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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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Robert Samuelson scorns the egomaniacal "quest for glory" of Congressional Democrats who are trying to pass health care reform. But of course the quest for glory may be the only reason a worthwhile reform could still pass. It ain't going to pass it because it's popular! (Orszagism has seen to that by scaring seniors.) You'd have to be an especially rigorous believer in the Howell Raines Fallacy** to think that if a policy isn't popular then it can't be a good one. ...P.S.: If I remember correctly, the untouchable contributory plan that we now call Social Security wasn't especially popular when it passed in 1935--after all, it would be years before it took full effect. (The popular part of the New Deal's central legislation was Old Age Assistance, a fast-acting straight cash dole to the elderly, which is why it was placed at the beginning of the bill. It's now part of the SSI program.)
**--The assumption that whatever changes you want are of course demanded by the great and good American people. ... 1:09 A.M.
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Did ACORN chicanery elect Al Franken? That's the import of this tactfully phrased Minneapolis Star Tribune column.** Franken won by 312 votes. ACORN claimed to have registered 48,000 43,000 ew Minnesota voters. If just 1% were ineligible but cast ballots, or had ballots cast for them illegally, and survived the recount process ... that's 480 430 votes, almost certainly overwhelmingly cast for Franken. ... Maybe in pristine Minnesota even ACORN is clean. If so, the state would apparently be an outlier. ...
**--Item originally said "story." It's a column. (I was thrown off by the byline, "Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune.") That makes no difference in Kirsten's argument, though Dave Weigel makes a fuss about it, and then bizarrely says it's a "smear" to even raise the obvious question of whether the voters--you almost want quotes around the word--registered by a highly questionable outfit like ACORN were legit and made a difference in a very close race. The most important question, I would imagine, is whether ACORN handled absentee ballots for anyone in the state. Would we trust an organization, whose registrations featured (in the NYT's words) "fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors" to distribute, collect, and maybe even mail in absentee ballots for, say, shut-ins at nursing homes? If there were funny business, would a recount necessarily have detected it (assuming the ballots were clearly marked)? ... That's more questions! Sorry! ... P.S.: There are also obvious potential problems with same-day-registration that might not be picked up on a recount. ... P.P.S.: In neighboring, also pristine Wisconsin, ACORN employed as voter registration workers felons "convicted of crimes including cocaine possession and robbery."
Carolyn Castore, state political director for the group, told the AP: “We have a lot of folks with felony records and, frankly, they need jobs.”
Update: Here's an example of funny business with absentee ballots, by a group joined at the hip to ACORN in New York. ... But I'm sure there's nothing to worry about in Minnesota. ...1:14 A.M.
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People I respect (my mother) claim Roman Polanski got a bum deal in 1977. But it's worth remembering that the French--now in the process of being outraged by his arrest--can be absurdly resistant to extradition by the ugly Americans, especially when an artiste is involved. Here's a Steven Levy article on one famous case--the Unicorn Killer, a Philadelphia hippie who seems to have stashed the remains of his ex-girlfriend in a steamer trunk. He fled before trial, winding up in France. When discovered, he successfully resisted extradition (at least initially) after a campaign that played up his having written "written four novels, one a philosophical novel on the Holocaust." He was eventually extradited, tried and convicted. ... P.S.: He also seems to have maybe invented social networking, or at least spam:
In the 1970s he persuaded Bell Telephone to finance a networking scheme in which he sent information to a list of contacts that ranged from author Alvin Toffler (whom [he] introduced to computer conferencing) to corporate Brahmins in Fortune 500 firms.
1:20 A.M.
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008
You have to wonder, can the good Bill Gates is doing with his Foundation ever match the suffering caused by Vista? ...
P.S.:
October, 2001 --Windows XP launches. One month later, economic expansion begins..
January, 2007--Windows Vista launches. Ten months later, economy plunges into recession.
Coincidence? I'm not so sure! ...10:25 P.M.
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UAW Offers Concessions in Bailout Effort: The key paragraph--
At the meeting, the union did not discuss wage and benefit concessions for active employees, said Jeff Everett, a local Chrysler president.
One problem with the Wagner Act is that surviving in a modern economy requires fast decision-making, but negotiations with unions take time (and energy). Like pulling teeth takes time (and energy). You sometimes wonder whether boosters of Wagner Act unionism are familiar with the concept of "too little too late." ... Update: AP reports that UAW leaders did vote to "let the Detroit leadership begin renegotiating elements of landmark contracts signed with the automakers last year, a move that could lead to wage concessions." UAW President Ron Gettelfinger "stopped short of saying the union would reopen contract talks with General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. but said it would be willing to return to the bargaining table to change some terms." But "any modifications would still have to be ratified by local union members." [E.A.] ... Gettelfinger blamed a "perception problem" for (in AP's words) "a negative view of the union." The union is buying TV ads to counteract it. ... 3:44 P.M.
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A Knack for Diplomacy: What attitude do the Hillary people bring to the State Department? I didn't think her spokesman Phillipe Reines could top his obnoxious and nonsensical response to the Gerth and Van Natta report that Hillary had secretly eavesdropped on her enemies ( “We don’t comment on books that are utter and complete failures”). But he's come close with his spin on the legal argument--a seeming winner*** if you actually believe the Constitution's language--that Hillary is barred from becoming Secretary of State by the Emoluments Clause:
This is a Harvard Law grad nominating a Yale Law grad here, so all parties involved have been cognizant of this issue from the outset,” [E.A.]
Well all right then! No clinging to guns and God in this administration! ... I'm sure they spent a lot of time on the Emoluments Clause at Harvard and Yale.
Why do Hillary's people think this smug, sneering approach** is productive? Because of its success in winning them the nomination? Think how well it will work in the India-Pakistan crisis! ...
**--The technical term is "Lehanism," coined after its most conspicuous practitioner used it to put Al Gore and Wesley Clark in the White House. ....
Update: Eugene Volokh cites two law professors who agree that the Emoluments Clause means trouble for Hillary. Volokh himself thinks the wording is "ambiguous," but he didn't go to Harvard or Yale so ignore him. ... [via Plank]
***--Text originally said "slam dunk" rather than "seeming winner." Prof. Volokh convinced me that it isn't a slam dunk. You shouldn't call anything a "slam dunk" anymore anyway. ...12:23 A.M.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008
From the NYT account of the GOP runoff win in Georgia:
Many voters interviewed Tuesday said the balance of power in the Senate had been an important factor in their choice of a candidate.
"If you can’t have a little back-and-forth arguing between the parties, then the party in power will make mistakes,” said Ron Zukowski, a computer expert in Atlanta who voted for Mr. Chambliss. “This was my chance to say no, and I said no.”
Hmm. Didn't Mike Kinsley say that "almost no one" thinks like that? I think he did! (He was arguing voters don't choose dividied government, not that they don't choose undivided-but-still-filibusterable government. But it's the same mindset.) ...
P.S.: What's at stake: It's important that Democrats fail to achieve a filibuster-proof Senate. Chambliss' victory assures this. But what's most important is that Nate Silver turn out to be wrong about something, anything, however small. Otherwise he will have to be worshipped as a god. Was he wrong about Georgia? Here's the best I could find in a quick search:
"We think when it's all said and done Martin will lose by around 10 points."--Silver's blog partner Sean Quinn, as the returns came in. The actual margin is looking more like 14 points.
"The question is, will more Chambliss voters drop off or will more Martin voters drop off? That's the unknown. In wave years I'd tend to bet with the wave party, but I'm nowhere near ready to conclude Martin will win."--Quinn again.
[I]f the polls going into December 2nd say that Saxby Chambliss is going to win the runoff by 7 points, you shouldn't be a but surprised if Jim Martin actually wins instead. And you also shouldn't be surprised if Chambliss wins by 20."--Silver on Nov. 13. Final polls had Chamblis ahead by 4-7 points.
Not wrong enough! Eyes turn to Minnesota, where Silver has a hostage to fortune in the form of his confident prediction (in a TV talk with Arianna Huffington) regarding Al Franken:
[H]e`ll pick up votes in this recount.
Also his Nov. 23 projection "Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes," Unfortunately, it is still possible Franken will win the recount by 27 votes. ...11:46 P.M.
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Mark Krikorian is not impressed with likely Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano's border-control credentials but concedes
[S]he's about as close as any Democrat governor can get to appearing hawkish on illegal immigration.
He speculates:
"It could mean that the Obama administration picked an immigration person for this job because they want to burnish their pro-enforcement credentials to make a more plausible case for amnesty down the road ...."
That would be shrewd. But I wonder--suppose it all miraculously works according to plan. That is, suppose Napolitano succeeds, against all expectations, in controlling the border. The ACLU sues to cripple enforcement in the workplace. It loses! Illegal immigration in effect ceases. The public feels soon confident enough to allow Congressional Democrats to legalize those illegals already in the country. No more living in the shadows. Celebrations in the streets! But because the border is controlled, no new illegal immigrants get in. Guest workers, including agricultural workers, do get in--perhaps with a "path to citizenship." But only in the numbers authorized. The question is: Would the Congressional Dems and their allies be happy?
I'm not sure. ... They'd get 12 million new, mainly Latino voters. Likely Democrats. But that would be it. I suspect there are a lot of Dem pols who would not-so-secretly be rooting for things to not go according to plan--for an amnesty to be accompanied by a breakdown in border control, as it was the last time it was tried, meaning there would be millions more illegal immigrants, mainly Latino, to legalize and empower in future years.. ...
I suppose the answer would depend on whether the new rules allowed existing immigrants to keep bringing in members of their extended families, thereby rapidly expanding the newly-arrived, legal electorate. ...
I'm not saying this scenario is likely to happen--it's a thought experment. The very forces that might be happy to see the border-control part break down (low-wage employers, pols hoping to surf the Latino surge, anti-nationalist libertarians) would try to make it break down. Which is why it probably would. ... 12:17 P.M.
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A job for Anna: New York is still in a state of intense speculation on the central policy question regarding Obama's transition: What does it mean for Vogue? Editor Anna Wintour's "rep" has denied gossip reports that she'll be joining the administration, but that hasn't stopped them. ... She raised some money for the campaign. What might she want? Ambassador to France would be a good fit, no? "The French would deal with her a lot better than the Iceberg Lettuce King of Salinas that W. sent over," says cosmopolitan kf reader Madame S. ... 10:50 A.M.
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Sunday, November 23, 2008
"Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes": Give Nate Silver points for not playing it safe. ... Update: A new Silver calculation:
The various versions of the model project a Franken win by between 48 and 136 votes once all ballots are re-counted and all challenges are resolved.[E.A.]
There are some disclaimers about high "margins of error." Nobody will notice them if Silver's right. ...11:22 P.M.
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Richardson Vets! [You said this wouldn't happen-ed. Vets for Commerce. That's like being "Hot for D.C."] 1:45 P.M.
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