Month: October 2011

Must The National Anthem Be Triumphant? Ctd

This rendition deserves to be set apart from the rest:

We've run this video before, but it still resonates. I love it because it really represents America. This experiment has never been easy, or its success foretold, as the questions of the anthem seem to illustrate. We have faltered, nearly given up, torn ourselves apart, segregated and murdered, boomed and busted more than a few times. The greatness of a nation lies not in some false narrative that you see in the Tea Party fantasists, the people who believe the Founding was intended to end slavery, rather than accommodate it, the people who see nothing but greatness and hegemony and pounce on all those who see flaws. It lies in a constant balancing of interests and ideas, and our collective response to failure. In this rendering, a black man rescues a white girl caught by nerves and close to collapse, and rallies her to the end, with the crowd. That's a powerful symbol of America at its finest.

If Perry Can’t Debate, How Can He Govern?

Rick Perry is thinking about sitting out some of the debates. Ed Morrissey is perplexed:

Perry needs some serious face time to re-energize his campaign, and he’s not going to get that by pulling a Jon Huntsman and staying off the stage.  If he wants to make a point about protesting the number of debates that have been scheduled, that might be worth protesting — except that he’s attended fewer debates than almost everyone else on stage at this point, and his campaign isn’t making that case, at least not at the moment.

But when you can bypass any forum like this and sell yourself directly in carefully controlled ads and speeches, that's a pretty big temptation. Remember you-know-who? Friedersdorf thinks this shows that Perry isn't fit to be president:

This announcement is an admission that the Texas governor doesn't even expect he can improve over time.

Of course, it isn't actually essential that a president be a good debater, but it is essential that he has a deep grasp of numerous issues, is a quick study, and can use the bully pulpit to good effect. As it happens, these are the very things at which Perry is failing miserably. Would you send him to meet with world leaders? To address the press corps of foreign nations on trips? To quickly understand the issues at play in a complex and unexpected crisis? To do Town Hall meetings where he persuades the American people to rally behind his policy initiatives? The guy isn't even quick enough on his feet to get off a one liner about Mitt Romney's tendency to flip flop. How would he handle a matter for which he wasn't prepared?

Kevin Drum pokes fun:

Perry's not hiding from anything. He's just choosing to stay off national TV because it makes his dimness a little too painfully obvious to voters who are trying to choose a leader of the free world. Better to focus instead on what he's best at: attack ads and laughably flimsy policy proposals.

Tricky Ricky

Frum sees the logic of Perry's recent actions:

[W]hen economists and other pencil-pushers complain that Perry's plans don't add up — that they are founded on laughable assumptions and plain just don't make sense — those economists are not wrong exactly, just beside the point. On their own terms, the plans do make sense. They exist not as a basis for government, but as a device for campaigning; not to persuade experts, but to excite primary voters. So Mr. Numbers Man, when you test the Perry plans and reject them as unappetizing, just remember, you were warned: They weren't for you.

Quote For The Day

"I challenge anybody to say that I wouldn’t know how to approach foreign policy, because unlike some of the other people I at least have a foreign policy philosophy, which is an extension of the Reagan philosophy, peace through strength, and my philosophy is peace through strength and clarity… All of the details for each individual situation we got plenty of experts, but what a leader must do is be able to state some fundamental principles, fundamental philosophy, listen to the input, and make judgments," – Herman Cain.

Rove Unleashed?

Cottle pulls together all of Turd Blossom's brutal assessments of all the GOP candidates save Romney. I have to say, though, that I don't believe Rove has changed. This is about winning the general election. Cain is right: Rove obviously wants Romney, as any sane Republican at this point surely would. The rest is noise. Rove is as much a creature of the entertainment machine as Cain. But like an old sit-com up against a new reality show, he is in danger of being eclipsed.

Has There Ever Been A Candidate Like Herman Cain?

Poll-of-polls

We're begining to see some signs of gravity: chaos in the campaign, an obvious strategy to run for president as a money-making proposition through book sales and vastly increased speaker fees, staggering policy ignorance, meta and campy web ads that appeal to twentysomething ironists but not exactly the Christianists he needs … and yet, there is no sign yet that Cain is about to implode. In the last two days, both the NYT and the Fox News polls have Cain as the front-runner, with a quarter of the votes. Romney in both is several points behind, and Perry is now behind Gingrich. More to the point:

Cain is particularly popular among Republican primary voters who identify as being a part of the Tea Party: he captures 32 percent to Romney’s 8 percent among this group. Cain also has a wide 15 percentage-point advantage over both Romney and Gingrich among white evangelicals.

Nate Silver can't find a historical parallel:

Not only do I not know how I would go about estimating the likelihood that Mr. Cain will win the Republican nomination —I’m not sure that there is a good way to do so at all. But I do know what an analyst should not do: he should not use terms like “never” and “no chance” when applied to Mr. Cain’s chances of winning the nomination, as many analysts have.

There is simply no precedent for a candidate like Mr. Cain, one with such strong polling but such weak fundamentals.

My own take on this is that Cain is a great performer – he makes a living as a motivational speaker, after all – and the rest of the field is hobbled by one glaring problem respectively, while Cain isn't. Perry is simply too dumb and lazy to be president. Romney too transparently opportunist for a purist party. Paul is disqualified because of foreign policy. Bachmann is a programmed bonkers-bot. Santorum is a frothy substance whose views of the world are frozen in place sometime around 1986. Gingrich is an asshole who could never win the presidency, and even those who like his permanent smirk/snarl understand that. Huntsman might as well be Al Sharpton, because of his views on climate change, gays and because of his working for Satan. No wonder Cain has a shot, given the debates. He is likable and brilliant at simple, effective presentation. He has the skills of an actor, and a roguish shamelessness that reminds me a little of Clinton. Even though you know he's a total charlatan, you still kinda like the guy.

He's black too, and one cannot help but feel that some of his support is really a way of expressing hatred for Obama, and proving that the Tea Party is not racist.

But Cain is a function, I think, of a deeper Republican reality. It has become a wing of the entertainment industry, and in that media-industrial complex, the money to be made is immense. You do not make that money or become a star in conservative circles by actually governing, by the process of compromise and negotiation with one's opponents, or by detailed policy knowledge. In the universe where conservatism is defined by Levin and Malkin and Limbaugh and Hannity, you have to be a great polemicist, you have to be partisan above all, you need to be outrageous at times, and you have to appeal to the gut, rather than the brain.

This is an entertainment company based around a religious identity politics and masquerading as a political party. Once you grasp that, you can see why a Mitch Daniels or a Richard Lugar or a Jon Huntsman are asterisks. They know things; they want to govern, not perform; and they are not in a permanent mode of marginalized and angry opposition.

I'm beginning to wonder if the GOP is heading for a defeat they don't see coming – even in an economic environment which should make the presidency theirs' for the taking. I hope it is. Something needs to wake them up from their increasing detachment from the reality of governance.

(Poll of polls screenshot from RCP)

Jesus In The Americas

A reader points out to the previous one that the Aztecs lived in present-day Mexico, which is in North America, not South America. Another:

Your e-mailer asserts that the civilizations of South America are the pre-Columbian peoples Mormons believe were visited by Christ after the Resurrection, and not anyone in the area of modern-day Missouri. But the Mormon church has always been vague about the location of the civilization mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

Remember, for instance, that the golden plates on which the Book of Mormon was allegedly written were left in a hill in western New York, and a lot of the book seems to link its authors to the Moundbuilder culture of the Midwestern United States.

There's a lot of stuff from Mormon apologists on the internet that tries to nail down the exact locations of the places and events mentioned in LDS scripture, but a lot of Mormon writing seems to assume a pan-continental civilization, that all the inhabitants of North and South America and their culture are the result of a single family of Hebrew refugees landing in the New World c. 600 BCE. So where exactly Jesus appeared to the Nephites, much less anything else in the Book of Mormon, is pretty much an open question.

As for the actual importance of Missouri in LDS cosmology, it's allegedly the location of the Garden of Eden, or at least the spot where Adam and Eve lived after the Fall. Joseph Smith told his followers in the 1830s that upper Missouri would be their promised land, and devout Mormons to this day believe that prophecy will be fulfilled in some end-times scenario. So believing Jesus himself might show up in Missouri, either in the past or at some point in the future, doesn't seem that far off base.

The Religious Studies Center of Brigham Young University delves into the mystery at length. The intro:

Conflicting views exist about when Jesus appeared to his New World disciples. Did he appear directly after his ascension to the Father? Some believe that his appearance followed the forty days with his disciples in Palestine, while others believe that an entire year had passed after the resurrection when he appeared in the Americas. Observations from the text suggest that he mercifully waited for the people to recover from the destruction that attended his crucifixion. Compelling details help us approach an answer to this puzzling question.

Yglesias Award Nominee

"Too often, for instance, preachers make comments such as, "scientists say," and then proceed to characterize science negatively. Too often, scientists are looked at suspiciously when it becomes known they affirm evolution, the big bang, the latest in neuroscience or evidence for human contribution to global warming. Too often, young scientists in the Church feel forced to choose between the best in science and Christian faith. Although the old saying is simplistic, we need to revive the notion that scientists can "think God’s thoughts after Him,'" - Thomas Jay Oord, "10 Reasons Christians Should Care About Science," Relevant magazine.