South Dakota Politics

Obama Trailing McCain in LAT/Bloomberg Poll

A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows Barack Obama has lost ten points in the past two months since he captured the nomination.  In a large poll among registered voters, Obama is registering only a 2-point lead over John McCain in a head-to-head contest (his lead drops to one point if Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are included):

When last we had a L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll to peruse, the result that stood out (aside from Barack Obama’s 12-percentage point lead over John McCain in a head-to-head matchup) was what we termed the “passion gap” that favored the Democrat back in the June survey.

The new, just-released poll not only shows the race between the two dramatically tightening — into a virtual dead heat, with Obama leading in the head-to-head by only 2 percentage points — but it also identifies a distinct McCain asset: a huge advantage on the question of experience.

The survey of almost 1,250 registered voters showed that the vast majority have no doubt McCain is qualified for the White House. Asked if the Republican had the right experience to be president, 80% said yes (with only 14% saying no).

By contrast, close to a majority — 48% — said Obama lacks the experience for the job (with 44% saying yes).

(h/t Ed Morrissey)

PLUS THIS:  From CNN:  "In what could be an ominous sign for Barack Obama just days before he is formally named the Democratic presidential nominee, a new CNN poll of polls out Tuesday shows the Illinois senator's lead over John McCain has been cut in half in recent days."

McCain in the Saddle

It is demonstrable that McCain decisively won the exchange at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest California.  See Professor Schaff's post for a wealth of links to Saturday's encounter.  In the first place, it explains why Obama is so loath to meet McCain in town hall settings: he is pretty good with a memorized speech or teleprompter, but not so hot in thinking on his feet.  In the second place, the Obama campaign immediately whipped up a "McCain cheated" meme (the newly christened "cone of silence" affair) to cover their man's posterior.  According to the later, McCain was secretly allowed to listen to the Obama interview, so that when he went second he could anticipate the questions.  The Reverend Rick Warren, who presented the questions, denies this, and there is no evidence so far to support the charges.  But true or false, the complaint seems so much like whining, and is so obviously designed to excuse an inferior performance, as to amount to a concession. 

The victory is equally clear from the CNN transcripts.  The best moment for McCain was the following exchange. 

WARREN: Well, you just took the -- I had that question later on but now we don't have to ask it. What's the most gut-wrenching decision you've ever had to make? And what was the process that you used to make it?

MCCAIN: It was long ago, and far away, in a prison camp in North Vietnam. My father was a high-ranking admiral. The Vietnamese came and said that I could leave prison early. And we had a code of conduct. It said you only leave by order of capture. I also had a dear and beloved friend, who was from California, named Ebb Alvarez, who had been shot down before me. But I wasn't in good physical shape. In fact, I was in rather bad physical shape. So I said no. Now, in interest of full disclosure, I'm happy I didn't know the war was going to last for another three years or so.

But I said no, and I'll never forget sitting in my last answer, and the high-ranking officer offered it, slammed the door and the interrogator said, "Go back to your cell. It's going to be very tough on you now." And it was. But not only the toughest decision I ever made, but I am most happy about that decision, than any decision I've ever made in my life. (APPLAUSE).

Now that's knocking it out of the ball park.  Of course McCain had an unfair advantage: unlike Obama and myself, for example, he didn't enjoy a consistently charmed life.  There is no way that someone in Obama's position could match that.  But Obama still managed to make a mess of his answer.

WARREN: What's the most significant -- let me ask it this way. What's the most gut-wrenching decision you ever had to make and how did you process that to come to that decision?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think the opposition to the war in Iraq was as tough a decision as I've had to make. Not only because there were political consequences, but also because Saddam Hussein was a real bad person, and there was no doubt that he meant America ill. But I was firmly convinced at the time that we did not have strong evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and there were a lot of questions that, as I spoke to experts, kept on coming up. Do we know how the Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds are going to get along in a post-Saddam situation? What's our assessment as to how this will affect the battle against terrorists like Al Qaida? Have we finished the job in Afghanistan?

So I agonized over that. And I think that questions of war and peace generally are so profound. You know, when you meet the troops, they're 19, 20, 21-year-old kids, and you're putting them into harm's way. There is a solemn obligation that you do everything you can to get that decision right. And now, as the war went forward, there are difficult decisions about how long do you keep on funding the war, if you strongly believe that it's not in America's national interest. At the same time, you don't want to have troops who are out there without the equipment they need.

So all those questions surrounding the war have been very difficult for me.

This just doesn't make much sense as an answer.  He paints what looks like a convincing argument against the war, if you buy the premises.  Then why was it so agonizing a decision?  This is all campaign speech, and no heart.  And then there is the part on abortion:

WARREN: That was a freebie. That was a gimme. That was a gimme, OK? Now, let's deal with abortion; 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. As a pastor, I have to deal with this all of the time, all of the pain and all of the conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million abortions, at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.

That of course is dodging the question.  After all, this guy is clearly angling for pay scale upgrade.  Just how much is it going to cost us to hear him answer the question?  Here's McCain:

WARREN: Let's deal with abortion. I, as a pastor, have to deal with this all the time, every different angle, every different pain, all of the decisions and all of that. Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. Some people, people who believe that life begins at conception, believe that's a holocaust for many people. What point is a baby entitled to human rights?

MCCAIN: At the moment of conception. (APPLAUSE). I have a 25- year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate. And as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president. And this presidency will have pro-life policies. That's my commitment. That's my commitment to you.

WARREN: OK, we don't have to beleaguer on that one. Define marriage.

Obama's disciples will talk about how nuanced he was, but this may be more nuance than a candidate can afford.  McCain was as relaxed and comfortable as I have ever seen him.  Obama looked like he had lost his notes. 

More on Anneberg-gate

Steve Diamond:  "Annenberg-Gate" - It's not the crime, it's the cover up"

UPDATE:  Ed Morrissey:  "For a man with such a meager track record, Obama and his friends sure seem anxious about anyone checking into it for his experience — and his associations. A public university operating a public project should provide transparency on these issues, and not stall until after the election."

Dykstra Campaign Office Sent Threatening Letter

Argus Leader:  "A letter that arrived at U.S. Senate candidate Joel Dykstra’s Sioux Falls office today contained baby powder, preliminary tests show.  The letter also contained a threat to either Dykstra’s campaign or Republicans in general, said Jim Sideras, a spokesman for Sioux Falls Fire Rescue."

Veep Stakes

Politico:  McCain to name VP on Aug. 29

History Records Cover Up

Stanley Kurtz:  " In the process of tracing down the Obama-Ayers connection, I located a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library of the University of Illinois at Chicago. These documents are the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a small foundation, founded and inspired by Bill Ayers, for which Obama served as board chairman (almost surely at Ayers’s behest). Although the library initially promised me access to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, top library officials mysteriously intervened at the last minute to bar access."  You can find Kurtz's full investigation entitled "Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown?  A Cover-Up in the Making?"

South Dakotans deserve debate in Senate race

So says the American News.

If Sen. Tim Johnson was not recovering from a near fatal brain hemorrhage would South Dakota voters allow him a pass on engaging his opponent in a series of pre-election debates? We think not.

If Sen. Johnson wasn't the incumbent in this U.S. Senate race, would he be running at all? We suspect not.

Despite what the senator's fervent supporters claim, these are legitimate questions to pose to an incumbent senator who has experienced a debilitating medical condition that took him out of the U.S. Senate for eight months in 2007. Regardless of how uncomfortable these questions might appear and regardless that he returned to the Senate a year ago, they are well within the scope of a race for the U.S. Senate.

Unfortunately, the senator and his staff continue to demonstrate an almost arrogance about the senator's condition to South Dakota voters. He's been quick to trot out slick TV ads that might or might not have the authenticity of the Chinese Olympic opening night festivities. His recent decision not to participate in election debates is equivalent to throwing the South Dakota election process - and its voters - under the bus.

McCain and Obama At SaddleBack

John McCain and Barack Obama appeared at a candidate forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback church last night.  Since most of us were watching Michael Phelps, here is the transcript.  Rod Dreher also live blogged both the Obama and McCain sessions.  Here is the CNN story which allows you to view video of the event.  Victor Davis Hansen is worth reading (scroll down) as is Roger Kimball, who takes apart Obama's remarkably weak answer to the question "When does life begin?"  Sayeth Kimball:

I find it difficult to believe that any candid person could regard Obama’s response as anything but an insulting and mendacious equivocation. It is insulting because it ostentatiously evades the question while giving a little wink to his home team: “Oh, these religious morons and their obsession with abortion! Of course, I could care less about it, but I also know it’s impolitic to say so, so I’ll emit a brief rhetoric fog and hope no one will notice.” And it’s mendacious because when it comes to “pay grades,” no one’s is higher than the President’s. If a man who aspires to the highest office in the land cannot respond to a pointed question about an important moral issue without taking refuge in empty sophistries, how will he deal with the myriad difficult issues with which the President is confronted daily? It seems to me that in claiming that it is “above his pay grade” to answer this question forthrightly, Obama essentially admits that he is unfit for the office he covets.

By the way, I think the format of this session was quite good and perhaps should be mirrored in the debate season.  Each candidate got one hour with Rick Warren asking questions to them individually.  McCain went second and was unable to hear the questions asked of Obama.  He then was asked essentially the same questions.  I like this because it allows candidates more time to give extended answers and avoids the silly schoolyard "I know you are but what am I" that typifies all too many presidential debates. 

Al Qaeda & Cucumbers

I know, it sounds like one of those word puzzles.  But it explains why our greatest ally in the fight against al Qaeda might have been al Qaeda.  From the London Telegraph:

Besides the terrible killings inflicted by the fanatics on those who refuse to   pledge allegiance to them, Al-Qa'eda has lost credibility for enforcing a   series of rules imposing their way of thought on the most mundane aspects of   everyday life.

They include a ban on women buying suggestively-shaped vegetables, according   to one tribal leader in the western province of Anbar.

Well, there you have it.  Maybe Bush gets some credit for the collapse of al Qaeda, and maybe al Qaeda did it all by themselves.  If your idea of policy is to keep women from buying cucumbers because they are, well, long and hard, you might expect to wear out your welcome pretty fast. 

The Case for Bush's Foreign Policy

My intelligent and well-informed interlocutor, BB, chided me for my "support" of the Bush administration. 

Your sycophantic support of an administration that regards the constitution as "quaint" and which has done more to impinge upon the rights of man (to the aggrandizement of the ultra wealthy)is reprehensible.

I don't think that there is a sycophantic bone in my body, but this does raise a very good question: is the conventional wisdom regarding Bush's policies correct?  Has his foreign policy in particular been the disaster that many commentators take for granted?  My view is that it has been a rather mixed bag, and that the Bush Administration's biggest decision, the invasion of Iraq, was a very questionable decision.  Contrary to what my readers might think, I never endorsed that decision. I have pointed out on more than one occasion that Bush at least had an Iraq policy, which is more than President Clinton or two successive Democratic presidential campaigns have had.  But it is pretty clear in retrospect that the Bush Administration didn't know what it was doing.  However, politics is more concerned with outcomes than inputs.  One constant criticism of Bush is that he never changes his mind when things don't go as planned.  That one is dead wrong.

Fareed Zakaria writes in Newsweek under the provocative title: "What Bush Got Right."    Here is no sycophantic admirer of the President.  But unlike most of Bush's critics, he has tried to adopt a balanced view. 

Bush's basic conception of a "global War on Terror," to take but the most obvious example, has been poorly thought-through, badly implemented, and has produced many unintended costs that will linger for years if not decades. But blanket criticism of Bush misses an important reality. The administration that became the target of so much passion and anger—from Democrats, Republicans, independents, foreigners, Martians, everyone—is not quite the one in place today. The foreign policies that aroused the greatest anger and opposition were mostly pursued in Bush's first term: the invasion of Iraq, the rejection of treaties, diplomacy and multilateralism. In the past few years, many of these policies have been modified, abandoned or reversed. This has happened without acknowledgment—which is partly what drives critics crazy—and it's often been done surreptitiously. It doesn't reflect a change of heart so much as an admission of failure; the old way simply wasn't working. But for whatever reasons and through whichever path, the foreign policies in place now are more sensible, moderate and mainstream. In many cases the next president should follow rather than reverse them.

Now I think, sycophant that I am, that Zakaria exaggerates the sins of Bush's first term.  And I am very skeptical that Bush's more flexible policies towards North Korea and Palestine will achieve anything worthwhile.  But it is simply false that the Administration has been inflexible in its policies.  And I think Zakaria is right about one big thing: the next President will end up continuing a lot of Bush's policies.  The reason is simply that there are only so many policy options available on many of these fronts, and Bush is has managed to find the least bad policy in most cases. 

A deeper thinker than Zakaria, Edward Luttwak, comes to much the same conclusion in his piece in the British Prospect.   Luttwak compares Bush to Harry Truman: despised as a catastrophic failure when he left office, but recognized as a success today.  Like Zakaria, Luttwak is no sycophant. 

For Bush to be recognised as a great president in the Truman mould, the Iraq war too must become half forgotten. The swift removal of the murderous Saddam Hussein was followed by years of expensive violence instead of the instant democracy that had been promised. To confuse the imam-ridden Iraqis with Danes or Norwegians under German occupation, ready to return to democracy as soon as they were liberated, was not a forgivable error: before invading a country, a US president is supposed to know if it is in the middle east or Scandinavia.

That is a serious criticism of Bush's invasion, but I think it is largely beside the point.  Iraq became a near disaster not because the Iraqis weren't Scandinavians, but because the forces hostile to the United States were much more inventive, much more capable of organized resistance, and much better supported from outside, than anyone guessed.  Resistance from various factions in Iraq should have been expected and Bush should have planned better for it.  The insurgency that did emerge was a genuine and horrific surprise.  All the more impressive, then, is the fact that Bush defeated it. 

But Luttwak points to a much more important fact: that the strategic situation the world over has shifted against our enemies. 

Until 9/11, Islamic militants, including violent jihadists of every sort, from al Qaeda to purely local outfits, enjoyed much public support—either overt or tacit—across most of the Muslim world. From Morocco to Indonesia, governments appeased militants at home while encouraging them to focus their violent activities abroad... 

All this came to an abrupt end after 9/11. Sophisticates everywhere ridiculed the uncompromising Bush stance, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," as a cowboy stunt, but it was swiftly successful. Governments across the Muslim world quickly changed their conduct. Some moved energetically to close down local jihadist groups they had long tolerated, to silence extremist preachers and to keep out foreign jihadis they had previously welcomed. Others were initially in denial...  Denial did not last.

Luttwak hits nails one point that is perhaps most important of all: the period after 9/11 was very perilous for world civilization.  Astoundingly enough, the village idiot from Texas managed to convert. 

The destruction of the twin towers was.. the most powerful possible call to action. It was quite enough to trigger not just a Madrid, a London or a Glasgow attack, but many more in Europe alone. The main target, however, was bound to be the US itself, as well as American tourists, expatriates, business residents and, naturally, any troops anywhere.

Instead, the global jihadi mobilisation, triggered by post-9/11 enthusiasm for Osama bin Laden, was stopped before it could gain any momentum by all that Bush set in motion: the destruction of al Qaeda training bases in Afghanistan, the killing or capture of most of its operatives, and, most importantly, the conversion of Muslim governments from the support of jihad to its repression.

Jihadism has been largely confined to Iraq and the border zones of Pakistan, where guns are fashion statements and jihad the latest excuse for millennial violence. By contrast, since 9/11, attacks against western ("Christian") targets have been few, with not a single attack in the US and just a handful in Europe. It would not have been so if a less determined, less self-confident president had been in the White House. "You are with us or with the terrorists" was the right slogan and the right policy. The post-victory shambles in Iraq is a sideshow by comparison.

If George W. Bush has achieved a great policy success, it was not necessarily due to any great genius.  If you take a dimmer view of Bush's dimness than I do, you might say it was due precisely to his simple minded grasp of things.  When the Twin Towers went down, Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq and the Taliban, along with their al Qaeda allies, were in power in Afghanistan.  Today Hussein and his demented sons are dead, and the surviving remnants of the terrorist coalition are shivering in caves in Pakistan.   That is the sort of thing that the Saudis notice.  Once they have noticed it, what do they do?

As they saw American special forces and long-range bombers smashing the Taliban, the Saudis began to admit responsibility for having spread extremism through the thousands of schools and academies they financed at home and abroad. An agonising reappraisal of their own Wahhabi form of Islam continues. The Saudi king has convened an inter-faith conference of Muslims, Christians and Jews—a huge step given the Wahhabi prohibitions of any form of amity with non-Muslims. Inside the kingdom, only less extreme preachers now receive public support. Bin Laden had been the Saudis' enemy for years, but it was only after 9/11 that they began actively to hunt down his supporters and made their first moves to discourage rich Saudis from sending money to jihadists abroad. More than a thousand Saudis have been arrested, dozens have been killed while resisting arrest, and Saudi banks must now check if wire transfers are being sent to Muslim organisations on the terrorist list.

A less resolute and robust reaction to 9/11 would not have triggered such events.  So here are two non-sycophants who conclude that Bush as been, well, not so much of a disaster as many suppose.  I admit to being a conservative and a Republican, and so I am inclined to pleasure when Bush gets something right.  But I like to get things right myself, regardless of whether they gratify my vanities.  If, as I suggest, the next President continues most of Bush's policies, we will look back on this period as one of general success. 

Russia Walking Backwards

Intrepid reader BB has this, in response to my recent post on the petite guerre in Georgia:

Equating military preparedness and war planning as the cause of the conflict is specious. You can not possibly think that the Pentagon does not have contingency plans for attacking nearly everyone.

To which I reply: planning is one thing.  Preparedness is another.  The one can be accomplished in minutes.  The later takes days or weeks.  There is no way Russia could have launched its efficient attack on Georgia without moving men and material into position for weeks or months. 

But the bigger issue is what this says about the new Russia.  Strobe Talbott has a very good piece of what this means about the near the future of the region.  From the Washington Post:

An accurate comparison between the Balkan disasters of the 1990s and the one now playing out in the Caucasus underscores what is most ominous about current Russian policy. Seventeen years ago, the Soviet Union came apart at the seams more or less peacefully. That was overwhelmingly because Boris Yeltsin insisted on converting the old inter-republic boundaries into new international ones. In doing so, he kept in check the forces of revanchism among communists and nationalists in the Russian parliament (which went by the appropriately atavistic name "the Supreme Soviet").

Meanwhile, Yugoslavia collapsed into bloody chaos because its leaders engaged in an ethnically and religiously based land-grab. Milosevic, as the best-armed of the lot, tried to carve a "Greater Serbia" out of the flanks of Bosnia and Croatia. If Yeltsin had gone that route, seeking to create a Greater Russia that incorporated Belarus and the parts of Ukraine, northern Kazakhstan and the Baltic states populated by Russian speakers, there could have been conflict across 11 time zones with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in the mix.

A question that looms large in the wake of the past week is whether Russian policy has changed with regard to the permanence of borders. That seemed to be what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was hinting yesterday when he said, "You can forget about any discussion of Georgia's territorial integrity."

And there you have it.  Boris Yeltsin, fat and fond of drink, saved countless souls by letting go.  Vladimir Putin, lean and hungry, seems bent on turning his borders into a ring of little Bosnias, only with the bad guys winning this time.  Welcome to the 21st century. 

China Walking Backwards

According to the conventional wisdom, China is the miracle nation.  It is proof that an authoritarian government is consistent with or even necessary for economic development.  As is often the case the CW gets the facts wrong, and misinterprets them.  There is a brilliant article by Yasheng Huang in the current issue of Foreign Policy, comparing the recent histories of China and India.  Unfortunately, it is not available online to non-subscribers.  But here is the gist:

In the 1980's, the Chinese government experimented with political and economic liberalism.  That means more than a relaxed business environment and a relatively free press.  It means that the government subjected itself, or at least its local creatures, to some measure of real accountability.  Dramatic failures of policy led to public hearings, reported on by newspapers that felt free enough to tell the people what was going on.  But in the 90's, the government began to march backwards. Today no newspaper or TV anchorperson dares report honestly on the government's failings.  As a result, the Chinese economic miracle has been somewhat less than miraculous.  To mention but one indicator, illteracy in the rural provinces is increasing.    India went the opposite direction with opposite results: today India is the great success story.

There is no great mystery in this.  Accountability alone puts pressure on government to deliver.  Coupled with democracy, government is forced to deliver.  That is the story India and China are telling. 

Argus/Gannett Slashing Jobs

Reuters:

Gannett Co Inc plans to eliminate 1,000 positions from its local newspapers around the U.S. because of declining advertising and circulation revenue, and may cut more if those conditions persist.

The largest U.S. newspaper publisher said the cuts equal about 3 percent of the positions in its Community Publishing unit, according to a memo obtained by Reuters on Thursday. The unit accounts for the vast majority of the company's newspapers, except for USA Today.

About 600 people probably will be laid off as part of the cuts, the memo said. The remaining cuts will come from retirements, resignations and other vacancies that will go unfilled.

Gannett, which is based in McLean, Virginia, sent the undated memo to publishers of its more than 80 community newspapers, asking them to notify employees by August 15.

The company, which publishes USA Today, is the latest U.S. newspaper publisher to slash headcount because of falling advertising and circulation revenue.

McClatchy Co, The New York Times Co, The Washington Post Co and Tribune Co all have cut their employee rolls, either through buyouts or layoffs.

U.S. newspaper publishers have been battered by a steep fall in classified advertising revenue brought on by wider economic woes spurred by the housing crisis as well as a steady migration of readers seeking free news on the Internet.

Russia is the Aggressor

I return to this comment which I received by Email, in response to a recent post:

hey scumbag, Georgia attacked Ossetia. Killing hundreds before Russia attacked. You're just another lying, slithering republican.

Here is Ralph Peters in the New York Post:

Let's be clear: For all that US commentators and diplomats are still chattering about Russia's "response" to Georgia's actions, the Kremlin spent months planning and preparing this operation. Any soldier above the grade of private can tell you that there's absolutely no way Moscow could've launched this huge ground, air and sea offensive in an instantaneous "response" to alleged Georgian actions.

As I pointed out Saturday, even to get one armored brigade over the Caucasus Mountains required extensive preparations. Since then, Russia has sent in the equivalent of almost two divisions - not only in South Ossetia, the scene of the original fighting, but also in separatist Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast.

  The Russians also managed to arrange the instant appearance of a squadron of warships to blockade Georgia. And they launched hundreds of air strikes against preplanned targets.

  Every one of these things required careful preparations. In the words of one US officer, "Just to line up the airlift sorties would've taken weeks."

The current unpleasantness in Georgia is entirely the doing of Russia. 

Neck and Neck

Rasmussen:  "The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows Barack Obama attracting 43% of the vote while John McCain earns 42%. When 'leaners' are included, it's Obama 47% and McCain 46%. The race for the White House remains remarkably stable. With leaners, Obama's support has stayed between 46% and 48% every day for the past two weeks. During that same time frame, McCain has been at 46% or 47% every day."

Why A Comments Section is a lot of trouble

Spirited reader BB sends me this:

I would say as "uncivil" as you not posting comments and or delaying them so as to be inconsequential. Being labeled as only a "petite" fascist is perhaps an understatement if anything.

So let me get this straight: David Newquist thinks I'm a "petit-fascist" because I think Tim Johnson should not have run for reelection.  BB thinks I am something more of a fascist because I do not always post his comments fast enough to please him.  Boy you guys set the bar low!

As for the comments, they have to be policed.  I get very few uncivil messages, and BB's are certainly not a problem.  The problem is spam.  Unfortunately, the software that Keloland provides for us bloggers makes it very tedious and time-consuming to find the few comments that are not spam, and release them.  I am sorry if BB gets impatient, but I make no promises on this score.  I have tried very hard to release his comments as soon as they come in, but when they come in at the same time as a load of spam, it can be hard to notice them at all. 

As for the rest of BB's comment:

Your sycophantic support of an administration that regards the constitution as "quaint" and which has done more to impinge upon the rights of man (to the aggrandizement of the ultra wealthy)is reprehensible. The damage that has been done by "W" is a true blot on our nations history. America is great because America is good. When America stops being good it will cease to be great. Cicero would be no fan of Bush: "The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt." When did you give up on the constitution and the rule of law Ken? As a PhD in PS could you inform as to what is wrong with democracy in America?

BB is saying here that I am a fascist because I disagree with him about George W.  I defy BB to show me one place where my support of Bush has been "sycophantic."  I spend more time defending Bush when I think he is right because I figure that I will do a better job of that than BB, or David, or Todd, or Cory.  They are better fit to take him to task than I am.  I have never called anyone a fascist or a Stalinist or anything of the sort for disagreeing with me on such issues. 

Uncivil Discourse

I got this cute reply from Rick Couturier, about whose character and language handicaps I have nothing to add.

hey scumbag, Georgia attacked Ossetia. Killing hundreds before Russia attacked. You're just another lying, slithering republican.

This sort of immaturity might seem like an idiosyncrasy, but it's not exactly uncommon.  As I expected, David Newquist reacts to my comments about Tim Johnson and the debate question with this:

One blog has taken up the blogging cudgel against Sen. Johnson and has not missed a pretext to hammer the message that the Senator is incapable of serving. Another blog which is more strident in its espousal of petit-fascist attacks asserts that the Senator should have withdrawn from the race long ago and to be responsible should do so now. Democrat blogs have joined in the chorus that declining to engage in confrontational oral debates is sort of an admission of not being able to do the job.

I am pretty sure that the "one blog" is Pat Powers, and "Another blog" is me.  Newquist is not honest enough to identify his targets.  If I am wrong about the second comment, I apologize in advance.  If I am right that the second comment was directed toward me, then Newquist is once again trying to convince everyone that he is off his rocker.  SDP may be a bad blog or it may not, but calling it "petit-fascist" suggests an addled mind.   After all, my comments on the merits of political debates are similar to Newquist's own, and I drew a clear distinction between Johnson's fitness to serve in the Senate and his fitness to run for re-election. Moreover, as Newquist himself concedes, my opinion was within the range of local democratic blogs.  Apparently everyone who ever disagrees with Newquist is a "petit-fascist." 

I am a resident of South Dakota and I have every right to form an opinion about Johnson's fitness for office.   The truth is that Newquist regards any criticism of Tom Daschle or Tim Johnson as a kind of treason. One need only compare his blog posts with those of Cory Heidelberger and Todd Epp to see how addled Professor Newquist is. 

Tim Johnson Plays Hardball

I plan to write this up in the American News, but one lesson one can draw from Tim Johnson's refusal to debate Joel Dykstra is that the Johnson campaign's decision to stalk and intimidate Steve Kirby's family was pure genius.  As I said that the time, Kirby's private wealth would have automatically made him a formidable challenger to Johnson.  That wealth would have helped Kirby wage a strong enough campaign that Johnson's refusal to debate Kirby would possibly cost him the race.  It was imperative that the Johnson people avoid a one-on-one with Steve Kirby.  What better way to avoid that than to start following Kirby's wife and daughter and then let them know they are being followed.  If you can't get at the candidate (or in this case, the potential candidate) get at his family. 

But Joel Dykstra can't raise nearly the money Kirby could have.  Therefore Johnson can essentially run a nothing campaign and still have a pretty good shot at winning.  Great hardball politics by Tim Johnson. 

It's A Dark Knight

My latest in the American News discusses the political questions posed by the new Batman film, Dark Knight.

It is not often that summer blockbusters live up to the hype. The new Batman film, “Dark Knight” is a thought-provoking film that justifies its enormous box office take. The film poses a question as old as political thought itself: How do we achieve justice in a world full of injustice?

Aristotle argued in his “Politics” that politics is defined by the question of how we ought to justly live together. But humans are imperfect and reason differently about life's ends and the means to achieve them. One of the key political virtues, then, is prudence, the ability to choose the right means to achieve just ends.

The ancients tended to have an idealistic view of politics. This does not mean that they were na•ve, indeed the concept of prudence suggests an awareness of the difficulty in rightly navigating the political waters. But the notion of justice was never far from the ancient mind.

Enter Machiavelli in the 16th century. One of the many lessons Machiavelli tries to teach in his work “The Prince” is that political leadership inevitably leads to the problem of “dirty hands.” A political leader must be willing to work evil in order to establish and defend his principality. He must be willing to be a doer of injustice.

These are just some of the political puzzles that undergird “Dark Knight.” In its prequel, “Batman Begins,” we already see Batman struggling with the contradiction in his attempt to establish law and order in the fictional Gotham City while he himself operates outside the law.

Gotham, in a thinly veiled critique of contemporary America, is a cesspool of decadence, greed and corruption. If the first film introduces us to the idea that Batman will defend civilization without dirtying his hands, Dark Knight shows us the difficulty that entails.

Dark Knight reintroduces us to the Joker, the twisted clown who is Batman's nemesis. As depicted in the film, the Joker represents a direct challenge to the very possibility of political life. He is a nihilist, having abandoned any moral code other than the spreading mayhem. His goal is to undermine Gotham's faith in civilization by showing how their heroes, including Batman, can be corrupted. There is no right and wrong, the Joker suggests, only power.

Batman and Gotham District Attorney, Harvey Dent, are tempted by the Joker's offer. In their anger at his increasingly brutal attacks on Gotham they feel the urge to resort to unbridled violence themselves. The audience is similarly tempted. Given the horrors the Joker has caused, what movie fan would not be satisfied by a particularly poetic violent death for the man the film describes as a terrorist?

Sure, “Dark Knight” is just a movie, and a flawed one at that. For example the film is simply too long with too many plot twists for its own good. But it poses questions sure to stimulate the grey matter of the politically minded viewer.

What makes Batman a hero instead of a mere vigilante? Does fighting injustice require one to do injustice, necessitating “dirty hands”? Does creating public order oblige a strong, even dictatorial, executive hand? Do people need noble lies to retain faith that justice in public life is possible?

Why is the Joker wrong? In this era of relativism where, for example, some say one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, why isn't justice simply the stronger imposing his will on the weaker? Who has the right to use violence to protect the public?

The film answers these questions, but you'll have to see the movie to find them out. But let me suggest that one lesson is: Undisciplined individual will, ungoverned by a moral code that exists outside the self, is a recipe for civilization's collapse. Even doing good must be done in the right way by the right people or it becomes evil.

Oh, and the movie's special effects are awesome.

The Devil Went Down To Georgia

Every time I go on vacation, something blows up somewhere.  Usually it's on Northern's campus.  This time it's in the once and maybe future Russian possession, Georgia.  Here is John McCain's first response:

Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.

Here is Barack Obama's first response, from his website:

I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis. 

The difference?  McCain says something: he identifies the aggressor, and demands a specific remedy.  Obama says almost nothing, except for that bit about Georgia's territorial integrity.  But from this, you couldn't tell which party is threatening it.  Obama condemns only the impersonal "outbreak of violence". 

If you like Obama, you'd probably argue that he was just being cautious and nuanced, as opposed to shooting from the hip.  But then, according to Reuters, he decided to start shooting too.

I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis.

The first response tells us something about Obama; the second, about Obama's political calculations.  It is better, he concluded, to sound like McCain.  For more on McCain's response, see the excellent coverage at Powerline.

The Second Ugliest Man in Arkanasas

The Johnson Debate Dodge

My Keloland colleagues Todd Epp and Cory Heidelberger are doing a good job on the story.  Tim Johnson has announced that he will not debate Joel Dykstra in this year's Senate race.  Cory has this:

Sorry, Dems, but on this issue, we have to accept an unspinnable fact: Senator Johnson has conceded that Senator Dykstra can outperform him in one important skillset for a United States Senator: public speaking. Senator Johnson now needs to make the case that he can outperform Senator Dykstra in enough other areas to earn our ballot.

Todd Epp says this:

From a political strategy point of view, Johnson's decision not debate and its timing are brilliant.

Brilliant, but bad for our democracy.While sometimes contrived and stuffy and limiting, debates allow citizens to see the candidates discuss a broad range of issues, face one another, and allow citizens to compare and contrast in a "one stop shopping" setting.
Political debates are good for our democracy. 

Further, I am not aware of any candidate for major office in SD since 1986 refusing to participate in at least one debate. Rep. Tom Daschle debated Sen. Jim Abnor in 1986. Sen. Larry Pressler debated Ted Muenster and a couple of other third party candidatess in 1990. Rep. Tim Johnson debated Sen. Pressler in 1996. Rep. John Thune debated Sen. Johnson in 2002. Thune debated Sen. Tom Daschle in 2004. I also think every single gubernatorial candidate during that time debated.

I'm not quite sure that debates are as important as my colleagues think. They are very rarely debates in any real sense.  Politicians usually concentrate on three things to the exclusion of everything else: getting in good sound bites, drawing the other guy into committing a gaff, and above all, avoiding the gaff yourself.  Still, I agree that they serve one important function: they allow us to get to know the candidate, or at least, the public face of the candidate.  And if they often tell us nothing about what the candidate himself really thinks, they at least tell us what the candidate thinks we want to hear. 

As Cory and Todd point out, the reason that Tim Johnson is dodging the debate is that he and his organization think it will do damage to his campaign.  But the real question, as Cory notes, is this:

we Dems would do better to acknowledge and accept Senator Johnson's own honest explanation: he's just not recovered enough to make a public debate a fair fight.

And that statement opens the door for the honest question: If Senator Johnson cannot handle a public debate, is he the best candidate for the U.S. Senate?

Pat Powers put it this way:

So far the media and electorate have been patient in giving Johnson the benefit of the doubt on whether he's up to another term in the US Senate. Unfortunately for him, his camp has now removed all doubt, and it is not in his favor. 

This is pretty convincing evidence that Senator Johnson is not up to the job, and that while his staff can carry him just so far in an effort to save their jobs, there are some things on which they just cannot fake the job description.

I would not go that far.  However important debates are, they are different from the job a Senator does day to day.  Nor do I think it fair to call Johnson a liar for telling Keloland, nine months ago, that he would participate in "a debate."  That would only be a lie if he was already planning to duck the debates, and that would require evidence.  Maybe Johnson was only being overly optimistic. 

Still, Pat's view of Senator Johnson's competence is not unreasonable.  In a televised political debate, nothing is at stake except face.  On the floor of the Senate, great questions of public policy may be at stake.  If Tim Johnson can't handle the one, can he handle the other? 

I am not convinced that Tim is not up to his job as a Senator.  He has implicitly conceded that he is not up to the job of running for another term. This is not to say he can't win.  I am not sure that he can be beaten, given his presence in the state, along with the weakness of Republicans in general this time around.  Public affection alone might make him invulnerable.  But to ride back into office on those things alone is neither graceful nor responsible.  Tim should have withdrawn some time ago.  He should seriously consider doing so now. 

Tim Johnson Refuses Campaign Debates

South Dakota War College is on the story.  Just keep scrolling for several updates.  Here's the story from The Hill.

More Joseph Bottum

It appears that the entire SDP crew is out and about. I email from the warm climes of Boise, ID.  I got a nice email from First Things editor Joseph Bottum.  He's written another post, this time on the South Dakota Playhouse (which my nephew helpfully suggest is house where you play with trains).  Give it a read. 

Arkansas Traveling

Like Jason, I am out of my usual haunts.  It's hot and humid in Arkansas, but still feels good to be back in the land of my birth.  Blogging will probably be light.  My parents have decided to skip the internet age. 

I just noticed that my esteemed colleague emeritus, David Newquist, has this to say about the race card:

It has been clear since the primary  that the McCain campaign is going to be devoted to  ad  hominem attacks on Barack Obama.  The Republicans call the process "defining" him.  As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert points out, they have chosen to define him as "boy." He hasn't the experience, they say, to be president. That damned boy doesn't know his place. Abraham Lincoln did not have any more experience than Obama, and he was elected largely on the effectiveness of his words and his rhetoric. And, says McCain, that Obama boy sure can be glib. Watch out for him.

Actually, I the word "boy" doesn't occur anywhere in the Bob Herbert column.  Nor, does the argument that Professor Newquist makes here.  And what is that argument?  Here it is in standard form:

The Republicans say that Obama doesn't have the experience to be President.
Boys are inexperienced. 
Therefore: the Republicans are calling Obama a boy.

If that logic convinces you, then you can be convinced of anything. 

Professor Newquist says that "Abraham Lincoln did not have any more experience than Obama, and he was elected largely on the effectiveness of his words and his rhetoric."  Actually, Lincoln served a term in the U.S. House of Representatives before running for the Senate in Illinois.  In his 1858 Senate Campaign, Lincoln ran against one of the most important statesmen of his day, and whom he would meet again in the Presidential election of 1860.  The Lincoln-Douglas debates attracted the attention of people all over the United States, as they centered on the central issue of the day.  Obama went from the State Legislature directly to the U.S. Senate, and began exploring a Presidential run almost immediately.   I doubt very much whether anyone in Illinois can remember Obama's campaign for Senate. 

Finally I note that Professor Newquist accuses McCain of "ad hominem" attacks on Obama.  This use of the term "ad hominem" is, I think, illegitimate.  It is used to mean nothing more than personal attacks, but those who use it in that way apply it exclusively to personal attacks that the user disapproves of.  Does Professor Newquist disapprove of personal attacks in political discourse.  Clearly not.  I note these words from his prior post:

A few more covers like this should keep the red neck intelligentsia pondering its meaning up to election time.

I am not quite sure who the "red neck intelligentsia" is, but I am sure that calling someone red neck is a personal attack.  Why is not an "ad hominem" attack, as David uses the term.  Because it's only ad hominem when the Republicans do it. 

The Great Blog Silence of 2008

Blogging will be light to nonexistant for the next week on my end.  I will be in Knoxville, Iowa, for the Knoxville Nationals.  I'm heading out at 3 a.m. tomorrow morning and won't return until Sunday.  I'm assuming I won't have a connection to the Internet for the time being, so I'll see you all when I return.  Have a fantastic week!

Obama and McCain: Whom Do You Admire

My latest in the American News:

In a recent column in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen is concerned that he can think of multiple actions of John McCain that he truly admires while he can think of nothing Barack Obama has done to elicit similar admiration. Cohen is disturbed because he is politically inclined to favor Obama.

Cohen admires McCain's actions as a POW in Vietnam, undergoing torture but refusing early release for the Communists' propaganda purposes.

Cohen also admires McCain's advocacy of campaign finance reform, his opposition to the Medicare prescription drug plan as a budget buster, and McCain's call for a “surge” of troops in Iraq when the war was at its least popular; McCain was virtually alone in making this plea.

As Cohen points out, these policy positions were guaranteed to anger important parts of the voting population, yet McCain stuck to his guns rather than pander to polling.

None of this is to say that Obama is not admirable. Obama has reason to be proud. He is the first African-American to gain the presidential nomination of a major party and he has, in this author's opinion, a better than even chance of winning the election. But Cohen's concern is apt: Other than the good feeling an Obama victory would give to many Americans, what qualifies him to be president?

This question of admiration tells us of a key difference between McCain and Obama. To the extent McCain is admired, he is admired for what he has done. To the extent Obama is admired, he is admired for who he is.

Obama seems to know this, which is why he has made his personality a focal point of his campaign. Recently he told a group of Democrats, “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.” This statement, along with much of the language and imagery surrounding the Obama campaign, indicates a conscious effort by Obama to make his very existence the reason for voting for him.

As pundit Jay Cost asserts, Obama's campaign theme is “this great man will unify a divided America around himself.” But, Cost argues, Obama might be making too grand a claim for himself, making it difficult for him to connect with the average voter. Obama runs the risk of acquiring the flaw fatal to many Democratic presidential candidates, namely taking the persona of an elite out of touch with the common man.

Obama has virtually no Senate record, having chosen to run for president before he could build one. His legislative record as an Illinois state senator is best characterized by a high number of “present” votes, earning Obama a reputation as a legislator who ducked the tough votes.

This does not mean that Obama would not be a successful president, even the transformational president some think he can be. It just means that, more than any candidate in recent history, we don't know what an Obama presidency will entail. Obama hasn't failed any of political life's tests, but he also hasn't really taken any of those tests.

McCain, on the other hand, has been tested, literally tortured for his commitment to his beliefs and his country. He is using his experience to his advantage, portraying himself as the wise statesman and Obama as the flippant celebrity who looks good but is devoid of substance. While Obama attempts to paint himself as the embodiment of tomorrow's promise, McCain portrays himself as the battle-tested warrior who is able to make the tough changes necessary in Washington.

Many voters cast their vote based on candidate characteristics. These are factors such as a candidate's perceived honesty, trustworthiness, leadership, commitment to “people like me.” This fall's campaigning will show which candidate's self-description is more attractive to the public. It will also show if the public prefers what Obama is or what McCain has done.

Links Enough For Everyone

I've been remiss is not linking to Joe Knippenberg's piece on an important federal court decision on religious freedom.  Give it a read.  Also read Jospeh Bottum discussing the tough life in Fall River County, South Dakota. 

Speaking of South Dakota, Ramesh Ponnuru discusses the new abortion regulations. 

Prof. Blanchard blogged on Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who holds the record for the hardest last name to spell (you can look it up!).  The New York Times obit is well worth the read as is Jay Nordlinger's excellent discussion of Solzhenitsyn's controversial Harvard commencement address from 1978.   Solzhenitsyn, it seems to me, taught at least one powerful lesson: in order to speak truth to power one must believe in truth.  In his view Soviet Russia was a brutal power and the West had ceased to believe in a counter-truth with which to oppose that brutality.  Prof. Blanchard says Solzhenitsyn was anti-modern.  That is probably true. But unless modernity is a utopia (and by definition no place is a utopia), then modernity contains certain errors, perhaps some false views on the human condition.  Solzhenitsyn seemed to argue that a dedication to self-interest and commodious living may cause the West to concentrate on mere life at the expense of the good life and in that sense was anti-human (humanity being meant for the good life). There may be some truth to that claim.  But, to be sure, Solzhenitsyn also fell prey to the error of the Eastern church, which is a kind of state worship.  The Eastern Christian church early on aligned itself with the state, something that the Roman church never really did.  While not precisely being a theocracy, the Russian Orthodox church in particular has historically apologized for authoritarian state power in ways one would not find in the West. 

Rasmussen

Rasmussen Reports:

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the nation's voters say they've seen news coverage of the McCain campaign commercial that includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggests that Barack Obama is a celebrity just like them. Of those, just 22% say the ad was racist while 63% say it was not.

However, Obama's comment that his Republican opponent will try to scare people because Obama does not look like all the other presidents on dollar bills was seen as racist by 53%. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree.

Related thoughts from Rick Moran.

Obama and Affirmative Action

New York Times:  Delicate Obama Path on Class and Race Preferences

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Dies at 89

Solzhenitsyn was man who did one big thing very well.  He brought his experiences of Stalin's tyranny to light in extraordinarily well crafted detail.  From the end of World War II to the 1970's, defenders of communism were gradually forced to recognize that the Soviet Union had given birth not to any kind of liberation, but to an unrelentingly brutal despotism.  Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago made it impossible to believe that Marxism-Leninism had any trace of salvation in it.  That had the kind of impact that most writers can scarcely dream of. 

But his criticism of Soviet communism was part and parcel of a deep anti-modernism.  He stuck fast to a kind of religion that most Americans can hardly imagine. He was no friend of democracy or of Western style pluralism.   Like his native land, he survived Stalinism but was never able or inclined to break free of the bonds that continue to hold Russia back to this very day.   

Corporate Personhood

It is convenient to have some group of people whom one feels licensed to hate, without reservation.  For some folks it's Islamic terrorists; for Islamic Terrorists, its Jews.  For my esteemed Keloland colleague, Cory Heidelberger, it's Chuck E. Cheese's and all the other evil corporations.  So we get this bit of overcooked pepperoni:

Corporations have no worldview. They don't value human life the way either Christians like you or secular humanists like me do. They don't believe in God's salvation or man's inherent goodness. Corporations, these artifical entities that our courts blasphemously endow with personhood, are driven by profit, period. Not patriotism, not religion, not truth, nothing but profit...  Don't be fooled: those CEOs defending free trade with China aren't motivated by principle; they're motivated by the very selfish, materialist desire to keep their access to a market of 1.3 billion well-controlled Chinese workers and consumers.

Cory is surely right that corporations defend trade with China out of economic interest rather than some "world view," but for the most part that is a very good thing, isn't it?  I am very comforted that Microsoft only wants to strip my computer of any informations string that is not under its control.  I would be utterly terrified if they started caring about "God's salvation or man's inherent goodness." We have seen such corporations in the past: the Spanish Inquisition comes to mind. 

Cory has a stunted conception of "the corporation."  The Sierra Club is a corporation, after all.  So is the ACLU or the Obama Campaign.  Are non-profit corporations morally better than for-profit corporations?  One's view will like depend on the congeniality of the cause.  The National Abortion Rights Action League?  The National Right to Life Committee?  The National Rifle Association?  But the idea that for-profit corporations are uniquely selfish and soulless is flat wrong.  When teachers unions vehemently oppose merit pay or vouchers, they may claim all sorts of high minded motives, just as business corporations frequently do.  But what the teachers unions are in fact committed to are the interests and privileges of their constituents.

Likewise, individual farmers may be forgiven if they care more about the federal subsides for ethanol than they do about the food crisis in the developing world.  Cory may think that if only we got rid of capitalism, all this selfishness would go away.  Well, we tried that.  The Soviet Union is history, and Mao is selling tee-shirts. 

More entertaining than my friend's jaundiced view of corporations is his view that corporate personhood is a "blasphemous" mistake.  Corporate personhood just means that a corporation can be considered as a legal person in court, and that it can bear liabilities and obligations, as well rights and privileges.  It has been part of western law for centuries, and for very good reasons.  Corporations emerge when individuals pool their resources and talents and act as a body.  Treating those corporate bodies as legal individuals is the only way that governments can effectively regulate them.  But if you are going to expect corporate bodies to pay debts and accept responsibility for their acts (oil spills come to mind), you have to grant them a corresponding set of legal rights.  Otherwise they will be pillaged out of existence, which may of course be precisely what Cory wants. 

What applies to Exxon will also apply to the Sierra Club.  When someone gives money to the latter, who does it belong to?  It belongs to the corporation, which can own property the way Cory and I can.  Can government seize the Sierra Club treasury at a whim, or does the organization have a legal right to the money?  If you say so, you are endorsing corporate personhood.

But I am being a little unfair to Cory here.  The "corporate personhood" question is more narrow: granting that the corporation is a legal person, does it have all the rights that are enjoyed by "natural persons"?  Natural persons would be individual human beings, and maybe dolphins; I will have to check.  That is the significance of the Supreme Court case he cites. Now I think enemies of "corporate personhood" have a point here.  Surely some things in the Bill of Rights do not apply to corporate persons.  I don't see how Chuck E. Cheese Inc. can enjoy free exercise of religion.  But what about freedom of speech?  Well, does the Sierra Club or the National Organization of Women enjoy such a right? If so, then you can't pretend that you are opposed to corporate personhood in the narrow sense either. 

Corporations are groups of people.  That's all.  Individually and collectively, people are sometimes selfish and sometimes not.  It is piece of idle fancy to believe that any political reform will change such facts. 

SDP Philosophy Note: Is There a Soul Apart from the Body?

No.  That answer is pretty clear from the now famous split brain experiments.  It may seem like I just took a firm stand in favor of atheism and materialism, but neither is the case.  As I have noted before, Dualism has never been the doctrine of any major church.  Dualism is the view that body and soul consist of distinct substances, ontologically independent of one another.   This is the gospel according to Walt Disney: the poor dog dies, but its vaporous, milky soul floats loose.  By contrast, the teaching of Christianity (at least its major institutions) has always been the resurrection of the body.  Christ didn't float out of the tomb, he got up and walked out.  Why else was it necessary to roll away the stone?  And as he did, so shall we do, if ...  Or so the Gospel promises. 

These sorts of metaphysical/theological questions are often thought to be irresolvable, but this one, I think, has been resolved.  According to Dualism, the soul somehow inhabits the body during an ordinary lifetime (with occasional release time, if you believe in astral travel).  My soul is the real "me," while my body is a mere vehicle.  Of course the driver has to get his information from the world by means of the senses and the physical brain, and by those same devices has to steer the vehicle.  It is pretty clear that physical factors can influence the soul.  See: alcohol.  But as to how the "immaterial soul" and the material body interact, no dualist could ever quite say.  This is the famous interaction problem, and it has long been the major weakness of dualism. But however the connection takes place, this much seems clear: unlike the body, the soul of the dualists is one single thing. Information flows in, and the will flows out.  And the soul is where our human consciousness is located.   Nothing that happens to the brain can alter the fundamental unity of the soul.

The split brain experiments demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the soul is no more unified than the brain.  The latter consists of a number of distinct organs, divided into two hemispheres.  The left side of the body is directly hooked up the right hemisphere of the brain, and vice versa.  In most people, the two hemispheres are connected by a thick cable of nerves called the corpus callosum. What happens if the corpus callosum is cut, and the two halves of the brain can no longer communicate with one another?  The answer, astonishingly, is almost nothing. 

Cutting the CC is a radical treatment for severe epilepsy. It keeps the brain storm from crossing between the two hemispheres and so turning into a major seizure.  Patients who undergo such a procedure will afterward report that nothing has changed.  But everything has changed. Such a person is now in fact two people rather than one.

In the experiment, the split brain subject is asked to focus his eyes on a dot on a screen.  Then a word like "cat" is flashed briefly to the right of the dot.  The way the eyes and optical systems work, the subject will see the word only with his right eye.  It will then be transferred to his left brain.  Ask him what he say "cat."  That's no problem, because the part of the brain that handles language is on the left.  Now a similar word is flashed briefly to the left of the dot.  Say: "pan."  Now ask the subject what he saw, and he will say nothing.  The word went to his right hemisphere, which is real good with pictures but can't talk or read or write.  The right brain can't tell you what it saw.  However, it can draw it.  Put a pencil in the left hand of the subject (it has to be the left hand, because that's the hand controlled by the right brain), and he will draw you a picture of a pan. 

If there really were an ontologically independent entity dwelling within the body and interacting with it, you might suppose it would at least be able to get the word "pan" from one side of the brain to the other.  But no, once the corpus callosum is cut, all communication ceases.  Consciousness of concepts and images, the work of the soul if anything is, now goes on in separate chambers.  The human being has become bisouler.

I find nothing to be distressed about in this.  Everything that is wonderful works in this way.  A great painting is chemical pigment given form by the genius of the artist.  No paint and canvass, no painting.  A cathedral is stone and wood similarly ordered, but with human beings convening to prey; and it is that activity on the part of physical  brains bringing left and right palms together, that is the soul of a church.  No physical brains, no prayer.  A human being is an extraordinarily complex organism, capable of doing the work of breathing, eating, praying, and philosophizing. We cannot understand the soul apart from the activity of some body.  If indeed life after death is in the cards, the resurrection of the body is the only way we can understand it.   

 

The Obamaton Changes Its Spin on Off Shore Drilling

In quantum physics you have lots of particles with no determined properties.  An object such as an electron can be in two places at one time, and doesn't have a left or a right spin in a magnetic field until someone measures it, or interviews it on Meet The Press.  Well, now we have the Obamaton.  Today this recently discovered particle abruptly changed its spin, and is now in favor of off-shore oil drilling.  From McClatchy:

Barack Obama Friday dropped his opposition to offshore oil drilling, saying he could go along with the idea if it was part of a broader energy package...

The change is dramatic because Obama often pointed to his opposition to drilling as a key difference between himself and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

"I will keep the moratorium in place and prevent oil companies from drilling off Florida’s coasts," Obama said in Florida in June.

Of course McCain has also flipped on offshore drilling.  There is no reason to suppose that either candidate is more honest or genuine than the other on this or a lot of other issues.  But there is this difference: McCain's opposition to drilling off shore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was an eccentricity for a Republican.  In dropping his opposition to the degree that he has, he becomes a little less eccentric and comes to the support of his party in Congress.  This makes it reasonably easy to get an idea of who and what McCain is.  He is a conservative Republican with a pronounced independent streak, who is not above coming back to the fold when political expediency demands it.  Maybe you like that and maybe you don't.  I am comfortable with it.  But it gives you a good idea of what kind of President he would be.  On some issues he will be stubbornly McCain.  On others, a solid Republican.

Obama's flip flops, by contrast, almost always cut against his party's long held principles.  Public financing of campaigns was long a central idea in Democratic campaign finance reform.  Obama didn't just abandon the principle, he destroyed it.  Opposition to new drilling off shore is a principle Congressional Democrats have been defending for decades, which is why we don't have the oil now.  They are currently using every device in the book to prevent new drilling, in the face of strong public support for the Republican position. By flipping on this issue, Obama has cut and run on his Congressional allies and compromised a long standing project of liberal Democrats.  Now it would be one thing if Obama were going against his party on personal principle.  But that isn't what this is.  Obama has no personal commitment to oil drilling.    He flipped just to close off one avenue of attack.  He calculates that he has the Left in his pocket, so he can afford to offend the Sierra Club.  He just has to make it harder to McCain to form an independent-conservative coalition against him, and so he is adopting traditional conservative positions as fast as he can. 

The only trouble is, this makes it almost impossible to guess what kind of President he will be.  Will he transform into a social democrat and try to bring Canadian health care to America, as Bill Clinton did in his first term?  Don't hold your breath, Cory.  Can we expect him to be a traditional Democrat in any sense?  Not based on this campaign.  But neither do we have any sense of Obama apart from the day to day demands of the campaign.  It's no wonder that his campaign slogan, "Change we can believe in," was so vacuous.  There's no there there. 

We won't know what kind of particle the Obamaton is until or unless we measure it in the magnetic fields of the Presidency.  That will be exciting. 

New McCain Ad

The "celebrity" ad was kinda dumb and not funny.  This one is kinda smart and kinda funny.  They are trying to paint Barack Obama as exceedingly arrogant and out of touch with the common man.

SDP Jazz Note: Johnny Griffin 1928-2008

If memory serves, and often it goes awol, I first heard the Little Giant's horn on an NPR special that I recorded years ago, and listened to with ear buds while laying around a campsite in the Ozark mountains. I was utterly captivated by the way that Griffin was able to tell little stories over and over, with each one presenting a different moral. At least that is what I told my brother I heard.

It wasn't until recently that I actually acquired some Griffin recordings.  The first was The Kerry Dancers and Other Swinging Folk. After Jazz, my favorite musical tradition is Celtic. In this recording, Griffin builds on traditional Irish tunes, like Danny Boy and Green Grow the Rushes, without losing a single ounce of jazz feeling. It is not an easy disc to find, but I was pleased to find it on eMusic. The greatest power of a powerful jazz composer is that of listening, and Johnny Griffin knew how to listen to a distinct musical tradition, and how to listen to his own marvelous transliteration of its bones and sinews into the language of jazz.

I think that Griffin's finest work might have been the recordings at the Five Spot Cafe with Thelonious Monk. Monk was almost certainly the greatest composer of the bop tradition, precisely because his work presents such delicious challenges to any interpreter. Griffin is more than up to that challenge. The genius that is evident in The Kerry Dancers is equally evident here: the ability to master the geometry of a new kosmos and create new worlds within it.

Another good sample of Griffin's work is Blues Up and Down, with Eddie Lockjaw Davis. Here the task is to managed a conversation with that other great tenor player, backed by a fine rhythm section.

Griffin died just hours before a concert. He was an incredible beautiful musical mind. Don't let him get past you. You won't hear this again in any universe.

ps.  Go to Jazz Note SDP for a sample of Griffin's music.