538 to NYT

Huge news on the political blogging front. FiveThirtyEight -- simply the best data-driven politics site anywhere -- is being folded in to the New York Times, though it will retain its editorial autonomy.

Colbert on "Blackwashing"

This is from last September but is still one of my favorite commentaries on the conservative problem with race.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Blackwashing
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

WaMo Turns 40

Washington Monthly celebrates its 40th birthday this year. As part of the celebration, the magazine has posted some of its greatest hits, which you can access here. Among my favorites: Taylor Branch on Civil Rights in Southwest Georgia, the smugness of baby boomers, the dubiousness of Woodward and Bernstein's cozying up to certain sources, and an assessment of the magazine's "Bullseyes and Blunders" over the last four decades.

Torture: Still Does Not Work

Let's repeat it again: Torture does not work. On a rare occasion, someone might extract something from an individual they have tortured, but as policy, it is terribly inefficient and does not work. Oh -- and it violates both the law and every sense of morality that the country is supposed to represent, not to mention that it undermines the argument that we are better than our enemies.

The Lib Dems' Opportunity

A lot of my Oxford Liberal Democrat friends will be bolstered by speculation that the Lib Dems stand to benefit from the chaos swirling around Westminster as the result of the expenses scandal that has swept the country. It was the dominant news story during nearly my entire time in England -- members of Parliament (MP's) have rampantly been claiming expenses for things that quite clearly reveal at minimum a widespread shamelessness and at worst serious corruption and abuse of power. As of yesterday morning, 12 MP's had either resigned or announced that they would give up their seats after the next election. Eight of them are Conservatives (Tories), four Labour. At least in part as a result, the Lib Dems have seen their popularity rise (they are pretty safely the country's third-largest party), though trust in government is at historic lows.

Voting Rights in Mississippi

Given its history can we just say that Mississippi never deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to voting rights? From the Jim Crow era forward Mississippi officials have always been too likely to restrict access to the franchise, to engage in chicanery to make voting more difficult, and generally to try to game the system.

Race Trumps Gender

The Boston Globe asks a question the answer to which is a no brainer: In American history which bias runs deeper, that against blacks or that against women? In manyw ays this is a silly debate, but it is a silly debate that people are having, so it is still important and relevant.

Excluding for now the dual bonds of race and gender that black women have historically faced, this is not even a subject that warrants more than passing debate. Race trumps class in this debate. Slavery is the obvious example -- of course women were enslaved, but they were enslaved as Africans, as blacks, and not because they were women. Women contributed to enslavement, and further relied on the psesumed virtue of white womanhood not only to allow but to contribute to lynching and the general violance of the radical racist era, benefitted from and supported Jim Crow in all of its guises, and generally reaped the fruits of white supremacy.

I do not intend to argue that the plight of women has been easy. But in this day and age, Hillary Clinton walks around under the census category of arguably the second most privileged group of human beings ever to walk the planet: Affluent, politically-connected white American women. Only their white male counterparts are higher in history's food chain.

Self Indulgence Miscelleny

Over at the South Africa Blog I've been busy addressing the Kenyan election crisis (and excoriating the egregious coverage of the New York Times), looking at various reviews of 2007 and previews of 2008, and more. Enjoy.

I'm off to San Antonio today and then DC tomorrow for the AHA and so blogging may eb light, but I do hope to provide a post on my views of the candidates. I have not been coering the race much, and that's been intentional -- there is plenty of noise out there, but now that the games have begun, or will on Thursday, it's time to start taking it all seriously here at dcat.

South African Politics and the ANC: Self Indulgence Alert

The African National Congress just completed its national conference in Polokwane at wich it nominated Jacob Zuma to be the party president, paving the way for him to succeed Thabo Mbeki as South Africa's president in 2009. Zuma has been a lightning rod for controversy over the last few years and his rivalry with Mbeki had grown increasingly acrimonious over the course of 2007. Today comes the news that ther National Prosecuting Authority has enough evidence to pursue corruption charges against Zuma. Suffice it to say that this changes the political dynamic, though in what ways it is almost impossible to know. I've been following events closely at the South Africa Blog.

Schlesinger's Diary

This week's New York Times Sunday Book Review has an extensive review of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s Journals: 1952-2000. My only complaint is that the Times surely could have given this assignment to someone with considerably more gravitas than Maureen Dowd, who, given more than 4300 words, does little more than recount anecdotes from the book. The anecdotes are telling, but couldn't a more serious reviewer have done so much more with this sort of prime space? I have a hard time believing that Bill Leuchtenburg or Robert Dallek or Alonzo Hamby or about three dozen other serious historians could not have done a significantly better job with a book that looks rich and compelling and will provide rich insights into Schlesinger and simultaneously leave a valuable primary source for historians of politics and American life to mine.

Curbing Use of the "S" Word

In an "Editorial Observer" column in today's New York Times Philip Boffey takes on the idiocy of invoking "socialized medicine" to attack the various health care proposals coming from the democratic candidates. I would go farther -- almost every invocation of "socialism" in the current political dialogue is so muddle-headed as to be laughable. Conservatives love to taint their opponents with socialist/Communist labels even if those labels are laughably inapt. It's their go-to move, as the Nazi analogy is for some elements of the left, though invocations of Nazism and fascism by now tend to cross aisles. That particular brand of idiocy, anyway, now transcends partisanship.

Political Memories

I just received the following in an email from the prodigal RoJo who has been deeply immersed in his study of Ronald Reagan:

I've "tagged" you in a "blog meme." This means you have to write a post about your earliest political memory - I'm not sure what the penalty for ignoring this is, but it's bound to be something terrible.

[Here's his.] Well, far be it from me to risk something terrible happening to me. Especially when the threat comes in a British accent, which, when not foppish and fey, can be quite sinister!

My earliest political memories come in montage version. I cannot claim to remember anything from Nixon's America, and I am not certain anyone remembers anything of the Ford experience. But I do recall bits and pieces from the Carter years. And I certainly remember seeing episodes of All in the Family, which probably introduced me to political culture as much as anything else in those days. I remember Mrs. Carter coming to my home town when she was First Lady and my little brother being excited to meet "Mrs. Washington" (he was about four as I recall). I remember the hostage crisis vividly, most notably my Mom owning a t-shirt depicting Mickey Mouse flipping the bird with the caption: "Hey, Iran!", which naturally was the greatest thing I had ever seen.

Even cooler is that I just found the image online.

By the 1980 I was nine and can clearly remember wanting Carter to lose and supporting Reagan, to the point where I was a budding political cartoonist and could do a pretty mean Reagan, usually involving him threatening to bomb someone and asking for jellybeans, both proclivities I supported at the time. Within a year of his election, however, I came to my senses. I was a liberal Democrat by 1982. I was eleven.

So my earliest memories come from the Carter years, but my political awareness emerged with the Hostage Crisis. I was eight when this played out on my little tv screen in our house on a cable-free dirt road in Newport, New Hampshire, so by my own recollection I was not especially politically precocious. I do have clear memories of sports, and especially baseball and the Red Sox that antedate my political memories or concerns, so I guess that particular path was already cleared even when I was young.

Stuff That Barely Qualifies As News

Three newsflashes that will come as surprises to exactly no one: Bill O'Reilly is an insufferable bully hypocrite. This presidential administration may truly be imploding. Both of these stories come via Andrew Sullivan. The third assertion of the obvious, courtesy of Mark Harris at Entertainment Weekly: The Emmy Award nominations are a farce.

In Defense of Joseph Wilson

Over at The New Republic Michael Currie Schaffer has a defense of Joseph Wilson. It may not be the defense any of us would want, mind you. But it largely rings true, and I love the subhead: "Joseph Wilson's selfless self-promotion."

David Corn on Bill Kristol

In The Washington Post David Corn has ruthless takedown of Bill Kristol in an inaptly titled piece, "Why Bush is a Loser." The title is inapt because while Corn does go after Bush's policies he really takes aim at Kristol, one of the President's biggest cheerleader and a man who would lead me to pack my beach clothes if he told me a storm was coming. Kristol, as Corn only begins to reveal, has been so wrong about so much in the last five years. Amazingly, this nearly unbroken streak of wrongness has not reduced Kristol's smug sense of certitude even one iota.

Hat tip to Donnie Baseball.

The Fred Thompson Phenomenon

Michelle Cottle has a fabulous feature on Fred Thompson over at The New Republic. Place me in the category of those who simply do not get the Fred Thompson phenomenon (nor have I ever gotten the gushing over Giuliani). And if Cottle's central point is true that Thompson's biggest appeal is his corn pone masculinity, drawn largely from his film roles, what the hell are his GOP supporters thinking in light of the fact that John McCain, who, whatever his flaws, certainly is second-to-none in this race in terms of whatever we define as masculinity? It's frankly frightening that so many seem not to be able to differentiate Thompson from his various screen personas. It is even more frightening that such a fundamentally unserious (or pseudo-serious) guy is being taken so seriously.

Cutting Through (Some Of) The BS

Ever hear something and just know that it might be crap, but you don't have the exact data at your fingertips? Does a Google search for the errant information sometimes produce too much through which to sift, or too little of use in trying to determine why something that sounds fishy might be? Well FactCheck.org is here to help. It's a non-partisan, award-winning site from Penn's Annenberg Public Policy Center. With all of the misinformation and disinformation out there one would wish for them to update it more frequently, but FactCheck.org is the sort of site for which these tubes known as the internets were made.

Only In Boston

Boston, it has been said, has two overriding passions: Politics and the Red Sox. Not always in that order. And so perhaps only in Boston could the biggest daily newspaper -- and one of the most respected in the land -- use a quotation from a relief pitcher as an object lesson for politicians. In an editorial titled "Okajima's Civilizing Influence," a Boston Globe uses a quotation from Japanese import Hideki Okajima, who just received the fans' vote for the final American League All Star spot, as a springboard to wish for greater humility from our political leadership.

Upon winning an Internet election for the 32 d and last spot on the American League All-Star team, Red Sox rookie reliever Hideki Okajima, speaking through a translator, said he is "still the hero in the shadow." The pitcher who received 4.4 million online votes insisted that the real hero -- the teammate casting that shadow -- is his younger compatriot, Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Much has been said and written about the lessons these two hurlers from Japan have had to learn about playing ball in the Majors and about American mores. But if Okajima's modesty may be considered as much a cultural quality as a personal trait, then it seems obvious that many Americans in the limelight -- and not merely that special breed, the millionaire athlete -- could stand to learn a thing or two from the gracious Okajima.

The possibilities seem endless. Imagine Hillary Clinton winning an early primary and saying she is still "a hero in the shadow of the greater hero," Bill Clinton. Like Okajima's bow to Matsuzaka, such a Japanese-style gesture from Hillary would derive its virtue from the widespread belief that it is true.

The editorial goes on from there, including speculation that an Okajimesque hunility might benefit Randy Moss as he tried to learn the Patriot Way. Is it a stretch? Absolutely. Does it make me love Boston all that much more? It sure does.

Lunch With Strangers

Over at The New Republic Micheal Kinsley has an amusing account of a lunch he never had with President Reagan. My favorite element of the piece is his description of the "Washington Read" whereby one flips to the index to see if one earned mention in any given book. The writer's equivalent is to comb a book's bibliography (or, more ponderously, the notes) to see one's own work mentioned. Such solipsim simultaneously represents both incredible high self-regard and equally incredible insecurity. And I'll admit that I'm guilty with both psychological motivations undoubtedly at work.

On Presidential Speeches Past and Proposed

At Washington Monthly they are thinking a lot about presidential speeches. Paul Glastris, the magazine's editor in chief, once helped write speeches for President Clinton and in his Editor's Note this month he discusses the art and practice of presidential speechwriting. This is by way of setting up famed former aide and speechwriter for John F. Kennedy, Theodore Sorensen, and the speech he wants the next Democratic nominee to give.