Skip Oliver Stone, but do Catch a Wave

• August 17, 2006 | 12:19 PM ET | Permalink

This just in: "A FEDERAL JUDGE IN DETROIT ORDERS IMMEDIATE HALT TO BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM, CALLING IT UNCONSTITUTIONAL"

Quote of the Day, Time's most liberal pundit, Joe Klein: "People like me who favor this program don't yet know enough about it yet," he says, "Those opposed to it know even less -- and certainly less than I do." Here. (Nice, tough reporting job there, fellas.)

I hadn’t planned to see Oliver Stone’s movie for a lot of reasons. Now I have one more. Former San Francisco Chronicle and LA Times columnist Ruth Rosen recently went to see Oliver Stone's reverent new blockbuster film, World Trade Center, which inaugurates the fifth anniversary flood of 9/11 films heading toward the various screens in our lives.  She explains just why September 11th, which brought out so much that was positive in those who rushed to the scene to help, still brings out so much of the Bush-era worst in so many of the rest of us -- and why Stone's film, by what it omits as well as what it choses to show, manages to support the Bush adminstration's Big Lie about Iraq and 9/11. In a film that, as she says, may end up being "the definitive cinematic record of what it felt like to be inside the hellish cyclone known simply by the numbers 9/11," this is no small matter. She concludes:

"How could Oliver Stone leave it up to viewers to discover for themselves who committed this crime? And how could he leave the audience with the impression that there was a connection, as Dick Cheney has never stopped saying, between 9/11 and Iraq? This is the tragic failure of Stone's World Trade Center. It undercuts the historical value of the film and reinforces the Biggest Lie of the last five years, still believed by far too many Americans -- that in Iraq, we are fighting those who attacked our country."

Can Mel play first base?

Why does Joe Scarborough hate America?

“Someone named Charles P. Pierce?”  Them’s fightin words. Gee, that was hard.

The rejected rejection letter is one my favorite genres.

The Senate WMD report: A critical appraisal by Roberg Jervis in the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Why do you think they call me blow? (Thanks Petey)

I’ve always said The Washington Times is garbage.

Buzz-building Sneak Previews Section: I saw the pilot for the Aaron Sorkin and the Tina Fay backstage-at-Saturday-Night-Live shows. Aaron’s show was terrific; Fay’s show was quite good. I don’t know if “quite good” is good enough to survive when your network has a “terrific” show on the same network. It’s not my problem, but I would have preferred it if the one that was terrific were about NY and the other one about LA, rather than vice-versa.

On the topic of buzz, I was thumbing through the new Vanity Fair last night, and I noticed that many of the ads were glorifying junkies and pimps and violent-looking rappers who might as well be pimps, getting oral pleasure in front of their homeys. As a parent, as well as a human being, I’m deeply disgusted. I think liberals should make a bigger deal out this kind of thing. Look at this awful company, which is one of the aforementioned advertisers. Why are right-wing hypocrites like the smut-peddling Rupert Murdoch the only people who are comfortable voicing their anger about this kind of thing? (One possible reason: Are these guys going to come beat me up now?)

If someone is going to pay so much attention to a three-year-old book, the least we can do is give him a link here. It continues here.

And while we’re on the topic of three-year-old debates, someone sent me a link for my Charlie Rose debate with Hitchens on the war, back then,   here.

Alter-reviews by SAL, NYCD.

Randy Newman & Neil Diamond are two songwriters whose material has been covered by artists ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Two fairly recent releases collect a bunch of those sides.

"Forever Neil Diamond," is the better of the two, even though none of the 14 tracks are new. There is of course, "The Monkees" with "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You," a great pop hit, but oddly chosen over the bigger hit, "I'm A Believer." Also included are the somewhat obvious, but no less wonderful "Kentucky Rain" by Deep Purple, the Pulp Fiction-fan fave, "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" by Urge Overkill, and the 80's hit "Red Red Wine" by the now aptly named UB40. Some other stranger choices include the band Crooked Fingers (who?) and The Four Tops version of "I'm A Believer." Plus, you get the awesome, sorta-punkified version of "Cracklin' Rosie" by Pogue Shane MacGowan. Little to complain about with this collection, although if I had my hand in it, I would have made it a little better and a little longer.  More here.

"Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman" is a newly recorded collection that has a bit of a country theme to it. The stellar line-up includes such faves as Steve Earle, Sonny Landreth, and Joe Ely, as well New Orleans newcomer Marc Broussard. Some tracks work: the aforementioned Steve Earle's version of "Rednecks," as well as his wife Alison Moorer's gorgeous version of my fave Newman track "Marie." But, some just don't come close to the originals, or even some earlier covers. Landreth, hailing from Louisiana, seemed like a good choice for "Louisiana 1927," but it just doesn't pack the whallop of Aaron Neville's heartbreaking version. Other artists involved include Sam Bush, Kim Richey, Del McCoury, and Tin O'Brien. It's not bad. Not great. Just, not bad. More here.

Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson by Peter Ames Carlin (Rodale, 2006)
Prologue:

The people in flight from the terror behind—strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever.
— John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Brian Wilson is sitting in a little room somewhere deep in the recesses of the Austin Convention Center, staring intently at the green linoleum floor. His face is blank; his mouth, a thin, unmoving line. His biographer-turned-friend-turned-advisor-and-documentarian, David Leaf, sits nearby, next to Van Dyke Parks, the musician/arranger/songwriter whose career has been inextricably bound to Brian’s for nearly four decades, though they’ve rarely seen each other most of that time. David and Van Dyke are chatting mildly—about restaurants, friends in common, their plans for the weekend. But the man who brought them together is silent, examining the universe beneath the toes of his black suede Merrell shoes.

Soon the three of them, along with a couple of music journalists, will sit on a stage in front of a jammed conference room to discuss Smile, the album Brian and Van Dyke wrote and recorded most of in 1966 and 1967. At the time—just when the Beach Boys’ early stream of surf/car/girl-focused songs had given way to Brian’s ambitious song cycle Pet Sounds and the smash pop-art single “Good Vibrations”—Smile was envisioned as a panoramic commentary on America’s tangled past, ambivalent cultural inheritance, and spiritual future. Simultaneously nostalgic, sad, dreamy, and psychedelic, the songs struck those who heard them as a whole new kind of American pop music. Some observers called it the harbinger of a new era in pop culture.

Then something happened. Exactly what that something was -- static from the other Beach Boys, interference from Capitol Records, the corrosive effect of drugs, Brian’s own neurological problems, or some combination of the above -- has never been resolved. But the aftermath was all too clear. Brian gave up on his musical ambitions and spent most of the next four decades adrift. The Beach Boys faded from the scene, only to return as a kind of perpetual motion nostalgia machine. And Smile became a folk legend: a metaphor for everything that had gone wrong with Brian, the Beach Boys, and the nation whose dreams and ideals they had once transformed into shimmering waves of harmony. End of story.

Except the story wouldn’t end. Even as the years turned the Beach Boys small and dispirited, the passage of time seemed only to enhance Smile. Hundreds of thousands of words came to be written about its creation and demise, including a science fiction novel whose hero goes back in time and helps Brian finish his masterpiece. Televised biopics and theatrical documentaries told the group’s story in various shades of personal, creative, and cultural melodrama. But all came to focus on Brian’s dramatic rise and crushing fall, and this story always pivoted off the lost glories of Smile, what it was, what it could have been, why it never came to be. Eventually Smile, in all of its glorious absence, became something else altogether. And that is why we’re here today.

David Leaf wants to get something going. “So Van Dyke,” he says, his eyes gazing past the short, stocky man in the foreground to the taller one sitting just past him, “did you ever think you’d be here at South-by-Southwest talking about how you finally finished Smile?”

Van Dyke smiles broadly. “It has been a wild ride,” he declaims in his storybook Mississippi drawl. “And I do need to thank Brian for the opportunity to take it with him.”

Both men look over at Brian, wondering if he’s going to toss in his own observation, perhaps priming the pump for the onstage discussion they’re about to have. But Brian is still gazing down at his toes, his face stony and empty. The two magazine writers on the panel—Alan Light from Tracks and Jason Fine from Rolling Stone—come in, but this only makes Brian seem more disconsolate. He shakes hands. He says hi. But he doesn’t even try to smile, and when the festival organizers come to shepherd the gang upstairs to the stage, Brian moves with the dark resignation of a man headed for the gallows.

Upstairs the room is crowded, buzzing with excitement. The ovation begins the moment Alan Light steps onto the stage, then grows more intense when Van Dyke steps into the light. The crowd jumps to its feet when Brian emerges, but he either doesn’t see this or doesn’t care to acknowledge it. Instead he moves robotically to his seat, sits, and stares stone-faced into the darkness beyond the footlights. The applause continues, now mixed with cheers, and finally the taut cast of his face loosens. He mouths a silent thank-you, and then, finally, his lips slip into a small, shy smile.

Light, serving as the event’s moderator, leads off with some background on Smile’s history. Then he throws the session open to questions, and the first one comes instantly, from a man whose eyes glisten as he addresses the stage. “Brian, I just want to thank you,” he says. “Your music has saved my life so many times . . .”

Brian nods. “You’re welcome.”

“I just want to ask, why did you decide to finish Smile now, after all this time?”

This is the key question, of course. You could write a book about it.

The room is silent, waiting to hear what combination of internal and external phenomena has led this man—so often described as a genius, just as often dismissed as a burnout or pitied as the victim of untold spiritual and physical torment—to make this unexpected leap back into the creative fires.

“Well, I knew people liked watching TV,” he begins. Brian is talking out of the side of his mouth, both because he’s nearly deaf in one ear and because this is what he does when he’s extremely nervous. “And, uh, Smile moves really quickly, right? So I figured people could hear it now.”

This is puzzling. But another hand shoots up, and another man stands to ask Brian about his decision to perform “Heroes and Villains” at a tribute concert in 2001. “Heroes” is one of Smile’s key songs, and Brian had refused to play it in public for more than 35 years. Was he frightened to take it on again—particularly on a show that would be broadcast on national TV?

“Oh, it took me about half an hour to prepare for it,” Brian says, shrugging. “But then it was great.”

“Oh. Well.” The man sounds a bit deflated. “It meant a lot to me. Thanks for doing it. And for bringing Smile back to life.”

“Oh, sure. Thank you,” Brian says.

Someone asks Van Dyke about how it felt the day Brian called to ask him to help him finish their long-lost masterwork.

“You must be talking about November 16, 2003,” he says. “Obviously, the day means nothing to me.”

This gets a laugh, and the glimmer of feeling behind his words prompts Light to ask Brian about the recording of “Fire,” the cacophonous instrumental piece that represented both the heights of his creative daring and the start of his emotional devolution. How did he get such a vivid, scary sound out of the drums, cello, violins, fuzz bass, guitars, and theremin? Did he really think the music had sparked a rash of fires in downtown Los Angeles? And did this inspire his decision to not finish Smile at all? Brian listens and nods—and once again refuses to provide an answer. Instead, he retells the story of how he had an assistant build a fire in a bucket so the studio musicians could smell smoke while they played. They all wore plastic fire hats, too. And the song came out great, he adds. “But then we junked it.” He shrugs. Light seems pained. But he smiles at Brian and nods. “Great. Thanks.”

This goes on for 45 awkward minutes. Throughout, two things are obvious: the depth of the audience’s feeling for Brian and his music; and Brian’s near-total unwillingness to acknowledge, let alone engage, that feeling. What it comes down to is this: The people who love him the most need Brian to be something that he is no longer able or willing to be. The journey was too difficult, the price too steep. He shed that skin a long time ago, and he has no intention of looking back. Which may be one reason he engenders the passion he can no longer abide.

Brian Wilson’s music became a part of the American cultural fiber not just because it was innovative and instantly memorable or even because it was so often set in a dreamland of open space and windswept horizons. It’s the desperation that inspired those visions—the darkness that ignited the flight to freedom—that tugs at people’s hearts. Like all of Brian’s best work, Smile tells the American story in those same visceral terms: innocence, pain, flight, joy, corruption, desolation, redemption. It’s in the music. It’s in the story behind the music. It’s in the sorrow that haunts Brian’s eyes even when he’s smiling.

This feels important, like something that should be talked about and understood, particularly while Brian is still alive, still able to put his thoughts into words. Only that’s not where he likes to put his thoughts. It’s the sound that matters to him. The feelings, the emotions, the vibrations, are all in the sound.

Eating lunch in Los Angeles a few weeks later, he addresses the same questions. Only now Brian is in a good mood, feeling the sun warming his back and sharing a piece of cheesecake with a friend and a writer he has come to know a little bit. He speaks easily and illustrates his thoughts with occasional bursts of song—a line of melody; a rhythm pounded out on the tabletop.

“Sometimes I think I sing too sarcastically. Like I get worried I can’t sing sweet anymore, so I sing it rough.” He’s talking about Smile again, contemplating the dozens of times he’ll perform the once-lost work for audiences during his summer tour. “I worry about that all the time, like I’m losing the sweetness in my soul or something. But then I hear myself singing sweetly and I think, Hey! Listen to me! A sweet sound, all full of love!”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Listen to me! Just listen!”

For more, go here.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Larry Howe
Hometown: Oak Park, IL
16 August 2006 Eric-- Mark Ace is right on target in laying the failure of passing the Clinton health care bill on Gingrich and Dole. For an interesting book about the missed opportunities of the Clinton administration, Haynes Johnson interviewed Gingrich who told him point blank that the defeat of the Clinton health plan was politics plain and simple--claiming that if it had passed foreseeable generations would owe a debt to the Democrats that would put the Republicans out of business. However, Gingrich's shameless power play doesn't redeem the Clinton plan from a fatal flaw: its excessive reliance on insurance companies. The waste and excessive costs are largely attributable to the bureaucracy of the insurance industry. When will corporate America realize that they can't afford the current system either, and that it's time to go national with Medicare for all?

Name: John
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Dr. A, That Fred Barnes column on Lamont/Lieberman was absolutely priceless. I have never seen so many conservatives and their media lapdogs, take such an active interest in a Democratic primary. Well the good news is: all the love that Lieberman is getting from Cokie and the gang, should be very helpfull for his chances at winning the Republican nomination in 2008.

• August 16, 2006 | 12:19 PM ET | Permalink

A Question: How do the Liberman-is-wonderful people who are attacking Lamont for appearing with Al Sharpton—whom I detest by the way—explain the fact the fact that Lieberman asked for Sharpton’s support and was turned down?
This is the funniest of those I’ve read so far, by the way.
Joe has won a Kristol/Barnes/Broder/Peretz/Weisberg
/Barone/Roberts landslide; no wonder the voters don’t want him.
Another question: What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?
Insert your own joke here.

Alter-reviews:

I've recently been looking to literature to understand a little more about radical Islam, particularly its violent component. I can strongly recommend The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany for some insight. The Egyptian author uses the residents of a building in Cairo to illustrate endemic government corruption against the political backdrop of the last fifty years and the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism there. But just as importantly, he uses the sex lives of his characters to bring the place to life, and in doing so, creates a complex portrait of the ties between sex, Islam, and political corruption. It was hailed by no other than one of Egypt's most respected dissidents, Saad Eddin Ibraham, in Foreign Policy not long ago, as well.  There’s more here.

Rockin’ Bones:

This four-CD box features 101 tracks recorded from 1954 to 1969, by the people, mostly forgotten now, who made rockabilly. ROCKIN' BONES: 1950s PUNK & ROCKABILLY doesn’t skimp on the basics: You get Link Wray's "Rumble," Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues," Jerry Lee
Lewis’ "Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On," Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes,” and Johnny Cash's "Get Rhythm.” From Elvis we get uncensored version of “One Night of Sin.” But you’ll have to be one hep cat daddy (or mommy?) to know most of this stuff. From the great Wanda Jackson down to the Poe Kats, and Elroy Dietzel and the Rhythm Bandits, there’s a lot of otherwise lost history here. The packaging is handsome, and there’s a useful essay by axman, Deke Dickerson. We also get excellent liner notes that include an introduction by the collection's producer, James
Austin; a song-by-song commentary by rockabilly expert Colin Escott. One more thing. There’s a lot of sex. Read all about it, here.
 

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Mark Roderick
Hometown: Moorestown, NJ
Comments: You barely scratched the surface regarding the stupidity and evil inherent in Rabbi Gelman's Newsweek piece. The wise Rabbi chastises "the Jews" for failing to support Joe Lieberman. Apparently blind to the meaning of his own words, he thereby advocates a system in which a man's politics are defined by his religion. This is precisely the cause of the butchery today in Iraq and, over the centuries, has been the cause of so much butchery as to have been repudiated, with monumental effort, by all of Western civilization, including the founding fathers of this country.
That Rabbi Gelman would let the virus out of the test tube because it suits his narrow political interests as of a given moment in August 2006 reveals a breathtaking ignorance, or shallowness, or something. It's that much worse that he suggests this behavior on behalf of "the Jews," as if that group, above all others, has a single interest so superficial as to be implicated in the choice between a Joe Lieberman and a Ned Lamont. From Rabbi Gelman's position regarding "the Jews" it is a small step, a tiny step, to the world view of Mel Gibson. And Joe Lieberman's support of the war in Iraq, thereby empowering Iran, has been so good for Israel. . .but that's a different story.

Name: Rich Gallagher
Hometown: Fishkill, NY
Comments: Dear Eric, I share your reservations about Wes Clark as a presidential candidate, but I can't shake the feeling that he would be a great vice-presidential candidate. Imagine how much buzz it would generate if John Edwards were to announce before the primaries that, if nominated, he will choose Wes Clark to be his running mate? If Clark realizes that he can't win the nomination in 2008, he might be convinced that his best route to the White House is through the office of vice-president. His military credentials would go a long way toward neutralizing the Republican strategy of making the 2008 election a referendum on national security. His presence on the ticket would be particularly helpful if McCain gets the Republican nomination. It's an unorthodox suggestion, to be sure, but these are extraordinary times which call for extraordinary tactics.

Name: Mark Ace
Hometown: Portland, Or
Comments: Here's another legacy from the Republican ascendancy that Dems have not effectively figured out how to communicate: broken healthcare. Exhibit A is this article from Fortune in which Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is taking up the cause from the private sector side.
And why is it so broken? "It's the cloud Hillary created when she tried to change the system," he says. "People burned her so badly, and everyone remembers that. It's a subject people don't want to touch." So Hillary "created" it? Isn't it more accurate to lay blame squarely on the Republicans, led at the time by Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich, who were in power? They saw an easy way to thwart Hillary and Bill, gain points for themselves, and, further consolidate their hold on the legislature. The result? Byzantine healthcare finances, double digit percent increases in premiums year after year, crushing costs for business, reduced access and quality, the list goes on. Another Republican success story. Throw the bums out.

Name: Brian P. Evans
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Comments: Hello, Dr. Alterman. Just to pick nits, contrary to Brian Geving's claim, the leading cause of death among pregnant women is not murder. Yes, CNN said it, but that doesn't make it true. No doubt CNN was simply parroting the Washington Post's claim in a three-part series by Donna St. George, but Jack Shafer did a wonderful job dissecting the math involved in that story in Slate. Basically, the study being cited is counting women who are "pregnant or recently pregnant" with "recently pregnant" being up to 365 days after delivery, miscarriage, or abortion. The study found 247 "pregnancy-related" deaths of which 50 were homicides. But of those 50, only 23 were during pregnancy, all the others were in the one-year after period. Of the 27 remaining, only 3 were within 42 days of the end of pregnancy. St. George's piece goes on to say that 10% of all murders of women between 14 and 44 were pregnant or recently pregnant. But by Shafer's counting, 10% of all women between 14 and 44 were pregnant so any random sampling of women from this group would find that 10% of them were pregnant of recently pregnant.
In short, being pregnant makes you no more or less likely to be murdered than not being pregnant. Not to discount the very real problem of violence against women and the particularly heinous way it can befall women who are pregnant, but this claim of murder being the leading cause of death among pregnant women is nothing more than media hype.

Name: Greg Wortman
Hometown: Studio City, CA
Comments: Dear Dr. Alterman, Re: "Pure 80s: The Ultimate DVD Box.". How can you possibly deny that Disc #3 (Headbangers Rule) is just as "wonderfully awful" as the first two DVDs? You may not like or understand heavy metal, but like it or not, it was an integral part of what gave 80's popular music its identity. To assume your readers would want to s**tcan that entire genre as well is a mistake. As someone who watched MTV from the beginning, I find this entire compilation quite kitschy and nostalgic as well, but to my ears, nothing at the time was cooler than the sound of a loud, searing, overdriven Marshall stack.
Yes, most of the heavy metal here is cheesy, but it is no more so than the synth-laced pop on the other discs. I'd personally rather bang my head against a wall than be subjected to "Mr. Roboto", "Relax", or "Luka" (or most of Springsteen's catalog, for that matter), but to deny their place in that "wonderfully awful" decade's musical pantheon would be criminal. Also, where did all the quintessential '80s black (and rap) artists go? Donna Summer, Lionel Ritchie and Tina Turner had all been long since established at the onset ot the '80s, but Run-DMC, Whitney Houston, MC Hammer and even Michael Jackson are nowhere to be found here. Go figure.

Name: Bill Dunlap
Hometown: Lake Oswego, Oregon
Comments: Hey, Eric: Your review of the Chuck Berry DVDs really piqued my interest, in part because I produced a two-hour music and interview radio show with Charles for NBC Radio in, I think, 1979. The man is strangely friendly and off-putting at the same time. He had just released a new record, Rockit, at the time, but he was the only artist I did shows on who demanded to be paid-$2,000-for the interview.
My partner and I interviewed him in his studio near St. Louis and he charged us for the tape stock. His lawyer, a wonderful man named Bill Krasilovsky, warned us to have the $2,000 in cash when we went to meet him, but Chuck didn't demand it at that time. I have often said to friends that I think the root of much of his difficult nature is an obsessive fear of getting screwed by the White Man. He was just getting ready to head for Lompoc on a conviction for tax irregularities when we met. He wouldn't talk on tape about that or his previous jail time.
But speaking of Lompoc, he did volunteer that he'd been in tougher joints. He was very forthcoming on other matters, although I don't know how honest he was in his responses. I think Chuck tailors his stories to suit his current needs. When Johnnie Johnson died last year, Chuck was widely quoted as saying that Johnson inspired Johnny B. Goode. He told us back in 79 that he envisioned Johnny B. Goode as a young white boy. But whatever his idiosyncrasies, he was and is a rock and roll icon. I think he'll be 80 in October and he's still playing gigs and probably getting more pussy than any of the rest of us.

Name: Uncle Walt
Hometown: St. Louis
Comments: Regarding your review on the Chuck Berry docu-concert recorded in 1986 (holy crap, has it already been 20 years...) I attended the filming of that with my youngest brother at the Fox Theatre in STL, and the music was great. Berry has always been well known here in STL for "backing out" of gigs until the promoter sends somebody over with a bag of cash. He also had that incident some years back when a hidden camera was discovered at one of his properties taping women in a dressing room. And then there was that time... well, you've got him pegged. He still plays about ten times per year at the basement bar at Blueberry Hill in University City, and by all accounts still puts on quite a show for the peoples.

• August 15, 2006 | 12:19 PM ET | Permalink

When Al Gore endorsed Howard Dean in 2004 right before Dean’s campaign imploded, taking $40 million with it, everyone treated Gore as if he had gone even crazier—what with growing a beard, pointing out that Iraq was a mistake and George W. Bush was a liar. My thought was that Gore was positioning himself for 2008. Hillary was already remaking herself as the DLC candidate and Gore was fitting into his role as the Moveon.org candidate. Those were the party’s two national power bases, and their strength varies from region to region, but they both produce money and Moveon produces money and volunteers. (I am using these two organizations as a short hand for all of the organizations they represent. Another way to do it would be “Establishment” and “Insurgency.”)
If both Gore and Hillary do run for the presidency, I still think that’s the way the race will shake out. With these two heavyweights in the race, there will be no “oxygen”—i.e. money and media attention--for anyone to cut-in on this meta-and mega-grudge match.

If Hillary runs and Gore does not—as seems most likely today—then the race is all about being the un-or anti-Hillary. Since she has so much money, organization, her husband, and about a third of the party sown up, if all the other candidates divide up the opposition and the “electable” vote, then it’s already over. Mark Warner is the favorite of the professionals right now, but he is new, untested and unknown outside the beltway. He may be terrific but he’d better be really terrific if he wants to have a chance, particularly given his lack of appeal to the netroots beause of his hawkishness on Iraq. Ditto, nearly, Joe Biden. He certainly has impressive support among Sunday talk-show hosts and bookers, but that, as far as I can tell, is it.

If you look at who is best placed to emerge in Un-Hillary role, then right now, it’s gotta be John Edwards. Edwards is quietly running a brilliant strategic campaign. He has a message “optimistic populism” that resonates with the middle of the country and appeals to the netroots. He has deepened his connection to labor in a way no other candidate has, which means a ton in terms of GOTV operations, and he is acceptable to both the Moveon—he apologized for his Iraq vote--and DLC wings—he made the vote in the first place--though he is neither’s favorite. Yes he was a massive disappointment as the VP nomination, but most Democrats accept the excuse that everything about that election was John Kerry’s fault., which, by the way, makes his candidacy hopeless and a little sad, however well-financed. Most important perhaps, the primary calendar was written as if by an Edwards staffer. First comes Iowa, where they loved him in the first place, and where he always seems to be. Next comes Nevada, where Hillary is not going to appeal, and after that, South Carolina.  By the time we get to New Hampshire, he already has the un-Hillary role locked up and then it becomes a battle over “electability.” 

Sadly, for Edwards and for common sense, the biggest question is whether he looks old enough. Last time around he looked to be barely 30. People need to be reassured by a candidate’s face since for many of them, that’s all the information they need to know to chose their favorite. Edwards needs to start dying his hair a little gray and have some plastic surgery to add a few lines to his face. Maybe he should hire Nora Ephron as an aging consultant. Alas, I’m not kidding.

One candidate I’ve left out of this calculation because I don’t know where he fits in is Wes Clark. I dropped by a Clark event out here at the beach over the weekend, and I was mighty impressed. He was articulated and moving and had a strong grasp on the issues as well as the kind of requisite personal charisma one needs to do this kind of thing. He made a few mistakes, however—I can’t describe them because the event was not really open to the press; I was there as a friend of someone else; and these are the kind of gaffes that can cause a candidate real trouble. Clark’s problem last time—in addition to not being ready as a politician—was lacking the kind of organization that could keep him within the bounds of the mindless media discourse so that saying something a little complex would not rebound against him. I wonder if that’s still a problem. I also wonder if he’s running. I do think he’d make a fine president and his relationship with his fellow soldiers and veterans who have been so viciously abused by this administration—would go a long way toward healing some of the wounds Bush has opened up in this country.

But again, where’s the oxygen? As I see it, he’s competing with Edwards. With Gore out of the race, Feingold is going to get the lefty activist support, even though Clark was quite good on the war, and he probably deserves it. So if Feingold gets out early and endorses someone that could make a big difference. So could Gore’s endorsement if he doesn’t run. Clark could be there as the un-Hillary if Edwards implodes—or as the Hillary if decides not to run—but right now, it’s hard to see how it works. (And in the extremely unlikely event that Obama gets in the race, ignore all of the above.)

Now, to Connecticut. It’s really too bad that Lamont did not trounce Lieberman and thereby strengthen his Democratic friends’ arguments that he not act a spoiler. It was a healthy thing to tell the Establishment that they do not speak for voters, particularly on the war—and a healthy thing to tell Democratic representatives that only so much betrayal can be tolerated, and Lieberman was well over the line. So good triumphed there, for once, but not by enough for comfort. Now that there’s going to be a real race in Connecticut, political professionals have to decide where their priorities lie. If Lieberman wins and keeps his word to his Democratic supporters by remaining part of the Democratic caucus then it really doesn’t matter so much who the senator from Connecticut is. What matters is who controls the House and the Senate.

And possibly, there is no conflict between those two priorities. But Connecticut is an extremely expensive state. If you think money is infinitely expandable in an election, then fine; the same people who give to the DSCC and DCCC will also give to Lamont and nothing has been lost. Popular Democrats will stop by Connecticut and Moveon will raise some money for advertisements, but not at the expense of the close races elsewhere. The argument for this being the case was the fact that Dean blew $40 million on his campaign but that didn’t hurt Kerry’s fundraising one bit. George W. Bush is the Democrats’ greatest fundraiser ever, and he’s still there.  But this may be wishful thinking, and if resources grow scarce, than I think, even Ned’s strongest supporters would have to agree that they need to be allocated in a way that does the greatest good for the country.

While we’re on the topic of Lieberman/Lamont, this being the Internets, a great deal has already been written about Chuck Roberts amazing assertion that Lamont was the candidate of Al-Qaida. On CNN’s “Reliable Sources over the weekend, our girl Arianna got to the proverbial meat of the issue, when she told Mr. Conflict of Interest, “I mean, you had your own headline anchorman, Chuck Roberts, describe Lamont as the al Qaeda candidate. This is an equally deceitful, fraudulent, fabricated statement. There should be zero tolerance for all those deceits, whether in images or words.” Kurtz, who is after all, paid by the people whom Arianna is trying to hold accountable, does his best to wimp out of the controversy wihtout angering his bosses:
KURTZ: "Well, what Chuck Roberts said, according to the transcript, was that some are calling Ned Lamont the al Qaeda candidate. But it's certainly not a formulation I would have used.” But the woman is indefatigible. She comes back at Mr. Conflict.
HUFFINGTON: "You cannot find a single person who called Lamont the al Qaeda candidate, except Chuck Roberts. And what have been the consequences when it comes to Chuck Roberts? Has he been demoted to be covering Paris Hilton or entertainment news?”

There are two points here, lest they get lost in focusing on the egregious stupidity of Mr. Roberts. The first is that journalists can, and do, say anything they want about someone and refuse to take responsibility for it, by putting in the words “some people” or stating it in the passive voice. If I wrote, “some people say Chuck Roberts is a chicken-molesting axe murderer” it would be just as true as the statement he made on CNN. But because the right-wing controls the airwaves, these slanders are almost always directed at liberals. The second point is that there is little or no accountability in the media, save for the blogosphere—which is one reason the MSM is so invested in calling everyone in the blogosphere ipso facto, lunatic. Here we have a rare example of someone demanding accountability from the network that allowed this slander to take place on that very network, but only because Arianna is the kind of celebrity that appeals to Howie and his producers. And yet even in an example this egregious, Mr. Conflict can not even bring himself to agree. Some media cop. Some media. anyway, Arianna is here and David Brock’s letter to CNN is here.

Still in Connecticut, I happened upon perhaps the dumbest sentence of the year: Liberman “lost because Barbra Streisand's highly publicized contribution to Lamont.” Hey “Newsweek Rabbi Marc Gellman," maybe you should stick to theology.

Lord help him, it gets worse: “if you asked me to explain why Jews did not vote for Joe the way blacks voted for Barack Obama…” Um, Rabbi dude, the same blacks who voted for Obama deserted the um, black Alan Keyes. There was no white candidate in the race] ..or Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy I would not know what to tell you. [Um, Rabbi dude, one more time, that was 46 years ago. In the last election, Catholics went for the non-Catholic candidate George W. Bush over the Catholic candidate John F. Kerry by a small plurality. Is your editor at the Vineyard or is he perhaps a secret anti-Semite who is enjoying this?]

Most amazing sentence yet: “So he supports the war. So what?” Really what is one to say? “So what?” About this war? This Rabbi is arguing that Jews should put Israel’s interests ahead of America’s, up to and including getting their fellow citizens killed for no good reason. This is not even “dual loyalty.” It is disloyalty and thank God, if you’ll excuse me bubbela, that most American Jews have the good sense to ignore you.  And Newsweek, perhaps it’s time to find a new rabbi. .

“There are fewer more devoted adherents to that strain of American foreign-policy thinking than Lieberman himself. Call this perspective what you like -- puerile, misguided, even paranoid -- but don't call it strong on defense.” Excellent piece by TNR editor Spencer Ackerman here  (I wonder why it’s not in the “proudly schizophrenic” TNR, don’t you? Maybe I should ask my rabbi…)

Quotes of the Day: “Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a "senior administration official," insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point. The official told The Weekly Standard:

"The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It's like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn't work."

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."”

Why does George F. Will hate America?

What happens when a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago reads a book by Ann Coulter.

In the wake of the Reuters photo-doctoring scandal, here's a look back at efforts by warblogs such as Little Green Footballs to tag journalists for being soft on terror and staging phony battlefield photographs

Alter-reviews:

Chuck Berry - Hail! Hail! Rock N' Roll. (4 DVD edition)
I have always found Chuck Berry a hard guy to like and the more I read about him, the more I feel that way. Kudos, therefore to Taylor Hackford, for constructing this endlessly fascinating and illuminating document around a truly complicated but incredibly important figure. The film, which was originally released in 1986, is pretty great, albeit uneven. The band, led by Keith Richards, features Robert Cray, Chuck Lavell  and Johnnie Johnson, and features guest shots by Clapton, Linda Rondstadt, Etta James, and Julian Lennon, among many others.
The bonus material—three discs worth—is a must for all amateur rock historians and perhaps most documentary film-makers. It includes:

-- 54 minutes of rehearsal footage
-- The Reluctant Movie Star making-of documentary
-- Trailer
-- Witnesses to History documentary Parts 1 & 2
-- "Chuckisms" - a collection of classic Chuck Berry remarks
-- "The Burnt Scrapbook" - Chuck Berry reminisces over his musical memories with Robbie Robertson.

Among the highlights from the documentary part: In the words of Amazon’s Sam Graham, “But if you're the type who can't turn away from car wrecks, don't miss "The Reluctant Movie Star," an hour-long "making of" documentary, for it's here that Hackford and the others who worked on the film tell their war stories. The Chuck Berry they know demanded to be paid every day, in cash, or he'd refuse to be filmed. He showed up for a dinner meeting at L.A.'s posh Le Dome with a bag of McDonald's takeout. And two days before the St. Louis concert, he announced that he was leaving town for a gig in Ohio, where he proceeded to blow out his voice--so his vocals all had to be overdubbed after the fact (an extra payday, natch).” There’s also an hour-long sitdown between Chuck, Little Richard and Bo Diddley and interviews with Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Roy Orbison, Bo Diddley, The Everly Bros, and Willy Dixon. There’s lots more here and there’s also a two-disc version for the less obsessive.

I am also enjoying a three-cd box called “Pure 80s: The Ultimate DVD Box.” It also appeals to the historian in me because it’s got so much of that wonderfully awful stuff so many of us watched in the early days of MTV. The music doesn’t hold up too badly. I still love “Rapture,” “Tainted Love,” “Safety Dance,” “Our House,” (Madness, not CSNY, no cats in the yard…) “Centerfold,” “She works Hard for the Money,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Luka,” “She Drives Me Crazy,” etc. And the videos are fun in a trashy sort of way. One warning, however, the music on the third disc, “Headbangers Ball” could not be worse if it were the sound of my head being banged against a wall. I’ve never understood the appeal of this stuff but now I understand it even less. So you may want to buy volumes one and two individually. Read all about it here.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: MB
Hometown: Jackson, MS
Comments: While I think you made a very cogent argument why supporting Lieberman for VP in 2000 but not supporting him now is not necessarily hypocrisy or idiocy, I think you missed a key reason why Lieberman is persona non grata now when he was, arguably, a party leader just 6 years ago. That reason is that, Joe's highly public denunciation of Clinton's peccadilloes notwithstanding, many, many Democrats did not really know much about him until the 2000 election. We got to know him through that campaign and, speaking for myself, I was less than impressed.
His refusal to give up his Senate seat made him seem self-serving and unsure of his running mate's campaign. His performance in the Cheney debate was abysmal. It was hard for me to listen to it and not believe that Lieberman simply threw the debate. He was, pretty much at every turn, a poor campaigner (at least in his run to be the VP, he managed to be easily re-elected to his Senate seat -- Yay him!) The VP candidate is supposed to have his running mate's back and should be empowered to make a spirited defense -- to say things the Presidential candidate cannot. As the wild-eyed Right attacked Gore at every turn, we didn't hear much from Lieberman. Joe's too nice for that, I guess, or maybe he just believes that elections should be bipartisan as well as governance.
As the election ended in the Fiasco in Florida, Lieberman could barely contain his inclination to concede early and often. His performance was sickening; especially in retrospect as we've seen him become Bush's favorite Democrat over the succeeding 6 years. It leaves me wondering what team Lieberman was really playing for. The intervening 6 years have seen Lieberman moving closer and closer to the Right. For example, while he may be nominally pro-choice, he enabled and facilitated the ascension of Bush judges who will undo Roe at their earliest opportunity (not to mention the assault on other civil liberties.) It's Lieberman who is the hypocrite. He's been a pretend Democrat too long. There was at least one good thing that came out of the 2000 election -- and that is that Joe Lieberman never got (and never will get) anywhere close to being President of the US.

Name: Bob Rothman
Hometown: Providence, RI
Comments: What is it about the truth that makes neocons so allergic to it? Last week, after the British airliner plot was broken, Dick Cheney sneered something about liberals wanting to look at terrorism as a law enforcement problem. On Sunday, Joshua Muravchik repeated the charge.
According to Muravchik, presidents from Nixon to Clinton refused to face up to Middle Eastern terrorists, instead "shaking a symbolic fist or issuing some subpoenas.... This led to the Sept. 11 attacks." By contrast, Bush "set forth the enormous goal of destroying terrorist groups; cutting off government support for terrorists, if necessary by regime changes." Bush has had five years now; let's look at the record. The Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan, but they are far from gone and are consolidating power in the south of the country.
Iraq is now the breeding ground for terrorists it wasn't before our invasion. There have been more incidents of terrorism since 9/11 than before; in 2005, there were 11,111 incidents resulting in more than 14,000 deaths, according to the State Department.
And of course there have been major devastating incidents in Western capitals like Madrid and London. And oh yes, there might have been a major attack on American airliners, but it was thwarted--by law enforcement. Yes, while we were bomnbing, MI-5 issued some subpoenas. And they succeeded. Why does the truth hate America?

Name: John Shaw
Hometown: Seattle
Comments: Dr. E., could the "guns of 1948" refer to the splinterist Henry Wallace candidacy? It still doesn't make sense: you have been consistently vociferous against Nader's splinterism and now Lieberman's. Wallace latered renounced his connection with the Soviets, but a lot of what he stood for in 1948 is now mainstream, especially desegregation and full voting rights for all; unfortunately, his call for universal government health insurance is only "mainstream" in that the majority of Americans agree with it, though no major politicians do.

Eric replies: Yes, it does. Perhaps I should have spelled that out, though of course, it still makes no sense.

Name: Brian Geving
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN
Comments: Eric, A local paper recently ran this list of our ranking among the world's developed countries in many different areas. I've seen a few of these before, but seeing them all together is very depressing to me. It would be interesting to compare how these statistics have changed since 2000. A few lowlights that jumped out at me:
- The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
- Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth.
- Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
- The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
- As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Name: Wanda Marie Woodward, M.S.
Hometown: West Chester
Comments: Is anyone paying attention to this? China, Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, et al. forming an OPEC like organization? All they need is to ask Venezuela to join and America is screwed. With Russia and Iran being two of the top 10 providers of oil to the U.S., with Russia and Pakistan currently having nuclear bombs and with Iran and India racing to make them, and with China's gargantuan rise to superpower status in the next few years, this is a nightmare on the horizon. 

• August 14, 2006 | 12:19 PM ET | Permalink

One the country’s most significant problems is the stupidity of our political discourse. It’s most obvious in cable news, but it’s everywhere, in print, on the net, on the Sunday shows, on the left, on the right, on the center. It’s not just inconvenient and annoying; it interferes without our ability to address our problems and allows thugs to get away with metaphorical murder. Here’s three examples, two of which involve me.

Joe Klein represents virtually everything wrong with political discourse in this country; he’s ignorant, insulting, self-satisfied and feels himself to be some sort of victim. Witing about Connecticut, he complains of the “expected torrent of rubbish from left-wing blognuts and conservative wingnuts….nauseating triumphalism …. unblinking assertion… stupid excesses” and that’s just in the first few paragraphs. It’s all typical Klein but what caught my eye was the end, where he describes “bipartisan moderation” as “the highest form of patriotism” here. Oh really? What if the “center” goes off the rails, as in Iraq; as in the present economic policy? The Medicare bill? Etc, etc. Klein says, “Agree or else: dissent is unpatriotic.” Where does it end, Joe? Just a little bit of torture? A touch of illegal spying? Throw away half the bill of right? 

Now, how stupid is the extremist Left in this country? Klein and the whole so-smart-they’re-stupid-Neocon establishment treat sensible liberals like Ned Lamont as if they were raving Commie lunatics which is a shame, but it doesn’t mean they there aren’t a few raving lefty lunatics around. Fortunatley, they are entirely impotent. Still, when my name’s involved, I usually hear about it and it can be pretty annoying, the way mosquito bites often are. Look, for instance here. If you read this column, you see someone making an argument that liberals thought Liberman was good and Nader was bad in 2000, and now think Liberman is bad, so doesn’t that mean Nader was always good and we liberals are hypocrites?

It’s sad that anyone would think this requires a response, but here it is. In 2000, Lieberman was:
a) a vice-presidential candidate, an office with no inherent power;
b) running against George W. Bush.

Nobody’s views on Lieberman have to change to prefer him as vice-president to George W. Bush. Just because someone is preferable to say, Dick Cheney, does not mean they are also preferable to Ned Lamont. Is that clear? (Moreover, I had always argued that Nader should have run against Gore in the Democratic primary, just as Lamont did. Had Lamont gone the Nader route, he would have been but a blip. Of course Nader was apparently too deluded by his onset of megalomania to do so which is perhaps the most significant reason this country is in the mess it is. So thanks again, Ralph.)

And how stupid is the Right in this country? Here. (To say “extremist right” would be redundant.) James Pinkerton, complaining about liberals and Lamont, writes “Needless to say, Beinart's left-bashing has been reciprocated by plenty of Beinart-bashing from lefties, including The Nation's Eric Alterman. And so the guns of 1948 are still not silenced, and the wounds are still open.”

In the first place, what does that mean? I have no idea, to be honest, and Pinkerton does not point to a single example to support his point. Maybe I bashed him because I didn’t like his haircut. Maybe I didn’t bash him at all. Anything is possible on the basis of evidence Pinkerton doesn’t bother to provide.
But whaddya say we break it down anyway? I did, in fact, bash Beinart’s article that led to his book, but hey, Beinart removed almost all of the material I criticized when it came time to write the book. As far as his book goes—which is what Pinkerton is writing about—I called it “mostly excellent.” If that’s his idea of a “bash,” well then, don’t invite him to your party. And second, what the hell does it mean that “the guns of 1948 are still not silenced, and the wounds are still open.” I have pretty strong anti-Communist credentials, after all. And while unlike Beinart, I did oppose the war in Iraq, he would say I was right and he was wrong.  And what has Communism actually got to do with the invasion of Iraq anyway? Are they, in fact, interchangeable? Pinkerton doesn’t bother to argue this, but his article makes no sense otherwise. But of course the very argument is laughable.

Anyway, whenever you read something on Tech Central Station, remember Nick Confessore’s terrific piece on just how fundamentally corrupt the entire enterprise is.

The US helps plan and execute an Israeli war: a Neocon dream come true.

Spike Lee’s previous two movies were two of the best films to be released by major studios in the past decade. He’s got a new one, about Katrina, and he’s profiled by the writer who became Maureen Dowd’s New Best Friend, here. 

From MediaBistro: Fox News Priest Tricked Us Into Talking, Says Brit Imam (Guardian)
Representatives of a mosque used by several of the terror suspects reacted angrily to a "sick stunt" by Fox News Channel. The imam of the mosque complained that he and others were tricked by a rep from the cable channel, a priest who said he was working for the Vatican and wanted to talk peace.

Jill Carroll’s series is here.

Alter-reviews:

Bruce didn’t show up and sing with Fogerty the night I saw him at Jones Beach with Willie Nelson. It was a beautiful night and hey, what could go wrong. Rather than rely on my meager literary abilities to do justice to the experiences of these two deeply American icons—it’s a cliché, but it’s true--, you might want to take a look at this and this.

Prestige Records' Stitt's Bits: The Bebop Recordings, 1949-1952 Stitt is one of bebop's progenitors, often associated in people’s minds with Charlie Parker. He insisted that his style evolved his alto sax style before he had ever heard Parker. When he and Bird first met and played together in 1943, they were both amazed at their stylistic similarity. He’s mostly on tenor here, but he played all three horns, and appears here on this handsome, well constructed box with Jay Jay Johnson, Bud Powell, Max Roach, John Lewis, Art Blakey, Gene Ammons. We get nearly four hours of music - comprise 76 tracks that Stitt recorded as leader, co-leader and sideman for Prestige and its related labels. The ensemble size ranges from quintet to septet (with trumpeter Bill Massey and trombonists Bennie Green or Matthew Gee adding their talents), featuring outstanding rhythm sincluections, ding Duke Jordan and Junior Mance on piano, bassists Tommy Potter and Gene Wright and drummers Art Blakey,  "Papa" Jo Jones. And hey, guess who wrote the liner notes? Harvey Pekar. Plus phots by photos by Chuck Stewart, Herman Leonard and others. It’s cheap too. More here.

In celebration of Milestone Records' 40th Anniversary, Concord proudly announces the release of retrospective collections by five of the venerable label's most extraordinary artists - Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Jimmy Smith and Jimmy Scott. Orrin Keepnews founded Milestone in 1966 together with pianist/producer Dick Katz… The original dates were mostly produced by Orrin Keepnews and the compilations were assembled by Nick Phillips, Vice President, Jazz and Catalog A&R for the Concord Music Group, which acquired Milestone in 2004. Each collection also contains a bonus disc featuring an additional track from each of the five artists, along with one additional selection each by Flora Purim, Jim Hall & Ron Carter, and Hank Crawford & Jimmy McGriff. You can look them up here.

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Michael Goldfarb
Hometown: London, England
Comments: Eric, A last word on Lieberman refusing to bow out. In 1980, Jacob Javits lost the Republican primary to Al d'Amato. The Democrats had a strong liberal challenger for that senate seat: Elizabeth Holtzman. Javits refused to accept the will of his party's primary voters and glommed on to New York's Liberal Party nomination. It was abundantly clear that this would siphon votes from Holtzman but the aged and, as it turned out, terminally ill Javits could not put his ego aside. He stood on the Liberal Party ticket and, in a foreshadowing of Ralph Nader's role in the 2000 campaign took just enough votes away from Holtzman to get d'Amato elected.
There is no need to remind anyone of what that meant. Joe Lieberman is in a position to do similar damage ... even if the Republican candidate in Connecticut is not the rabid conservative that d'Amato was, in a whipped to a fare-thee-well Republican Senatorial caucus he can do much damage. The terrifying thing is that it seems that somewhere in Lieberman's heart of hearts (or ego of egos) he simply doesn't care.

Name: Rich W.
Hometown: Clarks Summit
Comments: Hey Eric, Here's an interesting article from the Washington Post's Peter Barker that was posted on the MSNBC website. A couple of quotes that really raise some eyebrows: 1. "The thought was having the presence of reporters (at fundraisers in a private home) would disrupt the intimacy of the events," said Ari Fleischer, who was then White House press secretary. That's a great line, 'the intimacy of the events'. I have images of 2 co-workers stealing moments together between meetings on a business trip. 2. Then there was this from C-SPAN's Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents' Association. 'Scully said he may raise the issue of closed fundraisers with Snow.
"As we move into the fall campaign, if this happens more often, we're going to put pressure on Tony and others to open these events," Scully said. "He is the president. He is traveling at government expense. . . . We should be in there to hear what he has to say." Question: Why isn't he putting pressure on him NOW? This is getting out of hand. I'm getting really sick about the media playing nice with the president, when it's clear to anyone with any sense that this is one of the most inept presidential administrations ever. Something needs to be done.

Name: Scott Schiefelbein
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Comments: Re: "18 writers whose opinions on the Middle East intelligent people can ignore . . ." I dunno - that list contains a lot of "elite" names. Gore Vidal! Harold Pinter! Shouldn't I venerate these "elite" names? Three Nobel Prize winners! Zeus's thunderbolts couldn't pack as much of a wallop as the thoughts dropping from the minds of these "elite thinkers"! Seems this little blurb epitomizes all my peeves about establishing someone as "elite." Why on earth should I care what Toni Morrison (for example) thinks about the Middle East? What relevant qualifications does she have? All I know about her is that she has written some well-received novels that I haven't read.
Yet her opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue get into The Nation, solely on name recognition. People always extend the qualifications of the "elite" too far. Joltin' Joe was an elite baseball player, but for some reason he lent "Mr. Coffee" a whole bunch of credibility. Similarly, the author of "Beloved" gets to have her views on the Middle East published even though there is no evidence of which I am aware that TM is more informed than anyone else. I like Cormac McCarthy's novels more than Gore Vidal's (although not by much). Should I therefore subscribe to his views on the Middle East over Vidal's? What particularly chafes my hind is that these 18 "elite" thinkers have bound themselves together, creating a little club of elitism.
It's clear by this list that it's not the quality of the opinions they hold that got them on this list, but their qualifications external to those opinions. Something leads me to suspect that if I, non-author of novels, dramas, or works of history that I am, shouted "I agree!" and tried to attach my name to the list, these 18 elites (or their agents) would have denied me the opportunity. Not "elite" enough of a thinker to qualify for admission. I guess I picked the wrong day to stop drinking coffee . . .

Name: Michael Terry
Hometown: Columbia, MO
Comments: I live in Columbia, Missouri, and the editor of our local paper is constantly being accused of being too big a fan of Bush by the local, vocal left. God, I love living in a college town. Anyway, he recently changed his picture to one of himself reading "What Liberal Media?" and looking shocked and appalled. See here: Cracked me up.

• August 11, 2006 | 1:19 PM ET | Permalink

I have a new “Think Again,” called “An ‘Honest’ Failure,” here, a new “Liberal Media” column in The Nation, called “Neocon Dreams, American Nightmares,” here and a short comment in the Guardian’s “Comment is Free,” called “A question of attitude,” here.

Joe Lieberman asks, why do more than 60 percent of Americans hate America?

“We just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England,” Mr. Lieberman said at a campaign event in Waterbury, Conn. “It will strengthen them, and they will strike again.” More here.

Drafting Al Gore, here is the plan.

At Tomdispatch, Mark Levine offers a remarkable tour of political chaos theory in action in the Middle East.

He begins: "Perhaps the greatest illusion of any strategists, leaders, or generals is that they are in control -- and perhaps the most hubristic version of this illusion is the belief that they can use chaos itself to further their control, to strengthen their situation. Our world today reminds us constantly that you ride that tiger at your peril."  And ends:  "With George Bush still insisting on the need to fight 'Islamic fascism' to the bitter end, Labor Party Defense Minister Amir Peretz imploring Israeli soldiers to turn southern Lebanon "to dust," and Iran's Mahmud Ahmedinejad declaring the need to wipe Israel off the map, the hubris, arrogance, and utter disdain for human life that has brought the Middle East to its latest precipice continues to harden the hearts of leaders and peoples alike. And all will be the losers because of it."

In between is a tale of leadership folly -- American, Israeli, Lebanese, Iranian, Iraqi -- brought to us by people who think they control events that, in the end, are certain to outrun us all and who are, consequently, threatening to turn our world into rubble.

18 writers whose views on the Middle East conflict intelligent people can safely ignore, if they weren’t already. I particularly like the “makeshift missile” line, as if Syria and Iran were mom-and-pop firecracker companies.

But really Tomasky, with Marty, and Kristol, and 99 percent of the punditocracy on the case, does Tapped really need to publish a mini-Marty telling the world of mean old journalists to leave poor defenseless AIPAC alone. (You think the “mini-Marti” line unfair? Just who does this sound like: “A greater focus on exposing on combating the emergence of uncomprising Christianist zealotry on Israel would serve the left better than more pieces "exposing" the overestimated influence of groups like AIPAC.”) More here and here and here.

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine …

Correspondence Corner:

Name: Matt Taylor
GOP.com had posted a picture of Howard Dean in which they photoshopped in a Hitler moustache. They have now replaced that picture, but Chris Anderson of Interesting Times has located the original, and posted a clickable image that definitively proves the image was altered. 

Name: Rolf
Hometown: Cerritos, CA
To Jeff of Baltimore, MD: Party affiliation was not declared in the first three presidential elections. George Washington was distinctly opposed to political parties. The constitution did not assume political parties, the most peculiar evidence of which is the method it specifies for selecting a vice president, viz., the person winning the second most electoral votes. The authors plainly did not foresee the VP being from a different party than the president. It was only after the 1800 electoral debacle that the constitution was changed in this regard.

Name: David Simon
Hometown: New Haven, CT
You know, there really was a primary at which the Soul of the Party was at stake on Tuesday -- in Michigan, where an incumbent one tick to the left of Bush (that is to say an '80s vintage Republican) lost his spot on the ballot to an radical right guy about three giant steps to the right of Bush. Here was the opportunity to see whether the GOP's tent was big enough to accommodate a fellow who thought maybe "Arrest and Deport" doesn't make for an immigration policy. Even though the incumbent, Joe Schwarz voted the Bush line on virtually every misguided so-called security measure (and even though Bush actually endorsed Schwarz), the big party money (and the majority of the party activists' votes) went to the challenger. So in Connecticut, where at least half of the Lieberman voters oppose the war in Iraq, we see a party where renewal is possible (particularly if Joe decides that his legacy should be something other than that of New England's Robert Mugabe). From Michigan, we see what happens in that other party when the orthodoxy gets challenged. Concluding thought from the Michigan primary: Someone to the right of Bush (Frist? Delay?(!)) is going to go deep into the primaries, at the very least.

Name: Don Schneier
Hometown: Springfield, MA
Leo Strauss was undoubtedly a very learned and intelligent man, but as an innovative philosopher, he was essentially a one-trick pony. He unreflectively applied a Heideggerian hermeneutical style to a variety of interesting topics that he often oversimplified as false opposites--Reason vs. Revelation, Ancient vs. Modern, Jerusalem vs. Athens, etc. Taken as a whole, it is unclear if his studies amount to a definitive coherent position, and he himself was reportedly modest about his achievements. But his elliptical treatment of seemingly provocative issues has made it easy for today's anti-Liberals to cherry-pick from them alleged principles, e. g. Moral Certitude, to suit their own political agenda. The ironic result is a form of Nihilism, seen plainly in the absence of a clear rationale for the Iraq invasion, that Strauss's own anti-Nihilist writings might not even recognize.

Name: Edward Furey
1972 is a really poor analogy if we're talking about a Congressional campaign in 2006. The Time Magazine cover story on the 1972 election featured Nixon with the caption: "The Lonely Landslide." Nixon won easily, but had no coattails. The Democrats won the Congressional elections equally easily; indeed, it would be 22 years before the Democrats, "weakened" by McGovern, would lose the House. After holding it for 40 years. They would lose the Senate in 1980, as the Reagan landslide swept in a collection of GOP turkeys, most of whom would be plucked in the 1986 Democratic landslide that regained the Senate.

• August 10, 2006 | 1:08 PM ET | Permalink

It’s 1972 all over again or so Cokie, Broder, Marty, Jacob, Bill, Bob, Joe, are telling us. The Democrats blew it by endorsing a left wing “elitist” antiwar candidate who hated Middle America back then, and now are getting read to do the same. Here’s the thing, being a pundit makes you stupid. All these pundits supported the war, natch, and understand at some subliminal level, that they too are being rejected by the voters who blame Lieberman for trusting Bush and getting us into this horrific war. They reach for the nearest historical analogy they can find to bolster their argument and settle on 1972. Thing is, they understand very little of history, most of them having stopped reading anything but one another in college.

I wrote this in The Nation a while back, but it speaks to historical background of today’s situation, I think:

“At a recent conference on the Clinton Administration at Hofstra University, ex-press secretary Jake Siewart made a point that had previously eluded me: It was during the early days of Clinton's presidency that the democratization of instant information made the insider press corps obsolete. To retain their importance and self-regard, these journalists had to invent a new function for themselves, and they did: interpreting, not reporting, the news. But instead of doing the hard work of researching the historical, economic, sociological and political contexts of a given story and then finding a way to explain these in lay terms, they preferred to rely on what came most easily to them: cocktail party gossip, green room small talk, semiofficial leaks and unconfirmed rumor, almost always offered up as if the source had no interest in pushing a point of view.

"It soon became clear that the insider press corps had developed a set of values almost completely antithetical to those of the majority of the American people. This disjunction is frequently misinterpreted--often deliberately--as one of snooty liberal elitists versus God-fearing, Darwin-disbelieving, upright common folk. It's almost impossible to find reliable evidence for this characterization, either in what the press corps believes or what the public does. Ironically, the media elite are attacking themselves when they embrace this myth, which is purposely stoked by the far right…”

Back to today. The punditocracy argument about 1972, while dead wrong about McGovern himself, who was a brave, patriotic World War II hero form the South Dakota, has some validity, given whom he was perceived by voters to represent. The first serious historical research I ever did was when I was researching my honors thesis as an undergraduate. I wanted to study the origins of neoconservatism, the Six Day War, and Vietnam—this was back in 1981—and my adviser, Walter LaFeber—insisted that I learn a little context first by examining the attitudes of the entire country to the war and the antiwar movement. I poured over the polling data and found to my surprise, that in many ways, the antiwar movement was counterproductive. Many Americans didn’t like the war but they really hated the counterculture. If supporting Nixon was a way to get back at the hippies and protesters and rioters, they were willing to do it, even if it meant extending a war they thought to be already lost.

Now look at today. In the first place, as I keep saying, remember this is Connecticut. It’s blue, antiwar state. It’s not the whole damn country. But second, look at the context for God’s sake. There’s no antiwar movement to speak of, no riots, no marches, no one is burning their draft cards, preaching free love, wiping themselves with the flag, bussing your kids to ghetto schools or vice-versa, taking away your jobs, raising your taxes to give the money to rioting race-baiting Black Panthers, etc. Our Lady of the Magic Dolphin, insists that the people who originally inspired the Lamont campaign, “The Kos crowd is viewed by most people outside that crowd as hate-fueled, bitter and stupid--the devil's flying monkeys making their "Eeek! Eeek!" sounds” here.
Methinks Peggy’s been nipping at the sherry a mite too frequently. The only Abbie Hoffman/Jerry Rubin types are on the right and when they’re not hosting Fox News programs, they are being called “brilliant” by Chris Matthews on MSNBC. So the upshot we are left with is that Connecticut Democrats picked a candidate whose positions are consistent with the majority and rejected one whose are not. And yet that, we are told is somehow the “elitist” position that will destroy the Democrats with a public that largely agrees with them.  In other words, the analogy fails completely upon the slightest scrutiny.

In that regard, take a look at this from TP: "It's an unfortunate development, I think, from the standpoint of the Democratic Party, to see a man like Lieberman pushed aside because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture in terms of our national security strategy,'' said VP Cheney. Al-Qaida is "betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task." White House spokesman Tony Snow put it more succinctly, "A white flag [in Iraq] in short means a white flag in the war on terror." Josh does a good job on demonstrating how the mainstream media are repeating the right-wing McCarthyite talking points of the Bush Administration. What is so damn ironic about this of course, is the fact that the invasion of Iraq was a present to Al Qaeda, a never-ending recruitment video for them, to say nothing of the fact that the administration’s obsessive focus on it is what allowed Bin Laden and his lieutenants to get away. Peter Wallerstein details these talking points in the L.A. Times:
"Republicans also sought to use the Lieberman loss as an opportunity to drive wedges in the Democratic base — following White House advisor Karl Rove's strategy of energizing conservatives while trying to make certain Democratic voters question whether they should vote with their party...."

"The Republican response Wednesday was highly coordinated, tightly matching a set of GOP talking points distributed to activists and strategists. The effort also paralleled an internal strategy memo, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, that laid out the party's intent to mobilize its base for the election by highlighting Bush's actions in Iraq and the notion that Democrats were weak in their approach to 'foreign threats.'" Boehlert has more.

PS. I hear the British terrorists were going to call this off if Joe had won his primary, what with American showing its “strength” and all. Damn you, Connecticut primary voters….

Ever wondered how to get a gig as a high-powered political consultant in demand by the mainstream media? Tim from The Road to Serfdom explains: 

“Here’s some really bad news for Joe Lieberman’s chances as an Independent Senate candidate: Dick Morris thinks he can win. In the general election, Lieberman can paint Lamont (a former client of mine) as the rich, light-weight dilettante he is (heir to the fortune of J.P. Morgan’s partner) and can focus on the broad range of his legislative agenda. After all, Lieberman has taken the lead on issues ranging from campaign-finance reform to tobacco regulation to corporate-governance reform to tough action against terrorism to the battle against global warming. He’ll look better and better, whilxe Lamont will look like a one-issue challenger who is out of his league.
"Morris, in case you don’t know, has a pretty bad record of prediction (Google it), though, as you’ll see, he also has a pretty good record of prediction too. Depends on what day you read him.
"For instance there was this one from a little while back about Lieberman’s chances in the primary he just lost:
“[Lamont] need not be taken very seriously. Lieberman is not vulnerable and a primary will only make him that much stronger (assuming Ned even gets on the ballot).”

Bummer. But fear not, there was also this Morris prediction about Lieberman’s chances, in which he does much better:
Senator and former vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman will lose the Democratic primary in Connecticut, political strategist Dick Morris predicts.

The unfortunate thing about this was that at the same time, he also said this about Lieberman:…if Lieberman then runs in the general election as an independent, he will be “so crippled” by his defeat in the August 8 primary, and his Democratic opponent Ned Lamont “so empowered,” that Lieberman will lose the general election as well and give up his seat in the Senate, says Morris.

Which bring us back to d’oh and the Morris prediction that I kicked off this post with.”

(Coming soon from Hasbro: The Weisberg/Peretz Perpetual Conventional Wisdom Machine… with interchangeable parts. [To be fair, I could have used Broder or Cokie or the Post editors or Kristol or Kagan, etc. Michael Barone would have been just as easy: “He writes that he Democratic Party wants to "stand aside" from the global struggle against "Islamofascist terrorism." He also uses the presence of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton by Lamont's side on Tuesday to suggest that the Democratic Party is "not necessarily on the side of Israel."]

Meanwhile, over at TomDispatch, Mr. Engelhardt considers the Bush administration's urge to overcome, via anti-proliferation wars, the "nuclear taboo" that has, since August 10, 1945, restrained American presidents and the leaders of other powers in the "nuclear club" from turning such weapons into useable parts of their military arsenals. Since its Nuclear Posture Review of 2002, the Bush administration has been playing with the "nuclear option," most recently (as Seymour Hersh has reported) as a possible way to take out Iranian nuclear facilities.
He concludes:"Nuclear weapons as anti-nuclear-proliferation devices; anti-proliferation wars as a way to end the 'nuclear taboo' and open the door to the ordinary use of such weaponry -- talk about diabolical. As in Lebanon, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, so in its nuclear policy, the only thing the Bush administration seems capable of doing is exporting ruins to the rest of the world. In this sense, it has offered the world a model drawn directly from the charnel house of nuclear policy which began on a clear day over Hiroshima sixty-one years ago and has never ended."

This just in: The New York Dolls at the South Street Seaport, free, next Friday.

Altercation Book Club:

“What is a Straussian?” from Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism by Steven B. Smith.  

Once when I was in graduate school, at a party where there was probably way too much to drink, a friend of mine—now by coincidence a prominent attorney in New Haven—was asked if he was a Straussian. “If you mean by that do I regard everything that Leo Strauss ever wrote as true,” he replied, “then, yes, I am a Straussian.”  We all laughed because my friend’s answer so perfectly captured and parodied the common view of Straussianism. The question, am I a Straussian, is something I have been asked on more than one occasion over the years.  Sometimes the question seems prompted by nothing more than the idle desire to know what Straussianism means. At other times it has the vague character of an “are you now or have you ever been . . .” kind of accusation. In any case the question has caused me to think about what it is to be a Straussian.

The first point I would make about Straussianism is that it is not all of a single piece. There is rather a set of common problems or questions that characterize Strauss’s work: for example, the difference between ancients and moderns, the quarrel between philosophy and poetry, and of course the tension between reason and revelation. None of these problems can be said to have a priority over the others nor do they cohere in anything as crude as a system.  Whatever may be alleged, there is hardly a single thread that runs throughout these different interests. Strauss did not bequeath a system, doctrine, or an “ism,” despite what may be attributed to him. Rather, he presented a distinctive way of asking questions or posing problems that may have been loosely related but that scarcely derived from a single Archimedean point of view. It is questions that