Obsidian Wings

It's Kerry's to Lose

While the Bush camp goes into overdrive---all pretense of optimism pushed aside---with an all-out charge aimed at scaring the nation (with wolves and suggestions that there won't even be an economy or social security or environment or whatever to worry about if you don't elect them [“All progress on every other issue depends on the safety of our citizens,”]), pundits are now predicting the race is Kerry's to lose:

For all of President Bush's valiant efforts to make this campaign a referendum on his challenger's character, it is turning into what the nature of politics demands: a referendum on the incumbent's performance.

You will notice a bit of hedging in my opening line. Yes, the Massachusetts senator could find a way to lose. He sometimes has a tin ear for the effect of his words, such as when he said he voted for funding the Iraq war before he voted against it. Not knowing how ridiculous that would sound demonstrated just why he might falter again in the final days.

Putting Kerry's clumsy campaign style aside, I am predicting his victory based on the overwhelming mood for change I've seen around the country.

I'm seeing it even in the comments of some right-wing blog commenters, the sense that they'll resent Kerry winning, but at least it will provide a fresh start (out of courtesy, and knowing they'll feel compelled to contradict this if they read it, I won't point them out until after the election). Now, I know there are those who feel we're fools to change horses midstream, or that with so many plates in the air, switching jugglers is sure to cause a bit of a mess, but with the experience and connections Kerry has, I predict the transition will go much more smoothly than they expect.

I also believe there are those who are content, if not happy, with the idea of four more years of the same, but that is clearly not the majority of Americans, and this indicator is the number one reason I'm in agreement that it's Kerry's to lose:

Mr. Bush's job approval rating is at 44 percent, a dangerously low number for an incumbent president, and one of the lowest of his tenure. A majority of voters said that they disapproved of the way Mr. Bush had managed the economy and the war in Iraq, and - echoing a refrain of Mr. Kerry's - that his tax cuts had favored the wealthy. Voters said that Mr. Kerry would do a better job of preserving Social Security, creating jobs and ending the war in Iraq.

Of course, one can always find competing polls, but as I see it, the Bush camp's best option at this point is to focus on frightening the nation into not voting for Kerry. But, then, they didn't need me to tell them that.

UPDATE: Contrapositive has posted a very handy hour-by-hour cheatsheet for election night. Among his predictions:

--At 8pm EST, Bush is likely to have opened up a substantial lead in the electoral vote count: Somewhere between 50 and 80 votes. (Kerry supporters should *not* panic.)

--At 10pm EST, if Kerry doesn't have actual or potential victories--among states whose polls have already closed--adding up to 193 electoral votes, he's toast.

--We'll likely know who the next President is by about 11pm EST--or not for several weeks.

PS. We're using the CNN pullout from the New Yorker in our house. It's a map of the country with 50 little GOP stickers and 50 little Democrat stickers. If, as I hope, they'll be plenty of GOP stickers left over, I'll use them to adorn our Christmas cards. ;-)

Today's Reason to Smile

Nobel Prize winning Colombian write Gabriel Garcia Marquez has kept fans waiting for a decade for his latest novel Memories of My Melancholy Whores. And with a title like that, anticipation has been extremely high. But when word got out of a pirated version hitting the Colombian streets early (a practice all too common there), the author of the contemporary classics like One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera outwitted the scoundrels:

A last-minute change to Gabriel Garcia Marquez' new novel has dealt a blow to pirates who flooded his native Colombia with bootleg versions. Pirate copies of the book, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, forced the author to rush-release the official version.

But the final chapter of the authorised story has been altered. [...]

"Check the pirate version that is coming out in Colombia compared to the legal version being launched today," editor Braulio Peralta told journalists in Mexico.

"All I'm saying is that Gabriel Garcia Marquez changed the last chapter."

We may never know if the original or final version was how Garcia Marquez truly wanted the book to end, but God bless him for sticking it to the pirates in such a clever, classy move.

"I don't think it matters."

There's a very interesting article in today's Washington Post about the administration's prosecution of the War on Terror. It makes a number of interesting points, most notably about what happened to our early cooperation with Iran, and provides some more substance to the idea that Iraq did draw resources away from the fight against al Qaeda. But one thing jumped out at me: the article quotes a number of sources as saying that anti-American sentiment in the Middle East doesn't matter.

"Bush and his aides most often deflect questions about recent global polls that have found sharply rising anti-U.S. sentiment in Arab and Muslim countries and in Europe, but one of them addressed it in a recent interview. Speaking for the president by White House arrangement, but declining to be identified, a high-ranking national security official said of the hostility detected in surveys: "I don't think it matters. It's about keeping the country safe, and I don't think that matters."

That view is at odds with the view of many career military and intelligence officials, who spoke with increasing alarm about al Qaeda's success in winning recruits to its cause and defining its struggle with the United States."

And later:

"Most officials interviewed said Bush has not devised an answer to a problem then-CIA Director George J. Tenet identified publicly on Feb. 11, 2003 -- "the numbers of societies and peoples excluded from the benefits of an expanding global economy, where the daily lot is hunger, disease, and displacement -- and that produce large populations of disaffected youth who are prime recruits for our extremist foes."

The president and his most influential advisers, many officials said, do not see those factors -- or U.S. policy overseas -- as primary contributors to the terrorism threat. Bush's explanation, in private and public, is that terrorists hate America for its freedom.

Sageman, who supports some of Bush's approach, said that analysis is "nonsense, complete nonsense. They obviously haven't looked at any surveys." The central findings of polling by the Pew Charitable Trust and others, he said, is that large majorities in much of the world "view us as a hypocritical huge beast throwing our weight around in the Middle East.""

In what possible world can the fact that large and growing numbers of people in the Middle East hate us not matter? Those people provide terrorists with their recruits. They harbor terrorists, where a population more sympathetic to our aims might turn them in. I would have thought it obvious that in a world in which it is becoming easier and easier to acquire the knowledge necessary to create weapons, and in which it takes only a small number of determined people to cause us serious damage, the ability of terrorists to find disaffected people who hate us, and to work within a more or less sympathetic population, matters enormously. This is, of course, not to say that it's the only thing that matters, or that if we're just nice to all those disaffected people they will leave us alone, or anything. But minimizing both the pool of potential terrorist recruits and the pool of people sympathetic enough to give them cover is clearly one of the things that matters, and I don't think it's at the bottom of the list.

One more reason why I find the idea that Bush has better foreign policy instincts than Kerry totally mysterious.

Richard Cohen Doesn't Get It (Special Falafel Edition)

Until now, I have not been the tiniest bit tempted to comment on the sexual harassment suit against Bill O'Reilly; even now, all I really want to say about it is 'ugh.' (And: why did he have to talk about felafel, which I quite like but will now be unable to think about, let alone eat, for the foreseeable future? It took me long enough to forget what Monica Lewinsky did with perfectly good Altoids. Why can't all these annoying people pick on foods I don't like, like lima beans?) But Richard Cohen has written a rather obnoxious op ed about it in the Washington Post, which I do want to comment on.

Just for the record: obviously, I have no idea whether or not the allegations against O'Reilly are true. If anything I write seems to suggest otherwise, that's inadvertent. I am concerned with Cohen's views about sexual harassment, not with the facts of this case, whatever they might be.

I'm not sure if I'd be touting all that, fellas.

Professor Reynolds has noted a couple times (including today) that the 12 to 17 set seems to prefer Bush to Kerry. I'll freely admit that the young can have a kind of accidental wisdom -- heck, I went for Reagan (twice)* and Bush Sr. (once) when I was a child and teenager, and I would've made the same choices again today at thirty.

I'm not sure, however, that "teenagers for Bush" is quite so effective a slogan this time around. Indeed, isn't the ur-criticism of Bush that he's executed his policies the way a teenager would? Long on hope and intent, short on skill and sobriety?

Frankly, I think "teenagers for Bush" literally "proves too much."

UPDATE: The-always-calm-and-reserved Professor Leiter one-ups (or is it downs?) Reynolds! It turns out that, although kids 12-17 prefer Bush, kids 2-11 apparently prefer Kerry. So our choice is between the moody teenager who just wants to goof off and (maybe) blow something up, and the little kid who wants his ice cream and T.V. and a horsey NOW NOW NOW NOW!

Finally, everything is clear to me. I'm going to go get a drink. Wake me November 3rd (or whenever the Supreme Court issues its decision.)

(Via Professor Bainbridge.)

And the commute wouldn't be too bad, either.

Via Outside the Beltway we see this interesting rumor: Analysis: Clinton eyes U.N. post

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has set his sights on becoming U.N. secretary-general. A Clinton insider and a senior U.N. source have told United Press International the 56-year-old former president would like to be named leader of the world body when Kofi Annan's term ends early in 2006.

"He definitely wants to do it," the Clinton insider said this week.

I call it 'rumor' because: a, it's based on anonymous comments, which actually means that I'm being generous by calling it a rumor; b, it's UPI, which can be erratic ('course, the same can be said for AP and Reuters, let alone AFP, but that's a different issue); and c, it's the tradition that citizens of permanent members of the UNSC aren't considered for the Secretary-General's job. Which is actually a pity, because like James Joyner I think that former President Clinton wouldn't be a bad choice for the job.

I just can't see the world sitting still for overturning 'c', though - even for Our Bill. A shame...

Moe

Shhh...Be vewy, vewy quiet. It's Libewal Season.

Hunting for conservative votes, John Kerry got photographed in his autumn camouflage and carrying a 12-gauge shotgun outside of Youngstown, Ohio. Reportedly be bagged a goose, but let someone else carry it:

"I'm too lazy," Kerry joked. "I'm still giddy over the Red Sox. It was hard to focus."

The NRA is, as one might expect, mocking the Senator's efforts to appeal to the hook-and-bullet set:

The National Rifle Association said it bought a full-page ad in Thursday's Youngstown newspaper that says Kerry is posing as a sportsman while opposing gun-owners' rights. Kerry has denied NRA claims that he wants to "take away" guns, but he supported the ban on assault-type weapons and requiring background checks at gun shows

"If John Kerry thinks the Second Amendment is about photo ops, he's Daffy," says the ad the NRA said would run in The Vindicator [ed's note: I delivered this rag as a kid]. It features a large photo of Kerry with his finger on a shotgun trigger but looking in another direction.

Meanwhile, labor unions have been circulating fliers among workers that say Kerry won't take away guns. "He likes his own gun too much," says one of the fliers from the Building Trades Department of the AFL-CIO that features a picture of Kerry aiming a shotgun.

Moral Imperative.

While I as a Mets fan of course applaud the loss of the Yankees last night (you have to couch it in those terms, you understand), I am more concerned with a possible problem: Cards Beat Astros 6-4 to Force NLCS Game 7.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid that I must be rather harsh, now. It is absolutely vital that the Cardinals win Game Seven of their series - by which I mean that it is a matter of national security that they do so. I have nothing against the Astros, but they are the Houston Astros. If they win, a Texas team will be playing against a Massachusetts team in the World Series. As all sane folk know, the [Insert Favorite Annoyed Adjective] Media is of course blinkered, hackneyed and unable to find their own gentials even with a hand-held light source and a unlicensed sex worker to give assistance - but even they cannot fail to see such a metaphor, particularly when it is visited upon them like unto the legendary Halibut To The Face. And if that happens, we won't be able to stand the strain. At least, I can't - and I suspect that this would be the final SAN loss that sends us all over the edge, for there will not be a single damn place left where we can forget about the election.

I'm begging, here: Astros, lose tonight. For the good of the country. For the sake of the children...

Moe

UPDATE: Apparently the folks over at Centerfield want for the Elder Gods to come back and turn us into Soylent Red and Blue, because at least one blogger there thinks that the entire idea of a World Series metaphor to be just fine and dandy. He meddles with forces that he does not understand...

Oh. My. God.

First, I actually watched the Red Sox game. (That's how I think of it. People from Boston don't notice other teams.) This might not surprise anyone, but that's because you don't know me and the tragicomic history of my life as a Red Sox fan. In 1967, when I was young and impressionable, they won the pennant in what I have since come to regard as a cynical attempt to make their fans believe it was possible for them to win anything. I kept believing this lie for over a decade, which stood me in good stead when I became a counselor in a battered women's shelter and needed to understand abusive relationships. Finally I swore off, only to be drawn back against my better judgment in 1986. Ha ha ha. Never again, I said. Never again. And I meant it. And for 18 long years I have stayed straight. I have not looked at a Red Sox game. I have not thought about the Red Sox. When people mention them, I just snicker. Never again.

So why did they have to play exactly the sort of game that made all of us in Boston fall in love with them in the first place? (Well, actually, I gather that was yesterday, but today was pretty great too.) Why couldn't they just lose as usual? My answer: a keen grasp of brainwashing techniques. If you just relentlessly punish people, it turns out, it's not nearly as psychologically disorienting as punishing them most of the time and then, every so often, being really, really wonderful. It's not just confusing; it lets them dare to hope, thereby making their subsequent disappointment all the more excruciating. That's why being a Red Sox fan is infinitely worse than being a Cubs fan: for the most part, Cubs fans know the deal. The Cubs will not win. That's that. No suspense, no bother. Whereas the Red Sox only lose almost all of the time, and when they lose, it's typically in some horrible, heartrending fashion. Which is why I was sitting there, watching the Red Sox for the first time in 18 years, and feeling like The Poor Man, only less eloquent:

"... 6-0 in the top of the third. Wow. They really must want me to get my hopes up. Lots of luck, fellas. Prediction: Yankees win 24-23 in the bottom of the 40th, on a 2-out inside-the-park grand slam by pinch hitter Don Zimmer. ...

... 8-1 in the 7th, Sox threatening. I accept on an abstract, intellectual level that it is physically possible for the Red Sox to win this game. Prediction: Yankees win 43-43* in the 104th inning when Zombie Babe Ruth leaps from his grave beneath the pitcher's mound and eats Manny Ramirez's brain seconds before he can score the winning run.

... Same score, Derek Lowe, pitching a one-hitter, is pulled for relief pitcher Pedro "New York is my Daddy" Martinez, pitching on 3 minutes' rest. Prediction: Yankees win 324-8 in 9 innings. Pedro's arm falls off. At the exact moment that the game ends, Fenway Park is hit by a comet."

I can't believe that they actually won. I assume it's just a ruse to get us to not just watch, but actually care about, the World Series, which they will lose in the seventh game, in a way that makes 1986 look like a normal loss. They will be ahead 843-0 in the 9th, with two outs, when Pedro Martinez, who has pitched a no-hitter so far, walks three people in succession. He is replaced, and replaced again, but the walks keep coming, until the entire Red Sox pitching staff has done its best and our opponents, they who shall not be named, have scored 294 runs without a single hit. At this point the Red Sox stop walking people and start committing horrible errors: dropped pitches, lazy pop flies that miraculously drop through the gloves of outfielders, and so on and so forth. Still, we will think, it's 843-502; surely they won't be able to get another 341 runs before we manage one out. But they will. And then, having tied the game... I leave the rest to your imaginations.

It's pretty mean of them to do this, though.

Red Sawx

I am still too giddy to post in complete sentences, so I'll just make a list:

1. I figured the most likely outcome was a lopsided Yankee victory, followed by a slugfest where they traded the lead every two innings, followed by a pitching duel that stretched into extra innings and became a question of whose relievers' arms stayed attached to their bodies longer. A decisive Red Sox win never really occurred to me.

2. I owe Derek Lowe a big apology for my lack of faith.

3. I knew Johnny Damon had something in him, but not that.

4. I owe Mark Bellhorn my sanity. I Did Not Like the decision to bring in Pedro Martinez after Lowe threw 69 pitches and gave up one run. If you're playing for tonight, you leave Lowe in; if you're playing for next week you go for Timlin. I was cursing after Matsui's double and a total wreck by the end. Too much like last year, and too many Yankee fans cheering too loudly. Even after Pedro kicked it up a notch and the inning ended, I was pacing around like an idiot. Five runs is not too large a lead to blow--not the Red Sox, not the Yankees, not a game they were never supposed to reach, let alone win.

I still don't like the decision--it seemed driven mainly by Martinez' ego or competitive desire to pitch one more time in Yankee stadium, not by the team's interest. But all's well that ends well, and this shouldn't tire him out too much.

5. I think I just saw the best comeback in baseball history.

6. And the best win in Red Sox history.

7. And the worst loss in Yankee history.

8. And maybe the best series in baseball history.

9. The cars on my street have finally stopped honking, and I think the crowds from the bars have dissipated. Of course, I realized recently that what I took to be the crowds from the nearest bar is actually one extremely loud guy who lives across the street from me, who comes out and yells "Red Sawx!!!" at the top of his lungs for ten minutes or so after every victory. It was twenty minutes tonight, but he's finally decided to call it a night. For now.

UPDATE: no he hasn't. Or he has an identical twin. Hard to say.

10. As a Mets fan this has upsides and downsides. I am avenged for the 2000 world series. (That's good). But my 1999 Mets no longer have the record for the longest game in postseason history, and their comeback that fell short pales in comparison to this one. (That's bad.) I no longer have to feel even a little guilty about 1986. (That's good.)

11. Going into this series, I figured the Red Sox would beat the Yankees in 6 or 7, and go on to lose the world series. I stand by that prediction. I think they will need Schilling to win this, and I think there is a limit to how often you can sew your skin around your tendons to hold them in place and pitch seven innings.

But this team has proven me wrong before--and deep down I think they can do it.