Thanks, Ev!
I realize that many of you are finding me from the "Blogs of Note" list at Blogger.com, and I appreciate it. If anything you've seen here has amused or provoked thought, that's all I'm after. But as I watch myself slide down the list, I feel I should remind you to bookmark me if you want to be able to find me again. If not, well, it's been good to see you.

Please, don't make me defend Bill Clinton
What's this? Why isn't anyone talking about this?

Bill Slams Arafat For Failed Peace
Former President Bill Clinton drew praise from the White House yesterday after defending U.S. policy in the Middle East and laying the blame for the failure of the peace process squarely on Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.
..."If you want America to be more critical of Israel when they do specific things we disagree with, there's only one thing you have to do: Get everybody over there to affirm Israel's right to exist," Clinton said.

You go, Bill!

What am I saying?!?

Bill Fires Back At U.S.-Bash Powwow
...Clinton's presidential foundation co-sponsored the gathering of Islamic experts at NYU Law School, at which several panelists blasted the cozy relationship between the United States and Israel.
The former president delivered the opening remarks at the day-long forum, titled "Islam and America in a Global World," and had not intended to speak again.
...Clinton couldn't sit by idly. At the end of the two-hour session, he rose to his feet, took the microphone, and launched into an unscheduled 15-minute defense of American foreign policy with regard to Israel and the Arab world.
The former president also blamed the Palestinians for balking at peace in the Mideast...

Who is this guy, and where was he from 1992-2000?

They can't all be gems
Sometimes you just have to admit you don't have anything to say. This is one of those times. So many of the topics that dominate the best-known blogs just aren't doing it for me today.

Enron? I have little interest in watching Democrats with pockets full of Enron money try to pin Cheney. Do I have this straight? They suspect that the President didn't do anything because he'd received so much money from Enron that it would look like quid pro quo. That accusation is so slippery I can barely keep it in my head. Would it have been OK if the President had helped a little?

(Oh, and guys? It's too late to sanctimoniously give back your Enron campaign funds.)

Academic plaigarism? Sorry, Insta-, Quasi-, Daily-, and whoever else. It seems like a lot of fuss over a few misplaced -- or unplaced -- quotation marks. (Now, if my own work were stolen, that would be important...)

Bellesiles? I really want to get worked up over outright distortion of facts in order to promote an agenda, and the subsequent cover-up by a major university and a news organization that pretends to be "public", but there are so few surprises in this that it doesn't hold my attention.

Geraldo just said the Arab street considers the President's State of the Union address to be "bellicose". Wow. No moss growing in the Mideast, is there? There's no sneaking anything past crusading... oops, I mean, hard-hitting investigative reporters, is there? I mean, we've only had these countries on our "naughty" lists for how many years now? (Does moss grow in the Mideast?)

Rosie O'Donnell is gay? Who knew? You mean she's both gay and not funny? Ellen deGeneres doesn't have that niche to herself any more?

Even my favorite guilty pleasure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has let me down, with an hour that, except for Willow's excommunication of Amy, must be the worst episode of this series ever.

And am I the only person who's noticed that Alan Keyes sounds like Kermit the Frog?

Maybe I should just eat something and take a nap. I'm sure I'll feel better then.

Toss me the Keyes
Brendan Nyhan thought I might be interested in his American Prospect article about Alan Keyes' new MSNBC show, the name of which I can't say with a straight face. (Ever since Bill O'Reilly called it "Alan Keyes is Changing Clothes", I just get a giggle fit every time I think of it...) (Brendan also sent me a link to another detailed analysis of the series thus far.) You were right: I am interested.

I only mentioned Dr Keyes in passing as an interesting punctuation mark -- of what kind, I'm not sure -- to the flurry of talent poaching among the 24/7 news networks. I said that MSNBC had "elevated the average IQ of the room", and I stand by that. Keyes seems to think the viewing public will sit still for an hour-long program with a common thread throughout (other than bombing Afghanistan, I mean), and such a bold experiment deserves time to gel. As Brendan said, "Keyes finds a moral question related to an issue in current events, asks his panelists for their views, and then suggests a conclusion based on the principles articulated. That conclusion then becomes the focus of debate for the remainder of the show."

At that rate, we might begin to inch beyond "democracy good, bin Laden bad." Keyes says he thinks people are smart enough to manage it. I agree.

Back when there were only three networks, and even the largest cities only had four or five channels, it wasn't that unusual for the news divisions to borrow a prime-time hour for an extensive treatment of a single subject. How interesting that now, when broadcast journalists have all the time they could possibly need, they typically pack an hour with six short segments that barely get around to stating questions, let alone approach an answer. No wonder Jay Leno passes for reasoned political discourse: He has fewer guests, and spends more time talking to each of them. If for no other reason than that, I'm rooting for Alan Keyes' experiment to succeed.

About the sweater thing (I'm sure Alan Keyes is reading small-time blogs for fashion advice, doesn't everyone?): Yes, for those who haven't seen the show, Keyes does change into a comfy, non-threatening cardigan sweater for his "People Just Like You" segment. That's not the silly part. The silly part is that he begins the show in a normal suit jacket, changes into the sweater for the one segment, then changes back into his suit jacket for the remainder of the show. The illusion of television is that all this stuff Just Happens, and the camera Just Happens to record it for our entertainment. The sweater thing is too artificial, too calculated, too obvious: It shatters the illusion. Start the show in the sweater and stay in it throughout, or lose it. Or close the flippin' window behind you, in the set wall.

Or do the show in a golf shirt with the MSNBC logo on the breast pocket, if you want. Changing clothes in mid-program just draws attention to the showmanship, and away from the intellectual content (though I don't always agree with Keyes, at least he's trying to raise the bar).

Oh, and there is one other trend I'm happy to see Keyes avoid: So far, most of his guests have actually been physically present in the studio with him. Have I mentioned how annoying I find multiple split-screens full of talking heads pretending to make eye-contact with each other? Ah, I remember the good old days, when talk show hosts and their guests used to be in the same room...

Thanks, I think
I'm part of Jay Zilber's Legion of Essential...Pets?

Well, I'm there with the entertaining Insolvent Republic of Blogistan, so it can't be too bad a thing. I'll take it as a compliment. (Time to break out the animal totem I use in print and put it in my blog header. Stand by...)

And Little Green Footballs lists me among the Anti-Idiotarians, and I won't turn that label down either. I only wish I'd thought of it first.

[UPDATE: Don't write to explain it to me: I'm a comic-book reader from wa-a-ay back. I "get" the hierarchy of "Legion of Essentials" / "Legion of Substitute Essentials" / "Legion of Essential Pets" (I had explained it, but I figured, who am I to spoil it if Jay doesn't want to? So I've removed the explanation. *phththtp*), and I really am pleased to be included.]

They (still) don't know us very well, do they?
Believe me, you're not getting half as tired of me saying this as I am getting.

Our international friends think Americans are arrogant. They haven't heard the half of it. Get a load of this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Can you beat that? We think our rights apply to every human being on the planet! How arrogant is that?

Okay, maybe I'm being silly. But we Americans take those words seriously, and you won't understand us unless you understand them, and believe that we believe them.

All America really wants is to live in its own way. We think most people feel the same way. We've no interest in owning Afghanistan. We're not in the colonialization business: Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, don't want to go back. We like our way of life, and that steady stream of immigrants would seem to indicate that a lot of other people prefer it, too. We think Afghanistan would like it if they tried it, but it's not our place to force it on them.

God knows we don't want to rule the world. It's really nothing to us how the rest of you want to run your countries, so long as you can continue to do business like adults, and so long as our people are safe when they're in your country doing business with you. We'd really rather you didn't slaughter your own people, but when it comes down to it, the only thing we really have a right to do about it is to stop doing business with you. "Play nice or we'll take our checkbook and go home." For most of you that seems to be incentive enough.

Those rights I mentioned -- you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness? -- apply to you, too. You have the right to live however you want. Right up to the point you start shooting at us.

The Great American Rulebook is right there where anybody can see it. Check it out.

Watch where you point that thing
The Saudis respond to the Americans' decision not to require their female personnel to wear the abayah while they're out and about:

"If some American women want to deliberately challenge our local customs, then you'll see a clash, especially with the mutawaeen," he said, referring to stick-wielding religious police who roam Saudi streets to enforce Islamic codes.

Not meaning to be too bellicose for our Saudi friends, but I think the first mutawaeen who lays a stick on USAF Lt. Col. Martha McSally (whose lawsuit prompted the change in policy) will need both hands to retrieve it from where she puts it.

Or is that insensitive of me?

Friday Five
Since I neglected to answer the Friday Five last week, I'll double-up now. If this gives you an idea of who the person behind the blog is, it's done it's job.

Last Week:
1. What do you have your browser start page set to? My Yahoo.
2. What are your favorite news sites? You mean other than My Yahoo? The main reason I read so many blogs is because they do a better job of sorting out the news I want to see than any of the "real" news portals do.
3. Favorite search engine? Google.
4. When did you first get online? Before you were born. :)
5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Assembling the APA (amateur press alliance) mailing I edit.

This Week:
1. What cologne or perfume do you wear? None.
2. What cologne or perfume do you like best on the opposite sex? None. Thanks to a childhood addiction to nasal spray, I can't smell it anyway.
3. What one smell can you not stomach? Tobacco. It's the one smell that I can almost always detect, even in traces.
4. What smell do you like that others might consider weird? Malt vinegar. When I order fish and chips, I load it up with malt vinegar until I can smell it. By which time everyone at my table, and probably at adjacent tables, can smell it too. (See above.)
5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Preparing for an ARTC meeting.

Ooh
Very sorry for the lack of updates this past day or so. I'd like to say I was hypnotically captured by this page, but in fact it was a much more mundane lack of sleep and spare time. I'll get better soon, I promise.

In the meantime, in between X10 ads, take a look at these: Wallace and Gromit news, and a checklist of Bush campaign promises.

Test pattern
Yesterday I was commenting that the big reason the rest of the world doesn't understand America is that they (like us) believe what they see on television. And what do they see on television? American escapist entertainment, peopled by characters who never existed and never could.

As I was sitting stunned today over how many page hits I've gotten from that (thanks, Steve and Glenn! I wish I could return the favor), I was thinking that the point probably deserves more exploration than I gave it...

...and it hit me. Epiphany from a cathode ray tube. Now I understand. Silly me, I was thinking "Friends" and "Survivor", but those are too new. America's image problems are far older than that. Now I know who they think we are.

The Beverly Hillbillies.

We tripped over an oil well and fell into a mansion. Such wealth and power as we have, we have by accident, and we are largely uncomprehending of it. The best that can be said of us is that we are well-intentioned.

In the Bush family's case, they may even think it's literally true. Certainly our domestic Democrats appear to think so: They have expressed their opinion of George W.'s intellect in terms that suggest he might have a tough time keeping up with Jethro Bodine.

There's the evil Republican banker, Milburn Drysdale (can anyone doubt he is a Republican?) scheming to retain control of the Clampetts' money. And the dour Democrat, Jane Hathaway, Drysdale's sounding board and conscience.

Hm. This is getting a little too close for comfort. I need to go relax by the cee-ment pond.

The News War
In any business, there are two basic approaches to growth: You must either find consumers who aren't yet being reached by your product, or win consumers away from your competitors. Grow the market, or grow market share. Most businesses do both, to some degree. Some are forced more towards one or the other strategy by their particular market.

Take soft drinks, for instance. In the United States, especially in retail areas, it's hard to find a place worth calling a place where there's no cola machine of some kind. There are no American frontiers where colas can't be had. Thus, if a soft-drink bottler is to grow its domestic business, it must do so at the expense of some other beverage.

Which brings me to cable news, a fizzy and frothy mess if ever I saw one. I can't seem to find who said this, so I apologize for stealing this insight, but it's so darned true: In the absence of any real news from the Front, the continuing machinations of the cable news channels are the best show in town.

It's old news by now (so to speak) that the CNN brothers are redesigning their respective "looks", not-so-subtly copying what they perceive to be the Fox "look". It's also old news, and I think a near-universal opinion, that whoever is responsible for the busy design of the new CNN Headline News should be shot. Or, at the very least, forced to watch it. At length. (Is it true that picture-in-picture-capable televisions implode when the viewer tunes to CNN-HN? And does anyone watch CNN-HN for local weather coverage?)

The flaws at CNN are more than skin-deep. They knew that: That's why they laid off so many of their staff early last year. It was an exodus so dramatic that it inspired its own web site, Ted's Turnovers, to chronicle the ongoing downward spiral of CNN. (Ted's Turnovers was an entertaining site, while it lasted: They're closing down, but even their goodbye message is worth a read.)

They ditched some of their senior news-gathering and reporting staff in order to hire actress Andrea Thompson, implying that they think their problems all stem from not being pretty enough. Just the right move to revive the form vs content argument, driven by ever-more-vocal viewers with a new medium in which to express their skepticism (this one). Unrepentant or deaf -- or perhaps, correctly judging their audience -- they just acquired lovely Serena Altschul from MTV as well.

The issue was brought to a boil by Paula Zahn -- not her, and not her jumping networks from Fox to CNN, but CNN's marketing. Specifically, That Promo, which aired on a smirking Fox's news programs more often than it actually aired on CNN. Oh, I believe them when they insist it was actually a needle scratching across grooves, not... what you thought. I'm sure that's what the sound effects CD said it was. It almost doesn't matter.

Do you think Zahn would have approved of the spot without the sound effect?

Who did approve of it, anyway? Nobody edited it, nobody produced it, nobody previewed it, it Just Happened. Spontaneous television. As if the Air Itself couldn't contain its enthusiasm for Paula's, er, credentials. Doesn't this raise some interesting questions about everything else that airs on CNN? Shouldn't it? (Has anybody else noticed that none of the news networks run production credits?)

The Truth about Television: Pretty people get preference. (Duh.) Andrea, Serena, and Paula all have something that Peter, Dan, and Tom don't have. This is the elephant in television's bedroom, the thing that controls everyone's decisions that no one dares speak of. (Of course, Peter, Tom and Dan have job security. Andrea, Serena, and Paula only have jobs until their credentials begin to sag. But there's always another Laurie Dhue waiting in the wings.) (I just heard: Connie Chung to CNN? How can she be a "higher-profile personality" in need of a "huge visibility boost"?)

Meanwhile, Fox News is facing a crisis of its own. Now, I believe Roger Ailes when he says he's trying to live up to his network's motto, "Fair and Balanced". But his argument is being refuted by his own listeners, who are protesting (in large numbers and with strong language) his recent hires, known liberals Geraldo Rivera and Greta van Susteren.

And we mustn't count MSNBC out, either. After watching the other two poach each other's talent (using the word loosely), MSNBC has clearly elevated the average IQ of the room by landing Alan Keyes to a weeknightly hour, "Alan Keyes is Making Sense," a silly name for a potentially fascinating show. Keyes will have the 10:00pm hour opposite the charisma-free Aaron Brown on CNN and van Susteren on Fox. Between that and his lead-in from current hot property Ashleigh Banfield (who has really bloomed as a correspondent in the last six months, with or without, ah, credentials), Keyes just might collect a significant audience by default.

And if he does, I'll forgive him for borrowing my color scheme for his show graphics.

The Holy Constitution
Steven den Beste has had the courage to suggest that, just maybe, it was through our own actions (and those who came before us, who built the nation whose blessings we enjoy) that America has come to be the only superpower left standing as the 21st century begins.

Predictably, overseas observers don't like to hear that. They think that we should adopt such policies as they ask of us, without regard to the proven failure of those policies elsewhere. They are not too proud to accept our money, but they would rather we recanted the activities that result in our having the money to spare. (They don't seem to have thought much about where they would be if we had the same "success" with their policies that they have had -- but there is in the world a class of people who think that money Just Happens, that our national wealth is due to luck, no more. Get a clue: It isn't luck.)

And in particular, they don't understand our insistence on national sovereignty, our failure to yield to the United Nations on key issues, in service to our own Constitution.

When den Beste explained to a correspondent that our elected officials swear to uphold the Constitution, he responded:

Then it's time to change. The Constitution can't be holy, can it?

To which den Beste asked:

Do Europeans really understand America so little?

They don't understand us at all. It's easy to forget that, since so much of America spreads throughout so much of the world, courtesy of our mass media. However, that doesn't reflect who we really are. We're aware of this unreality at home, as we watch "Friends" and "Survivor", but we forget that this is what the world sees of us.

America is so diverse that there are plenty of observers here to tell us that we don't understand the rest of the world. I'm not here to dispute them. But who's going to tell the rest of the world who we really are?

We've entered into a contract with ourselves: We call it the Constitution. It defines what we need a central government for; it defines the powers we've granted it, and the conditions under which it can exercise those powers. Other than that, we're on our own. We are 300 million sovereign entities, who choose to hang together for each other's common good. (Well, that's the theory. By and large, it works.)

We are a nation that has reasoned itself into existence. (I wish I could remember who said that first.)

Of course we look chaotic. We are chaotic. We have taken that freedom into our own hands. We choose to be, what was that word, "undisciplined", because it allows each of us to live our lives in our own way.

They think that's a weakness. It is, in fact, our greatest strength. And when the contract is threatened, that strength shows. We come together in our own common defense with a speed incomprehensible to foreign observers, because that contract -- the Constitution, and its various ancillary documents -- defines what happens, who does it, and who's in charge of what part of it.

The contract hasn't been threatened this badly since the American Civil War. And much as I wish that 9/11 hadn't happened, it's been a joy to see just how well that contract is defended.

We will fight World War III before we will let foreigners rewrite the Constitution or take away our rights.

Damn straight, Steven.

Anybody can be President
Christopher Hitchens, writing for the Observer, has created the funniest, most savage deconstruction of liberal hatred that I've seen in a long while.

You know the funniest part? I don't think he meant it to be funny.

I'll take the time to puncture one balloon, then move on: Hitchens said that President Bush "failed by a good margin to collect a majority of the popular vote". This, even allowing for partisan bias, is flatly wrong. Even a casual glance at the election returns reveals that what we had in November 2000 was a statistical tie. If there is a flaw in our electoral procedures, it is that our methods of resolving such a situation are slow and deliberate, not at all suited for 24/7 television coverage.

The Devil's Music
I do not share Justin Slotman's (at the Insolvent Republic of Blogistan, and what a great name!) enthusiasm for Peter Bagge, whose cartoons appear at Reason Online. ("The greatest comics mind of his generation"? Even good work looks mediocre when introduced with such hyperbole.) Nor am I a listener, nor yet a detractor, of contemporary Christian music. However, I found Bagge's overview / history to be well worth the time.

You may be annoyed, as I was, that Bagge is so creeped out by the calmness, politeness, and patience of Christian audiences. (He says it like it's a bad thing.) You may find yourself puzzling, as I did, whether that remark about VeggieTales was a compliment or not. But the end of the story, most especially the final panel, makes the journey worth the trip for me.

"Split it up."
You know how every now and then, you hear some new fact that makes you readjust your world view? Well, of course you do, you remember September 11th. I just had one of those moments, not on the same scale, but in its way just as flabbergasting.

I was watching Neil Cavuto on Fox News' "Your World"... Well, ok, I wasn't watching, it was on in the background while I was working, because sometimes at 1:30am you want the sound of another human voice and you don't much care whose. Sorry, Mr Cavuto, nothing personal.

Anyway, he was talking to Farooq Kathwari, President and CEO of furniture manufacturer Ethan Allen. Mr Kathwari was born in the Kashmir region of... well, that's the crux of a big problem in southwestern Asia right now. Every day it looks more like India and Pakistan are going to come to nuclear blows over Kashmir. Since 1996, Mr Kathwari has been a part of the Kashmir Study Group, "an organisation that has dedicated itself to help bring about a solution to the crisis that has plagued the state of Jammu and Kashmir for the last decade." A worthy and honorable project, to be sure: A resolution must be found if the region is to survive.

On the January 17 "Your World", Mr Kathwari shared his ideas on what must be done, and it appeared to stun Cavuto as much as it did me.

"Split it up," he said.

What?

I'll link to a transcript as soon as Fox posts one, because this is one of those moments that makes me want to see written confirmation. I mean, it's an obvious idea, and I've heard it suggested before, but never by someone in the public eye. And now it's been said on American television by a successful businessman from the region, a man who has spent the last six years studying this question.

Just... wow.

LATER: I just watched the later rerun of "Your World". If I were a big-time media outlet, I would simply delete the accompanying post. As it is, I'll just confess that I dramatically mis-heard the interview. "Split it up" was Neil Cavuto's mis-statement of Mr Kathwari's position. Mr Kathwari quite reasonably concluded that neither Pakistan nor India hold the key to the issue, and for so long as they continue to glare at each other, so long will the tensions mount. They have to come up with a solution that satisfies the people of Kashmir.

Well, that makes too much sense.

To a talented newcomer... uh oh
You won't find me chatting about popular music much, as my tastes are entirely too, uh, old. I'd barely heard of Dido before I saw that she was nominated for a British Best New Artist award, only to see the nomination withdrawn when they discovered they'd nominated her for Best Female Artist last year. Oops.

She doesn't seem too broken up about it, but still, something seemed familiar about this...

Then I remembered what it was. Way back in 1984 (before some of you were born, sigh), the Academy of Country Music presented its Best New Artist award to Nicolette Larson, for work that would eventually appear on her first MCA album, "...Say When."

Her first MCA album. "...Say When" was Larson's sixth album: Her first, "Nicolette", contained her best-known hit, "Lotta Love", which made it up to #8 on the Billboard charts in 1975.

At the time, I wondered if the CMA didn't know that "their" Larson was the same Larson. Now I understand: They didn't care. The music industry was so firmly segmented (and, for all I know, still is) that if it didn't hit the country charts, it didn't matter. And the same separatism seems to be in place from the other side: Her Rolling Stone biography talks about her pop activity, then trickles off into, essentially, "then she did some country stuff" after her five Warner albums. (Rolling Stone gets the count wrong: She did three country albums, not just one.)

What's really odd is that her sound didn't change that much in the transition from pop to country, but her wardrobe sure did. But then anything would have been a dramatic change after her last "pop" album, "All Dressed Up and No Place To Go", on which she wore -- a pink towel.

[I admit it, I'm a fan. I had all of her albums, but lost them in a house fire. Most of them are not available on CD -- but I'm still looking.]

The skies are friendly, it's the ground that'll get you
The FAA's directive to start screening all luggage by Friday has sent reporters back to the airports. Well, great! I'd like a closer look at the people who are doing the screening -- who are they, how are they trained...

What? What's that? That's not what the stories are about? They're about how travelers feel about the longer lines this will probably create? And this informal, unscientific (yet highly influential, since it's on television) survey reports...what?

"I think it's a great idea." "We flight attendants have been lobbying for this for years." "Considering the recent events, I agree with it." "Well, it'll be inconvenient, of course, but it's worth it for the additional security."

I think the national press is just bound and determined not to cover the actual story here.

Flying is already unpleasant. How often do you meet an airline employee who actually cares whether you make your flight? Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the best you can hope for is indifference. Veiled hostility is not uncommon.

Airport security's only job is to keep you off the plane: If they do that, they win. Failing that, they can keep some of your belongings off the plane -- or at least, they get to paw through them while you wait.

Theft prevention is nobody's job. What are you going to say when you get to your gate and your cell phone is missing (assuming you notice that soon)? You could go back and complain, but you'd probably miss your flight. And your only hope of getting it back is if the security guard took it himself.

Now, what has changed?

The same security people are still there. You know, the "undertrained minimum-wage workers" who were there before September 11? The ones they were going to replace when we federalized airport security and put Real Professionals in place? They're still there, grandfathered into place. They have far more work to do, little additional training, no additional pay, and now that they're federal employees, they're almost impossible to fire.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that airport security is far more invasive, and no more effective. Senators are pantsed, pilots have their nail clippers confiscated, and your confidential essentials are publicly frisked with bored condescension and glacial speed. Time saved by flying is lost in lines. Travelers are dehumanized at best, infuriated and humiliated at worst. Yes, I realize anecdotal evidence (a nice way of saying "somebody said...") isn't conclusive.

But the television reporters couldn't find one passenger to say any of that?

[Disclaimer: I don't fly. The swift travel time and the coolness of actually being airborne is far outweighed by the miserable experience of getting to the airport and dealing with the people who work at the airport. (And the killer headache I get in a pressurized cabin.) But that's just me.]

Did I miss it?
During the last Presidential campaign, then-Governor Bush was saying that the economy wasn't as rosy as it looked, that we might be headed for a recession. This contention was answered by then-VP Al Gore, when answered at all, with one of his trademarked half-laugh contemptuous puffs.

The Boston Globe and the Dallas News both suggested at the time that it might be true. The Washington Post quoted Lawrence B. Lindsey (now the White House Assistant for Economic Affairs) way back in mid-1999 as saying "There are a lot of risks in the economy right now." And the economy he described then (that is, I mean to say, the future he saw coming) is pretty much the one we've seen since.

Turns out Bush was right. I just felt that someone should say that, since the newspapers won't. Or did I miss it?

"I have not heard one Democrat say he or she wants to raise taxes."
That was Dick Gephardt, as quoted by Robert Kuttner, in the Boston Globe. Gephardt knows that saying "I want to raise taxes," in so many words, in this climate, would be just as good as saying "I didn't really want to go back to Congress anyway."

What they say is that the newly-achieved tax cuts should be eliminated before they actually take effect. Thus is honor maintained -- if you're the kind of person who can spin the word "is", or if you're the kind of person who can, with a straight face, describe a tax cut as a "government expenditure". (The assumption is that All Your Money Are Belong To Us, and if we let you keep it, you'll just spend it on all the wrong things.)

Reversing a tax cut is by definition a tax hike. Is it that hard to understand?

Anyway, Kuttner goes on to name a few Democrats who "have suggested that the 10-year tax giveaway should be repealed or deferred as a whole or in part." Inherent in his phrasing is that this is the same thing as raising taxes.

(Heh. "Giveaway." All your money are belong to us, indeed.)

But I must thank Mr Kuttner for codifying, better than I could have done, what makes a Democrat a Democrat:

Let's recall for a moment why there is a Democratic Party. In the big picture, Democrats have one big thing to offer the electorate that most Republicans reject:

The Democrats are willing to use government to give ordinary citizens things that private markets can't deliver - secure health care, safe airways, consumer protections, clean environment, educational opportunities.

There it is, right there in the middle of the second sentence, the defining statement for Democrats: The assumption that the marketplace is, always and irrevocably, hostile to the individual citizen, that we are in bigger trouble than we could possibly understand and only the Government can save us.

I have yet to see any proof of that.

[LATER: Private markets can, and have, delivered all those things. One big thing private markets cannot do is wage war.]

[LATER YET: Let me apologize here to my friend Jerry Lawson for stealing "All your money are belong to us", which he said in his comment to this post. Credit where credit is due. It perfectly illustrates the absurdity of Congress' apparent belief that they control all money regardless of whose pocket it's in at the moment (after all, it's only there temporarily).]

Everything is owned
I'm not one to raise red flags about the growth of the large media conglomerates, and I'm not going to start now. There will always be room for the person who has something to say and the wit to say it clearly and cleverly. That's one of the ways you get to be a Big Boy. After all, Rush Limbaugh used to be a disk jockey, and Mike Wallace used to host a game show.

That said, you might find this chart instructive. From The Nation, it lists their Big Ten corporate behemoths and a fairly comprehensive list of their holdings. At least for now. As the accompanying article explains, these things aren't etched in stone.