Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged directs us to this delicious little bit of feline DC back-biting.
I honored the rule about keeping confidences,” says Frum, 42. He also honored the rule, he says, “of keeping the president’s thinking confidential as he’s thinking it.” (It’s unclear, however, how familiar the author was with the president’s thinking. Asked how many one-on-one meetings he had with the president, Frum says there were “six or eight.” But when pressed to exclude walk-by encounters in the hallways, the total falls to “two or three.”)
He has fleshy pale cheeks, bright brown eyes and an eager bearing that leaves the impression of an overgrown boy. Frum is sitting in his office at the American Enterprise Institute, where he is a resident fellow. He is surrounded by stacked boxes of “The Right Man.” Speaking in a smooth, NPR-perfect voice, he has completed 17 radio interviews by lunchtime. He began at 6 a.m. and will be finished by midnight.
Frum is attempting what is probably an impossible balancing act: He wants to “speak truthfully about what I saw” at the White House while still hoping for the administration’s love. He observes from outside the sanctum but still promises an “inside account.” He is a self-described “minor player” who still feels qualified to write that Secretary of State Colin Powell is the “deadliest bureaucratic knife fighter in the whole Bush administration.”
All of which has made him a figure of some disdain, both within and beyond the Bush circle. This is manifest in a classic Washington form: Conversations with people who know Frum begin with on-the-record praise and spiral into on-background ridicule. “There’s a sort of desperate edge to David’s need to be noticed,” says one well-known conservative who knows Frum and has ties to the White House. Frum has an outsider’s zealousness for recognition, he says. In addition to still being a Canadian citizen, Frum was also one of the few Jews in the Bush White House, a point of which he seems acutely conscious.
As Julia pithily observes: Shame no-one in the White House realized what a loser this guy was before he set our foreign policy, isn’t it?
Matt points to an unintentionally hilarious look at SUV manufacturers market research:
According to market research conducted by the country’s leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be “insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others.
I hesitate to condemn the many fine people who drive these behemoths, but as a resident of Los Angeles, it’s pretty clear that in this town, at least, a good many SUV drivers are young girls who drive at 80 mph on the freeway during rush hour while simultaneously applying mascara and talking on the phone. I’ll leave it up to the experts to decide whether they might generally fit the picture of those descibed above. The Greg Easterbrook review of High and Mighty in TNR
says “…One such wise man, named Clotaire Rapaille, tells the Big Three that people buy SUVs “because they want to look as menacing as possible.” I can’t say why these young women want to look menacing, but I can confirm that they are a roadway menace in a crowded big city.
Ryan Barrow at That Said draws a nice analogy between the auto manufacturer’s cynical marketing of SUVs and George W. Bush’s cynical marketing of his anti-affirmative action policy. After quoting the Easterbrook piece he adds:
Like the manufacturer of an SUV, the President is peddling his product by appealing to our fears and base nature with deliberately misleading language and imagery. Rather than an enlightened and judicious system which aims to make some accomodation for citizens whose race is held against them every waking day, the UM’s admissions process is derided as a morass of quotas and reverse-discriminatory tomfoolery. For quota, we have discovered, brings all sorts of negative imagery and paranoia to mind, enabling us to dismiss the historic suffering of this country’s minority citizens and to demand that they once again Yield to the supposed interests of an overwhelmingly privileged majority; Bush rhetoric encourages us to do so. And it allows a handful of unsuccessful applicants – who avowedly believe that they were the particular white people who ended up on the short end of the deal – the satisfaction of playing the Scooby Doo victim, moaning and crying about how they’d have gotten what they wanted if it wasn’t for those meddlin’ brown kids, while all the while protesting that a mildly race-conscious admissions process is merely a sop to moaners and cryers who just can’t get it done on their own.
Pete apparently never was more wrong than when he wrote that one. was he? I’m going to buy his story for the time being, especially since the charge — “suspicion of harboring an image” — is sufficiently vague and (Don’t say it!)”Orwellian.” However, the guy is now a punchline for every two-bit Morning Zoo guy on AM radio now. I’m 49. I’m not supposed to get disillusioned like this any more.
You probably saw the story where the Vatican put the knuckle down on American Catholic politicians — read John Kerry and (maybe) Nancy Pelosi — about hewing to the company line regarding certain issues on which a “well-formed Christian conscience” does not permit them to take a certain position. Now, ever since John Kennedy gave his speech to the Baptist ministers in Texas back in 1960, we American Papists have taken comfort in the fact that this peculiar “double loyalty” issue had been put to rest. Now, with their institutional church possessing on issues of human sexuality the approximate moral credibility of a barnyard goat, the bureaucrats in red beanies have decided to raise it again. If Kerry has any brains at all, he’ll make a speech this week telling these ermined layabouts to go climb a tree. My own informed Christian conscience won’t rest until a battalion of them are hauled off to the sneezer on conspiracy charges.
Noticed that Weepin’ Joe Lieberman (D-Madame Tussaud’s), burnishing his hepcat credentials, appeared with Conan and with Jon Stewart this week. It was like hearing Cotton Mather rap.
I was just wondering if anyone but me finds it wierd that the President of the United States holds these Nuremburg style rallies to talk about serious issues like tax policy or social security when he’s not election campaigning. I saw him whip the hand picked crowd into a complete frenzy the other night with the phrase “we need ta pass tort reform!” You would have thought he was announcing the capture of bin Laden. (who?)
I know the guy was a cheerleader and all, but is this really appropriate? And who are these freaks who get completely hysterical over the words “tort reform?” It’s creepy.
PLA has an interesting post up about tort reform and defensive medicine. It brought to mind a debate on the Lehrer news hour the other night about “traaaal lawyers” and their monstrous greed and avarice.
The defender of liberty and all that is good and clean — the corporate apologist — kept complaining about how these evil toe-art lawyers were conning innocent unknowing Americans into filing suits against their will and then taking all the ill gotten gains when they rape the Godfearing American job creating corporations. One of the “reforms” he was lobbying for was to eliminate contingency fees.
Satan’s handpuppet pointed out that it would hardly make sense for him to pour a bunch of his own money into these cases, which he does in these contingency arrangements, if he knew they were frivolous because he could not hope to recoup it if he didn’t win.
The sainted corporate defender didn’t respond, but it made me realize that these bastards are actually trying to persuade average Americans that corporations are at a disadvantage in a courtroom. They want people to believe that plaintiffs lawyers are able to take completely bogus cases, pour huge sums of their own money into them, convince a judge that the case is for real, use all their wiles on the jury of complete idiots…er… average voters (oops) who are mesmerized by their devilish powers to convince them to bankrupt the guileless corporations for no good reason at all.
If this is the case then the huge stables of highly paid lawyers representing these corporations in court really suck at their jobs, don’t they? Perhaps rather than outlawing the practice of contingency fees altogether it would make more sense to hire those corporate lawyers on a contingency basis too. It seems to have a very salutory effect on performance.
Matt Yglesias poses a challenge to liberals on their position on affirmative action and legacy admissions. He says:
…the point here isn’t that the existence of legacy admissions is irrelevant to the affirmative action debate. The point is that liberals owe the world an explanation of exactly what the relationship is supposed to be. Should both be abolished, or neither? Are we making a serious policy point here or are we just mocking the president?
From the standpoint of principle, for what it’s worth, I think one offsets the other. The legacy admission is a pure expression of reward based on systemic privilege and the affirmative action admission is a pure example of redress based on systemic underprivilege. They represent the two main groups of our society that are judged and rewarded in accordance with characteristics that have nothing to do with them as individuals– inherited privilege and inherited color. (Even athletics, after all, requires more than just genes. You do have to work at it.) Yet, privilege and color are fundamental forces in American life, whether we want to admit it or not. On this issue they are bound together.
Everyone else on a college campus is a mishmosh of various athletic, artistic and academic talents along with regional obligations and various other missions assumed by the school, wherein students with a certain baseline level of skills are exposed to the most diverse group of people that the college can muster. It benefits elite children of privilege to have exposure to people of color and it benefits people of color to rub shoulders with children of privilege. Indeed, jocks and geeks and artists and musicians and rich kids and black kids and foreign kids all living together on the same campus and sharing classes and making friendships is a demonstrably educational experience, which is after all, the point.
So, I say keep both affirmative action and legacy admissions along with all the other criteria that the school decides creates the best opportunity for learning.
On a strategic level, unfortunately, I think that many reasonable people have been gulled into thinking that the affirmative action issue is one of fairness and that without it students would otherwise be admitted to college purely on “merit.” The legacy issue is the most crystal clear example of why this is not so because it is such a perfect comparison to racial preference. And it draws attention to the fact that the Republicans are not acting out of a desire for true meritocracy. One cannot say that people should not be admitted to college because of their race, which after all is a heritable characteristic, something they receive from being the child of certain parents through absolutely no effort of their own, while defending the legacy student like George W. Bush who also was admitted to college because he was the child of certain parents and through absolutely no effort of his own.
Indeed, one could make the case that Bush was far less deserving than the average racial minority who is admitted with extra points, because unlike them he had the good fortune to be sent to the best private schools in the nation and could have engaged tutors and SAT preparation etc., to bring him up to the level at which he could have been admitted on a meritocratic basis. After all, those who wish to abolish affirmative action always make the case that the best way to ensure equal opportunity is to ensure that the primary and secondary education system properly prepares all students to the best of their ability. George W. Bush and all the other privileged rich kids who rely on legacy admissions to attend college are a screaming example of those who have every possible advantage in terms of preparation for college and still fail to win their place in the institution of their choice on the basis of their own accomplishment. Certainly, they are far worse examples of a meritocratic ideal than a black student who came from sub-standard schools in a lower middle class family and had none of these extraordinary opportunities to better their academic performance.
This dichotomy illustrates to sincere people that the issue is more complicated than it seems and makes them question the motivations of those who consistently argue as if unfairness in admissions is only a matter of race. Since I believe that most Americans are not racist and don’t wish to be used for the purpose of pandering to racists, I think it behooves liberals to expose these coded appeals.
The issue of legacy admissions is strategically useful for Democrats because no matter how sincerely argued on both sides, it is primarily a political football that serves as a useful symbol for those who believe that all of this “race” business has just gone on long enough — they’re tired of hearing about it and, — Judas Priest, haven’t we done enough for those people already?
Legacy admissions are the way to show people who believe that the issue has been raised out of a concern for fairness that they have been duped. Republicans should be forced to explian why they have been such passionate advocates of meritocracy when it comes to blacks and hispanics and yet so silent on the issue of meritocracy when it comes to the children of wealth and privilege.
…which leads to the question of who really plays the “class warfare” card, doesn’t it?
Note: edited for embarrassing misspelling of Matthew Yglesias’ last name.
In my post below, I discuss how odd it is that Republicans are so distressed about the unfairness of these few numbers of white students who have to go to their second choice school and yet in all other respects are convinced that people should just “get over it.”
Lo and behold, Atrios posts the perfect illustration of the point.
Keep in mind that these are the guys who completely decimated the Republican Party of California. As California goes, so goes the the nation…
SACRAMENTO — A California Republican Party leader has called on the highest-ranking African American in the state GOP to stop “parading” his race by complaining about “how awful it is to be a black Republican.”
In an angry letter distributed to GOP activists statewide, Randy Ridgel, a member of the party’s Board of Directors, responded to an accusation by fellow board member Shannon Reeves, who is black, that Republicans have treated African Americans as “window dressing.”
“I, for one, am getting bored with that kind of garbage,” Ridgel wrote. “Let me offer this suggestion to Mr. Reeves: ‘Get over it, bucko. You don’t know squat about hardship.’ “
Ridgel added: “I personally don’t give a damn about your color … so stop parading it around. We need human beings of all human colors in our party to pull their weight, so get in without the whining or get out.”
[…]
He [Reeves] recalled that during the 2000 Republican national convention in Philadelphia, delegates asked him six times to “fetch them a taxi or carry their luggage.”
Ridgel responded by calling Reeves “a bombastic gasbag.” He criticized Reeves for writing “a lengthy whining letter explaining how awful it is to be a black Republican.”
Ridgel added: “Your sniveling letter makes me sick, young man; you are a superstar because you are a black Republican, and you love it. Now I wonder if you can make it as just a Republican … like the rest of us. And don’t try any of that Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters racist garbage on me.”
But, he will fight all the way to the Supreme Court for all those poor hard working white kids who know first hand about hardship having been denied admission to their favorite school because one of these sniveling, bombastic whiners got extra points for being black.
You know, it’s not just that they are such dumb fucks. It’s that they are so damned proud of being such dumb fucks.
“The only empty warheads I’m sure exist are the ones currently working in the White House.”
heh
Cowboy Kahlil on “the hypocrisy of the current drug war, that incarcerates self-medicators or self-abusers while the greater fatality rates accrue from the use of legal drugs.”
TBOGG on Mr. Lively’s Pro Family Law Center and his bad boy obsession.
Oh, just one little snippet:
Fortunately he has provided us with the Triangle of Tolerance so that we can live a godly life. My guess is that watching Will & Grace falls under “Reasonable Tolerance” while actually enjoying Will & Grace thrusts you into “Zero Tolerance”, somewhere between drunk driving and violent crime. Enjoying Queer as Folk, however, sends you straight to “Re-education Camp and Possible Shock Treatment”, so watch your ass, Mary.
Ted Barlow’s lightbulb series is destined to become legendary and for good reason. They are all hilarious, but this one made me spew the coffee:
Q: How many Green party voters does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Dude, we shouldn’t have to change lightbulbs. GE has this secret lab in Costa Rica, and they made a lightbulb out of hemp that totally lasts forever.
Kevin Drum on PoMo science on the right. (A subject I want to write about too when I get time.)
Eschaton for japanese internment, pickering, fundy perverts, ….everything.
Incidentally, I know I need to update the blogroll, but for some reason I have a mental block. I will do it soon. There a many wonderful blogs I want to include.
Ms. LISA KEY: How will your tax proposals affect me as a middle-class, 34-year-old single person with no dependents?
Vice Pres. GORE: If you make less than $60,000 a year and you decide to invest $1,000 in a savings account, you’ll get a tax credit which means, in essence, that the federal government will match your $1,000 with another $1,000. If you make less than $30,000 a year and you put $500 in a savings account, the federal government will match it with $1,500. If you make more than $60,000, up to $100,000, you’ll still get a match but not as generous. You will get a–an access to life-long learning and education, help with tuition if you want to get a new skill or–or training, if you–if you want to purchase health insurance, you will get help with that. I–if you want to participate in some of the dynamic changes that are going on in–in our country, you will get specific help in doing that. If you are part of the–of the bottom 20 percent or so of wage earners, then you will get an expanded earned income tax credit.
Now the tax relief that I propose is directed specifically at middle-income individuals and families. And if you have a–if you have an elderly parent or grandparent who needs long-term care, then you will get help with that, $3,000 tax credit to help your expenses in taking care of a loved one who needs long-term care.
Mr. LEHRER: Governor Bush?
Gov. BUSH: Right. Let me just say the first–this–this business about the entitlement he tried to describe about savings, you know, matching savings here and matching savings there, fully funded is going to cost a whole lot of money, a lot more than we have. You’re going to get tax relief under my plan. You’re not to be targeted in or targeted out. Everybody who pays taxes is going to get tax relief. If you take care of an elderly in your home, you’re going to get the personal exemption increased. I think also what you need to think about is not the immediate, but what about Medicare? You get a plan that will include prescription drugs, a plan that will give you options. Now I–I hope people understand that Medicare today is–is–is important, but it doesn’t keep up with the new medicines. If you’re a Medicare person, on–on Medicare, you don’t get the new–new procedures. You’re stuck in a time warp in many ways. So it will be a modern Medicare system that trusts you to make a variety of options for you.
You’re going to live in a peaceful world. It will be a world of peace because we’re going to have a clearer–clearer sight of foreign policy based upon a strong military and a mission that stands by our friends, a mission that doesn’t try to be all things to all people, a judicious use of the military which will help keep the peace.
You’ll be in a world, hopefully, that’s more educated so it’s less likely you’ll be harmed in your neighborhood. See, an educated child is one much more likely to be hopeful and optimistic. You’ll be in a world in which–fits into my philosophy, you know, the harder work–the harder you work, the more you can keep. It’s the American way. Government shouldn’t be a heavy hand–that’s what the federal government does to you–it should be a helping hand, and tax relief and proposals I just described should be a good helping hand.
Tim Russert: That was President…uh ooopsie!…Governor Bush and Vice President Gore in their 3rd and final Presidential debate.
So, panel, what did you think!
Barbie Banfield: Oh my Gawd! Dubble Yew is so kewl cuz he isn’t all stiff and you know, like such a total liar and stuff!
Brian Williams: If I recall correctly, Tim, didn’t the Vice President wear that tie two months ago with an off white shirt and a navy blue 3 button pin stripe? Is it possible, Tim, that the Vice President of the most powerful country on the planet doesn’t realize that all over America, indeed the entire world, people are commenting on the choice of this tie, on this of all nights and how that affects not only his credibility vis a vis his comfort inside his suit but, yea verily, inside his own skin?
Chris Matthews: Gore’s a stiff! And he lied, he lied, he lied!!! He said if she wanted to participate in the dynamic changes in the social security system she’d have to make less than 20,000 year and that’s just not true Tim. Peggy, why do you think that Bush makes so much sense and Gore can’t tell the truth if it hits him over the head with a signed copy of “Love Story?”
Peggy Noonan: Well, Chris it’s because George Bush is a man, a man with two legs and two arms. A man who goes to bed at night and a man who gets up in the morning. He eats breakfast. He feeds his dog. He likes his own pillow because he is a real man, a man who sleeps. Who loves his sleep and his pillow and Americans feel that and understand that and feel comfortable with that. Al Gore is a souless empty shell, a cipher in earth tones who consists of words, and facts and phrases and numbers that nobody understands because he isn’t real, because he can’t love a pillow or his breakfast and people need that in a leader. They need a man, they need one so badly they feel as if they’ll burst if they don’t have one, a rich one with cowboy boots and a bad temper. That’s what I need…er the American people need, Chris, and George W. Bush looked right into my…er…their eyes tonight and promised to give them everything he has until he is completely spent.
Brian: Peggy, do you think he uses 350 count egyptian cotton pillow cases or is he more of a percale kind of guy? His shirts are always so crisp. Do you think he uses starch vis a vis his collars?
Michael Beschloss: When Al Gore spoke tonight I was eerily reminded of Nixon’s farewell speech in which he cried and said he wasn’t a quitter. It is interesting to see the corrupt and mendacious side of Al Gore show itself in such an obvious way. It is said that when Millard Fillmore debated he had much the same effect on people, they recoiled in horror and averted their eyes. Now Governor Bush sounded as if he were a cross between Abraham Lincoln and Socrates with his sober, unadorned style and his challenging abstract way of explaining his positions as if to require the voters to delve into themselves for the deeper answers. He was very noble in his bearing, almost Christlike, but with an accesible persona that brought to mind the universal acceptance of George Washington as the father of our country.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: I thought George W Bush sounded as if he were a cross between Socrates and Abraham Lincoln with his straight and sober style and the abstract way he has of explaining his positions. He wants the voters to delve into themselves for the deeper answers. He very much reminded me of the father of our country, George Washington. Al Gore looked strangely like Millard Fillmore tonight, and perhaps a bit like Derek Jeter and Pedro Martinez too.
Tim: Well, Doris, if you are saying that the Governor of Texas hit the ball out of the park tonight, I’d have to agree with you. Join me Sunday on Meet the Press when I’ll have Jim Nicholson, Karl Rove, and Tom DeLay on to explain Al Gore’s economic plan. Good night from all of us at NBC News.
Thanks to “nameless” from Atrios’ comments section for the debate excerpt, which is 100% factually correct.
In the ongoing discussion of our fearless leader’s decision in the University of Minnesota case over on Atrios’ and Hesiod’s blogs, I find it disconcerting that many feel the Democrats are making a strategic mistake by defending affirmative action because it upsets certain white people who feel it is unfair. Hesiod says in Atrios’ comments section:
The Republicans are all home ejaculating over this debate. Why? Because middle class, suburban white women are seeing the Democrats argue in favor of a system THEY perceive as being inimical to the interests of their sons and daughters
He is certainly not alone in this assessment and I know that he does not say this out of any racial animosity himself. But, setting aside whether the debate should be fought on principle, I strongly disagree with this strategic analysis. I do not believe that these middle class suburban white women are offended that black students get a leg up in college admissions, nor do I think they perceive preferences as being detrimental to the interests of their children. They are, in fact, the group most likely to be offended by the GOP’s thinly veiled racist appeals when they are made aware of them. It’s why Olympia Snowe came out yesterday and said that Bush’s decision was “disappointing.” The issue cuts to the Democrats’ benefit, not the Republicans.
Bush did this to shore up his base who are very unhappy about Lott’s ouster. That the administration had to handle it so carefully is a testament to how much the issue ties them in knots.
Democrats have to recognize that the “compassionate conservative” agenda is Bush’s Achilles heel. Republicans don’t really believe in compassion as a governing principle. They think compassion enables dependency. Their operating principle is self-sufficiency. But, the GOP cannot win national elections with religious conservatives, CEO’s and white male gun owners alone. They’d like to say to hell with all this caring and sharing bullshit but they can’t because those swinging suburban women expect the government to do things to affirmatively better the lives of citizens who need help and that includes racial minorities. The Republicans don’t expect to win non-white votes, but they have to win a few of those whites who are sympathetic to the cause and it’s not easy with the confederates expecting Bush to honor the unspoken promise that if they stay quiet, he’ll deliver.
They have a problem and, in my opinion, from a strategic as well as a principled standpoint the Democrats should dig at that scab every time they try to cover it over. It is an internal inconsistency that makes them vulnerable.
And substantively, this whole issue is a crock. The country is veritably overwhelmed with unfair practices, from absurd drug laws to rich people buying their way out of trouble to corporations draining pension funds to red-lining to off shore tax dodges and the list goes on and on and on. We Democrats spend our lives decrying the inequality of opportunity that pervades the entire system – a progressive’s raison d’etre is to try to level the playing field. So, how absurd it is that this particular “unfairness” is such a rallying cry for Republicans, seeing as they normally consider such concerns to be examples of weak individuals who aren’t tough enough to “suck it up” “get on with it” “work harder and stop whining.”
So, why then are we supposed to believe that their interest in this somewhat arcane and academic debate about scoring systems and weighted averages and a few thousand kids around the country who have to go to their second choice school is a brave act of principle? Since when is that kind of issue even on the GOP radar screen?
In that context, it becomes very clear that the affirmative action debate has been willfully constructed entirely for the benefit of the Republican Party’s race based politics. It is a useful surrogate issue for those simpleminded bigots who just have to gripe about blacks and Mexicans and for the phony meritocrats who knowingly wink and nod at them while smugly toasting each other for their “color blind” principles at NY cocktail parties.
It is beyond comprehension that in a country with a 300 year history of slavery, apartheid and discrimination against racial minorities (that clearly persists to this day) the single most important equal rights issue presently on the table is the case of a relative handful of white people who maintain that they were unfairly denied access to the college of their choice because racial minorities were granted a small advantage roughly equal to that of a football lineman or an alumni’s idiot offspring. This is the country’s burning civil rights issue that must be taken all the way to the Supreme Court, again and again and again?
Sure it is. When Republicans respond with as much outrage and passion to something like this and like this then maybe I’ll believe that they are acting out of conviction. Until then, I have to assume that the fact that the only time they get worked up about discrimination is when they perceive it to be toward white people means that they are doing what they have been doing since 1968 — pandering to losers who are so primitive that they believe their problems would all be solved if it weren’t for those uppity blacks, lazy Mexicans and ugly women stealing away all their opportunities in life.