A week late and a dollar short. Scenes from The Last Welch:






More pics to come....

Done Deal: The word I got last week at The Last Welch was that Ron Paul was definitely going to run as the Libertarian candidate in the general election, so his hints here aren't that surprising (after all, he was also the party's nominee in 1988). Frankly, I doubt he would take many votes away from Obama.

What Hath Selig Wrought?

If there was any doubt the Democratic-controlled Congress could find ways to embarass the nation even more efficiently than their Republican counterparts, it's this.

Liberal Fascism: I know that the inclination to mock his argument may seem overpowering, but I prefer to treat statements like "The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore," with the same intellectual firepower that Mr. Goldberg brought to bear when he wrote his magnum opus. To suggest that a female kindergarten teacher who graduated from some East Coast safety school is the "quintessential" Black Shirted thug is ludicrous, when everyone knows that the true symbol of modern fascism is the seventy-year African-American widow living on a fixed-income in Baldwin Hills. I get chills just thinking about Granny....

Mortgage Foreclosure Update: Confused by the manifold measures winding their way through Congress? Here's an idiot's guide to s***pile relief for your troubles, sir....

Prof. Kleiman, on the political gifts of the junior Senator from Illinois:

Paul Krugman thinks Barack Obama is "naive" (Gee, where have we heard that word before? Is Krugman still writing his own stuff, or is he just mailing in talking points from Mark Penn?) for thinking that the drug companies and health insurers will play a role in shaping a new national health policy. I would have thought that anyone who thought otherwise was showing a dangerous distance from consensus reality.

But Krugman's real point seems to be that Obama isn't nasty enough to be President: that his agenda of inclusiveness (including even — horrors! — drug companies in the national community) means giving up on serious change. That strikes me as a remarkably un-subtle view for someone of Krugman's sophistication, and can only attribute the error to the fact that Krugman is as committed to his candidate as I am to mine.

To my eye, Obama is super-slick, and part of his slickness is not looking slick: looking, indeed, as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. It's the Reagan trick. To interpret that technique as weakness is a foolish mistake.

If you're going to provoke a fight and want the onlookers on your side, you have to make sure that the other side looks like the aggressor. In undoing the damage of the past eight years, Obama is going to need a fairly free hand to wield the powers of the executive. He can't get that by looking like a power-hungry, revenge-driven would-be tyrant.

By emphasizing unity over conflict, for example, Obama might be able to get a Truth and Reconciliation Commission: or, to put that in English, he might be able to acquire the power, through his nominees on such a commission, to purge the Executive Branch of Bushoids. Can you imagine Hillary getting away with that?

Somehow I doubt that either Krugman or I really has the chops to judge the toughness of a guy who cut his political teeth on the Southside of Chicago. But Obama looks to me like a skilled counter-puncher. His crack at Hillary in the last debate —which must have been impromptu, since he might have anticipated the question but not her intervention — suggests to me he knows how to fight back without looking mean.

You have to love the way the Clintonites are screaming that Obama is unfairly getting away with saying bad things about their candidate, while having the press criticize her as "negative," at the very same time they're complaining that he's not tough enough to take on the Republicans. No one seems to notice the contradiction. A very sharp knife doesn't hurt as much going in, but it does just as much damage.

Ouch !!! Read the whole thing, here.

The argument that the next President will need to conduct a partisan fatwa against the GOP is rather common in the lefty blogosphere, and it's a tone-deaf argument for two reasons. First, the public is recoiling from the Rovian politics that the bloggers seem so intent on aping; much of the unpopularity of the Bush Administration and the GOP is based on precisely that revulsion. The last thing the voters desire is to replace one set of partisan thugs with another, particularly those who whine about having been victims for the last twenty years.

And second, if one desires that the next President actually pursue a progressive agenda, it is incumbent that said policies actually have a chance of being enacted in the first place. Since it is unlikely that the Democrats will increase their partisan edge in the Senate by more than 4-5 seats, and perhaps 10 seats in the House, even under the best case scenario, and since none of the potential nominees has yet to call for anything so radical as the abolition of the filibuster, some degree of compromise will be needed to enact anything. And perhaps even more important than compromise, the next President will have to build coalitions with the other side, allowing them some face-saving gesture for giving in to the progressive tide. That simply can't be done in a vortex of perpetual ideological war.

Maybe it's just the past week, but I can't help thinking of HGH when I ponder this season's feel-good story in the NFL....

Sometimes the only thing worse than an LA Times sports columnist is an LA Times columnist writing about sports in another section of the paper, as this gem proves. The most treacly form of journalism is the column that expounds on the sociological roots of a sport, and baseball has always been the beneficiary of every hackpiece glorifying the bucolic, elegiac nature of the National Pastime and its confrontation with the cold realities of our corrupt society.

Screw that. It's a game that's played for our entertainment, to the pecuniary benefit of a few. Great athletes bend the rules, sometimes illegally, but always for the purpose of obtaining a competitive advantage; to that extent, stretching the envelope is what separates the star from the journeyman. I am no more shocked that so many of the game's stars were on the "Juice," the "Cream" and/or the "Clear" than I am at finding out that the models in the Victoria's Secret catalogue have all had plastic surgery, mostly performed during their teen years, in order to create an ideal "look" that's entirely unnatural for women. I wouldn't inject steroids or HGH into my body for a million dollars (or, at least not without the supervision of a licensed physician), but I really don't care if another adult makes a different decision, and I will no more hesitate to follow a sport than I suspect a woman would hesitate to purchase a camisole because Giselle has fake boobs.

Of course, if the overlords of the sport don't wish for the game to become a spectacle of angry, musclebound sluggers with receding hairlines and shrinking genitalia, they are more than free to impose whatever punishments they can for such transgressions, and negotiate with the Players Union any tests through the collective bargaining mechanism. I have zero sympathy for any of the active players exposed this week, all of whom had a chance to refute the charges, but decided to stonewall the investigators instead. They have a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, and I have a First Amendment right as a citizen to draw whatever conclusions I want from said silence. If, like Roger Clemens, they feel aggrieved that their good names have been slandered, well, to quote the wee lad Will Poulter from School of Comedy, "croi me a forking river !!!"

But don't ask to me feel ashamed that I felt electrified every time Eric Gagne came into the game for the Dodgers in the middle of this decade. As far as I'm concerned, performance-enhancing drugs in the context of team sports are no different than college athletes receiving under-the-table payments from boosters, or immigrants crossing over the border without a visa to feed their families. If you get caught, you should pay the penalty, but I'm not going to lose a minute of sleep over it. [link via Matt Welch]

Ban the Filibuster: What Yglesias said. As I noted two years ago, the best time to have done this was at the time then-Majority Leader Frist was threatening to abolish the practice in the context of judicial nominations, and had he been successful, the precedent to completely eliminate it would have been firmly established by now. But the Dems blinked, and short of some unlikely gains in the 2008 election, it is unlikely we will see the practice end.

When its HOF inductees next year include Madonna and Leonard Cohen, it's perhaps relevant to ask whether the term "rock and roll" has any real meaning anymore. But why quibble; the Hall had already inducted those noted rock stars Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, and the DC-5 finally made it, apparently after having been fleeced last year. Enjoy:

Say it ain't so, Glenallen: The complete Mitchell Report on the use of the juice by major league baseball players, here. The list of players start on page 145.

My initial thought: it will be impossible to keep McGwire and Bonds out of the Hall of Fame, while allowing Roger Clemons in, after today. Since so many players are named, and since the former Democratic Majority Leader did a pretty effective job at spelling out the damning circumstantial case he had against the players who were named, and since the lack of cooperation from the Players Union indicates that the players named are only the tip of the iceberg (for example, neither Sammy Sosa nor Mike Piazza, among others, were named in the report), it's likely that the sheer numbers of suspected miscreants will dilute the anger against all of them, including the aforementioned Bonds. This will be an issue that will continue to be much more important among sportswriters than fans, much like college athletes getting paid under the table.

Hillary's the One: Sometimes I wish the former First Lady had kept to her initial inclination back in the mid-60's and stayed a standard-issue, downstate Illinois Republican. She certainly seems to share many of Tricky Dick's predilections.

Why not?



To the barricades !!!

TalkLeft has a useful summary up on the reaction to Barack Obama's apostacy on the High Priest of the Progressive Sanhedrin, Paul Krugman. He's a good columnist, and one of our most effective cheerleaders, and I'm certainly not going to quibble about his specific critiques of the Senator's health care plan; as a supporter of single payer, I think all of the prospective nominees' plans are crappy, but are redeemed only by the fact that they are potentially less crappy than the status quo.

But one of the things I used to love about Bill Clinton was his ring savvy. He could punch like Marciano when necessary, but also play use the four corners of the ring like Ali. After a generation of weak liberals going back to 1968, having a ruthless and cunning S.O.B. as the party's nominee was refreshing. And it wasn't just the "Sista Souljah" moment, either; turning the Gennifer Flowers story back on the accuser (thanks, Stuttering John) and executing Rickey Ray Rector let voters know that this wasn't Mike Dukakis. Clinton had a sense of what the public wanted, and he knew that it was more important that Rector was a cold-blooded cop killer before he became a drooling idiot, and that most voters secretly admire lotharios, particularly those who get away with it.

I have the impression that Obama may have those same qualities. He is now, for all intents and purposes, the Democratic frontrunner, which in this political climate makes him the person most likely to be our next President. He has quite ably turned aside the first counterattacks from the Clinton campaign, and in particular a whispering campaign by her minions about an alleged scandal. The lefty blogosphere is full of potential Sista Souljahs; the unmediated nature of this type of journalism all but invites wackjobs, and those will be easy pickin's for a liberal politician to disassociate himself from the crazies.

And in this instance, he's taken advantage of one of the big weaknesses of Paul Krugman, Big Foot Columnist: his academic need to nuance his arguments about political issues. Ezra Klein and Digby are right, at least to this extent: the Senator is basically demagoguing Mr. Krugman's disagreement on the issue of mandates. But as Clinton showed in 1992 and 1996, and again during the Starr-Lewinsky Affair, a politician who effectively triangulates against his own party can be especially ruthless when it comes to battling the other side. Mastering the rhetorical feints of the other side is a devastating tactic when it comes to the general election. So Mr. Krugman (and the lefty blogosphere) have to suck it up on this one and take one for the team.

Some vintage SDQ to lead you into that good night:



Of course, Hef dancing with Agent 99 at the end is what makes the whole thing work....

I am so seeing this:

The Smythe Primary: The first Presidential candidate who promises to treat the actions of Bush, Cheney, et al., as war crimes will win my support. Doesn't matter if it's Obama or McCain, Kucinich or Paul; the mere hint that the next Justice Department will investigate and prosecute these bastards (or, in the event of a last-second pardon spree, extradite said bastards to the Hague) will be enough to get me manning a phone bank or walking a precinct. Considering how compromised the Democratic leadership in Congress is, I have no confidence that mere oversight is sufficient to purge this stain from our country.

In honor of his final week in LA, here's a rare clip of a very young Matt Welch.

Our Tax Dollars at Work: While the 9/11 planners were able to travel under the FBI's radar, it's good to know where Hoover's Boys were really concerned--that international terrorist, Barry Bonds:

The government's priorities were on stark display in October when lead Internal Revenue Service BALCO investigator Jeff Novitzky—a man who, according to a damning May 2004 Playboy magazine profile, had lobbied various federal agencies for years to launch a steroids sting, "always with Bonds as the lure"—squeezed a plea deal out of track and field superstar Marion Jones. "To extract her confession," the New York Times wrote in a mostly flattering profile of Novitzky last month, "he used the leverage of a more serious charge from an unrelated check-fraud scheme." Getting Jones to weepily admit in public that she'd been lying all along about steroids, it seems, was more important than ferreting out her role in "a scheme to defraud numerous banks out of millions of dollars by laundering stolen, altered and counterfeit checks."

--Matt Welch, Reason.

The use of a felony check-kiting charge to induce a confession out of Marion Jones, who it should be remembered, had never failed a drug test, will always taint the veracity of her mea culpa and surrender of her Olympic records. Since her "confession" is the only supporting evidence against her, there is nothing that will prevent her from retracting it a few years down the line

There has always been more than a hint of racism in the investigation surrounding Bonds, and the rather trivial nature of the convictions so far secured in the BALCO trials indicates indicates that Welch's basic charge, that the government has been more focused on the "public shaming of athletes" than the prosecution of actual crimes, is true. And as we saw during the interminable investigation of President Clinton's relationship with an intern, that really isn't a proper purpose for government.

Mitt Romney, on people of faith, this week:

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims."

Pro football Hall-of-Famer Reggie White, before the Wisconsin State Legislature, in 1998:

"Homosexuality is a decision, it's not a race," White said. "People from all different ethnic backgrounds live in this lifestyle. But people from all different ethnic backgrounds also are liars and cheaters and malicious and back-stabbing." White said he has thought about why God created different races. Each race has certain gifts, he said.

Blacks are gifted at worship and celebration, White said. "If you go to a black church, you see people jumping up and down because they really get into it," he said.

Whites are good at organization, White said. "You guys do a good job of building businesses and things of that nature, and you know how to tap into money," he said.

"Hispanics were gifted in family structure, and you can see a Hispanic person, and they can put 20, 30 people in one home."

The Japanese and other Asians are inventive, and "can turn a television into a watch," White said. Indians are gifted in spirituality, he said.

"When you put all of that together, guess what it makes: It forms a complete image of God," White said.