Pufferfish

Lieberman Hypocrisy

The pompous sanctimony of those in Washington's most exclusive club is expected. Still, it's worth highlighting naked hypocrisy in general and, in particular, when it involves Joe Lieberman, a man of peerless self-importance. Sam Stein dug up a quote from Lieberman from 1994 when the senator was floating a plan to fundamentally alter the filibuster and transform it from being a roadblock to a speed bump. Back then Lieberman was lecturing anyone who would listen that the filibuster is what "ails Washington" and should be eliminated. I happen to agree with 1994 Lieberman; despite splitting the government into three branches we've nonetheless decided a super-duper majority in the Senate is still needed to get anything done. This allows for more grandstanding and backroom dealing, but not better policy:

This year, of course, Lieberman is saying that he's considering filibustering health-care reform. It's tempting to just make this about Lieberman, but it isn't, really. A lot of young senators consider the filibuster somewhat insane. Many of them come from the House, where action is easier, or they led state legislatures, where the filibuster didn't exist. Others were governors or leaders in the private sector. They enter the Senate and are appalled that the place is paralyzed by bad-faith proceduralism.

But over time, they lose that perspective. They serve in the minority for a while and realize they like the filibuster. They find themselves serving as a crucial vote on some issue or another and find they like the power. They spend a lot of time with older senators and decide they like the chamber's institutions. And they either drop the fight or, as in Lieberman's case, join the other side.

Let's Get Physical

This guy wants to know if Obama is man enough to stay in Afghanistan:

Their first concerns are about Obama the man. They know he is intellectually sophisticated. They know he is capable of processing complicated arguments and weighing nuanced evidence.

But they do not know if he possesses the trait that is more important than intellectual sophistication and, in fact, stands in tension with it. They do not know if he possesses tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and confusion. They do not know if he possesses the obstinacy that guided Lincoln and Churchill, and which must guide all war presidents to some degree.This is the kind of clarity I would expect from a toddler.

This is truly bizarre. It's almost like David Brooks has been asleep the last eight years and missed watching the previous president show an uncanny ability, similar to that of a dog begging for treats, to fixate on a simple conviction. There's little I find more loathsome or puerile than the war fetish of a nebbish writer who undoubtedly spent the majority of his middle school days terrified of an unprovoked atomic wedgie attack. Until Brooks shows the kind of tenacity that involves voluntarily picking up a gun and waiting in the tall grass I'd suggest we'd all be better served by not having to read opinion pieces based on conversations he had with unnamed sources who happen to be pushing the same bullying mentality that produced underwhelming results in Vietnam. I'll let Adam Serwer take it from here:

We've been hearing some version of the "is Obama tough enough" argument since he started running for president, and as always, it's really less about Obama's individual tenacity than whether or not he possesses the same sterling moral qualities that led the questioner to their principled beliefs about public policy. In other words, it's not "is Obama tough enough" but "is Obama tough enough to do what I want him to do?"

I wonder whether Obama is being tenacious if he decides to buck the advice of his generals and bring the troops home. Would that be tough enough?

Run Palin, Run

It's pretty awesome watching the chattering class try to figure out whether Sarah Palin is going to run in 2012. If anything, past serving as prologue should teach us that the normal rules of politics don't apply to Palin. She doesn't concern herself with interviews (or ideas) that don't involve Greta Van Susteren, she doesn't care much for serving out her term in office, she lowers herself to being victimized by baby daddies and late night talk show hosts, and she places a premium on peddling a book with her picture on it that she may or may not have already read:

So she is going to make a shitload of money just to show you who is extra special awesome. She is going to collect her royalty checks and her speaking fees and she is going to let people fly her around the country (first class or private jet), put her up in luxurious hotel suites, and take her to fabulous restaurants. She will have people standing by just waiting to run and fetch her a stack of fashion magazines (which ones? all of them!) and a skinny white mocha latte. And if the PNAC guys want her to run for office, hey, it’s their dime, and it sure beats the shit out of gutting fish, making moose jerky, and changing Trig diapers.

As God is her witness, she’s never going to settle for Wasilla again.

Damn straight. And because reality is how Palin perceives it, her actions shouldn't be interpreted in the same way as when reading the tea leaves dropped by other politicos. That's what happens when you have a 747 jet engine of ambition strapped to a brain that handles like a golf cart. Handicapping Palin's intention to run for the White House should be done with the same detachment with which she goes about reading up on policy; nothing garners more attention than a run for the presidency. So what the hell else would she do with her time? When George W. Bush was elected president he set down a marker that being interested in governing wasn't a prerequisite for the Republican base. Being interested in being president is all that mattered.

Public Option Limited

The only upside I can see to Joe Lieberman (I-Lieberman) once again inflicting himself on the national dialogue is that we get to see Jon Stewart's impersonation. As for Lieberman's motives, I'm not sure what to think, although the most obvious answer is usually the right one (and no, ideology isn't it): Lieberman holds no loyalty to the Democrats, disdains Obama and his state is home to several insurance companies. So without a party infrastructure to help him, why would Lieberman want to piss off the biggest special interest group in the state before heading into a tough re-election campaign?

Of course, it wasn't that long ago I openly advocated for Lieberman to be vice president. How sick a system is this?

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Public Option Limited
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-- Update --

Also:

Lieberman has long been one of the industry’s favorite players on the hill, accepting more than $1 million in campaign contributions from the insurance industry and more than $600,000 from pharmaceuticals and related healthcare-products companies. But his ties run deeper than that. His wife Hadassah previously worked for two lobbying firms, Hill & Knowlton and APCO, handling matters for their healthcare and pharmaceuticals clients.

The Rise Of Bloggers

For the first several years of my adult life I made a living by asking questions to strangers that I wouldn't feel comfortable asking of my own friends. I then wrote about what they said while knowing that I was merely doing the best I could to impart a telling detail from an artificial relationship I'd constructed through the course of an interview that was often adversarial and always semi-real. Now I've traded in deadwood journalism for blogging, initially because the publication I was working for imploded, but as a consolation prize I knew where the industry was going and wanted to try opinion-based writing. I mean, if Richard Cohen can do it...

Anyway, to the right is a grim visual from The Awl of what has happened to newspaper circulation the past couple of decades and the coinciding cliff-dive that seems to have happened as blogs took off. Someone pass the Dramamine.

The problems with journalism being unable to monetize the Internet are well documented. But the reason for blogs cutting into journalism's readership are much less defined. I suspect it has less to do with like-minded people congregating around a virtual water cooler (though that's certainly part of it) and more to do with a story being augmented by what's perceived to be an informed take. I read what I consider to be smart blogs to help pick out a detail in a story that otherwise I might have glossed over.

Anyone who is friends with a journalist knows that person is in a thankless, back-breaking profession that demands constant dedication without much returned in the way of pay. It's a labor of love, as they say. To be good at your job--and I'm certain this is true with any profession--you have to posses an almost obsessive focus. It's the people who don't want to sacrifice time for kids or hobbies who get ahead at work--and that became especially true when journalism tried earlier this decade to offer enough material for the Web and the dead tree edition. The amount of work doubled, while pay remained the say. A weeding out process followed, with the newspaper industry getting leaner and meaner. Much meaner when it came to reporters being forced to hit the unemployment line.

That gets me to the similarities between journalism and blogs, which are too often painted as competing interests but really are complimentary parts. (Side note: I find the criticism that blogs couldn't exist without journalism to be totally bizarre. Um, right, that's the point.) I have more of an allegiance to a provocative, insightful idea relayed through the written word than I do to "journalism" or "blogging." Ta-Nehisi Coates can take it from there:

Incredible journalism is like incredible baby-making--it starts with passion. The guy combing through the city budgets because it's his job, isn't the same as the guy combing through them because it keeps him up at night, because he thinks about it when he shouldn't be. Institutions support that passion--but they don't create it. When my old Howard buddy was killed by the cops, it was all I could think about, and it was all I wanted to write about. And I did it almost for free, because it helped me sleep at night. I was burning to get it down. I deeply suspect that the bloggers you love, and the reporters you love, are similarly on fire inside.

The problem at the moment is that blogs are pointing out all of journalism's considerable flaws while the industry adjusts to the Internet Age. Eventually journalism is going to figure out how to make money again. Some of that will of course be sensationalist, Politico-brand. Its always been around. But I suspect that what comes out of the certain death of old-school, unaccountable journalism will be a much smarter form of journalism whipped into shape by the rise of informed bloggers who are watching the watchers and demanding more of them.

The Opt-Out Fall Out

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I liked the opt-out idea so much that I wanted to make it applicable to Social Security and Medicare. And I wasn't exactly joking. Sure, I don't care for Americans losing out on health care because they live in a state with an inordinate number of backwoods charlatans who have an affinity for dueling banjos and propping up private health insurers. But I love the opt-out for the short-term and long-term political consequences. The proposal strips conservatives of their two most effective policy arguments: fiscal responsibility and federalism, which actually do exist once you get past the death panel tripe. But in addition to being a great solution to the current legislative rubix cube, an opt-out keeps the health care debate alive. Obama's assurance that he is determined to be the last president to tackle health care was hollow. Nothing better than to keep the onus on Republicans, as Andrew Sullivan notes:

It's a political nightmare for the right as it is currently constituted. In fact, I can see a public option becoming the equivalent of Medicare in the public psyche if it works as it should. Try running against Medicare.

The collateral damage that an opt-out will inflict on the Republican Party -- if we can assume the public option is a success, as most honest brokers believe it will be -- is staggering. It's easy to envision state legislative races 10 years from now hinging on a candidate's willingness to vote for the opt-in. The optics of that in a place like Alabama would do more to help liberalism than Medicare ever did. Kevin Drum adds:

For the next four years Republican state legislators all over the country will be teaming up with the universally loathed insurance industry to try and deny their citizens access to a program that, for most of them, sounds like a pretty good deal. I don't know if Harry Reid was deviously thinking exactly that thought when he decided on this, but I'll bet someone was. It's hard to think of something that could force the GOP to make itself even more unpopular than it already is, but this might be it.

Fear And Loathing At NRO

Shorter Victor Davis Hanson: "Progressive leaders were assassinated in 1968 because they were doing the same things you're doing. Fair warning."

Now, in fairness to Hanson, here's his full quote, which is the concluding paragraph to a 1,700 word column that reads like it was drawn from the day dreams of John Derbyshire. After arguing Obama can either clean up his image by hiring Dick Morris (seriously) or continue with his liberal agenda, Hanson produces this nugget:

But if, as is likely, he chooses the latter, he will polarize the country in a way not seen since 1968, set back racial relations to the 1960s, do to the reputation of big government what LBJ did from 1964 to 1968, and, in the manner of what Jimmy Carter wrought, turn voters off liberal foreign policy for a generation.

Sure, lots of things happened in 1968 ... the Tet Offensive and the Chicago Convention were big events. But King and Kennedy most readily spring to mind. At best Hanson should be more careful when connecting Obama with the darkest year in American political history. At worst he knew exactly what he was doing.

Tales Of Subprime Epic Failings

Just how bad a bank was Washington Mutual? Check out Fay Chapman, WaMu's chief legal officer from 1997 to 2007:

"Someone in Florida had made a second-mortgage loan to O.J. Simpson, and I just about blew my top, because there was this huge judgment against him from his wife's parents," she recalled. Simpson had been acquitted of killing his wife Nicole and her friend but was later found liable for their deaths in a civil lawsuit; that judgment took precedence over other debts, such as if Simpson defaulted on his WaMu loan. "When I asked how we could possibly foreclose on it, they said there was a letter in the file from O.J. Simpson saying 'the judgment is no good, because I didn't do it.'

If the bank note fits, you must acquit!

And yet banks are fighting off regulation with claims that it will stifle innovation ... the innovation to repackage crap loans. I find myself falling back on the illustrious business advice of Tommy Boy, who apparently has more sense than the brain trust at WaMu:

Tommy: Let's think about this for a sec, Ted, why would somebody put a guarantee on a box? Hmmm, very interesting.

Ted Nelson, Customer: Go on, I'm listening.

Tommy: Here's the way I see it, Ted. Guy puts a fancy guarantee on a box 'cause he wants you to fell all warm and toasty inside.

Ted Nelson, Customer: Yeah, makes a man feel good.

Tommy: 'Course it does. Why shouldn't it? Ya figure you put that little box under your pillow at night, the Guarantee Fairy might come by and leave a quarter, am I right, Ted? [chuckles until he sees that Ted is not laughing too]

Ted Nelson, Customer: [impatiently] What's your point?

Tommy: The point is, how do you know the fairy isn't a crazy glue sniffer? "Building model airplanes" says the little fairy; well, we're not buying it. He sneaks into your house once, that's all it takes. The next thing you know, there's money missing off the dresser, and your daughter's knocked up. I seen it a hundred times.

Ted Nelson, Customer: But why do they put a guarantee on the box?

Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer's sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me.

Genuine

At least you can say that with Fox News, it isn't an act:

Before getting to my relative affection for Ailes, let me note that he will be 73 in 2012; he’s vastly overweight (and sensitive about it); he has health problems and can’t walk very well; he’s ghoulish looking; he’s deeply and nuttily paranoid (he discusses freely, albeit in lowered voice, the plans of radical Muslims to storm his house in New Jersey); and he may not be capable of doing 15 minutes without an offensive utterance.

Life Isn't Fair. Sports Is Supposed To Be.

I have to push away from the politics for a moment and focus on something much more important. My worst nightmare has come to pass. For fans of a mid-market baseball team, it's a thin line between the playoffs and the Pittsburgh Pirates, a franchise that hasn't made the post-season since Atlanta's Sid Bream (who rounded the base paths like he was wearing a parking boot on one leg) ushered them out of the National League Championship Series more than 17 years ago. Unlike other, more popular sports leagues that decided the relative health of their product should be tied to competitive balance by capping the amount of money each team can spend, baseball has placed a premium on recycling a once-entertaining rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox that in recent years has devolved into a monotonous routine between unlikeable corporate entities.

As a result of pay inequity, my Cleveland Indians, like other Midwestern teams, has been reduced to the role of glorified farm team for big market clubs. The economics of baseball has stolen what should be a golden age for the Indians. Look no further than the marquee match-up on Wednesday night when the World Series opens with Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia toeing the mound. Both have been the best pitchers in this post-season. It also happens that both are former Indians. Both are Cy Young award winners. And both were traded within the last 15 months because the Indians couldn't afford to keep them. Let's face it: neither the Yankees or Phillies would still be playing unless the system was rigged in their favor. No Sabathia, no Lee, no title.

Now, because the social order has been maintained and the World Series has two large cities represented, I have no doubt Mad Men and MLB executives are exchanging awkward fist-bumps. Fox can make much ado over the fact that somewhere in Brooklyn there's an eight-year-old boy wondering if he'll ever see his beloved men in pinstripes win a World Series. We'll also be offered plenty of features on soulless jock-mercenaries having taken to throwing shaving cream pies at one another as proof of their love of the game. But while advertisers rejoice, the sad fact is that fans are savvy enough to know teams are only as good as their management -- except when it come to baseball where incompetence is masked by money. The job of Yankees general manager should be the single most failure-proof position in all of human society. This year the Yankees payroll is roughly $208 million -- about $63 million more than the next closest team -- thanks to a glutinous spending spree that included signing three players to deals last winter worth more than a combined $300 million (Sabathia signed only after the Yankees trumped the second best offer by $60 million, a move that should have resulted in some serious soul searching by Commissioner Bud Selig). Meanwhile, a well-run organization like the Oakland Athletics is reduced to a payroll of $56 million and the mere hope of competing for a playoff spot every five years. Yet MLB is expecting fans to tune in Wednesday night and celebrate a testament to Brian Cashman's new-found competence. Count me out.

At some point in the last 20 years baseball stopped being our national past time. Plenty of blame has been placed on the strike-shortened season of 1994 as a turning point for the league. But the NFL endured its own labor disputes in 1984 and 1987 only to become the favored sport in this country. I'd like to think football's surge in popularity has something to do with the league giving its entire fan base a reason to care. Indianapolis has Peyton Manning, Green Bay had Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings have Adrian Peterson. Baseball needs to take note. None of those players would have stayed through the prime of their career in a mid-market city if they were getting paid to swing a bat. Hell, the three remaining undefeated teams in the NFL at the moment are Indianapolis, New Orleans and Denver, mid-markets all.

At least with the Cleveland Browns being led by Augustus Gloop I have nobody to blame but our own dysfunctional ownership. That kind of misery can be fortifying. But with baseball, the game is fixed. There's nothing remotely satirical about that. And I'm running out of reasons to care.