Month: November 2011

"Picture the 2008 collapse with a heavily depleted stock of fire-fighting equipment. The stakes in Europe are enormous. Failure is unthinkable. And yet, it looks increasingly likely," – Ryan Avent.

Over the weekend I explained why I never made an It Gets Better video. The main reason was because I was never bullied for being gay. TNC relates:

I think one of the reasons I write as I do about race is because I never really saw myself as a direct "victim" of racism. I thought there were many things that would impede my life–but white people never really ranked among them. I understood–and understand–that racism is a powerful systemic force. I understand red-lining, block-busting, slavery, Jim Crow etc. I don't demean them as forces in American history. But there's a difference between understanding how society views your group and being daily taunted as a faggot or a nigger.

I feel the same way. I was once told confidentially and warmly by a friendly conservative muckety-muck that I would never be taken seriously as a conservative because I was gay. But I was once also told by a very similar scion in British Toryism that I would never be taken seriously as a conservative because I was a Catholic. I could spend my life dwelling on this unfairness, or simply ignore it, and do my work. And guess what? You disprove them in the end. If you deserve to.

Harrison Mills, British Columbia, 8.30 am

Michael Dougherty sticks his neck out for the "13th member" of the supercommittee: 

If there is a problem here, it isn't with Grover Norquist. The problem is with Republicans who preemptively sign away a policy decision they could use in governing, or in a compromise. … Most lobbyists conduct back-room meetings with politicians. They extract promises of policy and support in secret. Norquist's Pledge and the campaigns he runs against pledge-breakers are completely open and transparent. 

I couldn't agree more. This isn't some secret plot; it's an open conspiracy against any pragmatism in making the core choices within taxing and spending. The pledge to an absolute position on an obviously varying set of policy choices, however, is not politics, it's a form of fundamentalism. In this sense, Norquist is dedicated to an anti-conservative principle – dogma – in order to bring about a more limited government. It's because of that contradiction that the GOP has now walked itself into a corner.

It is the latest abject humiliation for Mitt Romney, as yet another unelectable clown becomes the front-runner. It’s not often I agree with Paul Begala, but the Democrats must be somewhat aghast at their good luck. Check out the favorable/unfavorable polls on Gingrich assembled here. Republicans like him, but not without some severe doubts. But the general public really doesn’t. His best rating is a negative 3. More typical is a negative 16. Even Rasmussen’s white/GOP-leaning sample backs Obama over Gingrich by 6 points, with Pew and Quinnipiac showing Obama’s lead in double digits. His foreign policy team – breathlessly unveiled by Fred Barnes this morning – puts him in the neocon, pro-torture, “America-is-never-wrong” camp. Among the kinds of statements we can expect more of – get ready tonight for more “profound”s, “total”s, “completely”s – is the following drop of oil on troubled budgetary waters:

“The Congressional Budget Office is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.”

The CBO is just a branch of the Congress that is widely respected for its scores for legislation and refuses to build into its calculations now-discredited theories about how cutting taxes increases revenues, among other such “conservative” innovations in math. To pick on the CBO as “socialist” is to attack, as Newt has since he first appeared in politics, yet another respected institution in Washington, the better to condemn them all. But note how even McCain’s leading 2008 economic adviser reacts to Gingrich’s nuttery:

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director and Republican, called the Gingrich allegation “ludicrous.” “I think if you parse that phrase carefully, he got one out of three right,” Holtz-Eakin said. “I do agree it is an institution. If you’re playing baseball, that’s a decent batting average.”

And what does it say that the Republican base, instead of rallying round Romney, or championing a man who could actually win the general election like Huntsman, chooses this blowhard as its latest avatar?

The new front-runner is a buffoon. The party is a farce.

(Photo: Former U.S. Speaker of the House and republican candidate for president Newt Gingrich speaks during the 2011 Republican Leadership Conference on June 16, 2011 in New Orleans, Louisiana. By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.)

Scott Gilmore can't stand the idea of "growing a November mustache for cancer:"

There is nothing the herd likes more than a broad slacktivist movement. Because the golden truth at the heart of Movember, and other campaigns like it, is that it is more important to be seen doing something, than it is to actually do something.

He gets arrested as a non-American for not carrying a driver's license, as required under the new anti-illegal immigration law. He's also part of a company, Mercedes-Benz, that has brought a great deal of jobs and wealth to the state:

Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told The Associated Press an officer stopped a rental vehicle for not having a tag Wednesday night and asked the driver for his license. The man only had a German identification card, so he was arrested and taken to police headquarters, Anderson said.

The 46-year-old executive was charged with violating the immigration law for not having proper identification, but he was released after an associate retrieved his passport, visa and German driver's license from the hotel where he was staying, Anderson said.

Hey, Alabama. Terrify all your unskilled workers away, then humiliate all your foreign investors. How's that anti-illegal immigration law working out for ya?

Another reader piles on Katha Pollitt's piece:

While I’ll admit college football and basketball are cesspools of corruption, they are also the engines that provide opportunities for hundreds athletes in other sports. Penn State has 29 intercollegiate sports for men and women, and 27 of them survive because of men’s football (men’s basketball breaks even). One of the primary drivers of the rush for money is the significant costs of adding women’s sports due to Title IX,  which mandated equality of opportunity in college sports.

I think Title IX is a good thing, but it’s exacerbated the problem of funding non-revenue sports, and put significant pressure on the revenue-producing sports of football and basketball.  If my daughter is good enough to play college softball, field hockey, or soccer, I’d like her to have that opportunity. But I also know that football makes it possible.

A reader with extensive experience in college athletics fisks the piece:

I have worked in college admissions for over a decade now, including a private university, a medium size state school, and, recently, in college placement at a boarding school where I get to chat with admissions folks at colleges of all shapes and sizes. All three schools compete at national levels in several sports and are no stranger to top athletes and programs. I was also an athlete in college, though certainly not someone who would have turned a recruiter's head or earned a scholarship. Sadly, I had to stop rowing and get a job to pay for college because my school didn't give athletic scholarships for crew!

The problems with Pollitt's piece are that many of her facts are distorted or just plain wrong and her conclusion is unsophisticated overkill. Lord knows there is enough evidence to demand a dismantling of the NCAA and a serious reevaluation of the role of money certain sports at colleges. She is certainly spot-on that some programs use poor, minority athletes essentially as chattel and broader conclusions about American education can be drawn from that alone. Disseminating false and overgeneralized information, however, only taints the worthy cause of reform. College sports needs to be inoculated against the influence of big money. It doesn't need to be euthanized.

Notable errors in her piece include:

1. NCAA rules preclude athletic scholarships at all DIII schools, among them "the most elite colleges." Those schools recruit, in a much less loaded sense of the word, but those athletes and programs aren't part of the money making machine we see at DI football and basketball programs. There are plenty of spaces for academically qualified students.

2. A fifth of places reserved for recruited athletes? 20% of every student body?! What!? That is preposterous and I demand to see a source. Certainly that's not true at any school I've ever heard of. I've experienced that between 1-3% of an incoming freshman class are recruited athletes, and that is much smaller at large state schools. It's worth noting as well that just because one is recruited does not mean that one is receiving scholarships.

3. Her assertion that quality suffers in exchange for athletic talent is certainly true at times, but not so craven as she makes it seem. Coaches can give a little push to a top recruit to see that their names get a little more consideration, but it is incredibly rare that a lazy feckless kid gets that tennis scholarship because there is usually another tennis star of equal or near-equal talent also wants/deserves it more. The only times you see truly egregious compromises of standards are for football and basketball or other money sports, as was outlined in the Atlantic a couple months ago. Interestingly, but hardly surprisingly, we make far more, and more egregious compromises for the children of alumni (especially the rich ones) who have neither athletic talent or academic curiosity.

4. "Athletic scholarships raise costs for everyone else." Dubious at best. Again, the programs are getting a tremendous return on their marquee sports teams, so in that sense the scholarships pay for themselves for the big money sports. Indeed both schools I worked for kept separate financial aid ledgers for athletes and some portion of athletics revenue was folded back into general operations, including financial aid for non-athletes. Moreover, alumni are also philanthropically supportive of many athletic scholarships, so those privileged tennis players Pollitt gripes about are most often subsidized by tennis alumni, not current students. Granted, you could argue those alums should give to undirected scholarship funds, or that (more) athletics revenue should go to financial aid, but to say athletic scholarships are taking funds from non-athletes is disingenuous.

5. "If there was no scholarship incentive for those skills, the kids might not blow off their classes in favor of endless hours in the gym." True, but this is a problem of public perception, not college practices. We admissions professionals tell students over and over and over is that 90% of financial aid awarded nationally is based on academic performance. There are billions and billions of dollars worth of scholarship aid out there for students, and only a tithe of it is solely for athletes. We can all do a better job of advertising this reality, but just because people perceive that athletics is their big or only ticket doesn't make it so.

6. "Sports is sports and education is education. That’s a better system." No, the better system is to recognize that sports IS education if properly and ethically administered. Athletics should be more than just fun; it should be about civil competition, self-discipline, honor, courage, collaboration, and commitment – virtues our society sorely needs. Young men DO go to Oxford to play cricket, but as part of a broader educational experience that takes place in and out of the classroom. Forgive the presumption, but only a judgmental non-athlete or a cynic would make Pollitt's unyielding distinction between sports and education or try to reduce all athletics to merely kids on the playground. I learned just as much on the soccer field and in the crew shell as I did in my coursework.

Again, I agree with the thrust of Pollitt's piece. In the wake of Penn State, college boards and communities need to take a good hard look at their programs. The NCAA needs to get the money out of the game. Where she loses me, though, is in making a poorly cited and unsophisticated argument that condemns the valuable experience that college athletics is for most participants. The majority of college athletes and coaches in this country are competing for the love of the game, the experience and growth they get, and the friends they make. There's little or no money in it for them. They are hardworking scholar-athletes on work study, learning through competitive sport in the classical, virtuous sense. Just because some football and basketball programs pervert that laudable goal doesn't mean tennis, wrestling, and volleyball should suffer or that sports doesn't have an important place at our schools.

One more reader:

Ms. Pollitt would do very well not only to read the powerful coming-out piece by Mark P. McKenna, but to read the final paragraph twice.  I have, and it’s had a significant impact on my own inclination to seek easy answers and to dehumanize others:

Please believe me when I say that this is not a story about Penn State or some other corrupt organization. Characterizing what happened in State College, particularly the failures of so many adults to report the abuse, as the product of some morally bankrupt institution is a way of convincing ourselves that we are outsiders to these sinister forces. It is no different from calling Sandusky a "monster." That is soothing, I realize. But it also lets us off the hook too easily, allowing us to avoid asking hard questions about what happens, or can happen, in our own backyards. The Penn State cover-up could have, and undoubtedly has, happened at many other institutions, including those you most care about. Don’t content yourself with demanding something of Penn State, or big-time college sports. While that might make you feel better, it won’t prevent the next tragedy.

Romney's first anti-Obama ad shows the shape of things to come:

Yes, the quote attributed to Obama – “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose” – is actually Obama mocking McCain in 2008, not as implied in the ad. And the "failed" message strongly implies that an alternative economic strategy in 2008 would currently be paying dividends in terms of employment. But we don't know what that alternative would have been – does Romney actually believe the stimulus depressed economic growth? – but we know that what Obama did is bad because, er, everything Obama does is bad, m-kay?

Basically: "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" If not, vote for Romney. But don't ask too many questions about how he'll make you better off. Or what happened before Obama.

Is coming.