As if the 2008 primaries couldn’t get any weirder, it now seems that Florida and Michigan will get some form of ‘do-over’ to adjust for their earlier ‘tainted’ elections. Thanks to a year where expectations of an early decision have been yielded a long and drawn out battle to the death, they will not pay a price for breaking the DNC’s rules and moving their primaries ahead of the ‘Gang of Four’ states. Ironically this means that Florida and Michigan will actually end up with more influence than if they had been allowed to hold their primaries when they wanted, without fear of sanctions.

I don’t have much of an opinion on new primaries for Florida and Michigan. Anything that helps smash the current system and creates the opportunity to have several regional primaries is fine with me.

However, since the Clinton campaign only started calling for the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations AFTER the four small states that the DNC rules were designed to protect had voted, I think those four states should get to re-vote too. When Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina Democrats voted, they did so believing Senator Clinton’s promise to respect the special status of their states. Democrats in those states knew that if the DNC’s sanctions against states that tried to preempt their positions were not upheld, the next primary season will see their status dramatically reduced.

Senator Clinton’s call to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida has sounded the death knell for the role of these states in primaries. There will be no reason for states not to move their primaries to early January or even sometime in December to gain a share of the political influence and economic benefits that have accrued to these states. Iowa and New Hampshire have particularly benefited from their positions and will be hard hit by a loss of primacy.

So, if Michigan and Florida can get re-votes despite having broken the rules, I think that Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina should get to re-vote too. Their voters should get to take into account that knife in their collective backs that was stuck there so delicately by the Junior Senator from New York.

Had Senator Clinton called for seating Florida and Michigan before the four early primaries, it seems unlikely that she would have done so well. Her third place in Iowa might have been even less close had Iowa voters known that she had no intention of keeping her word. One interesting note is that, had Senator Clinton been upfront in Iowa, John Edwards might have won the state, radically reshaping the race.

Nevada would likely have been different too. The shift of only a small percentage of Nevada caucus-goers would have changed the outcome, putting Senator Clinton 0-2.

That brings us to New Hampshire. This is the state that has enabled both Clintons to claim the title of ‘comeback kid.’ The Granite State’s strong support for Senator Clinton reversed the momentum of the race and allowed her to minimize the South Carolina results. If there is any state that should feel Senator Clinton owes them something, it would be New Hampshire.

And she gave it to New Hampshire, right between the shoulder blades.

No state takes its role in the presidential process as seriously as New Hampshire. No state has so much history surrounding its primary. McCarthy in 1968. McGovern in 72. Buchanan and Clinton in 92. New Hampshire’s identity seems tightly bound to its ‘first in the nation’ primary.

So when Senator Clinton campaigned in New Hampshire, she did so under the pretense that she would respect the DNC rules that protect New Hampshire’s primacy. Had she been honest with the voters then, it seems very likely that she might not have done so well and might even have lost badly. After all, if the Clinton campaign didn’t think this would be a factor, why didn’t they announce support for seating the two delegations in the first place?

If there will be re-votes that reward states for breaking the rules, why shouldn’t there be re-votes for states that are misled? In light of Senator Clinton’s support for changes that will harm these four states, it seem only fair that they get to re-vote too.

While people have been paying a great deal of attention to Georgia’s efforts at redrawing their border with Tennessee in order to tap into the Tennessee River and draw off our water, much less attention has been giver to efforts in Kentucky to tap into another valuable Tennessee resource, tourism.

Kentucky’s new Governor, Steve Beshear, is working on a plan to create up to a dozen casinos across the Bluegrass. At least three of these casinos would be short drives from Tennessee, one conveniently located in Franklin, near Nashville and one just up I-75 from Knoxville.

The likely economic impact on Tennessee will not be positive. A casino in Franklin, KY is less than 45 minutes from downtown Nashville. The casino on I-75 will be an hour from Knoxville. Is there anyone who doesn’t think that these areas will soon be filled with hotels and restaurants and shopping centers that will siphon off tourists as well as local residents seeking entertainment?

Even the economic promise of the new Convention Center will be hurt by the presence of casinos this close to Nashville. Who would be shocked that instead of going from bar to restaurant to club on 2nd Avenue, many of the thousands of convention-goers we hope to attract will hop on casino buses and head for Kentucky?

Should Tennessee respond and how?

As Kentucky moves closer to opening casinos, one option that will be much advocated will be to amend the state Constitution to allow casinos. The idea being to ‘fight vice with vice’ so to speak. The argument will be that the additional attractions of real cities like Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga and Knoxville will cause casino-goers to abandon artificial urban areas like Tunica. Reduced travel would also strengthen the appeal of urban casinos over their border rivals.

Now critics will argue that Tennessee will reap the whirlwind of evils from the presence of casinos. We will have more problem gamblers. Most forms of crime will rise. Unsavory characters will descend on the state. Certainly there will be some serious problems that we will need to consider if we legalize casinos.

However, it is important to remember that we are not talking about legalizing casinos in a vacuum. Between Tunica and the Kentucky sites, in a few years most Tennesseans will be more than two hours from a casino. The issue will not be bringing in gambling and the problems that will follow, our neighbors have done that for us. Rather, we have the option of taking steps that allow us to mitigate the problems related to casinos or get stuck with most of the problems that will come with casinos while other states collect the revenues that help offset their costs and allow them to invest in their futures.

At a minimum, Tennessee needs to start discussing our response to the presence of casinos being easily accessible to a much larger percent of our population and to many of our major tourist areas. The impact is going to be considerable and, with out sales tax-based revenue structure, a major hit to tourism and related businesses would be very harmful.

While we wait to see if Super Tuesday II will decide the Democratic Party’s nominee, there is growing speculation on who Senator Obama might pick as his Vice Presidential running mate. Oddly, interest in Senator Clinton’s choice has declined in the last two months, falling like a home building company stock.

Traditionally the Vice President has been based on how best the nominee can help the ticket.

Dick Cheney was supposed to add gravitas to an inexperienced George W. Bush. Al Gore was an excellent insider pick for an obscure Governor from Arkansas. George H.W. Bush added international experience to the Reagan Revolution. Lyndon Johnson ensured that the cemeteries of Texas would turn out for JFK.

What factor or factors will determine the choice of Senator Obama?

Could he ask Senator Clinton to join the ticket? Possibly. Such a choice would help heal the rift that has grown so wide and become so bitter. Obama / Clinton would unify the party more than any other pick.

There are problems with that choice though. While Senator Clinton’s presence on the ticket would help soothe hurt feelings among her supporters, it seems unlikely that she would broaden his appeal to swing or undecided voters. Her presence would arouse and motivate Republicans who are not yet wildly opposed to Obama and undermine his efforts to reach across party and ideological lines.

Will he go with a party elder to add some maturity and experience? A Joe Biden or a Chris Dodd might fit the bill nicely. Dodd’s endorsement of Obama might be seen as a step in that direction.

The flaw in this path is that Senator Obama has gone to great lengths to demonstrate his readiness from day one as a response to Senator Clinton’s attacks on his experience. Choosing a senior Senator, particularly one from a safe Democratic state, would suggest that he was worried about matching his experience with Senator McCain’s. The ‘gravitas’ issue would be more likely to come up if he picked someone like a Biden than not.

Will he opt for a running mate who would increase his chances to carry one or more swing states? Senator Webb of Virginia and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana would fill the bill. Webb might pull Virginia and North Carolina. Bayh would put Indiana in play and improve the odds in Ohio. Perhaps a Governor who has demonstrated the ability to pull Republicans. Perhaps Governor Bredesen?

Why Bredesen and not Bayh or Webb or another rising star? Part of the case for Bredesen is that, as a sitting Governor, he has the sort of hands-on experience that voters seem to want on a ticket. It is more than just a fluke that most Presidents have been Governors, not Senators or Congressmen. Also, Bredesen is familiar with health care from a business perspective as well as a government management perspective.

Now some will argue that Bredesen’s management of TennCare, specifically his efforts to reduce enrollment and the harm done to those removed from TennCare, has killed his chances. To be sure there is a substantial anti-Bredesen block on the Left that takes an unforgiving view of the Governor.

But those who see this as a vulnerability miss a key point. Vice President Bredesen isn’t going to be developing the plan, President Obama is. While Bredesen would have important influence, it is amusing to think that Obama supporters worry that their hero might be led astray by Bredesen. One might even suspect that having a group of radicals attacking the VP nominee for reducing the costs of health care would help Obama / Bredesen convince voters in the middle that they are not radicals on health care. This could be Obama’s ‘Sister Soulja moment’ assuming that this would not be plagarism.

Governor Bredesen could also contribute heavily to the campaign. The ability to write a check for $10 million for those little campaign ‘emergencies’ can be a useful skill.

Finally, the best selling point for Bredesen may be that his age makes him an unlikely future candidate for President. As the nominee, Obama picking a strong VP who will have four to eight years to claim the mantle of heir presumptive would alienate the Mark Warners and Evan Bayhs of the party who would see their prospects severely diminished.

Picking a VP who would not be a strong prospect for President in four or eight years might help heal some of the breach with Senator Clinton. She and the former President have no love for the Junior Senator from Illinois and, if he were to pick a VP who could block her from a second run, they would have no reason to do more than the minimum to help his election. But, if he picks a ‘lame duck’ VP, the Clintons would have every reason to go all out for Obama because she is still a contender down the road.

I have long been a believer that in elections for executive positions like Mayor or Governor or, maybe President, the first and most important thing that voters look at is Leadership. Leadership is a nebulous term that means different things to different people and sometimes different things to the same people. But the central idea is that the voters who determine elections gravitate to the candidate who seems stronger, more decisive, more capable of imposing his or her will on others. Issues matter some and certainly even Theodore Roosevelt would not beat Mike Dukakis if Teddy were running on a socialist platform.

Leadership is an important topic right now because it seems to me that the reason Senator Obama is defeating Senator Clinton is that many Democrats see him as the stronger leader. Part of this is clearly due to his power and a speaker and his personal presence. His ability to invoke the image of President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy speaks of changing not just issues but the times themselves.

Still, any comparison of resumes would seem to favor her as the stronger leader. While he was a neighborhood organizer, she was a major figure in leading policy organizations. She was a major figure in the White House and played a large role in shaping policy when he was a State Senator. Yet it seems to me that she is unable to sell herself to the swing voters who are genuinely undecided between her and the Senator from Illinois.

If she is not establishing herself as a leader despite her resume, the question is ‘Why?’

While there are probably a range of factors, particularly the presence of a level of misogyny and some Clinton-fatigue, I believe that the major problem she faces is her relationship with President Clinton.

I think that whatever her reasons for staying with her husband, whether love or loyalty or consideration of Chelsea’s welfare or cynical political calculation has cost her the ability to look like a leader. While her support for Bill allowed him to survive his missteps and to look like someone who could dominate his personal life as her mastered the Presidency, her ’stand by your man’ position marked her to many as the junior partner. The unspoken thought is, “If she were a strong leader, would she let him keep repeating his behavior?” One cannot help think that while her behavior toward Bill can be seen as altogether admirable, it is decidedly not the behavior of what we want in the person with his or her finger on the button.

If she had packed up and left him after Monica or once he left the White House, that might have been seen as the response of a strong leader. Had Bill continued to support her despite a separation, she might have changed the perception of more people as to her independence. And a stronger image as a leader might have meant a much less difficult primary campaign.

The irony of all this is that Bill Clinton could never have been elected President without her. And his inability or unwillingness to put his immediate wishes above her interests may have blown her chance to be President.

Richard Rhoda, Executive Director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission has an op-ed in today’s Tennessean that is instructive of the mindset of many leaders in America’s higher education industrial complex. Mr. Rhoda is proud that initially it looked like tuition would only rise a “modest” 5% to 9% at the universities. The state’s declining revenues mean that this will rise.

“While it is now likely that higher education will have to revisit tuition levels, no one in higher education is jumping to conclusions.”

Consider these two points.

Mr. Rhoda considers an increase of 5% to 9% modest. In some things, that might possibly be so. But college costs have been beating inflation, sometimes by 2 or 3 times inflation for years. That level of growth makes health care increases seem modest. The debt burden of such ‘modest’ increases has grown to dangerous levels. It seems that as long as parents and students can scrape the money together, college costs will continue to rise.

Second, if no one in higher education is jumping to conclusion, they apparently are not jumping to find ways to reduce costs either. At least Mr. Rhoda doesn’t mention cost control as a way to ease the burden of college costs.

Note that Tennessee has a Higher Education Commission. We have the University of Tennessee system of colleges and universities. We have the Regents system. One might think that a little strategic planning could result in enough savings to hold down tuition increases by one percent each year. Maybe even two percent.

I don’t dispute the need for improving Tennessee’s higher education institutions. I don’t dispute the need to get more young people into college and help them succeed there.

But when someone in a position like Mr. Rhoda’s can opine about rising costs in context of so many years of inflation-beating cost increases and never mention the responsibility of higher education to help families by controlling costs, there is something wrong.

The stylish and well-styled John Edwards is ending his campaign for the Presidency and, parenthetically, announcing his campaign for Attorney General.

The former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate never gained sufficient traction despite running a campaign designed to attract the substantial numbers of leftist voters who regard both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama as too moderate. One is actually warmed by the prospect that there were few who rallied to Edwards’ message.

As for Edwards, he is no doubt busy sending subtle messages to the front-runners (AG stationary with his name on it) and reminders of how valuabe his endorsement would be.

Trial lawyers across America, drooling like Pavlov’s pups at the prospect of General Edwards, are audibly signing new contribution checks and waiting for their hero’s nod.

this is a test from the blog post function

Picture a major corporation that has suffered numerous setbacks over the last few years and which faces an uncertain future. Stockholders have seen a serious decline in the value of their investment. Prospects for meaningful reform are thwarted by a structure where members of the family that built the company dominate the Board of Directors despite owning a minority of the shares. Despite the desire of investors for reform in this highly unrepresentative approach to governance, the ruling family refuses to give up control.

This is exactly the sort of story that one would expect the New York Times to leap to expose. Questionable management. Bad decisions. Hard times for employees and stockholders. An arrogant and unresponsive aristocratic family that looks only to its own interests. Calling Paul Krugman…

Except that the corporation IS The New York Times. Yes. That New York Times. The Newspaper of Record. The shining liberal beacon. And the family that is bent on preserving its power despite its minority ownership position is the Sulzberger family. Not Gates or Buffett or Walton or Jobs (all of whom are making money for their shareholders) but the Sulzbergers, one of the great powers in the Democratic party.

The AP offers a short feature on demands from some of the stockholders for greater power to be given to the owners of the company. The Sulzbergers, champions of the little guy in other fights, are unwilling to surrender control.

Perhaps the Times should discard its famous, and once believable, “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and go with something more contemporary like “Do As We Say, Not As We Do.” That would look perfect right next to their endorsement of Senator Clinton for President.

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Venezeula’s nascient Dictator for Life, Hugo Chavez, has decided that foreigners who speak critically of him while viziting Venezeula can be deported. According to the AP,

Chavez ordered officials to closely monitor statements made by international figures during their visits to Venezuela _ and deport any outspoken critics.

“How long are we going to allow a person _ from any country in the world _ to come to our own house to say there’s a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?” Chavez asked during his weekly television and radio program.

You have to admire Chavez. It takes a certain boldness to argue that he isn’t a tyrant and that you will be expelled for suggesting such a thing. It takes even more boldness, not to mention a lack of any short term memory, to abolish free speech for your critics when it was not so long ago that you showed up at the UN, located as I remember, in the good old US of A, and denounced President Bush as the Devil and worse.

Hugo also touts Democracy while expressing his fondness for Fidel Castro, the cigar-smoking tyrant of Cuba. Since Cuba is closing in on a half century without a free election, one can only wonder what the future holds for Democracy in Venezeula. Free health care but not free elections? That is a future that Michale Moore might value but how many others?

Of course, what Hugo says isn’t worth much anyway. His actions are what matters. He will go on doing things that will help the poor in the short run while evicerating Democracy and Capitalism, the two pillars of real long-term hope for the poor. By the time those short-term activities dry up (just as the oil revenues will), Democracy and Capitalism will be long dead in Venezeula and the suffering will be worse than ever. And the people who applauded his criticism of President Bush, foolishly thinking that Chavez shares their values, will nod and agree that it is a tragedy and talk about how America’s move away from imported oil was a cruel attack on the poor of Venezeula.

The International Herald Tribune has an excellent article on how Germany is confronting the growing threat of terrorism. Wolfgang Schäuble, Interior Minister for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has advocated a range of more aggressive policies against potential terrorists from ‘preventive detention’ to assassinations of terrorist leaders in other countries.

While Germany has not faced the sort of terrorist attacks that shook the US on 9/11 or even the recent attacks in Britain, the Germans suffered considerably from domestic terrorism by the leftist Baader Meinhoff gang and others from the 70s. Also, last summer, there were two failed attempts to bomb trains in Cologne by two Lebanese men who were apparently responding to the controversy over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed.

The article also points out that German authorities are concerned because the network that carried out the 9/11 attacks were organized in Germany without any awareness by the anti-terror services.

Schäuble’s suggestions may strike some as excessive, and have raised concerns in Germany, a nation that has two examples of government run-amok over civil liberties. But he may represent a trend. To the extent that the German government and the German people choose to vest more power in the security services and to limit existing civil liberties, that should be seen a major sign that Europe is coming around to viewing how to combat terrorism in the same way that the Bush Administration does.

That is not to say that the Germans might abandon their empahasis on civil liberties any more than some of us think that the US is on the road to a totalitarian state because of the Patriot Act. Schäuble and his supporters seem to see Islamic radicals as a specific threat rather than an opportunity to target a range of somestic enemies.

Germany’s evolving approach to combating terrorism may be a bellweather for the larger European / US relationship. The various activities of Vladimir Putin in confronting Europe and his neighboring states (from the use of energy as a weapon to aggressive military movements) has sent a chill through the EU. Iran has helped unify the Atlantic Alliance by managing to threaten everyone. And the seeming success in North Korea (mostly missed by the media focus on Paris Hilton and other true crises) is relieving another stress point.

Should the US and Germany develop more coordinated strategies on terror, particularly Islamic radical terror, it could lead to a more coordinated foreign policy approach on the Middle East. With the Bush Administration mired in various problems, Germany would be the likely leader of a Western strategy. That would have profound implications for the future of a united Europe, implications that may not sit well for the newly free states of Eastern Europe or for France.

The Tennessean is reporting that Chancellor Gordon Gee will leave Vanderbilt for Ohio State. Buckeye fans can finally be comforted that they have beaten an SEC school.

The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus has a wonderful column in today’s paper on the unwillingness of the Democratic candidates for President to consider even limited deviation from the NEA’s positions. In particular, Ms. Marcus highlights Senator Barak Obama’s previous stands that differ from NEA orthodoxy and how he seems to be abandoning them.

The importance of the article is not to tell us that politicians pander. That is what philosophers call a ’self-evident Truth.’

Rather, by sighting Obama’s changing focus as he moves from Senator to candidate, she demonstrates that the NEA’s grip on the Democratic Party is preventing reform and shortchanging our children.

Consider this passage:

Last year, in “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama endorsed higher pay for teachers, with “just one catch” — they “need to become more accountable for their performance — and school districts need to have greater ability to get rid of ineffective teachers.” Today, the talk is all pay, little catch, though the Obama campaign promises more details later.

Or compare and contrast Obama in October 2005 and Obama now on No Child Left Behind.

“It may not be popular to say in Democratic circles, but there were good elements to this bill — its emphasis on the achievement gap, raising standards and accountability,” Obama said then. “Yes, it’s a moral outrage that this administration hasn’t come through with the funding. . . . But to wage war against the entire law for that reason is not an education policy, and Democrats need to realize that.”

Obama today acknowledges that “high standards and accountability, in the abstract, are right,” then launches into the standard attack he once decried.

“Don’t tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of the year preparing him to fill in a few bubbles on a standardized test,” he says. But, for all the flaws of No Child Left Behind, that bubble-filling has highlighted the achievement gap between rich and poor schools, and between black and white students, and put pressure on systems to address it.

This is not to say that merit pay or testing are magic bullets or that making them work would be easy. However, to kill debate and study of reforms to placate a powerful special interest ought to offend Democrats who see their party as the advocates of public schools in the same way that Republicans ought to be offended by the way that our Congressional representatives abandoned their role as reformers to pander to other special interests.

Yesterday’s LA Times reports features the news that David Bershad, a former partner at the law firm Milberg Weiss, has plead guilty to conspiracy charges for giving kickbacks to plaintiffs. According to the article, this will lead to additional indictments against members of the firm that was once considered the leader in shareholder class action suits.

According to the Times’ account, the scheme worked this way:

In last year’s indictment, a Los Angeles grand jury accused Bershad, Schulman and Milberg Weiss of illegally paying at least $11.3 million over a 25-year period to clients who agreed to act as plaintiffs.

The recipients of the payments were recruited to buy stocks in anticipation that they would fall in value, according to the indictment, positioning themselves and Milberg Weiss to take the lead in securities fraud cases and collect extra fees.

Note that the idea was not to look for actually harm or corrupt corporate practices. All the ‘injured’ stockholders and the lawyers were looking for was enough of a fall in the stock price to make a credible case.

Such tactics might not arouse surprise from a small and less reputable firm, but Milberg Weiss is not a couple of ambulance chasers in a strip mall. Their position as a leader in their field might suggest that they are Limo chasers but it also makes such behavior all the worse.

The plea agreement will certainly fuel calls for tort reform since it demonstrates the ability of large law firms to fund plaintiffs, encouraging suits that might not otherwise be filed. While swings in stock prices often result from forces beyond the control of company management, the prospect of costly litigation and huge awards can cause businesses to settle, rewarding these sophisticated ’slip and fall’ suits. That does nothing to benefit real stockholders or to improve corporate behavior.

The Tennessean opines today on Nashville’s need for inter-city rail service. Like the Tennessean’s campaign for commuter rail, it is a good idea but one that gets the priorities wrong. For inter-city rail or commuter rail to succeed, the first step Nashville needs to take is to improve intra-city transit.

The advocates of commuter rail and inter-city rail seem to operate under the assumption that, if you build it, they will ride. And, if they don’t ride, subsidize it until gas prices go high enough to force people to ride.

What they miss is that, unlike cities where the growth of mass transit corresponded with the geographical spread of the city, Nashville and similar cities lacked that transit infrastructure as their populations boomed in the last few decades. Being ‘car cities’ rather than ’subway’ cities, even if suburbanites want to abandon their cars for the train, their options for moving around in Nashville are severely limited.

Bus service can be good but does not come close to offering the flexibility that shoppers or businesspeople need. There are not enough cabs. The recent movement of prominent employers from downtown to other parts of the city has made this need for expansion of intra-city transit even more vital.

Before we spend time and resources on trying to get people here by train, let’s be sure that there is an existing infrastructure that will ensure that they do not find themselves trapped in one part of Nashville. Such a revised system would be good for suburban commuters, good for Nashvillians who don’t want to drive, good for drivers who find less traffic and good for the environment.

Oh, and such a system would be good for taxpayers, who would have to shoulder less of a subsidy, not that the Tennesssean has ever worried about taxpayers.

I just saw Michael Moore’s new film ‘Sicko’ and came away impressed with Mr. Moore’s talents as a film-maker and propagandist. The film resonates with anger, sorrow, irony, idealism and a curious optimism. You almost expect CNN to have video of audiences streaming out of the theatre and rushing down to sign up as volunteers for John Edwards for President.

The problem is that the impact of the movie tends to overshadow the fact that it IS a work of propaganda. Moore is such a good story-teller that you can be forgiven for forgetting that he is telling only selected parts of the story. For people who see the health care debate as something more complex than Mr. Moore’s prejudices, the film offers an interesting perspective. For people who get all their news from the Daily Show or the Editorial page of the New York Times, it will be treated as Gospel.

To be sure, the film makes some valid points and makes them well. Are there people who suffer from the problems and gaps in our health care system? Yes. And Moore’s examples are well-chosen and wonderfully presented. Do HMOs use unethical practices? Yes. And Moore does a beautiful job of contrasting real live people to cold and bloodless buildings. Do people in Canada, Britain, France and Cuba love their health care systems? Yes. But…

Are there really no Canadians who are dissatisfied with their health care system? No Britains? No French? No Cubans? Well, probably there wouldn’t be any Cubans complaining since one can only imagine how unhealthy it would be for a Cuban to criticize that nation’s health care system. Rumor has it that dissent is a leading cause of death in Cuba. Still, the absence of any view uncongenial to Mr. Moore seems to be left on the cutting room floor, as effectively ‘disappeared’ as Cuban dissidents. The imbalance of the movie ought to alert the average viewer to be cautious in swallowing Mr. Moore’s nostrum.

Do we need reform on health care? Of course. Does that mean a jump to national health care? I don’t think so but I know that the arguments for doing so require more than one excellent piece of propaganda.

Just when you think that the New York Times is beyond hope, the paper manages to surprise and give one hope. The wonderful Eduwonk links to a Times editorial on Education that actually makes sense. The idea of the Times making sense on Education is the sort of thing that makes one believe in Progress.

The editorial focuses on the failure of Connecticut to adequately educate minority students, particularly in comparison with its success with white students.

Connecticut’s “achievement gap,”which is the academic disparity between middle class and poor students, is the widest of any state, and the achievement gap between minority and white students is one of the worst in the country. Income aside, reading and math test scores among minority fourth and eighth graders in Connecticut are discouragingly low, ranking the state in the bottom half of the nation, anywhere from 25th to 43rd, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The state jumps in the rankings, from between third and 10th in the nation, when the scores of white students are measured.

That the Times would highlight Connecticut for its failure is telling because the state’s population is among the wealthiest on a per capita basis. Were one to make the traditional case that the federal government needs to spend more money on Education in the states, an issue that will be central in the debate over reauthorization of NCLB, Connecticut would not be the state to cite.

The editorial includes the shocking statistic that 200 of the state’s 1,200 schools are on the verge of failing as measured by the No Child Left Behind law. That is one on six (and I went to public schools in the South), a percentage that I believe is considerably higher than Tennessee’s.

But the most amazing admission in the piece is this quote from Connecticut’s Commissioner of Education.

Dr. McQuillan, who came to Connecticut from Massachusetts, is blunt about the need to improve reading scores, especially among minority students. “The reading wars between phonics and whole language are over, and what works is not a matter of opinion,” he said, indicating that a phonics-based approach is the most effective. “There’s a lot of data about what makes sense and good policy for reading, and it is stunning how often it is ignored.”

Let me repeat:

“The reading wars between phonics and whole language are over, and what works is not a matter of opinion,” he said, indicating that a phonics-based approach is the most effective. “There’s a lot of data about what makes sense and good policy for reading, and it is stunning how often it is ignored.”

Given the bitterness that grew out of the conflict between advocates of ‘whole language’ and phonics, with the dispute coming to reflect someting of a liberal vs conservative ideological divide, when the New York Times prints such a quote, the debate must be over. That the Times would approvingly print a quote that suggests that the Education Establishment disregards important evidence proves we still live in a world of Wonders.

The New York Times, formerly the newspaper of record, now reduced to the role of semi-official organ for the Hillary Clinton campaign, launches an ‘investigation‘ into the lobbying careers of Senator Thompson and his sons, Tony and Dan.

There is always a fine irony when a supposedly objective paper, which is so driven by its own agenda, starts raising questions about the ethics of those who stand in its way. Does the paper find any wrong-doing? Is there any evidence of corruption? No. But, because Thompson has the potential to be a threat to the Times’ vision for America, this somehow becomes an issue.

Consider this snipet:

In the folksy drawl that built him a lucrative sideline as a screen actor, Mr. Thompson is presenting himself as a reform-minded outsider taking on Washington, just as he did when he campaigned for the Senate as “Ol’ Fred” the “real live country lawyer,” and cruised Tennessee in a rented red pickup truck.

The obvious irony is that Fred Thompson was a ‘real live lawyer’ in 1994 and grew up in the country, Lawrence County specifically. His accent is unaffected, unlike the darling of the Times who has, of late, been stretching her vocal range as if she were running to replace Mel Blanc rather than George Bush.

Any questions regarding the character of Fred Thompson ought to include a mention of how he fought to include charges of Republican wrong-doing in his famous investigation into the campaign finance irregularities of the 1996 elections. That investigation was subsequently thwarted by the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. While Trent Lott worked in cooperation with the Democrats to set time limits that would undermine the hearings, potential witnesses fled the county in numbers large enough to be classified as a migration. Of course, mentioning this in regard to Fred’s career would raise the issue of who’s husband all those emigrants were supporting in 1996.

Senator Thompson’s management of those hearings was hardly the behavior of a partisan hack or an insider. And certainly not the action of someone who put party or self over country.

However, one fears that the Times is more interested in creating its own definition of Fred Thompson than in accurately covering his career and his campaign.

The Michael McWherter for US Senate Campaign has had an excellent first week to judge by the coverage in the political press and on several blogs. To read some commentators, Senator Alexander is in for the fight of his life as the son of Tennessee’s popular ex-Speaker and ex-Governor rallies the faithful and reverses the tide of recent Tennessee political history.

It all has a lovely ring to it with Michael, the son who spurned the ‘olive oil’ business comes to the aid of his ailing father and saves the family. No, wait, that’s the ‘Godfather.’ While one is tempted to get deeply involved in odd comparisons between the ‘olive oil business’ and the ‘beer’ business or images of possum heads in people’s beds, the analogy is a bit stretched. Senator Alexander is no Don Barzini (much less a Don Sundquist) and Tom Ingram IS a war-time Consiglieri.

Anyway, leaving the cannolis…

The idea that Tennessee’s Democratic Party leaders are planning to make a major push to defeat Seantor Alexander with an untried candidate who’s chief recommendation is his name is simply wrong. The Democratic Party may well be looking to Michael McWherter to be their candidate, but not because he can win. McWherter’s great virtue is that he is the perfect firewall to prevent a Republican landslide.

To understand the situation, it is necessary to remember that in Tennessee, particularly for the Democrats who have controlled the Legislature since almost forever, political power comes from Nashville not Washington. When Governor McWherter was Speaker, his influence was far greater than even that of a popular and talented Governor like Lamar Alexander. As Governor, McWherter’s power in Tennessee easily trumped that of Senators Gore and Sasser. Control of the Legislature means control of PAC money, pork, redistricting and all the countless other trappings of power. Loss of that control means loss of that power and all those benefits.

Because control of the State House and Senate are infinitely more important to the Democratic Party Leadership than a US Senate seat, their focus in the 2008 elections will be on the 99 House and 16 Senate races rather than the federal race. Consequently, for the Democratic Leadership, the US Senate race is more about its effect on those ‘down-ticket’ races than the office itself.

In that context, the 2008 election cycle looks unfavorable for Democrats in Tennessee. Their majority in the House is five seats, hardly a safe margin, especially since several seats are held by new faces and even more seats were won by small margins. The Senate is even tougher with at least three Democratic seats looking vulnerable and Mike Williams’ Independent seat likely to move back to the Republicans.

2008 might be better for the Democrats if there were no Presidential election. When one looks at the probable Democratic nominees for President and asks how they will play in the Volunteer state, the view is not promising. Does anyone really think that small town and rural Democrats will flock to the polls for Hillary Clinton? Barak Obama? John Edwards? Particularly as the primary process moves these candidates further to the Left? No, the current crop of Democratic candidates seems unlikely to generate much excitement or turnout among rural and small town Democrats. And those are the voters who are vital to holding the vulnerable House and Senate seats.

Even if Fred Thompson is not the Republican nominee, Tennessee seems a safe state for the Republicans. And, if Fred is at the top of the ticket…

That means the Democrats need a candidate for Senate with the ability to energize this part of their base. And who would be better able to do that than someone who bears the name of McWherter? Voters who would not turn out on a warm November day for Hillary Clinton will turn out for Michael McWherter in a blizzard. While that won’t turn Tennessee Blue in the Presidential race, it could make a difference for House and Senate Democrats in places like Robertson County, Montgomery County, Rutherford County and in John Wilder’s Senate district. When five House seats can reshape Tennessee political history, these voters matter a great deal more than a US senate seat.

Now, some may ask, if a McWherter candidacy brings out the Conservative Democratic base and Hillary or Obama or Edwards energizes the rest of the Democratic coalition, why can’t a McWherter campaign get the extra few points that Ford lost to Corker? To be sure, Ford lost in large part because he ran poorly among these voting blocks.

The problem with this argument is that a McWherter candidacy surrenders something that the Ford campaign had, appeal to newer voters. What McWherter gains in the small towns and rural areas, he loses in the high growth areas of Middle Tennessee and the suburbs of the other cities. The same voters who had not been here long enough to be alienated by the Ford family name will not be drawn to the McWherter name.

Futher, Senator Alexander embodies much of what voters who moved to Tennessee admire in their politicians. Alexander is a moderate Conservative with an appealing record on Education and other issues favored by middle class voters in cities and suburban communities. He still has the star quality that helped make him Governor. And he has Ted Welch raising his money and Tom Ingram as his strategist.

The idea of a Michael McWherter campaign makes a great dela of sense. But not because he looks like a winner. Winning would be a bonus. But Michael McWherter’s goal is to be the firewall for the Tennessee Legislative Democrats so that their control of the most important institutions of state government are preserved.

A few days ago USA Today carried an important Education article that I caught on Yahoo. It dealt with the contrasting results of state testing standards and federal testing standards.

Consider the lede:

Today’s pop quiz: Mississippi elementary school students are (A) the best readers in the USA, (B) the worst readers in the USA, or (C) both.

Bizarre as it might seem, the correct answer is (C), depending on who’s measuring.

Based on state standards, Mississippi has the USA’s highest-achieving fourth-graders: 89% passed the state reading tests in 2005, tying Nebraska for tops in the nation.

Based on a national assessment, however, Mississippi has the nation’s lowest-achieving fourth-graders: just 18% passed a more rigorous national reading test, the lowest of any state.

The article goes on to point out that this situation results from a compromise that was necessary to pass the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act. Basically, in 2014 all students must be “proficient” but the standard is left to each of the 50 states. That allows politicians and members of the Edu-archy to fix the standards rather than improve education. Thus, Mississippi can report nation-leading test scores without any real efforts to improve schools.

The article goes on to cite a Gannett story on states that follow this practice.

Gannet News Service reported last week that Mississippi had the biggest gap between fourth-graders passing state reading tests and those passing the national assessment, followed by Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

Tennessee? Tennessee? I thought we were promised accountability… But that is for another day.

Conservatives ought not blame the Bush Administration for this lamentable situation. And we should not blame Teddy Kennedy or the NEA. Rather, this flaw in NCLB is the fault of Conservatives themselves.

This is one of those times when two legitimate Conservative Ideas came into conflict and the majority of Conservatives seem to have taken the wrong side. Given the choice of supporting national stadards (distinct from a national curriulum) that would ensure that all our children would have the same measurements or defending the right of states to take the easy way out and potentially cheat our children out of the education they need, many Conservatives opted for the easy anti-Washington option.

This would be ironic if it were not so tragic. After all, how many of those same Conservatives now raise the alarm about immigration, the loss of English as the national language and the potential Balkanization of America are the same people who fought against ensuring that a high school education has to have a real value for every student in every state. Allowing states to set their own standards will balkanize America into states where education is a fact and states where it is a fiction.

Conservatives need to reconsider the role of education in our national economy and in our national culture and support real standards for all our schools and all our students. Education is too important to be left to the states alone. Consider the situation in Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama and Tennessee! Tennessee!

The Associated Press and the Lexington Herald leader are reporting that Jimmy Bedford, Master Distiller for Jack Daniels, is retiring after 40 years with the company including 20 as the Master Distiller, only the sixth person in that position of sober authority.

One does not have to enjoy Jack Daniels in its several tasty incarnations to appreciate an artist, especially one who is so widely respected for his achievements and admired for his character. The article is well worth a read for something of the flavor of the Jack Daniels tradition.

Check out the article and then toast the career of an authentic Tennessee great.

The fifth Harry potter film opened this week to good reviews and full theatres. The seventh and final potter book is soon to be released while under security measures that make the D-Day secrecy seem mild.

It has been noted that the Potter books have become more adult and darker as they have progressed. Now there are rumors that Harry will die in the final book.

While Ms. Rowling has the right to full artistic freedom, does she have an obligation to consider the impact of such an act on the young fans of her books? Where the first waves of young Potter fans ‘grew up’ with the novels, waiting patiently for each new release as they matured, today’s youngest fans will be able to read all the books more immediately. That means children younger than ten may find themselves confronting the death of someone who is a large part of their lives with little time to prepare for that impact.

Were the Potter books not such a phenomenon and driven by such a vast marketing effort (that will outlive the publishing of the last novel), one might not worry. Thanks to this PR and advertising campaign, the Potter books are probably better known to young children than Captain Crunch. If too much advertising for sugary cereal might be harmful to children, what do we make of encouraging them to become involved in a world of fiction that ends in something that they may not be emotionally ready to experience?

Does Ms, Rowling have an obligation to such take account of such considerations? Does the fact that she has profited so hansomely from the marketing of her books make her at least somewhat responsible for not including material that these children might no be able to manage?

This is clearly a tricky issue. As an ardent defender of Free Speech, I think Ms. Rowling is can write what she wants. But as I noted, if marketing cereal to young children is problematic, couldn’t the same be said of a book? Particularly a book that is the subject of such promotion and attention.

After all, is it possible to spends millions of dollars on marketing to children over 10 and not have a powerful impact on those under 10? Can parents, assuming that they bother to consider the content, restrict access to a book to only the ‘older’ children? One can see the ‘houses divided against themselves’ now. Good parents talk with their children about issues like Death or the difference between reality and fiction, particularly in how people should behave. But how many parents will take the time to find out about the book and potential problems that could arise from certain events?

Of course, Ms. Rowling may confound us all. Harry may thrive and everything will be fine. But in an age when we have more reason to be concerned about the effects of high-pressure marketing to children, is it unreasonable to worry about a book that gets such attention?

Bob Sullivan over at MSNBC’s ‘Red Tape Chronicles’ blog posts an interesting story about a little-mentioned aspect of the new iPhone. It seems that in all Apple’s publicity for the revolutionary new phone, it neglected to mention much about the battery. Specifically, replacement requires return to Apple for three business days. The cost of the replacement battery is $79 plus a $6.95 shipping charge. Rental iPhones will be available for $29. With Apple’s estimate of 300 to 400 charges for a battery, that means the one year warranty will not provide much value. That seems remarkably consumer-unfriendly for a company with Apple’s reputation.

Sullivan notes that Apple seemed to carefully avoid discussion of the battery and the cost of replacement in the previews it gave to select reporters. And he does make the point that the cost may not seem too high for people who will pay $500 to $600 for the phone and more for the monthly service packages.

Still, one is left to wonder whether Apple’s desire to launch the iPhone and open a new outlet for Apple’s popular products didn’t lead them to make a decision that will alienate customers in the next couple of years.

I am just not a big fan of Christmas movies. It could be one too many viewings of different versions of ‘A Christmas Carol’ excluding ‘Scrooged,’ or it could be that I am just twisted (the general view of my friends). Whatever, I just cannot get excited when people discuss their favorite Christmas movie. While many people wax eloquently over the glories of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ all I can think is that the Star Trek Next Generation episode ‘Tapestry’ is a far more interesting perspective and better acted.

Instead, I would prefer to hear what people think are the best political movies. From ‘All the King’s Men’ to ‘Z,’ which movies do the best job of dealing with the political process, government behavior and political ideas?

For example, even though the bad guys win, ‘Primary Colors’ is an interesting and insightful look at modern campaigning. Watch it back-to-back with John Ford’s delightful ‘The Last Hurrah’ and you may well come to lament modern politics. Both works are careful looks by insiders into specific campaigns. The resulting films are marvelous studies of how politics works.

‘Primary Colors’ benefits from being fresher and more accessible to viewers. We know the characters. It offers more modern language and more realistic relationships between characters. And it offers a powerful confrontation over morality in a campaign.

At the same time, ‘The Last Hurrah’ offers wonderful scenes of old time campaigning with ward bosses, precinct captains, smoke-filled rooms and even campaign buttons. The scenes at the wake are priceless. The personal nature of politics has never been portrayed better. The role of that new device, the tv, gets a nod that is both funny and unnervingly prescient, much like ‘Network’s’ view of the future of tv news. Best of all, John Ford is the greatest of the old directors who learned on the job and not in film school or producing music videos.

‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘Missing’ are well-made fact-based thrillers that raise important issues of how governments can go very wrong while ‘Fail Safe’ is a fascinating study of government and coping with the unimaginable. In ‘Missing’ it is particularly the gray men at the Embassy who embody the fine line between acting in the interests of the state and participating in evil.

The original ‘All the King’s Men’ seems, at first, to be a cautionary tale of the dangers of demagogues and Broderick Crawford breathes life into Willie Stark and his power to move men singly and in groups. On a deeper level, the movie is far more effective than the book in demonstrating that the greatest danger of the Willie Starks of the world is that their appeal is to people who sincerely want to help the poor and the downtrodden… the “hicks” as Willie calls them. The dark secret of Willie’s power is that he understands that it is the ideals of those who want reform are the key to getting them to give him the power to rule them.

What are other movies that provide real insights into politics?

This headline was on Drudge and links to a Breitbart story from AFP. The lovely Ms. Richards, former bride of Charlie Sheen (the Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford of post-Good Taste America), apparently launched a laptop at a couple of paparazzi. Ms. Richards’ rectangular frisbee missed the offending journalists and sailed out a second story window, striking two elderly ladies.

The image of Denise Richards armed with a laptop, facing down a pair of wild paparazzi is just delicious. The idea of her missing and making an elderly woman the victim of a drive-by computing is too much.

Next Friday, November 10th, is the date for the 9th Annual d’Vine Selection Wine Tasting to benefit Ronald McDonald House.

You will have the opportunity to taste over 100 wines as well as sample some outstanding food from Bonefish Grill.

There will be a silent auction with lots of great items including more wonderful wines. This is a great chance to start stocking up for holiday gifts or your own wine rack.

Tickets are available on line at www.rmhnashville.com or by calling 343-4000.

The location is Thoroughbred Motors on Franklin Road.
The time is 6:00 PM until 9:30.

Tickets are a bargain at $60 in advance and $70 at the door.

Last year over 250 people came and had a great time. Get your tickets now and come join the fun and help a wonderful community resource, Ronald McDonald House.

Has there ever been a tv series as angry as ‘Deadwood?’ Even the people who are the ‘good guys’ are constantly on edge with those they like or need. The language would embarrass a fleet of sailors. There’s enough screaming for a ‘Howard Dean look alike’ contest. The romance is only slightly more tender than the violence. The West isn’t just wild, its a Sam Peckinpah film written by Sylvia Plath.

Set in the West in the late 19th century, ‘Deadwood’ is remarkably free of efforts to make some larger points about modern America by using themes ripped from the headlines or somethig similar.

Curiously, while ‘Deadwood’ lacks special episodes or plot lines relating to contemporary affairs, it may be the most accurate show around on the mood of America. On issue after issue each day America seems to be more divided by conflicts between the Left and the Right. From blogs to op-eds to protest marches to talk radio, the anger in the political process is palpable. Conversations betwen lovers on ‘Deadwood’ sound like Mary Matlin and James Carville discussing the 2000 Florida elections.

Should we see our own passions in ‘Deadwood’ or is more anger what we need to get reforms? Is ‘Deadwood’ theraputic or is it a warning about how we live parts of our lives?

Italy just defeated France to win the World Cup. Bravo Italy.

I am not much of a soccer fan. The nuances are lost on me and I think it lacks the team precision and strategery of football and the action of college basketball.

Still, there were some exciting games and the coverage was excellent (except when it was necessary to include comment from Brent Mussberger).

Italy will have its largest celebration since Marcus Aurelius defeated the Germans. They deserve it. The streets of Paris will be filled with enraged students and public employees protesting that the lack of a 30 hour week is the cause of one more French defeat.

That alone makes it a great Cup.

The London Sun Online reports that Tom Cruise, the noted actor, thinker and gourmet has said that he will eat the PLACENTA after fiancée Katie Holmes has their baby.”

The actor, 43 — who wants her to give birth in silence according to his Scientology cult rules — said: “I’m gonna eat the placenta, too.

“I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I’m going to eat the cord and the placenta right there.”

Perhaps Cruise is hoping to sink his teeth into a major dramatic role like playing the lead in the prequel ‘Silence of the Lambs IV, The Early Recipes.’

One wants to ask whether this curious culinary inspiration (you have to admit it would make a cool episode of Iron Chef) is related to Cruise’s belief in Scientology. There are endless cartoon possibilites but sadly, to pursue them might bring one into the clutches of Mike Kopp and John Spragens.

Suffice to say that Cruise may finally have found his comic voice. Just because it is unintentional doesn’t make it less funny, just painfully funny.

Drudge links to a story from Breitbart about remarks made by George Lucas while receiving an award from the World Affairs Council.

Among the insights from the father of Jar Jar Binks is this:

“…the United States is a provincial country with a culture that has invaded the world via Hollywood.”

and:

“I hate to say it, but television is one of the most popular exports,” Lucas said.

People see shows such as “Dallas,” about a wealthy Texas oil family, and decide they want the grand lifestyles portrayed, according to Lucas.

“They say that is what I want to be,” Lucas said. “That destabilizes a lot of the world.”

And the Lucas solution:

An onus is on film makers to be careful with the messages they send because they speak “with a very loud voice,” the famed movie director said.

Gee, and I thought that film was art and that artists were supposed to be anything but careful.

That Nancy Pelosi was on hand to present the father of the Ewoks with his award just made the whole spectacle more delicious.

There is a great deal here to consider but two points of particular interest.

First, Obi Wan seems to suggest that American customs and values are somehow harmful to other cultures. There is a stunning condescencion to such a proposition. A few seasons of ‘Desperate Housewives’ and marriage will collapse in Mecca? Triple features of ‘Porky’s,’ ‘Animal House’ and ‘America Grafitti’ will corrupt the teens of Finland?

Gee, if that were true, do you think that Lucas would speak out on Hollywood’s responsibility for teen pregnancy or drug abuse? Are Americans less corruptible or does it matter less that we lose our souls?

One also must note with dripping irony that the French are the most voluable critics of American Cultural Imperialism. A nation that has its own language police and bizarre rules about ‘acceptable’ foreign words has more problems than a few American movies.

Second, the spread of American culture around the globe has not been accomplished by force. Unlike England waging the opium wars to open China to trade or the efforts of Muhammed’s followers to impose Islamic culture on the peoples that their crusades conquored, America has simply made our movies, tv and other aspects of our culture available to willing consumers.

American cultural imperialism is a myth made popular by a combination of those who are on the losing end in the marketplace of ideas and the ‘blame America first, then blame America some more and then blame America at the wrapup kegger’ crowd. Lucas, in failing to note that no one uses the Force to make people want American culture, aligns himself with the latter group.

Finally, Lucas is possibly the most implausible of messengers for this nonsense. After all, his vision for the Star Wars franchise has been to construct a whole mythology around his universe. As High Priest of the Star Wars religion, he has labored tirelessly to market Star Wars as movies, toys, bric-a-brac and, most notalby, as a Tolkien-esque cultural icon.

Oh well, Lucas may well be the ideal spokesman for this leftist nonsense. After all, as a wise man once said “The Force can have a powerful influence on the weakminded.” Lucas will fit in well with the moveon.org crowd and the French intellectuals.

Over at Kausfiles, Mickey Kaus has a great take on the Left’s love affair with the movie ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and how it is a metaphor for their inability to craft a winning message to the heartland.

He writes:

2. The Heartland Breakout Meme seems like B.S. of the sort that consistently hurts Democrats (and others who believe it): B.S. is B.S.. Bloggers are allowed to point it out (he says defensively)–especially if it’s B.S. the mainstream press has no particular interest in pointing out (because it kills the story, or because they’ll seem homophobic).** But this B.S. falls into a special category: the sort of gratifying myth that in the past has helped lull liberals (and gay rights activists who may or may not be liberals) into wild overconfidence. Remember when Democrats actually believed that Fahrenheit would help push Bush out of office? It didn’t work out that way. Moore’s film didn’t change many minds in part because, as York puts it, it “never reached audiences that had the power to defeat the president at the polls.” Despite all the “heartland” hype, it was a blue-state movie. York notes that Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ–a mirror-image “red state” movie that did well where Fahrenheit did badly, badly where Fahrenheit did well–prefigured the 2004 results, in that it attracted an audience roughly roughly three times the size of Fahrenheit’s (or six times Brokeback’s!).

Much of Democratic politics seems to now consist of embracing and fanning similarly comforting, but ultimately deceptive, liberal memes. Enron has fatally damaged Bush, Abu Ghraib has fatally damaged Bush, Katrina has fatally damaged Bush, Abramoff has fatally damaged Bush, the Plame investigation will fatally damage Bush–you can catch the latest allegedly devastating issue every day on Huffington Post or Daily Kos (and frequently in the NYT). If you believe the hype–if you don’t compare Michael Moore’s box office with Mel Gibson’s box office, in effect–you’ll believe that Democrats don’t need to change to win. They just need to push all these hot memes forcefully. If you don’t believe the hype–if you think that netroots Dems are too often like the Iraqi Sunnis who think they’re a majority–you’ll look for a Bill Clinton-like alternative with greater red-state appeal.

Kaus is so spot-on that Republicans ought feel lucky that the Democrat response will probably be to find Kaus guilty of heresy and burn him at the metaphorical stake.

Republicans ought not take too much comfort in this. There is a not-to-subtle message here for us too. The Mel Gibson vote may be much larger than the Michael Moore vote but it isn’t a clear majority. I think Kaus misses a point on how many Red staters and other Conservative-leaning voters, especially young ones, don’t oppose homosexual behavior and are actually supportive of gay rights.

Just because they don’t want to sit through another relationship movie doesn’t mean all, or even most, Red staters are homophobic. That message is worth note by both parties.

Nathan Moore just called to say that Catherine Jennifer Moore arrived just over an hour ago. Catherine and her mother Sarah are both doing well. Catherine is 20″ long and weighs 7 lb and 11 1/2 oz and is in excellent health.

Welcome Catherine Jennifer… you have two wonderful parents and many great friends.

Pictures are coming soon.

The news from the mine disaster in West Virginia is bad. This tragedy hits me particularly hard because I grew up in Harlan County, Kentucky. My Grandfather was a miner and ran the company store. My Grandmother raised four children in coal camps. I went to school with the children of miners.

There is something about the lives of men and women who disappear under the earth for hours in dangerous and difficult conditions that commands respect. The nature of the work and the isolated world of the mountains where the coal is found ensure that it is never going to pay workers a wage that is comparable to its risks. Still, they stay because they are bound to their families and to their communities.

Long after we left Kentucky, my Mother was always terribly upset by stories of mine disasters. Her memories of the loss of friends or parents of her students would come back with terrible effect.

I pray for these miners and their families in a deeply personal way because they could be my friends and family. I know and love these people and their world. They are victims of history, geography and the worst that one can find from both big business and big government. Yet they are people of amazing Faith and deep ties to friends and family.

Ann Coulter was forced to end a speech at the University of Connecticut halfway through the scheduled 30 minutes on Wednesday due to heckling by students. This is just one more in a continuing series of instances where college administrators fail to defend the principle of free speech when it applies to unpopular (that means Conservative) speech.

Personally, I don’t blame the students. They are young and easily lead astray by good intentions. I blame the administrations for not zealously defending free speech. The students who attempt to shout down legitimate speakers should be punished for their own good. They need to learn that if you deprive someone of their right to speak (and of others to listen), then you should pay a price for your willingness to do that.

We are seeing too many instances of students being allowed to shut down speakers at a time when colleges are being infected with speech codes that punish ‘hate speech,’ a delightful phrase that is best defined as ‘anything conservative that I don’t like.’

I caught ‘Capote’ last night and enjoyed it enormously. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is striking as Capote. His ability to diminish himself (in real life he is much larger than Capote) when he dominates a room is impressive. After too many ’serious’ films where Pacino and Dustin Hoffman chew scenery like it was taffy, such effective underplaying is refreshing and fun to watch. It reminded me of Robert Duvall disappearing into Tom Hagen or any of his other roles.

Catherine Keener and Chris Cooper are excellent. The chilly scenes of Kansas are a wonderful metaphor for the nature of both the story of the murders and of the story of the author and his book.

See it. In a world of Rocky XVI, the Matrix IC and countless Baldwin movies, it restores one’s faith in film as an art.

I played a lot of chess in high school and I really love the game. This story in the LA Times the other day is a far cry from chess club after school but it is interesting and funny. The lede is soooo good.

BERLIN — Martin “Amok” Thomas is jabbing a right, but Frank “so-cool-he-doesn’t-need-a-nickname” Stoldt is as elusive as a ribbon in the wind. He can’t be hit.

Time.

The gloves come off, and the men hurry across the canvas to the chessboard. (You heard it right.) Amok took a couple of body shots, and he’s breathing hard, but he’d better focus. That Stoldt, though, everyone in the gym knows he’s this warrior-thinker, slamming the speed clock, cunningly moving his queen amid unraveling bandages and dripping sweat, daring Amok to leave him a sliver of opportunity.

Time.

Velcro rips. Amok slides back into his Everlast gloves, bites down on his mouthpiece, dances along the ropes. His king’s in trouble, and his punches couldn’t knock lint off a jacket. Stoldt floats toward him like a cloud of big hurt.

Donald Sensing highlights the news that Bruce Willis is making a film about American soldiers in Iraq from the novel perspective that we are the good guys.

Mr. Sensing rightly anticipates that Hollywood and the major critics will dislike the film. I will go him one further and suggest that Willis will be criticized for aping John Wayne, who produced ‘The Green Berets’ as a response to the negative image of American troops in Viet Nam. Frank Rich, the once-feared theatre critic and now discount Maureen Dowd (but with less testosterone) will see in the film another proof that Iraq IS Viet Nam.

Depending on when the film is released, it will be interesting to see how it plays in places like Macomb County, Michigan, home to Reagan Democrats and one of the most watched bellweather spots in America.

The news just gets worse over at CNN.

Declining ratings… the X-files…

Now, Mickey Kaus over at Kausfiles makes delicious fun of the North Korean government’s spin on CNN’s footage of an execution. That second paragraph doesn’t sound too out of place.

And Drudge reports that CNN has fired a switchboard operator for losing his temper with a caller who was expressing unhappiness about the ‘X’ superimposed over Vice President Cheney’s face.

Let us stipulate that this silliness is unrelated to the issue of media bias on one side or the other. While one prays this will be quickly forgotten, such hope is probably optimistic.

More importantly, the disarray at CNN