Category: The Dish

Drezner does an inventory of the reputations of those who worked for the current president (the worst in his lifetime, according to Alan Greenspan):

1) Those lucky few who will emerge with their reputation intact somehow. Examples: Bob Zoellick, Rob Portman, Ben Bernanke.

2) Those whose reputations acquired a stain that will be difficult to erase. Examples: Colin Powell (and his speech to the U.N.), Alan Greenspan (and his endorsement of the Bush tax cuts).

3) Those whose actions have led journalists to engage in psychoanalysis to figure out what the heck went wrong: Examples: Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld.

4) Those who have committed career suicide through repeated screw-ups. Examples: Paul Wolfowitz, Alberto Gonzales.

And the countless pundits (yours truly included) who were dumb enough at one point or other to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The mic sucked, as Marc notes. So did Obama’s presentation. He gave a pedestrian speech that he appeared to have barely read. The speech itself was poorly constructed, with a surprisingly interesting Lincoln quote tacked on too late to rescue it. Afterwards, the hacks were grilling his frontman on how these proposals dealt with the AMT, how they fit in with his methods for financing his healthcare plans, and so on. The fact-sheets we were promised didn’t materialize. I haven’t gone through the details. I like the idea of ridding the tax code of so much corporate welfare – one of the worst of so many bad things the Bush GOP has given us is an immensely more complex tax code, rigged by special interests to scam the rest of us. But the message was a mess; and much of it seemed to defend new tax breaks and credits, even as he was proposing simplification. I was bored. If I’m bored, and I’m paid not to be, what will be the response of the people Obama is trying to reach?

Leaving, however, I was struck by a simple fact. If Obama gets no further than his current rut (I suspect he’ll surpass it later in the fall), he will nonetheless have achieved something remarkable. Here is a credible, serious African-American candidate for president boring an audience on tax reform. The days of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton dominating African-American politics and visibility are gone. This is the game Obama has already changed. It is immensely good news for the future of race – and of African-Americans – in America. Boredom can be a good thing. And it was.

Apparently, this cracks them up in Denmark:

He can live with it. Matt wonders if this approach doesn’t actually help us forestall a nuclear Iran. Not so sure here. I’m obviously a skeptic of the last military resort against the Tehran regime – largely because I’ve yet to be convinced that it wouldn’t actually hurt our long-term interests in the war against Islamism. But that a nuclear Iran would be a terrible blow – not least to Iranians forced to live under a theocracy newly empowered by the Doomsday weapon – is indisputable.

Rod Dreher quotes Alan Ehrenhalt’s 1995 book on how cultural dissenters have often shaped our view of history. He’s onto something. Supporters of the status quo in the past are often not as eloquent or as memorable as the resistance. But that does not make their experiences less valid:

Our collective indignation makes little room for the millions of people who took the rules seriously and tried to live up to them, within the profound limits of human weakness. They are still around, the true believers of the 1950s…. If you visit middle-class American suburbs today, and talk to the elderly women who have lived out their adult years in these places, they do not tell you how constricted and demeaning their lives in the 1950s were. They tell you those were the best years they can remember. And if you visit a working-class Catholic parish in a big city, and ask the older parishioners what they think of the church in the days before Vatican II, they don’t tell you that it was tyrannical or that it destroyed their individuality. They tell you they wish they could have it back. For them, the erosion of both community and authority in the last generation is not a matter of intellectual debate. It is something they can feel in their bones, and the feeling makes them shiver.

And vote Republican.

Frank Foer’s much-improved New Republic has a fantastic cover this week. And online, there’s an equally hilarious, tender, and provocative series of slides of apes of all kinds by photographer Jill Greenberg. Check it out.

A reader writes:

Maybe you and Ledeen don’t know this, but Toby Keith is a Democrat and has always been a Democrat. He never thought the Iraq was was a good idea:

"When the Iraq war started, I was a little mad because we didn’t finish what we started in Afghanistan," he said. "Our troops had to move on into Iraq. Our government asked them to go do it for whatever reason. We won’t know for probably 20 or 30 years whether it was the right thing to do or not."

Although Keith has supported President George W. Bush, he says he is not a conservative.

"It’s amazing how many Republicans call me for support. And then they go, ‘You’re a Republican right?’ And you go, ‘Well I’m actually a lifetime Democrat,’" he said. "And then they go, ‘Oh, sorry.’ And the Democrats want so bad — the real liberals really want to hate me. And then they go, ‘I still hate you, but I can’t believe you’re a Democrat.’ So I’m not a real political guy. I’m a very patriotic guy."

That’s one of the things that really sucks about this country right now. You almost have to pick one side or the other. If you don’t you risk getting abandoned by both. Al Franken is another example. He is very supportive of the troops.  He has done USO shows with Toby Keith. Franken is still called a left winger nut job. Whatever Keith and Franken are, they are at least patriots.

But are they "real Americans"?

Several thousand votes in – and several candidates are doing well. "Cool Hand Luke" – "What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate" – is an early and, to me, suprising fave. Casablanca less surprising, along with Apocalypse Now, of course. Monday’s poll, understandably, has gotten the most attention because it was linked first – so don’t forget to check out the other lists of ten movie lines. Spinal Tap – "These go to eleven" – and Taxi Driver – "You talking to me?" – are dark horses. Here’s a teaser for a classic that hasn’t done as well so far as I expected.

Vote here, here, here, here or here. You can vote for as many as you like as often as you like. Enthusiasm is as valid as numbers.

Several readers have emailed identifying the classy guy who rescued that little girl from implosion when she forgot the national anthem:

He’s Maurice Cheeks, a Hall of Fame player for the Philadelphia 76’ers and then a head coach in the NBA. It’s great to see an athlete, particularly a star athlete, act like that. As both a player and a coach, Cheeks has always been a class act. Keep in mind that he was the head coach, and this was before a playoff game. Most people would’ve had other things on their minds rather than helping a little girl out of a potentially disastrous situation.

And:

He is currently coaching the 76ers and is considered in this town to be a legend and all around great guy.  Which – if you know anything about how Philadelphia sports fans treat their sports stars – is something of a miracle.

The video is here, if you missed it.

Down Ampney, England, 5 pm.