Yesterday at Rotary, I noticed a stark example of something that we all know, but don’t often see demonstrated this clearly. The speaker at the podium was recognizing a member — Crawford Clarkson — for having belonged to the club for 63 years. We were all duly impressed, and offered applause, even a standing ovation, because we all like Crawford.
But at some point, when Crawford was offering his acknowledgments, or when another speaker was talking about him with him standing there, and the crowd had sat back down, I looked around and noticed something.
All of the women whose faces I could see were smiling. We’re talking maybe six or seven women whose faces were clear to me from where I sat, without craning my neck. It was that sort of smile that makes women the wonderful beings that they are, a sort of Mom smile, the sure sign of a warm heart. They were pleased, on a fundamental level, for Crawford, and the pleasure radiated from them visibly.
Then I made myself look at the men. There are still far more men in Rotary than women, so in a few seconds I checked the faces of maybe a couple of dozen men. All but one was impassive. They might have been pleased, they might not have been pleased; they weren’t going to show it either way. They had stood up and clapped, dammit, so what more did you want from them? What do you expect a guy to do?
Note that I said “All but one.” That one had a slight smile. But for all I know, he was thinking about something else.
I remember hearing something on NPR a few years ago about some women who took a class in which they learned to impersonate men (don’t ask me why). One of the participants interviewed explained that the hardest thing, for her, was to keep herself from smiling. You’ve perhaps noted that most women, if you make eye contact with them, smile (at least, they smile at me; I don’t know about you). Men, perhaps regarding it as a sign of weakness, generally do not. I think there’s something about survival hard-wired into us.
Anyway, I am reminded of a recent case in which I demonstrated what jerks we men can be. Remember when I complained back here that some young woman I’d never heard of had 100 times as many Twitter followers as I did? Well, she certainly told ME off, but in a nice way:
Hi Brad,
Just read your post. Thanks for the mention, or rather, the criticism. I have so many friends because I talk a LOT and I’m always happy for other people’s successes. I hope you find your own comfort zone soon.
Thanks again,
Gerri
Ow. She’s right, of course. Women are just so much readier to be pleased for other people than we are. Guys are always trying to figure out what’s in it for US.
Let’s have a little discussion about human nature.
First, take a look at this story from yesterday’s WSJ, which reveals the rating inflation that plagues (or blesses, depending onyour point of view) the Web:
The Web can be a mean-spirited place. But when it comes to online reviews, the Internet is a village where the books are strong, YouTube clips are good-looking and the dog food is above average.
One of the Web’s little secrets is that when consumers write online reviews, they tend to leave positive ratings: The average grade for things online is about 4.3 stars out of five…
Did that surprise you? It did me, a bit. But then I got to thinking about the one place where I’ve done a lot of rating — Netflix, where over the years (in a vain attempt to teach the site to predict my preferences) I’ve rated more than 2,000 movies. And since I love movies, and do a certain amount of selection before watching them, I knew I had given really high ratings more often than really low ones — specifically, I had awarded 5 stars (to such films as “Casablanca,” “The Godfather” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”) 156 times, and 1 star (examples: “Dances With Wolves,” the made-in-Columbia “Death Sentence” and “Dune”) only 24 times.
Still, if you count up all the movies I’ve rated between 1 and 5, you come up with an average rating of only 3.4. And if you factor in the 815 flicks I’ve rated as “Not Interested,” awarding them a 0 score, it drops to 2.0. But that’s misleading, because some of those are good flicks that some time or other I gave that rating just as a way of saying I wasn’t interested in seeing them at that time. But if you count just a fourth of those, it lowers my average to 2.9.
Which is about where you’d expect me to be. I’m a born critic — flaws leap out at me, and I remember them. And my detractors (such as those who think I’m too tough on Mark Sanford) see me as all criticism, as one who never gives my subjects their due. Actually, though, some of my detractors (such as those who were furious that I continued to admire John McCain throughout the 2008 campaign) attack me for the opposite trait — the fact that I can the good outweighing the bad in some people and some things. (You ladies who love Jane Austen may think of me as a health mix of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley, only without their wealth.)
Back to human nature: Why would folks be so overwhelmingly positive on the Web (except, of course, here on this blog)? The story in the Journal speculated as follows:
Culture may play a role in the positivism: Ratings in the U.K. average an even higher 4.4, reports Bazaarvoice. But the largest contributor may be human nature. Marketing research firm Keller Fay Group surveys 100 consumers each week to ask them about what products they mentioned to friends in conversation. “There is an urban myth that people are far more likely to express negatives than positives,” says Ed Keller, the company’s chief executive. But on average, he finds that 65% of the word-of-mouth reviews are positive and only 8% are negative.
“It’s like gambling. Most people remember the times they win and don’t realize that in aggregate they’ve lost money,” says Andy Chen, the chief executive of Power Reviews Inc., a reviews software maker that runs Buzzillions…
Aha! I think I understand… at least, I now understand a possible reason why people gamble.
I don’t know about you, but I have not gambled since I was in college. I went through a period when I shot pool (nine ball being my game) and played a few hands of poker. But the last time I played pool for money and the last time I gambled with cards are etched unforgettably on my mind because of the spectacular ways in which I lost. My opponent at the pool table had had a shocking run in which he had pocketed the nine ball on the break several times in a row. After hours in which no one had had a hand nearly as good, I risked all (even writing a check to another player to get cash to stay in the game) on a full house — only to lose to a full house that was one card better (queens as opposed to jacks).
I’ve never understood, since then, why people would gamble. But this tendency to remember the anomalous wins more clearly than the losses would explain it.
But is that truly human nature?
Frankly, I find myself doubting the very premise of the story. As a newspaperman of 35 years experience, I am so accustomed to hearing from the people who are AGAINST something, or who didn’t like something in the paper, that such universal satisfaction seems unlikely to me. Take letters to the editor. One of my favorite examples were the letters we got for a week or so after U.S. troops first went into Afghanistan in the fall of 2001: They were overwhelmingly against U.S. military action. I knew they were not representative of South Carolina, not by a long shot, but they were the people who were taking the trouble to write. And that seems to me to be the norm.
Yet this story is saying otherwise. What do you think is true, and why do you think it’s the case?
This morning I had the good fortune to run into Valerie Bauerlein, formerly of The State and now with The Wall Street Journal. She was having breakfast with Tim Rogers at the Cap City Club, working on a story that she hopes will make the “A-hed” position on page one — that’s the feature that is always such at good read at the center of the bottom of the page. (Fortunately for her, she wasn’t here to do yet another Sanford story.)
Valerie works in the Journal’s Atlanta bureau. While she spends close to half her time on regional general-assignment news reporting, her specific beat these days is the soft drink industry.
After Tim left, Valerie stopped off at my table and we had a chance to catch up. Her biggest news is that she’s expecting her second baby in November, so she has that glow about her — but then, Valerie always had that glow about her. She’s one of the nicest, most pleasant, kindest, most considerate people I ever worked with, to the extent that you wonder how she ended up in the trade. Not that news people are universally unpleasant or anything; it’s just that she was SO nice. And very good at her job, to boot.
Anyway, it was great to see her, and greater to see her doing so well. I thought I’d pass it on for those of you who remember her.
Just got a tweet from Karen Floyd — remember Karen? she’s the state GOP chairwoman now — calling my attention to this item about Joe Wilson “thanking the Upstate’s ‘talk radio community’ that he said sparked a critical shift in his approach to fighting Democratic health care reform efforts and ultimately led to his now-celebrity status among some conservatives across the state.”
As I’ve said before, I wasn’t bothered nearly as much by Joe’s Tourette’s Moment during the president’s speech as by his subsequent behavior. We all lose control now and then. No, the thing that is really, profoundly offensive is the way Joe has embraced the extremists who embrace him, and decided to make the foolishness of a moment his new guide for political life.
OK, but even that is understandable to a certain degree. It merely illustrates a weakness common to politicians. It’s related to the “dance with the one that brung you” phenomenon. Since the talk-radio screamers are the only ones asking Joe to dance these days, he’s decided to go home with them. It happens, all across the political spectrum. If these are the only folks who will support him, he’ll support them back, under the logic of political survival.
But you’d think that a state party would want to maintain at least a certain neutral aloofness from this process. Not that I expect them to cast him into the darkness or anything; you’d just sort of think they’d stare into space and try to act like they didn’t notice the faux pas. Think about it: Karen is the chair of a party that contains both Joe Wilson and Bob Inglis, who votedfor the resolution to express “disapproval” of Joe’s big moment. In fact, Joe was visiting Inglis’ part of the state to deliver this collective hug to talk radio.
Seems like the state chair would just want to stay out of that, and call as little attention to it as possible. I mean, as silly as the action of the S.C. Democrats often are, do you see Carol Fowler putting out a release to call attention to a Democrat who is making a career out of the most embarrassing moment of his life? Maybe she would. There’s no accounting for parties, and I gave up long ago trying to make sense of their doings.
Folks who routinely travel beyond state lines return shaking their heads at the image of South Carolina that those from elsewhere hold in their heads. You know the drill: Mark Sanford in Argentina, Joe Wilson shouting “You lie!,” the Confederate flag flying on the lawn of our State House, etc.
If only there were some way to tell objectively what image others truly hold of us (and we’ll suspend for a moment the debate over whether we give a damn what others think; we know that many of you don’t, which is one of the sources of our problems). Well, thanks to the magic of the World Wide Web, we do occasionally get an unbiased glimpse.
For instance, I inadvertently had one this morning. On a press release from the University of South Carolina, I saw that a USC study on breast cancer was cited in a story in The Sacramento Bee. Curious to see whether the study played a prominent role in the piece, I followed the link, and saw that the “South Carolina” in the reference to the University was also in hypertext. So I followed it, and found one of those results pages that provided a mishmash of references, from items that are truly about our state to some that merely mention us in a list.
But my eye was drawn to the graphic element on the page, which provided four images under the heading “Sacbee.com photos.” Each image was itself a link to a news item having to do with South Carolina. Here’s what they were:
The first was a locator map that showed the site of a fatal helicopter crash. A tragedy that could have happened anywhere, which doesn’t reflect upon us particularly one way or another.
The next was a sports photo in a garnet-in-black motif, taken by Mary Ann Chastain of our local AP office, leading to a story headlined, “Gamecocks pull Top 5 surprise, beat Ole Miss 16-10.” Wow. Sometimes it seems like all anybody here talks about is Gamecock football. Now it seems that it’s what people elsewhere talk about, too. Huh.
The next photo didn’t look like much of anything — a few scraps of debris scattered on an unremarkable bank of faded red clay. It led to a story out of Anderson about a man who died, alone and penniless, in a tent on the bank of Lake Hartwell. He was described as a “bright but reclusive Civil War buff” who had lost his job at a local museum. Here I was looking for some universal image about our state as a community, and here was a painfully personal tale of a man who died for lack of community. Read into that what you will.
The fourth, alas, was an image all too familiar. I didn’t particularly want to see what it led to, but I followed the link, which was to a letter to the editor of that newspaper. A letter about us, or at least about one of us. And what do folks in California have on their minds when they take up pen to write about one of us? An excerpt: “Similar vitriol and disrespect was the norm from Southern politicians during the years and months leading up to the American Civil War. I fear we may be headed down a similar path, toward disunion, given the tone of our political dialogue since the 2008 national election.”
Sigh.
So, what has the giftie shown you about how others see us?
Joe heads home to continue his focus on the families of South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional district and over 100 supporters turn out to walk with him in the Lexington DooDah parade. In this short video, Joe thanks his supporters for standing with him in his fight against government run health care.
Joe’s fight has really angered the big government liberals who are working to push their health care plan through Congress. They are storming the district and targeting Joe in next year’s election.
But Joe won’t back down.
No, Joe, it’s not your “fight” that’s got them ticked off. It’s your childish outburst, and your subsequent decision to cash in on it. At least, that’s what has the rest of us disgusted; I can’t speak for these “big government liberals” that are your straw men.
Oh, by the way, Joe doesn’t thank people for supporting him on health care in the short video — at least, not specifically. What he does is celebrate the common decency and patriotism of the folks in the heart of his district. And maybe it’s a good thing for Joe to get in touch with those qualities instead of having his head turned, the way he has for the past week or so, by the kinds of spiteful extremists who want to lionize him for doing something that he was initially, and appropriately, ashamed of.
Today after Rotary, Kathryn F. buttonholed me and started egging me to run for office. Hey, it’s easy for her to say — I’m the one who would be making a fool of himself, not to mention having to go to all those chicken dinners.
Run for what, you’re thinking? Yeah, I know — it’s hard to remember what Brad isn’t running for today: Is it the S.C. House? Or governor? Or Congress?
In this case, it’s specifically Congress that I’m being coy about.
Kathryn’s not the only one, by the way. Nathan Ballentine asked me about it when I ran into him this morning. Of course, he said it with a smile.
Anyway, I gave Kathryn all the reasons why I can’t run, and she tried to knock them all down:
Neither of the parties can stomach me, and I can’t stomach the parties. And so far, no member of the UnParty has been elected to Congress. There’s a reason for this: Anything as stretched out and gerrymandered as a congressional district in the former Confederacy is really tough to win by shoe leather and personal perseverance. A state House seat, maybe. But a district that stretches to Beaufort sort of needs the simple answers and mass media approach and organization that only a party can provide. And on some of the hot-button issues that separate the parties, I agree with one side, and on some of them with the other. And on some of those issues, I have no easily explained opinion, but explaining WHY I don’t have a position is the work of at least a newspaper column, and how do you get a majority of voters in a congressional district to pay attention to something with that kind of nuance?
I don’t have a job, and I need to get one and get some money coming in soon. Kathryn says running for Congress would BE my job. But far as I know, you’re not allowed to pay your mortgage and personal phone and light bills with campaign contributions — assuming I can get campaign contributions (and who’s going to contribute to someone who’s neither a Democrat nor a Republican?). And when I get a job, the odds are that it will be one that wouldn’t allow me to run for Congress. Most jobs wouldn’t allow you to run for Congress. If I were independently wealthy, yeah, this would be a great time to run. But as things are…
Who would vote for me? Based on the kinds of comments I get here, not even a majority of my putative base here on the blog would vote for me. I mean, if the overall electorate receives my ideas the way some of y’all do, I’ll be lucky not to be ridden out of the district on a rail. I’m way too candid with y’all about too many things to be a successful candidate for high office.
Of the three offices I’m not running for, Congress would be my least favorite. Running for governor or state legislator, I would feel pretty confident that I would know the issues better than just about anyone who ran against me, and the issues aren’t nearly as bifurcated according to party. There’s more room for a Third Way kind of guy like me. With Congress, every conversation is a big political battle. Say I tell folks what I think about health care — well, that would automatically label me as being to the left of Barack Obama (that’s the area assigned to us single-payer types), which would endear me to the Democrats (some of them) and make me persona non grata to the Republicans. And there’d be no avoiding that issue. But suppose abortion comes up (no reason it should since we’re not talking about the Senate, but suppose it did)? On that one I’d be solid with the Republicans, and the Democrats would despise me. And people would accuse me of waffling, when it is my personal belief that I’m the coherent one, and “left” and “right” as they are currently defined don’t make sense. But could I sell that, with all the other messages out there being against me?
And lots and lots of other reasons. Y’all can probably think of more reasons than I can — after all, I would vote for myself.
At least, I think I would. The idea of sending myself up to Ground Zero of all the partisan madness I constantly decry… well, it’s not something I’d wish on a yaller dog. Or an elephant.
But at least Kathryn has given me a small taste of that phenomenon that causes candidates to piously claim that they’re only running because of the people urging them to do so…
Anyway, now that I’ve totally turned you off with my self-absorption — and made some of you laugh because it may sound like I’m actually considering this… Think about this: Almost any normal person who thinks about running for office goes through these same sorts of thoughts. And for almost any normal person, the answers to all these questions would add up to a big, resounding NO. In fact, you have to ask, given that there are all these natural objections to running for office, what it is that’s wrong with the people who actually DO? And you begin to understand why politics is as messed up as it is…
As y’all know, I pretty well dismissed John Edwards early on, to avoid the rush. Therefore I had nothing to say when he crashed and burned later.
But I do find myself wondering something when I read this:
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A man who once claimed to have fathered the child of John Edwards’ mistress says in a book proposal the former presidential candidate is the real father and that he and Edwards worked with his campaign finance chairman to hide that secret, according to a newspaper report published online Saturday….
What I wonder is, Why would anybody have bothered to lie about that? I mean, if you admit (finally) that the affair happened, why on Earth bother to deny being the father if you were the father? What would be the point? Are we to believe that Edwards was calculating that if we just thought he was fooling around with a woman sufficiently loose as to be carrying on a separate affair with one of his aides while his wife was campaigning her heart out for him during a recurrence of cancer, then just maybe he could salvage his political prospects — but if he was technically (as opposed to morally) responsible for impregnating her, we just couldn’t forgive him?
I don’t know. And I don’t care. But I can assure you that, with or without the sensational teasers, I will not read this book. So don’t bother.
Yesterday, my wife got the envelope above in the mail.
It contains the usual “paint-yourself-as-a-victim-of-the-inhuman-opposition” language that we are accustomed to seeing in fund-raising appeals:
I’ve been under attack by the liberal left for months because of my opposition to their policies, especially government-run healthcare. They’ve run commercials in the Second District and flooded my office with phone calls and protestors. They’ve done everything they can to quiet my very vocal opposition to more government interference in our lives. Now, it’s gotten even worse.
Of course, Joe goes on to express regret — but not really — for his outburst, in a classic political non-apology apology:
I am also frustrated by this and, unfortunately, I let that emotion get the best of me. Last week, I reacted by speaking out during the President’s speech. I should not have disrespected the President by responding in that manner.
But I am not sorry for fighting back against the dangerous policies of liberal Democrats. America’s working families deserve to have their views represented in Washington. I will do so with civility, but I will not be muzzled.
Of course, he needs your money to buy himself a bigger megaphone…
Call the tone “defiant regret.”
You see, in the world of hyperpartisan politics, you NEVER really give ground to the other side, because it is ALWAYS wrong. Raking in the big bucks means never having to say you’re sorry and mean it.
You can’t mean it, and you can’t be seen as meaning it, because you’re counting on getting contributions from the very people who are GLAD you yelled “You lie!” at the president.
This is why I don’t mind Joe’s outburst nearly as much as I mind his continued, deliberate efforts to cash in on it. Anybody can lose control for a moment. Remind me to tell you about the time I yelled out in church when I was four years old, an incident that some old folks in Bennettsville still talk about. I didn’t mean any harm.
But this cold-blooded campaign to benefit from that outburst is what I find unforgivable. I find it contemptible on all sides: Democrats demonizing Joe, and Joe demonizing them back. But Joe is my congressman, and he’s the one I hold accountable. I’ve always liked Joe personally. We get along fine. But that’s because I always thought he was the sort of guy who’d REALLY be sorry about such an outburst.
Anyway, this mailing was an invitation to a “Welcome Home Reception” for Joe in West Columbia on Sept. 28 at Kenny Bingham’s house. One is asked to RSVP to fellow blogger Sunny Philips… and to contribute between $25 and $500, or more.
The “LET’S GO JOE!” seems an unfortunate choice of a battle cry. It sort of begs the opposition to come back with “Let Joe Go,” which has more of a ring to it. Maybe someone — someone other than Rob Miller — should have a party with that on the invitations, and welcome Joe home for good.
We don’t normally do celebrity news at bradwarthen.com (with rare exceptions), but I happened to run across this item via Twitter:
Although more and more brands, movie stars, sports figures, and other celebrities are moving to Twitter (Twitter) and Facebook as a way of interacting and sharing with fans, many of Hollywood’s A-List stars are still avoiding social networks.
George Clooney is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars — he’s handsome, congenial, and talented — and also Facebook-page free.
People.com reports that when asked about Facebook at the Toronto International Film Festival last Saturday, Clooney responded:
“I would rather have a prostate exam on live television by a guy with very cold hands than have a Facebook page.”
… and it inspired the above headline.
Of course, the message we are to take away is that George Clooney is such a big star that he doesn’t have to promote himself. Which is true. But he doesn’t have to be so snobby about it. I mean, it’s one thing for me to turn my nose up at celebrities, but they’re not supposed to do it right back at me…
The first time I met Rob Miller, he was still a captain in the United States Marine Corps. He was having breakfast at the Capital City Club with Samuel Tenenbaum and Bud Ferillo. They were talking with him about his plan to leave the Corps and run for Congress in the 2nd District. He was in civvies — a blue blazer and conservative tie, as I recall — but he was marked as a Marine by two things: His head was shaved, and he compulsively called every man he addressed “sir” in a way that made you feel like he was just barely containing himself from saluting. (Marines always do this, and I find it disconcerting. I’m a lousy civilian; I should be calling them “sir,” not the other way around.)
When next I met him, a few months later, his hair had just started to grow out, and he was both a civilian and a candidate for the 2nd Congressional District. About all I knew about him was that he had been a Marine, he was a combat veteran, having served two tours in Iraq, and he was Bobby Hitt’s nephew (I had worked for Bobby when he was managing editor of The State in the late 80s) — and that some prominent Democrats had taken an interest in his campaign, at least to some extent.
Other than that, he was a blank slate for me, so this interview did a lot to form my impression of him as a candidate. It was not a strong impression. I did not feel like he was ready to run for this office. He seemed uncertain in talking about why he was running, and had to grope for answers to questions that simply asked him to elaborate on what he had said in his opening remarks. He had this trouble in spite of having a little notebook with him, to which he repeatedly referred.
Now, in complete fairness to Capt. Miller: This was very early in his transition to civilian life. I thought he seemed more poised and confident later in the campaign, such as in the October debate with Joe Wilson that I helped moderate. (The header photo above is from that event.) Unfortunately, the link to that video no longer seems to work, and I lost everything that I had put on my laptop in September and October of that year when my laptop was stolen (although I don’t think I had anything on him from that period anyway). So the one thing I have to refer back to is this video from May of that year.
We did not endorse Capt. Miller in the primary, which is what this interview was about. We endorsed Blaine Lotz, who had had a somewhat more extensive military career than the captain (he had retired from the Air Force as a colonel), and a far greater grasp of national security issues — after the Air Force, he had a distinguished civilian career at the Pentagon specializing in intelligence, and in 1998 he was appointed by Secretary of Defense Cohen to be Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Oversight. Of course, he was still in that position under Donald Rumsfeld, for which S.C. Democrats were apparently unwilling to forgive him. Or maybe they didn’t even know that; he didn’t seem to get as much exposure in the campaign as did Capt. Miller. In any case, Miller won.
Even though he made a better impression in the fall, we still did what many of you will no doubt consider unforgivable — we endorsed Joe Wilson. It was a tepid endorsement, but an endorsement all the same. In that same editorial, we also endorsed Jim Clyburn (also unenthusiastically) and John Spratt (wholeheartedly). An excerpt:
Newcomer Rob Miller seems poised to give incumbent Joe Wilson a real contest this year. The Democrat is an ex-Marine, an Iraq combat veteran and a member of a prominent South Carolina family (his uncle used to be managing editor of this newspaper). He seemed uncertain about issues in the primary campaign, but still managed to beat a former Air Force general [I don’t know where that came from, since his bio online says he retired as a colonel] with an impressive resume. He has gained confidence in the intervening months with an aggressive, populist, anti-establishment message. Combine that with the Obama Effect, and you have a candidate with a chance.
But we endorse Republican Wilson, who demonstrates a greater command of the issues, and is much more attuned to the wishes of voters in the district’s gravitational center, Lexington County. Yes, he’s a hyper-Republican, and we’d like to see a less partisan candidate with competitive credentials. But Rep. Wilson is a hard-working, earnest representative who is truly devoted to serving his district and his country, and voters will be better served to re-elect him.
In the 6th District, we see both strong similarities and a stark difference. The similarity is that the incumbent, Jim Clyburn, is just as partisan as Mr. Wilson, and much more successful at it — he’s the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House, the majority whip. It’s his job to line up votes for Speaker Nancy Pelosi; he takes the job seriously and does it well.
Where this district, which runs from Richland County through the Pee Dee and down the I-95 corridor, differs from the 2nd is in the fact that Mr. Clyburn is strongly supported in every part of it. He is closely attuned to his district’s wants and needs, and passionately devoted to serving its people. Consequently, he faces weak opposition in Republican Nancy Harrelson, who is running on a populist platform in some ways similar to Mr. Miller’s.
We endorse Mr. Clyburn, a highly experienced and savvy public servant who is clearly better qualified.
By the way, about that reference to “a populist platform in some ways similar to Mr. Miller’s” — while he seemed more confident and polished by the fall, the persona he had adopted was that of the somewhat ticked-off champion of the common man, which was sufficiently at odds with his previously self-effacing junior-officer demeanor that it seemed contrived. At least, that’s the way I remember it. I wish I could find that video to check my memory.
Anyway, my point in sharing all this is to answer the question that a couple of folks have asked, which is, what do I mean when I say Rob Miller was unimpressive, and that I’m distressed that Joe Wilson’s outburst has now put so much money in his campaign coffers that it seems no other, stronger challenger is likely to emerge?
Again, I offer the caveat that this video is from very early, but this is how I initially formed my impression of Rob Miller. After that my impression was modified, but not entirely. Bottom line, I think it’s a lousy situation that here we are in the market for a replacement for Joe Wilson — a moment in which a challenger might have a chance — and the flood of money to Rob Miller (because he happened to be the guy standing there at the time) has probably precluded the possibility of a stronger candidate emerging.
With this week’s anniversary, all sorts of analysts will be telling us why they think Lehman Bros. went under. Why should I be left out?
My theory is simple: It was Richard Fuld‘s face. Fuld himself is said to harbor deep resentment (and he’s got a face built for it) that the gummint bailed out all the other kids on the block, but not him. I think it’s because the various officials involved in such a decision knew they’d have to draw the line somewhere, and Fuld’s perpetually glowering, arrogant, self-important visage was the deciding factor.
For the year or so leading up to last year’s collapse, I saw the image at right in The Wall Street Journal a lot, and in my mind, this one face had come to symbolize the very worst of the Wall Street “Master of the Universe” mentality. I suggest that I was not alone in this. If the bailout gravy train had to be stopped somewhere, there was no way this guy was going to get a helping hand to be the last one aboard. (There’s something a bit off about that metaphor, but I’m going to stick with it, because that’s what I think Richard Fuld would do, even if it meant running his entire thesis into the ground.)
Yeah, I know, people who understand a lot more about this situation than I do (such as people who, for instance, have a clue what in the heck people who worked at Lehman Bros. did for a living) can probably explain in detail why I’m wrong, citing all sorts of facts and figures and graphics with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, demonstrating conclusively that there were all sorts of objective reasons why Lehman was allowed to fail while others were not. I acknowledge that. But I’m pretty sure that one could also find a bunch of other knowledgeable analysts who could prove that the opposite was true.
What I’m saying is that, given all the highly complex variables involved, there was a point at which intangibles came into play. And I think the people making the final call were sick of this guy looking down his nose at them and the rest of the world — or they understood at least that if you had to pick a fall guy, Central Casting couldn’t have come up with one less likely to excite widespread public sympathy than this guy.
That made the decision a lot simpler than it would have been otherwise.
This is not a new theory for me; I’ve just refined it over the past year, and this seemed a good time to trot it out so you could admire it. Here’s what I said about the best-known image of Fuld’s face last year:
It was the sort of picture that no sane company publicist would ever have distributed, unless it wanted its CEO to be hated. And you knew this was a CEO; the picture just radiated, “I’m the kind of guy who thinks he’s really hot stuff because I’m so absurdly overcompensated.” And you know, I seldom think that when I look at people. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt (something that drives some of y’all crazy, because you’re always wanting me to join you in despising somebody, and I just don’t feel like it — not necessarily because I’m a nice guy; I just don’t feel like it). But this picture INSISTED that you not like the guy. If a psychologist included this photo in a Thematic Apperception Test, I suspect there would be a surprising uniformity in the stories the subjects would tell.
I found Lindsey Graham’s townhall meeting very interesting. While I disagree with him substantively about the subject at hand — health care reform — it’s always interesting to listen to him because he’s a smart guy who has a lot to offer to any policy question. In other words, while he clings loyally to support of Joe Wilson as a fellow Republican, he’s not a guy who’ll ever reduce his objections to a shouted “You Lie!”
Let’s dispense with the disagreement first — Sen. Graham fails to persuade when he says his crowd-pleasing things (Republican voters got calls at home asking them to come) about how we don’t want the gummint taking over any more of our lives. The argument that we can’t have a public option because the private sector can’t compete only condemns the private sector in my mind. The senator’s replies to the student who objected that private companies compete quite successfully with the Postal Service were weak. He got the crowd to cheer by mentioning the huge public subsidy the Postal Service needs to keep going, which to ME argues that its private competitors do just fine. He then argued that competition doesn’t work the same way in health care, which is true, which is why we can’t expect the market to solve our problems. (Lindsey agrees at least with that. He’s for regulation, not a new government entitlement program.)
But the senator repeatedly stressed how we should find things on which we agree and work from there — he talked about areas of agreement between him and Russ Feingold (who agrees with me that the way to go is single-payer) — and I know he means it, so I listen all the harder to what he has to say.
And I was fascinated with his central argument. It was this: It would cost too much. And he doesn’t trust the American people, including all the anti-gummint types in that room, to prevent the program’s costs from going out of control. He kept doing an interesting thing… he kept getting the crowd to cheer with assertions about how inept the gummint is, and how we don’t want it intruding any more into our lives, and then he’d ask how many people there were on Medicare (quite a few) and how many would voluntarily give it up (no one).
So basically, he repeatedly demonstrated that this crowd that was so willing to moan at the awful gummint and laugh ironically when Lindsey referred to Obama’s promises to control costs LOVES its gummint-provided health care — at least, those who have it do. He even said it fairly direction once: “Everybody clapping (at one of his shots against government), half of them are in a government plan.”
And the costs of that government plan, Medicare, are so out of control that he doesn’t want to create another program that would be JUST as popular, even among people who THINK they don’t like government programs, and that therefore would be just as costly, if not more so.
That’s what I heard, and it was interesting.
As he alluded more than once, Lindsey Graham walks a fine line, trying to be a moderate as a Republican from a beet-red state. Another time he said many who were applauding had tried to rip him a new one over immigration reform. He referred to having voted to confirm Justice Sotomayor. So it was fascinating to see him use populist techniques to get a crowd to support him on something where his position is that essentially, he doesn’t trust them, the people, not to support a program that would bankrupt us.
This, by the way, is why I won’t jump to run for office. I’m not sure I could maintain that balance between stroking people and leveling with them that you’re taking a position they may not love. I think I’d get fed up with it pretty fast.
Lindsey Graham doesn’t. And while I can see the contradictions inherent in what he’s doing, I can also respect him for being willing to wrestle with those contradictions — even when I believe that, substantively, he’s wrong on the issue.
Sigh. I really don’t want to have this argument with friends, especially not on the anniversary of 9/11, but I can’t let what Kathryn said over on Facebook stand without responding.
It was in reply to this post back here, in which I asserted that Democrats drag themselves down to Joe Wilson’s level when they respond to him by saying, “Bush lied.” I had thought it would be a teachable moment, in which I could say, See how bad y’all sounded over the past four years? See what it’s like when someone refuses to respect the president for partisan causes, declaring him and all he says illegitimate?
My good friend Kathryn responded:
Wait–Bush did lie, and got us into a war, and Obama didn’t lie last night at all–quite the contrary, and Wilson knew it according to the papers. Wilson was out of line and Democrats’ saying things today doesn’t put us on the level of a tantrum during the President’s speech either. Sorry.
To that, another friend, Randy Ewart, added:
I concur with Fenner – well said!
You know, I’d hoped we’d put this behind us when Bush went home to Texas. I certainly heaved a sigh of relief. I never liked the guy. I always resented the fact that he was president, when it should have been John McCain. (Remember how South Carolina ill-served the nation back in 2000?)
But the eight years of hatred that Democrats spewed at the guy, starting from the very beginning, with the Long Count in Florida, was an ugly thing to behold. And yes, it started that early. I remember a couple of conversations I had with Mike Fitts back in the summer of 2001, asking if he could explain the vitriol to me. It was obvious that Dems didn’t just disagree with the guy; they hated him. Which wasn’t good for the country. Yes, I had seen and decried the venom that Republicans had directed at Bill Clinton well before he’d had a chance to do anything to deserve it, too — I particularly recall the bumper stickers saying “Don’t Blame Me — I Voted for Bush” that cropped up on cars before his 1993 inauguration. But the reaction to Bush seemed to go even a step farther — and this was well before the “sins” that Democrats usually list when explaining their distaste for the man.
Oh, and I don’t recall Bush lying. Yes, I realize it’s an article of faith among y’all that he DID (what was it again — the WMD that he and everyone else firmly believed were there in Iraq, seeing as how he had actually USED some of them — or something else?), just as it is an article of faith among Republicans such as Joe Wilson that this president is lying when he tries to set the record straight. It is so important to them to conflate their twin bugaboos — “socialized medicine” and illegal immigration — that it is heresy for anyone (particularly the Chief Heretic) to suggest otherwise, heresy so foul that it wrings furious cries from their lips at inopportune moments.
(Just an aside: Isn’t it ironic that two men who have grabbed national attention by calling these two presidents liars are both named Joe Wilson? Oh, and that other Joe Wilson was wrong, too — the intel he brought back from Niger did NOT conclusively refute the yellowcake reports, according to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report.)
And I’m not even going to get into that “got us into a war” stuff, except to say that we were already IN a war. Argue whether we should have reopened the front in Iraq when we did, fine. But we were already in a war.
I know y’all mean what you say, but I’m sorry — I see an obvious symmetry between Joe calling this president a liar and y’all calling the last one the same.Y’all have your perspective as Democrats, and Joe has his as a Republican. And I have mine as founder of the UnParty, so consider the source.
Today I need your help more than ever before. I’ve been under attack by the liberal left for months because of my opposition to their policies, especially government-run healthcare. They’ve run commercials in my home district and flooded my office with phone calls and protestors. They’ve done everything they can to quiet my very vocal opposition to more government interference in our lives. Now, it’s gotten even worse.
But I will not stop fighting against their policies that will only lead to more government interference, more spending, and higher deficits.
But what about his apology, you ask? Well, he addresses that:
I am also frustrated by this, but watching my Democratic colleagues in Congress scoff at the protests of their constituents has made me even more infuriated. Unfortunately I let that emotion get the best of me and I reacted by speaking out during the President’s speech. I should not have disrespected the President by responding in that manner.
But I am not sorry for fighting back against the dangerous policies of liberal Democrats. America’s working families deserve to have their views represented in Washington, and I will do so with civility. But I will not back down.
Now, I need your help. Last night, the liberals used my outburst as a rallying cry behind my Democratic opponent. Some of the nation’s most liberal online activists have helped him raise over $400,000 in just a few short hours.
Look, Joe, I don’t like it that Rob Miller has pulled in all that money as a result of your foolishness, either. Rob Miller was a weak candidate for Congress, and having a treasure chest dumped in his lap this way could set him up to be your only viable opposition again next year, with similar results. There are (surely) better-qualified people in the 2nd District (not me, but somebody), and they are liable to be scared off by Miller sitting atop a mountain of money. But who made that happen? YOU did.
And the remedy for that is not to send money to you… That would be a logical response only if one believes that this never-ending left-right warfare, the very dynamic that caused you to act as you did last night, is a good thing, something we want to keep supporting with our cash.
Statement from Senator Lindsey Graham on President Obama’s Health Care Address to the Nation
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made this statement tonight after the presidential address.
“I was incredibly disappointed in the tone of his speech. At times I found his tone to be overly combative and believe he behaved in a manner beneath the dignity of the office. I fear his speech tonight has made it more difficult — not less — to find common ground.
“He appeared to be angry at his critics and disappointed the American people were not buying the proposals he has been selling. The president’s confrontational demeanor increased the emotional and political divide. I hope the President will learn that true bipartisanship begins with mutual respect. Criticism of a public official is to be expected and not all criticism is demagoguery.
“When it comes to the public option, the President is either being disingenuous or misinformed. The public option, contrary to the president’s claims, will eventually lead to a government takeover of our health care system.
“One could easily be led to believe tonight’s speech is the beginning of a ‘go it alone’ strategy. If the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats go down this path and push a bill on the American people they do not want, it could be the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency.”
On a Member of Congress Accusing the President of Telling a ‘Lie’:
“The president’s combative tone did not justify a Member of Congress shouting out ’you lie.’ Our nation’s president deserves to be treated with respect It was inappropriate remark and I am glad an apology has been made.”
#####
I’m proud of Sen. Graham, and of John McCain, for so clearly and unequivocally calling Joe Wilson down for his insupportable behavior. But given that Joe DID what he did, and any commentary on the president’s speech is unfortunately bound to be considered within that context, Lindsey’s release this morning just seems way off-base.
You’re “incredibly disappointed” by the president’s tone? The president was “overly combative?” He behaved in “a manner beneath the dignity of the office?” The president’s demeanor “increased the emotional and political divide?” He’s the one who needs to learn a lesson about “mutual respect?”
Say what?
This was definitely not the morning to release a statement like that.
Such is my respect for Sen. Graham that whenever I find myself disagreeing with him (or Joe Lieberman, or John McCain, or Joe Riley), I stop and think again: Could I be wrong on this? So I analyze my own reaction. I think, Maybe the president was too combative. Maybe I didn’t notice it because I’m so completely fed up with the lies and obstructionism that are threatening to kill our hopes for a decent health care system in this country yet again. Maybe that’s what makes me think the president was, if anything, overly deferential to those who don’t give a damn about our health care, but want to see this issue be Obama’s “Waterloo,” because partisan advantage is more important to them than the good of the nation…
So I run those thoughts through my head, and then I think, Nah, this time Lindsey’s just wrong. That can happen, you know…
The answer to the above question is an emphatic “No!” I mean, I need a job, but let’s not get carried away — I don’t need one badly enough to dive into all that partisan foolishness in Washington.
But I offer the question, upon which I elaborate in the above video, as an illustration of the kinds of crazy thoughts that can occur to one when faced with such displays as the one Joe Wilson put on last night.
I hear that in response to Joe’s acting out, his opponent in the last election, Rob Miller, pulled in buckets of campaign contributions since last night. Rob Miller is a nice young man, and I’m truly grateful for his service to his country in combat as a United States Marine, but he was a decidedly unimpressive congressional candidate in ’08.
Surely there’s somebody out there, someone better than Rob Miller and far better than me, who can offer us a real choice in 2010. Surely…
A number of Democrats — well-meaning folk, mostly — have been showing their own fannies over on Twitter and Facebook by responding to Joe Wilson by saying, “Bush lied.” Yes, they really are. You push this partisan button on them, and they come out with that automatically. Examples:
Where was Joe when W was standing there lying through his teeth about WMD, etc?
Isn’t yelling You Lie! at Obama after 8 years of Bush like requesting Freebird after Lynard Skynard has left the stadium?
Do they not see that, rather than highlighting Joe’s sin, they are demonstrating that they’re on his level? Can’t they stop and realize, “Oh, that’s what WE sounded like for the past 8 years… gosh, that’s embarrassing.”
But they don’t. They actually believe that when THEY do it, they’re standing up for truth and right.
When I see stuff like this — Joe’s outburst; the response of many Democrats — I lose hope for my country. This is what will cause our noble experiment in self-government to fail.
But then I’m encouraged when I read this Tweet from Anton Gunn, an Obama acolyte who truly believes in bipartisanship:
The level of partisanship is off the meter today. People don’t get it. If you row backwards and I row forward, we just spin in circles.
Last night, before I had heard what Joe Wilson had done (I had heard the hubbub, but neither made out “You lie!” not identified the shouter), I was already complaining about the far more civil, formal, GOP response.
The thing is, I always hate listening to those things. I hated them when Bush was president, and Clinton before him. Always just a pointless, nonconstructive exercise in perpetual partisan polarization. Does your party want to be heard during presidential addresses? Well then win the next presidential election.
Rather than having the opposition statement, the networks should just run the Groucho Marx clip, which says the same thing more honestly and more entertainingly: “I don’t know what they have to say; it makes no difference anyway: Whatever it is, I’m against it!” In fact, let’s go ahead and reproduce the lyrics in full:
[Groucho]
I don’t know what they have to say,
It makes no difference anyway,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I’m against it.
Your proposition may be good,
But let’s have one thing understood,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it.
I’m opposed to it,
On general principle, I’m opposed to it.
[chorus] He’s opposed to it.
In fact, indeed, that he’s opposed to it!
[Groucho]
For months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night to morn,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
And I’ve kept yelling since I first commenced it,
I’m against it!
It’s even, of all things, more gentlemanly than what we see from Washington these days. Who would have dreamed, ere now, that Groucho Marx, the master insult artist, could give civility lessons to South Carolina congressmen?
Seriously, if the opposition party — whichever one it happens to be at the moment — would simply surrender its response time and let the TV folk run this clip instead, I would think much more of that party than I do now.
Did you know there was a BobbyHarrell.com? Well, there is. And if you go there, you can read the Speaker’s letter calling on the governor to resign. There’s audio, too.
The Speaker of the House calling on the governor to resign is a significant step — or would be, if we thought there was the slightest chance the governor would listen to the Speaker or anyone else in South Carolina.
But I tend to focus on funny things. Such as this one little thing that the governor said on Keven Cohen’s show yesterday:
Bottom line, I was gone over that weekend.
Let’s see — he left on Thursday, came back on Wednesday, and that’s a weekend? Maybe in Argentina, but not here…
The fourth, alas, was an image all too familiar. I didn’t particularly want to see what it led to, but I followed the link, which was to a letter to the editor of that newspaper. A letter about us, or at least about one of us. And what do folks in California have on their minds when they take up pen to write about one of us? An excerpt: “Similar vitriol and disrespect was the norm from Southern politicians during the years and months leading up to the American Civil War. I fear we may be headed down a similar path, toward disunion, given the tone of our political dialogue since the 2008 national election.”
