Diff'rent strokes

GWS's annual trip to his birth lands---the frozen tundra of Minneapolis and St. Paul---has flown by. Along with the vicious return of his native Minnesotan accent, GWS was struck dumb by the sheer niceness of Minnesotans.

Following the Minnesota Vikings' playoff-clinching victory over the New York Giants' JV squad, GWS and a long-time friend found themselves on a quick run to pick up buffalo wings. The manager asked if he'd gotten our order right: 30 wings, three sides of bleu cheese and two of ranch. Friend-of-GWS replied that, yes, that sounded about right. The manager asks, "That gonna be enough bleu cheese and ranch for ya?"

Har har har, wise guy, shaddup and put the wings in the bag, thought GWS. But the manager was serious. As if to assuage any fears about his meaning, the manager then offered the following: "Hey, you guys want any pizza? I've gotta throw these three out every half-hour, and I hate doin' it, so you guys can just have 'em if ya want." Seriously? Seriously??? Free pizza and guileless concern for one's fellow man? Perhaps GWS has spent too much time on the jaded East Coast, but this sort of generosity came as a pleasant and delicious surprise.

Ah, Minnesota: where the temperatures are sub-zero everywhere except in our Scandinavian hearts.

Why do we blame unions for the current auto crisis?

GWS loves 10am because it means he gets to see his boyfriend, Tom Ashbrook. On Point is a beautiful thing for the reasons as most NPR shows: intelligent discussion, hard news, and an articulate host who rarely parrots interested parties' sound bites. But GWS is curious about part of the lead-in to today's show. Discussing the auto bailout bill's Senate failure, the script read, "Senate Republicans wouldn't budge, unions wouldn't budge," and GWS couldn't hide his surprise about NPR buying into the unions-are-killing-Detroit meme.

Of the players in this mess---automakers, consumers, regulators, unions---the unions were the only ones who acted in the long-term best interest of their constituents. The unions, in particular the UAW, have been getting a bad rap about their inflexibility and their exorbitant compensation. The Times's David Leonhardt blew this argument out of the water three days ago, but the myth of the greedy or stubborn unions persists.

The UAW has already made major concessions this year and in previous years. GWS has a hard time believing that union auto workers are rich or greedy or so stupid that they can't see what's in their own best interest. Yes, if the unions would just take another one for the team, we might be able to keep the Big Three going. But as Leonhardt points out in his Times piece, Detroit's problems really don't have much to do with the need for cost reductions. GM, Chrysler, and Ford's biggest problems are that no one wants to buy their cars anymore. And there's another, better reason why the UAW was right to stand firm.

The largest cost-reduction option available to the UAW---that is, the biggest favor the unions could do the automakers out of the goodness of their collective hearts---is obvious: abandon claims on retirees' health benefits. The cost of those benefits to automakers is astronomical, in part because they created so many retirees and in part because healthcare costs have skyrocketed. But the UAW gained those long-term health benefits for their employees by compromising on salaries for decades, in turn giving management what it wanted in the form of higher short-term profits. For decades, the UAW came to the bargaining table knowing that it would have to concede on either retiree benefits or current employee benefits in the form of salaries, and the UAW chose wisely. They refused to sell out their constituents long-term interests and faced up to painful economic realities. Fine, the unions said, we understand the Japanese and Europeans are beating us up and down the field, you can pay us less if you need to, but we're only willing to take that pay cut in exchange for long-term health benefits. Detroit was given the option of paying its workers now or later, and the management of GM, Ford, and Chrysler chose to pay later. Those long-term benefits have sheltered UAW's retirees in what would have otherwise been a devastating storm. If the Big Three's aging retirees were to suddenly lose their private health insurance, we would see increases in the Medicare or uninsured rolls; if events reach that point, this crisis will have morphed from an economic meltdown to a serious public health issue. Why is the only actor in this tragedy who thought and acted strategically in its constituents' best interest being punished for its foresight? If capitalism requires failure for poor decisions, isn't it also supposed to reward wise decisions?

Then again, maybe those workers should have gone to the Honda plant down the road...

Bill Kristol Alzheimer's Update

Poor Bill...he's really starting to lose it. In today's NYT, Kristol is just following his knee as it jerks him along. Four paragraphs in, he drops this little gem:

"Five Republicans have won the presidency since 1932: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. Only Reagan was even close to being a small-government conservative."

Remember when Kristol used to adore Reagan? He doesn't even remember The Gipper anymore... Later in the same piece:

"Now it’s true that the size of the government and the modern liberal agenda are connected."

Really! "THE" modern liberal agenda? I had no idea such a document existed. This qualifies less as memory loss and more as delusion. Finally:

"You might then suggest spending a good chunk of the stimulus on national security — directing dollars to much-needed and underfunded defense procurement rather than to fanciful green technologies, making sure funds are available for the needed expansion of the Army and Marines before rushing to create make-work civilian jobs."

"Underfunded defense procurment." It's so sad---when the higher functions go, they go fast. You'll note that Bill doesn't name any program that's receiving insufficient funds, but GWS isn't sure if Bill has forgotten how much money we've spent as a result of Don Rumsfeld's "Revolution in Military Affairs" or if he really believes this. Either way...so very sad...

EconoSpeak notes Kristol's blatant war-mongering, which may be another effect of Alzheimer's, but one thing's for sure: he's just not the Bill we once knew. So sad that he thinks Reagan qualified as anything approaching a "small-government conservative." And I'm sure he didn't mean to channel Montgomery Burns by mocking "make-work civilian jobs" alongside building new schools...though his belief that the military can pull us back into economic growth is positively Prussian, and old Monty would certainly support that ("[Oskar] Schindler and I are like peas in a pod. We're both industrialists. We both made shells for the Nazis. But mine worked, dammit!"). But oh, Bill, we're so sorry that this has to be so public for you. You're so brave, writing and speaking in public despite this awful disease, this terrible existential joke that no just god could ever create.

As always, GWS should point out that he has no formal medical training. GWS arrives at his diagnosis of Mr. Kristol's condition via GWS's steadfast belief that no human being of sound mind and body could ever possibly be such a dick as Kristol's writing might otherwise suggest. Please, in this season of giving, let's all chip in and put Bill in a nice home, someplace upstate where he can run free...

Well-snarked!

David Pogue strikes! Fantastic title. Snark snark snark snark snark!

The funniest actress on television

The fairer sex is enjoying a rare moment of dominance atop the world of comedy. Well, maybe not dominance: comedy is still dominated by skinny, pasty white males and is likely to stay that way so long as cracking wise yields greater sexual returns than sitting-, pulling-, and pushing-up. But GWS digresses. Since Amy Poehler's baby came along, there's no clear answer as to who's the best comedic actress on television right now. GWS takes a look at some of the candidates you might expect, but DBMIVFK's choice may surprise some.

THE ALSO-RANS...

Tina Fey: The multi-Emmy-winning Fey is the reigning empress of mainstream comedy. After her well-publicized turn at "Saturday Night Live," she wrote the smart and funny Mean Girls, which should be remembered as both a great comedy and the height of The Lohan's pulchritude. She's since been toiling in critically-acclaimed-but-unwatched no-man's-land as the driving force behind "30 Rock." Throw in some American Express commercials, add some broth and potatoes...baby, you got a stew goin'.

Fey doesn't get our award for a number of reasons.

• First and foremost, GWS is not as big a fan of Fey or her work as everyone else on the planet seems to be. Her work at "SNL" was nothing special, and GWS thought that while the skits were funny, they lacked teeth. This shift at "SNL" to sillier humor coincided with "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report"'s collective ascent to the throne of political satire, a position once held by "SNL" and a former source of some of its best work. It's arguable that Fey was simply being smart and playing to her strengths, getting "SNL" out of the way of Comedy Central's satrirical juggernauts, and if this is the case, Fey should be commended for her good business sense. But if we assume this is the case and give her credit as a businesswoman, we must then recognize what she recognized: that Fey and her team at "SNL" couldn't compete on satire in a 24-hour news-cycle world.
  
• Secondly, Fey has always written better for herself than for others. That's not a knock, that's just a statement of fact. Go back and watch the tape. Aside from Alec Baldwin's consistently scene-stealing performance as Jack Donaghy, Fey's characters seem to get a disproportionately high percentage of her pieces' best lines. Fey writes wonderful work for herself and admittedly great work for others (Kenneth had some great lines in last week's "30 Rock"), but this trend leaves GWS with questions.
• Thirdly, have you noticed that the first two points were about Fey's work as a writer? Me too. Fey is, fundamentally, a writer and show-runner. It's what she knows, it's her profession, and it's what she does better than 99.9% of the rest of the planet. But she's not really an actress. Here is where the unfair slight that "Fey gets by on her looks," rings somewhat true: a less-attractive actress of similarly limited range and similarly prolific writing and production skills would probably see less screen time. Fey is endearing as Liz Lemon, and girl-you-want-to-take-home-adorable...but she's not a great actress, and that's why she's just a contender.

Sarah Silverman: The writing on "The Sarah Silverman Program" ranks among the least "safe" in all television. As a result, it's hit and miss, but it's mostly hits, and that speaks volumes about Silverman herself as the show's prime mover. Sarah Silverman is almost certainly the funniest female comic working today, and again, her telegenic good looks don't hurt; the jappy caricature through which she delivers most of her lines on and off the show depends on it. But again, we're looking for the funniest actress, not the funniest comedienne or female writer.

• Sarah Silverman never breaks character as Sarah Silverman, an admirable feat for a comedic actress. It's an ingeniously devised persona, but it is so based on her previous "character" in stand-up comedy that it can be difficult to see where the writing starts and the writer stops. Silverman's not really playing a character in the traditional sense---it's not a big stretch for Sarah Silverman to get inside the character of Sarah Silverman.
• Moreover, Silverman's character is remarkably consistent. While this is further testament to her writing and creative skills, it means she has to do less and less as an actress. This is a luxury our winner does not enjoy.
• Finally, Sarah Silverman doesn't win this award for the same reason Tina Fey doesn't. It's not that they're bad actresses. In fact, they're really very, very good. It's just that they're better at other things related to acting. Babe Ruth was a helluva pitcher, but we remember him as a homerun hitter. As Fey will be remembered as a writer, Silverman will likely be remembered as a comic.

Jenna Fischer: The woman behind Pam Beesly gives our champion a serious run for her money, but comes up just short. Fischer's portrayal of the Dunder-Mifflin receptionist deserves the accolades it receives, so here's GWS's reasoning of why she doesn't get the award:

• Of the four main charaters on "The Office," (Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam), Pam's character is the least funny. That's not Fischer's fault, and she deserves credit for staying within her character's role in the show. But it also allows her very few show-stealing moments. If the women on this list are Patriots wide receivers, Fischer is Wes Welker to our champion's Randy Moss: she's an absolutely necessary component of her show, better than just about anyone else out there, and she'll win a game for you if you let her. But Welker's not the game/show-changing presence Moss is, and neither is Fischer compared to our champ.
• Because it's not Pam's job to be her team's "big-play receiver," it's her job to do other things on the show...things that aren't related to comedy. The Pam-Jim romantic subplot on the American "Office" is a major part of how NBC's series has been able to generate four-plus seasons of content where its British predecessor called it quits after two. Fischer's on-screen chemistry with John Krasinski's Jim can't be faked, and if you're not cheering for those two characters to live happily ever after, then you, sir, are an asshole. But, again, that means that Fischer's character is something deeper than just a comedic foil, that she's working with a real character, which means that more comedic heavy-lifting has to be done by other actors (mostly Rainn Wilson).
  
• Jenna Fischer is the only candidate on this list whose looks can't be cited for why she's considered funny (this is not a curse unique to talented female comics and actresses. See also: Cook, Dane). Don't get GWS wrong: Jenna Fischer is a professional film and television actress, and as such, contractually obligated to be way, way prettier than any woman DBMIVFK's male readers or GWS has any right to meet. She's a brilliant casting decision as Pam Beesly: imminently accessible, with the kind of eyes that can stop you across a room, and a megawatt smile. But her frumpy receptionist's outfits tone down her natural good looks, and again, she's limited to a specific, well-defined role on "The Office." Pam can't play the sexpot, the shrew, the out-and-out bitch, and it's a good thing "The Office"'s writers never ask her to do so. Ultimately, Fischer loses this competition on degree of difficulty. She might be the best actress on this list, but she's not the funniest actress on television right now.

Without further ado...

THE FUNNIEST ACTRESS ON TELEVISION IS...

Wait for it...

Kaitlin Olson!: Olson is the unsung star of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," and in GWS's opinion, the best comedic actress on television. Her bio says she was born in Oregon, but GWS is convinced she was custom-milled in a comedienne factory, a top-secret prototype that somehow broke free. Olson's work as Deandra Reynolds on "Always Sunny" consistently steals the show despite the absolute misery inflicted on the actress by the show's writers. A leggy 5'8" blonde, Olson's physique gives her writers options that other women on this list don't. She's the most intimidating of the four women on this list and simultaneously the least cute and sexiest. Simply put, she can do things the other women on this list can't.

"Sweet Dee" is expected, by turns, to be a raging booze hound, a woman scorned, a trod-upon employee, a social degenerate, a cunt, a child, and a loyal friend. Deandra is expected by "Always Sunny"'s writers to swing wildly between the least flattering female comedic stereotypes---the conniving whore, the ditz, the vengeful shrew---and Olson does so seamlessly. She's not working with a real character which makes her ability to make Dee seem relatable all the more remarkable. Dee is merely a foil for the three guys on the show; she's around when the writers have a bit that calls for someone with ovaries. Olson's character never gets her own storyline, she's rarely in an episode's climactic scene, and she never comes out on top. No comedy on television asks more of its female lead than "Always Sunny," and no actress carries more of her show's weight (can YOU think of another female lead who gets waterboarded?). It's inconceivable that such a physically attractive woman would hang out with such losers as Dennis, Charlie, and Mac (to say nothing of Frank), but Olson plays Dee as such a social misfit that it starts to make sense, helping "Always Sunny" avoid the cliched "Why is this hot girl hanging out with these losers?" trap that its writers had set for her. "Always Sunny" would grind to a halt if Olson weren't playing Dee, and the character wouldn't be nearly as funny with anyone else.

GWS sincerely hopes to see more of Olson in the future. Her ascendancy to Amy Poehler's old spot at the zenith of female comedic actresses also means that Rob McElhenney is elevated to Will Arnett's position as luckiest S.O.B. in Hollywood.

Some 21st-century problems require 19th-century solutions

It's been quite a November, hasn't it? GWS's little sister celebrated her first birthday out of college, Barack Obama was elected President, and the pillars of capitalism continue to be shaken by unforeseen tremors from both within and without. Many of the problems we face will require new solutions, and all of them will require sacrifice. But while FDR's legislative and regulatory template may not be a perfect fit for the problems we face today, Thomas Jefferson's interactions with the Barbary pirates may help President-elect Obama navigate the treacherous waters off the horn of Africa.

Try to imagine this scenario: you've been transported back to Selma, Alabama, 1955. There, you tell incredulous citizens that you are from the future where people speak to one another through tiny portable phones, a black man has been elected President, and that President does not face the challenge of mutually assured destruction but rather that of piracy. Good old fashioned, made-from-scratch, take-your-stuff-from-you-at-sea-and-hold-you-for-ransom piracy. I'd give you five seconds before someone inquired if, you, boy, weren't from round heah.

But piracy off the horn of Africa is a serious matter, made all the more so by the capture of Saudi Aramco's supertanker Sirius Star. The reason the capture of the Sirius Star is important is because of what some academics refer to as "signalling," which is a not-so-fancy way of saying that people paid attention to the taking of the giant oil tanker and will extrapolate lessons from this event.

The Sirius Star was captured more than 400 miles out to sea, well beyond what was thought to be the pirates' operational range. Forget the reports detailing the use of "mother ships" (who thought we'd hear that phrase used in conjunction with hard news?) and the Indian navy's recent successes; the important part of this event for anyone with interests off the coast of Africa was the fact that this strike occurred so far afield. As Fareed Zakaria noted on his most recent show, if Somali pirates' operational range is indeed 400+ miles from shore, the world's navies must now protect a staggering 1.1 million square miles of open ocean---a practical impossibility.

Beyond the cruel arithmetic of the current crisis, GWS is surprised by the lack of media coverage on the copycat angle. Pirates are like any other industry: when they see a better business model than the one they're using, they'll change course. So how the world responds to the capture of the Sirius Star becomes very important as a signal of how the international community plans to respond to this problem. It is possible that the capture of the Sirius Star is a one-time event, and the fact that it was attacked so far out to sea suggests that the perpetrators bought high-quality information that may not be readily available to all pirates. But GWS is less than convinced that this incident won't happen again, so the international community's response to this current crisis will act as a powerful signal to Somali pirates and the world of states alike. An ineffectual response will act as an accelerant on a slowly burning fire. Rumors are circulating about pirates making $50,000/year, but even if they're making half that, they're still living like kings in anarchic Somalia. If the world's navies accept pirate control of the waters off the horn of Africa and continue to merely ransom captive sailors, the implications for global trade could be dramatic.

The parallels between the current crisis and the United States' last major engagement with pirates---the Barbary Wars---are few and far between. Barbary piracy was a state-sanctioned form of high seas extortion wheras Somali pirates appear to be motivated by the appeal of a source of income in a shattered state, but there are still some lessons that can be applied.

First of all, the scourge of Barbary piracy was only brought to an end by a concert of nations. The United States was able to force the Dey of Algiers to favorable terms, but it took the brutal British Bombardment of Algiers the following year to bring the recidivist Dey back in line. Lesson: an effective response will require a coordinated and sustained international effort. Secondly, the Barbary pirates success against merchant vessels was not duplicated against the world's navies, neither on land nor at sea. The American navy mostly smashed the Tripolitan and Algerian forces it faced at sea, and the decisive battle of the First Barbary War came when the undisciplined defenders of Dernah fell into a disorganized retreat when faced by a numerically inferior American-led force. Lesson: pirates are not a disciplined fighting force and are likely to flee when faced with one, even when the pirates enjoy superior numbers. Finally, the Bombardment of Algiers may---may---be instructive. "Shock and awe," along with most theories of air power, have been discredited as effective coercive tools when used against a nation-state, but it just might work against loosely organized criminals. Lesson: speak softly, and carry a big Tomahawk cruise missile.

GWS favors a hawkish approach not because it worked hundreds of years ago against the Dey of Algiers, but mostly because it's the only way to send a negative signal to other pirates. GWS advocates a policy whereby the international community treats Somali pirates like William Longshanks treats the Scottish in "Braveheart": lie, cheat, steal, murder, and generally do whatever it takes to subdue these people by force of arms. The (multi)generational issue of Somali development must be considered alongside a military response, but neither the world's markets nor the pirates themselves are working on that long-term timetable. The international community has a major interest in keeping the waters off east Africa pirate-free, and they would do well to offer the pirates no quarter, to make $50,000/year piracy Somalia's most dangerous job (a tall order indeed). This is the only way GWS sees to curb piracy in the short- to medium-term. If GWS were Head Minister of World Naval Policy, he'd pay the pirates whatever they want, tell them whatever they need to hear, promise whatever he needed to ensure the safe release of the innocent sailors of the Sirius Star---and as soon as the crew were clear, send a SEAL team aboard the ship and kill every single pirate.

In the words of Brother Cavil, "We round [them] up, and we execute them. Publicly." Continue this policy of Stab-You-in-the-Back-ism until the pirates adapt and it stops working---then, adapt in response and stab them in the back again. Piracy is antithetical to international order, trade, and the freedom of the seas, and it cannot be tolerated by the world's nations. It is in the best interest of everyone outside a small band of Somali criminals to both rebuild the Somali state and deal swiftly and severely with those who engage in piracy. Somalia's pirates must come to see the seizure of the Sirius Star as an example of hubrisitic overreach, not a viable new business model.

Universal suffrage may need a rethink...

The Minnesota Senate recount is underway, and Minnesota Public Radio has gone completely web 2.0---they're so web 2.0, some experts are actually classifying them as web 3.5, which is the most web anything has ever gotten.

All snarkery aside, MPR has posted several of the state's contested ballots and lets you be the judge. It's worth a look and makes GWS wonder why we let everyone's votes count equally...

Maureen Dowd Inanity Watch

From today's New York Times:

"Some critics say Hillary doesn’t have the foreign-policy chops for the job. But she would stop the pompous John Kerry from getting it, and that is a formidable recommendation. (You know he just wants to swan around in those striped pants.)"

As Fishbulb once put it, "She reads like a sarcastic 6th-grader." Couldn't agree more. Does anyone else get the impression that Dowd was one of the pretty, popular girls in high school, only she wasn't the prettiest and she certainly wasn't the most talented, but she got to sit with them during lunch because she went to middle school with one really pretty girl and the others put up with her because she had a penchant for making nasty, cutting little remarks like the one above?

Hey, have you gotten your invitation to Maureen's birthday party yet? Oh, yeah, that's right, you weren't invited. (Giggle giggle giggle giggle)

Sixteen-year old Japanese schoolgirl kunckleballer selected in Japanese pro draft

Sixteen-year old schoolgirl Eri Yoshida (pictured above) has been selected in the Nippon Professional Baseball draft, making her the first woman on either side of the Pacific to achieve such an honor (no, Ila Borders doesn't count, and anyone who's ever been to a St. Paul Saints game can tell you why).

GWS insists on referring to Yoshida as "schoolgirl" because if the AP can do it, so can he. A quick question: why would the AP refer to a young Japanese woman as a schoolgirl, when Morgan Pressel, Shawn Johnson, and others in Yoshida's age group escape that slightly-degrading appellative? GWS fears the answer lies somewhere between the image above and the deeply repressed sexual urges of Japanese men, and he bases these fears on absolutely nothing.

Yoshida throws her knuckler with a sidearm delivery, topping out around 80km/h (that's just under 50 mph for those of us who think the metric system is for sissies), so she's unlikely to make the jump to MLB anytime soon. Still, NPB seems to think she's got good enough stuff to be more than just a novelty draw.

Yoshida will mature like any other ballplayer, growing bigger, faster, and stronger than she was before. PECOTA projects her as a #4 or 5 starter who's probably better suited to the bullpen; strangely, PECOTA also predicted that when Yoshida reaches her prime, her appearances on the mound will look something like this.

Mission Not Yet Accomplished

Fire Joe Morgan has gone dark, and GWS has to point out that this is not the attitude that won us World War II. Joe Morgan remains employed by ESPN, so GWS hopes "Ken Tremendous" (a.k.a. The Office writer Michael Schur...yeah, the guy who plays Mose) can use his new job offset the damage done by the shuttering of the best sports journalism criticism around. He's co-show-runner for the new Office spinoff.

Morning Misogyny

GWS and Fishbulb are listening to Tom Ashbrooke on NPR right now...his female guest is talking about the late Michael Crichton. Tom says, "You've...I understand you've lost a friend recently..." The woman says, yeah, Michael Crichton and she were very close:

Tom: "What was he like as a person?"
Woman: "Well ...he was, he was very charming."

Fishbulb to GWS: "She was sleeping with him."

Fishbulb strikes! The sad thing is, GWS is pretty sure that Fishbulb is right in the majority of situations. So, dear readers, what are your thoughts: if a woman describes a recently deceased man as "charming," does that mean she is or had been sleeping with the man? GWS is hard-pressed to find examples otherwise...

Fingers crossed

GWS just finished the Foreign Service Officer Test at Bunker Hill Community College. This written exam is the first step toward becoming a member of the American Foreign Service, the professional diplomatic corps that manages the country's foreign relations. The test consisted of four parts: job knowledge, English expression, personal questionnaire, and essay.

Job knowledge: a wide range of questions about American culture, policy, history, and government. GWS thought he did well on this section. A question to readers: a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of declining nominal GDP, not real GDP, right?

Engrish: this portion of the exam tested GWS's ability to speak his native tongue. If he doesn't do well on this section, GWS will be most displeased.

Can I ask you a personal question?: strangest section of the test by far. Questions ranged from, "How likely are you to try to learn new things?" to "How often do others turn to you to resolve a conflict?" to "In the past six months, how many times have you volunteered for an unpleasant task?" GWS is unsure how the Foreign Service accounts for self-reporting on these metrics...

Essay: the most difficult section for GWS. The prompt was about American automobile use, specifically if and how government policies needed to change regarding private use of cars for transportation. Time was limited, and GWS wrote a tacked-on conclusion...

Keep those fingers crossed---in eight to ten weeks, GWS will know if he's dead in the water or still a candidate for America's diplomatic corps.

Our Long National Nightmare is Over!

Eight years later, George W. Bush is headed back to Texas and Barack Obama is set to become the 44th President of the United States.

Pinch me.

The worst presidency in the history of the republic---and it will be remembered as the worst presidency ever, mark my words---has left us in several incredibly deep holes. The Obama administration will be lucky to get us back to treading water in his first term, but That One also represents this country's last, best shot.

Now the work begins.

Electoral betting update: GWS is expecting a check from his high school friend in light of Obama's crushing victory.

Minnesota Senate update: Less than 700 votes! So close! Screw you, Dean Barkley! Let's go, Franken, don't let Normy the Golden Boy go back for another six years.

Nervous?

You just don't say the word "no-hitter" while one's going on...

But polls start to close in a couple hours marking the end of the Bush era, which has dominated GWS's fragile political conscience. The long national nightmare---two unresolved wars, a massive fiscal crisis combined with constrained monetary policy options, Hurricane Katrina, No Child Left Behind, judicial appointments, Justice Department firings, Abramoff, Mark Foley, North Korea getting nukes, indifference to Darfur, privatizing Social Security, and the rise of Sith Lord Cheney---the long national nightmare that has defined GWS's political life since three days after he turned 18 is finally, mercifully coming to a close.

Electoral fun: GWS has made a bet with a friend from high school. If Obama wins, GWS wins $50 bucks; if McCain wins, friend of GWS gets $50. Straight up, no over-under, no line. GWS likes these odds.

Keep those fingers crossed, and go Obama.

Is Farhad Manjoo working for News Corp. on the sly?

That's the only explanation GWS can come up with after reading this garbage in Slate.

Manjoo argues that since times are getting tough, internet companies like Facebook should revert to a "neighborhood Italian restaurant" business model, which is sort of a weird recommendation, because have you ever tried the breadsticks they serve at Facebook? Neither have I, and that's part of why this is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard.

Let me get this straight: Manjoo and I are both working from the assumption that our current economic tailspin and the death of free credit mean that there's going to be a shakeout in just about every industry. Manjoo recommendation for keeping Facebook afloat, then, is to charge people for what they've always expected was free. Tell me, John Q. Consumer, do you typically enjoy paying for things that you'd come to expect as free? What if those now-charged-for items weren't, say, food, water, or shelter? That is, if your landlord changed the terms of your lease and made you start paying for heat and hot water, would you pony up the extra cash? Probably, yeah. Now, what if your landlord started charging your $5 a month to look at your friends' drunken party photos? Would you still be willing to pay?

Two larger thoughts before GWS is done with this rant.

1. GWS used to work for a market research firm, one that's struggling to keep its head above water. During the downturn earlier this year, a company-wide "suggestion box" was sent around, and the results were later sent to all employees. Most employees, particularly those in sales and the firm's more proftiable researchers, argued that the company's price points should be lowered to encourage a greater number of transactions. The lone voice of dissent on this opinion came from our PR rep, who argued that increasing what each client paid by only a little bit would really help the company's bottom line. In Microeconomics 101, this works beautifully---just move the lines so that the price point is higher and poof!, profits. In reality, counterparties see a move like that and say, "Hmmm, I wonder what more I'm getting in return for this extra money." When they see that the answer is "Nothing," they become displeased. Then they take their money elsewhere.

GWS didn't expect his PR rep to understand this; from her position in the company, she had no good reason to understand that most clients were already saying our services were overpriced. But GWS can't cut Manjoo the same slack. Ignorance can't be considered an excuse here.

2. At Mobile Internet World in Boston last year, GWS had the opportunity to listen to Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who basically invented teh t00bz while working at CERN in the 1980s and 90s. Among Berners-Lee's more memorable points was his emphasis that the internet was never intended to generate wealth; it's intended to share information, not make money, and that's just that. To Berners-Lee, the fact that some people have found a way to make money from internet-based businesses is admirable, but it flies in the face of the purpose of the system. Here's to hoping Zuckerberg & Co. heed Berners-Lee's advice.

Paralysis by analysis

Robert Kaplan has a new piece online at The Atlantic, one of GWS's favorite non-snark repositories. Kaplan offers something of a mea culpa for his support of America's invasion of Iraq, and while GWS normally admires Kaplan's realist-minded work, he's struck by...well, all of this drivel. If Kaplan wants to get some painful emotions off his chest, he should buy a diary.

Regarding the costs of Iraq, Kaplan seems unwilling to take the bull by the horns. He offers an apology and a veiled bit of shoe-gazing about how he and his fellow hawks failed to understand how difficult it might be to remake Iraq in Athens's image. But it's unconvincing, and as the piece progresses, Kaplan offers up what can only be described as a) cognitive dissonance, or b) a creaky arithmetic facility.

Talking about the human and financial costs of the war in Iraq, Kaplan says "To coldly state, without qualifiers, that these costs have been a price worth paying is to reduce foreign policy to the realm of inhuman abstraction. In any case, I don’t believe anyone making such a claim could pass a polygraph test." GWS concurs.

Six paragraphs later, however, Kaplan hints that he himself might fail such a polygraph: "Most fundamentally, does Iraq meet the parents’ test? Can you look parents in the eye and tell them it was worth losing their son or daughter over? As awful as it sounds, quantity matters here, for it says much about the scope of violence that is unleashed for the sake of a higher good." Wait...in the final analysis, the only cost we have to consider is if we could tell a parent in good conscience that his/her son/daughter's sacrifice was worth it? The bar we have to clear has been reduced to stone-jawed stoicism? Ah, that must be it: the key to victory, then, is to send people without consciences to grieving parents' doors! Surely there must be someone in Washington devoid enough of human feeling to carry out this critical act of belatedly justifying an open-ended invasion to the nation. Why didn't GWS think of that?

Kaplan makes an attempt to return to realism, drawing a distinction between a war with 500 combat deaths as opposed to a war with 4,000+ combat deaths, but GWS has to assume Kaplan was on deadline because no serious-minded individual would ever say something like this. Is there something important about the 8-to-1 ratio Kaplan invokes? Is there something trivial about 500 sets of grieving parents? Would 1,000 sets of parents warrant a moment of reflection from policy-makers, or would those 1,000 parents do well to find 3,000 other families with whom they can unionize? More to the point, Mr. Kaplan, weren't you just asking us to ground our foreign policy analysis in something other than "the realm of inhuman abstractions?"

Wouldn't it have just been easier to say, "On the single greatest foreign policy issue of my time, I was dead wrong"? History's going to say it for you eventually, so why not beat it to the punch?

I could get paid for this?

GWS is as surprised as you are...

Your favorite snarketeer might be off to the horribly low-paying world of professional blogging. Details to follow.

The last throes of a few dead-enders?

By now, we've all heard Rep. Michelle Bachmann's comments about Barack Obama and the Congress's crypto-anti-Americanism.

One of the under-appreciated casualties of the War on Terror is some really fun verbiage, as a certain governatrix might put it. Take "last throes" or "a few dead-enders." GWS thinks that, put together, the two might have some serious heft. As in:

Representative Bachmann's wholesale questioning of her Congressional colleagues' personal motivations evoked troubling echoes of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Her attempts to dissociate herself from her statements are not only deeply cynical but also intellectually incoherent. Her views on government---as expressed in her interview with Mr. Matthews and in her time in Washington---are both wrongheaded and potentially destructive; her insular worldview seems to have fed an irrational paranoia the likes of which this country has not taken seriously since the 1960s. It is my sincere hope that Ms. Bachmann's comments lead to her own and like-minded colleagues' electoral defeat this November because that will allow Americans to confidently and correctly claim that Miss Bachmann's naked attempt to smear Sen. Obama was proven to be nothing more than the last throes of a few dead-enders.

Not bad, right?

GWS grew up near Bachmann's Sixth District in Minnesota, so he hopes with all his snarky little heart that the good people of Woodbury, Blaine, Andover, and St. Cloud come to their senses and show Bachmann the door. Besides, GWS can't believe he'd be the only one who'd snicker every time Congressman Elwyn Tinklenberg's name gets mentioned, and everyone could use a good larf.

Tonight we dine in hell

Jon Lester. Game 7. Getcha popcorn ready.

If Francona can get it through his head that he needs to put up four fingers every time Bossman Junior Upton comes to the plate, we just might pull this off.

SOX WIN, SOX WIN!

God I love you, Nancy.

Now THAT's the Tampa bullpen GWS remembers...

The curious syntax of Chip Caray

The TBS broadcast team this postseason has been a bit harsh on the ears. A quick list:

-"Fisted" Anything hit on the inside half of the plate is described by Chip Caray as "fisted." Not only does this improperly describe most situations, but it's just unspeakably awkward when you're a) watching the game in mixed company, and/or b) halfway through a 12-pack of Newcastle.

-"David OR-teez" Buck Martinez insists on mangling the struggling Red Sox slugger's apellido. If he's going for a faux-Spanish accent, shouldn't it be "Dah-VEED OR-teez"?

-"There's a drive" Nine times out of ten, when Chip Caray says the hitter's just hit "a drive," he has either lifted a lazy fly to center or hit a single to his pull-side. GWS is left to conclude that Caray would make an awful outfielder because he clearly can't read the ball off the bat.

-FrankTV Insufferable. Not part of the broadcast team, but stilll...

-"Caballito, the little pony" As Boston Sports Media Watch has pointed out, both Martinez and Caray seem to think that Dustin Pedroia is known as "the little pony" to locals.

-Ron Darling sounding like he's out of breath Darling has a way of sounding like he's pushing out air at the ends of words. It leads to a halting rhythm and emphasizing the wrong syllables.

-"Probably dreamed of, playing wiffleball a couple times, hittin' one over the Green Monster!" Ron Darling just said this about Rocco Baldelli's 8th inning backbreaker. Objection: hearsay and conjecture. Sustained.

Breaking medical news!

Bill...he has good days, and he has bad days...

GWS is sad to report that New York Times token neo-con William Kristol is suffering from Alzheimer's. Though GWS does not have access to Kristol's medical record, the evidence is overwhelming.

It's always bittersweet to see someone lose grasp of their analytical faculties. GWS is forced to conclude that Bill just didn't remember writing "The Wright Stuff" a week before he wrote "Fire the Campaign," because there's just no way he could possibly believe what he wrote in both articles.

I mean, how could anyone be so slimy as to advocate "taking off the gloves" one week, and then only seven days later turn on his heels and say John McCain should stop all negative campaigning and run a high-minded race from now until November? They couldn't, which is why GWS is so terribly saddened that we're losing one of the right's (purported) intellectual giants.

Maureen Dowd is insufferable

Maureen Dowd's op-ed in today's Times makes GWS want to vomit.

Running half your article in Latin...brilliant, Maureen, brilliant. Blogger Ablative Absolute thinks this is a good thing and offers "credit where it's due" because he thinks Dowd wrote the Latin. GWS is puzzled, because Dowd explicitly says that Gary Farney of Rutgers was responsible for the translation, but Ablative Absolute is to be commended for at least trying to translate Dowd's work.

Take a look at Ablative Absolute's translation---there are some spots where GWS thinks he's missing Dowd's or Farney's intent. But more importantly, the Dowd-produced content is vapid. GWS thinks his love-hate relationship with Dowd might have just tipped permanently toward hate.

"You got the wrong guy"

GWS just got back from canvassing for That One outside Derry, NH. It was a beautiful day, with the treetops exploding into reds, yellows, and oranges and not a cloud in the sky, but GWS was struck by some of the conversations he had with undecided voters.

Derry is a somewhat conservative part of the state, a fact made obvious by the number and size of McCain-Palin yard signs. While a good number of voters didn't want to be bothered by politics on an otherwise lovely Saturday, many undecideds and even people leaning one way or another seemed eager to speak with GWS and his fellow campaigners. The McCain backers, however, were uniformly uninterested in talking---not noteworthy in itself, but the uniformity of their responses struck this canvasser.

TIme after time, McCain backers would only respond, "You've got the wrong guy," and go back to whatever they were doing. That was all. No "I'm voting for McCain." We were merely told that we had the wrong guy and from that, we were to deduce that the person intended to vote for McCain.

GWS will leave it to his reader(s) to decide what this means. GWS has his own theories---lack of intellectual openness, resignation to an Obama victory in November, maybe GWS and his fellow canvassers smelled funny---but it's worth pointing out that the great mass of voters seemed willing to speak about public policy and the challenges facing this country while McCain's backers seemed content merely to keep to themselves.

So we're going to bomb Laos again?

History hasn't been too kind to Richard Milhous Nixon. Then again, why should it be? Nixon's administrations now get their due respect in the realm of foreign affairs, but when it came to contempt for one's fellow citizens, Nixon reigned supreme.

But he did get something of a bum rap from the press in 1968: he never explicitly said that he has a secret plan to win Vietnam, he merely said that he couldn't reveal his plan because it would complicate peace talks in Paris. Moreover, the talk of a "secret plan" originated not with Nixon himself but rather with a voter at a New Hampshire campaign stop, but that didn't mean that Nixon didn't want us or the North Vietnamese to think he didn't have a plan (historical note: unless you're counting Operation Duck Hook, Nixon did not, in fact, have a plan for American victory in Vietnam). Tricky Dick just liked to play things close to the vest, and we can all agree that he really didn't appreciate people asking him nosy questions like, "How are you going to successfully prosecute a war thousands of miles from home in the face of domestic political dissent?"

John McCain---the mavericky gambler who's not afraid to take on tired, failed ideas in Washington---saw Nixon's coy refusal and raised him. In last night's debate, McCain said the following:

I'll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I'll get him. I know how to get him. I'll get him no matter what. And I know how to do it. But I'm not going to telegraph my punches, which is what Senator Obama did.

Well thank goodness someone knows how to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. And thank goodness that person was a maverick like John McCain. In fact, he's such a maverick that he never told anyone else in either party how to get bin Laden, even when you might think that was his job as a U.S. Senator! Brilliant! The Metternich of our time...

Sen. Obama said he would kill bin Laden in Pakistan if he had the opportunity. Sen. McCain considers that "telegraphing" one's punches, an argument that asssumes bin Laden is thick-skulled enough to think that the U.S. cares where it finds his dead body. GWS can't believe people still consider McCain knowledgable in international relations, because the last time a president insisted he had a secret plan for victory in a stupid, ill-conceived, unnecessary war, we ended up bombing Cambodia and Laos and inadvertently restricting Henry Kissinger's travel options for the rest of his life.

Forget "that one." McCain's worst moment last night was when he looked back in history and said to himself, "Y'know what? If it worked for Dick Nixon, it might work for me too."

The End of History? Once again, no.

Francis Fukuyama has written a piece for the latest issue of Newsweek, and GWS can't figure out why he's still a respected thinker. It's been sixteen years since Fukuyama argued in The End of History that liberal democracy will be "the final form of human government," so GWS was a little shocked to read this in the Newsweek article: "The American brand is being sorely tested at a time when other models---whether China's or Russia's---are looking more attractive."

Whatchew talkin bout Francis? Didn't you make most of your money by arguing that since the Soviet Union crumbled, nothing could be more attractive than liberal democracy?

Fukuyama goes on to insist (aphoristically) that "Reaganism (or, in its British form, Thatcherism) was right for its time," because red-tape had inhibited growth so much that we just couldn't take all that financial stability. He trots out the old whipping boy, the Soviet Union's anemic growth in its final 15 years, as proof that Reagan's policies were smart. See? We won the Cold War. U-S-A, U-S-A! Why are you asking so many questions about why the USSR fell? Clearly, it was our willingness to cut taxes while spending absurd amounts of money on SDI that directly led to Soviet production shortages and capital illiquidity. QED.

Remind me again why this guy has tenure at Johns Hopkins?

Forget for a moment that Fukuyama has no problem with Reagan's cognitive dissonance about the size of government. Forget also the details over which Fukuyama glosses. Doesn't the fact that he's been asked to write this article negate the thesis of his best-known book? Four pages in, he remarks "Globally, the United States will not enjoy the hegemonic position it has occupied until now." The move from a unipolar to a multipolar world is old news, but GWS is simply blown away by Fukuyama's ability to write that the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower without mentioning the powers with whom we'll share global responsibility. Of course, two of those likely powers (Russia and China) operate under systems that, while occasionally difficult to classify and understand, are certainly not liberal democracies. It's clear we're not witnessing the end of history, but hopefully we're seeing the end of the relevance of that myopic book.

So the take-away here is simple, a fact obvious to anyone with a calendar: history is not over, Francis, and liberal democracy is by no means guaranteed to remain a force in this world. GWS does commend your ability to make obscene amounts of money off such a sophomoric idea, but please, Frank, shut the hell up already.

Sarah Palin speaks in complete sentences, manages not to choke on her tongue

That's a victory then, right? Right?

Sen. Biden & Gov. Palin squared off last night in one of the more anti-climactic debates in this blogger's memory. GWS wanted blood, but Biden played nice. As for Palin...what do you expect? As she said, she's only been at this for, like, five weeks.

Punching One's Weight

DBMIVFK has been struggling through the Dark Ages this week as GWS searches for a new computer. Apologies, faithful readers.

Tonight promises the VP debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. GWS has just one thing to say about this debate: boxing has weight classes for a reason. Biden is Muhammad Ali, sauntering up to Palin playing Oscar De la Hoya (y'know, the boxer whose image was always a little better than his record). Biden must smell blood, and GWS hopes to see a quick knockout.

Down goes Palin! Down goes Palin!

What did the five fingers say to the face?

SMACK! Ha ha...I'm Barack Obama, bitch.

GWS spent today canvassing in New Hampshire and hasn't had time to digest the chattering class's take on last night's debate, but from where this blogger was sitting, it looked like Obama beat McCain like he stole something.

Look for a full debate de-brief in the coming days, along with some commentary on CNN's unbelievable analyst scorecards and live reaction tracker.

Pirates with tanks! Pirates with tanks!

Thirty-three Soviet-made T-72 tanks have fallen into the hands of pirates!

GWS needs someone to remind him: what's the downside of being a pirate again?

Policy of the Foreign Variety

So there's supposed to be a debate tonight...probably. Maybe. If John McCain feels like it. For reference, McCain is the candidate who explained his negative ad blitz by complaining that Obama wouldn't face him in a town hall format. Right. Strange days indeed...

Anyway, welcome to DBMIVFK's Everything-You-Ever-Wanted-to-Know-About-Foreign-Policy-but-Were-Too-Afraid-to-Ask! We'll be covering the foreign policy situation facing these United States as the Bush Administration takes a knee on the last few moments of its time in power. Our goal here is to provide a foreign policy primer for our reader(s) out there in the tubes and to hopefully shed some light on likely flashpoints in tonight's putative debate.

Without further ado...

Inventory: Taking Stock of America's Abilities and Constraints
GWS is hardly the first observer to point out that the next president will be hamstrung by the decisions of his predecessor, but it's worth laying out exactly what a President McCain or Obama will be dealing with.

• America's military committments mean that all active combat brigades are spoken for. During the height of the Surge in Iraq, the U.S. had one combat brigade left in the States to guard the homeland (presumably from those crafty Mexicans and Canadians, right Lou Dobbs?) and absolutely no operational flexibility outside that. The situation has eased somewhat as some of the Surge brigades have returned home, but the American military---the instrument of policy seen as America's strongest by every President and Congress since World War II---remains stretched to the breaking point. Simply put, neither a President McCain nor a President Obama can make any moves with our military without abrogating our previous committments, finding a way to get more young mens' feet in boots, or drawing down force levels in Iraq or Afghanistan. Keep this in mind when either candidate says he'll toe a tough line with Iran.
• America's financial system is in shambles, and our national debt & current account deficit are the largest in the nation's history. Under George W. Bush, the United States completed its transformation into a debtor nation, and while the U.S. Dollar remains one of the world's only hard currencies, the American economy looks awful shaky right now. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few months, you're well aware of this.
• America's non-economic, non-military powers---the "soft power" Joe Nye has made his career writing about---is also at an all-time low. The War on Terror has degraded America's moral authority in the world to such a point that we have to rely almost entirely on hard power. Add in cuts to the Peace Corps, Foreign Service, and USAID, and America's image in the world hasn't been this tarnished since before the War of Northern Aggression. Anecdotally, GWS can remember a time when his European friends looked at America with envy; that is no longer the case.

Fun times, no? GWS only brings all this up because this is not the time for promises of restoring America's grandeur; this is a time when we need a careful, sober, realistic caretaker who can help the United States lick its wounds. Our constraints are further illustrated when we look at our first country, Pakistan.

Pakistan: How do you solve a problem like Pakistan? How do you find al Qaeda and pin it down? How do you find a word that means "ally?" A flibbertigibbet, a will-o'-the-wisp, a clown!

Nuclear-armed Pakistan represents, in GWS's mind, the next great international struggle. Pakistan features everything you could ever want in a prospective failed state: an uneducated, easily radicalized population; weak civilian institutions; a powerful security service that functions outside both civilian and military control; endemic poverty; and an inability to maintain a monopoly of force within its internationally recognized borders (don't even get GWS started on Kashmir...). Pakistan remains under civilian control, but just barely, and that control certainly doesn't extend to its restive Northwest Frontier Province or even parts of relatively calmer Baluchistan. Simply put, the "tribal areas" between Pakistan and Afghanistan have proved singularly resistant to governance by the modern nation-state regardless of the client-sponsor relationship. This is where the Taliban lives, where al Qaeda hides, where men with guns on one side have to obey imaginary lines while men with guns on the other side thrive because of that stricture. Sadly, the U.S. may have backed the wrong horse in Pervez Musharraf for most of Bush's tenure, but the next president will be dealing with Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. What level of control either of those men will demonstrate over the army or the ISI remains to be seen. Pakistan is a vexing problem, and while the Islamabad government is not living up to its committments to the U.S., it seems that any boat-rocking will be counterproductive (see: Bush's authorization of American incursions into Pakistan proper). The security situation in Pakistan remains delicate, to put it mildly, so GWS's hackles will jump up at either candidate's mention of sweeping change to U.S.-Pakistan policy.

Iraq: Friends of GWS are well acquainted with his ideas on the Iraq War, but this post will try to remain forward-facing. America's misadventure in Iraq will draw to a close under the next president, if for no other reason than the Iraqi government is demanding timetables for withdrawal. Iraq has an uphill fight ahead of it to avoid becoming a failed state, but short of a massive increase in troop levels, there simply isn't much more America can do. For the purposes of this debate, GWS predicts that McCain will mention the Surge's success on more than one occasion and that Obama won't challenge him on this point...but it's worth pointing out that the Surge did not, in fact, succeed. "But GWS," you cry, "levels of violence were dramatically reduced! That's not success? Why are you such a defeatist?"

Thanks for asking! GWS is not a defeatist, just a realist, and he's only judging the Surge based on the criteria advanced by its proponents. The Surge was unique among major combat operations in Iraq in that it was conceived with clear political objectives in mind. Accordingly, the Surge's success was to be measured by political benchmarks according to a timetable. For the first time in this war, Clausewitz wasn't spinning in his grave. The goal was to enable political reconciliation by reducing daily violence, thus creating the "space" necessary for Iraqi parties to hammer out a compromise. In short, the political objectives were not acheived, and the reduction in violence, while an unmitigated good, was never the point. Any attempt to say that the Surge worked is an exercise in moving the goalposts. "Oh, come now GWS, this was a difficult undertaking, and we did get a majority of those objectives done on time. Doesn't that count for something?" In a word, no. Close counts in horseshoes and handgrenades, and GWS is not inclined to give good effort points when it comes to war and statecraft. A failure to acheive our objectives says much more about the acumen of our war planners than about the difficulties facing American troops in Iraq.

In any case, look for this to be a flashpoint between McCain and Obama. McCain will insist that we must seek victory in Iraq (without ever deigning to explain what constitues victory), and he won't much care that Obama has all those pesky facts on his side. If McCain sticks to the arguments he's put forward in the past and the American viewing public responds favorably, GWS will be looking for his passport and teaching jobs in South Korea.

Russia: Remember that Simpsons episode when Russia is sitting at the UN, then presses a button and the sign flips over to reveal "Soviet Union" on the otherside, and then the parade in Red Square stops and tanks roll out from under all the floats? Well that's sorta what's happening. Questions about Russia will be a test for the bellicose McCain, mostly because there's precious little leverage the United States can bring to bear on Moscow. Nonetheless, expect McCain to talk big about "standing up to Putin," whatever that means to a country struggling to keep its economy afloat and its army intact. Expect Obama to take a diplomacy-first approach to Russia, which is as much an indication of Obama's disposition as a realistic recognition of America's capabilities and interests.

Latin America: Latin American-US relations under Bush were marked by bilateral agreements, which represents a structural shift in the way we deal with our neighbors to the south. Under the stewardship of Lula da Silva, Brazil looks poised to finally grasp the mantle of colossus of the south, Evo Morales represents a challenge to the territorial integrity of Bolivia, and Hugo Chavez remains in power in Venezuela, but GWS expects the debate's focus on Latin America to be superficial and concentrated on narco-trafficking. A focus on narcotics here would mean this debate will devolve into "who's tougher on drugs?", something GWS sincerely hopes won't happen. It'll be up to Jim Lehrer to keep Obama & McCain from going down that path.

China and India: If you've seen one nation of more than a billion people, you've seen them all. The United States still doesn't know how it wants to deal with the ascendance of India and China, so expect bland pronouncements on the competitiveness of the American worker rather than any substantive statements on India's status as a regional policeman or China's development of a blue-water navy. Expect Lehrer to cut both candidates a break on India, largely because he knows his viewers don't much care.

Iran: Huh? Oh yeah, Iran. They're trying to get a nuke, right? Right, they're still trying for that? Jesus, did you see what just happened to WaMu?

Iran has fallen out of the public discussion, but GWS expects at least one question on it tonight. That question might tell you more about your candidates than anything else. America's options for dealing with Iran are decidedly limited, and whichever candidate recognizes this more clearly will probably make for a better president.

****************************

Tonight's debate holds the promise of being the most substantive of the presidential debates. You cannot fake foreign policy expertise, historical knowledge, or a more level head than you possess, so GWS hopes that America watches this debate and watches closely. Also, would Steve Schmidt and the McCain campaign please stop acting like a bunch of drama queens and get to Oxford on time tonight?

How to start an internet rumor

John McCain's decision to try to postpone tomorrow night's debate has left many scratching their heads and pointing fingers at his campaign, but perhaps there's something else afoot. Take a look at these pictures from yesterday. Does this look like Bell's Palsy to anyone else?



Special thanks to Arch Magazine's Joe Lang for bringing this to GWS's attention

Hahahaha, stop, stop, please, hahaha

I love how Couric can barely keep the smirk of disdain off her face. I know Joe Biden's looked like an idiot lately, but seriously, Gov. Palin. She made Katie Couric look like Edward R. Murrow.

If you haven't seen Palin's interview with Couric yet, check it out here. For Biden's inexplicable assertion that FDR got on TV in 1929 and assured people that everything would be alright, check this out. Is it just GWS, or does Biden look tired?

Getcha popcorn ready

What better way to spend a Friday night than watching the first Presidential debate? The first of three debates, this one will focus on foreign policy, and GWS is snarkivating just thinking about it.

Next post: DBMIVFK's debate primer and predictions.

H4x012z!

O Gawker, how I lurve thee...

Thank you, intertubes, for doing what the Freedom of Information Act and the Alaskan State House couldn't or wouldn't.

Predictably, The Splotchy-Faced One railed against hacking and how these people---and by "these people" he means both the hacker(s) and the sites like Gawker that published the information--- ought to be executed publicly. Unfortunately, he was no match for Constitutional scholar Megyn Kelly, who correctly distinguished between obtaining information through illegal means and the publication of th---wait, Megyn Kelly's not a Constituional scholar? She's a Fox News anchor? A female Fox News Anchor? Papa Bear, it's anchorman, not anchorwoman!

The McCain campaign cried foul: Sarah Palin, who, might I remind you, is running for Vice-President alongside a former prisoner of war, would never act in anything but an upstanding way in her communications about state business, and how dare you even question that?

So...why the personal accounts, exactly? Is this an IT problem? Unless the Alaskan state government servers are so antiquated as to create a legitimate quality of service issue, GWS fails to find a good reason for Palin to conduct state business on a Yahoo account (there could be a QoS problem in Alaska: Ted Stevens tells us that he once waited for a long time receive his inturn3tz).

Fox News's Greta van Susteren insists that these are only personal e-mails and that Palin was not using the Yahoo account for government business, but the former lawyer seems to be missing the point of regulating government officials' e-mails: transparent government means that citizens don't have to take a government official's word that he or she is working in an ethical manner---we can go check for ourselves. Using a private e-mail account to conduct state business is a naked end-run around the Freedom of Information Act, certainly in spirit if not so clearly in deed. Palin could have published her Yahoo e-mails, but she chose not to, invoking that old Republican stand-by, executive privelege.

The Anchorage Daily News, whose sudden spike in readership and prestige seem to be the only clear winners so far from Palin's selection, published an excellent article on Palin's dual e-mail accounts. Privacy of executive branch communication was a cornerstone of the Bush Administration's approach to policy-making, so expect to see Joe Biden touch on this in his debate with Palin on October 2. But Sarah Palin is starting to seem---dare we say it?---over her head.

Moose hunted

Matt Cassel and the rest of the dreamboat-less Brady Bunch crapped the proverbial bed yesterday.

When the glimmer of hope for GWS enjoying a football season rests on the arm of Gus Frerotte, it's time to turn back to baseball while we still have it.

So ronery

Oh, uh, hey Tarvaris...what are you doing here?

I tried to call you. I don't know, maybe you were in a tunnel or something.

There's only one tunnel in Minneapolis?

Look, T, we need to talk. I didn't want you to find out like this. There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it.

We're just not working out.

...yeah, I'm here with Gus. Yeah. Yep, Gussy Gus. I don't know, I guess he just makes me feel safe. But that's not any of your business anymore, T.

Look, T, really...T, stop it. No, it's not. No, don't say that. Look, it's me, ok? It's me, not you. Look at me: it's really me. You're a great guy, really. We're just in different places right now---I've got this great D-line, and a chance to let Bryant McKinnie beat on opposing ends like they stole something, and I just can't see you in my life anymore. I just, I feel like I need to move on, just make a clean break and move on.

No, T, stop. T, look...look, this isn't easy for me either. I'm serious! I am being serious right now, T. You think this is easy? I tried, and I tried, and I just tried so hard... I tried to be there for you, because I know you're going through a lot, and I know how hard you're working through your progressions and I know you really try hard in the film room, but it's just not working, T, it's just not enough. I'm not strong enough, and you deserve someone who can be what you need them to be. You can't give me the sound decision-making I need, and I can't give you the minute and a half you need in the pocket to find an open man.

Oh I knew you'd bring that up, I just knew it! Look, they're talking about him not working as hard under the new kid as he did under Brady, do you really think you could have handled him? Do you? Honestly, T, you are so immature sometimes... My relationship with him is none of your business, ok? That was ancient history, I never even thought of him when I was with you...

Sidney Rice is a great wide re---wow, really? That's how you feel. Well, I wish you'd said something before.

Didn't I get you that nice Berrian? Didn't you say you loved that?

Look, I really didn't want it to be like this. I have to go now. It's just really hard for me to see you, and I hope you can understand that. T, you broke my heart, but you know I hope you find happiness. I have some nice friends with the Argos and the Eskies I could talk to, and...no, I'm not patronizing you. I've gotta go. Goodbye, T.

Hi Gus. (kiss on the cheek) No, just an old flame. Don't worry about it. What were we talking about before?

Music at the Speed of ADD

Arch Magazine's Billy Graves has written an insightful piece on the meaning of Girl Talk and the creation (aggregation? manifestation?) of an identity for Generation Y's musical tastes. He writes of Girl Talk's Feed the Animals as the "culmination" of four distinct and heretofore separate musical narratives; his case here is solid, and his emphasis on Girl Talk's use and reflection of musical taste aggregation sites and technologies aptly describes the replacement of turntables by laptops. It's a good read, and it comes with DBMIVFK's Seal of Approval. (Full disclosure: GWS has known Graves since grade school).

Question: isn't Girl Talk just another iteration of hip-hop's global takeover, or is GWS just that white?

Answer: You're both right!

GWS is not convinced that Girl Talk represents either a new type of musician or the sound history will remember from our time. Rather, Girl Talk may just be a new type of DJ---the next, fastest, most-samples-havin', most self-aware, hottest DJ out, and he's certainly perfected the nascent art of the mashup---but is he really transcending the role of the DJ? Can't we find similar depth of cuts in most of DJ Shadow's music?

GWS sees Girl Talk's rise in popular music as akin to Family Guy's rise in mainstream comedy. Both are working with fundamentally the same toolkits as their forebears, but the speed with which both Girl Talk's music and Family Guy's gags are paced and cut indicate that both are speaking to and informed by a world in which people are no longer confronted with too little information but rather overwhelmed by too much. They are media for an ADD generation, rooted deeply in the hey look a penguin!

Sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Girl Talk's a DJ, and a fun one, but he's still a DJ, and that makes him just another part of the evolution of hip hop. Nothing more and certainly nothing less. Thoughts, comments, snide remarks?

Best. Economics. Article. Ever

Bess Levin writing for Dealbreaker came out with this beautiful little piece of vitriol. For all the talk about how difficult it is to translate the current economic crisis into Joe Sixpack terms, this would appear to set a new gold standard (thanks to Gawker on this one).

Not the Brightest Bulb, Part Deux

DBMIVFK is back with its second installment in the two-part series "Not the Brightest Bulb." We've already looked at John McCain's energy policy, and now that our pulse and respiration rates have returned to normal following the GOP convention, it's time to turn our multi-barreled snark cannon to Barack Obama's energy plan.

Obama's plan focuses on five major points which it then breaks down into specific policy proposals. On the whole, Obama's plan is more cogent and more transparent than McCain's, and the Obama plan seems much more forthright in its specifics. There are still, however, significant problems with Obama's energy plan. The worst offenders are:

• the conceit that oil speculators are exerting undue influence on the price of oil
• the implementation of both a windfall profits tax on oil companies and the immediate distribution of that tax to taxpayers
• an argument for opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

For those of you keeping track at home, that's the entirety of Obama's "short-term" fixes. It's also some of the most wrong-headed policy the campaign has unveiled to date. The oil speculators bit is easily debunked, and the windfall profits scheme can be written off as election-year pandering, but the talk about opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, while not unique to America's political discourse, is genuinely worrisome. The SPR is designed to act as America's oil-of-last-resort, the stash of hydrocarbons we've squirreled away for a truly rainy day. The SPR was never designed as an instrument of price control, and while the Obama campaign tries to dress up this plan as a light-for-heavy crude swap, it is fundamentally an effort to drive down prices at the pump. That's bad policy, and the Obama camp should be ashamed of looking for nails when it's not actually holding a hammer.

The good news is that once you get past Obama's short-term recommendations, his longer term plans make a lot more sense. He correctly sees climate change and energy independence as two sides of the same coin and argues forcefully for both a carbon cap-and-trade scheme and a return of the U.S. to the international bargaining table. Unfortunately, the campaign talks much more about the value of a cap-and-trade system (GWS is less than convinced of the environmental blessings cap-and-trade is said to bring) than about a new Kyoto Treaty, falling back on vague niceties about "bring[ing]...nations together." More specifics, please!

Obama then spends some time on retooling American industry, and GWS was surprised to find the "Green Vet" initiative intended to re-train returning soldiers for green-tech industries. Why the Obama camp isn't playing up this initiative is beyond GWS, because it looks like an election year winner. The most serious and best portion of Obama's plan has to do with the automotive industry: the retooling of Detroit's factories, the retraining of our workforce, and goverment-mandated fleet carbon efficiency and fuel economy standards. He offers up $4bn in guaranteed tax credits to help Detroit turn itself around, and GWS hopes that the folks at Ford and GM know a good thing when they see one (note: they don't). The plan to convert America's car fleet to all hybrid/plug-in is ambitious (perhaps overly so; the timetable is 365 days...), but well thought- out and designed with significant tax incentives (a $7,000 tax credit) for anyone who buys a carbon-friendly car or converts their existing vehicle. Sound(ish) policy with clear sticks and carrots...hooray!

Some commentators see the chants of "Drill, baby, drill!" in St. Paul as proof that Obama has been outflanked on the issue of domestic energy supplies. GWS will leave that opinion to those who think highly of drilling on the OCS...that is, to morons. Here again we find good policy that the Obama campaign has yet to trumpet: Obama's "use it or lose it" approach to drilling leases is the rare combination of election-year grist and sound free-market policy, and GWS thinks that if he emphasized this more, he'd be able to take on McCain head-on in the nascent energy security debate.

The last part of Obama's policy paper is the least sexy, the "put on a sweater" policies that the GOP has lambasted since the late 1970s. It doesn't matter that they are, in fact, good policy: that we ought to weatherize our homes, that we should inflate our tires, that we need to demand higher energy efficiency standards from the federal government. Refusing to take these suggestions seriously is an act of stupidity: they're cheap, easy, and highly cost-effective. But since no one has ever gone hungry betting on the ignorance of the American voter, it seems unlikely that Obama will again stick his neck in the guillotine that got Jimmy Carter.

On the whole, GWS likes Obama's energy proposal more than McCain's but only marginally so. The pandering about oil speculators and windfall profits taxes are (hopefully) election year bluster, but that doesn't mean that Obama can make those claims without us taking the rest of his policy less seriously. Here's to hoping we see a real energy policy debate in the coming weeks and months.

I like them apples

Matt Damon weighs in with some of the most lucid political analysis GWS has heard in weeks. Clearly, he hasn't checked in with Snopes about the book-banning lie, but the rest is spot on. Well done, Mr. Damon, well done.


Isn't he just the bees' knees?

Palin's speech and the road ahead for the GOP

The Republican National Convention stopped deriding Barack Obama's rhetoric as uplifting but empty words just long enough to be treated to some uplifting but empty words of their own. Sarah Palin, who leads the current list of America's MILFiest Governors (take that Kathleen Sebelius!), spoke for 40 minutes and generally impressed the delegates and political cognoscenti. Why, exactly, escapes me. This was supposed to be Palin's coming out party to America, but as gallons of ink (real and virtual) have been spilled on her speech, we're still not sure what to expect from Palin.

She opens with a standard "nice-to-meet-you": Sarah Palin's a hockey mom; her kids are fighting in Iraq, so make sure to pay attention to the kids; but her 17-year old is pregnant, so please respect the kids' privacy. Palin first dips her toes into the pandering pond when she insists that her family is just like yours, that she understands how challenges become opportunities that become challenges again, and oh isn't life crazy when you're a post-feminist Republican! Did she mention her family---five kids, pregnant daughter, Downs-syndrome newborn, mom holding the highest elected office in her state---is just like yours? Take her word for it, because it is.

The first substance we hear in Palin speech is encoded: "Harry Truman." The invocation of 33rd President's name has drawn scant notice from the blogosphere and mainstream media, but it's worth understanding. Perhaps more than any other 20th-century president, Truman's foreign policy legacy is still a matter of some debate: he got America involved in the Korean War and probably averted a nuclear holocaust with his removal of the extremely popular Douglas MacArthur as commander of UN forces in Korea. Truman was long perceived on the right as wishy-washy on communism, another in a long line of big government liberals who screwed up America's great victory in World War II, but that perception has begun to change since the rise of neoconservatism. To a select corps of revisionist historians, Truman has become a proto-Dubya, a man with the vision and the courage to do what it took to keep America safe. Palin's use of Truman's name, then, was a shrewd choice: she burnished her historical credentials among people who lack enough of a grasp of history to challenge her assertions; she named a Democratic president in a clumsy attempt to show bipartisanship; and most importantly, she whispered in the ear of the GOP's neocon wing, "Don't worry---I'm really one of you. I'll say some things you won't like in the next 60 days, but trust me, I share your worldview."

"What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull?" Palin asks. "Lipstick," we're told. Yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk! This, apparently, is what Republicans think jokes sound like.

Palin then does an admirable job of not making sense. She says that "the right reason [to go to Washington] is to challenge the status quo," which, last time I checked, is antithetical to the idea of conservatism---aren't the pinko commie hippies supposed to be the ones challenging the status quo? She insists that when she ran for mayor, she "didn't need focus groups," which actually makes sense when you consider the size of Wasilla, AK. And she pulls the Low Blow Heard 'Round the World: "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except you have actual responsibilities." Buh-zing! Never mind that Palin didn't start out a small town mayor, or that Obama's been a large-state Senator for quite some time---Palin proved that she's not afraid to make a ham-fisted ad hominem attack against anyone who's trying to improve the town in which he lives.

And then came the out-and-out lies. She says that she said thanks but no thanks to "that bridge to nowhere," which simply doesn't square with the facts. She says that Obama's tax plan will "raise your taxes," which is true for about five percent of the American populace but patently false if the "you" in Palin's phrase refers to anyone in the other 95%. And her assertion that Alaska's North Slope has "lots of both [oil and gas]," while true, doesn't hold water in context---Palin was talking about expanding Alaskan drilling to help curb American dependence on foreign oil, but it would appear that she's unware of at least a) the North Slope's proven reserves, b) just how much oil America imports every day, or c) both.

Palin devotes some time attacking Obama, telling viewers that Obama's plan is "to make government bigger and take more of your money and give you more orders from Washington and reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world." Well when you put it that way... Palin makes sure not to specifically mention any of the meticulously laid-out plans the Obama campaign has posted to its website, mostly because doing so would undermine her earlier rhetorical device suggesting that Obama is light on specifics. She insists that "the world is not a community and it needs more than an organizer," which draws inexplicably raucuous applause considering that the woman who said it had just gone to great pains to describe herself as a "just-like-you" hockey mom. Interestingly, Sarah Palin tells us the world needs "more" than a community organizer, but won't be specific about what that "more" means.

Palin's nomination will be viewed as a watershed moment in this campaign, but not for the reasons that are so often bandied about (reaching out to women; youth; looks; pro-life; etc.). Her ascendancy will mark the moment when the GOP decided to push they message they want to push, regardless of inconvenient facts. The McCain campaign insists that Obama's tax plan will rob the middle class blind, while any serious policy analysis says quite the opposite; Palin says she's a reformer, so she must be, even if she's under ethics investigation in Alaska; McCain and Palin insist that they're the ones who will bring change to Washington, while McCain says the he was a "foot-soldier in the Reagan Revolution" and "voted with the President (Bush) 90% of the time." The critical question will be whether the American people are willing to devote five minutes of their day to letting Google debunk the GOP's increasingly outlandish claims.