Cosigner is Famous

Holy Crap! So I am listening to SomaFM internet radio right now, and what song is playing even as I type this? Cosigner's wonderful "Would I Miss You"! Cosigner is the labor of love of Big Tent's, Northern Colorado's, and our own Stephen Tootle.

The Miers Nomination

It is going to be amusing watching people step all over themselves to defend or condemn the nomination of Harriet Miers, about whom none of us know a damn thing.

Well, that is not exactly true. We know that President Bush has a pretty good grasp of what Ms. Miers, who has almost no paper trail and has never sat on any bench, believes. We know that the president made the daffy assertion that Ms. Miers will not "legislate from the bench" when we know that the three most conservative justices on the Supreme Court have voted to overturn Congressional legislation far more often than any other judges -- legislating from the bench indeed. We know that she will more than likely pursue the reticent approach that worked well for Chief Justice Roberts. The difference is that absent even the relatively scant record that Roberts had left, such reticence should simply not be allowed. My assumption is that this is Bush's stealth candidate.

That said, let's not hyperventilate quite yet. We do not know enough to write and speak with certitude about the possibly-future-Justice Miers.

Sox In, House Remains Intact

The Sox are in the playoffs, having finished the season in a dead heat with the Yankees in the AL East. By virtue of taking the season series 10-9, New York gets the official designation of Division Champs, which means they have to travel to Anaheim to play an Angels team that to my mind is a lot scarier than the White Sox. Clement v. Contreras tomorrow at 3:00 Central time.

GO SOX!!!!!!

One win down, two to go. Unfortunately today I have to listen to that colossal douchebag Tim McCarver.

Sox v. Yanks

As you might have guessed, I am climbing the walls waiting for the Sox-Yanks matchup. I have no predicitons at this point. As the Thunderstick explains it, this is like a five game series, and the Yanks have already won game one. We need to win three of four. If we pull a sweep, we win the division. Two wins equals a 1978-esque playoff (and I'll have to see that fucking Bucky Dent home run, possibly the worst moment of my childhood, replayed ad nauseum). Only one win, and it is a long winter. It should be pretty close. They have Rivera. We have Big Papi. We have shown that we can get to Rivera. They have decidedly not proven the same about Ortiz.

On a related note, the publicity flyer for my Sox book came my way today. If all goes well, Bleeding Red will be available next week. If all goes even better, the Sox will still be alive. I'd give up the book for the Sox to make the playoffs. Then again, I am insane.

Why we need to "stay the course"

Those who have read my previous thoughts on the current conflict in Iraq know that I have opposed this conflict from the beginning, arguing that it was counter-to our national interests, and justified on the misleading/false/deceitful/exaggerated claims by the Bush administration in the lead-up.

All of that being said however, I do not support withdrawing the troops, but rather believe that we must stay the course in Iraq until the bitter end, and that it would be preferable to commit troops to that nation indefinitely rather than see the nation descend into a civil war that could become the next Lebanon, or worse. Although such an outcome may be inevitable, thanks to the utter incompetence in our reconstruction efforts, now is not the time to quit.

This is obviously an important issue and debate in the nation today and while I try to avoid posting antire articles that someone else wrote, I believe the following short editorial in the Lebanon paper, The Daily Star, really articulates me own frustration over the nature of the current debate:

"We in the Arab world are shocked by the ease with which so many American journalists and commentators are calling for the speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. After cajoling the international community into accepting this war and then transforming Iraq into a horrific scene of terrorist violence and sectarian strife, Americans are starting to realize that creating a stable and democratic Iraq will entail much more work than they had bargained for. And as citizens of the world's sole superpower, they have the luxury of being fickle, while Iraqis are left to suffer in the wake of their invasion, occupation and withdrawal.

Even those who were beating the war drums prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq have now joined the chorus of calls for American forces to leave. Thomas Friedman, a supporter of the war, wrote yesterday in an op-ed that perhaps "America is wasting its time" in Iraq and should "arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind" because "we must not throw more good American lives after good American lives for people who hate others more than they love their own children." Such statements are not only insensitive, they reflect a broader American perspective - a privileged people's utter disregard or outright contempt for "others."

While Iraqis are dying on a daily basis, Americans are discussing the idea of a U.S. withdrawal in columns and on talk shows and in coffee shops with an alarming sense of detachment. And although it was the Americans who brought this war to the Iraqi people, they now discuss the mission as if it were an experiment that can be abandoned at any time. It is a tragedy that so many lives are being affected by the whims of a superpower.

As the unpopularity of the Iraq war gains momentum in the United States, more and more American journalists and commentators who participated in the rallying calls for war have become critical of the U.S. mission in Iraq. While it is a welcome development that so many are acknowledging the mistakes that the United States has made and are bringing the Bush administration to task for these errors, one wonders where was their criticism of U.S. President George W. Bush prior to the invasion? Why did so few intellectuals counter the war-mongering arguments then?

Unable to maintain electoral pressure through lobbyists or special interest groups, the Arab world is left to accept whatever fate America may decide to impose. And the interests of Americans can change as they see fit. Americans have the luxury of deciding whether to "stay the course" or to leave Iraq in ruins. But it is the Arab and Iraqi people whose lives are at stake when America meanders in and out of their presence at will.

There is no doubt that building a peaceful and stable Iraq will be costly, time consuming and not at all easy. But the leadership in Washington has made a promise on behalf of the American people that they will see this adventure through to that end. The Americans have made a vow of friendship to the Iraqi people that ought not be broken. While we in the Arab world welcome efforts to promote peace and democracy, we are not in need of fair weather friends."

Why Republicans need not worry about 2006

Yesterday, Howard Fineman noted that “with George W. Bush’s presidency mired in the muck of hurricanes and doubts about the war, you’d think Democrats would be bursting with energy, eagerly expecting to regain power. But, in a roomful of well-connected Democrats the other night, I was struck by how gloomy they were. They can’t stand Bush, but didn’t have much faith in their own party’s prospects.”

Indeed, Democrats are wise to keep their expectations sober. Despite the polls, the indictments, the blunders and the foreign conflicts, I predict that the Republicans will once again carry the day in 2006, retaining control of House and Senate (and obviously the Presidency and the Supreme Court).

The reasons for this are partly technical: Thanks to Republican redistricting, the House is now so gerrymandered that not many seats are genuinely competitive. However, much of the problem with the Democrats are self-inflicted: no leader, no message, no unity.

The Good News for Democrats

According to Political Wire "a new Winston Group (R) poll that shows Americans turning away from the Republican party... Those surveyed had less confidence in Republicans to handle a wide range of issues, including education, Social Security, health care, jobs and energy prices. Democrats beat Republicans by at least 9 percentage points in each category. In addition, Democrats were also viewed as better able to handle war in Iraq and the economy. "

The Washington Post continues on this theme:
“On almost every front, Republicans see trouble. Bush is at the low point of his presidency, with Iraq, hurricane relief, rising gasoline prices and another Supreme Court vacancy all problems to be solved. Congressional Republicans have seen their approval ratings slide throughout the spring and summer; a Washington Post-ABC News poll in August found that just 37 percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job, the lowest rating in eight years.

On the ethics front, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is under investigation for selling stock in his family's medical business just before the price fell sharply. The probe of well-connected lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a former close associate of DeLay, threatens to create even more troubles for Republicans. Finally, the special counsel investigation into whether White House senior adviser Karl Rove or others in the administration broke the law by leaking the name of the CIA's Valerie Plame is nearing a conclusion.”

Hold the victory party celebration invitations

Sounds like the country is ready for a change, doesn’t it? The problem is that the country (and thus the people responding to all these polls) doesn’t elect the Congress: individual congressional districts do, and individual states. If the majority of people who dislike Republicans happen to live in REALLY Blue states anyway, who cares?

So, let’s look at why the Democrats are ice skating up-hill:

According to Stewart Rothenberg of Roll Call, "Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to take control of the House of Representatives” (taken from Political Wire).

“At this point, most of the macropolitical indicators favor the Democrats...However, "if the overall environment seems to favor Democrats in House races, a race-by-race assessment of the party’s prospects is not nearly as upbeat. The party has a number of good opportunities, and it is poised to make gains. It’s just that those gains, while possibly considerable, are likely to leave the Democrats as the minority party after the midterms.""For now, Democrats can count on gains in the low to middle single digits — probably from four to eight seats. That would be a good step toward possibly taking control in 2008, but it would keep the House in Republican hands for Bush’s final two years."

And that's just the House!

Larry Sabato looks at the Democratic chances for taking over the Senate after next year's elections, noting that "Katrina, Iraq, gas prices, growing national debt, President Bush's unpopularity, and other factors might conspire to produce Democratic gains or even a takeover."How to do it? Assuming Democrats can hold all open seats (MD, MN, and possibly NJ) and win the close Democratic seats (WV, FL, WA, ND), they would need six seats to take control.Two Republican senators -- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) -- "are in deep trouble, and may be ripe for the plucking." To get the other four seats, "there appear to be only five possibilities in the nation: the Tennessee open seat of retiring Senator Bill Frist (R), plus defeats of incumbent GOP senators Conrad Burns (MT), Mike DeWine (OH), Jon Kyl (AZ), and Jim Talent (MO). All of these are possible, none at the moment is likely."

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, John Dickerson in Slate offers additional reasons to be pessimistic, including the total lack of leadership in the Democratic party, and the fact that the Republicans have plenty of time between now and the election to turn their reputations around.

Of course, a Democratic Revolution is not an impossibility, and they too have plenty of time to refine/create a national message. Furthermore, the Democrats look much stronger to capture several state-houses in the upcoming election. Nevertheless, although it is way too early to be placing bets now, Republicans at the national level really need not worry TOO much. While this tells us very litte about the policies of the Republican or Democratic parties, it does tell us much about the current structure of American government.

Some Americans Know A Good Thing When They See One

They're here.

If only there were more of them. (Particularly in Ohio, Florida etc.)

Sportsguy and Klosterman

If you love pop culture, and you love sports, you will be giddy over the fact that Sportsguy and the inimitable Chuck Klosterman have an epic two-part exchange here and here. I cannot even begin to convey how great this is -- I wish I had been part of the exchange to concur, to disagree, and just to bask in it. Make sure you have a half hour or so, lock yourself away, and read these now.

Shame on the Labour Party

The ejection of Walter Wolfgang from the Labour conference yesterday is a really sinister development for that party, and seems to confirm their arrogant evacuation of democractic debate and accountability. Internal democracy in the Labour party has never been much to write home about, but the new tactic of silencing their own grassroots at their own conference reaches new heights of absurdity.

For American readers unfamiliar with British party conferences, they're somewhat different to US party conventions. They're aren't just a finely organised media event, although they seem to be heading that way. Grassroots activists vote on a series of policy motions, and frequently defeat or amend the plans of the party leadership. Ordinary grassroots members are called upon to speak on either side of the motion, and there is a real power in the hands of the party membership- if only for that one week of the year.

The supreme irony that Mr. Wolfgang was protesting at a passage of Jack Straw's speech concerning democracy in Iraq. After refusing to allow their grassroots to debate a motion on Iraq, it now appears that there is no role for delegates at Labour conference other than to applaud on cue for the waiting television cameras. Labour party members looking for a democratic political party which opposed the invasion of Iraq have an obvious place to go.

The best word of the day was from Alex Salmond: 'Labour can censor their own delegates, but they can't gag the people.'

DCAT's Quickie Pop Culture Review

The disappointment of crushed expectations is the worst kind of disappointment. I had a run-in with this sort of deflation last night, and I am going to use it as a way to introduce dcat’s latest sporadic regular feature: the quickie Pop-Culture Review. My model for this sort of thing will be Robert Christgau’s Consumer Guides for pop music. Hopefully other dcatters will pick up on this trend of capsule reviews of various pop culture media (books, cds, dvds, movies, tv shows, etc.) to help you decide where best to spend your hard-earned cashola.

I am a big fan of the twisted brilliance of Family Guy. Back this year by popular demand (and strong showings on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim”) after Fox dumped it a few years back, the Griffin family continues to push the envelope in a Simpsons-meetsSouth Park sort of way. In recent weeks, Fox has been advertising a straight-to-dvd movie, Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin: the Untold Story and I was counting down the days until yesterday’s release.

Consider the mystery behind why this was issued straight-to-dvd solved. I would not say that Family Guy Presents sucks, but it is simply not that funny. Piecing together a few references to the revival of the show throughout the hour-and-a-half on screen, it appears that this may have been a project that was going to appear before the show was revived, and there is evidence that creator Seth McFarland and his writing team was trying way too hard to push the envelope. This occasionally happens in a half hour episode, but that is a forgivable sin. They don't ask you to pony up cash for that.

The gist of the plot is that there is a Family Guy movie (very meta!) and in that movie, the evil genius matricidal toddler Stewie has a brush with death that eventually leads to him meeting his future self, which leaves him intolerable of his thirty-something self. It’s is a plot with promise, and I chuckled a few times, but it simply did not sustain. There are too many flat periods, too many over-the-top moments that are not even remotely amusing, too many points where the clunky writing gets in the way.

Continue to love and cherish Family Guy. But do not be reeled in by this cynical ploy to rake in cash from your loyalty. They got $17 of mine (thank Best Buy for clipping $6 off the regular price on release day). And if you do not trust my judgment, ask yourself this – why is there an hour-and-a-half Family Guy movie out there that went straight to dvd? Straight-to video is for three phenomena: Movies that suck, porn, and cynical attempts to score a windfall from an inferior product. Put it this way: This ain’t porn. Any other differentiation is not worth making.

What else is new?

According to Media Matters, “In recent weeks, several prominent journalists have publicly acknowledged that the U.S. media accorded President Bush too much deference following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams both noted that it was only in observing government failures in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort that journalists began seriously to challenge the administration. NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell conceded that reporters have been "less challenging" since the attacks. Friedman wrote that the 9-11 attacks created in the media a "deference" towards the administration. Williams described the press corps as "settling in to too comfortable a journalistic pattern," a phenomenon he described as the "9/11 syndrome."

This, of course is nothing new. Back in 2003, “CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."

Anecdotally, people I know who worked for or interned at various media outlets such as CNN tell me that since FoxNews dominates the ratings, they are the station most emulated and watched by producers of other networks, and of course anyone who has seen Michael Moore’s controversial film, Fahrenheit 9/11 cannot deny the overt bias he documented in the media in the lead-up to the war.

As the Guardian pointed out in 2003, “views that offer an informed critical analysis of the Bush administration's foreign policy, particularly with regard to the Middle East, are not part of the national conversation in the United States. And until Americans can have that conversation with themselves they will not be equipped to converse with the rest of the world about the relative legitimacy or otherwise of their government's actions but will instead continue to retreat into a combination of belligerence, bemusement, defensiveness and demagogy.”

Also in 2003 was MSNBC correspondent Ashleigh Banfield's statement that “so many voices were silent in this war. We all know what happened to Susan Sarandon for speaking out, and her husband, and we all know that this is not the way Americans truly want to be. Free speech is a wonderful thing, it's what we fight for, but the minute it's unpalatable we fight against it for some reason."

What makes this information “news” at all rather than a statement of the obvious is the disparity between the media’s recent coverage of hurricane Katrina and their coverage of the Iraq war. Although government officials lament what they call the “blame game” (or what others might call “accountability”), the media has been tremendously critical of government response to the hurricanes. Although knee-jerk outrage is certainly no better than knee-jerk acquiescence, critical analysis is almost always preferable than blind (and inevitably bias) reporting.

Again, nothing you didn’t already know, but still thought I would point it out.

Roberts and Race

John Roberts has a race problem, as John Judis argues on TNR online today in a perceptive article that also strikes at the heart of the Republican party's division over race. I've argued it before, but I will repeat it here: Republicans are not racists, and it is unfair when people taint the GOP with that label. That said, in modern American politics, the party most friendly to race baiters and bigots is the right wing of the GOP. While the Democrats have the worst legacy of either party on race -- as we are reminded every time doddering old Senator Byrd says something irredeemably stupid (imagine my joy when the web version of a History News Service op-ed piece I recently had picked up by a Charleston, West Virginia newspaper appeared underneath a banner supporting the good Senator) -- the Republicans are most likely to be the home for neo-Confederates, a trend that began with the Civil Rights Movement, picked up speed with the Goldwater and Nixon campaigns, and reached full flower in the 1970s and 1980s.

Judis makes a good case for why we should be wary of John Roberts. I have argued since the summer that the Democrats should not waste a lot of ammunition on Roberts, and it is clear that he is going to pass confirmation overwhelmingly. This does not mean Democrats (or Republicans) who care about civil rights should vote for him. It is one thing to say that in the 1980s Roberts was simply carrying the administration's water, and thus we cannot hold the things he did against him. It is quite another to point out that in internal memoes, Roberts often was doing far more than this, making his own case against civil rights independent of the administration's ultimate positions. Roberts is going to be confirmed. Democrats (and many Republicans) should keep an eye out to make sure that the next appointee does not have similar views on race. But if that nominee does, we will know what side of the GOP divide on civil rights this administration falls.

Yummy XM Goodness

I finally did it, and I cannot believe I waited this long. More than three years after an ex-girlfriend got a job as a sound engineer for XM Satellite Radio and continued to cajole me to take the plunge, more than six months after a friend got it, I finally went and got the car kit and added the boom box and got registered, and now I can see that I am in deep, deep trouble. XM is approaching 150 stations. The sound is, as advertised, damned good. The array of options is astounding. It is worth it for the Major League Baseball coverage alone. XM has probably already changed my life.

The Hurricanes and Odessa

As another storm slams the Gulf Coast, I am reminded again of our shared duties to one another. Odessa has taken in scores of refugees. The Red Cross has set up an emergency shelter in UTPB's gym and both FEMA officials and an onslaught of various police have descended on campus to deal with busloads of people coming in. We have had several fundraisers, most of them, in true Texas fashion, revolving around food. (Buy burritoes to support the victims of Katrina! Eat spaghetti for the victims of Rita!) Rita has hit land and it is impossible to tell what its outcome will be, though the eye appears to have missed Houston and New Orleans. The frightening thing is that there is lots of huricane season yet to come. UTPB, Odessa, and like communities will probably have to pitch in for some time yet to come.

On The Bedside Table

It’s been a while since I last wrote about the books on the bedside table. I’m back in Odessa so there are literally dozens of books I am trying to progress through, a Sisyphean task made all the worse by the fact that I try to keep so many balls juggling in the air, rather than read one or two books at a time. And of course I have books I am reading for class, books for my research, books that I am reviewing, and scads of journals and magazines and the like. Nonetheless, these are five books that are tickling my fancy these days:

Alistair Cooke, Letter from America: Alistair Cooke was the legendary British born-and-raised expatriate who became famous for his columns and radio shows in which attempted to capture for his British audience what this huge endeavor known as America is. This book collects the texts of a small sample of his radio addresses from the 1940s to the 21st century. Most striking for me has been how salient even the observations made in the 1940s are. Cooke knew America, he loved this country, and he saw things that even most natives might never have noticed, or at least he saw them in ways that were, if not uniquely British, whatever that means, at least reveal a cross-cultural vantage point. I picked this one up in oxford and do not even know if it is available in the US, but I would suggest that the British dcat contingent make its way down to Borders or Waterstones or Blackwells and pick up Cooke’s delightful collection of essays.

The staff of The Boston Globe, Finally! The Red Sox Are Champions After 86 years: Hey, look, if you're going to be reading dcat, you’re going to be reading about the Red Sox indefinitely. This is akin to a coffee table book, and captures in vivid pictures the glory of the Sox 2005 season by the newspaper staff that knows them best. This will at least tide you over until Bleeding Red hits the shelves in a matter of days.

John McWhorter, Losing the Race: Black Self-Sabotage in America: McWhorter is always smart, usually provocative, and occasionally infuriating. His books are challenging because he takes stances on issues facing black America that are not afraid to challenge the orthodoxy among most who purport to speak for black Americans. Sometimes I think he is just plain wrong, but McWhorter is such a fluid stylist and his arguments are important. He is often dismissed as being a conservative, as if there is something inherently wrong with that, but for me, this simply makes him more essential. In the past I have used one of McWhorter’s books in my civil rights classes just to ensure that my students receive a different perspective on the issues facing black America, indeed all of America.

Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991: Much of the music I love can be traced to this subgenre during these years. The Replacements, Husker Du, the Pixies, Sonic Youth – although I came late to most of these bands, not really discovering them, or at least not discovering them in earnest, until college, they have provided the foundation for a goodly percentage of my music listening in the last two decades. Azerrad’s essays are informative, colorful, insightful, and help augment music that has provided much of the soundtrack to my life.

Richard Ben Cramer, Best American Sportswriting, 2004:Most years it errs too far on the side of the treacly and the obscure. But if you want nearly perfect bedtime reading, the “Best American” series will do the job. I especially like the sports writing, travel writing, essays, and “nonrequired reading” collections each year.

Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract:: Categorical assertions, including this one, are always dangerous. That said, I can almost assert that one cannot be a real baseball fan without gaining an appreciation for this enormous undertaking. For the first time I am trying to read this mammoth tome from cover to cover. Among the highlights, and the part I have spent several weeks making my way through, is the top 100 players listing for each position, which includes anything from a few sentences to entire essays about every player, with both statistical and impressionistic rationales. It is remarkable how players whom we all probably thought of as pretty marginal easily crack the top 70 or so at most positions. If you love baseball and you do not own this book, go get it. Now. What are you waiting for?

Happy reading.

Slight Changes at dcat

We've decided to allow nonregistered folks to comment, but are keeping the word verification system. The goal is to keep spam down to zero but to allow anyone who would like to comment. Registration clearly limits participants because some people might not want to register, especially if they are stopping in for the first time from an outside link. We will change back to a registration system if unfettered access proves problematic. We have yet to delete a comment for any reason other than that it was spam or that it was a comment inadvertantly posted twice. Despite a reputation for cantankerousness, dcat (and Rebunk before it) has always had far fewer ugly comment wars and ad hominems than other blogs that preach to others about civility and then go on the attack. We hope to keep it that way.

The blogroll also is slowly growing. We only add blogs that we read and we think will be of direct interest to our readers. I added one today and will continue to do so as seems appropriate.

Next Up: Katrina "Could Become a Disaster"

Sometimes I wonder if anyone has even been paying attention to Zimbabwe, and by extension to Africa. This article in the Mail & Guardian contains a few lines that frustrate me to no end.:

Tom Woods, a top African affairs official at the United States State Department, said the grim prospect for Zimbabweans is that Mugabe will remain in power until his term ends in 2008.

Under Mugabe's rule, Woods said, the Southern African country has suffered an economic decline of 40% in recent years and a brain drain that is probably irreversible.

Zimbabwe could become "a failed state or a failing state," Woods said, speaking to a gathering at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

He said the world should support growing pressures for change in Zimbabwe and act to save the people of Zimbabwe from the "worst aspects" of Mugabe's rule.

Two things stand out from these few lines. The first is the part about "the grim prospects for Zimbabweans" being that Mugabe is likely to continue his reign. What is it that we used to say in elementary school to someone who stated the obvious?

"Duh!"

This is about as inanely obvious as a statement can be. Let's see, Mugabe has consolidated his hold on power in recent years. His dictatorship is substantially worse than it was a decade ago. His neighbors in South Africa, the most powerful nation on the continent, have done virtually nothing to arrest Zim's freefall. The United States and its allies have barely feigned interest in what Mugabe has done to his people, as we have barely feigned interest in African affairs for, well, forever. And from all of this, Tom Woods makes the stunning conclusion that Mugabe will maintain power? It is almost breathtaking in its obliviousness.

The second phrase that stands out is Woods' assertion that Zimbabwe could become a "failed state or a failing state." Oh, could it? Whatever might bring about this bold assertion? Don't step too far out on that limb. Zimbabwe has gone in two decades from one of the great hopes of subsaharan Africa to one of its worst autocracies. Zimbabwe could once proudly claim to feed its people and be one of the major exporters of food in the region. Now people run the risk of starving and Zimbabwe gorges aid like a supermodel at a laxative buffet table. So you really think it is possible that Zimbabwe "could" become a failed state?

Does the State Department's entire Zimbabwe program really hinge on Mugabe's successor being someone we can deal with and who will lead his people from darkness into light? A culture of controlled anarchy has emerged in Zim that will not disappear when the head dies. Mugabe's successor will be anxious to consolidate his control and put his own stamp on the country. Witness what happened in the former Zaire when Laurent Kabila took over in a successful coup against our Cold War glory boy, the almost unfathomably kleptocratic Mobutu Sese Seko. It is impossible to imagine Mugabe's successor undertaking liberal democratic reforms.

The answer is not force. At least not right now. For one thing, the application of such force would be a near impossibility. It would plunge the region into chaos. Again. But the solution does come through the application of pressure -- to Zimbabwe, to be sure, but also to South Africa in the form of carrots as much as sticks. Mbeki's calculus thus far has been that ignoring Zim, or using constructive engagement with Mugabe, is better for South Africa's interests than a more forceful approach. We need to convince Mbeki that his approach, while understandable, has failed, and that we will help him find a more assertive course. And we need to do so by following up on the promise of development that followed the transition to multi-racial democracy in 1994 but that has somewhat fizzled. Would such promises constitute austerity? No -- South Africa has the region's most developed economy, whatever its shortcomings, and such investment would be in everyone's self interest. But how can America and Americans invest when South Africa's neighbor is in such tumult, especially in a region known for its volatility? South Africa can and should be our partner in Africa. Let the Zim issue be the one that brings us back and helps us realize the partnership.

But for now, we appear to be wringing our hands, suddenly aware that Mugabe is not going anywhere, worrying far too late about what might be while denying what already is.

Gals Hating on Sports Obsession

Sports Guy is more obsessed with fantasy leagues, gambling, and video games than I am, but then again I could never promise to devote only every other weekend to watching football, so my guess is that the Sportsgal and my girlfriend might have a lot in common.

Meanwhile, in the World's Dictatorships

Over at TNR online, TA Frank has another installment of "Today in Despotism".