two is not enough

President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court will accomplish at least one thing: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will no longer feel quite so lonely.

Obama would clearly have been in some trouble had he not nominated a woman for the seat. Here's my question: will there be repercussions if he picks a man for the next vacancy? (Assume here that the next vacancy is not Ginsburg; obviously her replacement must be a woman.) When John Paul Stevens - who joined the Court when Sotomayor and Chief Justice John Roberts were in college - finally retires, will Obama be expected to name a third woman to the Court? And after that - a fourth?

Given that women comprise 51% of the national population, a representation rate of 2/9 is still quite miserable. And 3/9 won't be good enough. I'm not saying that the percentage of women on the Court must precisely mirror national demographics. But the figures also shouldn't demonstrate a blatant and dramatic bias - which they will until women hold more than a third of the seats.

But at what point do people start saying "so many women in a row! Give men a chance!"?

This is a real problem with historically entrenched discrimination. Any systematic attempt to correct it inevitably looks like a new form of ("reverse") discrimination. Does Obama have the political fortitude for that?

torture memos, Eichmann, and irrevocable irresolution

The Bush administration “torture memos” released last week contain the following gem of bureaucratized sadism. It’s lengthy, but definitely worth your time to read. Asked to advise the CIA on the legality of various techniques to acquire “cooperation” from captured Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee wrote:

In addition to using the confinement boxes alone, you also would like to introduce an insect into one of the boxes with Zubaydah. As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar. If you do so, to ensure that you are outside the predicate act requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain. If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so, then, in order to not commit a predicate act, you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death. [two lines redacted here] so long as you take either of the approaches we have described, the insect's placement in the box would not constitute a threat of severe physical pain or suffering to a reasonable person in his position. An individual placed in a box, even an individual with a fear of insects, would not reasonably feel threatened with severe physical pain or suffering if a caterpillar was placed in the box. Further, you have informed us that you are not aware that Zubaydah has any allergies to insects, and you have not informed us of any other factors that would cause a reasonable person in that same situation to believe that an unknown insect would cause him severe physical pain or death. Thus, we conclude that the placement of the insect in the confinement box with Zubaydah would not constitute a predicate act.

Translation: you know that Zubaydah has a phobia about insects. It’s okay to lock him into a small, dark box and toss in an insect to crawl all over him, provided that it isn’t actually a dangerous insect, and you don’t explicitly tell him that its sting causes “death or severe pain”. This is okay because a “reasonable person” would not react too badly if his torturers locked him in a trunk with a non-lethal stinging insect.

Such is the Kafkaesque legacy of the Bush administration. This week the Obama administration willingly donned a bit of the old Bush garb, as the new president promised to shield from prosecution CIA officers who engaged in torture. In his prepared statement, Obama said:

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. … We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

The idea, in part, is that the CIA torturers, people who work in very dangerous circumstances and whose ability to follow orders is crucial to national security, should not be punished for having done what they were told was their job. This is the point of a chain-of-command: the people at the top make policy, and the people further down carry it out. If CIA officers were to engage in constant second-guessing of policy, America’s intelligence capabilities would be drastically hindered, perhaps resulting in terrible things. So, while we might hold accountable those who created the torture policy, we should leave alone those who carried it out.

To keep track of things, call this the Good Faith Principle: government agents who act in good faith – who conform to a policy they’ve been told is legal – should not be punished if the policy is later found to be illegal or immoral. I endorse the Good Faith Principle, for the reasons given in the last paragraph.

But, of course, there are obvious counterexamples. Most infamously, perhaps, there is Adolf Eichmann, the senior Nazi bureaucrat who knowingly kept the deportation trains running on time to the concentration camps. Before being sentenced to death in Jerusalem years later, Eichmann insisted that he ought not be punished, for he had merely been “following orders”. Nearly everyone agrees that this is just not good enough; even though Eichmann did not set Holocaust policy, he executed it. He did something absolutely terrible, and he deserved punishment for it.

Call this one the Eichmann Principle: government agents who do bad things should not be later excused from punishment on the grounds that they were “just following orders”. I endorse the Eichmann Principle.

Clearly, the Good Faith Principle and the Eichmann Principle are in tension. One says that government agents may not be held culpable for following orders, while the other says precisely the opposite. And, as I’ve indicated, I endorse both principles. Am I being inconsistent?

At this point the dominant methodology of (analytic) moral philosophy says we should try to formulate some new principle, a middle point that captures the concerns animating each of the previous principles. It will presumably be very complicated, drawing a fine distinction about what sort of conduct may be excused on grounds of good faith, or just how bad an act must be before triggering Eichmann-style responses. I don’t think we should try to formulate any such compromise principle. I don’t believe there is any way to antecedently circumscribe some region of the dense, tangled moral terrain confronted by policy makers and their agents. The problem is one of irrevocable irresolution: there are good reasons behind each opposed principle, and no formulaic way to accommodate both simultaneously.

This much must be clear: there is a line, somewhere between producing one’s own version of “Fear Factor” with entomophobic mujahideen and facilitating the mass slaughter of an ethnic group. Government agents who cross that line, even in good faith, are liable to later punishment. Where is that line? I don’t know. Neither do you, Barack Obama, or various anonymous CIA torturers at black sites around the globe. This is why real-world ethics (not the sterilized academic version) is so difficult: we cannot map unexplored moral continents before we’ve set foot on their shores.

(image: NY Times / Israeli Government Press Office)

Sully for Treas

Do I have to be the first to say the obvious? Timothy Geithner should step aside, so that Obama may appoint heroic pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger as the next Secretary of the Treasury. Sully will bring this economy to a safe landing on the Hudson and even do two walkthroughs to make sure we've all safely gotten out. And he will be the last one to leave before it sinks.

photo: AP via CBC.

a thoroughly modern presidential honeymoon

Once upon a time, newly married western couples would get to know each other during a period known as a honeymoon, a ‘sweet month’. For most, especially those in arranged marriages, the weeks following nuptials required adjusting to a shared life together, a series of mutual compromises and sometimes unwelcome discoveries. But the inevitable personal friction could be mostly smoothed over by the sheer novelty of the experience.

Modern honeymoons are usually quite different, because many modern couples live together for months or years before becoming formally married. Nevertheless, there remain new challenges, especially the legal, financial, and emotional consequences of being bound to another person for (one then expects) the rest of one’s life. Perhaps this is why we have invented such elaborate rituals around marriage, and why so many modern honeymoons take the form of lengthy vacations to exotic places. For couples who already share a life together, novelty must be generated artificially.

The metaphorical ‘honeymoon period’ enjoyed by a new public figure, especially a new president, seems to be now undergoing a similar shift. Normally, the goodwill and cooperation a president receives for the first few months (the ‘first hundred days’ usually) follow in part from the novelty of regarding this unfamiliar person - and retinue of officials and advisors – as the nation’s leadership. We, the public and the congress, grant our new administration the benefit of the doubt, and we try to meet awkward adjustments with good humor.

Barack Obama’s incipient administration, however, has begun to look like the live-in boyfriend with whom the marriage is just a formality. Obama appointed nearly his entire cabinet weeks in advance. He arrived in DC earlier than most new presidents do (so that his daughters could begin attending school). He has already begun negotiating with congress for a new economic stimulus package. Despite the ‘one president at a time’ rhetoric, Obama’s administration has already leaked the imminent closure of Guantanamo Bay, and other foreign policy signals are emerging. Surely it means something that, two weeks before inauguration, Bill Richardson accomplished the functional equivalent of a cabinet resignation.

None of this is a mistake on Obama's fault. It would be irresponsible to sit idle while the economy teeters. The Bush administration’s discredit is so complete that Obama was sucked into the policy-making vacuum even before officially winning election. But the transition has been so competent and so thorough that we’ve now been thinking of him as the president for weeks. Do we now even get a honeymoon with Barack? Just like any modern marriage, we’ll need some artificial novelty to spice things up. There will be an enormous display for the inauguration, and reminders for weeks afterward just how special this new president happens to be. Mark your calendar: Barack Obama is taking the country to a suite in the Bahamas for a week.

(photo from barackobamamain08.com)

Madam Secretary

The appointment of Hillary Rodham Clinton as Obama's Secretary of State is interesting in all sorts of ways, but one seems especially durable. When Clinton takes office, it will be the case that three of the last four Secretaries of State are women.

This matters. Secretary of State is an immensely prestigious position. Thomas Jefferson was the nation's first; John Marshall and James Madison followed soon thereafter. The Secretary of State is fourth in the presidential order of succession, highest of all cabinet positions. Most cabinet secretaries are unknown to foreign leaders and the domestic population alike, but the Secretary of State is extraordinarily visible.

But the real point here is that the position of Secretary of State has traditionally been viewed as one possessing hard power. It requires competence with international realpolitik and a perceived willingness to make threats and compel obedience. Only two generations ago, it was common sense that no woman could occupy such a role. Now Clinton's appointment is remarkable solely because of her primary challenge to Obama; her gender is quite beside the point. The inclusion of women at almost the highest reaches of power has become normalized.

So Hillary Clinton did not get to be the first female president. But in a rather different way, she is part of the process that will eventually make it unremarkable for women to hold that position as well.

primary results

I heard someone (I think it was Jeff Zeleny of the NYT, speaking on PBS's 'Washington Week') make an interesting point about the election. Part of Obama's victory is due to his campaign's deliberate attempt to win across the country, even in states traditionally assumed to be Republican (such as Indiana and North Carolina). Part of that, we know, is a credit to Howard Dean's 50-state strategy for the DNC.

But part of it is also due (this is Zeleny or whoever's point) to the punishingly long Democratic primary season. Obama did so well in the general election because he put together campaign offices in states where Democrats don't normally bother, and he did this because the results in those states actually did matter during the primaries.

Consider: Obama won the Democratic primaries/caucuses in states like Montana, Virginia, Idaho, Colorado, and yes, North Carolina. The Clinton campaign notoriously failed to set up offices in several of these states, expecting the primary season to end on Super Tuesday, and lacking the logistical resources to adapt thereafter. Further, the Clinton strategy was based upon banking delegate in large states (like California and New York) that traditionally vote Democratic anyway, while the Obama strategy relied upon a slow accumulation of delegates from every state.

Arguably, it was the length of the primary season that induced Obama to be active - early and aggressively - across the country. Imagine that he had won all of the first several primary contests: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. Suppose Hillary had dropped out before or immediately after Super Tuesday. Surely then Obama would have done much less to create a campaign apparatus in traditionally Republican states - why bother at that point? But as it happened, North Carolina and Indiana held their primaries on the same day, May 6, three months after Super Tuesday. Surely Obama's intense efforts to win those primaries (he got NC by 15% and lost Indiana by 1%) contributed heavily to his later general election results there.

So it is likely that Barack Obama owes his victory - at least in part - to the tenacity of Hillary Clinton's opposition early this year. That is something that the Party should keep in mind when it gets to work revising the crazy primary rules. Maybe those rules are just as they should be.

Federal Government to Insure American Relationships

WASHINGTON (AP - filed 09:32 EST 10/10/08) – In the latest measure to combat growing uncertainty amid the global economic crisis, Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt announced that his department will launch a program to guarantee Americans’ investment in their personal relationships. The new program, called the Federal Relationship Insurance Yenta (FRIY), will provide free matchmaking services to any American citizen who has been abandoned by his or her romantic partner.

“Personal relationships are a foundation of American economic stability,” Leavitt told reporters at a press conference early Friday morning. “If people can’t be sure that they will have someone to come home to, they might not go to work at all.”

Laura H. Steinberg, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and expert in relationship psychology, praised the federal initiative. “Research has shown that people who fear loneliness will frequently preemptively flee relationships they think are unstable, so that they can be the ‘dumper’ and not the ‘dumpee’. We call these cases ‘break up runs’, and they are a major source of domestic instability.”

Steinberg expressed confidence that a federal guarantee of partner replacement would make Americans less anxious about their current partnerships, and so less likely to leave the relationships they already have.

This logic is modeled on thinking behind recent expansion of FDIC coverage from the first $100,000 customers hold in insured bank accounts to $250,000. Economic policymakers are currently weighing a plan to extend coverage to all domestic deposits, regardless of size. Such measures are thought to ward off mass withdrawals from retail banks.

Other federal departments have instituted similar programs to reassure frightened Americans. Starting next academic year, the Department of Education guarantees that all college students who attend at least 75% of class sessions will receive no worse than a ‘C’ grade. The Commerce Department’s new Federal Reimbursement of Experimentation Entitlement (FREE) will provide refunds to restaurant diners who try new dishes and are not satisfied.

The FRIY program will face some difficulties in gaining congressional approval, largely concerning difficulties in defining ‘relationship’. Leavitt insists that coverage will extend at least to those who are going steady, but could not provide a more precise characterization.

“This program is too unclear to be workable,” complained House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI). “For instance, will the program include Americans with an established pattern of booty calls? What about friends with benefits?”

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the architect of the federal government’s guarantee program rollout, dismisses such criticisms. “In these times of uncertainty, we must do everything we can to eliminate the perception of risk. It’s important for every American to understand that no matter how bad things might get, nothing bad will ever happen to you personally.”

start bailing

Suppose you and a recent acquaintance rob a bank together. The cops now have you both in separate interrogation rooms. You’ve figured out that they don’t have enough evidence to get you on the robbery charge, but can probably put you away for a couple years on some minor count. The swarthy interrogator waddles into the room and glares at you. “Look,” he says, “we know you two did it. But if you agree to testify that your accomplice was the real perpetrator, we’ll let you go free.”

At first you hesitate, unsure if you should take the deal and condemn your accomplice to a much longer term than would be assigned if you stay quiet. But then you realize that they’re probably right now offering the exact same deal to your accomplice – and if your accomplice takes the deal and you don’t, then you will be the one going away for many years. But, oh yeah, if you both rat each other out, then that will give the cops enough evidence to put you both away for at least a few years.

As many readers know, what I’ve just described is the quintessential prisoner’s dilemma. This structure is common to many social problems. The basic idea is that if all members of a group cooperate, they will achieve some mutually beneficial end. However, a member who defects from the group can expect to achieve a much greater personal benefit, at the expense of the group as a whole. There is then a very strong incentive to not be the sucker who gets left holding the bag when a defector ruins the cooperative project. But if everyone defects, then things turn out pretty badly for everyone. Still, given the expected payoffs, it is usually rational for any individual member to defect.

Today’s failure of the economic bailout bill was a result of prisoner’s dilemma psychology. This prison has 435 inmates, each of whom will face her or his constituents in a few short weeks. Here’s what happened. The bailout bill is extremely unpopular; apparently constituent calls to congressional offices have run 100-to-1 against it. If you’re an incumbent congresscritter facing a tough reelection bid, you really don’t want to be caught voting for this bill. You can just imagine your opponent’s TV ads already: “The incumbent voted to give $700 billion of your money to greedy Wall Street pigs who have already spent it on hookers and blow. Think of how many celebrity magazines you could have bought with that $700 billion! Vote Opponent!” This would be a disaster.

On the other hand, if everyone in Congress votes against the bill and it fails, then the economy will collapse – which is also not a great thing to have on your record while running for reelection. Even if you do win, your congressional pension will be of limited use in our Mad Max future, with its barter economy and roving bands of glassy-eyed marauders.

Of course, what you really want is to be a lone defector, or at least among a small group of defectors. See, you want the bill to pass, so that there is still an economy next week. But you also want to vote against the bill, so that you can tell your constituents you hate rich people as much as they do. An ideal solution is that enough of your idiot colleagues vote for the bill to ensure its passage, while you run against it in your home district. And above all, you don’t want to be the stupid sap who votes for the bill when you could have gotten away with opposing it! What are you, a moron?

Hence the bill’s failure today: too many defectors, not enough cooperators. Want some empirical confirmation of the prisoner’s dilemma explanation? Of the 15 incumbent House members on the Washington Post’s ‘most threatened seats’ list, two-thirds voted against the bill. And among the 27 House members who are running unopposed this year? The exact opposite: two-thirds voted for the bailout. (Among unchallenged incumbent Republicans, Ron Paul is here the sole grumpy exception that proves the rule.)

But all is not lost. There will be another vote later this week, in which we will see the power of the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. This is a variant in which the dilemma is repeated – but only after the cooperators have some chance to punish those who defected the first time round. Expect to see Nancy Pelosi taking away lucrative committee seats from uncooperative Democrats. Who knows what horrors John Boehner may have in store for his recalcitrant partisans. The bill will pass. This economy is too big to fail!

Ant and Grasshoper: a Modern Fable

Ant lived in a sunny little meadow. All through the summer, he worked dawn to dusk, sawing twigs and cutting leaves, building for himself a modest but sturdy house. What little spare time he had he spent constructing furniture sets, which he sold to the other bugs in the meadow for a few scraps of food, which he then put into storage. Ant’s work was humble, but it was honest. His family – his father, his grandfather, and his 17,000 uncles – had done the same kind of work as far back as anyone could remember.

Next door to Ant lived Grasshopper. Ant did not understand exactly what Grasshopper did all day; she seemed to spend most of her time chatting with visitors lounging in her leaf hammocks (which Ant had made for her, and on which she still owed several delinquent payments). Ant had once heard her offering her visitor some “great returns on sapling-backed securities!”, but his head hurt when he tried to understand these words. Mostly Ant noticed that Grasshopper had lots of fancy stuff.

One night Ant returned home exhausted, after a long day cutting shards of leaf in the forest, and had barely climbed into bed when a shrieking calamity rattled his walls. He rushed out the front door and immediately noticed a five-piece cicada band in full swing outside Grasshopper’s house. Her yard was full of partygoers, bugs of all shapes and sizes, some of whom were plainly not from the sunny meadow. Grasshopper, seeing him staring, leapt over to the twig fence between their yards.

“Hey Ant!” she chirped. “Come on over! I had some nectar flown in from the hive upstream. It’s absolutely vintage. Come meet some of my clients!”

Ant shook his head. “I’m sorry, I need to sleep. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

Grasshopper looked confused, but didn’t press him. “Okay then,” she offered, “good luck with that.”

She gathered her legs to leap away, but suddenly Ant stopped her. “Wait, Grasshopper,” he said. “Can you… would you mind… can you tell me just what it is that you do? I mean, I’m sorry, I know it’s a rude question… but I just can’t figure out how you know all these bugs, and what it is you do for them, you know?”

“Oh, no, of course,” laughed Grasshopper. “It’s not a rude question. To some people all this looks like magic! No, you see, Ant, I offer financial products to investors. I lend leaves and twigs to other bugs for their projects, and they promise to pay me back a little extra later on.”

“Where do you get the leaves and twigs?” Ant asked, still not getting it.

“Oh, well, other bugs lend those to me, because I promise to give them back even more later. You see, Ant, you might say that I bundle together all the twig-and-leaf loans and sell those loans to bugs who have some extra green lying around. I’ve even got a few big institutional investors on board now, like the Termite Union Pension Fund, and the Hive University Capital Campaign.”

“But,” worried Ant, feeling stupid, “what is it that you do?”

“Do?” Grasshopper said, her eyes already back on the party. “I already told you. I bundle the loans and I sell them… and I keep a little for myself.” She winked, nodding her head slightly toward the new palm frond speedboat sitting in her driveway. Then she hopped away, back to a group of giggling mayflies staggering around the nectar pot.

-

Fall came to the sunny little meadow, and Ant worked even harder to complete a dining room set on order for the Cricket family down the road. But he often found his peaceful work interrupted by shouts from Grasshopper’s yard, as she paced about screaming into her mobile phone. Ant didn’t understand most of it, of course, but it was obvious that she was not happy.

One morning she spent at least three hours arguing with some unseen bug. “Just what are you telling me, Moth?” she growled. “You said I’d have three percent back on the principal by season’s end! You said Old Stump Condos was a sure thing! And you haven’t sold half of the units you’ve bothered to get ready for the market. What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

Ant waited until Grasshopper’s house had been quiet for some time before knocking on the front door. She appeared after a few minutes, compound eyes bloodshot and antennae drooping. “Oh, you,” she sighed. “What do you want?”

Ant stammered slightly. “It’s just… I mean… well, would you happen to have some of the twigs you owe for the hammocks? I’m just trying to balance my accounts before the winter, and you know…”

Grasshopper was looking over him, not at him. “Hammocks? What the hell are you talking about? I owe twenty thou- to Butterfly. The Hive hired Mosquito and Tick, LLP, to go after my assets. You don’t even want to know what the Termite Union has threatened to do to me. And you’re here with something about fucking hammocks?!” She slammed the door before he had time to scuttle out of the way.

-

At the first frost, Ant began bringing the remainder of his leaf stockpiles into his shed. With each trip by the twig fence, he watched the toys and trinkets in Grasshopper’s yard disappearing, dragged away by wasps from the collections agency. One morning he found the leaf hammocks crumpled in a pile on his front step. Ant had not seen his neighbor for weeks, but he’d heard a rumor that she spent a lot of time at a seedy nectar joint down in the old stump roots.

Ant had worked away most of the afternoon, performing some final winter preparations on his house, when loud thumps echoed from the front door. He opened it to find two enormous beetles looking down on him. One flashed a badge while the other began to read from a crumpled leaf in his left forelimb.

“By order of the Sunny Valley Economic Authority, all landowners are hereby required to lend a minimum of one-third of annual twig-and-leaf income to Grasshopper, effective immediately. Agents of the Authority have license to confiscate said income in the event of noncompliance.” Beetle Number One pronounced this without stopping to breathe or blink.

“But.. -” sputtered Ant, his mandibles agape. “A loan? She’ll never be able to pay it back!”

Beetle Number Two, the (slightly) smaller one, shrugged. “Whatever. Open the shed.”

For the first time in his entire life, Ant thought that maybe, perhaps, the authorities might be getting it wrong. “But I worked so hard all year. I earned all of this. I didn’t take any silly risks! This isn’t – this isn’t fair!”

Beetle Number Two made a face as if someone had just asked what was really so bad about spiders. “Are you a moron?” he inquired, apparently rhetorically. “This is nothing about ‘fair’. At least a half dozen downmeadow leaf banks bought major bundled loans from Grasshopper. Do you want to see thousands of bugs lose their accounts overnight? Should the twig industry just close up shop? Here’s ‘fair’ for you, idiot: Grasshopper is just too big to fail. Now open the fucking shed.”

-

It was a hard, long winter that year, but the sunny little meadow made it through, just as it always did. On a gorgeous spring morning Ant emerged from his house, feeling a little bit hungry, but otherwise ready to start on a new season’s labors. This year, he decided, he would start building rocking chairs.

But Ant had barely passed the twig fence before discovering an incredible sight. There was Grasshopper, sitting in her front yard with a small cadre of aphids. As he drew closer he heard Grasshopper wrapping up an important discussion. “Right, good,” she declared. “So ten-per on the first yield, twenty-per on the second. I’ll float the interest for two months, but after that it goes compound. Agreed?” The aphids nodded their tiny heads in unison.

“Hey, Ant!” Grasshopper said, turning to him. “Come join us, come have some sprouts – they’re fresh from the ground!”

Ant immediately thought that the sprouts could have grown into large, rich plants if they’d been left alone. He thought about all the climbing he needed to do today, seeing as how only the higher leaves would have appeared this early in the season. “I’m sorry,” he explained, “work…”

Grasshopper looked hurt. “Oh, come on Ant, you can spare a few minutes.”

Ant thought about the long climb up the tree trunk. He thought about his empty shed. He thought about the way Beetle Number One had shoved him out of the way after he unlocked the door. Then Ant sat down with Grasshopper and her aphid guests.

“Awesome,” said Grasshopper. “Have some sprouts!” The sprouts were indeed fresh and juicy, straight out of the ground. “Oh, hey, Ant, I have an opportunity for you, courtesy of these fine aphid folks. Now did you know that potato buds are edible? And tasty too! We’re going to open up a whole patch…”

Several hours later, the business meeting had morphed into a minor but persistent party. Nectar appeared from somewhere; the aphids were dancing with some lice. Grasshopper sat at the center of it all, trading gossip and jokes with bugs of every shape, size, and degree of fiscal solvency.

Ant felt slightly giddy, for he’d had just a little nectar. So he didn’t notice Grasshopper approaching until she stood right beside him, looking back over the swaying party.

“Hey Ant,” Grasshopper started. “You know, I think it’s great that you’re loosening up a bit, really.” She looked away for a moment, then kept her eyes on the ground. “But, well, if you’re here with us, well, who is out harvesting the twigs and leaves?”

Ant thought for a moment, glancing up into the shiny spring sun’s warm effluence. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Someone else.”

Why I don't read political blogs anymore

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
-Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth”


September and leaves are already falling, only slightly less rapidly than the standards of civic decency.

Something unusual has happened recently: I’ve stopped enjoying politics. For someone who began watching C-SPAN at age 12, this is a bit of a traumatic self-discovery. Admittedly, my political enthusiasm has always been tempered with a lumpy dose of irritated cynicism, but lately this has flared into actual distress. Especially on the internets: it’s gotten so that I need only glimpse the name ‘McCain’ or (especially) ‘Palin’ anywhere in a blog post and I begin cringing in anticipatory revulsion.

Let’s be utterly clear about what I’m now to say: I fully acknowledge that the haters of Obama et al. are just as capable of vomiting clouds of uncharitable abuse into the aether. But I don’t know those people. I don’t read their diatribes, half-truths, their hooded jeremiads. Doubtlessly I would find their claptrap equally disturbing, if not more so, were I to encounter it. But I don’t run in those circles.

Instead I read insinuations that John McCain has lost higher cognitive function, that Sarah Palin is a ruthless moron, that anyone who would even consider voting Republican cannot be anything but the most foolish, vile, degenerate specimen of proto-human. Political discussions seem nothing more than contests amongst ideological clones to offer the most nastily emotive expression of hatred for their mutual enemy, a great echo chamber for badly-informed belligerent self-righteousness.

Living as I do on the great blue isle of Manhattan, my encounters with such attitudes are not confined to the web. At a picnic a couple weeks ago, one guest laughingly remarked of McCain that “crashing your plane on your very first mission doesn’t qualify you to be president!” The audience chuckled, but I did not: “After that plane crashed, McCain was stomped, beaten, and stabbed by the locals, was handed over to guards who systematically tortured him for years, and refused early release out of fear for how this would affect those left behind. No matter what you think of John McCain, you do not mock him for anything even remotely connected to this incident.” I didn’t say quite all that, being insufficiently spontaneously punchy. But I said some of it, and wish I’d said all.

Demonizing conservatives has become one of the few expressions of prejudice still acceptable in tolerant communities. Yet it’s still nothing more than the ancient ritual of ostracism, the union of a group of people through their mutual effort to pointedly deny even the signifiers of simple decency to a ceremonially designated Other. Justifications will be proffered, reasons frantically thrust forward, rhetorical covers drawn over the ugly primal motives thundering below. Fine. But when you write that you “hate Republicans” and enjoy the approving comments, bear in mind the spiritual kinship that verb forms between you and earlier groups who have bonded by hating those outside the bond.

The right has been a bit too gleeful in its seizure of Barack Obama’s unwise statement about “bitter” middle American voters who “cling to guns or religion”. Yet there is something of substance here. Obama’s comment reveals a disturbing myopia (in himself and his liberal San Francisco audience), a smug inability to appreciate that others’ refusal to share one’s views may be motivated by anything beyond the most base or foolish instincts. Republican voters are not grimy caricatures or hoodwinked yokels. They are real people with real concerns, real values, real perspectives on a world that can bear the weight of more than one conception of human existence. If you find yourself completely incapable of empathizing with them, then that is your failing, not theirs.

In the end much of the offensive materials could be explained by a few concepts from psychology: confirmation bias, ‘my side’ bias, correspondence bias. Over and over, when I see blog posts enthusiastically declaring that the latest McCain gaffe or Palin revelation shows the Republicans to be indubitably unfit for office, I just know that these same bloggers would dismiss as irrelevant these same mishaps, had they been committed by Obama or Biden. Perhaps what most pains me is watching this election season reduce otherwise fair and nuanced observers to binary detectors whose tunnel vision is sensitive only to the variable of party affiliation.

All that said, I don’t expect anyone to cease the partisan gesticulation on my account. Whatever it is – catharsis, distraction, social totem – it plainly has a purpose for its authors. But my reserves of effortful indifference and prudent selective illiteracy are approaching their end; I cannot read much more. And it is only September.

nomeclatura

Oh, I've been meaning to write this before Obama announces his VP choice.

There has been much talk about the crucial factors the candidate must weigh in choosing his running mate. Will the VP-pick make up for Obama's experience gap? Appeal to Clinton voters? Be consilient with the message of reform? Carry the south? Not be discovered to have once received electroconvulsive therapy?

But this misses the crucial question. Does the prospective running mate have a surname that can be stuck between 'Obama' and '2008' without yielding a bumper sticker that people are ashamed to put on their cars?

This is more difficult that you might think. Consider the options.

Obama/Biden sounds like the colloquial way of expressing a state of languid anticipation in some backcountry dialect. "The old mule, she been obamabiden' out by the barn all week."

Obama/Kaine sounds like the unrefined base crop for a hallucinogenic narcotic. "Under a new agreement with the Peruvian government, the Drug Enforcement Agency will soon begin spraying the obamakaine fields with herbicide."

Obama/Sebelius sounds like a new species of terrifying disease. "Federal authorities have imposed a quarantine on the city of Toledo until it is determined how the Obama-Sebelius strain is transmitted."

Obama/Nunn sounds like an inscrutable expression of frustration, probably coined by Catholic school students. "I dropped it! Oh, bomb a nun!"

Obama/Dodd is something a 10-month old would say. "Baababba oma babadoba obamadod dababa..."

Obama/Reed sounds like the name of an earth-killer comet. "Scientists say there is a 25% chance that Obama-Reed will strike the planet in 2053 with a force greater than the asteroid that ended the dinosaurs."

And Obama/Clinton? That sounds like the clinical name for a psychological condition characterized by unrelenting struggle between two strong personalities, resulting in the patient's inability to accomplish anything at all. "The four years I had untreated Obama-Clinton were the most confusing and traumatic of my life."

precursors

I realized today which election the present one most resembles. Not the ones the candidates (and media) would like. Obama, of course, aspires to be Kennedy: young, hip, demographically historic, and unimaginably popular. McCain protrays himself as Reagan - old only in an experienced, reliable way, and a sunny Conservative you can feel good about. But these are superficial comparisons that miss the importance of the relationship between opposed candidates.

I think there is a more revealing analogy between the 2008 election and the 1952 election. The country is/was wobbling, about a decade after suffering a major attack at home, now trapped in a grinding distant foreign war apparently unrelated to the original fight, tired of the policies and practices of the long-dominant outgoing administration.

Barack Obama is Adlai Stevenson. Professorial, worldly, just slightly effete. A liberal internationalist concerned to wrap American power in diplomatic respectability. Incredibly intelligent, probably a bit naive. Perceived as stronger on domestic affairs than in confronting international threats. Deeply rooted in urban Chicago politics.

John McCain is Dwight Eisenhower. Famous for his military service and perceived as most prepared to confront hostile foreign threats. Older, more folksy, with a reputation for plain dealing. Smart, but by no means an intellectual. A bit removed from changing social mores, but uncomfortable with the reactionary wing of his party.

These observations extend, I think, to a further point. Like Stevenson and Eisenhower, both McCain and Obama are fundamentally decent, competent people. Unlike a range of 1950s and 2000s politicians (Johnson, Nixon, Mitt Romney, John Edwards) none of these seem to be hyper-mercenary narcissists bent irrevocably on the acquisition of power. My overall point, I suppose, is that 2008, like 1952 - and unlike 2000 or 1968 - is ultimately a safe election. Neither of the candidates is likely to be a disastrous president.

One thing's for certain. The results of 1952 do not map predictively onto 2008. Stevenson was decisively and absolutely crushed by Eisenhower, winning only 18% of Electoral College votes. He carried only the southern states, in those days before Johnson's singular bravery and Nixon's repulsive calculation turned the white-dominated south into unchallenged Republican territory. Stevenson ran against Eisenhower again in 1956, losing by an even broader margin. He wanted to try a third time in 1960 (now facing Eisenhower's veep Nixon), but was blocked by a conspiracy of panicked Party elders, his declining health, and the mischief of the Kennedy clan.

The factors behind Stevenson's aysmal performance were plainly unique to those years. The public had simply grown bored with 20 years of Roosevelt/Truman Democratic dominance. And for all the genuine strength of character shown in McCain's years of POW captivity, that is plainly not the same thing as being Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the slayer of Hitler. If McCain does win this election, it will be by a very narrow margin.

Still, the Stevenson/Obama parallel remains helpful. I can see in Obama some of the same traits that make Stevenson one of my personal political heroes: the lively intelligence, the urgent desire to lead America to a more modest and viable position in the international system. And I also see some of the same traits that made Stevenson unpalatable to most Americans: the unmistakable whiff of elitism, the sense that underneath the global celebrity lurks a peevish egghead. Those Stevensonian traits may yet bring Obama defeat.

It's 3am. Do you know where your demagogue is?

One bad thing about being in Paris: I'm six hours ahead of EST, so I'll be asleep by the time today's primary results come in. I have to wait until tomorrow morning to find out who won!

But, still, it's a fascinating day. According to Bill Clinton, Hillary is out unless she wins both Ohio and Texas. According to other Clinton campaign surrogates, Obama is out unless he wins all four states (Rhode Island and Vermont are also voting). The Clinton campaign appears to have decided that the best way to win the expectations game is to expect absolutely every possible state of affairs to transpire, simultaneously. Soon we'll hear Howard Wolfson declaring that Obama can only win if Grover Cleveland wins the Pennsylvania primary. (At which point, of course, Cleveland will win the Pennsylvania primary, but the Clintons will sue to block the results on the grounds that his geographic last name gave him an unfair advantage.)

At this point, it seems unlikely that Clinton will drop out, unless she loses both Ohio and Texas by wide margins. Personally, my patience for her has begun to run out. I started off the year unsure of my vote, then I somewhat reluctantly voted for Obama. Now I'm confident I made the right choice. Honestly, the decisive evidence for me is below.

Bush/Cheney 2004 ad



Clinton 2008 ad

delegating responsibility

Evidently Hillary Clinton will now insist that the Michigan and Florida delegates be seated to vote at the Democratic convention. She needs their votes, as they are big states, and she won both by large margins.

The problem is that the party decided long ago - with the agreement of all the candidates, including Clinton - not to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida, because these states violated rules governing the timing of primaries. Officials in Michigan and Florida were warned not to hold their primaries before February 5, but they went ahead anyway. (These rules were in place to stop the primary season from drifting inexorably earlier - without them, we might have had Iowa and New Hampshire before Christmas.) As punishment, the party took away all their delegates, and got the candidates (except Dennis Kucinich) to agree not to campaign in the states.

In Michigan, Clinton was the only major candidate whose name even appeared on the ballot (Edwards and Obama had theirs removed). She won 55% of the vote. In Florida, she flirted with campaigning, despite her pledge not to. She beat Obama by 17% there. Now she wants the Michigan and Florida delegates to be allowed into the convention after all. Michigan would have 128 delegates and Florida 185 delegates. Large majorities of each would be assigned to Clinton (Obama, whose name was not on the ballot in Michigan, would receive none at all from that state). This may be enough to tip the delegate count in Clinton's favor, despite Obama's current lead.

Here's what I'll say. If Obama continues to hold the delegate lead, and if Clinton ultimately secures the nomination by getting the Michigan and Florida delegates seated, then I will not vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election. Claiming the delegates from illegitimate elections - elections with only one candidate on the ballot, or in which voters had every reason not to vote - is a shameless abuse of democracy. If the Clinton campaign is willing to do this to win, then I do not want them in the White House.

I agree that the Michigan and Florida delegates should have been counted. But once all of the candidates agreed to these rules and the elections were run, it stopped being appropriate to fiddle with the process. If Clinton wants the delegates from Michigan and Florida to count, she should encourage these states to run their primaries (or caucuses) again, now that the Feb 5 rule has passed. Of course, it's extremely unlikely that she would do quite so well again in both states. But it's about the principle, right?

it happened at the South Carolina debate

It is not widely known that CNN recorded an additional segment to Monday evening’s South Carolina Democratic debate. For alleged national security reasons, this segment was never aired. Below is the transcript.

Joe JOHNS: Welcome back to the CNN South Carolina Democratic debate. This is the 47th Democratic debate this year, and the last before next week’s first Iowa debate among the 2012 candidates. We remind the candidates on the stage here that they will have only 30 seconds to respond to each question, and that this limit will be strictly enforced. If a candidate exceeds his or her time, we will call that candidate’s mother and tell her not to let the candidate have any dessert. We would like to take a moment to stress this matter to Governor Bill Richardson, whom we understand remains in the auditorium of our December New Hampshire debate, answering a question about Iran. Governor, your family misses you.

Wolf BLITZER: Senator Clinton, lately you’ve been criticized for suggesting that the work of Martin Luther King Jr. would have been less effective without the efforts of Lyndon Johnson. In comparing yourself to Johnson, did you intend to diminish the importance of King’s legacy?

Hillary CLINTON: Of course not Wolf! But we all need to understand that having an inspiring message is not enough for social change. We must have effective, experienced leadership as well. Think about Jesus Christ. Yes, he had an inspiring message, but what good would that have done without the reaction of the Roman authorities to make him a martyr? If Pontius Pilate had not ordered him crucified, many fewer people would have learned about his message.

BLITZER: Senator Clinton, I’m not sure I understand. Are you comparing yourself to Pontius Pilate, and Senator Obama to Jesus Christ?

CLINTON: Yes Wolf, I am. I have the experience necessary to lead our country. Americans wants as a president someone who knows how to deal with insurrection, not someone they’d have as a drinking buddy, or their personal savior.

JOHNS: Senator Obama, how do you respond?

Barack OBAMA: Well, I think that the Aramaic community will not appreciate Senator Clinton’s slurring Christ’s legacy. But I think we should use a different historical analogy. I think I am more like Ronald Reagan, and Hillary is more like the Soviet Union. Or perhaps I’m Ronald Reagan and Hillary is economic recession. Or I’m Reagan and Hillary is the environment. You know what I mean, right Democrats? Ronald Reagan is awesome!

BLITZER: Senator Obama, your critics allege that your use of racial identity in this campaign may be destructive to the Democratic Party. Do you think that your recent attacks on Senator Clinton regarding her statements on race will be alienating to white or Latino votes?

OBAMA: No, Wolf, because America understands that I am just like everyone. You see, Wolf, my mother is from Kansas and my father is from Kenya. I grew up in Indonesia. Not only that, I make really good enchiladas. You can ask my wife! In college, I went to two sessions of an Arabic class before dropping it. I once shook hands with Jackie Chan. In fact, my advisors have determined that the only ethnic group to which I have no connection is Indian, so next week a team of scientists will insert DNA extracted from a man named Sundarshan Devaraja into my genetic code. You see, Wolf, Americans support me because I embody the unity of America.

CLINTON: Look Wolf, this is why you can’t trust Senator Obama! I have here in my hands a paper Senator Obama wrote in 1st grade, saying that he hates Jackie Chan movies!

OBAMA: Oh, wait, Wolf, I forgot one. You’re all invited to my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah next week!

JOHNS: Senator Edwards, I’ve just noticed that you’re on the stage for some reason. In our first debate, you were hiding in a thicket of white men. Now you’re the only one remaining. What do you have to say for yourself?

John EDWARDS: You see Joe, there are two Americas. And I’m here to represent both of those Americas. I represent the America that has no health insurance, and the America that spends $400 on haircuts. I represent the America that loses its home to foreclosure, and the America that invests in the hedge funds owning those foreclosed mortgages. I represent the America that cannot feed its children, and the America that can take 6 years off of work to run for president. I represent Americans, because I am America – both of its faces.

JOHNS: Thank you Senator Edwards, that was very moving.

EDWARDS: Thanks, Joe. See you in Iowa next week.

BLITZER: Senator Clinton, our next question comes from a viewer, and will be read by CNN’s own Suzanne Malveaux. Suzanne?

Suzanne MALVEAUX: This email is from Edith Crubblenocker of East Mildew, New Jersey. She writes: ‘Every time I see Hillary Clinton on television, I am so disgusted that I projectively vomit up to seven feet. When I hear her voice, scabs break out on my lower legs and ooze greenish pus onto the floor. I once came within a mile of a campaign appearance, and afterwards I had diarrhea continuously for four days. I am an undecided voter, but I will probably not vote for Hillary Clinton.’ Senator Clinton, what do you say to voters who find you nauseating?

CLINTON; Well, Suzanne, that hurts my feelings. (laughs) But I think that when Americans go out to vote, they’ll vote for the candidate who has the most experience and leadership potential. And my campaign staff will be on hand with barf bags and ear plugs for any voter who needs assistance.

OBAMA: Oh, Hillary, I think that you’re sanitary enough. (smirks and laughs)

JOHNS: Now that we’ve covered the important identity politics, let’s turn to some substantive issues. Senator Obama, if you were an animal, what kind of animal would –

(a loud crash interrupts. A man comes stumbling onto the stage, wearing boxer shorts, a cape, and half of a goalie mask.)

CLINTON: It’s the Phantom of the South Carolina Democratic debate!

OBAMA: No, it’s Dennis Kucinich!

EDWARDS: See Joe, this is the type of bickering America doesn’t need. ‘Oh it’s the Phantom!’ ‘No, it’s Dennis Kucinich!’ How many American children are going unfed while we stander here arguing about this? You see, Joe, as the son of a mill-worker, I–

(Kucinich clubs Edwards with a shillelagh. Edwards crumples to the floor.)

Dennis KUCINICH: Hee hee hee! Hah hah hah! You thought you could keep me out of the debates, did you? But no! I’m here to spread the message of love. America needs love! And Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups! (begins prowling erratically around the stage, muttering to self)

CLINTON: You see, Wolf, under Barack’s health care plan, without universal coverage, John wouldn’t be able to get medical attention for that shillelagh wound.

KUCINICH: … end George Bush’s war …

OBAMA: That’s not true Wolf! Hillary knows very well that my plan has full coverage for all injuries incurred from staves or staff-like implements. But you should ask her about her plan’s exceptions for go-cart accidents!

KUCINICH: … wind power by 2016 …

BLITZER: I think we should return to the substantive issues that Americans really care about. Senator Clinton, boxers or –

(a crashing sound from above. The ceiling is torn open, and an enormous metallic saucer descends into the auditorium, lights flashing along its exterior.)

KUCINICH: I told you! Now you see! I feel a sense of enormous peace washing over this place. There will be love, America! There will be love.

(a circle on the hovering craft opens, emitting a beam of light that surrounds Kucinich. The beam then disappears, along with Kucinich. The metallic craft disappears upward at amazing speed.)

JOHNS: I’m sorry, candidates, but we’re out of time. Next on CNN, Larry King will interview Lynne Spears to ask how she feels about becoming a grandma! Stay tuned to CNN, the most trusted name in news.