Yes, I know that a blog with readers scattered all over the place is not the best way to find a dog that probably hasn’t gone far, but I figure while this may reach thousands who can’t help me, it could also reach one or two who can.
Worth a try. It’s easier for me to broadcast than narrowcast.
Tonight, we went out to dinner, having no clue that the weather was going to turn bad. It stormed while we were downtown. The dog is terrified of thunder and lightning. We got home before 7:30, and found that our invisible fence had been knocked out by the storm, and Guy — that’s his name — was gone. Which was really weird. The fence has failed before, and he’s never gone anywhere. He was probably looking for us.
Since he never roams, we’re afraid he won’t know how to find his way back.
We spent hours driving all over the neighborhood — we live between Lexington Medical Center and the Saluda River, in Quail Hollow — and then driving over the same roads again, then gradually expanding the search perimeter to way beyond where we thought he might have gone. Holler “Guy” and whistling, and saying, “Where are you, boy?” over and over. Eventually, I drove up and down busy 378. No sign.
We gave up the noisy search when we realized the neighbors were going to bed. Since there was still thunder and lightning in the distance, we figured he was hiding somewhere that he thought safe.
Here’s what I put on the posters:
Please help us find our dog, “Guy.”
He ran away during the rainstorm when we weren’t home Monday (Aug. 29) evening, when the power to our invisible fence failed.
He’s a black mixed breed with long hair. He has a mottled black-and-pink tongue (part chow). He weighs about 70 pounds. He’s VERY gentle, and terrified of thunder. He’s 11 years old. He’s wearing two collars – one red, with tags, the other a blue invisible fence collar. His fur is slightly shorter than shown in these pictures.
If anyone in this area reads this and has seen a dog answering this description, don’t be afraid of him. Please respond via comment, Twitter, Facebook or email — bradwarthen.com. I’ll be monitoring all of those media.
After Lindsey Graham spoke to the Columbia Rotary Club on Monday, I was unable to find time the rest of the working week to go back through all my notes and video and put together a report for you here. It did occur to me just to post something quick so I could put it on my Virtual Front Page that day — but there was nothing that jumped out at me as a headline. There was no quick, wire-service-type lede in the speech to me.
So it was with interest that I looked at the story Adam Beam wrote for The State the next day:
S.C. Sen. Graham: U.S. should spend more on foreign aid
Adam Beam – The State (Columbia, S.C.)
COLUMBIA, S.C. — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday called on the U.S. government to send more money to Middle East countries in turmoil to push them toward democracy.
Speaking to the Columbia Rotary Club, Graham — the ranking Republican on a Senate foreign policy subcommittee — said he is working on a $1 billion package of aid for Egypt before that country’s November elections.
“Egypt is the prize to be won,” said Graham, R-Seneca. “Foreign aid is a very complicated, controversial topic, particularly when you’re broke. But … it is good for the American people and the American government to reach out and help those who live in peace with us.
“Find me an example where two democracies went to war,” he added. “Democracies have a way, through the rule of law, of working out their problems.”
As I read it, I thought, Yes, that’s a perfectly adequate news angle, if you need to write a story out of the speech. And it underlined for me just how long it’s been since I thought like a reporter. From a news perspective, that works — it’s timely; it summarizes an important point from the speech. But to an editorialist, which I’ve been since 1994, there was nothing new to say about it. Because the essence of what he was saying was so predictable.
I’ve grown accustomed to Sen. Graham saying things that make sense about foreign affairs — and about the importance of engagement in the world, and how important it is to do what we can to foster civil institutions in areas of the world that are both dangerous and of strategic importance to us. He talks about this sort of thing all of the time. So when he states the patently obvious truth that even when we are experiencing tough economic times at home, we can’t cut back on our efforts to help these countries move beyond tyranny.
So when I’m listening to him say things like that — and it was just an informal, rambling talk about things on his mind, as you can see from the video — I’m unsurprised. I’m like, Yeah, that’s the kind of thing he would say about this. And I barely touch on it in my notes.
What would have jumped out at me, and concerned me, would have been if he had said something that seemed uncharacteristic, something like his statement awhile back about the children of illegals. But he didn’t. Which is just as well, since I had to leave before the meeting ended for another appointment, and couldn’t stay after to ask a WTF-type question.
Well, anyway, this being Saturday, I’ve made time to edit you a clip from the speech — it includes the part that the headline on Adam’s story dealt with. Here are some other things his speech touched on:
“Tax reform I think is gonna happen… I hope and pray that the Bowles-Simpson plan could be modified and adopted, and Republicans and Democrats, sooner rather than later, can fundamentally change the tax code.”
“To me, the best thing that we could do as Republicans and Democrats is to come up with a rational Energy Plan that would create jobs in this country and make us energy-independent.” He went on to advocate drilling for gas off the coast of SC. “After the Gulf experience, we all should be concerned,” but “the risk of doing nothing (is that) you become more dependent on fossil fuels from more dangerous parts of the world.” “A low-carbon economy is coming, that that’ll be a good thing. But we are a generation or two away.”…”When we ceased production in the Gulf, after the oil spill, we didn’t stop using oil, did we? What did we do? We bought more of it from people who hate our guts.” He saw the possibility for the U.S. to become natural-gas independent.
He also noted that Japan should not prevent us from developing more nuclear power, “sooner rather than later.”
“Entitlement reform has to be bipartisan and has to be done quickly.”
He returned, near the end, to the importance of”taking those who would live in peace with us, and give them a chance,” and “staying involved in a very dangerous world.”
Another thing I would have wanted to ask him about if I could have stuck around is why he pulled out of the deal he and Joe Lieberman were working on with John Kerry to create just the sort of Energy Party-style plan that he still says is so essential. I’ve never yet heard a good explanation of that.
When I get him on the Brad Show one day (I hope soon), I’ll ask about that.
By JIM DAVENPORT – Associated Press
SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann got her Elvis Presley dates all shook up during a campaign stop Tuesday in South Carolina.
The congresswoman from Minnesota played the Elvis tune “Promised Land” at a local restaurant and told the crowd of 300 that she wanted to say happy birthday to the king of rock ‘n’ roll.
“Before we get started, let’s all say happy birthday to Elvis Presley today!” Bachmann said.
But Aug. 16 is the anniversary of Elvis’ death, in 1977, and someone in the crowd shouted back, “He died today!”
Bachmann didn’t respond and launched into her speech….
You can’t let hecklers distract you, of course. She later explained why her error wasn’t an error:
“As far as we’re concerned, he’s still alive in our hearts,” Bachmann said.
After all, she saw him coming out of the Krispy Kreme just the other day. I guess.
Perry to announce candidacy in S.C. (The State) — Normally, I wouldn’t play something that hasn’t yet happened this big. But this is big enough that I plan to attend the event in Charleston, so watch for coverage. And here’s The Washington Post‘s assessment of the importance of the event. The NYT is also making a big deal of it, playing this advance high on the main web page. Also of interest is the fact that he’ll be here on the day of the Iowa straw poll.
Obama Seeks To Rekindle Campaign Passion In 2012(NPR) — With all the news the GOP field is making, I thought you might be interested in this step-back look at the Democratic incumbent’s strategy. This line kind of captures Obama’s situation: “‘Lesser of two evils’ hardly reflects the burning passion people felt for Obama in 2008.”
I guess all those white Tea Partiers look alike to him.
Minutes ago, he put out this release with the above video:
Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn appointed to debt-reduction subcommittee.
Five South Carolina Republican Congressmen are not.
Columbia, SC — The South Carolina Democratic Party released the following statement and video about Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn’s appointment to the debt-reduction supercommittee:
“South Carolina can be proud to be represented by Congressman Jim Clyburn. He’s helping pull us back from the financial abyss after the Republican Tea Party Downgrade. Republicans took the economy hostage with their debt ceiling brinksmanship and South Carolina’s five Republicans helped lead the charge. Because of their political stunt, all Americans are seeing a downgrade in their savings and investments. Meanwhile, Democrats like Jim Clyburn are cleaning up their mess.”
There’s one problem: The pictures of Jeff Duncan and Trey Gowdy are reversed in the video.
For future reference, below you see Gowdy with Judge Joe Anderson after the former spoke to the Columbia Rotary Club on Monday…
Somebody tell Navin Johnson I just fell off the grid. I’m guessing I’m not a real person any more, because I no longer have a landline.
On Saturday, we called AT&T and dropped our home phone service AND more than 90 percent of our cable TV. We had just recently signed up for Uverse, and it included three months free HBO and several other services, and I was watching a LOT of HDTV. Too much.
I won’t be doing that anymore. Now, we have the local broadcast channels (which I almost never watch), and a few random junk channels. There’s no HD (and I can hardly bear to watch standard def anymore), no 24-hour news channels, and no sports. The latter two aren’t much of a loss for me. I recently discovered I will watch sports in HD, when I didn’t before, just for the spectacle — about as clear a case of the medium being the message as one is likely to find. And y’all know how I hate 24/7 TV “news.”
What does get to me is losing all the movie channels. The things I tended to watch the most were American Movie Classics (“Mad Men!” — which I won’t get to see at all now!), Turner Classic Movies, TBS and TNT — along with FX and a few others. And the HBO selections were pretty dazzling. Since we signed up for AT&T last month (after dropping Time Warner), I had spent a LOT of time on HBO. When I wasn’t watching a movie, I was recording one, or two, or three, on the DVR.
But part of the point here was that I was spending too much time on TV, period. I’ve got shelves of books I want to read and haven’t touched. I need to get to them. What has worried me lately is that I didn’t even want to get to them, as much as I should. Sure sign of brain rot.
What else did we give up? The phone number we’ve had since moving to Columbia in 1987. The one our kids had growing up. The one that was the reference point for so many different kinds of accounts all over town. I’m bracing myself for the first situation in which someone is calling up my account and says “What’s your home phone number?” And I have to say I don’t have one. (I also worry that someone might NEED to reach me, and has no way of finding me other than through published listings.) Now, I realize that’s not any kind of deal to my kids or their contemporaries. None of them live at home, and not one of them has a land line. But a land line — as irritating as it was, since nothing came in on it but telemarketers — was one of those things that said you were a grownup, you were rooted, you were established. I think that’s why so many people who HATE answering their land lines on the rare occasions when they ring still pay that monthly bill. Not doing so would make them feel — insubstantial, ethereal, not really there.
But NOT paying a bill for something I wasn’t using just didn’t seem a smart option anymore, so we pulled the trigger on the service.
There were a number of factors in the decision:
Too much TV. The temptation to watch it was too great. I was losing sleep staying up watching it — that happens when what you’re into is movies.
I was paying for Netflix, and wasn’t watching it at all any more. And didn’t want to give that up. And since I still have the Internet, I can still stream that, and that provides more TV than I’ll ever need.
The upcoming deadline for dropping the AT&T service without penalty. We had 30 days since we signed up, and about a week left of that. So a decision needed to be made.
The S&P downgrade of the U.S. credit rating. OK, that’s an oversimplification, but that was sort of the last straw. It was really a) our failure really to recover from the 2008 crash; b) my getting laid off in 2009; c) the fact that, after a reasonably encouraging start, it seems harder to sell ads on my blog, which beyond the way it hurts my bank account, is indicative to me of people being tighter and tighter with their money; d) the political failure to come to grips with debt last week, and knowing that even if we had, it would have meant cutting more spending and raising taxes, which both tend to cool the economy; e) the turmoil in markets Thursday and Friday, which to me reflected less the usual fact that traders are feckless, fearful jitterbugs, and more the larger situation; f) the debt crisis in Europe and its long-term implications; and g) the downgrading of the credit rating. I didn’t figure any of us was going to be making any more money anytime soon, so spending all this on HD movies (as cool as they are) and telemarketing calls was ridiculous.
As you can see, it takes a lot to make me give up my HD.
I got up Saturday morning thinking that if we were going to move before the AT&T deadline, we had to move soon. And then, right after writing this post about the S&P thing, I told my wife I thought we needed to do it. She got on the phone immediately, because as far as she was concerned, we just had all that stuff for me, anyway.
Here’s the really bad news in all this: You know how much I saved? About $64 a month. That’s all. Which is why so few people actually take this step. Our bundle — high-speed Internet, phone, TV — was $150 a month. You would think you could get Internet service and the local broadcast channels (which is probably about 5 percent of what I was getting) pretty cheap, right? But the new total is $86. My wife — who writes the checks at our house — is pleased with that. I am not. I feel like I’ve given up so much, they should probably be paying ME for the loss.
After President Dwight D. Eisenhower revealed on national television that one of the four “great Americans” whose pictures hung in his office was none other than Robert E. Lee, a thoroughly perplexed New York dentist reminded him that Lee had devoted “his best efforts to the destruction of the United States government” and confessed that since he could not see “how any American can include Robert E. Lee as a person to be emulated, why the President of the United States of America should do so is certainly beyond me.” Eisenhower replied personally and without hesitation, explaining that Lee was, “in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. … selfless almost to a fault … noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history. From deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities … we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.”
The piece goes on to explain in detail why Lee became a revered memory, without trying, while others such as Jefferson Davis who so avidly sought justification failed.
It’s interesting. I actually haven’t finished it yet. Y’all can read it while I do.
Bachmann Staff Reportedly Rough Up Journalist Asking Migraine Question
“I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event.”
UPDATE #2: It appears as though Bachmann’s camp is now literally pushing back.
Time magazine reports that Bachmann’s staff appeared to rough up an ABC News reporter Tuesday who was following Bachmann in an attempt to get the White House hopeful to answer a question about whether she ever missed a House vote as a result of her migraines.
The alleged incident happened at a campaign rally in Aiken, S.C., after Bachmann ignored ABC’s Brian Ross’ original question.
Time’s Michael Crowley explains:
Ross pursued her into a parking area behind the stage. Her aides grew alarmed. When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force. In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one. Ross was finally able to break away and lob his question at Bachmann one more time, but she ignored him again.
Afterward, I asked Ross — a hard-nosed pro who nevertheless seemed slightly shaken — whether he had ever been treated so roughly. “A few times,” he told me. “Mostly by mafia people.”
We should note that Ross has his own story up now on ABCNews.com about Bachmann and her migraines, but the report stops well short of describing the alleged manhandling, instead saying only that Bachmann’s staff “blocked reporters.”…
Maybe I should have gone to that thing she was having at the Christian Chamber of Commerce today. I couldn’t go, though, because I was busy at a Jewish Chamber of Commerce event. OK, not really. I think it was when I was meeting with Cameron. I don’t know; there was some sort of conflict when I saw the calendar item yesterday.
Just in case you hadn’t noticed, no one has elected Grover Norquist to anything. Still, he looms as a major obstacle to Congress reaching a deficit-reduction agreement needed to raise the federal debt ceiling. Norquist heads Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group that has persuaded 41 senators and 236 representatives (all but three of them Republicans) to sign its “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” opposing any tax increase. If Congress eliminates special-interest tax breaks, the pledge requires that they be “matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”
It’s astounding the way this malignant extremist has the power to mesmerize politicians into obedience to him and to his will, without regard to the interests of their constituents.
He has long been the reason why we can’t revamp our rickety, inadequate, illogical and unfair tax system in South Carolina — because too many SC lawmakers have promised Norquist that they won’t ever raise a tax (which of course, you would inevitably do with some taxes, while lowering or eliminating others, in comprehensive reform). What their constituents want or need has always paled in comparison to their horror at the idea of letting ol’ Grover down.
I’ve met the guy. I can’t imagine what inspires such slavish loyalty. Surely they can’t fear him that much.
I had thought his influence was waning in recent years, and a reasonable person would think he was pretty much discredited recently. But this isn’t about anything that reasonable people would understand.
The governor’s memoir is one thing. We don’t expect much from it, and we probably won’t be disappointed. But there was a time when I expected something from the nation’s leading newspapers. I still do, from some. But it looks like The New York Times has fallen down on the job. Big-time.
I thought that maybe, after all the hagiographic, fawning coverage the national media had given our governor during the election campaign last year (“She’s a woman! An Indian-American woman! In the South! And she’s a reformer — she said so!”), that maybe the NYT was starting to get it when they subtitled a piece awhile back, with this bitter truism: “Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, doesn’t care what you think.”
But over the weekend, the Times came out with a piece that was worse, shallower, more sycophantic, than anything we saw last year. The lede:
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Nikki Haley, at 39 the nation’s youngest governor, loves her iPod.
It gets worse from there. Get this:
She has built a governorship on aggressive budget cutting, a relentless pursuit of job growth and a cheerleader’s enthusiasm for a state that often finishes toward the back of the pack in education, economics and health.
“We are now what every state is going to want to look like,” Ms. Haley said in an interview in her office almost six months into her administration.
I don’t even know what it means. Does it mean that she cheers for the fact that her state “finishes toward the back of the pack in education, economics and health,” and that she thinks other states envy us because of that? The first part may be accurate, but could even Nikki Haley think the second part?
Check this:
She has repeatedly said she is not interested in being a vice-presidential running mate on the 2012 Republican ticket, but her name is already etched into the list of future party leaders.
And etched in our hearts, as well. And this:
Back home, legislators say her administration is a refreshing change from the tumultuous days of her predecessor, Mark Sanford, whose uncooperative relations with elected officials is legend around the Statehouse. She has also received good marks for fighting to lowerMedicaid costs and for many of her cabinet appointments.
No really, it actually says that. Whom did they talk to? Which legislators said she was a “refreshing change,” or any kind of a change?
“You can feel the energy. You can feel the buzz,” she said. “It’s because people are incredibly excited about their government and elected officials are incredibly scared and it’s a beautiful thing.”
And that’s really the way she thinks. So that part was right. It didn’t tell us anything new, but it was accurate.
Editor of Lez Get Real outs himself as a retired military man from Ohio.
Seriously, gentleman, this is getting ridiculous.
One day after the author behind the popular “A Gay Girl in Damascus” blog admitted to being a married American man, the editor of the lesbian news site Lez Get Real came forward to acknowledge that he is also a married man and not “Paula Brooks” as he had claimed since the site’s founding in 2008.
Bill Graber, a 58-year-old retired military man, admitted to the Washington Post that he had been using his wife’s online identity without her knowledge to run the site, which has “A Gay Girls’ View on the World” tagline.
“I didn’t start this with my name because… I thought people wouldn’t take it seriously, me being a straight man,” he told the paper….
I have nothing to say about this, beyond what I said in the headline (which is not original; I think I heard somebody say that on TV, making fun of straight guys’ fantasies about lesbianism).
I suddenly remembered — a fellow editor, another guy, I worked with back in the ’80s (long before there was a blogosphere) used to joke that he was going to chuck it all and and take up writing lesbian pornography. That same editor used to be a regular commenter on this blog. But we haven’t heard from him lately…
Newt Gingrich’s campaign manager and a half-dozen senior advisers resigned on Thursday, two aides said, dealing a significant setback to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and severely complicating his hopes for a political comeback.
Mr. Gingrich’s campaign manager, Rob Johnson, his longtime spokesman, Rick Tyler, and advisers in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina stepped down together after a period of deep internal disagreements about the direction of the campaign.
Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker who has been fighting to regain his political footing after a rough campaign roll-out last month, had been absent from the campaign trail for about two weeks on what aides had described as a long-planned vacation. He made his return on Wednesday in New Hampshire, a day before the resignations were announced….
Among those quitting was South Carolina’s own Katon Dawson:
The defections included several veteran Gingrich political advisers as well as recently hired aides. The list, according to two aides, included David Carney, a political strategist based in New Hampshire; Sam Dawson, a strategist; Katon Dawson, a consultant in South Carolina; and Craig Schoenfeld, a consultant in Iowa.
You may wonder why they all suddenly quit. I don’t wonder. I assume that one day recently, all of a sudden, all these folks realized: Whoa! We’re working for Newt Gingrich. And immediately decided to quit.
Of course, they might tell a different story. I’ll ask Katon when I see him…
That’s because left and right agree — they don’t like to see the president act pragmatically and forcefully.
Ms. Maddow is onto something, too — from her ideological perspective. The thing is, Mr. Obama is just as determined to pursue the War on Terror as a war, rather than as a series of disconnected criminal prosecutions, as was George W. Bush. Oh, he wouldn’t have gone into Iraq. But that, as folks who opposed that incursion so often point out, was an optional move. There are other ways to pursue the war. And Mr. Obama embraces them.
The key, for Ms. Maddow, is that Mr. Obama is acting extralegally — because he’s treating those implicated in terrorism differently from the way we treat the accused within our criminal justice system. She is particularly indignant because the president has articulated a policy of “prolonged detention” of certain individuals to prevent them from committing crimes in the future — in other words, to prevent acts of terror before they happen, rather than reacting and cleaning up afterward. He’s acting, you know, pre-emptively. She equates this to “Minority Report.”
Yes, this is different from the way we treat the accused within our criminal justice system. No doubt about it. Although it is similar in one way: The most practical point of incarceration is to protect the community — to prevent someone inclined to violence, for instance, from doing it again. Yes, there is the retributive factor. But if you believe as I do that we really shouldn’t lock up people who don’t pose a threat — it’s wasteful, economically destructive, and it elevates revenge above practicality — it changes your perspective.
If Ms. Maddow read the piece I read yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, she’d likely be more alarmed, and for reasons that go beyond due process. I cited it in a comment yesterday, and perhaps it deserves a wider airing. Note these several passages from the piece, which is about how unprecedented cooperation between the CIA and the military produced the raid that killed Osama bin Laden…
First passage:
A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the mission planning shows that this meeting helped define a profound new strategy in the U.S. war on terror, namely the use of secret, unilateral missions powered by a militarized spy operation. The strategy reflects newfound trust between two traditionally wary groups: America’s spies, and its troops.
The bin Laden strike was the strategy’s “proof of concept,” says one U.S. official.
This month’s military strike deep inside Pakistan is already being used by U.S. officials as a negotiating tool—akin to, don’t make us do that again—with countries including Pakistan thought to harbor other terrorists. Yemen and Somalia are also potential venues, officials said, if local-government cooperation were found to be lacking…
Second passage:
Officials and experts say the new U.S. approach will likely be used only sparingly. “This is the kind of thing that, in the past, people who watched movies thought was possible, but no one in the government thought was possible,” one official said.
On Sunday, President Barack Obama said in an interview with the BBC that he would be willing to authorize similar strikes in the future. “Our job is to secure the United States,” he said….
Third passage:
Kicking planning into higher gear, the president reviewed these options at a March 14 meeting of the National Security Council. Among his first decisions was to scotch the idea of gathering more intelligence to make sure they had found bin Laden. The potential gain was outweighed by the risk of being exposed.
Mr. Obama also rejected a joint Pakistani operation, officials say. There was no serious consideration of the prospect, said one administration official, given the desire for secrecy…
One more:
When the National Security Council met again eight days later. Mr. Obama gave a provisional go-ahead for the helicopter raid. But he worried the plan for managing the Pakistanis was too flimsy.
The U.S. had little faith that, if U.S. forces were captured by the Pakistanis, they would be easily returned home…
Mr. Obama directed Adm. McRaven to develop a stronger U.S. escape plan. The team would be equipped to fight its way out and would have two helicopters on stand-by in case of an emergency.
It all sounds pretty solid to me, but if you believe, as Ms. Maddow does, that everything that W. and Dick Cheney did in pursuing this war — including their tendency toward “unilateral” action (which is not mentioned in the above video but which really, really bugs a lot of people who share Ms. Maddow’s views) was anathema, then you’re going to be pretty disturbed.
Also, there is the intelligence aspect. Essential to the views of many who opposed the Iraq invasion is that “Bush lied,” when what he did was choose which intelligence to believe, and act upon it — something that commanders have had to do throughout history. It’s what Obama did when he decided that the risk of exposure was not worth gathering further intel before proceeding, even though the presence of bin Laden was not assured, and “Mr. Gates, the defense secretary, was skeptical of the intelligence case that bin Laden was at the compound.” (Only at the very last minute — April 28 — did Mr. Gates get on board and endorse the mission.)
No, one raid isn’t the same as invading Iraq — at least, not in terms of scale. But in terms of strategic effect, even such a small-scale incursion on the core territory of an ally is pretty dramatic, and profoundly risky.
Obama could have been wrong. But he was right to make the calls he did. And one is tempted to say that in some ways, the main difference between him and Mr. Bush is that he has been more successful — at least in this instance.
As for due process — Mr. Obama has realized that taking all those people and treating them as domestic criminals is a lot harder, and less practical, than he had believed. Such realization — and acting upon it effectively in spite of one’s campaign rhetoric — is the mark of a true leader. You know, a Decider. Which I realize ticks off a lot of people who voted for him enthusiastically in 08. But it makes me more likely to vote for him in ’12. And it makes it far less likely that the Republicans will be able to come up with anyone who can beat him.
Because it’s not just the economy, stupid. Commander in chief matters.
Got yet another one of those irritating fundraising emails from the national Democrats. This one, after bragging about getting $212,231 from having whipped up the faithful over the GOP’s “reprehensible anti-choice bill that could force sexual assault victims to recount their attack to an IRS auditor,” sought an emotional reaction over another topic:
Republicans are still backing an outrageous plan to end Medicare while preserving tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and Big Oil companies making record profits. I even received an e-mail from the Republican National Committee asking me to show my support for deep cuts to the health care benefits that seniors have earned. Not a chance.
But the thing that got me, as it has before, was that the author was Robby Mook, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s executive director.
Which always makes me think of the scene below. Language warning: “Mook” is far from being the most offensive term used in this clip. We’re talking language I don’t let people use on this blog, normally. But hey, it’s Scorcese:
Columbia, SC (WLTX) — The national spotlight will shine on South Carolina politics again, but this time, it’s all in good fun.
Some of the funniest men in Hollywood right now are teaming up to poke fun at politics and The Palmetto State.
Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis will start shooting on their new film “Southern Rivals” this fall. It’s about two southern policiticians in a small district in South Carolina who are competing for the same spot.
Jay Roach, known for directing “Austin Powers” and “Meet the Parents,” will direct the film. The movie is expected to be released right before the 2012 election.
Yeah, Will Ferrell seems about our speed. I hope it’s more like “Old School” (and what could be more old school than SC politics) than “Semi-Pro”…
The answer to the question, by the way, is “Nobody.” The Beatles had 20 No. 1 hits. Hal Blaine had 39.
Yes, Hal Blaine, of the Wrecking Crew, a group of 30 or so L.A.-area studio musicians — including Glen Campbell and Leon Russell (the Master of Space and Time) — whom the studios called when they didn’t want to waste money, and wanted to get it right on the first take. As the story says,
Many baby boomers still remember the outrage that followed a magazine’s revelation in 1967 that the Monkees didn’t play on all of their recordings. It turns out that neither did the Beach Boys, the Mamas & the Papas, the Byrds, the Association, Jan & Dean and dozens of other rock groups of the era. That honor belongs to Mr. Blaine and the Wrecking Crew…
If rock is about a beat, and a beat is about the drums, then the 82-year-old Mr. Blaine is arguably one of America’s greatest living rock musicians. Wednesday marks 50 years since he recorded his first No. 1 hit—Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Mr. Blaine went on to appear on 38 additional chart-toppers, including the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the Mamas & the Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and the Carpenters’ “(They Long to Be) Close to You.”
Now, I’m not particularly surprised to hear that studio professionals backed the Mamas & the Papas or Jan & Dean. You sort of assume that. And of course, you know that’s not just Paul Simon’s acoustic guitar you’re hearing on “Mrs. Robinson.”
But other things Mr. Blaine played on were more startling. For instance… the beat behind Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound.”
Take, for instance, “Be My Baby.” Go listen to it. Yeah, it’s all about the drums. And Hal Blaine was playing those drums. He claims that sound was an accident:
“The beat I used on the Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’ was actually a mistake,” Mr. Blaine said. “I was supposed to play more of a boom-chicky-boom beat, but my stick got stuck and it came out boom, boom-boom chick. I just made sure to make the same mistake every few bars.”
To come up with the right hit-making drum beat for each recording, Mr. Blaine insisted on hearing a group sing through a song first, often backed by just a piano. “A song is a story, and I wanted to hear how the lyrics were phrased and where the drama was,” he said. “Then I’d add a beat and sound that snapped.”
“Be My Baby.” Maybe the best pop song ever, the one that Martin Scorcese chose to lead off “Mean Streets,” which Gene Sculatti so rightly praised, in the awesome Catalog of Cool (one of my favorite books ever, regrettably out of print) as the “Best use of rock ‘n’ roll in a motion picture…”
It was all huge secret in those days, one no one had a motive to give away:
An unspoken pact kept Mr. Blaine and the Wrecking Crew a secret hit-making machine. “Teens wanted to believe that their idols on the TV and stage were the ones playing on the records, record companies didn’t want to spoil the party, and we wanted to keep earning,” Mr. Blaine said. “No one said a word.”
Some may be scandalized by this. Not me. I sort of like knowing that, as semi-talented one-hit wonders came and went, there was a cadre of professionals coming to work every day and getting the job done. I like the fact that, while the kids fronting them made the big bucks, this pros earned a living. And they really worked for it:
At his busiest, Mr. Blaine played on as many as seven studio sessions a day, moving effortlessly from the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” to Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night.” The story of the ’60s-rock studio scene has been documented in “The Wrecking Crew,” a newly completed film that is awaiting funding for song licensing. Its director is Denny Tedesco, son of Tommy Tedesco, the group’s late guitarist. “All that music was just notes on a page until these musicians gave them punch and excitement,” Denny Tedesco said.
Mr. Blaine played on about 5,000 songs, some of them being your favorite oldies. The stars were cool with it. Dennis Wilson didn’t mind that it was really Mr. Blaine playing “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” As Mr. Blaine explained it:
I liked learning this. You may have already known about it, but I thought that it you didn’t, you’d enjoy learning it, too.
By the way, there’s a film called “The Wrecking Crew” that’s finished but not yet commercially released. Because they haven’t come up with the money to pay the royalties on all those songs…
So the Arab League asks the world to intervene in Libya, and set up a no-fly zone so that Qaddafi can’t use aircraft to murder his people so effectively. (“Arab League Endorses No-Flight Zone Over Libya,” NYT, one week ago.)
This has a big impact. It accelerates the global consensus to the point that the UN act quickly — for the UN, anyway — to approve such a measure, and the next day the POTUS delivers the ultimatum, and the day after that, the nations capable of carrying out such a thing start the operation.
To which I respond, Um… make up your minds, guys. This is what you asked for.
And how could they have not known that? I can understand how someone who doesn’t know anything at all about military operations, and hasn’t even thought about it, might think Western nations are SO powerful than they can just wave a magic wand and clear the skies of bad airplanes.
It doesn’t work like that. You have to send in your own airplanes to shoot those bad airplanes down. And what nation is going to send in its own planes and pilots (and even drones cost money) to be shot down by the bad guy’s surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery? So you send in Wild Weasels and other assets to suppress the enemy’s ability both to launch his own aircraft, and to shoot yours down.
THEN you can safely fly around over Libya, denying that airspace to Qaddafi. It’s called “achieving air superiority.” And it isn’t achieved with magic wands.
This was thoroughly discussed ahead of time. Remember when Robert Gates was speaking out against a no-fly zone? His argument was that it’s a heap o’ trouble, including all of the above. At the time, I thought it odd that he should offer that as an objection, because I figured that anyone seriously advocating for a no-fly zone would understand all that. It’s since been impressed upon me that everyone does NOT know that. OK, I get it — not everyone is either ex-military or an avid reader of Tom Clancy novels. Sometimes you need to explain these things. But Sec. Gates DID explain these things. I remember it being the lead story in the Wall Street Journal one day.
WASHINGTON—The U.S. military would have to launch pre-emptive strikes to destroy Libya’s air defenses should President Barack Obama order imposition of a no-fly zone over the North African country, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday…
It was in no way a secret.
And hey, these guys in the Arab League aren’t hothouse flowers. They should know enough about the ways of the world not to have to have it explained to them.
But the thing is, they DON’T have to have such things explained to them. This is not shocked naivete we’re seeing here.
This is plain old ambivalence, based in the complex politics of the Mideast. As this LAT piece explains:
Arab leaders don’t relish attacking one of their own. But bloodshed across Libya and Western pressure have forced them into supporting international airstrikes against Col.Moammar Kadafi, who in many ways is merely a caricature of monarchies and autocrats throughout the Middle East.
The Arab League urged the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. Now, with French warplanes and U.S. Tomahawk missiles streaking across the North African sky, the league is criticizing the air assault as Arab kings and presidents confront decades-old ironies, religious animosities and fears they will be blamed for siding with Western imperialism.
There are concerns that foreign intervention may reignite Islamic radicalism that so far has not resonated with largely secular protest movements not rooted in religion or ideology. Kadafi has few sympathizers in the region but rallying against him is likely to pose credibility problems for regimes attempting to calm growing dissent at home.
It is a potent combination that highlights the hypocrisy and dangers of Arab politics. The Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes the Sunni-led nations of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, condemned Kadafi’s regime for killing dissidents even as Saudi troops assisted Bahraini security forces last week in a deadly crackdown against Shiite Muslim protesters.
“It’s a double standard,” said Mohammed Tajer, a lawyer defending detained protesters in Bahrain. “The Arab League consists of dictatorships that want to protect their own interests.”
So basically, it’s a CYA thing. They’re trying to have it both ways. We’ve got people in the air putting their lives on the line to get this thing done for them, and they’re trying to have it both ways.
