpopular spending cuts or higher taxes. If not, then there's no electoral reason to give anything more than lip service to deficits while putting the real weight of the the presidency behind pro-growth policies.

I backed Obama because he promised to resist the easy political calculus and do the right thing to grapple with our serious problems. If he ducks the debt test in his SOTU, if he fails to offer substantive measures to bring the debt and deficit and spending down now, then, to my mind, he fails a core test of his seriousness as a candidate and his integrity as a president.

Embrace Bowles-Simpson, Mr president. It was your commission. It would drastically change the economic climate, reassure international markets, and save the next generation from a debt burden that is simply immoral. Yes, tax reform can be part of this package, as Bowles-Simpson argued. But if Obama simply grabs tax reform and ignores spending, he will have bungled the key moment for his long-term success.

[Update: Mark Blumenthal has just posted an analysis of the trend. It's not about Tucson, he argues. His uptick is not as sharp as mine, since I removed Rasmussen and increased the sensitivity of the chart.)

A contributor over at Ricochet attended a Tea Party rally on the steps of the state capitol building in New Mexico:

The keynote speaker was former Governor Gary Johnson who is rumored to be running for president.  Gary is highly regarded in the state for his outstanding leadership during two terms as governor.  He slashed the size of state government during his term and left the state with a large budget surplus.  His speech brought enthusiastic applause from the sparse crowd.  Governor Johnson should have stopped while he was ahead.

When Tea Party members were invited to ask questions, someone asked the governor if he supported legalization of marijuana.  Gary responded that he did.  His remarks brought a chorus of boos from the crowd.  Gary went on to make the case for legalization based on the cost of incarcerating pot smokers, but the crowd wasn't having it.  The boos erupted again.  Some members of the crowd began to heckle the former governor.  Lesson learned, I hope.

These people are as uninterested in the freedom of others as they are pathological about their own. If libertarians believe that these folks are on their side, they are going to have a rude awakening.