These two relatively mild modifiers are enough to completely disqualify Trump

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A lot of them may RUN from him, but too few stand up to be counted.

A lot of them may have RUN from him, but too few stood up to be counted.

Some of you have expressed the opinion that I’ve just gone overboard in describing the unique threat to our country that is Donald Trump.

I entirely disagree. The one thing that, for me, would make a Trump victory even worse would be if I were kicking myself tomorrow, thinking, If only I’d tried harder, maybe I could have persuaded one or two people…

What’s that sports expression? I don’t want this to end with me thinking I’d left anything on the field. Or that, wait… that I hadn’t left it all on the field. Whatever. Something like that.

Besides, there are so many things to be said about the worst man ever to capture a major-party endorsement for POTUS. And the fact that anyone would consider voting for him a good idea is so stunning that at the very least, I must give vent to my amazement. (Today, I read yet another piece purporting to explain why people would support him, and sorry — it doesn’t get the job done. It still doesn’t add up.)

But let’s say, as Jerry Brown used to say, that less is more. Let’s say a minimalist approach would have persuaded more of my interlocutors — or, at least some.

I think I got a glimpse of how to do that last week, while reading a Washington Post editorial headlined, “History will remember which Republicans failed the Trump test.” (Which it will.)

Since the many things that are wrong with Trump were not the subject of the piece, his disqualifying qualities were dealt with merely in passing, very quickly. An excerpt from the piece:

WHEN THE republic was in danger, where did you stand? History will ask that question of Republican leaders who knew that Donald Trump was unfit to be commander in chief.

Some said so, despite possible political risks. Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.), Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former high-ranking officials such as Brent Scowcroft, Colin L. Powell, Henry M. Paulson Jr., Michael V. Hayden and Robert M. Gates did their best to help Americans understand the risk of electing an ignorant, thin-skinned man with no relevant experience. Scores of respected former ambassadors and assistant secretaries also spoke out. Meanwhile, other senior statesmen were quiet; George P. Shultz and Henry A. Kissinger, for example, said only that they would endorse neither candidate. Their voices could have made — could still make — a difference. So could the voices of former presidents: Though there have been hints that former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush support Hillary Clinton, they have not taken the public stand their nation needs….

Did you notice it? The Post‘s editorial board dealt adequately with Trump using only two, relatively mild, modifiers: “ignorant,” and “thin-skinned.” (They also said he had “no relevant experience,” but that was hardly necessary. That’s just one reason why he is so ignorant.)

Only one thing is missing, really, to completely persuade any reasonable, informed person that there is NO WAY this man could be considered for this job, even for a second: The fact that he is not merely ignorant; he is unwilling to learn. (He’s not like these guys.) Which, of course, is the worst, most damning, and permanent sort of ignorance. This man actually thinks he knows everything he needs to know. He’s utterly convinced of it.

That, in and of itself, completely disqualifies him. Maybe, under desperate circumstances, we could deal with a guy who could learn on the job, but not someone who refuses to.

The “thin-skinned part” takes him from merely grossly unqualified to being dangerous. This is a man who stops everything when he believes he has been disrespected — which is, of course, a lot of the time (and, in his defense, he’s not always imagining it). There is no issue so important that it cannot be dropped while he goes on the attack against the offender. Getting even is, for him at such times, the number-one priority in his universe.

You just don’t hand the awesome, historically unprecedented power of this job — which includes (and while it gets tiresome with repetition, one feels obliged to mention this until people actually listen) the ability to destroy most life on the planet in a matter of minutes — to someone who considers his own personal grudges so pathetically important. Even if he doesn’t decide to nuke somebody because they made a comment about his hands (I actually think the chances of his doing so are slim, although not quite “none”), the fact is that for a time, he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. We’ve seen it. And that’s bad enough.

Yes, there are many, many other things that can be said against this man — the racism, the xenophobia, the lifelong habit of treating women like dirt. Other stuff.

But to a reasonable, thoughtful person who takes voting seriously, “ignorant” and “thin-skinned” should be more than enough…

Please share your reports from the polls

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There's no one in the L-Z line! It's good to be the W.

There’s no one in the L-Z line! It’s good to be the W.

Sorry not to have posted earlier. Technical problems on the blog. Here’s hoping they’re fixed now. I’m sure it was just a probing cyberattack by the Russians.

Well, I went and I voted, and it went fine, although there was a tiny glitch, no doubt also the work of the Russians. (Yes, those of you new to the blog; I’m kidding. I think…)

My wife got up just before 7, and was out the door before I could get ready. She returned in maybe 40 minutes, reporting that the lines at the Quail Hollow polling place weren’t bad, but the traffic getting in and out was horrible. Here’s the problem: We vote at Saluda River Baptist Church, which is at 3459 Sunset Blvd — across Sunset from our neighborhood. It’s in a section of Sunset where the hordes of people heading into town can actually get up a bit of speed — like, 55 or 60 mph — and this was rush hour. The driveway into the church is just below the crest of a hill. So basically, you can’t see the oncoming traffic until it’s on top of you.

So, I waited a bit, for rush hour to pass, then went to vote. And there was no line, for those of us with names in the L-Z range. The A-K people did have a short line to wait in, which is right and proper. It’s good to be the W.

Not only that, but I remembered my photo ID this time!

But then, when my neighbor who was working the poll took my little pink card and slipped that cassette thing into my machine to activate it… nothing happened. She was about to move on to try another machine when she noticed that the one next to this one still had a screen with candidates on it showing, and the voter had left. And here’s where we get into the whole voting-as-a-community thing.

That was Mr. So-and-So, she said, and he just lost one of his best friends last week, and has a lot on his mind. She ran after him, turning me over to another poll worker. The man returned, apologizing to all, and finished voting.

When I was done — this machine worked fine — she said she had told the man no problem, and that she supposed he was thinking about his friend who had died, and he said yes, he had been.

I learned one other thing — a bit earlier, the line had been out the door. So my timing was perfect.

How did it go for y’all? What are you seeing out there?

Donald closes as nominee of Occupy Wall Street; Hillary goes for Reassuring Grandma

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Or, as NPR had it, “In Closing Ads, Trump Goes Dark While Clinton Goes Cozy.”

These are the final ads of the two campaigns.

global-power-structure

Some members of the “global power structure” that Trump says is out to get us.

Trump’s is a deeply, profoundly, sweepingly paranoid view of our world. Apparently, we are all the victims of an enormous conspiracy that involves not only the corporations and billionayuhs Bernie was on about, but the leadership of every major country in the world, all engaged in a “global power structure” aimed at keeping us — or, at least, Trump’s base — down.

Hillary Clinton, who seems to be again clothed in what Alexandra Petri termed her “Saruman the White” look, goes for the approach of sitting us down, looking us in the eye and having a comforting heart-to-heart with us about the values that have always informed our country, and which make us great now, not in some distant past. In her view as presented here, we’re good enough, we’re smart enough, and doggone it; people like us.

It’s a pretty stark contrast. Either we’re all doomed, or we’ve got a pretty good thing going in this country, and have had all along.

And now we have to decide which makes sense to us.

Just in time, a comforting message from Her Majesty

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Since Friday night, my wife and I have been semi-bingeing (I think we’ve seen five episodes so far) on “The Crown,” the new series from Netflix.

So it seems a delightful coincidence that Samuel Tenenbaum shares the following important message with me via email.royal_coat_of_arms_of_the_united_kingdom-svg

I find it comforting, a warm embrace from our Mother Country, just when we were thoroughly traumatized and needed one.

(Digression: As you know, I’ve been listening to the music from “Hamilton” lately, and have enjoyed the songs sung by “King George” in the play… although I think there’s a good bit of Rebel propaganda in that version. I prefer the clip above from HBO’s “John Adams,” which is pretty much word-for-word accurate, according to David McCullough’s biography. You can easily see that while His Majesty didn’t want us to go, he was quite willing to be a sport about it, after the fact.)

Anyway, here’s the message. It has apparently been passed around on the Web so much that no one knows who originated it. So, you know, it could actually be from Elizabeth Windsor:

A MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except North Dakota, which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, Theresa May, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
———————–
1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’
Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).
————————
2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ”like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the elimination of ‘-ize.’
——————-
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
—————–
4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.
———————-
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
———————-
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
——————–
7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.
——————-
8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup, but with vinegar.
——————-
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
———————
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.
———————
11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
———————
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
——————–
13.. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.
—————–
14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
—————
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
God Save the Queen!
PS: Only share this with friends who have a good sense of humour (NOT humor)!

Personally, I can go along with all of the conditions except 3, 6 and 12. If Her Majesty insists on those points, I’m afraid we’ll have to keep muddling on without her….

Did Comey just do MORE harm to Clinton (and the country)?

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I like this screenshot, because among other things it shows you just how little time is left before voting as this story breaks.

I like this screenshot, because among other things it shows you just how little time was left before voting.

So did James Comey on Sunday lift the cloud that was hurting Hillary Clinton’s chances to win the election Tuesday?

I suspect not. In fact, he may have done more harm than good. Why? Because I think she gets hurt every time her emails get mentioned, period.

Everyone recalls his big announcement over the summer when he said the FBI had found nothing worth filing charges over. But I also recall what happened a couple of days before that, on the Saturday that the FBI had one last interview with Sec. Clinton before Comey’s announcement.

The effect was, to me, quite weird. Word of the interview came on Saturday, July 2. I remember marveling at all the bulletins I was getting about it on my phone. The reaction seemed excessive, since we knew nothing except that she had been interviewed. I wondered even more when news analysis over the next couple of days was all about how this new hurt her campaign. The Washington Post‘s take at the time:

Hillary Clinton’s weekend interview with the FBI stands as a perfect symbol of what is probably her biggest liability heading into the fall election: A lot of people say they don’t trust her.

Clinton sat for an interview of more than three hours as part of a Justice Department investigation into the privately owned email system she operated off the books when she was secretary of state. The timing — less than three weeks before she will claim the Democratic presidential nomination — is an attempt to make the best of a situation that would look bad for any candidate but is particularly damaging for Clinton.

That the interview at FBI headquarters was voluntary does not expunge the whiff of suspicion surrounding the entire email affair that, for many voters, confirms a long-held view that Clinton shades the truth or plays by her own rules….

I thought that rather weird at the time. Then, of course, on July 5 — mere seconds after I had posted about how odd it was, Comey had his long “no charges” presser. Which sorta kinda relieved a lot of Democrats (he had a lot of critical things to say, too) and infuriated Republicans.

Fast-forward to Comey’s announcement 10 days ago that the FBI was looking at some more emails. Enormous damage was done to the Clinton candidacy, with her dropping in polls, infuriating Democrats and cheering up Trump supporters. And yet — think about this — there was no substance whatsoever in the announcement. There was no indication that there would be anything in the new emails that would reflect badly on the former secretary.

But was, undeniably, bad for her nevertheless.

My theory is this: We long ago passed a point at which any sentence that contains “Hillary Clinton” and “emails” is, in the collective mind of the electorate, a bad thing. And with good reason — she shouldn’t have set up the private server to begin with.

But it’s also a sort of mushy bad thing, without clear lines demarcating “good” and “bad,” so that even if the full sentence is “Hillary Clinton’s emails contain nothing incriminating,” the less detail-oriented parts of our brains still go “bad” at hearing the first three words together.

So it is that her candidacy was harmed when Comey brought up the words again 10 days ago, even without any information letting us know whether the news was indeed bad.

And, I suspect, it was harmed again yesterday when Comey essentially said, “There’s still nothing incriminating in Hillary Clinton’s emails.” As far as the political effect is concerned, we all heard only the last three words.

Here’s what I mean: I doubt the news tipped many people from planning to vote for Trump to planning to vote for Clinton. Or even from staying home, or voting third-party, to voting for Clinton.

But it once again infuriated the Republican base — including, I suspect, a lot of Republicans who were reluctant to vote for Trump, but who now are freshly reminded of how much they despise Hillary Clinton. They were kind of coasting along there experiencing various degrees of satisfaction from 10 days ago, and then BAM! — they’re outraged. Which can’t be good for her.

Please tell me I’m wrong…

 

We are what are called ‘voters,’ period.

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polling-place

I liked this Tweet from Nu Wexler this morning:

Amen to that, Nu!

I’ve written about this a few time before, but to me, standing in line with my neighbors — some of whom I might not see years on end otherwise — is a core experience of citizenship, a moment when the communitarian element of life in our republic is most palpable. It makes me feels kind of like a character in a Frank Capra movie.

Not to condemn folks who vote early, because so many of them have good reasons. But those who do so simply in order to avoid the Election Day experience are in many cases — I suspect; I have no data to support this — somewhat more likely to think of themselves as consumers rather than citizens. I’ve had some things to say about that as well.

As I wrote awhile back:

I think this country is full of people — left, right, and middle — who don’t take voting seriously enough. This is why I oppose early voting, and virtual voting, and just about anything other than heading down to the polls and standing in line with all your neighbors on Election Day, being a part of something you are all doing together as citizens. I believe you should have to take some trouble to do it. Not unreasonable amounts of trouble, just some…

So I was happy to reTweet Nu this morning with an enthusiastic “Yes!” And was gratified when my friend Mary Pat Baldauf Tweeted this, apparently in response:

As I replied, what we should be properly called is “voters,” period. Voters who take the process seriously, and cherish and savor it.

The queue at my polling place in 2008.

The queue at my polling place in 2008.

Oh — one other, somewhat related, point: Robert Samuelson had a column recently urging us all to “Split your ticket.” I still marvel that voting for candidates of more than one party is sufficiently rare (shockingly rare, in fact) as to be remarked upon, and have a special name.

You know what I call ticket-splitting? “Voting.” True voting, serious voting, responsible voting, nonfrivolous voting. I am deeply shocked by the very idea of surrendering to a party your sacred duty to pay attention, to think, to discern, to discriminate, to exercise your judgment in the consideration of each and every candidate on the ballot, and make separate decisions.

If you don’t go through that careful discernment, you aren’t a voter, you are an automaton — a tool of the false dichotomy presented by the parties, a willing participant in mindless tribalism.

Sure, you might carefully discern in each case and end up voting only for members of one party or the others. And that’s fine — kind of weird, given the unevenness of quality in both parties’ slates of candidates — but if that’s where you end up.

But pressing the straight-ticket button, without going through the ballot and making individual decisions in each race — that’s unconscionable, and an abdication of your responsibility as a citizen…

i-voted

Joss Whedon’s election videos

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One of the best directors in the ‘verse has stepped forward to try to get out the vote for next week.

I especially enjoy the one above, making appropriate fun of the notion that what all situations call for is a businessman.

But Doug and my other Libertarian (or should I say, “Browncoat“) friends should enjoy the one below, entitled, “If Congress was your co-worker…”

My favorite, though, might be this one, in which a Brit, thoroughly embarrassed by Brexit, begs us all to vote for Trump so we Yanks will go back to being the idiots the rest of the world looks down on. It starts, appropriately enough, with “Bit of a favor to ask…”

Open Thread for Thursday, November 3, 2016

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cubs-win

Sorry I couldn’t post today. Busy in the morning and away from both laptop and iPad this afternoon (posting on a phone is possible, but tedious). Here you go:

  1. HOW ABOUT THEM CUBBIES? — Sometimes, cliffhangers turn out right. Nothing against the Indians, but wow, what a great Game 7! I almost missed the end. I was so tired (after 7:30 a.m. speaking engagement), I turned it off when the rain delay started. Then I came back and turned it on. I sat down, saw the Cubs build a two-run lead, then saw the Indians score and turned it off again assuming it would be all night. Doused the lights, left the room, came back and turned it on just in time for the winning out. Wow!
  2. Baseball ratings rise as NFL ratings fall — More good news for the country. I don’t know why, but it does seem like an outbreak of sanity, which flies in the face of what we’ve been seeing in the political sphere all year. Seriously, this is one of the most promising trends I’ve seen in this country in some time.
  3. Walter Scott’s passenger in traffic stop: ‘He was murdered’ — Well, that’s what it looked like on the video. Weird trial. Did you see the thing yesterday about the defense attorney taking the stand to offer his opinions?
  4. Court ruling means act of parliament would be needed for Brexit, says May — This gives me an idea — could we make the result of the U.S. election contingent on Parliament approving? No? Dang. Thanks a lot, George Washington! And King George loved us so…
  5. Anderson woman found alive, chained ‘like a dog’ in Woodruff — What a bizarre, horrible story…

Open Thread for Wednesday, November 2, 2016

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The 1908 Chicago Cubs

The 1908 Chicago Cubs

I need to run to an appointment, so very quickly:

  1. Obama is critical of Comey decision: ‘We don’t operate on innuendo’ — OK, we’re treading on very sensitive ground here…
  2. Suspect In ‘Ambush-Style’ Killings Of 2 Iowa Police Officers Is In Custody — Here’s hoping we don’t read any more headlines about incidents such as this.
  3. Haley to campaign with SC Senate candidate in vulnerable seat — I include this not because it’s remarkable in the grand scheme, but because this year, we’ve seen so little about politics on the state and local level. True, we don’t have many competitive races on the local level, thanks to the scandal of reapportionment, but it’s just sort of eerie…
  4. The World Series — Yes! America got what it needed, at just the right moment! A seven-game Series! Featuring the Cubs and the Indians! I take great comfort from this…

And that’s about it. Perhaps you’re seeing something else that interest you…

Adsense ‘comments’ on Clinton endorsement

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As y’all have no doubt noticed, aside from the local ads I have in the rail at right — and as you see, I’ve recently added several from candidates running in next week’s election — Google inserts ads here and there on the blog, based on what it has gleaned about the individual reader’s interests.

Some of items Adsense offers can be a bit startling, and the juxtapositions with content odd.

Burl Burlingame sent me this screenshot via text this week:

img_1198

There are just… so many levels on which to perceive that, most of them quite low. Looks to me like they’ve just noticed something is missing.

I asked Burl what kind of searches he had been doing lately. He insisted:

Not steroids! Or bellies!

Anyway, I always appreciate y’all sharing these occasionally odd apparitions…

What I ended up saying to Rotary

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capital-rotary

Your suggestions — especially Kathryn’s — led more or less directly to my drafting the words below, which I delivered to the Capital Rotary Club at the Palmetto Club early this morning.

I pretty much zipped through the prepared stuff in order to get to my favorite part — questions. But here’s what I started with:

I was asked to come talk about the current election, and I hardly know where to start.

I think I’ll start with PREVIOUS elections.

We’ve been talking quite a bit on my blog this week about The State’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Sunday – or rather, to put it more accurately, The State’s endorsement of the person running against Donald Trump. The paper has no love for Secretary Clinton.

Of course, my responsibility for The State’s endorsements ended when I left the paper in 2009, but it remains a subject that highly interests me.

It was noted in the editorial that this was the first time the paper had endorsed a Democrat for president since 1976.

Someone – a person I’m pretty sure almost always votes Democratic [is that fair, Kathryn?] – asked on my blog why we endorsed all those Republicans. Which is a fair enough question to ask me, since I don’t like either party, and think they have both been enormously destructive to the country in recent decades.

I could only answer for the elections in the years when I was on the editorial board, so here goes:

In 1996, We liked Dole better than Clinton – although by the end, I had my doubts about Dole, and asked Tom McLean, who was then editor, to write it instead of me, which he did. But personally, I still voted for Dole.

In 2000 — We liked Bush better than Gore – as a board, anyway – personally I was rather noncommittal. I was lukewarm on Bush because I had much, much preferred John McCain to him, and had argued very strenuously for endorsing McCain in the primary. We had endorsed Bush instead, which was probably the biggest argument I ever lost as editorial page editor. Also… I worked in Tennessee in the 70s and 80s and got to know Al Gore, interacted with him a good bit, and liked him. But after eight years as Clinton’s vice president, I liked him less. On election night, I remember the lead changing back and forth, and at each point, I couldn’t decide how I felt. I only knew that when the Supreme Court decided Bush had won Florida, I was relieved, and grateful to Gore for promptly conceding at that point.

2004 — We disliked Kerry more than we disliked Bush (if you look back, you’ll see most of the editorial was about Bush’s flaws, but ultimately we didn’t trust Kerry on national security – and for me, that tends to trump everything)

2008 — My man John McCain was running, although we liked Obama a lot. That was really an unusual election for us at the paper. For once, the two candidates we had endorsed in their respective party primaries back at the start of the year faced each other in the general. So we were happy either way, but I had been waiting 8 years to endorse McCain, and I wasn’t going to miss my chance. Besides, Obama was untested. We trusted McCain’s experience.

In 2009, I was laid off from the paper for the sin of having too high a salary when the paper was desperate to cut costs. So I wasn’t involved in 2012, or this year.

Another way to explain our preference for Republicans over the years, a very simplistic one: we were essentially a center-right board, and as long as the GOP remained a center-right party and the national Democrats were so ideologically liberal, we would tend toward Republicans. But I don’t like that overly simple explanation because I don’t like the liberal OR conservative labels, and we prided ourselves on being pragmatic. [I then went on a brief digression of our official point of view, which we called, rather oxymoronically, “pragmatic conservatism.”]

This brings us to today.

The general thrust of the editorial page remains the same as in my day. The core of the editorial board is Cindi Scoppe, and the joke during our many years working together was that we were two people with the same brain. Of course, there are different people involved along with her (Mark Lett, Sara Borton, Paul Osmundson), but the general editorial positions remain the same.

And in this election cycle, the paper did the only thing it could do under the circumstances: It endorsed the only person on the planet in a position to stop Donald Trump from becoming president of the United States.

As I said, the paper was pleased to endorse Republicans as long as it remained a sensible, center-right party. This year, the GOP completely went off the rails, and nominated a man who really isn’t any kind of conservative: an abysmally ignorant – and unwilling to learn – bully who considers attacking people who have criticized him personally as his top priority. A man who admires tyrants, who would abandon our allies, throw out nuclear nonproliferation policies that have served us since 1945, who plays to xenophobia, who would institute religious tests for entering the country, and the list goes on and on.

But that seems like a good place to stop and take questions. I’d love to get questions about local politics, but I can speak to national ones as well. Whatever y’all prefer…

My audience did not disappoint, but provided enough good questions to keep a likely interaction going until time was called. We pretty much stuck to national politics, which I guess was to some extent my fault, for having started us in that direction. But the discussion was interesting, relevant and civil. And you can’t beat that…

I thank my optometrist, Dr. Philip Flynn, for inviting me, and the Club for putting up with me this morning.

What should I say to Rotary in the morning?

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Back before I realized it was on the morning after a critical World Series game, I agreed to speak to the Rotary Club that meets at the Palmetto Club at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow. I’ve been asked to speak on “the upcoming election and the state of national/local politics.”8662336773_7910f6010a_b

As is my wont, I intend to reserve most of my time for questions (that ensures that I address things my audience is interested in, and besides, I enjoy it more), but I do need to come up with some opening remarks — and it’s not a good idea to try to whip them together during the game tonight.

So I’m thinking about it now.

The problem, of course, isn’t a lack of things to talk about, but choosing from an overabundance.

What do y’all think I should say, to start things off?

What IS the deal with Comey?

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This business of the FBI director’s letter last week has a lot of puzzling aspects that we could discuss.

james-comey

Comey’s official FBI portrait. I almost don’t recognize him, smiling.

I almost did a post yesterday based on a couple of headlines out there, one of which was this: “Did FBI Director James Comey’s Email Announcement Break The Law?” To that, I could only say, Who cares? What if it did? Sure he could be prosecuted, fined, jailed, whatever — it wouldn’t affect what he has done to this election, whatever that is. The damage can’t be undone. If his actions result in the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, keelhauling him might make a lot of us feel avenged, but it wouldn’t save the country.

Another headline — which I can’t seem to find now — said he may have a report on what is found in the new emails before the election. To which I could only say, whoop-te-frickin’-do. When would that be? Election eve? So if the news is detrimental to Hillary Clinton, or merely leaves a cloud over her, that could be the finishing stroke. And if it clears her of any further culpability, Republicans will charge to the polls in a fine lather, willing even to vote for Trump to express their ire.

There’s a lot more this morning. I was intrigued by an interview I heard on public radio this morning with Donald Ayer, deputy U.S. attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush between 1989 and 1990. He made a fascinating point. He said that when Comey had his announcement/speech back in the summer, everybody kind of went, OK, so Hillary did some irresponsible stuff, but it didn’t rise to the level of being prosecutable. Republicans were outraged and Democrats relieved, but everyone went on with their lives.

And, Mr. Ayer said, no one stopped to think just how wildly inappropriate it was for someone with prosecutorial power to make a lengthy speech about the merits of a case he was deciding not to prosecute.

Anyway, the point was that that error set up this one. Having told Congress and tout le monde that he was done investigating and there was nothing to prosecute, he felt honor-bound to say last week, Uh, fellas, I found something else we need to take a look at….

(Being bound by honor is a very fine thing and all too rare these days. But I confess I’m on the verge of losing patience with Mr. Comey’s delicate sensibilities…)

So now we have this situation in which everybody’s mad at him — Democrats for possibly throwing the election to Trump, and Republicans for not telling us all right now just how much these emails damn Hillary.

Here’s another interesting wrinkle: “Comey was concerned publicly blaming Russia for hacks of Democrats could appear too political in run-up to elections.”

Yeah, right? He had his excuses for why he was concerned about the FBI’s purity in that case and not this one (and you should read the story), but still…

Finally… As y’all know, Bret Stephens, deputy editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, has written some extraordinary columns lately damning Trump and all-but-endorsing Hillary. Today, he had one simply headlined, “Resign, Mr. Comey.” An excerpt:

These aren’t partisan acts. They are self-regarding ones. Mr. Comey is a familiar Washington type—the putative saint—whose career is a study in reputation management. He went after investment banker Frank Quattrone. He threatened to resign from the Bush administration over its warrantless wiretap program. He vouchsafed the case against Steven J. Hatfill, the virologist accused of the 2001 anthrax mail attacks, in internal White House deliberations. He appointed his close friend Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the leak of CIA analyst Valerie Plame’s name.

One common thread in these cases is that Mr. Comey was always on the right side of Beltway conventional wisdom. The second is that he was consistently on the wrong side of justice….

FBI directors are supposed to be above politics, not in them. President Obama has the authority to fire Mr. Comey but will be hard-pressed to do so politically. That goes double if Mrs. Clinton is elected. Who knows what a President Trump would do.

All the more reason for Mr. Comey to do the right thing. He has lost the trust of his political masters, his congressional overseers and the American people. Wanting to spend more time with family is the usual excuse.

Mr. Stephens is understandably ticked.

One wonders where Mr. Comey’s conscience will take us next. Although what it’s done so far is quite enough…

 

The State’s endorsement generates predictable response

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comments

The predictable response to The State‘s endorsement of Hillary Clinton began immediately. Some of the first comments on thestate.com after the endorsement was posted Saturday evening:

  • “I will not renew The State newspaper!”
  • “I refuse to do business with The State any longer. I will seek other advertising options for my businesses.”
  • “This is a complete joke. Totally false claims or twisting claims to fit your pathetic narrative. You are ‘endorsing’ a world-class liar and a crook.”
  • “Do you think I care about the state endorsement ??? No”
  • “Very disappointing to see The State justify supporting a documented liar, who destroyed evidence AFTER SUBPOENED to produce— lying to congress –and most of all —-ALL OF THIS DOCUMENTED– it is documented for all time— Hilary Clinton should be in jail and not allowed to run for office at all…. and you all know it”
  • “Article is trash”

I especially like that the last guy was so anxious to spew that he didn’t even bother TRYING to make it into a sentence, or punctuate it.

Of course, as is the usual pattern, the paper also caught hell from people who LIKED the editorial:

A surprisingly cogent and erudite endorsement from a rag that typically follows the party marching orders. While I still disagree with The State’s ultra right wing world view I must commend them for looking beyond the smoke and mirrors, ignoring the clamor from South Carolina’s neo nazi and secessionist fringe groups, and choosing to endorse someone who, while maybe was not the best candidate, is by far the best of the last two left standing. HRC was not my first choice but she has gotten my vote for 2016. 2020 may present the opportunity to cast a dfferernt ballot however.

Partisans — you can’t live with ’em, and it would be nice to have a chance of living without ’em…

No sand dunes in Surfside

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no-dunes

Have any of y’all been to the beach since the hurricane?

My parents are there having some cleanup done around their house in Surfside — the house my grandfather built, and left to my Mom — and my mother sent me this picture, with the caption, “No sand dunes.”

Wow. The dunes we’ve had for the last couple of decades had been artificially restored, but over the years the sea oats had grown on them, and they had become at least natural-looking.

Below is a shot I took of some of my grandchildren playing in an extreme high tide that came all the way up to the dunes — which you can see at left — in July 2015.

So this is a dramatic difference…

high-tide-2015

The State’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton

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I could write about this at great length (as I did four years ago in reaction to The State‘s decision not to endorse), but I need to wrap up a couple of things and get over to the Big DM for the radio show, so I’ll just toss this out for y’all to discuss.

In today’s editions, The State endorsed HIllary Clinton for president, explaining why South Carolina’s many conservatives really have no other acceptable option in this election — which, of course, they don’t. And as we all know, the most pertinent part of the argument is the utter unthinkability of the alternative:

Most voters are aware of what he has said he would do: build a wall along our southern border to keep out illegal immigrants; waterboard suspected terrorists; kill innocent family members of terrorists; stifle the news media. While he has changed some of those positions — especially the killing of terrorists’ relatives — it’s troubling he ever considered them.

Also disturbing are his statements about women, his mocking of a man with a disability and his inability to focus on the big picture if it means ignoring a personal slight.

Whatever intrigue his business resume generates is overshadowed by his character and personality. He is simply unfit for the presidency, or any public office.

That means we must rely on Hillary Clinton for any meaningful change in Washington politics.

Her resume suggests Mrs. Clinton is as prepared as any of this year’s candidates to be an effective president. She played a major role in formulating policy during her husband’s administration, especially in the areas of health care and children. As a U.S. senator from New York, she served on the Armed Services Committee, earning praise from Republican John McCain. She also became secretary of state….

The piece was carefully crafted and very low-key. It wasn’t the way I would have written it, but it was fine.

Given that this was the first Democrat endorsed by the paper since 1976 — long before I or anyone currently on the board worked at the paper, I would like to have seen a companion column about the decision process. But then, that was my style, peculiar to me — I liked bringing readers into the boardroom and walking them through our discussions. Not many editors like to let it all hang out that way.

I’m sorry not to have been there for this one. I always sort of hoped we’d endorse a Democrat some day, just to make our presidential endorsements less predictable, and to shut up all the Democrats who called us a “Republican paper.” As y’all know, I don’t like being accused of having leanings toward either party, because of my strong dislike of both. It was a ridiculous charge, since overall our endorsements were about 50-50 — but all too many people pay attention only to the presidential endorsement, rather than the dozens of others we did in a given election year. All our presidential endorsements indicated that the national Democrats tended to go for candidates a bit too far to the left for us, while the national Republican Party — back when it actually was a respectable center-right party, before it went careening out of control — was more our speed. In races closer to home, Democrats tended to be closer to the center and Republicans farther to the right, so we tended more to fall right between them. (Yes, this “left-right” talk grossly oversimplifies what was going on, but it’s one shorthand way to describe our actual pattern.)

We came close in 2008, because we all liked Barack Obama. But as y’all know, John McCain had long been one of my favorite senators, and I wasn’t alone, so that didn’t happen. I argued here on the blog that 2012 — which was after my departure from the paper — should have been the year to break the pattern, because I was pretty sure Cindi and Warren agreed with me that Obama was preferable to Romney. But it didn’t happen that time, either — for a number of reasons, from what I could tell. Which was OK, I guess, given that particular choice. The country would have been OK either way.

This time, though, it was extremely important for the paper to take a stand against the greatest threat to the presidency in any of our lifetimes. It was important especially for a paper with such a solid record of endorsing Republicans to say, No, absolutely not! to Donald Trump — just as papers with even longer GOP ties had already done across the country.

As of Friday, out of the top 100 papers in the country by circulation, 55 had endorsed Hillary Clinton, including some that had gone a lot longer than The State without backing a Democrat. Only one, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, had backed Trump. And I don’t know what was wrong with them (aside from being owned by Sheldon Adelson). I don’t see how anyone with a working knowledge of our government and issues facing it, with an understanding of what America is about — and those are pretty much prerequisites for being editorial board members at most papers — could possibly back the most singularly unfit candidate ever to capture a major party’s nomination.

Anyway, The State did what it had to do, what any newspaper with a conscience needs to do this year…

I’ll be on Cynthia Hardy’s radio show at 6 p.m. tonight

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onpoint

… which should give me plenty of time to get back home from the Big DM way across town in time for what could prove to be (although I hope not) the last game of the World Series.

Cynthia Hardy

Cynthia Hardy

According to the text I received asking me to be on the show, we’ll be talking about “talking the importance of down-ballot votes, red states leaning blue, and the millennial vote.” Which sounds to me like the discussion could go almost anywhere, as long as we’re talking about the election.

I’m told that Allen Olson — whom I don’t know, but I assume it’s this Allen Olson — will be in the studio as well. Kathleen Parker may join us by phone, from wherever she is at the moment. And there could be another guest. I get the distinct impression this show is a bit in flux — I was asked to participate this morning, although I usually get asked several days ahead of time.

So listen in, and if you’re inclined, call in…

Your Virtual Front Page for Friday, October 28, 2016

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How big a deal is this Clinton emails story? Well, years ago when I was a front-page editor I had occasion to study the front pages of major papers across the country, and I concluded the NYT had THE most exquisite, nuanced sense of how important a story was, and how to play it. Most days, the NYT's Web lede is confined to one column. Here's how they played this.

How big a deal is this Clinton emails story? Well, years ago when I was a front-page editor I had occasion to study the front pages of major papers across the country very carefully, and I concluded the NYT had THE most exquisite, nuanced sense of how important a story was, and how to play it. Most days, the NYT’s Web lede is confined to one column. Here’s how they played this (three columns, essentially).

I promised y’all an Open Thread, but decided on a VFP instead (if you care what the difference is, ask and I’ll explain down in the comments):

  1. FBI to review Clinton emails found on Weiner’s device (WashPost) — At this point, if you’re Hillary Clinton, the last thing you want to see — on every major news outlet’s lede story — is your name and “Weiner” in the same headline. Right now, the candidate’s wishing Anthony and Huma were still together so she could tell Huma to go slap him up ‘side the head.
  2. Stocks Rattled by Clinton Email Review (WSJ) — Yeah, I’ll bet.
  3. Recreation board refuses Haley’s request for sexual harassment report (The State) — This is a bit old now — it was in The State this morning. But… really? I love the sarcastic nod to transparency when the board came out of executive session to make this decision in a three-minute public session. Why’d they do this? Well, “Green and the five board members at the meeting refused comment and left the meeting without speaking to reporters.”
  4. U.N.: ISIS Is Using Tens Of Thousands Of Civilians As Human Shields In Mosul (NPR) — Yep, that sounds like something they’d do. Anyway, while Anthony “Look at My” Weiner is paralyzing the world’s greatest democracy, this is going on…
  5. Why do so few Americans vote? (BBC) — We are a never-ending source of fascination to our friends, the Brits. They just can’t get over our little quirks.
  6. 2nd District debate will be shown live on YouTube (The State) — That’s good to know. And the Series should be over by then, so I might even watch it. If I do, I’ll live-Tweet it…

‘No! The Writing Room is over THERE!…’

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writing

I haven’t posted today in part because I accepted Steven Millies’ invitation to go speak to his poli sci class at USC Aiken, and I just got back.

Before I tell you about the class, I want to share this door I found in the Humanities building while looking for Dr. Millies’ class. You’ll see that it leads, according to the formal signage at top, to the Writing Room.

But no! When you look a bit closer (below), things are not what they seem. I don’t know why the wording of the less-formal sign struck me as so funny, but it did. The disagreement was just so stark — This is the Writing Room… NO! This is emphatically NOT the Writing Room. The Writing Room is over THERE, dummy!… The first sentence alone would have been funny. But the second sentence, with the little arrow, is what made it wonderful. I almost picture Marty Feldman pointing and saying, “There wolf! There Writing Room!…”

Anyway, I offered to speak to Steven’s class during a conversation after the Bernardin Lecture the other night (he and I serve on the lectureship’s committee), when he told me his American Government class was talking about media this week. He took me up on it.

And I had a blast, especially since I didn’t have to prepare a lecture. I just showed up and answered questions. Sometimes, with undergraduates or younger students, it’s hard to get questions, or at least hard to get relevant ones. This class did great. I hope I did all right for them.

But I seriously, seriously doubt they enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s hard to explain, but standing in front of a room taking and answering questions gets me really jacked up. I don’t know what it is. I’m not crazy about giving a speech, because it’s so… one-way. I stand up there giving a prepared talk, and I look at all those people staring at me, and I wonder, Is this interesting them at all? Is this what they were looking for when they invited me?

And I’m never sure, unless they laugh at a joke or something. So when I’m asked to speak, I always ask whether it’s OK to keep the talk short and move on as soon as possible to Q&A. Then I come alive — and sometimes even the audience seems to enjoy it.

After the class, I ran out to my car, all wired up, to make an important phone call I had scheduled for that time, and I really hope I didn’t… overflow too much on the person I was calling. I may have. I looked when we were done, and the call had lasted 41 minutes. Later, driving back to Columbia, I returned a call from earlier from a reporter at The New York Times wanting to talk about something having to do with SC politics, and I may have overdone that a bit, too. To my great surprise, shortly after that call, I was already back in West Columbia…

So basically, I guess, I’ve been blogging all over people today… just not in writing.

Anyway, I’ll give y’all an Open Thread in the next hour or so. I hope y’all appreciate it more than y’all usually do on a Friday afternoon, harrumph…

room

Open Thread for Thursday, October 27, 2016

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I was going to give you a post on Life, Baseball, and Everything, but it just got out of hand...

I was going to give you a post on Life, Baseball, and Everything, but it just got out of hand…

I hate it when I give you back-to-back Open Threads, with no intervening sole-subject posts. And I started to give you something earlier today, inspired by the World Series. But it began to morph into one of those meandering Baseball and Life things with Shoeless Joe and the Black Sox Scandal, and the 1927 Yankees, and Satchel Paige, and Ring Lardner’s You Know Me Al, and Roy Hobbs wanting to be the best player there ever was, and playing catch with your Dad and the smell of a baseball in a glove, and it just got totally out of hand and I didn’t finish it. I think it was in about the 12th inning when I stopped.

So here’s an Open Thread:

  1. The State endorses Susan Brill over Mia McLeod — I’m guessing this was a tough one for the paper, based on the debate I moderated the other day. Cindi writes of Mrs. Brill being a consensus-builder, which the Senate badly needs after losing Larry Martin, Wes Hayes and now Joel Lourie. Similar themes were sounded in the paper’s endorsement of Nikki Setzler this morning.
  2. Some Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Clinton Wins — Oh, gimme a break, people. I think we’ve all been through enough already this year, don’t you? Yes, I know: The next four years will be uglier than anything we’ve ever seen — as bad as partisanship has been in the Bush and Obama years, neither of them had already been hated by the opposition for decades. But spare us the revolution talk, OK?
  3. Russia’s: Kuznetsov battle group refuels off North Africa — To give you something serious to think about. I well remember when the Med was our pond. But on the upside, this is Russia’s only carrier, and apparently its crew is made up of landsmen who don’t know how to do underway replenishment — they’re at anchor for the operation. Here’s the way real seamen do it.
  4. Uber won’t build flying cars but they sure want someone else to — Hey, I’m up for it, because then we’ll know it’s the future, for which most of us have been waiting our entire lives. The Star Trek communicators that have become the centers of our lives are pretty cool, but the future, by definition, must have flying cars.
  5. Vine Withers, Reminding Us That Nothing Is Forever — Yeah, especially when it only lasts six seconds. Did y’all look at it much? Neither did I. Maybe that’s why.
  6. ‘Southern Charm’ will return for fourth season — I’m just telling you in case the current election hasn’t fully convinced you that our culture has gone to a warm place in a handbasket, and we are in the End Times.

both