Obsidian Wings

Not Even the Funny Palin

by Eric Martin

So McCain announced he's picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  An interesting move.  One thing it will offer the McCain campaign is a sense of historical importance - something they need in the face of Obama's groundbreaking run.  Further, it offers something "new" from a Republican Party that is rightly viewed as musty and bankrupt of fresh ideas.  It will also serve as a bid to attract the dead ender clique of Hillary supporters (though I think entirely too much has been made of their clout in terms of actual numbers). 

Tapping Palin also signals that the McCain camp thinks that "drill, drill, drill" is one of their strongest domestic issues to flog.  Who better to discuss the benefits of drilling than an Alaskan?  Fear of the "seven houses" gaffe could have also played a part - making Romney less appealing, and the blue-collarish Palin more attractive.

One major drawback: How can McCain's main line of critique be Obama's putative lack of experience, yet his pick for vice president is a 44 year old politician who has only been in the Alaska state house for little over a year.  Before that, she was mayor of Wasilla, Alasksa: population 8,000.  This is the person that will be one heartbeat away from the presidency - a consideration of particular importance considering that McCain, if elected, would be the oldest president ever to be sworn in for his first term.

I mean this seriously: Would you trust Palin in the Oval Office?

[UPDATE: As someone pointed out, Palin's lack of experience will backfire in the sense that McCain's age will now become even more relevant and a topic of much discussion.  That's not what McCain wants people to focus on, but by picking Palin, he's made his age a legitimate issue.  The Obama camp should be saying thank you for the segue.]

[UPDATE II: Joe Biden will debate Sarah Palin.  That should be fun. (via Margarita)]

Mile High

by hilzoy

As I understand it, the reason the Obama campaign wanted to have the last night at Invesco Stadium was because it allowed all sorts of organizing opportunities. But it also had some other real benefits:

(a) Waves! I don't know whether this came through on any of the coverage, but we had a huge and very enthusiastic wave that went all the way around the stadium five times, and only stopped when the next speaker came on and we had to be quiet.

(b) Fireworks! Can't do that indoors.

(c) A sense of excitement and enthusiasm like you wouldn't believe.

Reasons not to have the last night in a stadium:

(a) At times, the crowd absolutely drowned out the speakers. 75,000 very enthusiastic people are a force to be reckoned with.

(b) Getting out. There's a reason I'm only posting now. I tried to post from the field, but it didn't work.

More below the fold.

One Last Thought

by publius

I think McCain's decision to announce the VP pick tomorrow may be too clever by half. I mean, it will certainly draw some attention. But it's not like the press will completely ignore Obama's speech tomorrow or over the weekend. In this sense, announcing tomorrow will prevent McCain from getting maximum coverage of his VP selection.

Misunderestimated

by publius

Strong, strong speech — I thought it was excellent. This is why he got nominated — and he came through. There was nothing weak or amateur about it. More importantly — and quite characteristically — Obama’s speech defied and shattered the conceptual boxes that pundits have been trying to squeeze him into.

It was a perfect combination of several things. It was inspiring, but not abstract. It made a concrete populist case for change. It drew a sharp tough contrast with McCain — not merely on the economy, but on national security as well. It’s always hard to know how these things will play out, but he did everything he could possibly do tonight. And I think it will play well.

Ironically enough, I think Obama’s speech benefited from the GOP’s preemptive attacks, which lowered expectations. We heard a lot about the stage, and the celebrity BS, and the dreamy abstract words. People — lots of Dems included — were sort of bracing to be let down, or to be embarrassed by the stage.

But that’s not at all what happened — indeed, the somewhat negative narrative going in made the speech seem even better. Because people have been complaining about a lack of specifics, the speech seemed even more concrete. Because of the pre-existing celebrity narrative, his biographical video — and the biographical bits of his speech — seemed even more poignant and real. Because people had called him timid, his attacks seemed even more powerful and striking. Indeed, some of the most powerful moments involved Obama turning McCain’s own words against him. For instance, I thought this was great:

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.

The speech also illustrates why Steve Schmidt may have learned too much from 2004. He — and his mentor Rove — believe in making elections about “small things.” And sometimes that works. But when you base your entire campaign on such trivial ridiculousness like “celebrity,” then you become a victim of your own hand when the ambition and power of a speech like tonight's put those tactics in their proper perspective. The McCain campaign seemed small and petty tonight — it has nothing to say about the large yet concrete issues discussed tonight.

The amazing thing about Obama has been his capacity to grow. I heard David Gergen say that Obama appears to be growing into the Presidency. It sure looked like that tonight. And I think the GOP has underestimated him — it’s going to take more than “celebrity” now.

In short, great speech.

Obama's Big Night -- Open Thread

by publius

Here we go.

9:49 -- This is very very good. More substantive thoughts later tonight.

May I Just Say ...

That having my computer stolen is seriously annoying. If anyone canthink of anything I should do to minimize the risks of identity theft, do let me know.

It was my own fault, naturally. I put my bag down ...

I Value Them but I Won't Cry If the Time Was Wiped Out

by Eric Martin

Robert Farley flagged this from the BBC:

Ethiopia is prepared to withdraw troops from Somalia even if the interim government is not stable, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said. [...]

He told the UK's Financial Times paper that financial pressures had to be taken into account and said the commitment was not open ended. [...]

"The operation has been extremely expensive so we will have to balance the domestic pressures on the one hand and pressures in Somalia on the other and try to come up with a balanced solution," Mr Meles told the Financial Times. 

Farley adds:

Given that piracy has skyrocketed since the displacement of the ICU (including a spread to the Gulf of Aden), and that Ethiopian and Somali "government" forces still control only a bare patchwork of the countryside, I'd say that this has been a pretty big disaster...

Disaster?  That depends on who you ask.  Ethiopia can't be that displeased.  On the one hand, the Meles government would have preferred to have maintained a troop presence to maintain leverage over a would-be proxy government in Somalia.  With that goal becoming increasingly unlikely, at the very least, Ethiopia will leave Somalia more destabilized, weakened and wracked than when it invaded. 

That's a feature, not a bug, as one of Ethiopia's stated policy objectives vis-a-vis its neighbor Somalia is to keep Somalia weakened so as to forestall a Somali bid for the disputed Ogaden territory (geographically a part of Ethiopia, but ethnically Somali).  The fact that we would actively support Ethiopia's "magnanimous" invasion of its long time rival - sold on the pretense that Ethiopia was looking out for Somalia's best interest - is either a sign of the Bush administration's ignorance or cynicism.

With respect to the United States, Farley is correct to label the operation a disaster.  Actually, he's overly generous in that he kindly omits many of the costs.  As I mentioned in a prior post, the ledger is as follows:

Low-to-non-existent benefits in terms of neutralizing known al-Qaeda operatives while the region has been further radicalized and support for al-Qaeda has surged locally [ed note: indeed]. There is increased instability and violence that allows al-Qaeda and other terrorists to move about, and conduct business, freely (the ICU had provided stability to the capital of Mogadishu which has since evaporated). There has been an increase in the number of dead from the flaring of the conflict, massive refugee flows and widespread humanitarian crises befalling the beleagured Somali people. Our overt support for anti-democratic and belligerent elements has led to a sharp upswing in anti-Americanism as we have become closely identified with the brutality of Ethiopia and the TFG.

Speaking of the "brutality" of the Ethiopian occupation, that provides a segue to discuss an interesting corrolary to the discussion on the tendency to view war as the inherently strong option (even if it backfires in terms of the objectives), as well as morally righteous if the underlying intentions are noble (regardless of the actual outcomes in terms of human suffering). 

There is also a prevalent current of thought amongst serial war supporters that we are not brutal enough in our conduct of war.  That is, if it weren't for the human rights groups that force us to restrain our tactics for fear of bad PR from killing innocents - and the media's willingness to show images of civilian casualties - we would be succeeding in places like Iraq.  That this belief coexists side-by-side with the belief in the moral superiority of war supporters that advocate for war as a means of helping the targeted population (whose safety we should disregard) doesn't seem to create much dissonance.

The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia was supposed to prove these theories correct.  We - especially us liberal do-gooders - would learn a lesson about the preferability of unrestrained brutality in war.  The Ethiopians, it was argued, were going to teach the Americans how to fight an insurgency.  I've posted excerpts of these arguments before, but with news of Ethiopia pondering withrawal despite failing to achieve the stated objectives due to ongoing difficulty and expense, they are worth revisiting:

Maybe we can learn something from the Ethiopians in Somalia? [Cliff May]

…I can’t read the news today and keep from wondering whether we should airlift a few Ethiopian battalions into Baghdad. [John Miller]

Why are [the Ethiopian forces] achieving what American forces…in Iraq today apparently are not? [Cliff May]

The lack of a large media presence - and the relative inattention of human rights groups - would show how both play a detrimental role in the effort to wage war and in their absence, how smooth things would go. 

There may be lessons for the United States in Ethiopia’s success. Abdiweli Ali, an assistant professor at Niagara University who is in contact with transitional government military commanders on the ground, says that Ethiopia has less concern than the U.S. about civilian casualties. There is no reliable estimate of civilian deaths, but the number is believed to be in the hundreds. “We’re fighting wars with one hand tied behind our backs,” Professor Ali says. “In Iraq we’re trying to be nice, thinking we’ll give candy to people on the streets and they’ll love us. But people will understand later on if you just win now and provide them with security.” [Daveed Gartenstein-Ross]

One difference between the Ethiopians in Somalia and the Americans in Iraq is that the former aren’t fighting with one hand behind their back just in case some EU ally or humanitarian lobby group or fictitious Associated Press source leaks some “war crime” or other to the media. In fact, the Ethiopians have the advantage of more or less total lack of interest from the Western media. So they’re just getting on with it. [Mark Steyn]

A second lesson relates to the media. The Ethiopian government is generally less sensitive to media criticism than the U.S. government-and is likely to encounter far less criticism in the first place, since the press traditionally gives short shrift to coverage of Africa. [Daveed Gartenstein-Ross]

Imagine the implications.  Perhaps the perfidy of liberals, the media and human rights groups did not lead to failure in Iraq.  Why, it's even possible that if we had adopted the brutality of Saddam in order to liberate the Iraqis from the...brutality of Saddam, they would have embraced us with the same level of affection that they held for...Saddam.  Without the homefield advantage of course.

I think Cliff May said it best: "Maybe we can learn something from the Ethiopians in Somalia?"  Indeed, we can.

In the Parlance of Our Times

by Eric Martin

I don't know what's more depressing: the fact that this is what the McCain camp came up with as a solution to the nation's health care crisis, or that after eight years of the Bush administration performing the same amateurish sleight of hand, the American people might actually opt for four more years of the same:

John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

Seriously.  Just reclassify people from uninsured to insured, and the problems presented by tens of millions of Americans lacking health insurance go away!  Oh, and if you get cancer and need chemo, surgery or other forms of long term care, just go to the emergency room near you!  They do chemo in emergency rooms, right? 

The Republican Party is deeply unserious about governing.  That the American people have been beaten over the head with this reality for eight years and somehow half the country still can't quite make out who it is that's been swinging the cudgel is a source of immense frustration.

(from one of the Great Blue Satan's Hecubi)

Day 3

by publius

So I’ve been sitting here trying to think up something semi-intelligent to say about tonight’s speeches, but not having much luck. The reason, I think, is that it’s extremely hard to know what will prove effective to swing voters. I mean, I can tell you about what I liked or didn’t like. But I honestly don’t have a clue about what will be effective with the intended audience — and I think no one else does either. Everybody’s just guessing, including me.

There are just so many obstacles to analyzing convention effectiveness in any empirical way. The first problem is that sound bites matter more than the speeches themselves. A horrible speech with three great sound bites is probably more effective than a great one that goes uncited in the next day’s news cycle.

Analyzing the night therefore requires more than analyzing the speeches — you have to try to piece together the snippets that will be the foundation of the future news stories. Most speeches take place outside the designated network hour. Maybe these speeches will be completely ignored — or maybe a couple of sound bites will leak through. Who knows?

Next, I think it's impossible to know what type of messages will move the infamous “swing voter.” But that doesn’t stop everyone (including me) from having their own theory about how to reach them. Maybe more red meat is more effective, maybe it’s not (it worked in 2004, failed in 1992). Maybe this sappy stuff is good politics, maybe it’s irrelevant. I don’t think anyone knows the answer. And we have to be especially cautious that we don’t dress up our own personal preferences as “what swing voters want.”

All that said, I haven’t been that crazy about the convention thus far (I’ve loved being here — I’m talking about the presentation). Everything seems very meta. John McCain is more of the same — we’ve heard that. But we haven’t heard enough about what exactly makes him more of the same. Also, we’ve heard a lot about change, but too little that speaks to struggling middle class people. Interestingly enough, I thought Bill Clinton’s speech was actually the best on this front.

Don’t get me wrong — the speeches are good, and there haven’t been any errors. It just seems a little blah and boring. And, frankly, I’d like to see a little more ridicule and spice — because God knows it’s coming next week.

Speeches Open Thread

by publius

What'd you think?

9:22 -- God, I love Bill Clinton. I just can't not like him. Take this for example:

Our nation is in trouble on two fronts: The American Dream is under siege at home, and America's leadership in the world has been weakened.

. . .

But on the two great questions of this election, how to rebuild the American Dream and how to restore America's leadership in the world, he still embraces the extreme philosophy which has defined his party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.

With this, Clinton shows that he's still got something on the upstart. Those are two extremely clear meta-themes -- themes that simultaneously have both a positive and a confrontational tone. Plus, I think the "rebuild the dream" line has a more concrete dimension than what Obama has been offering. Plus, he's just great at the podium.