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Freud 1, Zombies 0: When it comes to ghosts, "the line between believing and not believing is not so firm." Ellen Ladowsky searches for paranormal activity in London. ... 2:21 P.M.
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Howie's Choice: WaPo ombudsperson Andrew Alexander looks up from his desk and notices that East German figure skating judge press critic Howie Kurtz, who is paid by CNN and covers CNN, has
an inescapable conflict that is at odds with Post rules.
Who knew? ... Next question: Does a weakened WaPo Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have the ... um, clout to make Kurtz change his beat? Maybe--CNN fame isn't what it used to be! Meaning the chances that Kurtz would quit are probably lower. ...
P.S.: Kurtz says
"My track record makes clear that I've been as aggressive toward CNN -- and The Washington Post, for that matter -- as I would be if I didn't host a weekly program there ... "
BS, BS [several items], BS [4th item], BS, BS, BS [4th item]. ... 12:39 A.M.
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I realized the other day that I don't really like President Obama. I try to explain here. Maybe it will pass. ... Lack of 'likeability' isn't necessarily a big problem in a President. But if a President thinks he's more or less beloved, it could be. ... 12:35 P.M.
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Castro: Penn, Si! Hitchens, No! Ann Bardach on how Hitch got bumped while a useful celebrity got the story. ... She also reports that stars like Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio are routinely spied on "with sophisticated listening devices and hidden video cameras" when they visit Havana. Do they know? Bardach sees potential blackmail: "Be careful what you say; we may have compromising data on you." ...12:35 P.M.
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Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn says she was only cribbing from Lee Atwater when she approvingly quoted from Mao Tse-Tung in a graduation speech. ... Funny thing, though. I can't find a place where Atwater cited Mao. I can find lots of places where Atwater referenced Sun Tzu, whose Art of War he supposedly carried around in dog eared form. ... Hmmm .... [Thanks to D.W.] ... Backfill: Commenters here were onto this possibility days ago. ... 5:52 P.M.
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The Monitor Lies: I thought this time it would look like I had hair. ... 7:18 P.M.
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Good News for Hyundai: It looks as if UAW workers are rejecting the proposed contract that would not-quite give Ford the same concessions the union gave GM and Chrysler. After all, Ford is still losing fewer billions than the other two were losing before the government helped them slash their debt in bankruptcy. So Ford clearly needs to be bled a bit more. The near-certain prospect that Ford will in response ship more work out of the country may not matter if you are a UAW veteran 2 years away from retirement. ... P.S.: Is Obama aide Austan Goolsbee's prediction--that saving Chrysler would cripple Ford's comeback attempt--coming true? ... [via TTAC] 5:41 P.M.
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Titans of Spin: Chickaboomer on CNN CEO Jon Klein's hypocrisy. (He used to think the 25-54 demographic segment that CNN's now losing was crucial.) ... Mediaite makes the same point--more respectfully, alas. ... P.S.: Remember what CBS veteran Bernard Goldberg said of his former colleague Klein:
"[A]t CBS news he had a reputation as the kind of guy who thought people who tell the truth do it mainly because they lack imagination.
5:40 P.M.
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Fisker also announces upcoming "Seppuku" two seater: Why would electric luxury car maker Fisker decide to build its new model in a UAW shop in Delaware that only recently turned out some of the least reliable cars GM made? TTAC suspects federal dirigisme. ... 5:39 P.M.
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Paranoia Strikes Tweet: [UPDATED] After learning that CNN President Jon Klein had rejoined Twitter, I decided on Monday to post a "tweet" teasing him for killing "Crossfire":
@ You axed Crossfire, sucked up to Jon Stewart + MSM! Don't you wish you had Crossfire back now? Just askng!
To be honest, this was as nasty an item as I thought I could write and not come off like a total prick. Perhaps I failed at that last task. But it was also an experiment to see if nastiness pointed criticism worked on Twitter. Maybe there could be a productive, or at least entertaining, debate.
A few hours later I checked to see if there was any response from Klein or one of his defenders. But my hostile twitter didn't show up in a search for "Jon Klein," or his twitter handle "JonKleinCNN." In fact it didn't seem to turn up in a search for any of the terms used in the item, like "MSM" or "Jon Stewart."
This morning, I did get a response from Klein, and the item briefly turned up in one of my searches, only to seemingly disappear again.** It hasn't vanished entirely--it's at least still in the list of items I've posted, and presumably in the general river of tweets that flows by everyone who "follows" me. It just doesn't turn up if you search for twitters about Jon Klein.
People tell me I shouldn't read a lot into this incident--twitter search engines are notoriously flaky--so I won't. But it did get me thinking. Why do the searches for "tweets" that mention various twitter celebrities-- Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, and Alyssa Milano, and even CEOs like Klein--almost invariably turn up such pleasant comments? Here's a search for @Jon KleinCNN.. With one or two relatively mild exceptions, it's a tame (and lame) series of attaboys, welcome-backs, and this-is-what-he-saids. Don't a few more people have criticism of Klein, or CNN, on the weekend it hit last place in the ratings? Are twitterers that polite and deferential?
I mean, this is America. If you really opened up a line of communication where every horny 20-year old dude sitting on a couch in a basement typed 140 characters about Alyssa Milano for the world to see ... well, would you really want to see that stream of tweets? People would ... criticize her acting! They'd bring up her famous ex boyfriends. They'd say she looked bad in that dress and otherwise comment on her appearance. Perhaps approvingly! I'm keeping it clean here. But it wouldn't be pretty.
And yet it is. If you actually search for @Alyssa Milano, this is the sort of thing you get:
Last night @AlyssaMilano asked: How do you want to be remembered in this life? I ask you, my followers, how do you want to be remembered?
Haha I saw @AlyssaMilano RT'd u. She's so chill...and hot too!
: @alyssamilano describe yourself in 3 words. Describe your husband in 3 words.
<----watching a rerun of @alyssamilano in who's the boss :)
You get the idea. Something doesn't add up. Does Twitter maybe censor "curate" the search results for its celebrity Twitterers?
This thought would be too paranoid even for me, if I hadn't read Nicole LaPorte's article in The Daily Beast on how celebrity publicists have connections at Twitter HQ:
[V]irtually every publicist in Hollywood has a go-to person at Twitter—the equivalent these days of having an “in” with famed MGM publicity chiefs-cum-fixers Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
“We’ve had a relationship with Twitter for quite some time,” said one. “We have contacts at most of the sites, so that they can help us out and give us quick tech support.”
(Perhaps journalists are shown less love? Twitter did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.)
Hmmm. Questions:
Would it even be technically feasible to delete nasty items from searches? Having once met a top Twitter tech guy who seemed incredibly competent, I'd have to guess yes.
Why would Twitter want to sanitize celeb tweet searches? That one's easy: Celebrity Twitterers like Milano, Moore and Kutcher have been very important to Twitter's growth. They take care of Twitter. Twitter takes care of them. At least that would be the equation--a familar one to anyone who has ever tried to round up bold-faced names for a party. The job of actually weeding out hostile tweets could be delegated to the celebrity's "social media director." Or the social media director's assistant. But presumably there are also Twitter staffers whose job is celebrity troubleshooting.
(Is Jon Klein such a celebrity? You might not think so--though he's listed as one. In this paranoid theory he might qualify under a Bigwigs-at-Media-Companies-Who-Might-Buy-Twitter-One Day loophole.)
It woudn't even be all that sinister--certainly less sinister than, say, the typical roped-off VIP section at a party. Web sites police comment sections all the time, after all. Alyssa Milano does talk with ordinary people on Twitter, and her twitstream or whatever you call it--which she seems to write herself--is quite informative on a fairly wide range of topics. When Obama threw out the first pitch at the All Star game, Milano's twitters gave a better account of where it landed than the Fox telecast, which had a bad camera angle..
On the other hand, if Twitter sanitized searches, that would make the site a more fake and less democratic place than it initially appears to be. Here we thought we were meeting bigshots in a virtual public square, and really it was maniuplated like the Truman Show.
Is my paranoid suspicion right? Anyone with answers--including people at Twitter--can tweet a response to @kausmickey or email me at Mickey underscore Kaus at MSN dot com.
Update: Responses on Twitter from Milano
Interesting. cc: @ RT @: Does Twitter protect celebrities? (via @) about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck
and from Twitter CEO Evan WIlliams
@Alyssa_Milano I think that guy has a pretty dire outlook on humans. :) about 1 hour ago from web in reply to Alyssa_Milano
Oracular! A non non-denial denial non-denial ...
Update II: Gawker ... a cartoon ...
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**--An earlier anti-Klein tweet that I myself deleted does turn up on one site's search of "Jon Klein." 1:28 A.M.
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The Curve Has To Want to Bend: Like Steven Pearlstein, Robert Samuelson more or less assumes the purpose of a "public option" is to control costs (as opposed to providing the security of a guaranteed fall-back plan). In an Un-Samuelsonesque fashion, he also assumes that there is some solution that will control costs in a manner agreeable to patients.
It's not insurers that cause high health costs; they're simply the middlemen. It's the fragmented delivery system and open-ended reimbursement. Would strict regulation of doctors, hospitals and patients under a single-payer system provide control? Or would genuine competition among health plans over price and quality work better?
That's the debate we need, but in truth, doctors, hospitals and patients don't want to be limited, whether by government or markets. Congress reflects public opinion. Fearing a real debate, we fake it.
a) Maybe none of these options--single payer, competition among health plans--will significantly lower costs, and we'll simply have to pay the increasing bill. Just a thought. b) If, as Samuelson says, "doctors, hospitals and patients don't want to be limited," it sounds like the debate over our system of "open-ended reimbursement" isn't a "debate we need." It's a debate we've had. Samuelson's side lost. Nobody wants to bend the curve.
Maybe it won't be bent. 8:38 P.M.
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Give Him a Fifth Chance! After completely misreading the zeitgeist and-- in a series of self-servingly ostentatious steps ("storytelling," emo)--leading his network into a ditch, is CNN's Jon Klein really going to keep his job? He doesn't seem even to be "embattled." ... 8:34 P.M.
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The Federalist Capers: A federalism compromise on the "public option" always seemed more promising to me than a "trigger" based compromise. But I'd been viewing the issue through a welfare-reform prism, in which states would either be in or out as discrete statewide units. Josh Marshall points out that the virtue of Harry Reid's plan is it allows states to join a single nationwide federal plan rather than set up their own plans. That lets you create a big--or big enough--pool of insured. It's like letting states opt out of (or in to) Medicare. ... That said, the federalist approach still offers a giant menu of possible compromises, from 1 to 50. You can have opt-out, opt-in, opt-in with a numerical limit, opt-out with incentives not to opt-out, opt-in with incentives to opt-in if regional distribution isn't achieved, even opt-out with a trigger that offers the incentives only if too few states stay "in." ... Update: Sam Stein has more. ...
P.S.: Note also that the federalist solution means at least one "juice" vote in every state legislature, as health insurance lobbyists seek to use campaign contributions to bribe gain access and thereby influence the "opt out" or "opt in" vote. Another source of federalism's appeal! And bipartisan appeal at that. ... 8:34 P.M.
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Three quick points about the Fox War before it ends:
1) I argued that I have no faith that Roger Ailes didn't take direction from the Bush White House. The most sophisticated response I've gotten is, in effect, 'Sure he did. But you don't think Rick Kaplan at CNN took direction from the Clinton White House?' I don't know about Kaplan. But Kaplan only ran CNN for three years or so--just passing through. Roger Ailes pretty much is Fox News. The network has never existed without him.
2) Still, David Axelrod's central argument, that because Fox is not really a 'news organization' other media should "not follow their lead" doesn't make sense. You don't have to be an independent "news organization" to break a story. The Democratic National Committee could break a story--that is, disclose the information that demonstrated something newsworthy had happened (say, that a presidential aide signed a Truther petition). The March of Dimes could break a story.The Scientologists could break a story. Joe's Garage could break a story. And Fox can break a story. The traditional, independent "news media" will follow the leads they think are real stories. They don't follow only the ones that come from "news organizations." How was Axelrod going to stop that?
3) If it was all about fundraising, and Obama is winding down the war, does that mean it wasn't working as a fundraising theme? Or that it worked so successfully the Dems don't need any more money? Or just that fundraising season is mostly over for 2009?
Update: Jonah Goldberg, more in sorrow than in anger! ... Time to call in reinforcement, from Reader G, a conservative:
I saw it with my own eyes! Brit Hume's Special Report did indeed try mightily to carry the WH's water on Miers and especially, comprehenisive immigration reform. No question about it.
P.S.: Still awaiting Stephen Spruiell's extensive "dossier" of Fox's "dissents from the Bush White House." ... 1:28 A.M.
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Shouldn't doctors give patients waiting to see them little hand-held beepers or vibrating devices like those some crowded restaurants give you when you're waiting for a table? That way you could wander around nearby instead of staying in the unventilated waiting room filled with coughing, sneezing people. ... 1:32 A.M.
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Detroit Bailout II Nears the "Old News" Stage! 1) My colleague Daniel Gross thinks the GM and Chrysler bailouts weren't designed to actually save GM and Chrysler:
Sure, there was brave talk of reviving these once-proud brands and returning them to their rightful place in the pantheon of American corporations. But from the outset, I've believed that the interventions were simply efforts to delay liquidation rather than to avert it altogether, to provide a breathing space in which managers could find homes for valuable assets (other companies) and find chumps to absorb the losses from bad decisions (that would be the taxpayers). [E.A.]
2) I'm pretty sure Dan Gross is a friend of Steve Rattner. 3) Does Dan Gross know something we haven't been told? 4) If so, has anyone told President Obama, who--in Ryan Lizza's New Yorker piece, anyway--seemed to want the auto bailouts to actually "succeed." ... P.S.: Larry Summers was "comfortable Chrysler would survive," writes Rattner himself in an almost unreadably self-serving account of his bailout experience. "Comfortable"? Chrysler? Hello? Whose elevator goes straight to the garage? ... P.P.S.: For his part, Rattner characteristically hedges his bets, boasting only that his team gave Chrysler and GM a "healthy margin for error." Or, as Dan Gross might translate it, "a few more months." ... 12:15 A.M.
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So You Think You Have Swine Flu? Am I the only one--besides Michael Fumento--who finds reports like NBC's last night on the spread of swine flu ("galloping its way across the country") to be wildly unconvincing? The NBC piece claims "90 dead" last week under the rubric "swine flu cases." [See about 1:10 in] This is almost certainly BS. As this CDC report makes clear, that figure includes both the swine flu and the regular annual flu. Indeed, NBC promiscuously conflates a) swine flu (H1N1); b) regular flu and c) "flu like symptoms" which may not be any kind of flu at all. ... That may be because the CDC itself has decided to conflate at least the first two categories, as noted in this seemingly damning CBS story and confirmed in the CDC report itself:
This new system was implemented on August 30, 2009, and replaces the weekly report of laboratory confirmed 2009 H1N1-related hospitalizations and deaths that began in April 2009. Jurisdictions can now report to CDC either laboratory confirmed or pneumonia and influenza syndromic-based counts of hospitalizations and deaths resulting from all types or subtypes of influenza, not just those from 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. [E.A.]
I think this means the CDC does not really know how many cases are swine flu and how many aren't. (The regular flu kills many thousands of people every year.) ...12:43 A.M.
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Walter Shapiro: "John Corzine by all estimation is going to be reelected Governor of New Jersey." Really? "By all estimation"? You giving odds with that? I'll take them. Depends on the Daggett vote, no? And the night is young. ... P.S.: Don't forget the Incumbent Rule. ... Update: Maybe Daggett's vote won't fade. Could he pull a Ventura and actually win? Mark Blumenthal clinically examines on this non-crazy possibility. Andy Pettitte's arm is in the algorithm! ... Backfill: Shapiro made the case for betting on Corzine here. .. I may be biased by memories of an incident recounted by Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo:
Supporters of public sector union power have developed a rationale for the government employees' gold-plated perks. The argument is that public employees are the vanguard of the working class. As such, the benefits they achieve will eventually have to be matched by private sector employers. As Carla Katz, the leader of New Jersey's Communications Workers of America, explained to Paul Mulshine of the Newark Star-Ledger, reformers embrace "the progressive theory that unless you create a substantial wage and benefits package that reflects good jobs and the ability to have a middle-class life style, there will be a perpetual race to the bottom."
Katz not only represents thousands of state employees, she is also the richly rewarded former girlfriend of New Jersey governor Jon Corzine. Katz's influence on Corzine became clear in 2006 when the impassioned governor spoke to a Trenton rally of roughly 10,000 public workers and shouted out: "We will fight for a fair contract." Corzine was of course management in that situation, not labor. [E.A.]
New Jersey taxpayers, who now have to pay for the resulting union pay and benefit packages, must be unusually forgiving. ... .4:15 P.M.
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How to Fill the Empty Hours After Health Care? Nate Silver writes:
It's becoming increasingly likely that regulation of the banking and financial sector is liable to be the issue that dominates the first half of 2010. Why? Well in the first place, it's badly needed ... [snip] In the second place, it's not clear what else the Obama administration will do on the domestic policy front, once the health care issue gets resolved. Although the unpopularity of the cap-and-trade program is greatly exaggerated -- most polls in fact show it receiving a plurality or narrow majority of support -- the swing districts in 2010 tend to be big carbon emitters. Immigration reform, likewise, is liable to be a less favorable issue for the Democrats in 2010 than it will be in 2012, when we'll have a younger, more diverse electorate in which Hispanics play a larger role as swing voters. EFCA -- the White House's support for which has always been questionable -- almost certainly isn't going anywhere. Movement on gay rights issues is a possibility, but is more dependent on the White House's willpower than its bandwidth. A second omnibus stimulus bill is probably out of the question, although certainly there will be piecemeal efforts -- extended unemployment benefits, greater investments in transportation infrastructure -- that the White House will pursue. Still, for a hard-working White House, that leaves plenty of time on the table for a big-ticket item, and that item will probably be banking reform. [E.A.]
Banking reform. Not "card check" (EFCA). Not "comprehensive" illegal immigrant legalization. Not even "cap and trade." Banking reform. ... And the more time it takes up, the better! ... I'm less worried about my vote for Obama every day. ...
P.S.: But will immigration really be a more "favorable" issue for the Dems in 2012, when they will probably have a smaller margin in the House? Maybe Silver is saying they'll have more incentive to bring it up--their swing district freshmen will already have lost--even if passage will still be difficult. ... Card check, on the other hand, will be both harder to pass and less advantageous to bring up, no? ...
P.P.S.: I still think the issue that "dominates the first half of 2010" is likely to be ... health care. At least the first half of the first half of 2010. We're talking about what happens after that. ... 4:15 P.M.
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National Review Not Guilty So Fox Not Guilty Too! National Review 's Stephen Spruiell defends Fox against the charge that it is an instrument, not of conservatism but of the Republican Party and (for much of the past decade) the Bushes.
I grow so tired of this smear. National Review gets this kind of thing all the time. Last year, Jonah compiled a nice summary of our dissents from the Bush White House. One could compile a similar dossier in defense of Fox News, but I'm afraid it wouldn't matter. [E.A.]
Oh, go ahead! ... It will be a mighty thin dossier, at least if it doesn't include issues (like Harriet Miers and immigration) where Roger Ailes' network initially, and disconcertingly, appeared to toe and try to hold the Bush line before eventually acceding to its viewers' opinions and allowing dissenting conservatives to express themselves. ... 4:15 P.M.
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"Howard Kurtz, Missing in Action:" The Left is now on the case of the Biggest Conflict of Interest in Journalism. Writes Michael Massing:
Young people have embraced [Jon Stewart's] show precisely because he’s willing to take on cable news in a way our top media reporters are not. And not just Fox. Last week, “The Daily Show” offered a brilliant expose of the superficiality and hollowness of the journalism practiced on CNN, showing how its anchors allow partisan spokesmen to make all kinds of ridiculous claims without challenge. “We’ll have to leave it there” was the stock response of CNN interviewers to the ludicrous talking points of their guests.
You’ll almost never see Howard Kurtz scrutinize CNN in that way. Of course, he’s employed by the network.
4:58 P.M.
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The official what-we-tell-reporters reasons for the White House War with Fox don't quite add up. If the attempt is to get the MSM not to follow Fox stories--well, they weren't following FOX stories before (see ACORN). If the attempt is to keep FOX "off balance," the White House campaign is instead giving FOX extra life. If the attempt is to triangulate-- isn't triangulation is supposed to make you look sensible and moderate? This is making the White House look a bit hysterical, coming just when health care reform seemed a quiet "fait accompli."
Maybe it's all about raising money from the base by riling it up. It's late October, after all. Dems (and Dem consultants) need dollars. And those campaign fundraising dollars haven't been "materializing as much as expected." Just a thought. ... One clue: Does the FOX War last much past Election Day, or does it mysteriously wind down? ... 3:06 P.M.
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How I Got That Exclusive: What if they proved that 1950's nuclear testing increased cancer among boomers and only Walter Shapiro showed up at the press conference? ... 4:51 P.M.
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As Nate Silver notes, the Washington Post decided to heavily promote a poll showing voter support for a public option "even though public opinion has been fairly steady on the issue for months." But I can't see anything wrong with the question itself, or the general pro-government shift the poll suggested.
Question 10, however--highlighted by Ezra Klein--looks catastrophically flawed:
10. Which of these would you prefer - (a plan that includes some form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can't get affordable private insurance, but is approved without support from Republicans in Congress); or (a plan that is approved with support from Republicans in Congress, but does not include any form of government-sponsored health insurance for people who can't get affordable private insurance)? [E.A.]
Isn't Medicaid is a "form of government sponsored insurance for people who can't get affordable private insurance"? Medicare also covers some of those people, if they're over 65. Lots of state programs for near-poverty families might be considered "government sponsored" health insurance.
Many people might reasonably read this question as asking whether they thought Republican support was important enough to eliminate Medicaid and Medicare and SCHIP, which may be why the alternative that didn't do this got such strong support (51 to 37). Those numbers seem worthless when it comes to illuminating the current debate. (What does "sponsor" mean, anyway? Promote? Subsidize? Control? Run? Even if you put Medicaid aside, is this the famous "public option" they're talking about or just the subsidized health insurance exchanges?) ... [Thanks to reader T.A.] 1:18 A.M.
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First Rough Draft of kf: Some readers may understandably be confused by my posts about Fox. On the one hand, I seem to be saying Fox is ideological and unbalanced but, hey, that's the wave of the future, and as a lifelong opinion journalist I'm not that bothered by the prospect of living in a universe populated by such outfits (The New Republic, MSNBC, the New York Times, DRUDGE). On the other hand I find myself agreeing with the White House, and Jacob Weisberg, when they argue Fox is different from even those other non-balanced news enterprises--that it's "not a news organization."
I guess there are two distinct axes on which you can judge press organizations--actually, there are many more than two (see below), but two are important here: 1) Neutrality--Are they attempting to be "objective," trying to serve the "public interest" in some balanced way, or are they ideologically (or otherwise) driven in a way that inevitably colors their coverage--what topics they pick, what 'experts' they rely on, etc. 2) Independence--Whether they are biased or generally neutral, can somebody--a political party, a Mafia family, a government-- tell them what to do?
I think it's pretty clear MSNBC and the NYT and Breitbart.tv are not neutral. They all have an agenda and they pursue it. But they are independent. The Obama White House can't tell Bill Keller what to do. They can't tell Keith Olbermann what to do. (They can suck up to him, and it will probably work, but that's a different issue.) Breitbart is for sure independent--I can't see anyone telling him what to do.
I think Fox is also not neutral (which, again, doesn't bother me) but it's also not independent (which does). This isn't because it's owned by Rupert Murdoch--moguls are, typically among the more independent sorts. It's because it's run by Roger Ailes. I have zero faith that Ailes is independent of the Republican party or, specifically, those Republicans who have occupied the White House recently--the Bushes. As I said, I think if Karl Rove called Ailes in 2003 and said "We don't want so much coverage of X" it's extremely likely that X would not be covered on Fox. A ... suggestive example of Fox's loyalty is the debate on immigration, in which Ailes' network initially seemed to try valiantly--against the beliefs of most of its audience--to push the Bush White House line in favor of "comprehensive" legalization (while brushing aside its viewers' views).
It's certainly possible, in theory, to have a faux news organization that pretends to be an ordinary, ideologically biased journalistic outlet but that, at the top, is actually taking orders from Moscow, or from Kennebunkport. That news organization might have lots of viewers and money and White House press passes and some great on-air correspondents--it's not as if you could rip off their masks to uncover the alien underneath, like in V. ABC's Jake Tapper would refer to it as "one of our sister organizations." But that's not what, ultimately, it would be about. It would be different in nature, just like Organizing For America would be different in nature if it decided to buy some cameras and cable time and start reporting the news.
Here are some other measures you could use when classifying media outfits:
3) Accuracy--Are they committed to not telling untruths?
4) Fairness--Do they try to present all sides, even if it's only to take on an opponent's best argument (as opposed to his worst)?
5) Discipline--Do they tolerate dissenting voices within the organization--even when those voices are effective? Will they assign major stories that will cut against their interests and arguments?
6) Willingness to Suppress: You can have a commitment to accuracy, even a commitment to going out and finding and publicizing the truth for its own sake--but what happens when that commitment collides cataclysmically with your other, ideological purpose? The New York Times has a high commitment to accuracy, for example--and it's so big it almost has to be relatively tolerant of individual deviation. But would it endanger the Democrats' Senate majority by printing a series of damaging exposes of a leading Democratic Senator shortly before an election? The Times answered that one for us in 2002.
Note, first, that these are all sliding scales. Only a few media enterprises print what they know to be untruths, but many more sometimes run with very suspiciously sourced stories. Some organizations tolerate lots of dissent, some very little. Some are wildly unfair, some occasionally give an idea of the strongest competing arguments. I suppose even Pravda in the Brezhnev era had its little moments of internal rebellion. But it's also possible to put some organizations at one end of the spectrum and some at the others.
Second, I'm not arguing that any of these additional qualities--aside from extreme inaccuracy (#3)--are essential for a media enterprise to play a valuable role in the national debate. The idea of the First Amendment isn't that everyone will be fair. It's that everyone will be free, and out of it all the voters will come to their own conclusion about what's fair--right? Likewise, you can have a terrific national debate between ten magazines none of which publish dissenting views in their pages. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't pass the suppression test if you framed the hypothetical right. Suppose on October 25th, 2008 I'd discovered, without doubt, and with documentation, that Barack Obama cheated on his taxes. Would I publish it? Probably not. I think Bill Keller would publish it way before I would. Would Marty Peretz publish something true that had a high probability of leading to the destruction of the State of Israel? I have my doubts! That doesn't make The New Republic not a "news" organization.
But I do think independence is essential to be a legitimate player in the new, emerging non-objective press world. If you're independent, there's always a chance you'll change your mind. At the least, you have to make fresh calculations about your views and interests, which means that in a free society there will be a steady proliferation of nodes of thought. If you're independent, Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs has a shot at convincing you--even if you're conservative, even if you're wildly biased, even if your organization is almost dictatorial in structure. Even if you're Rupert Murdoch! But not, I think, if you're Fox.
Update: Maguire is unconvinced.
I can suggest a better place to look for signs of Fox's fealty to Bush - how did they handle the conservative rebellion in early 2006 over both Harriet Miers and the Dubai port deal? If Fox was truly in the tank for Bush, as opposed to holding a conservative point of view, they would have tilted in favor of Harriet and Dubai. Did they? [E.A.]
My impression is they did--on Miers, anyway. ... Samples:
MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL: Well, you know, I trust the president. I trust the president to know this person that he's known for 10 years, and what her mind is and how she thinks. And he thinks she is strong and all that.
When various conservatives say, "Oh my God, you know, we're scared that she's going to turn into David Souter" -- as I said yesterday, I don't think that's going to happen.
--Fox News All Stars, Oct. 4, 2005
BRIT HUME: Needless to say, our colleague, Mr. Will, lacks enthusiasm for Harriet Miers, as does Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Laura Ingraham, and the former Justice Department lawyer John Yu, not to mention David Frum. What do they all have in common? Well, they're products of the most prestigious Eastern schools.
Some observations on whether there is in all of this a whiff of elitism in the air from Fred Barnes, a graduate of the University of Virginia, as indeed I am, Mort Kondracke, a graduate, I'm afraid to say, of Dartmouth, and Mara Liasson, a graduate, dare I say it, of Brown University.
All right, folks. What about it? Is there a bit of elitism in all of this?
FRED BARNES, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Well, there may be snobbery even.
(CROSSTALK)
HUME: Snobbery even? Snobbery even? Go ahead, Fred.
--Fox Special Report, October 5, 2005
7:11 P.M.
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Attention, "Fait Accompli" Brigade: This chart seems to be going in the wrong direction for health care reform, even if you discount the lopsided FOX poll (for Nate Silverish reasons--they only get the big support/oppose question after asking a series of spoiling questions). ... P.S.: Does this suggest that the much-derided insurance industry study (suggesting premiums would rise after reform) had an impact? ... It could also reflect increased dissent on the left, from public-option supporters, as hinted by the new WaPo survey. (See, for example, question 13.) ... 9:55 P.M.
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On Sunday, William Kristol argued it was "reckless" for Obama to delay surging in Afghanistan while he waits to see how legitimate our "Afghan partner" will be:
If the president issued the order now, he could always delay or revoke it later, if the political situation seemed truly insupportable....
Why do I get the feeling that if Obama ordered a surge of troops today and revoked it in two weeks, Bill Kristol would be among the first to savage him for being indecisive and prone to sudden reversal? There's a virtue in making the decision once, and then being able to stick with it, as Kristol surely knows. ... P.S.: I would suspect Kristol of adding his bad faith argument so he'd have three bullet points, but he already had his three. So no excuse! ... P.P.S.: Won't Kristol's post--which sneers that the White House had "failed" to improve the election process--look awfully silly if Obama's delay turns out to force Karzai to accept a cleaner runoff? ... 10:21 P.M.
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Gawker got hold of the first few words of ex-President Clinton's private twitters, including this entry:
Twitter / Bill Clinton: John Edwards ... why did you ...
You'd think Clinton, of all people, would know that answer to that one. ...
Update: In a slyly invisible, joke-ruining revision, Gawker's Anthony De Rosa now says the twitters were probably captured from the account of a Bill Clinton imposter. ... P.S.: Is De Rosa the new night guy or the new ex-night guy? ... 10:50 P.M.
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Odd sloppiness in Monday's big N.Y. Times story with possible dirt on GOP N.J. gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie:
1) The Times writes that
interviews with federal law enforcement officials suggest that Ms. Brown [to whom Christie had loaned $46,000] used her position in two significant and possibly improper ways to try to aid Mr. Christie in his run for governor. [E.A.]
Motive is very hard to prove. The Times doesn't come close to showing that Brown was trying to aid Mr. Christie's run for governor if (as alleged) she a) supervised a FOIA request by the Corzine campaign of her and Christie's travel records and b) argued for making a big corruption arrest before Christie left office. In (a), she might have been trying to cover her own a--, since the FOIA request included her own records, no? In (b), maybe she just thought her friend and boss (rather than his successor) deserved to get full props for his hard work. I suppose the facts do "suggest" that Brown was trying to aid Christie's political run, but it's still a weird, easily abused way to write a lede. The first arrests at the Watergate suggested that the White House was a lawless operation headed by a crook who was trying to spy on his Democratic rivals, but I don't think that's how Woodward & Bernstein's nut graf read. The allegation about Brown's motive was hardly necessary to make a good story--all the Times had to say was that in both cases Brown seems to have taken actions that actually helped Christie's campaign.
2) In its tour of anti-Christie accusations, the Times refers to
reports that [Christie] discussed a run for governor with Karl Rove in 2006 led Democrats to assert he had violated the Hatch Act, which forbids candidates from “testing the waters” for a run for office. [E.A.]
The Hatch Act forbids candidates from "testing the waters"? There's your story! A whole lot of politicians are going to jail if that's the case. But maybe the Times "computer assisted reporting team" should hit the keyboards to find out what the Hatch Act says first. (And is talking to Karl Rove "testing the waters"?)
3) "$20,000 in mileage reimbursements during his seven-year tenure" is less than $3,000 per year--not that much. Even if it does include $79 to see a Mets game.
It would be wrong of me at this point to mention the famous Howell Raines Spike (of reports damaging to Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli when he was running for reelection) as evidence that the NYT is trying to elect Dems in New Jersey. It certainly "suggests" that! But we're in the age of partisan media and if the NYT wants to try to elect Dems the way Fox wants to elect GOPs, that's their right. ...
P.S.: If you believe the Feiler Faster Thesis, this story was dropped way too soon. Plenty of time before November 3 for Christie to change the narrative. But maybe in New Jersey Feiler is slower. ... 10:52 P.M.
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We have ways of making you stress-free: Someone should write the fictionalized dystopian nightmare of mandatory "wellness" programs foreshadowed in Sen. Ensign's business backed plan to let insurers penalize even those who seek non-employer-based health coverage if they don't participate in healthy life regimens." Like THX 1138, but with brownies. ... Nineteen-Eighty-Fat! ... Ensign says his plan "would guarantee that the incentive is strong enough for Americans to want to participate." ... Next: Marital fidelity incentives! ... 9:33 P.M.
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It's pretty obvious Jacob Weisberg is right to assert that Fox News is a partisan, non-balanced outfit, more like a 19th century pamphlet than the 20th century "balanced" news outlet it pretends to be. During the Bush presidency, if Karl Rove gave an order, I think it was much more likely to be followed by Roger Ailes at Fox than, say, Christie Whitman at the EPA. I can see why this would lead Democrats to legitimately refuse to let Fox host a debate. But I don't see why this means that non-conservatives need to stop appearing on Rupert Murdoch's network. Are they only allowed to preach to the converted? ... P.S.: Weisberg notes that partisan media organizations like Fox (and now MSNBC) are not only one American First Amendment tradition but are also winning in the TV marketplace. Don't we need to learn to live with them? They aren't going to respond to sanctions. ('OK, we'll do anything. Just don't cut off Mara Liasson!'). ... P.P.S.: It's true that going on Fox and effectively sowing doubt behind enemy lines is something Ailes is likely to only let you do once. So be it. But maybe not, if the ratings are good. ... 8:56 P.M.
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Nightmare of Vista Not Over! Attention, Fellow Vista-Skippers: We haven't made it yet. Yes, Microsoft is telling us we don't need to wait for the first bug-fixing "Service Pack" before replacing our creaky, precious XP machines with new Windows 7 devices. But they've said that sort of thing before. Given Microsoft's track record, it seems more sensible to wait for them to get it right right out of the box at least once before we start to take them at their world. ... P.S.: The obvious analogy is to .... comprehensive immigration reform! Maybe fancy new employer-based verification systems and "biometric" identifiers (and "virtual" border fencing) really will survive ACLU challenge and then actually function effectively keep out illegal immigrants. But we were given similar assurances in 1986. It didn't happen. Better to wait and make sure the new high-tech enforcement mechanisms work before we take the plunge with the proven illegal-immigrant lure of an amnesty, no? ... 8:26 P.M.
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Peter Beinart thinks Obama's on track to success. Actually, Beinart understates the favorability of the circumstances. If, like me, you assume that the most desirable and popular part of Obama's agenda is health care reform, while the rest of it is studded with sweeping measures that are controversial at best (cap and trade, "card check" union organizing) and explosive at worst (illegal immigrant legalization)--well, then everything is falling into place like a well-choreographed water ballet!
The kf Plan for Presidential Success:
-- Obama gets health care reform, but not until well after New Year's Day. That leaves no time in 2010 to take up "card check" or "comprehensive immigration reform" before the election season hits. Darn! Even "cap and trade," which as Tom Edsall notes pleases affluent elites a lot more than Obama's low-income base, has to undergo further study. What can you do?
-- The economy picks up, but unemployment remains high enough--and doubts about health care reform among the elderly persistent enough--to get the Dems clobbered in the 2010 midterms. Republicans may even win back the House. All those controversial big Dem bills that got backed up in 2010--well, they certainly won't be enacted by the GOPs. So frustrating!
-- Without a new wave of low-wage immigrants drawn by legalization, meanwhile, the labor market eventually grows tight enough at the bottom to finally raise wages as the economy grows--just in time for Obama's 2012 campaign.
-- Returned to office in an incumbent-friendly year, Obama still faces a GOP-heavy Congress, sharply limiting what he can do. He's forced to shelve much of his ambitious second term agenda--sorry!--and focus on those areas where Republicans are favorably disposed--like reining in the cost of entitlements and expanding charter schools. (As Walter Shapiro once argued--and Bill Clinton proved--having a Democrat in the White House with a Republican Congress is the institutional recipe for controlling the budget. The Democratic President reins in defense spending while the Republican Congress reins in domestic spending.)
I'm only partly joking. Or maybe I'm not joking at all. Losing control of Congress didn't cripple Bill Clinton, did it? It arguably saved Bill Clinton. Having Newt Gingrich in charge of the House allowed Clinton to push off against Republican excess, tame his own party's demands, and actually balance the budget. The difference with Obama is that unlike Clinton he will have accomplished his main goal--health care reform--first, before the drawbridge goes up.
It's all going according to plan. 1:51 A.M.
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Bailout II Watch: A member of GM's board of directors has admitted that the carmaker's recovery plan is based on it maintaining a market share of above 19%:
"The public plan is 19 percent and change. That is what everything is being based on," [Stephen] Girsky said during a panel discussion at a conference at Columbia Business School.
That's about what GM's share has been recently. But it's been heading in the wrong direction. And if it sinks to 18% ...?
Update: The Big Money's Matthew DeBord sneers at Truth About Cars for "heralding GM’s demise since gas was 30 cents a gallon and Sinatra was headlining the Sands. ... And yet ... GM lives!" Plucky of GM! How did they survive? And to think Truth About Cars was predicting they would go bankrupt! ...
P.S.: DeBord persists in publicizing an auspicious "trend" in GM's market share. Yes, GM's share is up for the last couple of months--but a) again, it doesn't do that much good to have a big share in the months when nobody is buying cars (September) if you have a much lower share during the big clunker sellathon (July and August). Here is a chart with the raw figures. See if you spot a significant pro-GM "trend." I don't. b) You can always boost market share by offering cash-back incentives at the expense of profits. GM's incentives have been large--at an average $3,796, almost three times Honda's; c) DeBord cites an Edmunds prediction of a rise in GM's share to more than 22 percent in October, which is apparently based on visits to GM models on the Edmunds web site. We'll see. GM is shooting off a lot of its advertising wad this month. d) While Buick and Cadillac have "profit potential," the success of Chevrolet is "a question mark," DeBord concedes. But Chevy is where GM's volume sales are. If Chevy tanks, can GM survive? ... P.P.S.: DeBord sees growth. TTAC sees decline. One of them is wrong. My money's not on The Big Money. ... 2:25 A.M.
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Mickey's Assignment Desk: Senate Dems quietly move a bill to countermand a 21% cut in Medicare fees for doctors, which will add $247 billion to the deficit over ten years. Of course, the Baucus health care reform bill achieves its famed deficit neutrality through cuts in Medicare fees, mainly to non-physicians--saving (by my reading of the CBO analysis) at least $184 billion from Medicare over the same period. Plus there is a special panel set up to recommend further cuts.
Jonathan Cohn and Ezra Klein might productively explain a) Why this isn't a shell game, with Dems granting Medicare increases in one bill and then taking ostentatious credit for partly-offsetting cuts in a separate bill; b) Why Congress' unwillingness to put up with the scheduled Medicare doctors' cuts this year doesn't indicate that it won't put up with scheduled cuts in future years--that, as Megan McArdle among others argues, the projected Medicare cuts in Baucus' bill simply won't happen. ...
P.S.: I'm still for health care reform, of course, even if the accounting that scores it as deficit-neutral proves to be a fantasy. We make the mess now. We make it work and pay for it later. Stuff the beast! If it turns out that to get the reform passed Dems have to resort to a shell game--using phony peas--well, just keep it between us, OK?. ... 7:21 P.M.
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If Peugeot instead of FIAT had bought Chrysler, we could have gotten the Bipper Tepee "playful space wagon"! .... It's no Skoda Yeti Roomster, but it would do. ... 12:42 A.M.
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Harvey Weinstein is bailing on his investment in snooty, exclusive social network aSmallWorld.net, the so-called "MySpace for Millionaires." Apparently it's flopping. Gawker argues:
The problem was fundamental: Rich guys don't want to socialize only with one another, and once you let in enough attractive young women and such your VIP site loses [its] cachet and everyone might as well just hang out on Facebook.
I'm not sure Gawker has the second part of the problem precisely right (though A Small World's membership policies seem well-designed to allow "[t]rusted and loyal ASW members who meet certain criteria" to invite "a limited number of their friends" enough attractive young women to keep all the bankers happy. But even assuming that's the dynamic at work, there seem to be at least four distinct possibilities: a) Snooty rich men don't want the kind of women who would sign up to meet only snooty rich men; b) Snooty rich men need a larger pool of women to draw from than a 'limited number of their friends" can provide; c) Even snooty rich letches don't want to be made to feel like snooty rich letches; d) Even non-lecherous snooty rich men don't want a website where their competition is other rich men! They'd rather be the richest guys in an average neighborhood, where the population is easier to impress.
So, is aSmallWorld's unsuccess a victory for social equality? You make the call:
Yes! Attempted stratification undone by the common characteristics (sex drive) of mankind! Sex, solvent of snobbery.
No! The status hierarchy of money just needed a bigger empire in which to recapitulate inegalitarian financial relations as inegalitarian sexual relations!
All the lechery-related reasons suggested above point to "no," yet it's hard to not see aSmallWorld's decline as, somehow, a "yes." How about a dialectical Third Way: In asserting itself outside its own sphere the hierarchy of money nevertheless sows the seeds of its own destruction! [Which would be ...?-ed Facebook] ...
P.S.: Why didn't The Atlantic think of this idea? An exclusive site where "Brave Thinkers" like Pinch Sulzberger and the "Atlantic 50" ("the most influential commentators in the nation") can talk to each other! Writing the first draft of history! Then we charge the Boeing lobbyists $10,000 each to join! And let everyone else pay to watch! It's genius. The American Idea! ... [Isn't that the Atlantic business plan?--ed Not yet fully realized. Email suggestions to David@IoverpaidforthebestopinionwritersinAmericaandnowImdesperate.com] 8:44 P.M.
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I knew they'd find a way to punish Ford: The new UAW contract with Ford apparently does not give America's surviving non-bankrupt automaker parity with GM and Chrysler, reports Bloomberg: "The plan doesn’t include cuts to retiree benefits, such as vision coverage, that were granted to GM and Chrysler." Rather, the pain seems even more concentrated on future hires (if there are any) than with the GM/Chrysler deals. ... TTAC wonders whether the UAW had an extra incentive to resist giving concessions that might make Ford more successful now that the union owns a large chunk of its main domestic competitors. ... P.S.: The argument that "the day the union owns the firm is the day workers will need another union" has always seemed a bogus argument against worker ownership. But in this case, where the union actually owns only competing firms, maybe it's not so bogus. Ford, GM and Chrysler workers used to have more or less equal status within the UAW. Now the union has a reason to give GM and Chrysler an edge wherever possible. ... 5:39 P.M.
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One Too Many Cherubim: Blog commenter "Cherubim," who may or may not be Elizabeth Edwards, has resurfaced . She's still a big Michael Jackson fan. ... P.S.: I would say this cuts against the Daily News report that Cherubim = Elizabeth. But others disagree. ... P.P.S.: And yes, there is a Multiple Cherubim Theory. ... 4:52 P.M.
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Unions Bend the Curve! 'Card check' may be stalled in Congress, but Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo report that public employee unions are still successfully bankrupting states and cities. Highlights:
-- Unionization has bent the cost curve of government health benefits--in the wrong direction:
Under the brilliant leadership of Dennis Rivera, 1199 built a top-notch political operation, and with the hospitals, which were barred from political activity, formed a partnership to maximize the flow of government revenue. The union-hospital alliance has been so successful in aligning itself with politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, that not only has 1199 been largely untouched by the downturn, but New York spends as much on Medicaid as California and Texas combined. [E.A.]
That last sentence is stunning. Coming soon to a "public option" near you? ...
-- ACORN, not a straw man! According to Siegel and DiSalvo, it's becoming a real power in New York City thanks to its affiliation with the Working Families Party (WFP):
[T]he WFP is thriving while New York's Democrats atrophy. In last week's New York City primaries, WFP candidates for city council won easily, as did the party's candidates for the city's second and third highest offices: comptroller and public advocate. Those are the best platforms from which to make a run for mayor of New York City when Bloomberg finally gives up his throne.
-- Even Barry Bluestone--the leftish economist who was one of the first to spot the rise in income inequality--worries about the vast gap in the benefits public employees win and the vastly less lucrative benefits ordinary private sector workers get. Thanks in large part to public employee unions, Siegel & DiSalvo note, the price of state and local services is growing rapidly--41% from 2000-2008, vs. 27 percent for private services. Ordinary workers have to pay for them.
The justification for public sector unionism is way weaker than that for private sector unionism. "[Government] workers are not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of taxes," as former N.Y. Liberal Party leader Alex Rose puts it. And the right to strike, in the hands of key public unions, approaches a blackmail power. But the political strength of the unions is such that even most Republicans, at the state and local level, are scared to question them. They gelded Arnold Schwarzenegger. You want to be next? ... 4:39 P.M.
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Q.: Who would have been a more disastrous nominee for the Democrats: John Edwards or Bill Richardson? A: Edwards, but Richardson is giving him a run for his money. ... 5:12 P.M.
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Pajama-Baiting: 1) You have to wonder if the unnamed Obama aide's "take off the pajamas" jibe was not a self-pitying expression of frustration but rather an intentional attempt to goad the liberal blogosphere, giving Obama some anger on the left to push back against, translating into a rise in the polls. Insta-Triangulation whenever he needs it--is that what the left bloggers do for Obama now? ... 2) The worst thing they could do, from this point of view, is to calm down. Don't cut him slack! Go wild. ... 3) This pajama-baiting, near-gaslighting strategy--bloglighting!--would fit the Obama White House pattern of attempting to set up superheated fringe figures as opponents--e.g. establishing Limbaugh, and Beck, and the Birthers as GOP leaders; ... 4) Don't assume it's Rahm! Early in the Clinton administration an inflammatory blind quote from an administration official predicted that the White House would "roll right over" Sen. Moynihan if necessary. It inflamed Moynihan, anyway. Many in the press assumed the quote came from foul-mouthed Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel. My understanding is it didn't. [Update: Moynihan apparently thought it was Rahm--his diaries indicate reporter Michael Kramer told him as much. I'd heard Bentsen. Update II: Kramer has said it was Bentsen, in print.]... Given point (3), I'd suspect Axelrod of the anti-pajamatism.. ... 11:27 A.M.
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GM Bailout II Watch: Signs are just so darn "good" for New! GM that the company is backing off its commitment to the 2010 IPO that might get the government back some of its money before the midterms, says TTAC. ... Robert Farago suggests a get-past-the-election solution that might hold some appeal for Dems desperate to show progress:
Sure, as mid-term elections approach, the feds may try to game the system, offering some kind of IPO-enabling investor “protection.”
Do you think that will fly--i.e. politically be worth the controversy that making it happen would engender (as opposed to simply delaying the IPO until 2011 and issuing an updated round of optimistic projections)? Me neither. ... :8:12 P.M.
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Items I twittered, or wished I had:
Best News of the Week: According to RiShawn Biddle, Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan really are using the leverage provided by federal stimulus money to force states to allow more charter schools. The teachers' unions "feel betrayed." Hope that's not just for show. ... P.S.: This unashamedly pro-Obama article runs in ... The American Spectator. ... P.P.S.: Biddle also says the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has helped create a "counterweight" to the NEA and AFT. Won't make up for Vista! But it's a start. ... P.P.P.S.: If there are well over a million students in charter schools now, and the federal government is pushing them to grow like Topsy, at what point does a vicious circle set in, with public schools losing their even moderately motivated students, causing them to decline even further, causing even more students to leave, etc.? Not that this public school death spiral would be such a bad thing. We should just be prepared for it. The way we should have been prepared for GM. ... 11:27 P.M.
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Neiman Marcus is stealing The Atlantic's business model ... OK, to really emulate The Atlantic you'd have to throw in David Axelrod, and maybe sub Marc Ambinder for Nora Ephron. ... And then sell the thing to ExxonMobil. ... 11:26 P.M.
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51 is the Wussiest Number: Ryan Lizza reports that, in the White House debate over whether to bail out Chrysler, Obama asked his advisers, "What do you think the percentage likelihood is that , if we give this deal a chance, it will succeed?" Then-auto czarito Steven Rattner answered, "Fifty-one percent." ... What do you think the percentage likelihood is that Rattner's answer was sincere? I hope, for his sake, it's close to zero. There was substantially less than a 51% chance the Chrysler bailout would succeed (if "success" means a viable company). There still is. ... Not being a sophisticated investment banker, I would translate Rattner's answer as: "I know you'd like to approve this deal, and I'm not one to buck the tide, so I'll give you the minimum necessary reassurance, while covering my ass as much as possible (in the 80% likelihood that it fails)." ... P.S.: Lizza's piece is generally encouraging--the country could be in worse hands. But it's vaguely discouraging if for Obama and his brain trust the issue actually turned on whether or not the deal would succeed, which seems a less sophisticated question than whether or not it was worth trying to soften the blow to the Midwest by postponing Chrysler's inevitable failure. Could the whole debate have been Kabuki? ... 11:25 P.M.
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Where's Crossfire When You Need It? Jon Klein's Triumph! CNN now in 4th place, losing to FOX, MSNBC, and itself (HLN)! Somewhere Tucker Carlson is smiling. ... 11:24 P.M.
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Good for the Juice? The prospects for health care reform have been looking up. I've now seen it described by two separate non-complacent pundits as a "fait accompli." The only problem is this. That part's not still going so well! ... P.S.: I was going to write a post saying that Democrats in Congress are likely to ignore the polls (and the survivalist id those polls awaken) simply because they won't want to have to go through this whole tedious process again. Then I thought, have they really hated the process? Legislation like this is a good "juice" bill--it motivates all sorts of lobbyists--for insurers, hospitals, drug companies, unions--give a Congressman lots of money to try to make sure the fine print goes their way. Suddenly even backbenchers are worth millions. Meanwhile only a few Senators and Representatives have, so far, been put on the spot and forced to make difficult votes, no? Unless you are one of those unlucky pols (e.g., Blanche Lincoln) what's not to like?
Someone who knows more about the culture of Congress might be able to better answer that question: Is Congress hating the health care reform slog or happily wallowing in it? ... 12:07 A.M.
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Funding for 300 miles of actual (not "virtual") fence along the Mexican border appears to have been killed in a House-Senate conference, after the Senate voted for it 54-44. So Senators from California, Arizona and Texas get to say they voted for the fence, but it doesn't get built. That's how Kabuki is done! ... [Tks to alert reader M] 12:06 A.M.
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Bending the curve both ways: Obama is planning to require a "Project Labor Agreements" on big federal construction projects, which will force non-union workers "to pay union dues and pension contributions for which they likely will never receive benefits," complains the Washington Times. But if that's what "delivering" for labor comes to mean, we'll have gotten off easy. Really delivering for labor would be applying Davis-Bacon-style government-set "prevailing wage" requirements to, say, all health care workers who are paid with federal money, no? ... [via Going Rogue] 12:05 A.M.
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Turn it down! Politely decline. Say he's honored but he hasn't had the time yet to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. Result: He gets at least the same amount of glory--and helps solve his narcissism problem and his Fred Armisen ('What's he done?') problem, demonstrating that he's uncomfortable with his reputation as a man overcelebrated for his potential long before he's started to realize it. ... Plus he doesn't have to waste time, during a fairly crucial period, working on yet another grand speech. ... And the downside is ... what? That the Nobel Committee feels dissed? ... P.S.: It's not as if Congress is going to think, well, he's won the Nobel Peace Prize so let's pass health care reform. But the possibility for a Nobel backlash seems non-farfetched. ... 2:48 A.M.
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Does embattled New Jersey Gov. Corzine really want to bring up the subject of speeding? ... 11:28 P.M.
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Creepy on so many levels. ... 1) He just died; 2) He wasn't that important. This isn't Winston Churchill. (The vacuity of David Gregory just makes him seem like Winston Churchill); 3) They've recreated the way his office looked on the day he died. Morbid! 4) It's like they're trying to build some kind of cult of the personality, with the family willingly invading its own privacy to help out ('Look, there's Luke's childhood drawing'); 5) Making a big deal of Russert's I-love-the-Bills schtick assumes it's shocking that a high-level Washington news guy would be an ordinary middle class American. Bureau chiefs, they're just like us! 6) Does the exhibit include an animatronic NBC butler?** 7) Will it include Lloyd Grove's famous, damning profile of Russert-on-the-make? 8) Self-important, dying industry attempts to fetishize its prominent members before it is completely forgotten. 9) NBC News in particular seems to be living in the past. ...
Coming soon: Luke Ford's Grotto! Kids will love it. ...
P.S.: I'm sure Gawker goes to town on this, but I haven't read Gawker yet. Update: They do. Jack Shafer beat me to mockery too. By hours. Lucky for me speed isn't important in this business. [The contrarian thing would be to defend the exhibit--ed Defending Russert can't be contrarian. That violates a law of physics.]
**--Ali. Maybe he gets a whole new wing! ... 3:15 P.M.
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Dan Kennedy and Oliver Willis have never heard of absentee ballots (not to mention the fun you can have with same-day registration). ... 3:16 P.M.
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The most striking statistic in Mark Kleiman's terrific Zocalo crime lecture (about his new book, When Brute Force Fails) concerned the benefits of sending nurses "into the homes of poor and undereducated first-time teenage mothers to coach them through their children's difficult first two years." From the book:
In a well-evaluated experiment in upsate New York, nurse home visitation for expectant mothers whose demographic profiles put their children at high risk of poor outcomes reduced the arrests among the children of those mothers by 69 percent compared to the matched control group. If that result is even close to correct, nurse home visitation focused on high risk mothers is surely cost-effective as crime control ... [emphasis added; footnote omitted]
This is one of those social science advocacy stats that sets off too-good-to-be-true alarm bells, as Kleiman's own reaction suggests. The number's so spectacular, though, that he thinks its clearly worth a large scale trial. "Given how important parenting is, and given how intensive the intervention is, and given how rocky some of the moms are to start out, I don't find the big numbers implausible," he writes in an email to kf. Even James Q. "Lock-'Em-Up" Wilson is on board. ... Call it something like Pinpoint Liberalism, in which a consensus forms for at least going after what looks like low-hanging fruit, while avoiding a general subsidy for, say, "community development" (which won't be as easy as you'd think). ... Lead reduction, which Kleiman (a bit surprisingly) thinks helped contribute to the recent crime drop, is another obvious targeted effort. ...
P.S.: I'd link to Kleiman's book on Amazon, but then the I might be putting myself at the mercy of a man named Richard Cleland, or someone like him. [I have no idea what, if any, arrangement Slate has with Amazon these days. **] ... Oh, all right. It's here. Come and get me, copper! [That's the lead talking-ed] ...
**-- My previous elaborate conflict-of-interest disclosures have already failed to pass muster even with Howie Kurtz, the man with the biggest conflict of interest in all of journalism, so I'd better be careful where the FTC is concerned. ...
P.P.S.--Still Digging: I just linked to Zocalo, which is kind of doing them a favor. I like their lectures, which fill a local civic need. Unfortunately, they also invited me to their fundraiser on Saturday, which I think means free dinner. Yikes. ... And now I've linked to their fundraiser. That must be worth millions. I'm a cesspool of corruption today. ... 4:50 P.M.
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More: The FTC's new blog disclosure regs seem to be governed by the established First Amendment principle of "Oh, don't worry, we'll never go after you. We like you." Don't Olson, Shafer, Althouse, et al. realize this?. ... P.S.: I don't think blogging or twittering is like talking at Denny's (Jeff Jarvis' analogy). At Denny's you talk to the guys across the table. You blog or twitter to the whole world. That means something. What it means, I think, is that bloggers are on the same constitutional footing as conventional MSM journalists. They're all publishers. That's why it's so absurd and self-contradictory for the FTC to then exempt the most important, powerful (and occasionally corrupt publishers)--the MSM itself. ... P.P.S.: These regs are so doomed. ...
Backfill: Years ago, Michael Kinsley wrote an eerily prescient reductio ad absurdum of what an actual, full conflict-of-interest disclosure would look like. I haven't been able to find it. Think it was in his Curse of the Giant Muffins. ... Update: Kinsley suggests it's this 2000 piece, which is very funny. But I remember another one. What does he know? ... 6:49 P.M.
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According to the WSJ account of CEO Fritz Henderson's conference call, New GM! is meeting its goals ... except for the one about getting people to buy its cars. (Matthew DeBord, please note.)
GM lost two percentage points of market share in the critical U.S. market. Mr. Henderson said GM's market share remains slightly ahead of the conservative estimates the company made early this year when laying out its restructuring. ... [snip]
Mr. Henderson faces intense pressure from GM's new chairman and the U.S. government--the company's new majority owner--to stem the sales slide and improve GM's financial performance.
The company has responded by getting rid of its sales chief (who had failed in his goal "to reverse the decline in GM's U.S. market share") and replacing him with a GM lifer--or as the Truth About Cars puts it, "a lifer [who] owes her career to the timid, inept culture Henderson is simultaneously a product of and ostensibly bent on breaking." She may have a short tenure. But the next exec to go is much more likely to be Henderson himself, as must be by now clear to everyone (including Henderson).
There's also this advance Thanksgiving card:
However, GM has about 10,000 more U.S. workers than it plans to have by the end of 2009 after buyout programs for hourly and salaried programs fell short. GM aims to have 64,000 workers and isn't as far along toward that goal as it expected by this point.
So they let Henderson take the bad press for the layoffs, then they fire him! The bad news goes out the door, and the new CEO gets to do something more popular. ... Maybe it really is all going according to plan.
P.S.: Ten thousand new layoffs would provide a test of whether Congress and the White House can refrain from intervening to stop them, I suppose. Wouldn't it be better for the UAW to take a small cut in hourly pay and save some of the jobs? And attract more production in the future? ... But I forget: Hourly pay cuts hurt all union members. Layoffs only hurt the laid off. If you are an elected UAW official, the course is clear. ... 6:50 P.M.
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What is wrong with our democracy that it is losing the service of legislative giants like Mel Martinez? We shall not see his like again. ... 8:56 P.M.
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Where's "Cherubim"? I've been skeptical of the New York Daily News report that Elizabeth Edwards--she about whom no ill can be spoken--has been anonymously slagging her enemies (and others) in Web comments sections under the pseudonym "Cherubim." But I would be more steadfast in this skepticism if a) there had been some kind of denial from the St. E camp and b) the previously prolific "Cherubim" hadn't mysteriously stopped posting after the Daily News story came out. ... At least I can't find anything. ... Not a peep on HuffPo. ... Nothing on Kos. ... You'd think that if Cherubim wasn't Elizabeth (or even if she was) she'd post something saying "I'm not Elizabeth." ... I'm still off board--it's too bizarre--but, hey, maybe Elizabeth Edwards really is the sort of person who thinks Michael Jackson was "murdered by powerful people in the record industry." That would explain a lot. ... It's also possible that the Cherubim story is some kind of trap, attempting to bait the blogosphere and MSM into jumping to irresponsible conclusions. ... Yes, I'm that paranoid. ... 10:57 P.M.
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Charles Peters argues that any health care reform bill should simply prohibit doctors from owning the outfits that administer expensive tests (like CAT scans and MRIs).** This seems like a simple prophylactic measure that could do a lot to curtail excess ordering-up of services--the sort of thing that got Atul Gawande (and through him, Barack Obama) so riled about McAllen Texas. And it would do it without the grand untested curve-bending suggestions--including "difficult democratic conversations" about end of life treatment--that have only succeed in scaring the elderly into opposing, and perhaps sinking, Obama's reform.
But Peters tells me the ownership ban is not in the bill. ... What, they can come after bloggers for conflicts of interest, but not doctors?
**--Update: Alert reader A.K. notes I've mis-summarized Peters' point. A 1992 law already prohibits doctors from owning the imaging outfits to which they refer patients. But there's an exception for when the X-ray or MRI device is located within the doctor's office, a loophole that's gotten bigger as the machines have gotten smaller. It's this "in-office" loophole that Peters (and some in Congress) would like to see closed. ... That still seems like a simple change that would save money. If doctors want to give patients instant service, they could contract to have machines owned by others stationed in their offices, the way some water coolers are owned by bottled water companies, no?. ...10:56 P.M.
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Here's an aerial photo of Iran's once-secret centrifuge facility at Qom. Does it look non-blowupable to you? Me neither. I suppose it depends on how deep its tunnels go--but those certainly don't look like mountains it's under. And, as Mike Murphy's twitter feed notes, American weapons experts have been developing fancy new non-nuclear bunker-busting bombs that seem maybe capable of doing the trick. (You have to like the one with the Gatlin' gun on its nose.) ... Obviously I'm not advocating a strike against Qom. Even if it wouldn't be a geopolitical calamity, we may not know what other secret, buried facilities Iran has. I'm just saying that when pundits say we can't strike because the facilities are buried and hardened, I don't believe them. Do the Iranians? ... Bloggingheads discussion here. ... 10:55 P.M.
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It's Only a Draft: The prestigious Atlantic's Chris Good--perhaps as exhausted by the magazine's time-consuming Corporate Lobbyist Moneysuck as prestigious Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan after a "marathon twelve-hour session of passion"-- lectures Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal for saying that polls show "the people don't want" the Democrats' health care reform:
... [T]he polling doesn't say Americans oppose Democratic reforms. At best, we can say it's a mixed picture. Of the most recent, reliable, non-partisan major polls--a Sept. 12 Washington Post/ABC survey, an Economist/YouGov survey released Sept. 15, and a Sept. 25 NY Times/CBS poll--only the first shows Americans opposed to Democratic plans (48 percent to 52 percent); the other two show Americans in favor, though NY Times/CBS found that 46 percent say they don't know enough to decide. [E.A.]
The only problem with this paragraph is that in Good's highly selective survey of "the most recent, reliable" polls, he simply ignores the two YouGov polls taken after the Sept. 15 one he cites. Both showed a 51-49 majority opposed to health care reform. In other words, even if you ignore perfectly legit polls like NBC/Wall Street Journal and Rasmussen and use only the three polls Good picks, his sentence should read:
Of the most recent, reliable, non-partisan major polls--a Sept. 12 Washington Post/ABC survey, an Economist/YouGov survey released Sept. 29, and a Sept. 25 NY Times/CBS poll--two of the three show Americans opposed to Democratic plans. The only one showing even a plurality in favor is the wacky NY Times/CBS survey that managed to generate a 46 percent undecided number. [E.A.]
P.S.: Here's a handy page graphing recent polls for Good to bookmark in case he has to write about health care surveys again. It tends to support Jindal, if weakly. ... P.P.S.: This actually isn't a mistake you'd typically make if you set out afresh to look up the recent health care numbers. Maybe that's why I suspect someone fed Good this erroneous story, Dreidl style. Maybe someone he met at the prestigious First Draft of History conference! Who said it was a waste? [Update: Good's choice of polls seems based on an item he wrote about the 'public option' back on 9/29--ed. OK. But who fed him that, I ask you? Never explain by conspiracy what can be explained by laziness--ed Laziness is the Spoonfeeder's Friend!] ... 9:17 P.M.
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Robert Farago makes an obvious point that gets lost in all the rational b-schoolish discussions of General Motors' bloated dealer network: Often trust in the local dealer was the only reason people in rural America would buy one of GM's inferior cars:
GM’s rural dealers are not GM’s trump card. Again: they don’t have one. But small town dealers are the only face cards the company’s got left. Switching metaphors ...[snip] rural dealers are GM’s last redoubt. The General troops are dead on both coasts. The heartland is the last place in America where GM’s products don’t have to be significantly better than Toyondissan’s to move.
Contrary to the MSM’s meme, GM’s sales in “flyoverland” are not down to knee-jerk patriotism. As [Automotive News] rightly points out, GM’s survival in small town America can be attributed to one simple fact: rural dealers are local dealers.
In Paynesville, a town of 2,200 about 75 miles northwest of Minneapolis, several of [closed Chevy dealer Doug] Hawkinson’s customers say that if the store closes, they’ll abandon GM.
“I would look for something different to drive,” says customer Jim Langmo, owner of Langmo Farms in Paynesville. “Service is greater than the vehicle’s brand.”
How many GM owners bought their cars at rural dealers that now slated to close? 900,000. Can GM afford to lose 900,000 potential loyal customers, given its current spotty product lineup? Even GM exec Mark LaNeve now says he is "nervous." ... But I'm sure Steve Rattner took all this into account when he restructured our nation's auto industry. After all, he saved Maxim. ... 9:17 P.M.
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"... well over a million fraudulent votes": Peter Galbraith on why he was recalled from his job with the UN's Afghan mission. ... 8:45 P.M.
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Sorry, DWELL. Prefab FAIL! You do miss things when you don't read the LAT. I missed Christopher Hawthorne's explanation of why high end prefab home designers suddenly seemed to close up shop. Economies of scale were not achieved! ... But that's the high end. You have to wonder whether the same fate has overtaken the makers of lower end kit houses, which often looked better anyway. ... 8:44 P.M.
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Lots of fuss lately about Toyota's troubles. ... I suppose there are two ways to look at it. 1) See, even Toyota's in trouble! Hah! ...2) Toyota is panicking and taking corrective action while there is still time as opposed to the Detroit/UAW traditional method of one step (or two, or three) too late. ... P.S.: I'm not saying that this too-little-too-late phenomenon is built into Wagner Act unionism. ... Oh wait. That's exactly what I'm saying. The Wagner Act sets up a clunky, rule-bound bureaucacy of tooth-pulling negotiation--especially when it comes to administering pain--that wouldn't have worked even in the WWII era of massive industrial behemoths if we'd had any competition. It certainly won't work today. ...
Of course, GM once tried to set up a subsidiary with a less clunky, less rule bound bureaucracy--with flexible shifts and profit sharing but many fewer work rules, etc.. The UAW killed it, lest all those efficiency-enhancing innovations spread to other GM factories (where they might have, you know, saved GM). That wasn't what unionism was all about, argued the UAW traditionalists. They were right. Paul Ingrassia has the grim details. [via Hit & Run via Insta]
Update: Fire Mickey Kaus helpfully documents kf's decade-long record of "fact-free-speculation" eerie prescience regarding the Plot to Kill Saturn. ...
P.P.S.: The Next GM/Chrysler Bailout (#2): Pelosi seems to be on board! [Detroit News]
Pelosi said Democrats want automakers to "thrive," and she hasn't ruled out additional support for automakers if they show that they are "viable."
Here's a striking chart suggesting why Bailout #2 might be needed sooner rather than later. ...Toyota is down 19%. But GM is down 45%. ... [via TTAC]
Update: Big Money's Matthew DeBord argues that "signs are actually good" for Detroit's Big Three because "[a]ll are seeing their market share increase," He's apparently referring to this chart, which shows GM's share rising (from about 18.8 percent in July to 19.46 in August to 20.87 in September) while Ford and Chrysler are essentially flat, Unfortunately, many more people bought cars in the cash-for-clunkers months of July and August, when GM's share was down. It doesn't do much good to have impressive market share in September if the market is puny. When you add up all the good and bad months in 2009 to date, in fact, GM's share has fallen from 22.3 in 2008 to 19.6 in 2009. Chrysler's down from 11 to 9.2, Meanwhile, Ford rose from 14.2 to 15.2 (and in the most recent three months is up at 16.4). Honda has gained a tiny bit and Toyota's share is flat. None of that convinces me that "signs" are "good" for GM and Chrysler. (It is suprising that Toyota hasn't capitalized on their distress, which may explain this.) ...12:21 P.M.
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A big 10-pt jump in relative support of health care reform in Rasmussen's latest poll, which either says something about public opinion or something about Rasmussen. Either way, it's good for Obama, since Rasmussen has been the most pessimistic of the health care pollsters.** ... Maybe everyone is calming down as familiar, boring Senate moderates take center stage. ... P.S.: But the Rasmussen progress is hardly enough to pacify the throbbing Congressional id--health care reform still loses by a 50-46 margin. ...
**--Update: Until this grim new FOX poll.. ...12:20 P.M.
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Always trust content ... : kf readers are not surprised Gourmet magazine is dead.. They're surprised that Bon Appetit isn't. ... 12:19 P.M.
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Breitbart's Legacy? Rasmussen's latest poll finds, rather unbelievably, that voters say "government ethics and corruption" is now a more important issue than "the economy." With unemployment at 9.8%! Hello? Is this all James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart's doing? I can't think of any big recent corruption-related events other than the ACORN and NEA scandals. ... I doubt it is all liberals concerned about the power of the insurance lobby. ... P.S.: This might explain why, while the MSM still gives the ACORN scandals restrained coverage, the pols are running for the hills. They have pollsters too. ... P.P.S.: Rasmussen's survey, taken 9/26 --9/29, was half pre-Polanski, so that seems an unlikely explanation. ... Update: Ambinder writes as if Rep. Rangel's troubles are a central catalyst, which seems unlikely. Rangel isn't that famous. It's more plausible to blame general resentment over Wall Street sleaze and the bailouts. ... 4:02 P.M.
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The Call of Chooch: GM's sales are down 45% from last September (when sales were already bad enough to drive the company into bankruptcy). Chrysler is down 42%. Ford is only down 5%. Car buyers are clearly punishing the two bailout recipients brutally. Robert Farago of Truth About Cars--who has been right before--predicts that GM and Chrysler will both "go down by the end of next year" without a second, new federal bailout. The only question, he says, is whether the two manufacturers will need the cash before the 2010 midterm elections. He adds:
For those of you who say the Obama’s army never really intended to rescue either automaker, that they were simply subsidizing the companies to facilitate a soft landing, I say bullsh[xx]. Washington’s big swinging dicks, led by private equity money men with a similar anatomical affliction, honestly thought they could “fix” Detroit.
Maybe they could have. But it looks like they didn't. ... Most obviously, they seem to have grossly misperceived consumers' reaction to the equities of the bailout itself. And that 45% can't be all Republicans. ... 1:53 A.M.
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Shafer couldn't take a full day of the Atlantic's "First Draft" conference. He tried. ... In the wheat vs. chaff contest, it appears to have been Chaff City. ... P.S.: Is it really true that only 220 people were watching the feed of the Petraeus session? Janet Napolitano drew 132? Those are almost Pseudo.com numbers! Don't tell Boeing. ... [Ah but they were the right 132 people--ed. No they weren't. One of them was Shafer.] ... Bloggingheads is CBS in comparison. ... 2:29 A.M.
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Congress' ego says the time to finish the health bill is now. Congress' id still says "We don't want to get killed in 2010." When the ego says 'yes,' politicians do dramatic things like cancel the Senate's scheduled Columbus Day recess. When id says 'no,' they slow down anyway. They oppose "arbitrary deadlines." They say things like, "We will vote on this when it is ready.”
It looks like the id is winning. From The Hill:
Senior Obama lieutenants, including Vice President Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, have all said recently they think Congress can get a bill to the president before the end of the Thanksgiving break.
The comments suggest the White House is trying to light a fire under congressional negotiators, but it doesn’t appear to be working. [E.A.]
The way to change the Congressional id's inclination--to "light a fire"--was for Obama's speech to move the polls dramatically in the direction of public support, especially among likely voters (e.g., seniors). It didn't--at least it didn't enough. ... 12:08 P.M.
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How defensive is Marc Ambinder about the Atlantic's pretentious, journalistically compromising** "First Draft of History" event? Yes, "[t]he company is making money off of this," he admits right off the bat. They are livestreaming it, to their credit, and you can listen to the "vital conversations" at the link above. ... It's going on right now! ... ... P.S.: Right now, Eric Cantor is saying nothing he hasn't said 100 times before and Chuck Todd is treading water. Not vital! I think I have to do some laundry. ... Update: Here are Thursday's breakout headlines! "Blackstone's Pete Peterson worried about the deficit." ...
**--Atlantic is "making money" by staging a conference at which the presence of powerful officials like Larry Summers, David Axelrod, and John McCain, plus businessmen like Citigroup's Vikram Pandit, creates an aura of prestige (and access) sufficient to attract sponsorship from companies like Boeing and Allstate and ExxonMobil. So are they really going to write something that pisses off Summers, Axelrod, McCain or Pandit so much that they don't come to the conference, or don't come to future conferences? At the very least they've engineered an obvious, gratuitous disincentive. ... Never mind pissing off Boeing and Allstate and ExxonMobil. ...
Remember, this conference obviously did not spring up to fill the need for more Washington conferences. It sprang up to fill the need for the Atlantic to finally start making some money. ... 12:29 P.M.
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Fire Up the Id! Now this is exciting: Over at OMB, Peter Orszag will be posting his "daily step count" as part of the OMB Pedometer Challenge! ... Finally they've figured out a way to make health care reform seem fun and appealing , as opposed to, say, a doomed, moralistic Carter-like attempt to get Americans to change their lifestyles in order to cut costs. ... [Thanks to alert reader J.] 1:10 P.M.
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kf in August, E.J. today.
kf Tuesday, Page Six today (Doris Kearns Goodwin style!) ... 2:17 P.M.
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