Tracking My Frontrunners

It's overload time for fans of sports and politics, with the Patriots preparing for their rendezvous with history in Glendale on Sunday and the leading presidential candidates facing their own meeting with fate on Tuesday. A couple of stories involving my choices in the latter, more prosaic, competition caught my eye today.

At the New York Daily News historian Robert Dallek takes on the issue of Obama's experience:

As one who has spent many years studying JFK, let me make this much clear: When it comes to experience, Obama is no John Kennedy. (Indeed, when distilled into the crudest terms, Obama is no Dan Quayle - who was famously branded "no Jack Kennedy"; as of 1988, Quayle had spent more than a decade on the national stage.)

But here's the much bigger question: What does it matter? An examination of Kennedy's own record - and of the broader sweep of history - leads us to this critical conclusion: Obama's lack of experience shouldn't be considered a liability. Many of our most experienced Presidents have made disastrous choices. In the long life of the republic, judgment trumps experience, almost every time.

This pretty well dovetails with my take. And in any case, in a race against Hillary, I still am unclear what this vaunted experience that she keeps touting vis a vis Obama amounts to.

At The Washington Post Robert Novak picks up on the question of whether John McCain is conservative enough. Novak equivocates, but seems skeptical. Toward the end of his piece, he writes the following: "McCain as the Republican nominee would need those 'very conservative' voters." I disagree with the implications of this argument. In this political climate of hardened partisan division, the stalwarts on both sides of the aisle are not going to stay home. They may not love their party's choice of candidate, but true devotees of politics, true believers in one or the other party, are not going to sit home on election day. Even if they are not enthusiastic for a candidate, they will show up to make plain their distaste for his (or her, perhaps especially her in this case) candidacy. These "very conservative" voters and their "very liberal" counterparts are not going to allow a fit of pique to keep them home. Swing voters, not the tried and true loyalists, will be the difference makers come November.

(By the way -- self indulgence alert!! -- this story in the Midland Reporter-Telegram on the events in Florida early in the week contains a few of my observations.)

On Vince Lombardi

The Super Bowl week buildup continues unabated. My team is involved and I find most of it to be practically unbearable. It must be awful for those of you who are still paying attention or have been unable to convert all of the blather into soothing white noise. Ralph Whitehead, Jr. had a nice piece on Vince Lombardi in The Boston Globe that might remind you of, as others say in a different context for a very different purpose, the reason for the season, or at least one of them. Here is the introduction:

BECAUSE THE Super Bowl trophy bears the name of Vince Lombardi, yearly media countdowns to the game often revisit his triumphant years as coach of the Green Bay Packers. But too often these portraits of him are skewed. They depict him as a severe taskmaster - but play down his achievements as an innovator.

In such portraits, he is a George Patton. In fact, however, he was a Steve Jobs.

The whole thing, as we blogger types are wont to say, is worth reading.

FreeRice

Want to do something about global hunger? Don't want to get up from your computer screen? Know a lot about words? Dumb as a post and know little about words but willing to sit there for a long time? Go to FreeRice and play the game that lets your knowledge of vocabulary (or that tenacity of yours) feed the hungry. For every one you get right, 20 grains of rice go to the UN's World Food Program courtesy of your big brain and the site's advertisers. Read more about the game and its origins in this article from USA Today. Bookmark FreeRice, go in every so often, spend ten minutes, and all of those grains of rice will add up fast. Then come and lie about your scores.

RoJo on the State of the Union

My buttons are bursting with Armitage Shanks pride (that's an inside joke for my Oxford contingent). RoJo has published a fine piece in New Statesman on the State of the Union address and its evolution over the course of the country's history. It's concise, smart, well written, and you'll learn a few things over the course of reading it. He's also been posting up a storm at Amiable Dunce, with witty and insightful commentary on The Wire (which is the greatest show in television history) and the primaries.

On Literary Agents

If in the world of writing you are a relative nobody, as I am, you are familiar with the pas de deux of dealing with agents. It's a frustrating game, because the agent holds all the cards despite the fact that it is your work that is at the center of discussion. When I was shopping Bleeding Red I had an agent for a while. At first she was enthusiastic and supportive. And then she discovered that some very big names were also publishing books on the Red Sox, and she became distant and silent. Before long, the relationship ended -- she called it off, but only after I had threatened to do so. My view is that what seemed like an easy sell and thus quick profit turned into work for her. Since then I have had tentative forays with agents, but it has usually gone nowhere, or where it has gone somewhere it has been with someone who seemed little more clued in to the world of publishing than I am. I anticipate flying solo for a while, as I'm not important enough to need an agent even if I'm self-important enough to want one.

All of these thoughts crossed my mind when I read Gina Barreca's fabulous post on literary agents at The Chronicle Review's blog Brainstorm. A generous excerpt:

Maybe it’s not impossible to get an agent who is responsive, responsible, intelligent, well-read, witty, and competent, even if you’re not selling a book that will immediately be made into a blockbuster Hollywood film. And maybe it’s not impossible for me to flap my arms and circle the moon.

Ask any writers — working authors, especially those known as “midlist,” meaning that they’ve sold books but have not had action-figures based on their characters — about their search for the perfect literary representative, and they will clutch you by the collar and, as their eyes narrow into gimlets, they’ll launch into a saga that makes the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” sound positively catchy.

You’ll hear versions of “Although I sent my manuscript to an agent recommended by a colleague and haven’t heard back from her in 27 months, I’m afraid to send a follow-up e-mail because I’ll sound too pushy”; “My agent said even though he’s never actually read anything I’ve sent him, he’s sure he can place something as soon as he gets around to it and that I’m a valuable member of his circle of authors”; “My agent told me she loved my book, just loved it, and that I shouldn’t take another contract for a different manuscript because this one was a sure-fire-winner until, oops, two months later she read the rest of my book and decided she wouldn’t be able to sell it after all and, umm, terribly sorry about that whole not-taking-the-other-contract thing.”

My favorite illustration of the relationship between writers and agents is as follows: After a difficult day a struggling writer returns to his neighborhood and is shocked to find a cadre of police and fire trucks surrounding the smoldering remains of his house. Explaining who he was he asks, “What happened?” “Well,” one of the officer’s says, “It seems that your agent came by your house earlier today and while he was here he attacked your wife, assaulted your children, beat your dog and burned your house to the ground.” The writer is struck speechless, his jaw hanging open in disbelief…. “My agent came to my house?”

Read the whole thing. Including the comments, where there are a couple of almost-but-not-quite plausible defenses of agents.

The Greatest of All Time?

At The Boston Globe Jim McCabe, using the current Patriots as a springboard, explores the futility of figuring out which team is the "greatest of all time" but also acknowledges that the very futility of it may be what makes such arguments so enduring and alluring.

The next week is destined to pass slowly. The NFL does itself, and more importantly its fans, a disservice by having the off week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl. There is no real reason why this game should not be going on today, though if Tom Brady's ankle really is injured, pats fans are thankful for the respite. Nonetheless, it feels as if the league has killed some of its own carefully cultivated momentum.

They Like Me, They Really Like Me!: Self Indulgence Alert

The editor of Cape Town's Cape Argus saw my latest Foreign Policy Association think piece and asked for permission to republish it. The Argus is one of South Africa's largest daily newspapers, so naturally I was thrilled to see it appear very prominently on the op-ed page on Wednesday.

John Rambo is Back

Admit it. You're considering seeing the latest installment of the Rambo movies. Oh, you might do it "ironically," or out of a sense of nostalgia. But you're actually looking forward to it, even if you use it as an excuse for going to the movies drunk. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the review in The New York Times was actually quite fair. One quotation from AO Scott's assessment probably sums it up best: "[T]he movie does have its own kind of blockheaded poetry."

Amen to that, brother.

In The Changer: I've Fallen Desperately Behind, H-J Edition

Well, the idea was a good one. I love music and love to write about music and I wanted to document my current music tastes. So I decided to spend some time reviewing things that I've been listening to in order to share, criticize, and maybe make some sense of a small slice of the frankly overwhelming mass of listening options that are out there. But the problem is that as I've been doing this, I've also accumulated more and more cd's or downloads. So basically, I'm going to plough through the rest of the alphabet as best as I can even though most of these albums are more than a year old and I am as frequently listening to newer stuff as this. Oh well. As I've said all along: As soon as the labels start sending me these things to review for free, I'll be more timely. Until then, you're stuck with my methodology and timelag.

Hot Hot Heat, Elevator: This album sounds like it could be the soundtrack to the greatest '80s movie never made. Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Mare Winningham, Molly Ringwald, and Allie Sheedy deal with life, love, loss and growing up in a trenchant dramedy while Hot Hot Heat, probably wearing skinny ties, produce infectious pop music, including what has to be the song for the opening credits, over which the tableau will be set, "Middle of Nowhere." I'd definitely see that movie. But at least we can buy the soundtrack. Grade: B+

Michael Jackson, The Essential Michael Jackson: Michael Jackson may be crazier than a syphilitic hobo, but there is no doubting that at one point he also was as talented a performer as ever walked the face of the earth. The crazy appears to have taken over the talented, much as Norman' Bates' mother took over Norman Bates, but this two-disc collection is a reminder of why from the heyday of the Jackson Five to the early 90s Jackson was the world's most popular entertainer. That said, this could probably be even better as one long disc that cut a little from both the earlier stuff (I'm not certain Michael Jackson as a boy singing romantic ballads to women is any less creepy than his late life shenanigans) and the later stuff (the era of the alleged shenenigans). Thirty songs, say, rather than thirty eight, and less would be more. Still pretty damned good, even if he's not the ideal babysitter. A-

Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues Singers: I like the blues. But I hate most blues fans. You know the ones I'm talking about. He's white. He dresses "bohemian," even though everything he's wearing is only affordable by someone comfortably ensconsed in the upper-middle class. He laughs too loud at the bluesman's jokes at a live show. Basically, he's a pretentious douche. Nonetheless, Robert Johnson is at the top of the pantheon. You can hear his influence throughout the canon of what we now call "classic rock," including the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith. It's even more remarkable to listen to this compilation and consider that Johnson was dead at twenty-one years of age, poisoned, apropos of his genre, perhaps, by his girlfriend. Most of you probably know the legend of Johnson -- he allegedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his sublime gifts at a crossroads in Mississippi. Crank the album, avoid the dude in the Birks and socks (he's almost assuredly the one with the ponytail) and imagine what might have been had Johnson only made it to thirty. A

Reckoning With Reagan

Over at The New York Times on Monday Paul Krugman engaged in a pretty significant evisceration of what he deems as the false narrative as a decade of economic boom. Money quotation:

The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen.

My own views on Reagan are complex. In the wake of his passing I wrote a perhaps too charitable assessment here, though I stand by most of the general conclusions. Reagan did have his successes, and his character and personality towered over the decade that historians will always associate him with. At the same time, his failings are manifest, and at times embarrassing. Iran Contra (which really ought to go down in the annals as worse than either Watergate or whatever Clinton was guilty of), Vetoing the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, Bitburg and Neshoba, Opposing renewal of the Voting Rights Act and MLK Day (until faced with the prospect of an overwhelming veto): These and many more failings will always loom over his presidency in my mind. Still, the shadow he casts over contemporary conservatism, and thus on modern American society is huge, and for that reason alone, independent of the quality of his presidency, which will be the source of decades of debate, the importance of the Reagan years seems almost incontrovertible.

Bring the Hype

I'm back from Colorado and our great weekend with Tom and his better half, so while I try to get back to the grind, let's get going with the Super Bowl XLII hype: In the pre-Patriot era, the New York Giants were actually New England's football team, which explains why Dan Shaughnessy was rooting for Eli Manning and company on Sunday.

My comments on the Chargers game: First, let's keep in mind that the only reason the Pats did not score on the drive that closed out the game was because they chose not to. The game was reasonably close, but virtually never in doubt. As for San Diego's injuries, all I'll say is that injuries are a part of the game, and as a result the Pats did not have one of their best defensive players, Roosevelt Colvin, or the guy who was leading the Pats in rushing when he went down for the season, Sammy Morris. On the whole, the Pats got it done with defense and a brutally efficient running game. Brady did not have his best game, but my guess is that the weather and turf in Glendale will see a return of the Patriots who can put up 50 in ruthless fashion.

Travel Advisory

Mrs. dcat and I are off to Colorado to meet with a fellow named Tom (and his lovely better half) who is familiar to at least some of you. Posting may be light as we weather the snow, cold, and from the vantage point of a couple of adopted West Texans accustomed to the tortilla-flat desert anyway, odd stuff like "mountains" and "trees." The living will be good but the posting will be light.

On Zim at the South Africa Blog (Self-Indulgence Alert)

Zimbabwe has been occupying my attention over at the South Africa Blog. Today I take Great Britain to task for coming up short on providing Zimbabwean refugees with asylum despite th3e condemnation of Mugabe rightfully coming from London in recent years. I also have two posts of reportage froma friend who just returned to Zim from South Africa to visit his famnily over the holidays. It's well worth checking out if you have a few minutes.

James McGregor Burns and the Supremes

The historian and political scientist (and Williams College professor emeritus) James McGregor Burns is turning his attentions toward the Supreme Court. I suspect that this book will make an important contribution as most of Burns' works have.

FDR Watch

This promises to be a gift from the history Gods: dcat friend and mentor Alonzo Hamby is working on an FDR biography, and over at POTUS he will be writing "a series of occasional columns on the issues an FDR biographer faces." His first such piece looks at lingering questions about the state of FDR's health during his presidency.

NFL Playoffs: The Divisional Round

Here are my quick assessments of the NFL playoffs this weekend, with my always-entertaining predictions. (Unless I'm betting Holmes, in which case I always win, I'm pretty mediocre at this sort of thing.):

Seattle at Green Bay: Green Bay is at home and is by most measures the better team. Bret Favre's magical run continues for at least another week as Seattle on the road is not a great team. This is a nice JV game before the varsity takes the field in Foxborough. Green Bay 34-Seattle 17

Jacksonville at New England: Lots of folks love the Jags because they can run and stop the run and thus are a good bet in a cold weather stadium against a team predicated on passing. This is, to put it bluntly, nonsense. The Jags are also not a great pass D, and the Pats not only have the best passing offense in the league, but arguably the best passing offense in the history of the NFL. Meanwhile the Pats have had two weeks off, Belichick has been able to game plan for the Jags, the game is at home, and the weather is supposed to be conducive to a passing offense. I have a pretty demonstrable history of getting insanely nervous before these games. But I am confident that the Pats are going to maul the Jags. The Pats may lose before completing the run to perfection. But not today and not against this team. New England 44-Jacksonville 23

San Diego at Indianapolis: My guess is that Tony Dungy, Peyton Manning, and the rest of the Colts love flying this low below the radar. No one is talking about them. Meanwhile the Chargers won their playoff game last week, but in far from compelling fashion. There has been lots of talk about Marvin Harrison this week, but his return won't be as much of a factor as the inevitable implosion that the Chargers will engage in sometime around the third quarter. maybe this would be a game in San Diego. It won't be in Indy. Indianapolis 38-San Diego 27

New York at Dallas: This will likely be the closest game of the weekend, and in that sense the most entertaining, but for some reason I see this being a typically ugly NFC east slugfest in which the team that turns the ball over last watches their playoff hopes fade. Given that a Cowboys-Pack, Pats-Colts weekend might be the greatest pair of games in the history of the NFL, and given that I don't think Eli can get it done again, even if they are on a roll and this is the dreaded third matchup this season after two Cowboy wins, I think Dallas will win. Dallas 21-New York 17

Enjoy the games, and Go Pats!!!

What's Next in The Race?

It seems clear that the key to being a successful pundit is to focus less on what's new or what's now and to place all of one's energies on what's next. With that in mind, here are two "what's next" sort of pieces on the primary campaigns, one from Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics, the other from Ronald Brownstein at National Journal.

Spam as Felony

As I kill time before today's games, a thought that often comes to me crossed my mind again. In all of the talk about Spam email and its various annoyances, why isn't the issue of fraud a part of this discussion. Spam is an annoyance, but it is often more than that. If you send me an email claiming that there is a problem with my bank account, and you are not actually a representative from my bank, how have you not committed about a dozen fairly serious crimes? Some try to couch spam discussions as matters of free speech, but there is no protection for attempting to defraud someone.

Obviously most of these emails fall into the category of petty irritants. If I don't have an account at the community federal credit union that is in the dire straits that you claim it is, that simply clutters my inbox. Such phishing expeditions still ought to be patently illegal, but their odds of doing me harm are minimal. However, more and more, likely based purely on the sheer amount of email I receive and the probability that comes with it, I receive emails allegedly from banks and other institutions (Amazon being a common example) with which I do business. I know that my bank does not contact me by email, but Amazon does, as do others. At this point, the risk of fraud increases substantially and such spam crosses from being a bother to being potentially devastating. Ho are attempts to defraud thousands, maybe millions, of people in one fell swoop not considered significant threats?

Ron Paul's Loonie Brigade Unleashed?

So, is Ron Paul a racist, homophobe, and all-around bigot? An examination of some of his old newsletters implies as much, as this Jamie Kirchick story indicates.

I'm usually wary of Kirchick who too often is so agenda-driven that his work can be shoddy, his conclusions knee-jerk. Nonetheless, the evidence in this case seems compelling enough to raise questions. But the most interesting element of all of this is the way in which Kirchick's piece really smoked out Paul's wingnut brigade of supporters. The typical New Republic article or blog post might elicit a handful of posts if it is interesting or provocative, a few dozen if it is truly controversial or hits a nerve. Kirchick's article has inspired nearly 1400 comments, the huge majority from an obviously mobilized and organized online brigade of Paul groupies. Whatever Kirchick's flaws, he seems to have hit a rich vein. And while it is unfair to taint a candidate by his or her craziest fringe, when that fringe establishes a critical mass, (and when it inspires David Duke to start giving campaign advice) it does raise some serious concerns about the candidate.

More on Politics

Sorry the posting has been so light -- it's been a crazy break and in the last couple of days I've been catching up on piles of work while at the same time trying to cobble together my first slovenly time of the break right before the new term kicks in next week.

The last issue of The New Yorker has two worthwhile articles about the GOP race. In "Talk of the Town," Hendrick Hertzberg has a great little piece taking a skeptical approach to the use of religion in campaigns, especially the religiosity of Huckabee and Romney. Elizabeth Kolbert profiles Rudy Giuliani in a way unlikely to change many minds among his detractors (among whom I clearly rank).

I do not have a whole lot to add to the noise about New Hampshire. Both races are fascinating and have been made moreso by the results in the Granite State. I am happy for McCain and hope that he can get redemption for what happened to him at the hands of the Rove-Bush machine in 2000. On the Democratic side we've already heard more than we need to about the Comeback Kid redux but the most important aspect to me is that there is still a race, and that we'll have some time for an actual primary contest as opposed to a coronation for one side or the other. South Carolina ande Nevada represent shifts in geography and demographics, so soon enough we may have a clearer picture. I, for one, would welcome having this nomination process use more of the calendar than recent election cycles have. There is no reason why we need to have our candidates set before Valentine's Day. And maybe continued close competitions will prevent the media from establishing narratives that become self-fulfilling.