Obama’s Game

Here he is playing basketball back in the day (he’s Number 23). He missed a free throw:

Marshall Poe recalls playing pick-up games with him. Money quote:

I remember him well for several reasons. First, his name. “Baruch” means “blessed” or something in Hebrew, and a Jewish friend of mine had just taught me the Shabbis blessing of the wine for fun (we used to drink a lot in those days, and a little ancient ritual made drinking that much better). I recall thinking it was an interesting name for an African American to have, and wondered about Obama’s background. Second, as I’ve said, he was part of a crew of "law school guys" (as opposed, say, to the “business school guys”). Finally, Barack had game, and he was even then a natural leader. He was tall (I’d say about six-four), but very thin, and this shaped his style of play. He couldn’t really hold his own in the paint, but he had good ups and would snatch rebounds over slightly shorter and heavier players in a graceful motion that reminded me of Karem. He was relatively fast and agile, but had no outside game that I recall.

I do remember him bringing up the ball from time to time, which was probably not a good idea (though I don’t think he had a bad handle). It suggested that he wanted to be in charge (I did the same thing sometimes, much to the chagrin of my teammates).

The game was full of what you might mildly call “personalities,” and fights of various sorts often broke out (usually over bad calls). Lots of yelling and anger. Barack participated, as did pretty much everyone, but I don’t recall him really going off on anyone. He was active in arguing, but he didn’t loose his cool. He often played the role of conciliator. He had (and has) a great, rich baritone voice that commanded respect and a nearly continual fetching grin, a real “thousand watt” smile. He was a winning personality, and respected for his opinion, even though he wasn’t one of the best players.

Why Compact Disks Died

A reader writes:

One hole (or heavy slant, depending your POV) of Robert Sandall’s article on the demosie of CDs is that he points his finger — as so many inside the industry do — at pirates.  "The CD contains the seeds of its own destruction," "We are giving away our master tapes," "Anybody who owned a CD could indeed use it as record companies had traditionally used master tapes."  Yes, it’s the fault of those dirty CD pirates.

There’s no question, I think, that the lack of a viable CD market in Asia, and especially China, is due to pirating.  But as a computer nerd with plenty of experience, trust me when I tell you that for the most part, it’s a lot easier to just buy the friggin’ CD than to get the equipment and pirate it, or at least it was in the timeframe Sandall talks about. 

What he should really be writing about is the record companies’ insane insistence on holding a high price-point with a whopping profit margin on CDs.  When CDs are manufactured for a few pennies, and record companies are charging $10-15 each, after a few years, the snap-back of the market is going to happen, like it or not.  In this case, the snap-back came in the form of iTunes and digital downloading, but when you overprice your product to that degree, and don’t offer consumers what they want — and record companies had been doing that for decades, forcing folks to buy albums, when people wanted singles, before CDs even came along — it comes in the end.

So Sandall and others can blame pirates, but the pirates didn’t force consumers to buy albums for decades, and didn’t overprice CDs by an order of magnitude for 15 years; the record companies did.  My sympathy is limited.

Mine too.

From The Soviets To You

The Bush administration is redirecting anti-Soviet satellites to spy on Americans. All for the sake of security, of course. The Baltimore Sun notices:

Spy satellites have served benign civilian purposes for decades, including mapmaking, conducting environmental studies and assessing damage after natural disasters. The administration has decided to broadly expand satellite use, however, to include not only security functions but to assist federal, state, local and tribal authorities in the enforcement of criminal and civil laws.

Effectively, there is no limit on the use of this high-tech equipment, which includes visual and nonvisual capabilities that can sense electromagnetic activity, radioactivity and chemical traces.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Congress has signed off on this expanded use of spy satellites and provided funding for it to begin this fall. An aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed the committee was aware of the program and was monitoring it. Yet, there appears to have been no plan to make it public until The Wall Street Journal broke the story last week.

I’ve learned these past few years that just because some people are paranoid doesn’t mean the Bush administration isn’t capable of almost anything.

“She looked very staged. She looked very cold”

Absorbing the Iowa debate today, Ambinder channels Todd here:

One glaring missed opportunity for Obama to show contrast with Clinton came, not from a moderator question, but from a voter question who asked about a time when the candidate didn’t say everything they thought. Remember, Clinton critiqued Obama for saying everything he thought. If the places were reversed, Clinton would not have missed an opportunity like that. This is where Obama’s inexperience as a politician shows. He’s just not very tactical, which to some may seem like a refreshing change but in primary politics, isn’t a recipe for success. Frankly, it was a moment of political campaign inexperience. Tactically, these debates do show that Obama hasn’t had many tough campaigns, which may explain why he misses opportunities like this one.

Here’s the focus group transcript. They liked Obama:

Frank: Christian? Christian: I think he continues to demonstrate that he’s got a nuanced approach to the answers and he understands that they are not easy and he is willing to look at all sides and involve that in his policy. Frank: more than any other candidate? Christian: More than any other candidate and he’s more precise with how he responds. Frank: You also were not an Obama person but you thought he won. Tell me why?

Participant: I thought he was very relaxed and very honest and he seemed very open. Willing to answer any question straightforward.

Participant: he seemed very sincere. I was disappointed in Edwards I came in here as an Edwards supporter. And he just seemed too staged too not with it. Obama just seems to stand behind what he says.

Frank: was that enough to change your support?

Participant: At this point yes

Frank: Did anyone else switch from who they came in here for

Participant: Hillary

Frank: Hillary to…?

Participant: I probably would say more Barack Obama now.

Frank: How many of you thought that she was the biggest disappointment of the debate, raise your hand

Frank: Why? Did she not look presidential to you

Participant: She looked very staged. She looked very cold and I was fairly disappointed coming in as a Hillary supporter. Im not saying that it changed my view, but it did disappoint me quite a bit.

Frank: Tell me why?

Participant: She came across as being very, she was very outgoing and very in control but her answers were wishy washy.

Frank: Great. That was, you’ve got a clear winner here you’ve got Obama is the winner. Hillary Clinton is the disappointment of the debate. You know that every time that we do this there is a different answer, there is a different response based on the people that we have here at Des Moines University, but one thing is for clear, Obama is getting better and better as time goes on. The language he uses, the way that he presents himself, his use of facts and figures, he’s becoming a whole candidate and I think you’ll see that in the polls in the coming weeks.

There Go His Veep Chances

Mike Huckabee says some graceful and largely justified things about the Clintons:

"You know, I’ve never hated the Clintons. I still don’t, I have great respect for them. He made a lot of mistakes — a lot of personal ones — but you know something that I think should not be forgotten. There’s two things about Bill Clinton I tell Republicans, it drives them nuts, but here it is.

Number one, don’t get it lost on you that a kid out of a very small, Southern rural state aspired to be President of the United States. This kid came from a dysfunctional family — alcoholic abusive father. And yet he didn’t just aspire, he was elected president of the United States not once, but twice. That is an affirmation of the system. And it’s a wonderful testament to give to every kid in America that no matter where you’ve come from, you’ve got an opportunity to do something extraordinary.

The second thing, and this’ll really wrangle, again, some of my Republican colleagues. Bill Clinton and Hillary went through some horrible experiences in their marriage, because of some of the reckless behavior that he has admitted he had. I’m not defending him on that — it’s indefensible. But they kept their marriage together. And a lot of the Republicans who have condemned them, and who talk about their platform of family values, interestingly didn’t keep their own families together."

Between Hillary and Rudy, there’s not much question who has more family values. Between Bill and W, there’s not much question who is the meritocrat. (Hat tip: Eric.)