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Table of Contents
human nature
The Frozen Ones
human nature
Advanced Search
Motherhood at 70
books
jurisprudence
Russia's Usable Past
Nuts and Deadbolts
corrections
jurisprudence
Corrections
Nursing Grudges
culturebox
medical examiner
Killer Serial
Trend Spotting
day to day
medical examiner
Blagojevich's Crimes?
Halt the Surgery—It's Time for My Nap
dear prudence
moneybox
Drag Queen Daddy
The Slate Bailout Guide
explainer
moneybox
How Many "President-Elects" Are There?
The Road to Zell
explainer
moneybox
Ejection Seats 101
Desperate Housewares
explainer
movies
Can Blagojevich Still Appoint a New Senator?
Must Love Nazis
explainer
music box
Is a $1 Salary Paid in Installments?
Beethoven and the Illuminati
fighting words
other magazines
Inconvenient Truths
I Doth
food
poem
The State of the Cookie
"Wedding"
foreigners
politics
Walesa's Mustache, the Dalai Lama's Smile, and Sarkozy's Je Ne Sais
Quoi
How the Rich Are Different From You and Me
politics
gaming
The Obama School of Crisis Management
The Gaming Club
politics
green room
What Didn't He Know, and When Didn't He Know It?
The Problem in Poznan
politics
history lesson
No Change for Sale
Ye Olde Gitmo
politics
hot document
Case Not Closed
Layoff Spin
politics
how to pronounce it
She's No Jack Kennedy
Oy, Blagojevich
press box
human guinea pig
Bogus Trend of the Week: Teens and Bombs
A Colonial Dame
Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
1/104
press box
the has-been
Sympathy for Blago
Bare Ruined Careers
press box
the spectator
Unsolicited Advice for David Gregory
Give the Guy a Butt!
recycled
today's business press
Marathon of Mirth
Markets Crash on Auto Blowout
recycled
today's papers
Why Is Chicago So Corrupt?
Senate: Drop Dead, Big Three
shopping
today's papers
Shop Till They Drop
Will Senate Kill GM?
slate fare
today's papers
A Job for You at Slate
Widespread Corruption Charges Shock Illinois
slate v
today's papers
Human Guinea Pig: Colonial Re-Enactors
Government Could Control Automakers
slate v
today's papers
Mind-Melding With Your Avatar
Bailout, With Strings Attached
slate v
today's papers
How a Lost Pearl Became a Poem
It's All in the Works
slate v
today's papers
Dear Prudence: Difficult Dinner Guest
North Dakota is the Place to Be
supreme court dispatches
The Attorney General Is a Very Busy Man
technology
The Shopper's Revenge
Advanced Search
Friday, October 19, 2001, at 6:39 PM ET
television
Meet the Ikki Twins
television
Coulda Been Faulkner
the best policy
A Better Car-Bailout Plan
books
Russia's Usable Past
A strange journey into the historical archives.
By Anne Applebaum
Monday, December 8, 2008, at 6:33 AM ET
the breakfast table
Obama Law
the chat room
Shredded Newspaper
the chat room
Holiday Survival Guide
the green lantern
Should I Buy a Fake Fir?
Jonathan Brent arrived in Moscow, in the winter of 1992,
bearing gifts: salami, biscuits, chocolates in the shape of the
Statue of Liberty, bottles of Jack Daniels, stacks of $1 bills,
cartons of Winston cigarettes. His sole Moscow contact—a
young American historian—had explained to him that the latter
would help ensure the success of the meetings he had scheduled
with directors of the former Soviet state archives. At his very
first appointment—with the chairman of the Communist Party
archive—Brent carried out the ritual as instructed:
the green lantern
How To Spend Your Christmas Cash
2/104
I took out my pack of Winstons and lit a
cigarette. My counterpart across the table did
the same. I smiled and slid the pack across to
him. He took it after a moment, withdrew a
cigarette, and started to push the pack towards
me. I held up my hand and shook my head. So
he pushed his own cigarettes toward me
instead. The transaction was complete. …
And thus, in a cloud of smoke, Brent and his new Russian
colleagues launched one of the most ambitious archival
publishing projects of all time.
Brent was, and still is, the editorial director of the Yale
University Press, not a job, one would think, that requires
qualities like adventurousness or an ability to tolerate heavy
smoking and large quantities of drink. But in the immediate
post-Soviet moment, Western ventures of any kind, with any
Russian partners, required precisely those sorts of talents. In the
same period—I'm guessing it was 1993—I also visited British
historian Norman Stone, one of the first Western researchers
allowed into the Moscow archives, in the ex-KGB officer's flat
he shared with a young British businessman (one of his former
students, if I remember correctly) and the businessman's
ludicrously beautiful Russian girlfriend. Stone was sleeping on a
kind of prehistoric pullout sofa, vodka bottles were in
conspicuous evidence, and the KGB officer's hideous wooden
furniture dominated the room—all of which was fairly typical at
the time.
But unlike many of that first generation of Westerners in Russia,
Brent wasn't primarily looking for sensational material—though,
of course, when it fell into his hands, he didn't object. More
important, for him, was the prospect of a long-term contract with
one or more of the newly open Russian archives, one that would
result in the publication of a series of books in both English and
Russian. This was a scholarly project, he writes, not a
commercial one: "What sustained it was the conviction shared
by the heads of the archives and Yale that the value of
publishing these documents was greater than the money it would
take to publish them or the revenue we might realize by their
sale. … They were somehow at the center of what gave us a
shared life in the twentieth century and would take us further
towards understanding that life than any other means in our
possession."
Yale's convictions were not, alas, always shared, either by the
archive directors or by the Russian public. The former often
believed that their material held a good deal more commercial
value—and more possibilities for personal enrichment—than did
Yale; the latter were often convinced that these American
researchers were trying to "steal" their national secrets.
This mistrust did not ease with time, either. Only a few years
before, during the early period of Gorbachev's glasnost,
newspapers with archival "revelations" had sold in the millions.
But by the early 1990s, many Russians were already struggling
to cope with the Soviet collapse. They faced a logistical crisis—
how to get by in dramatically changed circumstances—and often
a psychological crisis as well. Perhaps the old system was bad,
they now felt, but at least back then we were powerful. And now
that we are no longer powerful, we don't want to hear about how
bad it really was, especially from foreigners.
Nevertheless, Yale, along with a very few others—most notably
the Hoover Institution, which made microfilm copies of the
entire Gulag administration archive and other important
collections—persevered. The result was an extraordinary series,
"The Annals of Communism," whose collective impact on
Soviet historiography is something akin to that of the Rosetta
Stone on the study of hieroglyphics. Among other things, Brent
published edited collections of documents on the Spanish Civil
War, the Great Terror, collectivization, the Katyn massacre, and
the gulag; Stalin's correspondence with various henchmen,
including Molotov and Kaganovich; the police files of Andrei
Sakharov; even the final diary of the last Czarina.
A few did contain sensations: Yale's book on the American
Communist Party, authored by John Earl Haynes and Harvey
Klehr, exposed, among other things, the CPUSA's secret
financial relationship with the Soviet Union and its covert
obedience to Soviet causes. Brent's own book, Stalin's Last
Crime, described the anti-Jewish purge carried out by Stalin at
the end of his life—and hints, though doesn't quite prove, that
Stalin was murdered.
All of this gave a new lease on life to the incestuous world of
Soviet studies, which had been divided for decades into
historians who preferred the triumphant version of Soviet
history, accessible in official documents like newspapers, and
those who listened to the very different story told by witnesses,
refugees, and dissidents. This essentially ideological argument
ended forever with the publication of archival information by
Yale and others, replacing it, for the first time, with real
history—and proving, among other things, that the witnesses,
refugees, and dissidents had largely been right.
Although he discusses some of the academic issues that lay at
the heart of the Yale project, the point of Inside the Stalin
Archives is somewhat different: Brent is less interested in what
his series meant for Western academics and more interested in
explaining the strange atmosphere of post-Soviet Moscow, and
in particular the ways in which Russia's twisted past continued to
shape its present.*
Elsewhere—in East Germany, for example—the collapse of
communism meant that the archive doors swung wide open, and
researchers of all kinds flooded inside. But in Moscow, each
archive (state, party, military) made its own decisions about
which documents to release and to whom to release them. Some,
3/104
among them the Russian state archive, where gulag documents
are kept, were relatively open, though more out of negligence
than any commitment to historical truth. I worked there in the
1990s and had the impression that nobody much cared if a bunch
of foreigners were reading some old crumbling documents, let
alone wasting their time writing books about them. By contrast,
the military and ex-KGB archives were always kept under tight
control. The image of the Red Army, the identities of
informers—all of these things continued to matter to the Soviet
authorities and still do.
In the past couple of years, this control has even expanded, with
reclassification of documents and heavier restriction on foreign
researchers. And in place of the official disregard of the past,
there is now a new, state-promulgated version of history. The
crimes of Stalinism are acknowledged but downplayed:
"Mistakes were made." By contrast, the Second World War, and
in particular the moment of Stalinist military triumph in 1945, is
ever more loudly celebrated in books, films, and public
anniversaries.
This change of attitude has a political purpose, of course. ExPresident and de facto Russian leader Vladimir Putin is well
aware that the more people take pride the Soviet past, the less
likely they are to want a system that is more genuinely
democratic and genuinely capitalist. The more nostalgia there is
for Soviet-era symbols, the more secure he and the ex-KGB
clique around him are going to be. Putin has in effect made a
promise to the Russians that goes something like this: Support
me, and Russia will once again be stable; Russians will get rich;
the media will sing in harmony with the politicians; the country
will have an international presence, just like it was when you or
your parents were young. And nobody will talk about how bad
we used to be.
What Brent's book provides is some sense of that strange
moment of transition, the few years between the crumbling
Soviet Union of Gorbachev and glasnost and the resurgent
Russian nationalism of the present. He evokes the odd smell of
Moscow streets, some combination of poor plumbing, boiled
cabbage, and exhaust fumes; the conversations with Russians
who constantly wanted to know what things cost in America and
were taken aback to realize that we were far richer than they
were; the furtive assignations with ex-KGB officers, always
eager, even excited, to speak; the cheap plumbing fixtures; the
tasteless cookies and too-strong black tea; the odd vacuum
where everything—ideology, politics, nation—used to be. That
anarchic, open, exciting, and frightening atmosphere is gone
now: Moscow is a more rigid, more subdued, and more
hierarchical place. The past is on its way to being reburied, or at
least reassessed. If Brent arrived in Moscow with Winston
cigarettes today, I'm afraid that nobody would pay any attention
to him at all.
Correction, Dec. 8, 2008: This article originally referred to
Jonathan Brent's new book as Inside the Soviet Archives. The
correct title is Inside the Stalin Archives. (Return to the
corrected sentence.)
corrections
Corrections
Friday, December 12, 2008, at 7:11 AM ET
In the Dec. 10 "Press Box," Jack Shafer mistakenly referred to
an "indictment" in the Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich case when
he should have referred to a "complaint."
In the Dec. 8 "Books," Anne Applebaum referred to Jonathan
Brent's new book as Inside the Soviet Archives. The correct title
is Inside the Stalin Archives.
In the Dec. 8 "Technology," Farhad Manjoo originally criticized
SnapTell's iPhone application for failing to recognize products
like a bag of Cheez-Its and a bottle of Arm & Hammer laundry
detergent. The SnapTell application is designed to identify only
books, CDs, DVDs, and video games.
In the Dec. 7 "Today's Papers," David Sessions mislabeled the
name of the New York Times "Week in Review" section as the
"Weekend" section. The column also incorrectly stated that
Senate Republicans want lawmakers to cut costs and reduce debt
at auto companies—it's the automakers themselves who
Republicans want to do the cost-cutting—and misstated the cost
of state road and school programs awaiting federal cash. Those
projects total an estimated $136 billion, not $136 million.
In the Dec. 5 "Explainer," Christopher Beam incorrectly stated
that the hippocampus is responsible for short-term memory. It is
believed to help convert short-term memory to long-term
memory.
In a Dec. 5 "XX Factor" post, Marjorie Valbrun wrote that only
two black female nonmodels besides Michelle Obama had ever
appeared on the cover of Vogue: Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer
Hudson. The post neglected to mention Marion Jones, who
appeared on the January 2001 Vogue cover.
If you believe you have found an inaccuracy in a
Slate story, please send an e-mail to
[email protected], and we will investigate.
General comments should be posted in "The Fray,"
our reader discussion forum.
4/104
culturebox
Killer Serial
It's really time you started watching Dexter.
By Matthew Gilbert
We're now exactly 10 years into cable's ownership of the phrase
"quality TV." HBO grabbed the mantle from all those locationy
network titles—Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue—and
hung it on The Sopranos on Sunday, Jan. 10, 1999, at 9 p.m.
Before long, discerning viewers had developed a taste for
compromised heroes—and a short attention span when it came
to virtuous ones.
Showtime's Dexter, which finishes its third season on Sunday,
inherits cable TV's complex-hero tradition and takes it a step
further. If Sopranos-generation cable put us in moral check,
Dexter pushes us to checkmate. The Sopranos got us to relate to
a mobster, The Wire to enlightened drug-dealers and rogue cops;
but Dexter somehow gets us rooting for a full-on serial killer—
and hoping he never gets caught.
You can't help but recoil from Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall),
a stone-cold killer who plastic-wraps his murder rooms with the
mechanical precision of a die-cutter. But you can't help but love
him, too. He may be a serial killer, but he's a rational serial
killer, one with a strict code: He only goes after killers who've
slipped through the justice system.
The show thus challenges our consciences in the biggest way
possible. In the stunning rape episode of The Sopranos, we felt
the temptation to have Tony Soprano kill Dr. Melfi's unfairly
freed rapist, but only for a moment. Ultimately, we were relieved
that Melfi didn't turn to Tony to enact vigilante justice. Dexter
pushes us through such qualms every week. You cheer Dexter
the murderer as he stalks his prey—and outwits anyone who gets
in his way—as you might cheer Batman swooping into action.
Except unlike Batman, Dexter never spares the villain or broods
over the morality of vigilantism. No bleeding heart, he.
The basics: The boyishly handsome Dexter Morgan is a bloodspatter analyst at the Miami Police Department, which is where
he catches the scent of his victims. To his sister, a high-strung
cop named Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), and to his blandly sweet
fiance, Rita (Julie Benz), he is an odd but lovable outsider. To
his colleagues, he's the reserved Average Joe who brings them
donuts in the morning.
Everyone would be shocked to discover that the Clark Kent-like
Dexter seethes with murderous rage, that he controls his violent
animal instincts just enough to direct them against his victims.
He looks so normal. But the viewer gets to know Dexter better
than anyone, through his intimate voice-overs, delivered in the
wry but stiff monotone of a noir detective. ("I'm not in the
business of giving life," he mumbles upon learning that Rita is
pregnant.) Since the show's 2006 premiere, he has revealed his
history to us, and it has accumulated the mythic qualities of a
superhero's back story: An early-childhood parental trauma, the
urge to combat evildoers, a secret identity. The 3-year-old
Dexter saw his mother carved up with a chainsaw and was
locked in a storage container for days with her body. His
adoptive father, an astute cop named Harry Morgan, knew that
Dexter would be compelled to kill his mother's murderer over
and over again. So Harry taught Dexter to channel his blood lust
into cleaning up the streets of Miami.
The key to the show's power is that Dexter is so curiously
appealing—and a big part of that appeal is thanks to the superb
work of Michael C. Hall. Hall's affectless, Mr. Spock-ish
performance is the opposite of Ian McShane as Al Swearingen in
Deadwood or Denis Leary as Tommy Gavin in Rescue Me, who
deliver unedited rants with the volume turned up. Dexter is all
interior self-scrutiny, but thanks to Hall, you never for a second
feel like he's merely a construct built to upend our moral
balance. There's something profoundly sympathetic about this
guy as he works to seem "ordinary," like an awkward teen trying
to fit in. He speaks to the nerd in all of us, that part of ourselves
that is always wary of being seen as an outsider or a fraud.
Every season, the writers—including Jeff Lindsay, author of the
books on which the show is based—emphasize Dexter's merits
by throwing him in with someone who's far more dangerous than
he is. Within the tightly plotted seasonlong arcs, the writers
distort the spectrum of good and evil. In Season 1, the heavy was
the Ice Truck Killer, who turned out to be someone very close to
Dexter. In Season 2, it was Dexter's lover, Lila (the dynamic
Jaime Murray), a borderline with a fire fixation. And this season,
it has been blood-thirsty D.A. Miguel Prado, played with
unexpected angst by the usually more heroic Jimmy Smits. None
of these people operates with a code like Dexter's, and,
inevitably, he contrasts favorably to them.
Also casting Dexter in a positive light is Deb, played by
Carpenter with winning foul-mouthed emotionality. (For Deb,
"dildo" is a term of endearment.) She has been ridiculously
sloppy in her romantic adventures: With the Ice Truck Killer,
with her boss, and, this season, with an informant. She's a dear
mess. Sure, Dexter is terribly bottled up, but, well, Debra. She
makes Dexter's robotically deliberate approach to life seem
rather creditable.
Does all this make Dexter sound like a one-note morality play?
Oh no, it's not. It's one of TV's very best times. I've pushed it on
many a friend looking for the next chapter in smart TV, and few
have complained. There's always the initial balk—a show about
5/104
a vigilante killer?—but the reality of watching Dexter is much
more dimensional, suspenseful, and comic than its premise
might suggest. On top of everything, Dexter is a black comedy.
"I'm sorry," Dexter said to the relative of a dead man earlier this
season. "That I killed him," he adds in a voice-over. Dexter is
also secretly a ham.
Then there is the visual wit of Dexter, beginning with the
amusing title sequence, a chronicle of Dexter's morning that's a
small masterpiece of sociopathic insinuation set to a warped
merry-go-round song. As Dexter mundanely shaves, wraps
dental floss around his fingers, grinds coffee beans, and carves
some meat, you can't help but see in his actions the
meticulousness of his killing techniques. The show generally has
an alluring Miami-noir haze over it, but when Dexter gets his
victim on a gurney in some vacant room in the middle of
nowhere and pulls out his knife, the motif becomes Abstract
Expressionist—except Dexter spatters with blood. Dexter's set
designers are among TV's most audacious.
And so the DVDs of two seasons of Dexter, and On Demand
access to a third, await you. Dexter Morgan may be lying to
everyone he knows, and he may be breaking the laws of
humankind, but still: There will be a special jail in heaven for
him and, in the meantime, a special place in the TV canon for his
show.
day to day
Blagojevich's Crimes?
Wednesday, December 10, 2008, at 7:01 PM ET
Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008
Politics: What Exactly Did Blagojevich Do?
Chief political correspondent John Dickerson discusses the
various people involved the Illinois governor's pay-for-play
scheme. We also explore President-elect Barack Obama's
relationship with Blagojevich. (Listen to the segment.)
.
.
.
dear prudence
Drag Queen Daddy
How do we explain my husband's cross-dressing to our child?
Thursday, December 11, 2008, at 7:02 AM ET
Get "Dear Prudence" delivered to your inbox each week; click
here to sign up. Please send your questions for publication to
[email protected]. (Questions may be edited.)
Dear Prudence,
I have been happily married for several years, and we are
expecting our first child. The only problem is that my husband is
a cross-dresser. This is a fetish that I know he could never give
up. We keep this behind closed doors so as not to alienate
friends and family and to keep his work associates from finding
out (if they did, he could lose his job). Our question is how do
we incorporate this facet of our life with a new child? If we keep
it hidden, our child will most likely find out someday—when
mom is doing the wash for two dress sizes—and then feel
betrayed and hurt. If we keep on as we are, then our child will
likely tell someone that daddy wears dresses, and it wouldn't be
fair to burden anyone with that secret. What is the best thing for
us to do?
—Daddy in Dresses
Dear Daddy in Dresses,
I know that when you're expecting, you feel a need to get
everything perfect for your new addition, but you're getting way
ahead of yourself if you think you should dress a teddy bear in a
peignoir so you can start explaining to the baby that, just like
Teddy, Daddy likes to wear pretty ladies' clothes. Let's say you
two were into bondage and had a closetful of whips and chains. I
would advise you to keep the closet secured and get a heavyduty lock for the bedroom door, rather than try to "incorporate
this facet" of your life with your child by teaching your toddler
how to snap Daddy into handcuffs for Mommy. If your husband
lounges around at home every night in a bustier, palazzo pants,
and a wig, then I'm voting for repression. It's time for your
husband to limit his dressing up to times when he's not with the
baby. As your child gets older and mobile, your husband will
have to take more steps to separate his fetish from your family
life. Perhaps he will need to check into a motel occasionally
when he just can't stifle the need to dress up as Madonna. Your
husband has to live with this compulsion, but surely you both
want to do your best to keep your child from growing up amid
such sexual confusion. You feel this aspect of your private lives
is none of your family's business, or your husband's colleagues',
and that is an excellent attitude to maintain with your child.
.
—Prudie
Dear Prudence Video: Difficult Dinner Guest
6/104
Dear Prudence,
My dear, highly educated husband has written a book. While he
has many talents, writing isn't among them. He paid someone to
edit the book, which helped it somewhat, but it's still awful. I've
gone through it as well and cleaned it up the best I could without
completely rewriting it. The problem is my attitude—I don't feel
it's my place to crush my husband's dream but find it hard to just
sit there with a smile on my face while he goes on and on about
how life will change when he's a best-selling author. It's not
going to happen. I realize that at one point a publisher (or a stack
of rejection letters) will make the point without me doing so, but
I'm not quite sure how to act now. I love him and want to be
supportive of him following his dreams, but I don't want him to
waste his time. Do I stand by and lie, or break the news to him
somehow?
—Vanity Press
Dear Vanity,
Watch out, Malcolm Gladwell, you're about to be knocked off
the top of the best-seller list by Tales of an Actuarial: Stochastic
Models and Distribution Parameters. You say you don't want
your husband to waste his time, but he's already written the
thing, and if it's as bad as you say, the time's already been
wasted. But consider that while almost everyone thinks they can
write a book (if you go to a bookstore you will think everyone
has written a book), most people never actually do it, so give
your guy credit for sitting down and putting his dream—his
dreary, eye-glazing dream—on paper. I can't tell if your
husband's fantasies are sweetly pathetic or disturbingly
delusional. But it says something odd about the state of your
marriage that you could go so far as to edit this manuscript
without your husband noticing you shared Ambrose Bierce's
sentiment: "The covers of this book are too far apart." You don't
need to crush your husband—you're right, the marketplace will
take care of that task—but you should be honest. The next time
he starts talking about what he's going to say to Meredith Vieira
when she's interviewing him on the Today show, you need to
convey that the chances of anyone's book becoming a best-seller
are vanishingly small, and his are less than that.
—Prudie
Dear Prudie,
I come from a small, close-knit family. About two months ago,
my sister's brother-in-law did something very freakish. I was
stopping by to pick up some CDs to install on my new computer,
and when I arrived, I saw him peek out the window before he
opened the door. To my surprise, disgust, and embarrassment, he
was standing there in his underwear. He went to get the CDs and
handed them to me while still in his underwear. After I left, he
called and asked if I wanted to go for a ride with him on his
motorcycle. I refused and have not spoken to or seen him since.
We are now planning Christmas dinner at my sister's house, and
the in-laws are joining us. This would be very awkward for me
and my fiance, who knows about the events. I would rather not
attend and then visit my sister's house after they leave. But my
sister's husband says that I should just get over it and attend. He
feels that what happened wasn't all that bad. But I do and would
rather not see this fellow in the near future. Am I overreacting?
—Avoiding the In-laws
Dear Avoiding,
Maybe your sister's brother-in-law was auditioning for a spot in
the Guitar Hero commercial. OK, probably not. But don't let this
jerk's appearance in his skivvies keep you and your fiance from
enjoying your Christmas. (I love the touch of him calling and
asking you to ride his "motorcycle.") You can be appropriately
icy to him, and if he doesn't get the message, tell him something
to the effect that if he ever tries to make a pass at you again, you
and your fiance will see that he stars in a version of the
"Nutcracker Suite."
—Prudie
Dear Prudence,
We spend every Thanksgiving with my in-laws and my
husband's extended family. I genuinely enjoy these people, but
there is something about the enforced three-day visits that drives
me nuts. This year, after a very long day where I didn't get
enough sleep, I lost it and blew up in front of the group. Most of
the grown-ups have told me not to worry. My problem is the
niece who apparently thinks I'm mad at her or don't like her. I
can't quite bring myself to apologize to her because she's right—
I'm not crazy about her. Over the years she's been rude to my
daughter, who adores her, and awful to everyone else, including
her parents. I know I should be the grown-up and apologize, but
I can't quite bring myself to do this. Should I write to her and let
her know I was in the wrong and was acting childishly?
—Lost It
Dear Lost It,
Sending a note of apology will be a great moral lesson for your
niece and a psychological relief for you. She surely has picked
up that you don't like her. Unless she has a deep-set personality
disorder, in some part of that fevered teenage brain she knows
she is unpleasant to be around. It's understandable that you don't
want to apologize to this brat, but that's part of why you should.
Many an intolerable teen has become a lovely adult. (Just as
many have gone on to become intolerable adults.) Your niece
may get the note and say, "Why should I accept this lame
apology?" But maybe there will be a small glimmer of
realization in her that when you behave badly you can repair it
by owning up and trying to make things right. Your gracious
gesture will speak more powerfully than any of the dozens of
lectures on how to conduct herself she's surely heard from the
exasperated adults in her life.
7/104
—Prudie
Photograph of Prudie by Teresa Castracane.
explainer
How Many "President-Elects" Are
There?
Why won't federal prosecutors in Illinois use Barack Obama's name?
By Jacob Leibenluft
Thursday, December 11, 2008, at 6:41 PM ET
The wiretapped conversations recounted in the criminal
complaint (PDF) filed against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on
Tuesday include several references to Barack Obama, but
prosecutors have apparently taken the measure of replacing his
name with the phrase "[President-Elect]." (The complaint
similarly referred to Sam Zell as "Tribune Owner.") Since
everyone knows that Obama is the president-elect, what's the
point?
For the sake of consistency. Randall Samborn, an assistant U.S.
attorney who serves as spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald's office, declined to discuss the logic behind the
specific language in the affidavit. But prosecutors are usually
hesitant to name people who are not defendants within charging
documents, except when absolutely necessary. (As a result, the
cast of characters in the charging document includes not only
"President-Elect" and "Tribune Owner," but also "Sports
Consultant," "Highway Contractor 1," and "Deputy Governor
A.") In a press conference on Tuesday, Fitzgerald—who, by the
Explainer's count, referenced Obama by name twice at the
podium—tried to emphasize that the complaint against
Blagojevich and his chief of staff should not be used to "cast
aspersions" on the unnamed people it made reference to. "We
make no charges about any of the other people who are
referenced in the complaint, most not by name," Fitzgerald
explained.
The U.S. Attorney's Manual—which lays out the standards
prosecutors should follow—does not clearly specify how people
should be described in criminal complaints when they haven't
been accused of wrongdoing. But many prosecutors follow the
same rules spelled out for people who may have done something
wrong but aren't being charged—think Client 9 in the case
against the Emperor's Club. (These are known as "unindicted coconspirators" or "uncharged third-party wrongdoers.") The
manual says that in all public filings, prosecutors should "remain
sensitive to the privacy and reputation interests of uncharged
third-parties" and avoid naming names whenever possible.
(Those rules stem in part from a case in which unindicted co-
conspirators in a case following demonstrations at the 1972
Republican National Convention "complain[ed] of injury to their
good names and reputations and impairment of their ability to
obtain employment.") Even if the law at hand stipulates that the
crime involves someone with a specific position—for example,
bribing a congressman—the manual says, "[T]he third-party can
usually be referred to generically ('a Member of Congress'),
rather than identified specifically ('Senator Jones')."
The basic logic behind these standards is that while a criminal
defendant can redeem his or her name in court, someone who is
never charged doesn't have the same opportunity—yet their
name will remain forever in publicly available (and sometimes
Google-searchable) court documents. Still, as in the case of
Tribune Owner or President-Elect, prosecutors often can't help
but include enough information in a charging document to allow
anyone reading it to easily figure out whom it is referencing.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Randall Eliason of the George Washington
University Law School and Daniel Richman of Columbia Law
School.
.
explainer
Ejection Seats 101
What's the protocol for using an ejection seat?
By Juliet Lapidos
A military jet crashed into a residential street in San Diego on
Monday, killing at least three people and destroying three houses
and four vehicles. The pilot, who had ejected himself from the
cockpit, landed safely in a tree. An eyewitness wondered
whether the Marine could instead have "turned [the plane]
around and put it in the ocean." What's the protocol for using an
ejection seat?
It depends on the condition of the aircraft. If the pilot is in
control of the plane but determines that a crash is inevitable, he
should head to the closest unpopulated area, reduce speed, and
then eject. If, however, the pilot has lost control of the plane's
basic functioning and can no longer alter its path (in military
parlance, the aircraft is "not flying, but falling"), then he should
prioritize escaping before impact. From news reports, it seems
the incident in San Diego falls into the latter category, which
would absolve the pilot of blame. While the Marine Corps
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provided some information on standard procedure, the Navy
refused to comment, since there may be an investigation.
All Marine and Naval pilots receive training on in-flight
emergency protocol as well as instructions on how actually to
launch themselves out of a plane at the moment of crisis.
The pilot involved in this week's crash was flying an F/A-18 D,
which uses a Navy Air Crew Common Ejection Seat. Before
pulling the ejection handle on this device, the pilot should have
his chin elevated 10 degrees, the back of his head pressed
against the headrest, his elbows to his sides, shoulders and back
pressed against the seat, and his heels on the floor. Once the
chair activates, a motor located beneath the seat fires and
launches the pilot vertically, about 400 feet. His parachute
opens, and then his seat falls to the ground. From the time the
pilot grips the handle to when the parachute unfurls takes about
two seconds.
The first ejection seats, powered by compressed air, were
developed by the Germans during World War II. In January
1942, a man named Helmut Schenck escaped from his iced-up
plane using an ejection seat, marking the first known emergency
ejection. Prior to the 1940s, the only way to escape a plane was
to jump out the door with a parachute, an especially difficult
process in the case of injury.
Explainer thanks 2nd Lt. Joshua Diddams of the Marine Corps,
Steven Levin of Levin and Perconti, and Andrew J. Martin of
Martin-Baker.
.
Not necessarily. Illinois state code doesn't require its legislature
to approve the governor's pick to fill a vacant Senate seat, nor
does it specify a deadline for the appointment. The law merely
states that a new senator can't be named until the outgoing one
steps down. (Obama took that formal step on Nov. 16.) That
means that if Blagojevich acts quickly enough, he could, in
theory, make an unfettered appointment of any of the candidates
he was caught discussing (PDF)—or anyone else who is
constitutionally qualified for the office.
But there are several ways in which the governor could be
thwarted. The Illinois General Assembly could pass a bill that
overturns the existing law and calls for a special election to fill
the Senate seat. (The state Senate has already been reconvened
for that purpose.) Even if the bill cleared both state Assemblies,
however, it would still need a signature from Blagojevich, who
would have 60 days to make his decision. A decision to veto
could be overturned by a three-fifths majority in both the upper
and lower houses. (Blagojevich is a Democrat, and Democrats
have a majority in the state assembly. But this vote probably
wouldn't split neatly along party lines.)
State Assembly leaders are already discussing another way to
stop Blagojevich—impeachment. If the governor were formally
convicted after the impeachment process, he'd lose the right to
appoint the senator. That would take a simple majority in the
state Assembly's lower chamber (the House), followed by a trial
in the upper chamber (the Senate), presided over by the chief
justice of the Illinois Supreme Court and requiring a two-thirds
majority vote.
Blagojevich would also lose the right to make the appointment if
he were convicted in federal court, but this isn't likely to happen
anytime soon. His gubernatorial predecessor, for example, is
currently serving a six-year sentence for corruption, but the trial
and appeals dragged on for two years.
.
explainer
Can Blagojevich Still Appoint a New
Senator?
How the Illinois legislature might try to stop him.
By Noreen Malone
Tuesday, December 9, 2008, at 6:49 PM ET
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday morning
after an investigation revealed that he had attempted to sell off
the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. Blagojevich
remains the governor despite his arrest—and that means he still
gets to choose the next senator, right?
Even if Blagojevich makes his pick before any state-level action
can be taken, the buck stops with the U.S. Constitution, which
states: "Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns
and qualifications of its own members." That leaves the final say
up to the discretion of the U.S. Senate in Washington. There
have been five cases in which the Senate has refused to
recognize an appointee (although all but one occurred before the
17th Amendment and the direct election of senators). In 1912, the
Senate concluded that a 33-year-old businessman named
William Lorimer had obtained his seat (three years earlier)
through bribery and corruption. The would-be lawmaker hailed
from the great state of Illinois.
Explainer thanks Betty Koed of the U.S Senate Historical Office
and Ken Menzel of the Illinois Board of Elections.
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accepting voluntary services, and Comptroller General decision
201528 (PDF) forbids federal agencies from doing the same.
The only exception is in the case of emergencies.
explainer
Is a $1 Salary Paid in Installments?
Plus, wouldn't that be less than minimum wage?
By Nina Shen Rastogi
Monday, December 8, 2008, at 7:18 PM ET
The CEOs of the Big Three automakers promised last week to
limit themselves to $1 personal salaries in return for federal
bailout money for their cash-strapped companies. If that
happens, they would join a number of top executives—like
Whole Foods' John Mackey, Apple's Steve Jobs, Yahoo's Jerry
Yang, and Google's Eric Schmidt—who get paid a single dollar.
Does a salary like that get paid out all at once, or do you get a
check for 4 cents twice a month?
It's paid in a lump sum. Richard Kinder, the CEO of Kinder
Morgan Energy Partners, gets his $1 dollar salary by check
every January—that's 93 cents, after deducting for state and
federal taxes. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York also gets
an annual check for 93 cents—with 6 cents going to Social
Security and one penny to Medicare. (Bloomberg habitually
leaves his check uncashed, however.)
A dollar a year—or about 1.9 cents a week—is way less than the
federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. Does that mean these
symbolic salaries are illegal? Technically, yes. According to the
Fair Labor Standards act, executives can be exempted from
hourly minimum wage laws (and the requirement that they be
paid for working overtime) only if they get paid a salary valued
at $455 or more a week. Being paid on a "salary basis" means
you get compensated a predetermined amount, regardless of how
many hours you work or how good your work is. So even though
dollar-a-year CEOs tend to get other kinds of benefits—options,
shares, Gulfstreams—those probably wouldn't count as
compensation because their values aren't fixed.
To qualify as a minimum-wage-exempt executive, the person
must also manage two or more full-time employees and have the
power to make hiring and firing decisions. Executives who own
at least 20 percent equity interest in the company are exempt as
well. (For more information on white-collar exemptions to
minimum wage law, see this PowerPoint presentation from the
Department of Labor.)
Last week in The Big Money, Karim Bardeesy explained why
the first crop of "dollar-a-year men"—company execs who
joined the nation's war effort during World War I—were paid a
nominal fee: At the time, it was illegal to work for the
government for free. It still is—U.S. Code Title 31, Section 1342
prohibits any officer of the United States government from
Explainer thanks Alexander Cwirko-Godycki of Equilar, Farrell
Sklerov of the New York City Mayor's Office, Loren Smith of the
U.S. Department of Labor, and Emily Thompson of Kinder
Morgan Energy Partners.
fighting words
Inconvenient Truths
The media's disingenuous failure to state the obvious.
By Christopher Hitchens
The obvious is sometimes the most difficult thing to discern, and
few things are more amusing than the efforts of our journals of
record to keep "open" minds about the self-evident, and thus to
create mysteries when the real task of reportage is to dispel
them. An all-time achiever in this category is Fernanda Santos of
the New York Times, who managed to write from Bombay on
Nov. 27 that the Chabad Jewish center in that city was "an
unlikely target of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed a series of
bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's
commercial center." Continuing to keep her brow heavily
furrowed with the wrinkles of doubt and uncertainty, Santos
went on to say that "[i]t is not known if the Jewish center was
strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
This same puzzled expression is currently being widely worn on
the faces of all those who wonder if Pakistan is implicated in the
"bloody coordinated" assault on the heart of Bombay. To get an
additional if oblique perspective on this riddle that is an enigma
wrapped inside a mystery, take a look at Joshua Hammer's
excellent essay in the current Atlantic. The question in its title—
"[Is Syria] Getting Away With Murder?"—is at least asked only
at the beginning of the article and not at the end of it.
Here are the known facts: If you are a Lebanese politician or
journalist or public figure, and you criticize the role played by
the government of Syria in your country's internal affairs, your
car will explode when you turn the ignition key, or you will be
ambushed and shot or blown up by a bomb or land mine as you
drive through the streets of Beirut or along the roads that lead to
the mountains. The explosives and weapons used, and the skilled
tactics employed, will often be reminiscent of the sort of
resources available only to the secret police and army of a state
machine. But I think in fairness I must stress that this is all that
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is known for sure. You criticize the Assad dictatorship, and
either your vehicle detonates or your head is blown off. Over
time, this has happened to a large and varied number of people,
ranging from Sunni statesman Rafik Hariri to Druze leader
Kamal Jumblatt to Communist spokesman George Hawi. One
would not wish to be a "conspiracy theorist" and allege that there
was any necessary connection between the criticisms in the first
place and the deplorably terminal experiences in the second.
Hammer's article is good for a laugh in that it shows just how
much trouble the international community will go to precisely in
order not to implicate the Assad family in this string of
unfortunate events. After all, does Damascus not hold the keys
to peace in the region? Might not young Bashar Assad, who
managed to become president after the peaceful death by natural
causes of his father, become annoyed and petulant and even
uncooperative if he were found to have been commissioning
assassinations? Could the fabled "process" suffer if a finger of
indictment were pointed at him? At the offices of the longestablished and by now almost historic United Nations inquiry
into the Hariri murder, feet are evidently being dragged because
of considerations like these, and Hammer describes the resulting
atmosphere very well.
In rather the same way, the international community is deciding
to be, shall we say, nonjudgmental in the matter of Pakistani
involvement in the Bombay unpleasantness. Everything from the
cell phones to the training appears to be traceable to the
aboveground surrogates of an ostensibly banned group known as
Lashkar-i-Taiba, which practices what it preaches and preaches
holy war against Hindus, as well as Jews, Christians, atheists,
and other elements of the "impure." Lashkar is well-known to be
a bastard child—and by no means a disowned one, either—of
the Pakistani security services. But how inconvenient if this selfevident and obvious fact should have to be faced.
How inconvenient, for one thing, for the government of
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, a new and untried politician
who may not exactly be in charge of his own country or of its
armed forces but who nonetheless knows how to jingle those
same keys of peace. How inconvenient, too, for all those who
assume that the Afghan war is the "good" war when they see
Pakistani army units being withdrawn from the Afghan frontier
and deployed against democratic India (which has always been
Pakistan's "real" enemy).
The Syrian and Pakistani situations are a great deal more similar
than most people have any interest in pointing out. In both cases,
there is a state within the state that exerts the real parallel power
and possesses the reserve strength. In both cases, official
"secularism" is a mask (as it also was with the Iraqi Baathists)
for the state sponsorship of theocratic and cross-border gangster
groups like Lashkar and Hezbollah. In both cases, an unknown
quantity of nuclear assets are at the disposal of the official and
banana republic state and also very probably of elements within
the unofficial and criminal and terrorist one. (It is of huge and
unremarked significance that Syria did not take the recent Israeli
bombing of its hidden reactor to the United Nations or make any
other public complaint.) Given these grim and worsening states
of affairs, perhaps it is only small wonder that we take
consolation in our illusions and in comforting doubts—such as
the childlike wonder about whether Jews are deliberately
targeted or just unlucky with time and place. This would all be
vaguely funny if it wasn't headed straight toward our own
streets.
food
The State of the Cookie
What does the cookie jar of tomorrow hold?
By Sara Dickerman, Dorie Greenspan, and David Lebovitz
From: Sara Dickerman
To: Dorie Greenspan and David Lebovitz
Subject: Just What Is a Cookie, Anyway?
Posted Thursday, December 11, 2008, at 7:03 AM ET
Dear Dorie and David,
Thank you both for joining me—I'm really looking forward to
mulling over the state of the cookie with such inspiring bakers
and writers. It is, of course, cookie season. Most of the food
glossies have an elaborate cookie section in their December
issues, and with this year's economic news, I suspect many
people will make their holiday gifts rather than buying them.
Also, Anita Chu's sweet little Field Guide to Cookies just came
out. Organized by cookie taxonomy, it's a bit like a birdidentification book. Because the guide is so catholic, including
such borderline species as gougères (cheese puffs), baklava, and
Algerian almond tarts, it opens up a rather critical question
(critical, at least, for those of us devoted to making life sweeter):
Just what is a cookie, anyway?
It's actually quite hard to define a cookie when you get down to
it. The adjective "sweet" usually comes to mind, but I was eating
a Dutch windmill cookie the other day and was surprised at how
savory it was—it could easily have been served with cheese.
Chu has a great recipe for TV snacks, which are buttery little
almond haystacks livened up with sea salt. Butter is a fairly
universal cookie ingredient but not an essential one, either.
Macarons and macaroons and meringues and the like are made
with little or none of it. In the end, I suppose my definition of a
cookie has something to do with portability and with guilty
pleasure (although this diet doctor asserts that his high-protein
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cookies can help you get slim). Dorie and David—what makes a
cookie a cookie for you?
madeleines? (Sorry, sorry. I swore I could make it through a
cookie discussion without mentioning Proust, but I couldn't.)
A related question: What is it that makes a cookie American?
You both spend a lot of time in Paris, so I'm hoping you'll share
your expatriate perspective. When I think of an American
cookie, I think chunky—in terms of heft and girth but also
chunky with sedimentary matter like chocolate chips, raisins,
M&M's, brickle bits, etc. Our penchant for chunk likely has
something to do with the fact that we like to customize—we
want our cookies to be ours in some fundamental way. Even
people who aren't all that inventive in the kitchen feel as if they
can hot-rod a basic cookie recipe with mix-ins like dried cherries
and butterscotch chips. These tweaks often work quite well—my
mother-in-law's chocolate-chip cookies, for example, have Rice
Krispies mixed in for a clandestine crunch factor. But sometimes
cookies have so many added ingredients that they get a little
frenetic. As a rule, I'd say two textured add-ins—plus an
optional flavor tweak like orange zest or almond extract—is
about all a cookie-eating brain can process.
Yours,
Sara
The size issue is a complicated one. I grew up when "monster
cookies" were all the rage—those 9-inch cookies that you could
decorate with frosting for someone's birthday. They were really
bar cookies, because they ended up quite cakey. Today's bakery
cookies tend to be 4 or 5 inches across, which is great, in some
ways, because they allow a distinct chewy texture to develop at
the center of the cookie while the edges stay crisp. On the other
hand, many bakery cookies are too big for a single snack. (This
problem has become more acute since I became a mother: I hear
a lot of "just one cookie" entreaties.) Of course the size issue
cuts across industries—here in the states we like big cars, big
muscles, big lattes—you name it.
While we're defining things, I feel I should declare my cookie
allegiances, just so you know where I stand. I do love a good
chocolate chip cookie—one with a little too much chocolate and
preferably no walnuts. I am also fiendish about very spicy
hermits and chocolate-truffle cookies—the ones with a cocoarich dough and big chunks of dark chocolate inside. I am entirely
indifferent to most shortbreads and to ordinary sugar cookies
(the crisp kind). I prefer my cookies to have a certain chew to
them, unless they are very, very thin. On that note, I am always
drawn to recipes for thin nut cookies made with brown sugar,
which are almost impossible to find at bakeries. Maida Heatter,
one of the great cookie gurus and a Floridian, is an advocate, and
so I associate them in my mind with a certain shade of coral
lipstick and the click of mahjongg tiles. And, finally, I rarely
make very fussy cookies. I frequently resolve to bake
sandwiched French macarons or homemade fig newtons, but
ultimately I'm too impatient for cookies that have multiple steps.
David and Dorie, you've probably baked every cookie there is,
but which ones do you keep returning to? Are there cookies from
your childhood that stir your nostalgia like you-know-who's
From: David Lebovitz
To: Dorie Greenspan and Sara Dickerman
Subject: I Can't Resist Mallomars
Posted Thursday, December 11, 2008, at 12:12 PM ET
Dear Sara and Dorie,
Thanks, Sara, for getting us started. Well, here's my attempt to
define the cookie: I'd say that it's handheld (although I've seen a
few that tip the scales in the other direction); it's something
meant to be consumed in a few bites; and it absolutely,
positively has to be round. OK, I just made that last one up. Of
course, you're right to point out that there are plenty of minisized
treats and bars out there, like Anita Chu's Viennese almond
crescents, which put my theory in question. Still, I would say
that, for me, a good cookie should be big enough for at least
three bites. Maybe Dorie can be the brain on that, and I'll be the
brawn?
I agree with your explanation of why the American cookie is a
chunky one. We Americans are "customizers." If you go to any
restaurant in America, it's practically de rigueur to ask whether
the chef can change everything on the menu. And we also take a
"more is better" approach. Most folks feel a restaurant is a good
value if there's a lot of food on the plate.
As for those thin, nutty cookies you mentioned, you probably
won't find them at bakeries, since they're a lot of work to roll,
cut, and bake. And they're fragile, meaning there's going to be a
certain amount of breakage. (When I worked in a restaurant
kitchen, I never had trouble getting rid of broken cookies, due to
the steady swarm of hungry chefs milling around the pastry
department at all hours.) Cookies take a lot of time, and anything
fancy or small is going to be more costly and time-consuming to
produce. That's probably the appeal of larger cookies in bakeries
and with home cooks. On that note, I couldn't eat a 9-inch
cookie, but if a cookie is good, I want more than one tiny bite of
it. So a happy medium is appreciated.
Here in Paris, if I buy cookies, I prefer the kind that are difficult
to make at home (especially if your kitchen is postage-stampsized, as is mine). I often go for macarons, which, like baguettes
and croissants, are readily available and inexpensive. When I'm
back in the States, if I'm in the supermarket, I can't resist
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Mallomars: big puffs of marshmallow sitting on a grahamcracker-like base, covered with the thinnest layer of dark
chocolate. Those, and sugar wafers, remind me a lot of my
childhood. But of all the store-bought cookies, HeyDays were
the best—long wafers covered with caramel and dark chocolate,
completely blanketed with toasted nuts. Perhaps they
disappeared from the marketplace since they fell in that dubious
area between cookie and candy bar: You're entitled to eat a bag
of cookies, but few folks feel comfortable plowing through a bag
of candy bars!
From: Dorie Greenspan
To: Sara Dickerman and David Lebovitz
Subject: Baker's Paradise
Hi, Sara and David,
Thanks for giving me so much to think about. It's funny: I've
never considered the definition of a cookie; I always figured I'd
know one when I saw one. And since I love cookies
immoderately, I say three cheers for Anita Chu for casting the
net wide and including treats like profiteroles (little cream puffs
filled with ice cream) and those Algerian almond tarts in her
wonderful new Field Guide to Cookies. Of course, she couldn't
get away with that in France, where a pastry chef's taxonomy of
sweets is so precise: Profiteroles are classified as dessert, tarts
are pastries, and bunches more of her sweets wouldn't qualify as
cookies (which the French call gateaux secs), either.
Fun probably wouldn't be part of a scholarly definition of the
cookie in any country, but I think one reason cookies are such a
beloved part of the American culinary tradition is that you eat
them with your fingers. They are, as both of you said, handheld
or portable—when you've got to grab a fork to munch on a
sweet, I think you've left cookiedom—and what's better than
playing with your food?
David mentioned that you should be able to polish off a cookie
in three bites. I'd add that cookies shouldn't be more than a bite
larger. I really dislike what Sara calls "monster cookies." And
don't get me started about those cookies that tip the scales at
about 6 ounces and are almost raw in the center. In a perfect
cookie world, cookies would be 3 inches around, crisp close to
the edges, and just a little chewy in the center (just the way you
like them, Sara). And they'd be fully baked. Again, not really a
defining characteristic, but one I think makes a huge difference
in the taste department—when you bake a cookie until it's truly
golden, you get great caramel flavor from both the sugar and the
butter. Cookies in this baker's paradise would not, however, have
to be round! Sorry, David (even if you did only just make the
point up). Limit cookies to roundness, and you miss out on bar
cookies, like brownies—and my guess is that none of us would
want to miss out on those!
Finally, I'm with you both on chunkiness and "sedimentary
matter"—as Sara so adorably called mix-ins like chips and
nuts—being a big part of what makes a cookie all-American.
Maybe it's because, as you said, we Americans like to customize
everything (David, I giggled when you wrote about how
everyone wants to make changes in restaurant dishes), but I
think it comes back to fun and, for me, surprise. When you've
got lots of stuff in a cookie, it means that no two bites will be the
same—some will have more chips, some more nuts, some a
raisin, some a bit of brickle—and that you'll be surprised from
first taste to last. I think it's part of what keeps us coming back
for more.
Of course, coming back for more has never been an issue for me,
and while my favorite cookies are crisp and crunchy and
chockablock with mix-ins, I've got soft spots in my heart for lots
of different kinds of cookies. I'd be happy to have Sara's spurned
shortbreads and sugar crisps, which I love for their simplicity
and luxurious butteriness. I could go through a box of
Mallomars, one of David's favorites, any day and would eat
them just the way I did as a child: First, I'd poke a hole in the
chocolate covering the marshmallow, then I'd nibble away at the
chocolate until the marshmallow sat naked on the graham
cracker and I'd be able to pop the marshmallow into my mouth,
whole, and chase it with the cracker. I'm always content when
there are madeleines (really cookie-size cakes), Linzer cookies
(spice cookies sandwiched with jam), rugelach (cream-cheese
dough crescents rolled around jam, nuts, and currants), any kind
of gingerbread or molasses cookie, and just about any kind of
chocolate cookie in reach. And I'd never refuse a beautiful
Parisian macaron. (Among my favorites are Pierre Herme's rose,
raspberry, and litchi macarons, known as Ispahan.) But, pushed
up against the cookie jar to name my desert-island fave, I'd reach
for the chocolate-chippers and hope they'd be 3 inches in
diameter, thin, crisp, well-browned, and overloaded with very
dark chocolate.
From: Sara Dickerman
To: Dorie Greenspan and David Lebovitz
Subject: What Does the Cookie Jar of Tomorrow Hold?
Posted Friday, December 12, 2008, at 10:46 AM ET
Hi Dorie, hi David—
Yum! This discussion makes me realize what a huge role
nostalgia plays in shaping our appetites. David, you've made me
nostalgic for something I never actually tasted—those near-
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candy bar HeyDays. Isn't it upsetting when a childhood taste
disappears from the markets? I was sad to see that a whole
cookie line, Mother's, recently went under—their peanut butter
Gauchos knocked the pants off Nutter Butters.
As Dorie points out, there's something "fun" about cookies. And
nostalgia is a critical part of that fun—we allow ourselves to
relate to cookies as if we were still children, including ritualistic
ways of consuming these treats. Dorie, for example, mentioned
she has a particular way of munching a Mallomar. Currently, I'm
doing my best to pass my cookie ticks onto my 4-year-old son.
I've taught him to disassemble Oreos (or, in our house, Newman
O's) before eating them, to decapitate animal crackers, and to go
at the petit beurres corners first. (OK—now there's a plain butter
cookie I do like—give me a couple glasses of wine, and I will
confess to delighting in crumbly sables as well.)
The actual baking process is an important aspect of cookie joy,
too. It's rarely acknowledged that cookies take a while to
prepare. (In general, individual treats like dropped or rolled
cookies, cupcakes, and tartlets take longer to bake than cakes or
pies.) Bar cookies are quicker, of course. And I'm always a fan
of keeping frozen dough in the freezer, ready to slice and bake
should the need for warm cookies strike with some urgency. But
there's no reason baking should always be fast and easy. Indeed,
there is much virtue in a certain kind of inconvenience. I love all
the observation and anticipation that comes with baking:
watching for the moment when the butter is creamed or the
whites are whipped; tasting and analyzing the dough, and
reanalyzing it again and again; the careful rotation of pans in the
oven and waiting for that golden moment when you can finally
pull them out of the heat.
On that note, Dorie, you are so right about underbaked cookies.
There's something about a pallid cookie that just seems so
wasteful—you can't stop thinking about how good it could have
been with a few more minutes in the oven. Another key cookie
sin, and a common one in this country full of chunky cookies, is
untoasted nuts. There's nothing like the bitter bite of raw walnut
skin to knock you out of your cookie reverie, while a goldenbrown one adds divine toastiness.
But let's set aside these eternal baking issues. What's out there in
groceries or bakeries or cookbooks that's exciting you today?
Recently, my home cooking has taken on a more healthful bent,
and I have been intrigued by cookie recipes that use whole
grains and alternative sweeteners. Heidi Swanson has some
especially neat ideas, though I still wonder if a healthy cookie is
an untenable paradox. More specifically, I'm glad to find that
some recipes are once again calling for instant espresso powder.
I'd never use the stuff to make a cup of coffee, but I've found
that it adds a bizarrely compelling coffee-salt tang to cookies.
Dorie, you've written previously about how much salt we use in
baked goods these days—a trend that's made sweets a whole lot
more interesting, I think. On that note, I was just reading about
saltine panna cotta at momofuku ssam bar, which got me
thinking about how I might use crushed saltines in a cookie
recipe, perhaps as a crumb crust or even as a sort of macaroon
base. (I am totally American in my affection for tinkering.) What
is it that sends you both scampering off to test a recipe? And
what does the cookie jar of tomorrow hold? Certainly, there will
always be room for chocolate chippers, but are there any
overlooked cookie traditions due for a revival, any gizmo
developments that could compete with the Silpat in cutting-edge
cookie technology?
Yours,
Sara
foreigners
Walesa's Mustache, the Dalai Lama's
Smile, and Sarkozy's Je Ne Sais Quoi
In praise of charismatic politicians.
By Anne Applebaum
GDANSK, Poland—The president of the European Commission
was there; so was Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi and former South
African President F.W. de Klerk, both recipients of the Nobel
Peace Prize. A whole gaggle of prime ministers showed up, keen
to discuss peace, the financial crisis, and, above all, a new pact
on climate change; some Cuban dissidents even sent a letter that
was read aloud onstage.
A lot of people, in other words, traveled to cold, rainy Gdansk
this weekend, eager to attend a conference marking the 25th
anniversary of the day Lech Walesa—Solidarity activist, antiCommunist trade union leader, and former Polish president—
won the Nobel Peace Prize. And yet—though presidents, prime
ministers, and Nobel laureates were in attendance, though vital
negotiations went on in the corridors, three names led all the
news stories: the Dalai Lama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy,
and Walesa himself.
Nor, for once, was this news coverage slanted. Despite the
plethora of distinguished guests, those were indeed the three
stars everyone came to see. I happened to be present when
Sarkozy made his one public appearance, giving what sounded
like a campaign speech, hugely flattering to Poles in general and
Walesa in particular. ("Democracy exists thanks to you and to
people like you!") I was thus able to observe that, when the
French president left the room, a large crowd of people got up
and followed him out the door. As a result, the next speakers—
yet another Nobel laureate and a famous economic reformer
among them—found themselves talking to a half-empty
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conference hall, where the previously electric atmosphere had
somehow fallen flat.
Part of the explanation for this phenomenon lies in the causes
and institutions that the three stars represent. Though Walesa is a
rather controversial figure in Poland—his years as president
aren't recalled with much nostalgia, for example, and it's been a
while since he has made a stirring speech—outside Poland, none
of that matters. Following the death of Pope John Paul II, he is,
simply, the greatest living symbol of the collapse of
communism, the embodiment of the idea that ordinary people—
electricians, shipyard workers—can bring down dictatorships. In
the contemporary world, the Dalai Lama plays a similar role. He,
too, symbolizes defiance—of the Chinese occupation and
cultural destruction of Tibet—and he, too, embodies the idea that
authoritarianism and violence can be fought with faith and
pacifism.
People come to hear the Dalai Lama, like Walesa, not merely
because of what he will say, but because of what he represents.
By the same token, people come to hear Sarkozy not necessarily
because of what he will say but because of who he is: the
president of France, the leader of what remains one of the most
influential nations in Europe, itself the inheritor of a long
tradition of revolutionary democracy.
room—as when the Dalai Lama leaves the room or when
Sarkozy leaves the room—something in the atmosphere,
something indefinable, goes flat. "Moral authority," or any
authority, is something people earn, thanks to their achievements
and the quality of their ideas—and it is something they can
sustain only if they know how to advertise themselves.
gaming
The Gaming Club
Everybody's playing something different—and that's what makes video games
so great.
By N'Gai Croal , Seth Schiesel, Chris Suellentrop, and Stephen
Totilo
From: Chris Suellentrop
To: N'Gai Croal, Seth Schiesel, and Stephen Totilo
Subject: Is 2008 Really the Best Year Ever for Video Games?
Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2008, at 7:22 AM ET
Dear N'Gai, Seth, and Stephen,
And yet—there are other factors at play here, too. I have met
North Korean refugees who are at least as brave as the Dalai
Lama, and there were anti-Communist dissidents at least as
effective as Walesa, yet TV cameras do not follow them from
place to place. Equally, there are other European leaders—Prime
Minister Gordon Brown of Britain comes to mind—who
represent rich democratic traditions, and yet I don't think
photographers would have been quite as powerfully drawn to
them.
The fact is that, aside from what they represent, these three men
share something else rather important: an indefinable form of
charisma, a gift for publicity, and an intuitive understanding of
what will look good in a photograph. Sarkozy wanted his picture
taken with the Dalai Lama partly because he wanted to defy the
Chinese regime's occupation of Tibet and partly because the
Dalai Lama, with his monk's robes, has an almost mystical
appeal. The Dalai Lama wanted his picture taken with Sarkozy
partly because meetings with any foreign leaders help him put
pressure on the Chinese government but also because a
photograph with the glamorous Sarkozy—because he wears
shoes with heels, because he is married to Carla Bruni—is worth
more than most.
And both of them wanted to meet Walesa, because a picture with
Walesa is worth more than a picture with most other Nobel
laureates, too. Why? Because Walesa is an electrician, because
he wears a trademark mustache, because he is given to earthy
sayings and mixed metaphors. And because when he leaves the
I'm honored to welcome you—three of the smartest video game
writers in the country and in Blogistan—back for Slate's second
Gaming Club, the magazine's now-annual look at the year in
games. As someone who spent 2008 on hiatus from formal game
criticism, I'm especially grateful to be invited back inside the
sacristy. I hope to act as an engaged moderator of this year's
discussion, but I'm probably too much of a blowhard to pull that
off and will instead end up posing as the Anton Ego of the Xbox.
Let me start off by picking a fight. Over at MTV's Multiplayer,
Stephen has already asserted that 2008 is the best year in gaming
history, even better than 2007 (my pick for Best Year Evuh!!!)
and 2001 (his other contender).
Really? I guess by the standard you establish—"a 12 month
period that was more well-balanced with good games than any
January to December stretch that had come before"—you might
be right, but I think that's the wrong standard. Were there any
games this year that rank with Bioshock and Portal, my two
favorite games from 2007? Both of those instantly ascended to
the canon, the list of games that all gamers must at least be
familiar with, even if they haven't played them all—like Space
Invaders and Zork and Super Mario Bros. and SimCity and Myst
and Doom and Deus Ex and Halo and whatever else. Everyone
knew this in December. There are no games like that this year.
Something like Grand Theft Auto IV is an astonishing
accomplishment, but I think it's in a lower, if still very esteemed,
tier. (Though I'm ready to be persuaded otherwise. And I'm not
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saying, yet, that GTA IV was the best game of 2008. I still
haven't rendered that judgment.) The greatest year in gaming
history should have one or two revelatory titles, not an
abundance (a welcome abundance, mind you) of Assassin's
Creeds—games that are very good but also flawed and unlikely
to be added to the medium's canon.
Put me down instead, then, with Sean Sands of Gamers With
Jobs, who summed up the year a couple weeks ago as a
disappointment: "I appreciate a fun game as much as the next
guy, and this year has been positively choked with safe bets and
easy playtime. I walk away from 2008 with some nice memories
of time spent happily indulging my pastime, but few moments of
gaming that challenged me on anything but a functional and
mechanical level."
While I agree wholeheartedly with that, I should add the caveat
that I'm rendering an incomplete judgment. I've only nibbled
Fallout 3 ("Mad Max: Beyond Oblivion"). I'm still playing Fable
2. I probably gave up on No More Heroes too quickly. I pretty
much sampled Spore. I've only played the demos of Mirror's
Edge and Left 4 Dead. (Oh Valve, I promise to make that
pilgrimage soon.) I haven't touched LittleBigPlanet or World of
Goo. (I'll get there, I'll get there.) Et cetera.
But I think I've tasted enough of these and other games to feel
comfortable in my verdict. There were four games this year that
grabbed me by the thumbs and never let go: Grand Theft Auto
IV, Gears of War 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Far
Cry 2 (still grabbing me, at least). One of them is a failed
masterpiece. One is exactly what it aims to be. One would
merely be a pretty good PlayStation 2 game, but it's also the
fourth-best (maybe better!) Star Wars movie ever made. And
one—and this is admittedly a midgame judgment—is an "openworld shooter" set in postcolonial Africa that has me crossing
my fingers that it's as good as it seems to be so far.
This is not necessarily my list of the year's four best games,
though it might be by the time this week is over. But all four of
them created places that I enjoyed living in for long periods of
time. As a gamer, I can take months to plow through a title that I
would have completed in a week if I were reviewing it for
publication. I need games that are more than a nice spot to spend
a long weekend. I want to be able to move there.
Now, go ahead, berate me for liking The Force Unleashed. I can
take it.
One thing I've been wondering: Is it a good sign or a bad sign for
the medium that this year's crop of games has produced such a
wide divergence of opinion? Michael "the Brainy Gamer"
Abbott thinks Fable 2 is perhaps "the most seductive game world
ever created." Chris Dahlen thinks Fallout 3 "balances—and
sometimes betters—the approaches of other videogame
masterpieces: the retro immersion of 'BioShock,' the paranoia of
'Portal,' the exploration of 'Oblivion' and the seamless
storytelling of 'Half-Life 2.' " The pseudonymous "Iroquois
Pliskin" says GTA IV is "a classic, and stands head and
shoulders above its previous iterations and nearly every other
game released this year."
Those are three more of the smartest people writing about
games. They each think their Game of the Year is a new addition
to the canon. Maybe they're right. Or, more likely, this was a
year of just-misses, which is why there's an absence of
consensus.
Some more questions:
Is the PlayStation 3 now a system that a serious gamer really
should own? Put economic considerations aside, as I mean this
not as a financial question but as a gaming one. With Metal Gear
Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and LittleBigPlanet being released
this year, am I missing crucial developments for the gaming
connoisseur by abstaining from buying a third console?
Is the Wii a commercial success but a critical flop?
Should I have played Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist?
And what did we think of Braid?
Chris
Click here to read the next entry.
From: Stephen Totilo
To: N'Gai Croal, Seth Schiesel, and Chris Suellentrop
Subject: My Gaming Year Peaked on Nov. 4, 2008
Dear N'Gai, Seth, and Chris,
Let's start with a correction.
I did not write that 2008 was the best year in gaming history. I
wrote that it was the most well-balanced year in games.
You've got a fine balance when you get:

A year that starts with the racing game Burnout
Paradise—the video game that borrows from Facebook
by making you aware of every little thing your fellow
Paradise owners have achieved: who's now driven
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

faster than you on any given road in the game's vast city
since you last logged in, who has just launched the most
jumps off a nearby ramp. Burnout links you to a
network of other gamers more efficiently than any
console game made before it, erasing classic gaming
distinctions between single-player and multi-player
experiences.
A year that reaches the halfway mark with the release
of Wii Fit and Metal Gear Solid 4, the former a triumph
of design, marketing, and the philosophy that games
can be good for you; the latter the story of an old
soldier in a too-long war that unfolds with the constant,
colorful surprise of a Haruki Murakami novel and
serves as the best example yet that most game-makers
take more creative risks with their sequels than
filmmakers do.
A year that ends with Prince of Persia—Ubisoft's
adventure of a tower-climbing, cliff-jumping prince and
his princess companion that posits that, yes, you
actually can craft a romance in a game. The slowly
developing flirtation of male and female lead don't get
in the way of all the less-sentimental climbing and
monster-killing the developers needed to put in the
game to keep the player's thumbs and lizard-brain
engaged.
I didn't hear much grumbling from gamers of any kind in 2008,
except for hardcore Nintendo fans, who felt abandoned for about
the past three months. (Yes, gamers are the kind of people who
want satisfaction now!)
Fallout 3 as Game of the Year? Possibly. I've still played only
four hours of this game, which puts me about 46 hours behind
my MTV colleague Patrick Klepek, who likes it quite a lot.
Fable II as Game of the Year? Getting warmer. In the reverse
order of what happens in GTA IV, this game begins with a
poorly defined character in an uninteresting medieval European
fantasy world but winds up with you controlling a man or
woman who is literally the shape of the choices you've made in
the game. All that celery he ate made my guy skinny; his ample
scars came because he was a clumsy swordsman; his youthful
visage remained, because I chose not to sacrifice his looks when
given the alternate option to sacrifice a maiden to the gods
instead. Ten years from now, the world will remember Nov. 4,
2008, as the day America elected its first black president. I'll also
remember that day, I'm sure, as the day when I was first
emotionally affected by a video game. Pausing my DVR just
after California was called for Obama, I had to go back to Fable
II to make the game's final moral decision, a triple-optioned
Sophie's choice involving money, loved ones, and community
that would affect characters I'd interacted with for weeks. I'm
still haunted by the pick I made. Obama's victory speech later
that night distracted me from the unease that my final actions
had put in my heart, but as I went to bed, with cheers still
echoing down the Brooklyn streets near my apartment, I was
haunted by the wonderful emotional pain I finally felt from a
video game.
Yeah, that's my frontrunner for Game of the Year.
Chris, to answer your questions:
This was the year that Sony released interactive art for the
PlayStation 3. Microsoft promoted a season of new small
downloadable Xbox 360 games that were some of the best
games of the year. And Nintendo put out a fantastic Scubadiving simulator that let me virtually swim with sea turtles and
whales.
1) A serious gamer should own every console. Costs
notwithstanding, to miss the PS3 is to miss not just
LittleBigPlanet and Metal Gear Solid 4 but the burst of creativity
that's on the PlayStation Network, small- and medium-sized
games that are more unusual than most of what you can buy at
the average game shop.
So I cannot complain about gaming in 2008.
Chris, the four games you cited were all quite good. Star Wars:
The Force Unleashed is a little bit of the weak link there, but it's
quite a good-looking weak link. And don't feel bad about liking
it. Time's Lev Grossman thought it was better than Metal Gear
Solid 4, Fable II, and Fallout 3, those three games you say other
people have cited as their Game of the Year.
Grand Theft Auto IV as Game of the Year? Maybe. If you don't
mind that Rockstar made my home state of New Jersey the
setting for the game's bland final third. I thought the game lost
its zip after its first 20 hours. It stopped developing the morally
compromised immigrant protagonist Niko Bellic, turning him
into just another avatar for virtual homicide and costing the
game its potential as a "classic."
2) The Wii is a critical flop only to the critics who don't like
having fun with a group of people gathered around their TV.
What's more fun at parties than the Wii or arguing whether the
auto companies should be bailed out? Rock Band and Guitar
Hero? But they're on Wii, too.
3) I haven't played Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist, but I
did play Braid. How can you not love a game that has a level in
which time moves forward when you walk to the right, time
moves backward when you walk to the left, and time stands still
when you idle?
Hey, can we all agree about one thing that was a bit of a downer
this year—what happened to handheld gaming? The burst of
iPhone games notwithstanding, the creative excitement around
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the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable seemed to diminish
significantly in 2008.
—Stephen
From: N'Gai Croal
To: Seth Schiesel, Chris Suellentrop and Stephen Totilo
Subject: Resistance 2: A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Mediocrity
Posted Tuesday, December 9, 2008, at 3:12 PM ET
Seth, Chris, and Stephen,
I'd say that it feels good to be back, but like last year, I'm feeling
awkward and uncomfortable about having to sum up what this
arbitrary unit of time means for video games. I'm in no rush to
compile a top 10 list, to reduce the experiences I've had over the
previous 12 months to A-is-better-than-B-but-not-as-good-as-C.
Chris, you seem pretty comfortable in your assessment that 2007
was a better year for games than 2008. Stephen, you're insisting
that 2008 was better balanced than 2007. But so much of this is
by accident rather than by design.
Last year would have been more awesome and less balanced if
the Brothers Four—Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid
4—hadn't missed their original holiday 2007 release dates. So?
Did 2008 become less awesome but more balanced when those
lazybones at Rockstar North failed to complete their planned
expansion pack, The Lost and Damned, for this holiday? Maybe.
But I don't know how meaningful those standards are beyond
this brief moment in time, the week in December when we
gather around our computers and fire off e-mails to one another
about the year that just went by.
Last year, I said that one of my most important criteria for
judging games was obsession. And on a game-by-game basis,
2008 scratched that itch just as much as 2007 did. Chris, I'd
argue that the role-playing game Fallout 3 is easily as good as
BioShock … but maybe that's because I'm an avowed RPG-hater
who naturally skipped Bethesda Softworks' previously
acclaimed hit, Oblivion. So even as I surprised myself by falling
so hard for the bleak immersiveness of Fallout 3's stuck-in-the'50s post-apocalyptic world, I had no way of telling whether it
was just Oblivion in Mad Max fetish gear or something more.
(Then again, I've never played BioShock's spiritual predecessors
System Shock or System Shock 2; if I had, would BioShock
have seemed quite as impressive?)
Even though I grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons and other
pen-and-paper role-playing games, I don't like playing their
computer and video-game counterparts. I hate the presentation of
dialogue trees. I don't like assigning points to my character's
attributes. I prefer action to behind-the-scenes d20 dice rolls. I
dislike managing a party. Fallout 3 doesn't overcome all of my
RPG pet peeves, though the focus on solo play (i.e., sans A.I.
buddies) and the credible first-person-shooter mechanics helped
tremendously. Still, I think it was the seamless unity of its
presentation—character creation at the moment of childbirth;
stat management first via a children's book, then a wrist-worn
computer; combat using the green screen, data-terminal-like
overlay of the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System—that
subconsciously allowed me to settle into Fallout 3. All of this
meant that I was finally able to appreciate the best virtues of the
RPG: how narrative, character, and location can blend to create a
series of interlocking stories, stacking choice upon choice until
you feel that even though the world is bigger than you, you're
still having a meaningful impact upon it.
Chris, I'll also see your Portal and raise you Braid. For a game
whose mechanics could have been extremely confusing, Braid
somehow taught me to play each of its time-twisting levels
without instructions as explicit as Portal's own. One reviewer—I
think it was Chris Dahlen—suggested that the best way to play
Braid is like a crossword puzzle: Solve the parts you can, skip
the parts you can't, then go back and slowly pick your way
through the unsolved parts until you're done. That's what I did
with Braid over four play sessions, and it worked like a charm.
One hard-to-get puzzle piece required me to take advantage of
my character's brief death animation, and I was floored when I
finally figured it out. Most games teach us to either dismiss
player death or be entertained by it. Braid let me ignore it for a
long time, then, um, upbraided me for doing so. A nice touch in
an exceedingly clever and, in its final act, unexpectedly moving
game.
These aren't the only two games I'm considering for whatever
top 10 list I assemble whenever I assemble it; others include
Patapon, Grand Theft Auto IV, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
2, The Last Guy, PixelJunk Eden, Gears of War 2,
LittleBigPlanet, Left 4 Dead, and Play Auditorium. But I'll end
here by asking each of you to name and discuss the game you've
had the hardest time expressing your opinion of. For me, it's
Resistance 2, a staggering work of heartbreaking mediocrity
from one of the industry's most accomplished studios.
Staggering in its we-put-every-dollar-up-on-the-screen
production values, in its scope, in its careful borrowing from all
the right touchstones of the shooter genre. Heartbreaking in that
its overblown scale may have helped do it in, in that it has
created a fictional world that over two games has never truly
connected with me, in enemy encounters that hit all the notes
without ever quite playing the tune. It's not mediocre in the way
that most games are mediocre. It's just off, and for the life of me
I still can't figure out a succinct way to explain why.
18/104
Any games from 2008 make you feel that way?
Cheers,
N'Gai
Subject: The Triple-F Dilemma: Fable II, Fallout 3, or Far Cry 2?
Posted Wednesday, December 10, 2008, at 6:50 AM ET
Hi guys,
N'Gai's question may provide a better frame for my year in
gaming than my kickoff e-mail did. For me, 2008 was more
about confusion than disappointment.
What to think of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose setting is a
more complicated, fully realized, and living creature than its
protagonist? Niko Bellic is supposed to resent the killing work
that is increasingly forced onto him as the game progresses. But
the game is wholly unconvincing on that level—the conflict
between your actions as a player and Bellic's words and behavior
in cut scenes is too jarring. I never finished the game, and I quit
right around the time Stephen says the game loses its way, not
too long after Niko reaches Liberty City's equivalent of New
Jersey.
So Rockstar failed in its grandest ambition, to create a Mean
Streets or Dog Day Afternoon for gaming. But it succeeded in
creating one of the most compelling game environments ever
made. Liberty City is a real place. Just ask anyone who's been
there. Writing about it makes me want to overlook the game's
flaws and start wandering its streets again.
Or, what to think of Gears of War 2? The game is even more
shamelessly derivative than the first one. I picked up allusions
to, off the top of my head, Independence Day, Battlestar
Galactica (the Ron Moore re-imagining), The Empire Strikes
Back, and the speeder-bike chase scene in Return of the Jedi.
Mitch Krpata of the Boston Phoenix pointed out on his Insult
Swordfighting blog that one of the game's levels is a tribute to,
or a rip-off of, the final level of Contra.
The story in Gears, which Seth complained about vociferously in
his Times review, is a combination of big explosions and
sentimental revenge fantasy that will be deeply familiar to
anyone who sat through the early works of the governor of
California. And even the game's level design—while generally
up to its predecessor's high standard—holds an occasional
disappointment. There's a little too much running forward and
not enough crouching in terror. A couple of times—which is a
couple of times more than ever happened in the first Gears—I
got a little lost and couldn't figure out where the game wanted
me to go next.
I think Gears of War 2 was the most fun game I played all year,
and the game that most achieved the goals it set for itself. If you
want to see what an interactive Sylvester Stallone movie looks
like, play Gears. It's everything a big summer blockbuster should
be. But this is awards season, right?
And in the fall, I've been confused for some time now by a
triple-F dilemma—should I be playing Fable II, Fallout 3, or Far
Cry 2? Stephen, N'Gai, and I seem to come down on different
sides of this triangle, at least for now. I started with Fable II and
was enchanted for a while, only to become bored, not long after
finding the quest's first hero, with a game that encourages me to
sit in the middle of a town square farting for applause. (And trust
me, I'm not too good for fart jokes.) But Stephen has persuaded
me to give it a second shot.
But how can I do that now, when N'Gai makes a fine case for
Fallout 3? I adored the Vault, the setting for the opening scenes
during the protagonist's childhood. When I left the Vault, I was
so mesmerized that I sat and listened to the post-apocalyptic
president's entire radio message. (I am prone to this—I did
something similar at the beginning of Half-Life 2.) I explored
Megaton, the game's first village. All of this is just the game's
amuse-bouche, but I can tell it's a spectacular meal. Except, the
first time I left Megaton to carry out a mission, I kept getting
killed during an encounter with raiders on a stretch of broken
bridge on my way out of town. After five or so deaths in a row, I
decided to take Far Cry 2 for a spin instead.
A friend tells me there's a lot of boring leveling and grinding in
Fallout 3 before the game really gets going, and I always
planned to give it some serious attention. A little more
handholding in the game wouldn't hurt. I had to pull out the
manual—yes, the manual!— to figure out the combat system.
GTA IV did a better job of mixing some linearity into its open
world.
And for me, at least so far, Far Cry 2 is less frustrating and more
obsession-inducing than the Fable and Fallout sequels. I like the
mysteriousness surrounding the Jackal, the arms dealer
supplying both sides of the civil war you find yourself embroiled
in. I like how the game lets you make moral choices without
beating you over the head with them. I love the game's setting so
much that I enjoy just driving around in it. Last night, I saw a
gorgeous storm and a zebra.
Finally, what to think of Braid? Loved the ending. Liked the
puzzles. Loathed the writing. I second Steve Gaynor, who thinks
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that the game, for all its pleasures, has a reach that exceeds its
grasp. But at the same time: more, please!
The short answer to your question, though, N'Gai, is that the
game that most confuses me about how I should think of it is
The Force Unleashed. But I've gone on so long that I'm going to
have to save that for Round 3 of this exchange.
One question for the three of you, though. We all think—or so I
presume—that too many games (see the aforementioned triple-F
dilemma) come out in the fall and too few in the spring and
summer. But are we demonstrating an end-of-the-year bias by
not lavishing more praise on GTA IV? Wouldn't we think more
of it if, like Fallout 3 or Fable II or Far Cry 2, it came out in late
October?
Chris
Subject: Playing Video Games Is a Lot Like Going to the Gym
Posted Wednesday, December 10, 2008, at 11:13 AM ET
Why the long faces gentlemen?
You seem let down by gaming in 2008. Did games let you
down?
Or did you let down gaming in 2008?
Where were you, Chris, when Fallout 3 needed you to play more
than one-tenth of it? N'Gai, did you really do your part to give
Resistance 2 a try? Meaning, did you play its eight-man
cooperative mode, soldiering through some randomized battles
with a specially trained squad of fellow players? Or did you just
play the single-player mode and declare the game's mediocrity
then and there? And Chris, maybe I was wrong and GTA IV is a
classic. You could have defended it if you'd played it through.
To nongamers, it may seem like I'm being unkind to Chris and
N'Gai. But nongamers should recognize that Chris and N'Gai are
typical gamers. I judge them no more harshly than I do the guy
at Wal-Mart who just bought an Xbox for Gears of War 2 or the
mom who finally tracked down Wii Fit.
Gamers abandon games—even games that they like—before
finishing them. Gamers get angry at games—even games they
like—for being repetitious or derivative or for falling short of
being as good as it seems like they could be. That's what you get
when you, the gamer, indulge in a creative form that was created
to convey satisfying-but-repeatable, controllable bits of action
for a quarter per minute. This is the creative form that has
somehow evolved into a medium of 25-hour, $60 collections of
satisfying-but-repeatable, controllable bits of action without
inventing many successful strategies for telling stories, figuring
out how to develop characters, or turning into a more interesting
way to spend an hour than listening to Beethoven or watching
The Wire.
And you thought the people voting for the Grammys, the Oscars,
and the Booker prize might have missed some of the glorious
works in their fields?
Gaming people often lack the time, the money, and the patience
to really get into a year's worth of games. Playing lots of games
can be pretty unpleasant, not unlike going to the gym a lot. You
like what you get out of it, but you've got to put in a lot of work,
much of it tedious.
There was, however, plenty of good gaming in 2008, for those of
us who have structured our lives in a way that allows games to
dominate our entertainment-consumption food pyramid. You
just had to dedicate lots of time to get to it. You needed to get
more than five hours into Fable II. You needed to reach the zerogravity space combat parts of Dead Space. You needed to play
all of Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3 to appreciate the farewell
those games were given by 2008's Metal Gear Solid 4. You
needed to reach the last hour of Star Wars: The Force
Unleashed's dozen to play the level most worth talking about.
You needed to dig deep enough into No More Heroes to find out
how Goichi Suda, the self-styled leader of the Punk games
movement, crafted the greatest fight scene in gaming this year—
not the one in which you fight an old lady, but the one in which
someone else does the fighting for you. To enjoy the first-person
parkour game Mirror's Edge you needed not to mind that the
game might last "only" six hours (a complaint among many
critics) and actually play it. You needed to put in the work to
enjoy this stuff. Fun, right?
I didn't find the year in gaming any more confusing or any more
full of flawed gems than previous years, including 2007. Chris,
might I remind you that 2007's BioShock suffered a moodkilling shift from intellectual art-deco shooter to action movie in
its final playable scene? Or that MTV's own Rock Band had a
few flaws that needed patches (and 2008's Rock Band 2) to fix?
Or that Portal's … nah, Portal was just about perfect. Most other
games in 2007, however, had their faults.
Taking up N'Gai's request to name a game I had trouble
articulating my reaction to, I choose Too Human. It's a game I
may have dismissed had I not known its back story. Yet is that a
fair reason to care about it? Here's a game that mixes The Matrix
20/104
and Norse mythology and was gestating at development studio
Silicon Knights in various stages for about a decade. Its lead
creator, Denis Dyack, is a passionate spokesman for games as
the "eighth artform" (the seventh was film, in case you didn't
know). Dyack's personal and intellectual response to my
question about why he hadn't abandoned the game after all this
time was among the most heartfelt, ambitious, and reasonable
statements about improving the gaming medium that I heard all
year.
It has been an exhilarating, daunting, rewarding, and at times
frightening journey in 2008 as I have become what amounts to
the New York Times's first staff video-game critic. Since joining
the culture department in 2005, I have always written some
reviews and columns, but until this year I had mostly focused on
news and features about games, gamers, and game makers.
But Too Human isn't a great game. It has some good design, fun
controls, and a whole lot of the previously mentioned tedium
special to video games. It struggles to flesh out its characters
even though it ends its story well.
Over the course of this year, starting in earnest with my review
of Grand Theft Auto IV, I've been asked to shift toward building
a critical voice through reviewing as many of the top games as I
can get to. As a practical matter, that means spending a lot less
time talking to and hanging out with people in the game industry
and a lot more time sitting at home actually playing games (and
writing about them).
Does context forgive execution? Does ambition justify
imperfection? Had I not known Dyack or read a bunch of his
interviews, I may have forgotten his game shortly after playing it
in August, as I do so many other games. That wasn't possible,
though. That's not how I consume my entertainment anymore. In
this age, I know the creative back story of many of the games I
play. The more revealing the game's creators are—and Dyack is
among the most revealing of his peers—the more I care about
the games they make.
The hardest part is that I have had to begin to distance myself
from people in the game business. (I removed all my industry
contacts from my Facebook!) As a reporter, you want to get
close to people. You want them to like you and to want to give
you information, especially in a scoop-crazed industry like video
games. And a news reporter is able to maintain those
relationships because he is not absolutely compelled to write for
publication that his personal opinion was that a particular game
had significant problems.
I just don't know if all of that makes Too Human a game I can
recommend, or if I simply would recommend that gamers learn
more about the people who make their games.
The critic does suffer that compulsion. And it can't matter
whether or not the lead designer is a good guy or how bad you
feel about how many millions of other people's dollars he has
interminably wasted bringing his vision to the small screen. And
it can't matter how much you have enjoyed socializing with the
(often quite sociable) people whose job it is to get you to write
nice things about their employers.
So, did none of you play handheld games this year or what? No
one's talking about them.
Stephen
From: Seth Schiesel
To: N'Gai Croal, Chris Suellentrop, and Stephen Totilo
Subject: How Roger Ebert Taught Me To Be a Video-Game Critic
Posted Wednesday, December 10, 2008, at 1:32 PM ET
Hi, everybody. Sorry for coming late to the party. I wish I could
tell you that keeping late hours had nothing to do with my sniffle
this week, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate.
I come to our conversation from a bit of a different place than I
was in last year. And in order to understand how I feel about
video games these days, you need to understand how my
relationship with games and the game industry has changed.
I had to confront this most squarely in my review of Fallout 3. I
love the Fallout franchise. The first two installments are among
my favorite role-playing games. And I really like the team at
Bethesda Softworks. But I felt the game fell down in places and
I had to say that.
One of the things I have really embraced about becoming a critic
has been the process of learning to become a critic. Thankfully,
at the Times I'm surrounded by some of the best in the world,
whose work I now study much more closely than I used to. But
as I struggled to come to terms with my ambivalence about
Fallout 3, I finally discovered the touchstone of insight I needed
from outside my paper, by way of both Roger Ebert and Robert
Warshow. In a delightful item about his unorthodox review of
Tru Loved, Ebert writes:
As the critic Robert Warshow wrote, "A man
goes to the movies. The critic must be honest
enough to admit that he is that man." In other
words, whatever you saw, whatever you felt,
whatever you did, you must say so. For
example, two things that cannot be
21/104
convincingly faked are laughter and orgasms.
If a movie made you laugh, as a critic you
have to be honest and report that. Maybe not
so much with orgasms.
For a variety of reasons that we will leave aside for the moment,
there still aren't any decent pornographic video games, so game
critics don't face all of Ebert's dilemmas. (And it is not a
coincidence that the flap over Ebert's Tru Loved review revolved
around the fact that he did not finish the movie: exactly the same
issue Stephen is slagging Chris and N'Gai for here.)
Yet the point still stands. For those of us who have, as Stephen
so baldly put it, "structured our lives in a way that allows games
to dominate our entertainment-consumption food pyramid," we
have to be honest about that to the public. For example, Blizzard
was probably not entirely thrilled that my write-up about the
new World of Warcraft expansion was in many ways an
exploration of my concern about playing the game so much in
the past. But I had to cop to it.
Over the course of this year, plowing through game after game,
what surprised me most was simply how good most of them
were. Though the crop of 2008 has demonstrated its talent in
different ways, it seems clear that the overall level of production
quality and creative talent is higher now in video games than it
has ever been. This is the real golden age of gaming because
only now is the audience large enough, variegated enough, and
mature enough to support high levels of investment in such a
broad portfolio of genres on such a wide range of devices and
screens.
The major publishers have finally figured out that schlock is not
a business strategy that can compete in the long term with
producing a high-quality product. I have played through and
reviewed most of the biggest games of the year, with a few
formal reviews still to come, and the one word that keeps
coming back to me is professionalism.
Of course, some people don't want their games to be
professional—or polished, for that matter. They want their
games to be art. They want to be inspired to grand heights of
emotion and struck with epic depths of profundity. I understand
that. I even succumb to it once in a while. (OK, a little more
often than that.)
What made Portal and BioShock stand out last year was that
they were different, in tone and narrative technique and, of
course, in some basic play rules. And I agree that with the
exception of Braid, we have not seen a ton of "wow, I never
thought of that really working" new game concepts in 2008.
But what if I don't find time manipulation fun? Or what if I don't
enjoy teleporting balls around in Portal or exploring a creepy
underwater warren in BioShock? These are all very particular,
perhaps even peculiar, games. And the strength of a creative
form is not judged solely by its ability to deliver a few quirky
new art projects every year. That strength is judged by the
overall depth of output and in the ability to provide a suitably
high-quality entertainment experience for everyone.
I don't think there is a single genre or demographic of gamer that
hasn't benefited from a number of excellent games this year. As
Stephen rightly said, only the hard-core Nintendo fan has had
something to complain about. But across the board, if you are a
gamer and you haven't been able to find anything you really like
this year, maybe it is time for a new hobby, because the bounty
of 2008 has been rich.
P.S. Hey, Stephen: For mobile, my DS is locked on Sid Meier's
Civilization Revolution. I can beat Deity level maybe half the
time these days.
From: N'Gai Croal
To: Seth Schiesel, Chris Suellentrop, and Stephen Totilo
Subject: Why Won't Cliff Bleszinski Let Stephen Kill His Wife?
Stephen, it's just like old times. Our old dialogue feature, Vs.
Mode, is on extended hiatus, but there you go again, taking shots
at me for failing to play Resistance 2 all the way through. Pity
you didn't select a better target, as there are oh so many games
and game modes that I never touched, but the co-op mode in
Resistance 2 was not one of them. I played it for quite some time
when it was previewed in NYC; you were there, but the open bar
was open, so I'll forgive you if you can't remember too much
from that event. But you're a loyal subscriber to Edge magazine.
Didn't you read the column in which I cited, among other things,
Resistance 2's cooperative mode as one of the biggest
breakthroughs of 2008? An excerpt:
Insomniac built a separate co-op campaign for
up to eight players, modeled after raids in
massively multiplayer online games. ... [Its]
approach is at once the most intriguing and the
least fully fleshed out, mainly because it
appears to have been designed with just a
single strategy for success: soldiers out front,
spec ops in the middle, and medics bringing up
the rear. Whether the enemy AI or the
encounter design is to blame I can't be sure,
but if Insomniac can find a way to mix things
22/104
up more it has the template for something both
unique and special in the world of consoles.
games takes a lot more time than watching a movie or reading a
book?
So, yes, when I referred to Resistance 2 as a "staggering work of
heartbreaking mediocrity" that I'm still struggling to explain, it
wasn't based solely on the campaign. Still, you're my gaming
sensei, so I won't take issue with your assertion that anyone
who's disappointed with 2008 (hello, Mitch Krpata, author of the
year's most essential blog series, "A New Taxonomy of
Gamers") may not have played as many games as they should
have nor as deeply as they should have. Your analogy to
working out at the gym is nearly perfect; it's not just that games
are work, it's that they also require you to learn. Every game, no
matter how bad, is teaching you how to play it from beginning to
end. And a lot of the time, I simply don't want to work at
learning something new. (Is this the point where our more
fanboyish readers say, cry me a river and give me your job?)
Perhaps that's why a game's ability to quickly tap into my
obsessive side is one of my key criteria for determining
greatness: Without obsession, how many fewer games would I
play, complete, or replay?
Your point about professionalism also intrigues me. You're
correct that, by and large, the level of craft in the video game
industry continues to grow each year, and 2008 was no
exception. I wonder if, however, by settling for the
professionalism inherent in the acknowledgment that "we are
those men, and we had fun with these games," we let games off
too easily when they take the easy way out, interactively
speaking.
If it weren't for my trainer, I'd never go to the gym, and without
you, sensei, I might not have finished the campaign modes in
Halo 3 last year or Gears of War 2 this year. From this, I've
learned that one of the best things about cooperative play is that
it encourages me to finish what I start. I loved and was obsessed
by Fallout 3, playing it night after night. But once I got into
Gears 2 (particularly the Horde multiplayer mode) and Left 4
Dead, my obsession cooled, no doubt helped along by the fact
that, at Level 8, I'd finally hit a stretch of the game where I'd
have to grind in order to progress. Had Fallout 3 been co-op,
with you and I walking through the bombed-out streets of our
nation's capital, I'd probably have completed the game weeks
ago. Thankfully, Gears 2 was co-op, and I could add it to The
Handful of Games I Completed in 2008.
Seth, thanks for explaining to the readers and us why you
actually have the best job in the world. Stephen and I still have
to do reporting, while you play games all day and write about
them. For the New York Times, no less! In an age when there's
all but a dead pool for movie critics, not to mention those who
write about books, theater, dance, and television, it's great that
the Old Gray Lady has staked out this fertile critical terrain. I'm
not sure any other outlets will follow, given our current Great
Depression, but it's a good sign nonetheless.
Still, I'm somewhat surprised that either the Times required you
to give up reporting and industry contacts or you chose to do so,
simply because you became the paper's chief game critic. You
cited Ebert as an inspiration; he writes profiles and features and
Q&A's in addition to reviewing as many movies as he can. Do
you really believe that you have to keep developers and
executives at arm's length in order to be a good critic, or were
you permitted to shed your reporting obligations because playing
Here's where I get my Totilo on and start taking shots. In your
review of Gears of War 2, you rightly criticized the story by
writing, "With its unintentionally mawkish story line—there's no
winking here—and sophomoric dialogue, Epic Games,
developer of the series, is clearly trying to mix some emotional
depth into the franchise's established recipe of explosions and
hot lead. It doesn't work." And you rightly praised the gameplay,
saying, "[W]hat makes Gears 2 such a consummately enjoyable
popcorn game, is pitch-perfect pacing melded with some of the
most carefully calibrated challenges and consistently enjoyable
game design you will come across." Then you conclude by
writing: "Just ignore what tries to pass here for story and
character. And please, don't think too hard."
[SPOILER ALERT]
The thing is, there's a moment in this all-about-shooting game
where the folks at Epic decide to do the shooting for you, and in
doing so, rob the game of a potentially compelling intersection
of gameplay and character. I'm referring to the moment when
Dom, wingman to series protagonist Marcus Fenix, is finally
reunited with his wife deep in enemy territory, only to discover
that her mind has been completely destroyed by her Locust
torturers. (This time, it seems, it's personal.) The ensuing
cutscene and its dialogue were mawkish, as you observed,
though I'd argue that one line ("Marcus, I … I don't know what
to do") and its anguished delivery managed the requisite
poignancy. But Dom's subsequent decision to kill his wife, no
matter how much Epic tried to set it up in a previous cutscene,
struck me as implausible.
Actually, I take that back. Dom didn't decide to kill his wife.
Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski decided to kill his wife, and
they wouldn't even let Stephen, who was playing as Dom, pull
the trigger. Compare that with the sequence in the first God of
War, in which our hero Kratos, trapped in Hell with the wife and
child he inadvertently slaughtered, must now protect them by
alternately holding them to him (using the game's grab mechanic
to share his health bar with them) and fighting off an army of
Kratos doppelgängers. It's gameplay, not a cutscene, and nearly
four years after God of War's release, it still stands as one of the
best examples of how narrative and interactivity can be
synthesized to create, well, art.
23/104
Was Epic's handling of Maria's fate a failure of craft or art? I say
it's worth thinking hard about, especially when writing for a
mainstream audience like yours in the Times and mine at
Newsweek. Because when we avoid such questions, we're
gulling our readers into believing that story and gameplay are
mutually exclusive—or that games are just like other media.
Seth, that's something I accused you of before, here. And, in
fairness, I fell prey to the same temptation here.
That's my last shot. Reloading!
Cheers,
N'Gai
Subject: The Imminent Rise of the Self-Help Video Game
Seth, good call on Civilization for the DS. That game hooked me
for a time as well. And, N'Gai, good call on co-operative gameplay having a heyday (heyyear?) in 2008.
I'd like to wrap up my contribution to our club by citing some
other notable releases this year.
• You Have To Burn the Rope: Here we had a free game you
could play from beginning to end in about three minutes. Not
only that, but it had something to say about the challenges
developers make us face in games. It may be the perfect
accompaniment to my games-as-gym-equipment metaphor from
my previous letter. And while I could say more, I think people
should really just open a new window in their browser for a
moment and play it. As an added bonus, its ending-credits theme
is the best song released in a video game—and made about video
games—in 2008. Play the game. Listen. And think about it.
• Wii Fit: To save us the embarrassment of not having deeply
discussed 2008's biggest gaming newsmaker, I must add that this
game served a number of interesting roles. It presented to
average people the idea that playing a game could be good for
you, it convinced some gaming executives that fitness gaming is
the next trend that must be followed, and it expanded the
currently unlabeled category of Self-Help Video Games that
Nintendo's brain-workout Brain Age software opened up in 2006
(and which may someday force gaming-sales charters to give
self-help games their own list, the way the New York Times had
to in 1983).
• The Korean release of FIFA Online 2: I knew nothing of this
game until last month, when it was the first thing on EA Sports
chief Peter Moore's mind when I asked him what the biggest
success of 2008 was for the Madden-making sports division. But
I do know of games like it, and they excite American gaming
executives quite a lot—they look like your standard Americanreleased sports and racing games, but their economic model is
predicated on a free-base product that you can buy items in.
Some items improve the look of your character. Some improve
his/her/its abilities. These micro-transaction games aren't new,
but they've yet to make it big in the United States. Still, what we
saw plenty of in 2008 was game publishers trying to find ways
to sell small add-ons long after people purchased the original
disc. It seems more likely than ever that the future of many
people's gaming lives will involve not just paying for a game
once but continuing to pay for it, or pay to add more to it, month
after month. This change could prove similar to the way people
went from not paying to watch TV programming in the middle
of the 20th century to now paying for multiple services to see
their favorite programs.
• Any iPhone/iPod Touch game: Apple, the company that
typically projects an image that it knows what we want better
than we do, never made an impressive step into the gaming
world until 2008. And the company did it not by being a leader
but by standing (somewhat) back and letting everyone from
amateur developers to professional studios create hundreds of
applications and games. The result? An Apple that once used to
advertise how much cooler its machines were than Windows
computers—even though Windows computers were the only
computers worth playing video games on—now makes
commercials showing off iPhone games. Now that Apple finally
thinks video games are cool, cell-phone gaming has suddenly
become a lot more interesting, and Nintendo has a reason to
sweat for the first time in a couple of years.
Guys, it's been fun to talk about the year in games with all of
you. May you all have more time to play in 2009.
—Stephen
.
Subject: Pining for a Game That Doesn't Yet Exist
Dear N'Gai, Seth, and Stephen,
24/104
Stephen wonders if we should be embarrassed for not discussing
Wii Fit, and then he answers his own question by noting that it's
a self-help game and therefore isn't really the kind of game that
the four of us are talking about. Which reminds me: As games
grow, and as they are played by more and more people, I think
game critics will increasingly have to grapple with Stephen's
mantra from last year's club: "Video games are not a genre;
they're a medium."
Until next year,
Chris
I think this statement was more radical than Stephen intended it
to be. I think I'm persuaded by it, but I have trouble wrapping
my head around it sometimes. The boldness of the claim makes
me want to resist it. Put the Internet aside for a moment—in
time, we may see it as less a new medium and more a
technology for the transmission of all media (including games!)
under the sun—and you'll see that every other medium, at least
that I can think of, qualifies under one of the big three rubrics:
Print, Audio, Video. (Under this taxonomy, TV and movies, for
example, aren't distinct media—they're just distinct ways of
transmission for a particular medium, video.)
From: Seth Schiesel
To: N'Gai Croal, Chris Suellentrop, and Stephen Totilo
Subject: Everybody's Playing Something Different—and That's What Makes
Video Games So Great
Stephen is saying that video games are a Fourth Medium, then,
something truly new under the sun. (Maybe this is just a
different way of saying that games are an Eighth Art Form, as
Dennis Dyack says.) I often think that's right. But it also helps
explain my long face, as Stephen puts it. Don't I have the right to
expect something more from this marvelous new medium?
Something more wondrous than beautifully and impeccably
crafted worlds filled with enemies for me to kill?
What I want is a game with the elegant gameplay and level
design of Gears of War 2 but with the story of The Force
Unleashed. But I want it told in a manner like Braid—or even
You Have To Burn the Rope—meaning, a telling of the tale that
is consistent with the promise and the mechanics of this Fourth
Medium (or Eighth Art Form).
I haven't played this game yet. Have any of you?
Stephen and Seth are right that if you put a space alien in front
of this year's batch of games, the interstellar visitor—assuming
his slippery, tentaclelike thumbs could handle the controller—
would conclude that the games that are coming out right now are
some of the finest examples of the promise of this new medium.
But they are also captivating largely because they possess
exactly that: promise. The best games are packed with the
prospect of something more, something on the tip of everyone's
tongue that no one has yet been able to put into words—or
rather, games.
I don't feel guilty about dreaming of the day when a game
designer puts it all together and I can finally, at long last, scratch
the itch that all of us feel but none of us can find.
Posted Friday, December 12, 2008, at 7:13 AM ET
OK, a lot to get to here.
In terms of N'Gai's questions about how my job at the paper has
evolved, a few clarifications. I have not given up any contacts,
just held them at a bit of arm's length while in this period of
heavy reviewing. I just didn't feel it was appropriate to be taking
one-on-one meetings with game executives and PR people while
I was reviewing the products they would be trying to spin me
about. N'Gai, I think I saw you at one group dinner with a game
company, and I made very clear to them that I was there only
because it was a group event. It sounds obvious, but ultimately
the products speak for themselves. The millions of people whom
these companies want to buy their wares aren't getting special
access to game-makers. In trying to come at the games from a
perspective similar to that of a thoughtful consumer, I wanted to
distance myself from the industry a bit. And as a practical
matter, if I want to update my Facebook status with a transitory
thought about a game I'm playing before I have published what
I'm paid to publish, I don't think it is helpful if that's being seen
by a few dozen game developers and publicists.
That all said, there is no doubt that even though big games like
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, GTA IV, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Wii
Fit were released in the first half of 2008 (which I applaud),
gaming remains a very seasonal business. So in the early parts of
next year, I'm sure I'll write some broader and more thematic
features just because there won't be as many new games to
review. What I will have to think hard about, though, is doing
some big hype piece on a game in development that I know I
will have to review later. We saw years of prerelease puffery on
a game like Spore (none of it, thankfully, with my byline), a
game that failed to maintain more than a few weeks of somewhat
ambivalent buzz once we all actually got to play it.
Enough about journalism. N'Gai, I didn't think you were coming
at me with what you said about Gears 2 and the wife scene. I
think you raised a few of exactly the right questions. And this
also plays into some of Chris' concerns about how stories are
told in games. The goal of that scene is to move the player into
the plot's next emotional arc—to attach meaning to gunning
25/104
down the next wave of bad guys. I agree that the scene could
have been a lot more interactive, but the real challenge would
not have been in simply giving the player a choice but in
allowing that choice to really matter in the overall plotline.
And that might have been a lot harder than it seems at first. Here
is this soldier who has been searching for his long-lost wife, and
he finally finds her in this horrible ghoulish state. If you give the
player a choice there, his natural inclination most of the time is
going to be to try to find a way to cure her. That's a whole
different story, and Epic has the right to want her to die there to
give the rest of the action a revenge vibe. So, what are you going
to do, force the player to pull the trigger? Set up a fight where
you try to save her but, no matter what you do, she dies anyway?
Now that would piss people off, including me. Once you start
giving people choices, the game has to allow those choices to
matter. It is not always as easy as saying, "I should have had
some choice there, and I didn't. Epic messed up." I obviously
didn't think the story was the strongest element of Gears 2,
anyway, but I didn't have a huge problem at that moment
because I saw the rabbit hole the game could fall into otherwise.
More broadly, this line of thought plays into Chris' desire for
more different kinds of storytelling in games. The thing is, in all
of these mainline console games (even the Portals and such), the
story is still being told to you, or even at you. In none of these
games does the player really have any role in determining the
overall story arc. In that sense, you are still acting out a role that
has been written for you and have been given choices only
within a fairly limited sphere of the fiction that has been spun
around you. Meanwhile, your interaction with other actual
human beings in most conventional console games is limited to
shooting them, shooting with them, or competing with them for
a spot on a high-score list.
That's why with every passing year I grow deeper in my
conviction that the most interesting and meaningful games are
massively multiplayer online games in which you have
thousands of people in emergent, persistent communities with
their own politics, their own tribes. In a massively multiplayer
game, every day is different because people are always different.
As I've played through dozens of games this year for my job, it
has been so vital to maintain a gaming home base, a center of
gravity with a group of people that I can just hang out and play
with. I've found that most of this year in Eve Online, the hardcore science-fiction MMO that continues to grow. Eve is the
kind of game in which the group of people you play with is the
most important part of the experience. These are the people I'm
on IRC with even when I'm playing something else, and it is that
sense of community, of getting to know people from around the
world just a little bit, that is the most valuable thing in gaming
for me, and it is something that other media usually fail to
provide. (Actually, music probably brings people together more
than any other traditional media. I saw the Grateful Dead around
90 times, and I still know people I met out there on the road.)
As far as the year in MMOs, I have to give major respect to
Electronic Arts and Mythic for making the first legitimate
competitor to World of Warcraft with Warhammer Online.
Warhammer isn't anywhere close to WOW's size and has only a
fraction of WOW's depth, but Warhammer's focus on player-vs.player combat as opposed to player-vs.-computer-controlledmonster combat gives it an important niche.
WOW, of course, remains the juggernaut, and the recent
expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is pure Blizzard: It oozes
polish and is totally accessible to casual players. Thing is, WOW
is definitely now being built and designed almost entirely for
casual players. The WOW of today is probably less than a third
as difficult, overall, as it was even a couple of years ago. This is
why the game has around 11 million players. But it is a bit of a
joke when even the most hard-core players can blow through all
of the new expansion's top-end content in a matter of days. I'm
not sure what the people who used to enjoy spending weeks and
months working through epic content are supposed be doing in
WOW now for their $15 a month. The beautiful thing for
Blizzard, though, is that if those people are going to go
anywhere during the next couple years, they will probably stay
on the Blizzard reservation by moving to coming games like
StarCraft II, Diablo 3, and the as-yet-unrevealed new MMO it is
working on.
Stephen: I must confess, I have not burned the rope.
And finally, of course games are a medium, not a genre. There
are all sorts of games for all sorts of players now. The idea of a
canon in games means nothing when there are Bejeweled addicts
out there who wouldn't know Miyamoto if he showed up in their
living room. For that matter, there are probably millions of Wii
players who have no idea who Miyamoto is. There are people
who play Guitar Hero who could not care less about World of
Warcraft, and there are Pokémon gurus who have never touched
Halo. That's all as it should be. Video games are the most vibrant
and exciting new entertainment medium in the world right now
because of their diversity. When so many millions of people are
having fun in so many millions of different ways, something is
going right.
green room
The Problem in Poznan
According to the U.N. climate negotiators, Singapore and Kuwait are among
the poorest countries in the world.
By Michael A. Levi
The annual U.N. climate negotiations, currently under way in
Poznan, Poland, have stalled. Here's why: Rich countries want a
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commitment from poor countries to cut their greenhouse-gas
emissions. Poor countries want a commitment from rich
countries to pay for those cuts. Those competing claims have
long posed a major obstacle for any kind of global climate deal.
But the negotiators face another big handicap of their own
making: The list of who's rich and who's poor that would be used
for any final agreement is hopelessly out of date.
The United Nations first divvied up the developed and
developing world for climate talks in 1992, with the goal of
using that split to apportion responsibilities for cutting
emissions. But distinctions that once made sense are no longer
tenable. Ukraine, for example, is considered rich. In 1992, it was
reflexively lumped together with the countries that once
comprised the powerful Soviet Union; by 2007, its citizens had
fallen to 97th richest in the world by GDP per person. (All wealth
figures cited here are from The CIA World Factbook.) At the
same time, Singapore (now the sixth-richest nation in the world)
was designated as poor. Unless the climate regime overhauls its
wealth labels, a country like Singapore could reap the benefits of
financial aid, while Ukraine would be burdened with emissions
caps. Needless to say, that kind of nonsensical setup won't get
you very far in international talks.
The original climate negotiators had a simple way of defining
wealth. First, they took the list of 24 countries that were part of
the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development,
a pre-eminent club of wealthy, democratic, free-market states
that was formed in 1961; these included the United States, most
of Western Europe, Japan, and a few others. Then they added
several states of the former Soviet Union, like Russia and
Belarus, as well as a handful from Eastern Europe, like Poland
and Slovenia. This was basically Cold War logic on cruise
control: First World and so-called Second World countries were
rich; Third World countries were poor. The Kyoto Protocol,
concluded six years later, maintained the same division. Rich
countries agreed to institute caps on their greenhouse-gas
emissions while poor countries agreed to do nothing.
The resulting deal had its flaws then. It makes absolutely no
sense today. Belarus, for example, is lumped together with the
rich countries, despite a GDP per person of about $10,000. As a
result, it has an emissions cap like those in place for Europe and
Japan. Kuwait, meanwhile, is considered poor. That means the
oil-rich emirate is spared any obligations, despite the fact that its
residents are about five times wealthier than the Belarussians.
And that's only the simplest distortion. Under the Kyoto
protocol, developed (rich) countries have two ways of meeting
their caps. They can, of course, cut their own emissions. But
they can also pay for emissions-cutting projects in poorer
countries, like China or Peru. Under that approach—called the
Clean Development Mechanism—they earn credits for those
projects. They can then use those credits to offset their emissions
at home.
This leads to some extraordinarily odd—and unfair—outcomes.
Any "poor" country can get in the game. Even Qatar, which has
a higher per-person GDP than any other country on earth, is
eligible. Not surprisingly, it has exploited the opportunity. Last
year, Qatar teamed up with the U.K.-based firm EcoSecurities
on a project to capture natural gas that was going to waste in
operations at its Al-Shaheed oil field. According to estimates
filed with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change,
Qatar Petroleum expects sales of carbon credits from the project
to generate $128 million. Meanwhile, according to a new EU
analysis, "wealthy" Portugal (GDP per person: $22,000) looks
like it won't be able to cut its emissions enough to satisfy its
Kyoto target. Instead, it will have to spend about $500 million
paying for the sorts of credits Qatar is generating.
These problems have not gone unnoticed by negotiators. In
response, Australia recently proposed (PDF) that countries
wrongly categorized as poor be reclassified and forced to assume
the same responsibilities as the wealthy. (It helpfully includes a
"Ukraine List" of 44 countries with higher per-person GDP than
the "wealthy" Ukraine.) Japan has offered its own scheme,
which would divide the world into three groups: a much larger
set of wealthy countries than has been used in the past, an
intermediate group of rapidly developing countries, and a third
set of substantially poorer states.
Resistance has, predictably, been strong. Negotiators from the
"poor" nations of China and Brazil have objected loudly (Word
file). Perhaps most galling is the outspoken opposition of
Singapore, which ranks ahead of the United States, Sweden, and
Japan in per-person wealth. But even legitimately poor
countries, worried about maintaining solidarity, have toed the
line.
It's a dangerous situation. So long as negotiators insist on
treating Singapore, China, and Togo as part of the same group of
poor countries, they are not going to be able to find a set of rules
that works for all of them. And if they continue to pretend that
Ukraine and Switzerland are economically comparable and both
wealthy, they're going to have a hard time coming up with a
formula for rich countries' shared obligations, too.
If negotiators allow for new shades of gray, that might change.
Acknowledging that there is a middle group of countries,
including China and Brazil, would be a particularly important
breakthrough. (The precise definition of this middle group would
need to be negotiated—GDP per person would probably have to
be supplemented by other measures of wealth and development.)
Those countries are rich enough to have some capacity to cut
their emissions on their own but poor enough that they need help
doing more. They have no natural place in the current climate
regime's taxonomy. If reforms freed negotiators to focus on the
particular challenges those countries pose, though, progress
might be more forthcoming.
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To be certain, changing the way countries are classified would
not be a panacea. Diplomats from big developing countries
would still try to avoid making commitments, regardless of what
category their countries were in. And some countries can't
readily be classified under any scheme. In particular, India,
whose citizens are the world's 136th wealthiest (behind
Nicaragua and Iraq), is poor by most measures. But letting that
justify an exemption from all emissions-cutting rules would be
dangerous, since it is also the world's third- or fourth-largest
greenhouse-gas emitter. It won't be sufficient to replace one rigid
set of categories with another; negotiators will have to make
difficult adjustments on the margin.
But that should not deter the United States and others from
attempting to press forward on reform. The next year of
negotiations will be challenging; failure is a significant
possibility. If proposals for a new agreement don't reflect the
many ways the world has changed since the 1990s, though, it's a
guarantee.
history lesson
Ye Olde Gitmo
When Americans were unlawful combatants.
By John Fabian Witt
Tuesday, December 9, 2008, at 11:58 AM ET
On an island under military occupation at the edge of an empire,
the armed forces of a global superpower detain hundreds and
sometimes even thousands of allegedly unlawful combatants.
The powerful nation consigns the detainees to a legal limbo,
subjecting them to treatment that critics around the world decry
as inhumane, unenlightened, and ultimately self-defeating. That
may sound like a history of Guantanamo. Yet the year was 1776,
the superpower was Great Britain, and the setting was New York
City. The "unlawful" combatants were American revolutionaries.
Ever since President-elect Barack Obama suggested that he will
close down Guantanamo, historians and journalists have been
racing through the American past in search of evidence for our
commitment to the rule of law in wartime. The Founding Fathers
are the first stop. The days when New York was America's 18thcentury Guantanamo, it seems, hold lessons for extricating
ourselves from the Bush Administration's 21st-century mess.
New York's notorious prison camps are the subject of a new
book, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American
Prisoners During the Revolutionary War, by Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Edwin G. Burrows. Though he mentions
current events only once, the American experience since 9/11
looms over his story.
After the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of
Independence in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, British forces
under Gen. William Howe began warehousing thousands of
Americans captured in and around New York in Britain's first
major campaign of the war. For the next seven years, British
forces occupied the city, turning it into a barracks and loyalist
refugee center, but also a prison camp for Americans taken
prisoner around the Eastern Seaboard and on the high seas.
Captured officers usually had little to complain about other than
boredom. Most were released on what 18th-century armies called
"parole" and spent months and even years in the relative comfort
of Long Island, where they boarded with local families. The fate
of American enlisted men, however, was far direr. The British
crowded them into just about every available space. The city's
churches and sugar warehouses became holding pens for
captured Americans. Even King's College (now Columbia
University) was thrown into service as an ersatz detention
center.
Conditions in these unsuitable buildings and makeshift prisons
were appalling. Smallpox and other infectious diseases raced
through the ranks. Summers were unbearably hot in poorly
ventilated and overcrowded buildings. Exceptionally cold
winters in 1777 and 1778 combined with lack of fuel to produce
freezing temperatures. Food was scarce under ordinary
circumstances, and logistical problems often reduced the
prisoners' food supplies to dangerously low levels. Burrows
calculates that rations—set at about 2,400 calories a day, or twothirds what a British soldier received—were so low as to cause a
typical prisoner to lose one pound of body weight each week.
The notorious prison ships anchored in New York harbor were
even worse than the ad hoc prisons on Manhattan island. The
ships were far and away the worst place an American prisoner
could end up. Enlisted men and privateers captured on the high
seas were crowded into the noxious, waste-filled, and diseaseridden holds of aging vessels moored in Wallabout Bay along
the Brooklyn waterfront (roughly between the Manhattan Bridge
and the Williamsburg Bridge).
Death rates for those held in the ships, Burrows estimates,
approached 50 to 70 percent. According to a few sketchy
contemporary reports, some 11,000 Americans died on the ships.
If death rates were the same in the Manhattan holding pens as on
the ships in the harbor, then, Burrows reasons, as many as
19,000 American soldiers may have died in captivity, almost
three times the number of Americans killed in battle during the
entire Revolutionary War.
Parallels to recent American history are sometimes so close as to
be eerie. In the months after 9/11, the United States hoped that
putting detainees at Guantanamo would insulate its detention
decisions from legal challenges in the courts. Lord North and the
British Cabinet hoped that locating prisoners in New York
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would do the same. (North shipped American revolutionary hero
Ethan Allen from London to New York in order to keep him out
of reach of habeas corpus proceedings in the British courts at
Westminster.) As in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ambiguous legal
status of American prisoners tacitly licensed shocking abuses.
The surviving diaries of American prisoners describe sadistic
treatment by captors who were every bit the equal of Charles
Graner and Lynndie England at Abu Ghraib.
What Burrows wants us to see is that the laws of war and its
humanitarian protections were once rallying points for American
patriotism, not obstacles to its realization. Virtually every one of
the founding fathers—George Washington, Benjamin Franklin,
and Thomas Jefferson most of all—cited the humanitarian
imperatives of what was then known as the Law of Nations and
excoriated the British for their treatment of American captives.
Burrows declines to draw the obvious comparisons to today's
controversies, but in the Founding generation, he suggests,
American values were clear. Our enemies were the global
pariahs, while we were the champions of humanitarian ideals
and the international rule of law. Journalists such as Jane Mayer
and lawyers such as Philippe Sands and David Cole have drawn
these conclusions more explicitly, though without Burrows'
thorough historical research. Burrows' book is part of a quickly
snowballing movement to redescribe the Bush administration's
post-9/11 policies as an embarrassing aberration in an otherwise
exceptional history of respect for the rule of law in times of
national crisis.
This earnest attempt to recapture humanity for the flag is
misleading; the legend of the "New York prison ships" has long
been caught up in feel-good history and political mythmaking.
Burrows avoids the worst mistakes of the genre, but he cedes too
much to the patriotic fantasy of American exceptionalism in our
commitment to the rule of law and humanitarian ideals.
Burrows' fatality estimates, for example, rely on the most
extravagant available claims and then use them to extrapolate
still further deaths. (Among other things, Burrows makes the
implausible assumption that fatality rates were as high on land as
they were in the prison ships.) Most historians believe that the
number of prisoner fatalities among American soldiers was far
lower than Burrows would have it, somewhere in the
neighborhood of 8,500. The number is still startling. It is higher
than the number of battle deaths in the war (estimated at upward
of 6,000). But given that the British held few prisoners in New
York (or anywhere else outside of Charleston, for that matter)
after 1778, the lower estimate (less than half the size of Burrows'
figure) is almost certainly much closer to the truth than Burrows'
highball number.
policy of King George III designated American prisoners as
traitors and criminals, in practice the British treated them as de
facto prisoners of war. French and Spanish prisoners of war—
whose legal status was unambiguous—faced the same conditions
as their American allies in the war with Great Britain. American
prisoners regularly corresponded with family and friends outside
New York. Wives and mothers were often permitted to come
into British lines to visit their loved ones, and sometimes even
successfully agitated for their release. Death rates were high, but
so were death rates among British seamen aboard British ships.
Rations were the same as those provided to British soldiers
during their trans-Atlantic voyage. Even Burrows disclaims the
view that the deaths resulted from the intentional infliction of
cruel treatment. The main killer of prisoners (indeed, a main
killer of soldiers on all sides, prisoners or not) was an epidemic
of smallpox that swept through New York and then raced up and
down the Eastern Seaboard in 1776 and 1777.
While British soldiers typically fared better in American hands
than their American counterparts did, that was partly because
American forces could send them into the interior to western
towns where food and shelter were in good supply.
Revolutionary Americans adopted the standards of civilized
warfare. But they did so not just out of humanitarian selflessness
but in pursuit of their strategic aims. To be recognized as a
civilized state entitled to make war according to the Law of
Nations was precisely what the Revolution was being fought for.
The American commitment to the laws of war and to
humanitarian ideals was supported by that ambition. For the
revolutionaries, the claims of humanity ran together with
American interests, not headlong into them.
From the nation's founding moment forward, humanitarian
motives have mixed with strategic interests. The danger of an
imagined American history of selfless humanitarianism is that it
holds American leaders to an impossible standard. A standard
that no nation has ever lived up to—such a history invites our
leaders to abandon our ideals when crisis strikes.
Great Britain dismantled the prison camps of old New York in
1783 when it abandoned its war effort. But in our world of
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, abandoning the fight
is not possible. Obama will have to close Guantanamo while
waging the battle Guantanamo was meant to help us win. To
succeed, he will have to reunite the twin American traditions of
interest and idealism. They are traditions his predecessor tore
apart, but they are the true legacy of the Revolution.
hot document
Conditions in the British camps and ships in and around New
York were what one would expect in the era before modern
medicine and modern military logistics. Even if the official
Layoff Spin
An ad firm accidentally leaks its "restructuring communications plan."
By Bonnie Goldstein
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From: Bonnie Goldstein
Posted Monday, December 8, 2008, at 2:50 PM ET
Last month more than half a million American workers lost their
jobs. How exactly do you tell an employee that his or her
services are no longer needed? Institutional guidelines at two
University of California campuses (see here and here)
recommend "constant, open, and empathic communication."
Somewhat less sentimentally, the Fairport, N.Y.-based H.R.
Works Inc. advises: "Protect company assets," taking the
precaution, for instance, to shut down the laid-off employee's
computer and network access not after but "during the
termination meeting." The state of Minnesota's instructions warn
managers to be prepared for the worst: "If you are concerned that
the employee may react to the news in a hostile or threatening
manner, be sure to have a safety plan in place. This should
include notice to Capitol Security." In the self-published
Employee Termination Guidebook ($247.00 + shipping),
"turnaround" consultant Kevin Muir urges managers to move
quickly before the doomed employee starts "telling lies about
you, turning others against you and destroying your reputation."
Inadvertently, the advertising company Carat provided a window
on its termination process in September when the "Chief People
Officer" of its New York office accidentally e-mailed
companywide an 18-page draft PowerPoint presentation
outlining the firm's "restructuring communications plan"
(excerpts below and on the following three pages). Within days,
AdAge had posted the document.
Please send ideas for Hot Document to [email protected].
how to pronounce it
Oy, Blagojevich
Listen to the governor of Illinois pronounce his own name.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested by FBI agents
Tuesday morning and accused of trying "to sell the U.S. Senate
seat" recently vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. The
governor himself has joked about the difficulty of pronouncing
his last name.
Name: Rod Blagojevich
Title: Governor of Illinois
Last Name Pronounced: "Bluh-GOY-uh-vich"
Tape: Click the arrow on the player below to hear Rod
Blagojevich pronounce his own name while being sworn into
office in 2007.
.
.
.
human guinea pig
A Colonial Dame
My brief, inspiring career as a historical re-enactor.
By Emily Yoffe
Verily, your humble fervent did in the guise of the Humanae
Cavia Porcellus fojourn to the paft, to the year of our Lord
1771. Prithee, allow me to declaim of my adventure in the
colony of Virginia, and my difcoveries.
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The reigning fantasy in many girlhoods is that of becoming a
princess, presiding over a palace, dressing in satin, wielding a
scepter. I always imagined myself as a settler, sitting by a cozy
fireside, dressing in homespun, wielding knitting needles. So the
tiny one-room, wood-beamed farmhouse at the Claude Moore
Colonial Farm, a living history site set in 1771, with its dirt
floor, hearth, table, spinning wheel, and sleeping loft, sent me
back both to this country's beginnings and my own—it was the
perfect manifestation of my childhood dreams.
For the Human Guinea Pig column I have been no stranger to
costumes, from the nightmarish bathing suit competition at the
Mrs. Washington, D.C., pageant, to my horrific "living doll"
look for a stint as a street performer. As a historical interpreter at
the farm, the foundation of my transformation into an 18thcentury woman was the foundation garment called "stays—the
fabric and bone device that tied around the upper body. This was
not the wasp-waisted, heaving-bosom look of a Scarlett O'Hara
corset. Instead the torso in stays becomes almost cylindrical,
one's front flattened, one's back held straight. Good posture was
a matter of propriety, and both Colonial boys and girls were put
in stays. Males were released around age 7, but females spent
their lives in them. I expected stays to be a sartorial prison.
Instead, I enjoyed them. They made my movements deliberate,
my posture impeccable. I felt as if the past was swaddling me.
Slate V: Emily Yoffe's experience as a historical re-enactor
The Claude Moore Colonial Farm is staffed by a handful of
employees who do both the 21st-century work of the front
office—arranging events, working on the computer—and also
the 18th-century work of running a farm while portraying
members of a tenant farm family. They are supplemented by an
ardent group of volunteers. The most fanatic one I met was a
young mother taking a hiatus from her Ph.D. in Colonial history
who made authentic hemp diapers for her nursing infant.
Incidentally, those of us playing roles on the farm were called
"interpreters," not "re-enactors." Re-enactors is generally used to
refer to more casual amateurs who like to dress up as a hobby.
Most farm staffers were women who had spent their childhoods
playing olden days and had found a way as they grew up to keep
going back in time. Elizabeth Rolando, 26, the program manager
who portrays farm wife Lydia Bradley, volunteered as a girl at
Plimoth Plantation and while a history major in college worked
at Sturbridge Village. Katie Cannon, 26, the site supervisor and
also a portrayer of Lydia, says, "I love spinning, sewing,
gardening, cooking over an open fire, and I get paid to do it."
Claude Moore is chronically short of men; men interested in
living history often gravitate toward sites where they can pretend
to do battle. Their absence at Claude Moore is explained to
visitors by saying they are dead, or walking to Ohio to look for
land.
I portrayed Chastity Crump, a middle-aged spinster from a
neighboring farm who liked to visit Lydia and help with chores.
For one of the farm's special events, a Colonial wedding, I acted
as a kind of hostess, engaging our 21st-century guests in small
talk, encouraging them to dance, and handing out cake. With my
conelike bodice, billowing hips, ruffled cap, and no makeup
(cosmetics are banned on the farm), I felt it would have been
easy to live up to my virtuous name.
At home, I am a despiser of the domestic arts. But I loved the
meal preparation at the farm. One morning, Cannon got the fire
blazing in the hearth, and I assisted with making slapjacks
(pancakes made from dried, hand-pounded corn) using fresh
turkey eggs, pease porridge (a split pea soup, and, yes, "pease
porridge hot, pease porridge cold" ran incessantly through my
head as I stirred), and a salad from the dark greens in the garden.
There was not a single modern convenience, yet it all didn't take
much longer than a meal Rachael Ray would put together. All
the women on the farm came down for the midday meal and we
sat outside at a long wooden table, shooing the chickens away.
I'm not sure why every simple meal I had there tasted so good.
Maybe because it was all raised a few feet from where we ate.
Maybe it was the witchy satisfaction of women together stirring
their cauldrons.
One day while I was in the farmhouse assisting Rolando, a class
of third-graders, notebooks open, came and peppered her with
questions.
Q: Do you got a job?
A: I've got lots of jobs. I do the cooking for my
family. We grow tobacco.
Q: How do you go to the bathroom?
A: Oh, we don't bathe very often. It's not good
to wash the oils off your skin.
Q: I mean the toilet.
A: There's lots of woods around here. We have
a chamber pot in the loft, but we don't use it
very often.
The schoolchildren were followed by a couple from Ohio.
Rolando asked them if they knew of any hardworking single
farmers, as her husband had recently died, leaving her with four
stepchildren.
"What did he die of?" the wife asked.
"He got injured in the arm with an ax," she said matter-of-factly.
"That wasn't so bad, but he died from the putrefaction of the
limb."
There have been living history museums for so long that there
could be a living history museum with people re-enacting the
founding of the living history museum. According to the
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Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural
Museums, the first successful open-air folk museum was
established in 1891 in Sweden. In the United States, Colonial
Williamsburg opened in 1932 and Old Sturbridge Village in
1946. They pioneered the idea of filling restored buildings with
accurately costumed people who could show how those
buildings and the tools in them were used. In the 1970s many
more living history museums were created, probably inspired by
bicentennial historical fever. Today the ALHFAM Web site has
links to more than 100 such places around the country.
Claude Moore (named after a benefactor, not a historical figure)
was founded in 1972 in McLean, Va., with the idea of showing
that most Colonial Virginians didn't live at a Monticello but
were poor farmers. It has a budget of about $430,000 and more
than 60,000 visitors a year. One of the oddest things about the
farm is its location: Across its property line is the headquarters
of the CIA. I kept thinking about the essential similarity between
the two places: They are both full of people who immerse
themselves in false identities. The CIA's training site for people
who go on to become spies is even called "The Farm," although
that's actually near Colonial Williamsburg. Every time I would
drive to Claude Moore, past the CIA guard house, I thought that
our next breach of national security wouldn't come from an
Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen, but from some Claude Moore
volunteer wearing a listening device in his breeches. The
proximity of these two federal entities (Claude Moore is the only
privately operated national park) results in some strange
encounters. Katherine Hughes, who recently left her job as a
farmer to go back to graduate school, once got a distress call
from the guard house saying they were surrounded by turkeys.
Often CIA security will call asking to have the bull removed
from their property.
After lunch one day Hughes put me to work making tobacco
sticks. These are the humblest of objects—long sticks stripped of
their bark and planed straight. They are placed across the rafters
of the tobacco house where "hands" of tobacco—10 leaves tied
together in bundles—are draped over them to dry. I sat on a
"shaving horse," a wooden workbench in which I secured the
stick so that it pointed toward me. I then took the drawknife—a
blade with handles at each end—and drew it across the stick. As
I began my jagged scraping, the 21st-century voice inside my
head—a combination of my grandmother and a liability
lawyer—started screaming admonitions: "Where are your
goggles, a wood splinter could pierce your eye!" "You're aiming
a knife toward your pulmonary artery!"
Yet I kept pulling the knife along the stick and it began to
smooth and straighten. I fell into a rhythm and my movements
started to become fluid. Making tobacco sticks required an
action very similar to that used for the latissimus machine at the
gym, a piece of equipment I hated. But as I sat on the shaving
horse and pulled, my mind began to quiet. I finished my first
stick, and as I stroked its silky finish I felt an inordinate sense of
accomplishment. I put in another, and I found the scrape-scrapescrape of the knife lobotomized the usual chattering in my head.
A pair of middle-aged women approaching took me out of my
reverie; I surreptitiously looked at the watch I had tucked into
my pocket. Forty-five minutes had gone by; it had felt like 10.
During my time at Claude Moore I heard many interpreters say
they were drawn to the 18th century because life was simpler
then. I never bought that. It didn't seem so simple to watch your
arm putrefy or lose your teeth in your 20s, or bury most of your
children. But as I got up to get home in time for carpool, I did
feel a deep longing to stay on my wooden horse and just scrape
sticks. Once humans spent most of their days doing useful things
with their hands, and I realized that we were designed to get a
deep satisfaction from this. As Hughes put it, "You have the
feeling people were supposed to do this kind of work, rather than
data entry, which is amazingly horrible."
Almost as soon as the Industrial Revolution arrived, people
began mourning its efficiency. As Thomas Carlyle wrote in
Signs of the Times in 1829, "[T]he living artisan is driven from
his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The
shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron
fingers that ply it faster … nothing is left to be accomplished by
old natural methods." The children who came to visit Claude
Moore understood this loss. Several interpreters warned me that
when I set children to various tasks they could do on the farm,
from hoeing, to carding wool, to dipping candles, I would have a
hard time getting them to stop. At a farm-skills training day, we
all took turns learning how to crack dried corn on the hominy
block, smashing a 3-foot-long wooden pestle against a hollowedout log. One mother could not pull her 10-year-old son away and
finally pleaded, "You have done a great job. So please stop
pounding!" I had a vision of a new approach to our modern
psychological problems. Psychiatrists would throw away
children's Ritalin and their parents' Lexapro and prescribe a few
hours a day of tobacco stick making or hominy cracking.
It was also a great pleasure to watch the animals. I was
particularly entertained by the turkeys. These were not the
tasteless, denatured modern grotesques bred to be so shortlegged and heavy-breasted that they can no longer mate, but a
heritage breed, Black Spanish. The turkeys are working birds;
their job is to walk the rows of tobacco plants eating the horn
worms. They were glorious to look at. The male, Brutus, was
covered with glistening, iridescent feathers of emerald and russet
which he often shimmied like a peacock. Brutus paraded with a
harem of three hens—the group liked to come by the farmhouse
at lunchtime looking for scraps. One day while I was sitting on a
bench outside mending rags, I watched him get in a quarrel with
a hen. They began pecking and squabbling until he lifted a foot,
caught her wing, and pinned her to the ground. She eventually
quieted, but when he removed his foot she got up, turned her
back to him, straightened her feathers, and, head high, walked
away without a glance.
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The lives of the poultry are so intimate with that of the farm
family that Rolando said she often finds chicken eggs in her
sewing basket. Working at Claude Moore also means having to
have a kind of Sarah Palin nonchalance about the need to turn
farm animals into meat. But a trip to the past made it clear that
however life has improved for humans since 1771, for our
livestock, progress has meant misery.
If there ever is a rip in the time-space continuum, my Claude
Moore colleagues probably could convincingly slip into Colonial
America. But as much as I loved my sojourn to the past, I never
was fluent enough in the language and the behavior of the 18th
century to feel I was anything more than an imposter. When
visitors came by I tried to remember to say 'tis, 'twill, and 'twas,
but I often just motioned that I was unable to speak and deferred
to my more expert companions. I was about as Colonial as
Harrison Ford in Witness was Amish.
Still, I finished my time at Claude Moore feeling I had a glimpse
of the satisfactions of life in 1771: the breadth of one's skills, the
self-reliance, the flowing tasks, the working together for a
common goal. I am happy my life in 2008 has medicine and
modems—and that I don't have to sleep in a loft with my
extended family. I do have occasional longings to set up a
tobacco stick assembly at my house, but I realize it wouldn't be
soothing, because there would be nothing useful about a tobacco
stick in the anti-smoking county where I live. I need to find a
substitute. As Elizabeth Rolando says, "There is a satisfaction in
the accomplishment of the mundane."
human nature
every year. They go there because we make more embryos than
are necessary for one child, and we set some aside in case we
need them for a second child. They're our backup kids. In our
heads, they aren't real yet. But in the freezer, they are.
President Bush, God bless him, wants to find homes for them.
He wants the parents who made them to let others gestate,
deliver, and raise them. It's a beautiful thought. But a survey
published last week in Fertility and Sterility says it's not going to
happen. The survey sampled more than 1,000 people who had
embryos on ice. Only 7 percent said they were very likely to
give their embryos to other parents. Twice as many were willing
to consider donating embryos for research as for reproduction.
Why? Because we don't want other people raising our kids. In
the survey, the authors found that "concern about or
responsibility for the health or welfare of the embryo or the child
it could become … was negatively associated with reproductive
donation and positively associated with options not resulting in a
child." For these people, the "sense of responsibility precludes
their allowing their embryos to become children in any family
except their own."
To pro-lifers, this preference for destruction is baffling. We're
talking about an embryo in a freezer. Nobody's asking you, the
genetic mother, to put it in your own body. We'll do all the work.
Just let us have it. We'll give it life, love, and a good home.
But the mindset of possessive responsibility says: No. This
embryo is mine. I can't let it grow into a child if I'm not there. I'd
rather extinguish it. This is a cruel instinct, but it's pervasive. It's
why Bush's father couldn't persuade women to choose adoption
over abortion and why Bush can't persuade them to choose
adoption even when no pregnancy on their part is required.
The Frozen Ones
The morally deserted world of spare embryos.
By William Saletan
I remember the day my first child was born. He lay sleeping,
swaddled, in a plastic bin at the hospital. That's when I finally
understood what it meant to be a parent. "If we leave this
hospital without this baby," I told my wife, "we'll be arrested."
It was a joke, but it was also true. You arrive at the hospital as
two people, and you leave as three. You can't just make a baby
and walk away. It's yours forever.
Unless, that is, you make a baby through in vitro fertilization. In
that case, you can put the embryo away in a freezer and decide
what to do about it later. Or never.
In the United States alone, approximately 500,000 embryos now
lie suspended in this frozen world. Thousands more accumulate
Imploring these people to embrace a baby-making "culture of
life" is noble, but it isn't realistic. Nor is putting ads in church
newsletters for 500,000 adoptive wombs. The realistic answer is
to stop making and freezing so many extra embryos in the first
place. That, too, requires moral strength. If you can't stand to
become a parent to a batch of frozen embryos, why are you
creating them? Sort out your ethics before you cross that line.
This, according to the survey, is exactly what's not being done.
The authors find that "fertility patients are likely to face an
unanticipated conundrum when they have completed treatment:
a choice among unappealing disposition options."
Unanticipated? Come on. IVF isn't a night of passion. It's an
elaborate plan. How can you go into it without thinking through
the eventualities?
The answer, the authors explain, is that "when embryos are
initially cryopreserved, patients are focused on having a child
and may not be prepared to consider fully their views about
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embryo destruction or donation." Furthermore, they report, "Our
review of consent documents indicates that patients are often not
asked their preference regarding disposition of excess embryos
at the time of freezing. … Discussion of disposition options is
not mandated by professional guidelines."
human nature
Motherhood at 70
Meet the world's newest oldest mom.
In other words, nobody focuses on the extra embryos. The
patients and doctors are preoccupied with making a baby. If you
get one, congratulations. Anything extra is an afterthought. We
treat the leftovers as raw material, available to be used or thrown
away. But they aren't raw material. Eggs and sperm are raw
material. Embryos are what we make with that material. They're
us.
So the leftovers sit in freezers, like souls in limbo. In this survey,
nearly half the people with embryos on ice said they didn't want
to have more kids. Yet among this group, the authors report that
40 percent "have yet to select a preferred disposition option, and
nearly a fifth indicate they are likely to freeze their embryos
indefinitely."
Compared with this, the abortion debate is almost quaint. There,
the pro-choice slogan is: Who decides? And the scripted answer
is: The woman does. But in the world of IVF, the answer, too
often, is that nobody does.
What does it mean to be pro-choice in a world without time or
fetal development? A world so frozen that no choice is required?
Is it possible to respect each couple's choice but to demand that
they choose one way or the other? Does the ethic of free choice
require at least that much?
I'm a pro-choice moralist. I don't want the government telling
people what to do with their pregnancies or their spare embryos.
But that freedom doesn't eliminate moral obligation; it
intensifies it. Each of us has to decide how to respect life in all
its complexity. To me, embryos aren't people, but they're the
beginnings of people. They aren't to be created, killed, or frozen
lightly.
That means, among other things, that they should never be an
afterthought. Don't have sex, at least not the procreative kind,
without discussing what you'll do in the event of pregnancy.
Don't make or freeze embryos without thinking through what
you'll do with them. And if, after talking it over, you can't
stomach the options ahead, maybe you should reconsider
whether you're ready for this. That's a lot to ask, I know. But
nobody said choosing would be easy.
(Now playing at the Human Nature blog: 1. The pro-life case
for Planned Parenthood. 2. The recession-backed market for
human eggs. 3. What are drones doing over North Dakota?)
By William Saletan
It looks like we have a new record-holder in the ongoing
"world's oldest mom" contest.
Patti Farrant, mother at 62—move over.
Adriana Iliescu, mother at 66—move over.
Carmela Bousada, mother at 67—move over.
Your new frontrunner is Rajo Devi of Alewa, India. She just
gave birth at 70. Her husband is 72.
It's a heart-warming story of man—or, in this case, woman—
overcoming nature's cruelty. Devi and her husband tried for
years to have kids. Eventually, menopause claimed her. That
was 20 years ago.
Then technology arrived to save the day. No eggs? No problem.
We can get you donor eggs. Bad sperm? No problem. We'll fix
that, too. "We used the usual intra cytoplasmic sperm injection
(ICSI) technique," the couple's fertility doctor, Dr. Anurag
Bishnoi, told the Times of India. "The ICSI method enables even
poor quality sperms being used creating embryos." In Devi's
case, the paper adds, the doctors used "blastocyst culture,"
transferring the egg after five days in vitro instead of the usual
two or three.
The tinkering worked. "Childless for 50 yrs, mother at 70," says
the headline in the Hindustan Times. Devi exults: "We longed
for a child all these years and now we are very happy to have
one."
To Bishnoi, it's a triumph over ignorant fatalism and prejudice.
"The couple said they were facing social stigma for being
childless for the last 55 years," the Times of India reports. Those
bad old days of blaming women for infertility may soon come to
an end. Bishnoi concludes: "IVF has revolutionized the way we
looked at infertility. Infertility is no longer a social taboo or a
divine curse. It can be treated scientifically."
Well, good riddance to infertility at 30. But Bishnoi hasn't
broken Devi's curse at 30 or even 40. He has broken it at 70.
"Rajo Devi has become the oldest woman to have given birth
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and the first woman in her seventies to do so," he proudly
declares. As though the magnitude of her age makes the feat that
much greater.
If you think Devi's record will stand, I'll take that bet. There will
be mothers at 71 and 72. It will be done because it can be done,
and because doctors such as Bishnoi see themselves as
liberators. They're not just defeating society's strictures. They're
defeating nature's. What once seemed an unalterable curse can
now be "treated scientifically."
But as the march of motherhood continues into life's eighth
decade, it may begin to dawn on the liberators that natural and
cultural constraints are two different things. The former are less
arbitrary. Nature tends to shut down a woman's ability to bear
offspring shortly before it starts shutting down her ability to
raise them. Science can defy the first shutdown, but how long
can it defy the second? If 70 isn't too old to become a mom or
dad, what is?
Maybe, as we extend our reach in this area, we'll learn to control
it. We'll stop seeing infertility as a binary struggle between
cultural fatalism and scientific treatment. We'll see an ecology of
procreation and parenting, with some boundaries worth
respecting, even when we know how to defeat them.
(Now playing at the Human Nature blog: 1. Drones patrolling
the Canadian border. 2. Tobacco without smoke. 3. The
recession and boob jobs.)
jurisprudence
Nuts and Deadbolts
A blueprint for the closure of Guantanamo Bay.
By Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes
President-elect Barack Obama has made clear that he will close
the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Notwithstanding the news
this morning that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others want
to confess their guilt in the 9/11 plots, closing the Cuban
detention center is easier said than done. Closing the facility,
which currently holds 250 or so alleged terrorists, involves a raft
of hard decisions and trade-offs that won't get any easier simply
because the new president's name is not Bush. The following is a
checklist of the major questions President Obama will face, in
rough sequential order, before he can shutter the camp:
Who must be released? Nobody contends that all of the current
detainees at Guantanamo require continued incarceration. The
Bush administration has already cleared approximately 60 of
them for release or transfer to other countries. The Obama
administration could assume some additional risk by letting
others go. The first step in closing Guantanamo, then, will be to
decide how many people truly must be held and how many must
be held in American, rather than foreign, custody.
Where to release detainees? Where to send some of the
releasable detainees poses an intractable problem. The Obama
administration is legally barred from sending them to home
countries that will torture or persecute them. The administration
cannot easily set them free inside the United States, for some
have terrorist backgrounds or connections, and the mere taint of
having been called "enemy combatants" by the U.S. military will
make them unwelcome. And the administration will have a
tricky time convincing rights-protecting countries to resettle
people deemed too dangerous to release here. The new president
will thus need to figure out which detainees might be admitted to
the United States and then leverage his substantial international
prestige to persuade other countries to accept the rest. Ironically,
the more willing he is to free detainees, the more difficult this
problem will become.
Where should the remaining detainees be held? The new
administration will presumably have to hold the remaining
suspected terrorists in facilities in the United States. But where?
They will likely end up in a prison on a military base, since it
would be unsafe to hold them in normal prison populations. But
few states will want to house Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his
friends. And members of Congress will give NIMBY-ism a
whole new meaning when it comes to keeping them out of their
districts. If resettling nondangerous detainees will take careful
diplomatic work abroad, resettling the dangerous ones in prisons
domestically will require careful work with Congress at home.
How many of the remaining detainees can face trial?
Continued detention over the long term for the remaining
detainees will prove more palatable to domestic and
international public opinion and the federal courts if detainees
face criminal charges. But how many detainees have committed
crimes provable in court using evidence judges will admit? It is
critical both to identify publicly the group of detainees against
whom prosecutors intend to bring charges and to bring those
charges expeditiously.
What form of trial should be used? How many detainees can
face trial will depend to some degree on which trial system the
new administration ultimately deploys. There are three
possibilities: ordinary civilian trials, military commission trials,
and courts martial under revised rules of the Uniform Code of
Military Justice. Each system has pros and cons.
Civilian trials of terrorists are the most legitimate. But they also
can endanger civilian juries and judges, they have demanding
procedural and evidentiary rules that make convictions difficult,
and the pro-government precedents likely to emerge from
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terrorist trials will hurt ordinary criminal defendants. Military
commissions have more flexible rules that theoretically make
acquittals less likely. But they are now politically damaged and
have in any event doled out some short sentences. The UCMJ
could be modified to operate like military commissions and
likely would be more legitimate in practice. But the
Constitution's double jeopardy clause may prevent detainees
already tried in military commissions from being retried in a
UCMJ trial.
A further complication in assessing these options is that the
more demanding the trial system chosen (for example, civilian
trials instead of military commissions), the harder it will be to
convict, which means fewer detainees tried and more held
indefinitely by other means.
Under what theory can detainees who are not tried remain
incarcerated? Detainees convicted of crimes will be
incarcerated for the term of their sentence. But detainees not yet
charged or who can't be charged must be held in some form of
extra-criminal detention. The United States has held in military
detention "until the cessation of hostilities" hundreds of
thousands of enemy soldiers in prior wars and currently holds
the Guantanamo detentions under this theory. It has also long
used administrative detention systems to hold without trial
dangerous persons like child molesters and people with
infectious diseases. The rules historically associated with these
forms of detention need amplification to ensure that mistakes are
minimized and to legitimize very long-term detention of
terrorists not subject to trial.
Only Congress, working with the president, can establish such a
system. The first and hardest issue Congress must address is the
definition of the enemy to be detained. At a minimum, this
definition should include everyone in the command structure of
the Taliban, al-Qaida, and associated terrorist organizations who
poses a clear threat to the United States. Beyond that, a precise
definition becomes very hard. Congress will also need to specify
rules concerning evidence, access to counsel, and government
information; the length of detentions; the frequency and scope of
administrative review, judicial review, publicity rules; and many
other features of a detention system.
Create a national security court? Many (including the two of
us) have proposed the creation of a national security court
composed of Article III judges to supervise and legitimize the
detention process and possibly to serve as the forum for civilian
terrorist trials. In either role, the national security court would
reduce the burdens on and dangers to ordinary civilian courts
and employ nimbler evidentiary and classification rules. The
objections to a national security court (beyond objections to
military or administrative detention generally) are that they
imply a permanent state of crisis and have a checkered
reputation in other countries. If the new administration goes this
route for either detention or for trial, the institution's design will
require sustained work with Congress.
What about acquittals and short sentences? Any of the trial
systems above might result in short sentences for or the acquittal
of a dangerous terrorist. In ordinary criminal trials, guilty
defendants often go free because of legal technicalities,
government inability to introduce probative evidence, and other
factors beyond the defendant's innocence. In terror trials, these
factors are exacerbated by the difficulties of getting information
from the place of capture, classified information restrictions, and
stale and tainted evidence.
The possibility of acquittals or short sentences is a problem for
terrorist trials. The Bush administration reserves the authority to
continue holding acquitted terrorists or even those convicted in
the military detention system after their sentences have run. But
this authority undermines the whole purpose of trials, and the
Bush administration has never exercised it. Putting a suspect on
trial can thus undermine detentions the government regards as
important. For example, the government would have had little
trouble defending the indefinite detention of Salim Hamdan,
Osama Bin Laden's driver, under a military detention rationale.
Having put him on trial before a military commission, however,
it would have been unseemly to sustain his detention beyond the
light sentence he is now completing back home in Yemen.
This conundrum gives the government an overwhelming
incentive to use trials only when it is certain to win convictions
and long sentences, and to place the rest in whatever detention
system it creates. Should the government loosen the rules for
trial to make convictions easier, or should it rely more heavily
on noncriminal detention? Hard call.
Wall off the system? The Obama administration will need to
figure out the relationship between its domestic trial and
detention system and the detainee system in the ongoing wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States currently detains—
without charge or trial and without access to lawyers or habeas
rights—thousands of detainees in those two countries. These
offshore detentions are perfectly legitimate under the Geneva
Conventions, and in any event the resource-intensive system of
trial and detention outlined above cannot feasibly be extended to
thousands, much less tens of thousands.
But as the wars abroad drag on, many will ask why detainees
abroad do not receive the same treatment as those at home.
These questions will grow loud when the government stops
bringing dangerous terrorists captured abroad to the United
States, preferring instead to keep them outside our shores in the
much less onerous and less scrutinized Geneva Conventions
system. Closing Guantanamo will do the new president little
credit if he is seen as having rebuilt it somewhere else.
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with accurate medical information and possible license
suspension and misdemeanor charges.
jurisprudence
Nursing Grudges
Why do we protect the moral convictions of only some health workers?
By Dahlia Lithwick
Saturday, December 6, 2008, at 6:38 AM ET
What does it tell us about the state of the abortion wars today
that battles once waged over the dignity and autonomy of
pregnant women have morphed into disputes over the dignity
and autonomy of their health care providers instead? Two of the
most pitched battles over reproductive rights in America right
now turn on whether health workers can be forced to provide
medical services or information to which they ethically or
professionally object. But as we learn from these fights, our
solicitude for the beliefs of medical workers is selective:
Abortion opponents will soon enjoy broader legal protections
than ever. Those willing to provide abortions, on the other hand,
seem to enjoy far fewer. And women seeking reproductive
services? They will continue to be caught in the tangle between
the two.
The first dispute concerns a new rule purporting to protect the
"right of conscience" of American health care workers. Under a
new midnight regulation crammed through by the Bush
Department of Health and Human Services and poised to
become law any day now, any health care worker may refuse to
perform procedures, offer advice, or dispense prescriptions if
doing so would offend his or her "religious beliefs or moral
convictions." Congress has protected the right of physicians and
nurses to opt out of providing abortions for decades. But this
new rule, which President-elect Obama can overturn (although it
may take months for him to do so), is far, far broader. It allows
your access to birth control, emergency contraception, and even
artificial insemination to turn on the moral preferences of your
pharmacist, nurse, or ambulance driver.
The second dispute involves a South Dakota law that went into
effect last summer after an appeals court lifted a preliminary
injunction. The law requires physicians providing abortions to
read from a state-mandated script advising the patient that she is
about to "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living
human being" with whom she has an "existing relationship." The
doctor must have her patient sign each page of a form indicating
that she has been warned of the "statistically significant" risks of
the procedure, including "increased risk of suicide ideation and
suicide." These "risks" are almost completely unsupported by the
scientific literature. A new comprehensive study released by
Johns Hopkins found "no significant differences in long-term
mental health between women in the United States who choose
to terminate a pregnancy and those who do not." The disparity
between the empirical data and the mandatory script thus forces
physicians into a Hobson's choice between providing patients
Reading the new HHS regulations together with the mandatory
South Dakota "script," one can conclude only that those same
health providers who cannot legally be compelled to perform,
assist in, or clean tools for an abortion may nevertheless be
compelled by law to deliver misinformation about it. The
freedom and autonomy of doctors who oppose abortion are to be
protected. But those willing to provide abortions can be forced to
deliver a state message with which they completely disagree.
Something tells me that one's freedom and autonomy shouldn't
generally depend upon one's moral or religious preferences.
Both the HHS's right-of-conscience rules and the South Dakota
script purport to clarify the complex legal relationship between
health provider and patient, but each instead confuses and
obfuscates settled law. The HHS rule as written is so ambiguous
that nobody can say for certain which health care workers or
medical procedures are covered, beyond establishing that both
categories are broadly expanded beyond anything protected by
existing right-of-conscience laws. The new rule even fails to
define abortion, leaving open the possibility that anyone who
thinks birth control is abortion may decline to dispense it,
turning every visit to the E.R. or the pharmacy into a spin of the
constitutional roulette wheel.
A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine
similarly blasts the South Dakota script for introducing novel
and confusing legal language about "human beings,"
"constitutional rights," and "relationships" into an intimate
medical conversation between doctor and patient, concluding
that these words must be there only "to intimidate pregnant
women with vaguely described and legal-sounding
consequences." As Emily Bazelon has observed, doctors there
must now make intolerable decisions about whether to explain
that these warnings are not supported by science.
Of course, both the HHS's conscience law and the South Dakota
script law claim to be rooted in law and science. Yet the HHS
rule was pushed through over the objections of the American
Medical Association, the National Association of Chain Drug
Stores, and the American Hospital Association, as well as the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For its part, the
South Dakota rule completely upends a 1992 Supreme Court
determination that states may require women to receive "truthful,
nonmisleading information" about abortion.
Almost completely missing from all of this fascinating
legislative discussion about what health workers might be made
to do and say with respect to reproductive rights are the
reproductive rights themselves. Like it or not, the right to birth
control, emergency contraception, and—under most
circumstances—abortion is still constitutionally protected. But
these are not services a woman can provide for herself, which
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leaves her with few rights at all when her physicians, nurses, and
pharmacists are empowered by law to misinform her, withhold
advice, or to deny services altogether.
Even beyond the problem of subordinating a woman's rights to
those of her health care providers, however, there looms here a
larger question for the health care workers themselves: If they
are indeed seeing their rights and freedoms to speak and work
either hugely expanded or severely restricted based solely on
which team they've chosen in the culture wars, they should be
wondering whether any of them are really free at all.
A version of this piece appeared in this week's issue of
Newsweek.
medical examiner
Trend Spotting
Even Google can't cure the flu.
By Zachary F. Meisel and Jesse M. Pines
This flu season, if your head starts aching, your nose gets
clogged, and your body gets the chills, there's a decent chance
you'll turn to the Internet before heading to the doctor. You
won't be the only one. Last month, to harness the powers of our
collective Web searching for a cure, Google announced a cool
new system called Flu Trends that tracks outbreaks by
monitoring when users type search terms such as "flu
symptoms," "influenza," or "the flu." Google's team even
published its findings in the prestigious scientific journal Nature.
They reported that Flu Trends tracks almost perfectly with data
on influenzalike illnesses that the CDC obtains from doctors'
offices. And as an added bonus, Flu Trends detects outbreaks up
to two weeks earlier, when people are still sitting at home
sneezing into their keyboards.
"Syndromic surveillance," or using data that track trends in
patient symptoms, has been a hot topic since the Sept. 11, 2001,
and the anthrax attacks. The initial thought behind the now
gazillions of dollars dumped into syndromic surveillance was to
use sensitive monitoring systems to identify clusters of E.R. and
doctor visits by patients exhibiting worrisome symptoms, like
fevers and rashes, and to create an early-warning system for
bioterrorist attacks. But as researchers from the Rand Corp. point
out, syndromic surveillance is not all that when it comes to
detecting bioterrorism. Anthrax symptoms like fever and cough
mimic the flu, making it tricky to differentiate an attack from an
influenza outbreak. But what syndromic surveillance is good at
is detecting trends in the flu itself. And Flu Trends, which is
really a new type of syndromic surveillance, reportedly has
benefits over other types of surveillance.
Flu Trends is certainly better than Whoissick.org, where users
report their symptoms. When sick, people are more worried
about getting better (and using Google to figure out how) than
reporting symptoms to a random Web site. Flu Trends is similar
to a system in which doctors' offices report data on patients with
flu symptoms to the CDC, which publishes the results each
week. But we don't how Flu Trends compares with other types
of surveillance systems, such as data from drugstores (to track
purchases of cold medicine), telephone medical hot lines (to
monitor patients who call in with flulike symptoms before a
doctors' visit), school absences (to know when kids are not
showing up at school), E.R.s (to identify diagnoses of actual
flulike illnesses), laboratory data (to confirm the infection and
know the viral strain), and hospital discharge data (for
information on severity of illness and intensive-care use). But
Flu Trends has one clear benefit over these systems: They are
costly to maintain, while Flu Trends can get similar data on the
cheap.
But sometimes you have to spend a little to get a little. The
problem with Flu Trends is that it doesn't give detailed info on
who is sick. Apart from knowing where their Internet
connections are located, Flu Trends tells us nothing about the
users. Other systems come with additional information, such as
demographics (age, gender, etc.) and give more detailed
information on where the sick people actually live. This
"situational awareness" helps epidemiologists know how the
disease is spreading in particular populations and regions.
But if officials monitored only Flu Trends, it would be difficult
to sort the signal from the noise—in addition to losing critical
details on who is sick. Things besides an actual flu outbreak can
cause people to search the Internet for flu information. We
would imagine that Flu Trends would spike on the release date
for a flu-related movie—maybe Outbreak 2: Electric Booga-Flu.
And what happens if a pandemic flu scare hits the nightly news?
Flu Trends' ability to detect when the real pandemic hits will be
obliterated when people, including those without symptoms,
start to search the Internet. Monitoring drugstore sales has the
same issue: A jump in cold-medicine sales may mean a flu
outbreak, but it could also mean that CVS is running a sale or
that flu fear is causing people to stock their medicine cabinets.
The real question here is: So what? Why is so important to
predict a couple of days ahead of time which states have lots of
people with flu symptoms? Some say this information may spark
health officials or doctors to produce special news bulletins,
intensify hand-washing campaigns and flu vaccination efforts,
let hospitals know to up their staffing levels, or even prescribe
preventive antiviral meds, like Tamiflu, to high-risk people.
Those sorts of prevention efforts do actually reduce the flu
spread. But it is unclear what good a one-week heads-up can do
when it is already clear that the flu is coming, anyway.
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If Flu Trends is not the perfect surveillance system, then what
is? The ideal system would let health officials know where
influenza hits, how serious it is, and what the viral strain is. It
would give us advanced warning to help prevent spread.
Problem is, no data source has all this info—each has
limitations. The flu has a predictable pattern: You get infected,
you spread it to your family and friends, you start feeling awful:
fever, cough, aches, headache. Then you complain to your wife
or mother (whom you have already probably infected), telephone
a nurse hot line, or buy some cold medicine. Ideally, you call in
sick to work or avoid school, and, finally, you type "flu
symptoms" into your Google browser. There is surveillance for
all these activities—except for the whining, of course. Most
folks ride it out at home and stay in bed for a couple of days, but
some go to doctors' offices or to the E.R, and some of those
doctors will order influenza tests. But by the time we have the
hospital data, the flu has not just arrived, but has infected lots of
people, and interventions to reduce its spread are less effective.
Probably the best answer is for officials to use multiple data
sources for syndromic surveillance simultaneously and perform
graded interventions with each new bit of information. When the
earliest warning system goes off (like Flu Trends or drugstore
purchases), health officials might announce "Flu is here" and
urge people to get more rigorous with hand-washing and get
vaccinated if they haven't already. Then, when the hospital data
warn that the flu has landed in a particular location and is having
an extreme effect on a population (like children or the elderly),
targeted interventions can be implemented at the regional level,
as with Tamiflu prophylaxis, or even considered for more drastic
measures, such as temporarily shutting day care centers.
Another future trend in syndromic surveillance is sharing
information between jurisdictions that now adhere to political
boundaries such as states, counties, and cities. Diseases often
spread across state lines without asking permission from health
officials. So regionalization or nationalization (like Biosense) of
surveillance may help us identify outbreaks that are not confined
to one particular area.
But despite all this, it is important to keep a grounded
perspective. The way to prevent yourself from getting the flu is
to get your shot, wash your hands, and stay away from coughing
people. When you do get it, stay at home, for goodness' sake.
And along with your daily searches for Britney Spears and
government bailouts, keep on Googling for flu remedies. By
doing so, you're not just informing yourself, you're also helping
the health department. But no matter how accurate Flu Trends is,
we can be certain about three things this winter: 1) Flu will
come; 2) many people will get sick, and some will die from the
infection; and 3) Google Flu Trends will prevent neither 1) nor
2).
medical examiner
Halt the Surgery—It's Time for My Nap
The downside of requiring young doctors to get more sleep.
By E.B. Solomont
Wednesday, December 10, 2008, at 6:58 AM ET
Much to the delight of harried young doctors everywhere, an
expert panel recently agreed that medical residents aren't getting
enough sleep. Citing evidence that fatigue leads to more medical
errors, the Institute of Medicine said last week that doctors in
training should not work more than 16 hours without taking a
five-hour nap. Though it carries no binding authority, the
recommendation of the IOM's report supplements an earlier rule,
passed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical
Education in 2003, that limited residents to 30-hour shifts and no
more than 80 hours of work each week. Surgical residents may
someday soon have to prepare themselves to halt an operation
and announce that it's nap time.
The American medical establishment has been slow to give up a
hazing ritual that assigns grueling schedules to trainees, with
supporters of the schedule arguing that the long hours prime
young doctors for the rigors of medicine, expose them to many
disease scenarios, and promote continuity of care for patients.
Other nations have been quicker to jettison that system. New
Zealand limits residents to 72 hours of work each week, while
France caps the workweek at 52.5 hours. Danish residents work
no more than 37 hours a week. (What a breeze!) Elsewhere in
Europe, countries are slowly lowering the work hours of "junior
doctors" to comply with the European Working Time Directive,
which limits hours for all shift workers. By 2009, junior doctors
will work no more than 48 hours a week.
Unfortunately, working less comes with a big price tag.
Countries that have imposed shorter work hours for residents
have faced steep staffing shortages as well as questions about the
quality of their medical training.
New Zealand and Australia were two early adopters of shorter
hours for residents, and their experiences should have warned
other countries against the idea. In 1985, when New Zealand
restricted residents to 72 hours of work per week, hospitals faced
a sudden shortage and ended up hiring more senior doctors to fill
the gap. Australia experienced a similar problem after physicians
adopted a 1999 "National Code of Practice" designed to
minimize the risks facing all shift workers who work extended
hours. By 2004, physician shortages were common in Australia,
and the state of New South Wales had 900 vacancies for
residents and other doctors in training.
Other countries have seen similar snags. In Europe, where
thousands of physicians were needed to fill vacancies created
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after residents scaled back their hours, hiring additional
personnel cost an estimated 1.75 billion Euros. Exceeding the
48-hour-a-week allotment "is the rule rather than the exception"
in Portugal, noted researchers in a 2004 British Medical Journal
article. The United Kingdom needed an estimated 15,000
additional doctors to staff the National Health Service to comply
with the Working Time Directive, which applied to junior
doctors for the first time in 2000. In 2004, the BBC reported that
the NHS was facing a "staffing crisis" brought on by shorter
hours for residents.
But too few doctors isn't the worst of the consequences.
Proficiency in the operating room notoriously demands long
hours, and one-third of orthopedic surgical residents were
deprived of training in the operating theater because of shorter
work hours, according to a 2002 survey by the British
Orthopedic Association. "To become a competent surgeon in one
fifth of the time once needed either requires genius, intensive
practice, or lower standards. We are not geniuses," wrote the
authors of an article published in the British Medical Journal in
2004. "That many senior house officers arrive at posts halfway
through their rotations without any real competence in operative
skills as basic as suturing and tying knots is therefore
unsurprising," they noted.
As European countries approach a 2009 deadline for fully
implementing a 48-hour workweek for doctors, critics have
renewed their arguments. In November, a study published jointly
by the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Royal College of
Surgeons suggested that medical education in the United
Kingdom would need an overhaul in order to maintain certain
training standards while complying with reduced-hour rules.
Testifying before the U.S. Institute of Medicine's committee on
residents' work hours, Dr. Bernard Ribeiro, former president of
the Royal College of Surgeons of England and an outspoken
critic of shorter work hours, urged members to consider the
implications of reducing residents' hours: British residents today
perform 25 percent fewer procedures than they did before the
regulations began to take effect, he said.
Despite such a warning, lessons gleaned from other countries
played a modest role in the committee's deliberations. An
appendix, "International Experiences Limiting Resident Duty
Hours," took up 19 pages in the IOM's 480-page report, Resident
Duty Hours: Enhancing Sleep, Supervision, and Safety. "Each
system is different—it's hard to generalize," said one committee
member, Dr. Kenneth Ludmerer, a professor of medicine and
history at Washington University in St. Louis. "Ultimately, we're
concerned about our own country."
But here, too, shorter working hours for residents have a spotty
record.
In 2003, when the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical
Education ruled that residents could work no more than 80 hours
a week, hospitals were forced to hire additional nurses,
technicians, and senior doctors to pick up the residents' slack.
Last week, the IOM committee said its recommendations could
cost $1.7 billion a year. The committee justified the expense by
saying medication errors and the cost of treating drug-related
injuries in hospitals add up to more than $3.5 billion a year.
But if the mistakes of drowsy doctors are merely replaced by the
mistakes of ill-trained doctors, there won't be as much benefit as
the IOM predicts. Dr. Elias Traboulsi, chairman of graduate
education at the Cleveland Clinic, points out that a quality
medical education often hinges on how much time is spent
treating patients and working in the hospital. Time restrictions
also limit residents' exposure to the longitudinal nature of illness,
said Dr. Joseph Loscalzo, chairman of the Department of
Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "It really
fragments the learning experience we wish our residents could
have," said Dr. Loscalzo. The Accreditation Council for
Graduate Medical Education allows hospitals to apply for small
extensions of up to eight hours a week for some residents on the
grounds that certain medical specialties, like surgery, benefit
from more training, but those extra few hours might not be
enough.
We all want our doctors to be well-rested, but the IOM's effort to
ease the burden on overworked residents saddles some doctors
with recommendations that could hinder their education. Acrossthe-board guidelines lump together doctors with vastly different
skills, sleep needs, and career goals. More flexibility would keep
the United States from facing the doctor shortages and training
deficiencies seen by other countries. By allowing individual
programs to tailor work hours to meet the needs of their
residents, the rules could accommodate aspiring physicians for
whom shorter shifts are sufficient as well as those surgery
residents who may benefit from logging extra hours in the
operating room. Then surgeons won't have to worry about fitting
in nap time.
moneybox
The Slate Bailout Guide
An interactive cheat sheet on the trillions of dollars in federal rescue packages.
By Chris Wilson and Karim Bardeesy
Since the economic-stimulus package in February, the federal
government has offered more than a dozen multibillion-dollar
rescue packages for a variety of industries and people
endangered by the financial chaos and the recession. The
magnitude of even one of these mega-bailouts is hard enough to
grasp—see the "Explainer's" take on the meaning of $700
billion—and combined they represent trillions of dollars in
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federal commitments. The following Slate visualization attempts
to put the magnitude of these rescue packages in perspective.
How to read this graphic
Think of the rings above as an onion; each ring is an added layer
of federal money, such that the combined picture represents the
total financial commitment of the U.S. government.
Mouse over the rings or labels to get a description of each
bailout. (The ring in question will turn red when you mouse over
it or the corresponding label. Pardon the acronyms—it's the only
way to squeeze their ungainly names on the page.) In its default
setting, the chart displays federal money committed (but not
necessarily spent). To see how much of this money is already
out the door, just click on "Spent" and watch the rings shrink to
the size of expenditures to date.
When the graphic first loads, you see each bailout add on to the
previous one in chronological order. To see the whole picture,
just click "View All." Hit "Play" to see the animation again.
Methodology
The data for this graphic were gathered from a variety of
sources, including the Federal Reserve, The Big Money, and
CNBC. Some editorial judgment went into deciding which
lending programs and federal guarantees to include in the chart;
for example, we don't include total FDIC backing of financial
institutions, which the very highest estimates typically do. As
these loans are repaid (and new short-term loans are offered),
some dollar amounts will fluctuate. Please e-mail Slate with any
suggestions for programs to add or figures to update.
Update, Dec. 12, 8:35 a.m.: The Term Auction Facility is now
up to $448 billion in dollars spent, while the Commercial Paper
Funding Facility rose to $312.4 billion, according to the Federal
Reserve.
moneybox
The Road to Zell
How the Tribune deal went so bad, so fast.
By Daniel Gross
What's the difference between Smart Money and Dumb Money?
Twelve months, the popping of a credit bubble, and about $800
million.
In the run-up of asset prices, which ended about a year ago,
everyone was a genius. Hedge-fund managers felt wise for
borrowing large sums of money and buying stocks,
commodities, or pretty much anything that went up. Private
equity barons bought companies, issued debt to pay themselves
dividends, and were hailed as master investors. Heck, even
millions of homeowners felt like Einsteins for refinancing at
lower rates. And hardly anyone was deemed smarter than Sam
Zell.
The Chicago-based real estate investor, nicknamed the Grave
Dancer for his delight in picking up dead businesses and
reviving them, built Equity Office Properties, a collection of
high-end office buildings. In February 2007, Zell was lauded as
a genius for unloading the company in an all-cash transaction
valued at about $38 billion (Blackstone put in $6.4 billion in
cash and borrowed the rest), after a frenzied bidding process.
But Zell wasn't content to take his winnings and stow them
under the mattress. Having benefited from the dumb-money
culture—people willing to pay high prices for leveraged assets in
the hope and expectation that they'd be able to sell them to other
debt-fueled buyers at even higher prices—Zell loudly plunged
right back into it. (Regular readers of this column should expect
to hear more about the culture of dumb money—I've got an
electronic book about it in the works with the Free Press.) In
December 2007, Zell closed on the $8.2 billion acquisition of the
Tribune Co., putting in $315 million of his own money and
borrowing much of the rest. Make no mistake about it, the
Tribune Co. was a classic dumb-money play, and not just
because its main assets were declining newspapers.
A big part of the dumb-money culture was the rising sense that
hedge-fund managers, asset flippers, and financial engineers—
because they had made a lot of money from cheap credit—could
apply their genius to industries in which they had little expertise.
Frequently, however, that strategy didn't go much beyond
financial engineering or selling assets—which depended, in
other words, on the plentiful availability of cheap credit and
credulous buyers. If hedge-fund maestro Eddie Lampert couldn't
remake Sears into an effective retailer, investors thought, he
could at least bolster shareholder value by buying back shares or
by selling the real estate underlying the stores. That hasn't quite
worked out. Hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman set up a vehicle
to amass a huge stake in retailer Target. His bright idea: Target
should sell its stores and lease them back.
It was plain from the beginning that Zell didn't have much of a
strategy for reversing the revenue decline at the newspapers.
And the failure to realize that a slowdown in real estate and
autos—the credit crunch had started a half year before the deal
closed—would reduce revenues sharply was an act of colossal
stupidity on Zell's part and on the part of the bankers who made
the era of dumb money possible. (Andrew Ross Sorkin has a
good rundown of the fees earned by Citigroup, Merrill Lynch,
and Morgan Stanley for their roles in this debacle.) Zell loaded
up the company with nearly $13 billion in debt, which required
interest payments of nearly $500 million in the first half of 2008.
The plan, such as it was, was to pay down debt not with
41/104
operating cash but with asset sales. One problem: Most of the
assets were themselves dumb-money assets—trophy properties
such as the Chicago Cubs, office buildings, and big-city
newspapers that couldn't support a lot of debt on their own and
whose purchase would require easy credit. In May 2008, Zell
managed to sell Newsday to Cablevision for $650 million. In
September, it sold a chunk of CareerBuilder.com for $135
million. In June, Tribune put the company's headquarters
buildings in Chicago and Los Angeles on the market. So far, no
takers. The hope to stay current on debt payments rested on
selling the Chicago Cubs, perhaps the greatest Midwestern
trophy property of all. But the credit crunch decimated the net
worth of many of the potential buyers, and lenders fell by the
wayside. Having failed to find any greater fools, Tribune filed
for bankruptcy Tuesday.
at your shoes and judge whether you're a big spender. Bergdorf
Goodman cold-calling suburban shoppers? It's like college kids
canvassing for Obama votes at a National Review conference.
But these are desperate times. During the late economic
expansion, the well-off—and, in particular, the really well-off—
thrived while the middle and working classes struggled. But in
2008, the stalwart customers of New York's luxury retailers have
been falling along with the hedge funds. The investment bankers
and their significant others? See ya. Rich tourists from points
south and west? Not this year, y'all. Europeans and Brits fueled
by their powerful domestic currencies? Adios, au revoir, cheers!
Russian oligarchs? Da svedanya. In November, according to
ICSC, luxury stores saw sales fall 10.5 percent. Neiman Marcus,
which owns Bergdorf, reported sales were off 11.8 percent.
.
.
moneybox
Desperate Housewares
Observing the Christmas carnage at FAO Schwarz, Bottega Veneta, and
Bergdorf Goodman.
By Daniel Gross
This is shaping up to be a dismal Christmas. The International
Council of Shopping Centers, which is supposed to help promote
the industry, last Thursday trumpeted an "awful beginning to the
holiday season." Excluding Wal-Mart, retailers reported that
same-store sales last month fell 7.7 percent, the worst November
in recent history. The big crowds that stampeded (literally,
sometimes) through the doors of big-box retailers on Black
Friday have dispersed. Shoppers seem inured to the relentless
Christmas spirit. The Boston Consulting Group says that half the
households it surveyed are planning to reduce their Christmas
spending, while only 10 percent plan to boost it. ICSC projects
that holiday sales could actually decline in 2008, "which would
be the weakest holiday-sales performance on record," says
Michael Niemira, chief economist and director of research at
ICSC.
But no indicator was quite so telling as the plaintive message left
on my home answering machine over Thanksgiving weekend. A
kindly Bergdorf Goodman salesperson invited members of our
humble household to stop by and check out the bargains. Now, if
you're not a habitué of the his-and-hers luxury department stores
on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, there are a few things you should
know about Bergdorf Goodman. This place puts the haute in
haute couture. It's about as welcoming to the public as North
Korea. It's the kind of store where the salespeople take one look
Strolling the half-mile of Fifth Avenue from Rockefeller Center
to Central Park—the white-hot heart of the high-end American
Christmas experience—you encounter the businesses that manage to separate more people from their hard-earned money more
than any others. But crowds in these thrift-killing fields were
relatively sparse last week (aside from the clutch of Citigroup
bankers trying to present toxic mortgage-backed securities as
collateral for loans from Salvation Army kettles). The
Rockefeller Center tree, like everything else in New York this
year, has been downsized. The 2008 Norway spruce is 72 feet,
down from 84 in 2007. In Bottega Veneta, not a creature was
stirring, not even a Vogue assistant editor. The Apple Store
earlier this fall was so mobbed that hipsters had to take a number
to enter the Shrine of Jobs. This time, I swept right in and didn't
have to wait to pay. Across the plaza from Apple stands FAO
Schwarz. In normal times, it's an anxiety-inducing miasma of
kids, tourists, and flying plastic toys. Last Tuesday, it was an
oasis of calm. I could have done yoga safely in the Lego section.
Why should we care where and how the well-off are spending?
Well, the top 20 percent of households account for about 40
percent of discretionary spending, and the top 40 percent
account for 74 percent of all discretionary spending, according
to BCG. As go the rich and wannabe rich, so goes the nation.
And while the residents of Richistan aren't moving to Pooristan
just yet, they are cutting back. "Consumers who have money
have decided they want to hold it in their pocket," says BCG
partner Michael Silverstein. Luxury retailers have responded by
acting like discounters. "In a better economy, customer service,
quality, selection are the key selling points," says Ellen Davis,
vice president at the National Retail Federation. "But this year
it's really all about price." Saks, which specializes in imported
finery, is taking a cue from domestic automakers and offering
zero percent financing. A/X is advertising all sorts of
merchandise as half-off.
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But not all luxury retailers seem to have gotten into the 2008
Christmas-shopping spirit. At Bergdorf Goodman's men's store,
tasteful signs advertised 40 percent off marked prices. Which
meant, for example, that a lovely Brunello Cucinelli gray wool
sweater was marked down from an astronomical $1,075 to a
merely absurd $649. As I looked at a rack of dark blazers, I was
flattered that a salesman actually spoke to me. "How much?" I
asked. "Fortysomething hundred dollars," came the reply. I
laughed. "That's Brioni," he said, "if it means anything to you."
Why, yes it does, I thought. It means an insanely expensive
product that probably won't sell much this year and, as a result,
will fail to deliver fat commissions to nasty salespeople.
It's been fun. But next time, Bergdorf, don't call me. I'll call you.
A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of
Newsweek.
movies
Must Love Nazis
Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet find doomed romance in The Reader.
By Dana Stevens
The Reader (the Weinstein Co.) is slow-acting poison. For the
first third of the movie, you'll experience a not-unpleasant
tingling in the extremities, giving way to an encroaching torpor.
An hour in, your pupils will have shrunk to pinholes, and by the
time the closing credits roll, you'll be capable only of a dim
longing for the defibrillation paddles. Who would have thought a
movie about a beautiful, frequently naked female Nazi could be
so dull?
If anyone could pull off the feat of making nude Nazis boring, it
would be Stephen Daldry, whose The Hours (2002) was a
genteel, portentous literary adaptation of exactly this sort. The
Reader is based on a German best-seller by Bernhard Schlink, a
former Oprah selection that is, by all accounts, a harrowing look
into Germany's troubled postwar conscience. The movie is
something else: a titillating romance that suddenly morphs into a
suspense-free courtroom drama, then trickles off in a wan coda
of hand-wringing.
Middle-aged law professor Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) is a
lonely shell of a man, incapable of real connection; as we first
meet him, he's politely dismissing a one-night stand. Glancing at
a passing streetcar, he's reminded of a certain summer long ago.
Unfortunately, instead of hearing the theme from Summer of '42,
we then flash back to 1958, when the teenage Michael (played
by the gawky, endearing David Kross) had a furtive love affair
with the much older Hanna Schmitz (Winslet), a ticket-taker on
the Berlin trolley.
Hanna is an odd sort of girlfriend, fiercely sexual but briskly
unromantic, given to sudden bouts of cruelty and sorrow. The
sheltered, middle-class Michael is thoroughly entranced by this
passionate enigma. He cuts school to spend days at her
apartment, reading the classics aloud to her in bed. (These early
scenes, in which literature and lust converge, are the movie's
best.) Then, one day, he finds Hanna's apartment empty.
Years later Michael, still waiting to turn into Ralph Fiennes,
enters law school. His professor (Bruno Ganz) takes the class to
observe a war-crimes trial in which a group of former SS guards
are accused of letting Jewish prisoners burn to death in a locked
church. The principal defendant: Hanna Schmitz. Devastated,
Michael returns to his class, Adolescent Grandstanding 101, to
debate the morality of trying war criminals 20 years after the
fact. Was Hanna, as she insists, a terrified subordinate carrying
out orders, or was she a sadistic ringleader enjoying her power?
Maybe I'm lacking in moral complexity (or maybe this is a
uniquely German story that translates poorly to an American
context), but The Reader's central problem (which seems
reducible to "I shagged a Nazi") strikes me as a bogus one. If
Michael can say, truthfully, that he knew nothing about his
lover's past, doesn't that effectively absolve him of guilt? A
lifetime of Fiennes-ian brooding seems a steep price to pay for
one summer of unwitting fascistic congress. And even if
Michael can't help but feel haunted by his fling, shouldn't others
(like the Holocaust survivor he confronts near the end of the
film, played by Lena Olin) let him off the hook? Why on earth
should a horny teenage boy have to abstain from sex with a
willing blond goddess on the off chance she might be SS?
For Kate Winslet is indeed a goddess, one whose special power
is to descend among us in manifold human forms. Even in this
hopelessly silly role—half dominatrix, half victim, devoid of
legible motivation—she finds moments of truth. (On a bike
excursion with Michael, you can see Hanna trying, and failing,
to rediscover her carefree prewar self.) Yes, Kate is grubbing for
an Oscar this year with the near-simultaneous release of two
Important Dramas (this and Revolutionary Road). But she may
be the finest actress of her generation, and (unlike her only real
competitor, the other Cate) she's also a five-time nominee who's
never won. I say give her the gold guy already, Academy, if it
means so much to her. Maybe it will free her up to stop acting in
movies like this.
music box
Beethoven and the Illuminati
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How the secret order influenced the great composer.
By Jan Swafford
In 1779, a composer, writer, teacher, and dreamer named
Christian Neefe arrived in Bonn, Germany, to work for the
Electoral Court. Neefe (pronounced nay-fuh) was the definition
of what Germans call a Schwärmer, a person swarming with
rapturous enthusiasms. In particular, he was inflamed with
visions of endless human potentials that the Scientific
Revolution and the Enlightenment promised to unleash. Like
many progressives of the time, Neefe believed that humanity
was finally coming of age. So he had picked the right place to
get a job. Bonn was one of the most cultured and enlightened
cities in Germany; the court supported a splendid musical and
theatrical establishment. Before long in his new post, Neefe
found himself mentoring a genius. Meanwhile, in his spare time,
he signed on with a plan to, as it were, rule the world.
One of Neefe's first students was a sullen, grubby, taciturn 10year-old keyboard player named Ludwig van Beethoven. He was
the son of an alcoholic singer who had more or less beat music
into him. The kid seemed more like a charity case than a
budding musician, but Neefe soon discovered that his talent
could put him in the league of the musical phenomenon of the
age, a child of freakish gifts named Mozart.
Ludwig was named for his grandfather, who had been
Kapellmeister, head of the court musical establishment. Old
Ludwig's son, Johann van Beethoven, was a tenor in the choir;
when his father died, he had made a bid to become
Kapellmeister. Everybody but Johann understood that was
ludicrous: He was a competent singer and music teacher,
otherwise hopelessly mediocre and a devotee of the bottle. As
often happens, the full ferocity of the father's blighted ambition
landed on the son. Johann van Beethoven intended to make his
oldest child into another Mozart, or else.
Neighbors used to see tiny Ludwig standing on a bench to reach
the keyboard, his father standing over him shouting and
threatening, the boy weeping as he played. When Ludwig was 7,
his father put him on display in a concert and for good measure
advertised him as age 6, the same as Mozart when he became
famous. Johann was hoping for a sensation, but nothing came of
it (except that Beethoven was confused about his age for the rest
of his life). At 7 he had been a terrifically precocious keyboard
player, but he wasn't another Mozart, at least not yet.
By the time Christian Neefe arrived in Bonn and started teaching
Beethoven organ and composition, the 10-year-old was as good
a keyboard player as anybody in town. Soon Neefe got into print
some variations Ludwig had written, one of his first pieces—
slight and conventional, still not Mozart but impressive for his
age. In a newspaper article, Neefe cited the variations and said
the magic words: With proper nurturing, this boy will "surely
become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart."
By his midteens, Beethoven was a court musician in various
capacities and making huge strides as a composer. His father had
pulled him out of school after a few years so he could
concentrate on music. (Beethoven learned to add and subtract
but never learned to multiply. If he had to multiply 65 by 59, he
wrote 65 in a column 59 times and added it up.) Meanwhile his
father was promoting him relentlessly, mounting concerts in the
house and taking him on tours around the Rhineland. By that
point, there was little question in Ludwig's or anybody else's
mind that he was headed for big things. One day when his
landlord's daughter accosted him with, "How dirty you're
looking again! You ought to keep yourself properly clean," he
told her, "What's the difference? When I become a gentleman,
nobody will care."
Which is to say that Beethoven was a prodigy and had the
classic prodigy's trouble: He knew all about music, but he didn't
know how to live. He had only a hazy sense of the reality of
other people. Throughout Beethoven's youth, a row of mentors
would attempt to civilize and socialize him, with mixed results.
In those years, his first serious mentor, Neefe the Schwärmer,
was in an especially perfervid phase of his spiritual life. For
some time he had been a Freemason, a group then in its first
century as a progressive, international, secular, semisecret order
open to men of all faiths. (As such, the Masons were loathed by
churches and regimes alike.) But Neefe was tired of the Masons'
endless chatter of liberty and morality. He wanted a more
ambitious and active kind of brotherhood—say, a new world
order. That took him to one of the more bizarre sideshows of the
Enlightenment: the Bavarian Illuminati. A Bonn lodge of the
Illuminati formed, and Beethoven's teacher became head of it.
Founded in 1776 by a Bavarian professor named Adam
Weishaupt, the Illuminati joined radical politics and Jesuit-style
hierarchy to fanatical secrecy. The aims of the order were
ambitious, all right: They intended to change the world and had
a plan to do it. The means were not to be by violent revolutions.
The idea was to form a cadre of enlightened men who would
steathlily infiltrate governments everywhere and slowly bring
them to a kind of secular-humanist Elysium under the guidance
of a secret ruling body. Said Adam Weishaupt: "Princes and
nations shall disappear from the face of the earth peacefully,
mankind shall become one family, and the world shall become a
haven of reasonable people. Morality shall achieve this
transformation, alone and imperceptibly."
For every Illuminatus, the perfection of society started with the
perfection of one's own moral character. Aspiring members were
given piles of text to read, required to write a rigorous selfexamination and to undergo ritualized interrogations:
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Where have you come from?/ From the world
of the first chosen.
Whither do you want to go?/ To the inmost
sanctum.
What do you seek there?/ He who is, who was,
and who shall always be.
What inspires you?/ The light, which lives in
me and is now ablaze in me.
For all the moony mysticism, the Illuminati had a highEnlightenment agenda, rational, humanistic, and universal. They
published a monthly magazine, Contributions to the Spread of
Useful Knowledge, which was partly Enlightenment
cheerleading, partly practical items relating to husbandry,
housekeeping, and the like. Duty was the essence of Illuminati
teaching, but it was an Enlightenment kind of duty: duty not to
God or to princes but to the order and to humanity.
In practice, the Illuminati amounted to a kind of activist left
wing of the Freemasons, from whom they drew most of their
members. The numbers were never large, but they included
people like Goethe (briefly) and Christian Koerner, a close
friend and confidant of Friedrich Schiller. Koerner's influence
seems to be why some Illuminati-tinged ideas—universal
brotherhood and the triumph of happiness bringing humanity to
Elysium—turned up in Schiller's famous poem Ode to Joy,
which was often set to music and sung in Masonic and Illuminati
circles. The poem would later enter history via the finale of
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
As an Illuminatus, an important part of Christian Neefe's duty
was to covertly inculcate promising young people in the ideals
of the order, then to recruit them when they came of age.
Beethoven was as promising as young people get. So did Neefe
inculcate this student? Surely he did. Was Beethoven recruited
to the order? No—the Illuminati dissolved in 1785, when he was
14. There is also a question as to how inculcatable Beethoven
was by anybody. Even in his teens, he was so fixed on his own
tack that he only intermittently took notice of the rest of the
world.
and composer. True, he was more self-made than anything else,
could see the world only through his own lens. He was a
legendarily recalcitrant student and claimed to have learned
nothing from any of his teachers. His most celebrated teacher,
Joseph Haydn, sardonically dubbed Beethoven die grosse
Mogul—in today's terms, the big shot. Yet at the same time,
Beethoven was by no means aloof. He soaked up every idea
around him, read voluminously in classical and modern
literature, studied the music of older masters and modeled what
he did on them. His art drew from myriad sources, among them
the extravagant humanistic ideals floating around Bonn in his
youth. One of the things it all added up to was something like
this: music as an esoteric language wielded by a few enlightened
men for the benefit of the world. Beethoven was all about duty
to the abstraction called humanity. That was what he was taught
and what he lived and wrote for, through all the miseries of
going deaf and a great deal of physical pain. It was people he
didn't much care about. But in taking up Schiller's Ode for the
Ninth Symphony, he proposed not just to preach a sermon about
the brotherhood of humanity and the dream of Elysium. He
wanted the Ninth to help bring those things to pass.
As for the Illuminati, call them one more example of the
Enlightenment's excesses of hope for human perfectibility. Since
Beethoven's day, the secrecy and world-ordering agenda of the
Illuminati have made them a natural magnet for conspiracy
freaks. The Illuminati actually existed only some nine years, but
there are still lots of folks, including many on the American
religious right and the John Birch Society, who believe the
Illuminati are the mother of all conspiracies, a Jewish-dominated
international cabal that has more or less run the world since they
incited the French Revolution. My saying they were a shortlived and a bit pathetic phenomenon makes me, of course, part
of the conspiracy—along with Beethoven. I'd like finally to meet
some of my fellow conspirators. They seem like interesting
people.
other magazines
Not only Neefe, but then and later most of Beethoven's other
friends and mentors and patrons were ex-Illuminati or
Freemasons. Did those influences have an impact on his life and
art? Among many other things, certainly. By the time Beethoven
left Bonn, he was already planning to set Schiller's Ode to music,
and he had a good idea what that poem was about, from its
humanistic surface to its Masonic and Illuminati depths. By then
Bonn had helped give him ideas and ideals about being a
composer that no one ever had before. He wanted to be
something more than an entertainer. He wanted to be part of
history.
If Beethoven had come from anywhere but Bonn he still might
have been a genius, but he would not have been the same man
I Doth
Newsweek on the Bible and gay marriage.
By Sonia Smith
Newsweek, Dec. 15
The cover story looks to the Bible for arguments against gay
marriage and instead finds that the good book advocates
inclusion for all. In biblical times, marriage was a polygamist
institution, and "no sensible modern person wants marriage—
theirs or anyone else's—to look in its particulars anything like
what the Bible describes." … A story examines the custody
battle between two moms over their daughter Isabella. After
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marrying in Vermont and divorcing eight years later, Isabella's
biological mother, Lisa Miller, has since found God and
renounced her former lifestyle, which she now calls
"fundamentally wrong." Despite a ruling by the Virginia
Supreme Court, Miller continues to deny the nonbiological
mother, Janet Jenkins, visiting rights. "For gay-rights advocates,
it's further evidence that the uneven patchwork of laws
concerning same-sex civil unions and marriage may promise
them equality in one locale, but leave them vulnerable in
another."
The New Yorker, Dec. 15
A piece profiles eccentric Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili in the aftermath of the summer's short war that
brought Russian tanks within 20 miles of Tbilisi. Saakashvili,
almost 10 inches taller than Vladimir Putin, has nicknamed the
Russian president "Lilli-Putin," and whenever the pair meets, the
room feels "electric with hatred," according to an observer.
Many politicians have faulted Saakashvili for overestimating the
amount of support the small Caucasian nation has in the West. "I
don't want to live in the new Caucasian Israel. I'd rather live in
the new Caucasian Ireland," one former ally said. … Malcolm
Gladwell tries to figure out what makes a good teacher. One
researcher concludes that it is "withitness"—"a teacher's
communicating to the children … that she knows what the
children are doing, or has the proverbial 'eyes in the back of her
head' "—that separates the competent from the lackluster.
Gladwell proposes opening up teaching "to anyone with a pulse
and a college degree" and starting an apprenticeship program to
weed out those who do not succeed.
The New Republic, Dec. 24
Coveting positions in "Camelot Redux," eager young
Democratic job-seekers are flocking to key people in the new
Obama administration like so many ravenous birds, a piece
finds. Networking, already a professional sport inside the
Beltway, has kicked into hyperdrive. The manager of Obama's
2000 state Senate run has dealt with more than 600 job inquiries
since the election. … Washington's social climbers are also
jostling for ties with the first family. "Establishment Washington
is an insecure culture, peopled by frantic overachievers whose
professional and social standing depends heavily and uneasily on
the ballot box." The author also predicts that the locus of young
Washington will shift from preppy Georgetown watering holes
to hipster-packed dives in Adams Morgan and around U Street.
… Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff does not have
an office, and that's just one of the problems plaguing the newest
federal agency, Jeffrey Rosen finds.
New York, Dec. 15
From Mad Men to Rachel Getting Married, the magazine weighs
in on 2008's best offerings in its annual year-in-culture issue. …
A profile of hedge-fund manager Jim Chanos chronicles how the
prescient short-seller has managed to turn a profit on Wall
Street's woes. To find hidden instability inside of companies,
Chanos and his analysts pore over their financial statements to
ferret out their weaknesses. "Chanos is a financial undertaker.
He makes a profit when companies die. And when there's an
epidemic, he gets richer still." … Women are drinking almost as
much as men these days, an article finds. Part of the reason is
savvy marketing; part is third-wave feminism. College and the
binge drinking that often accompanies it can set the tone for
lifelong habits, and "the more educated a woman is, the more
likely she will be to drink throughout her life."
Weekly Standard, Dec. 15
Fred Barnes wonders if Jeb Bush's stated intent to run for Senate
in 2010 means he wants to follow his father and brother to the
White House someday. The stigma attached to Jeb's last name
"should begin to fade" after his older brother leaves office in
January. After two years out of politics, "Bush can't afford to
stay on the sidelines if he has any hope of being president,"
Barnes writes. … An article follows Sarah Palin—"the second
biggest phenomenon of the 2008 election cycle"—to Georgia,
where she stumped for Senate hopeful Saxby Chambliss.
Chambliss, who won in a runoff, commended Palin for her help
getting out the vote. Her success in Georgia proves that
"grassroots America does not want her to go away, and she has
no intention of doing so." … The cover story evaluates recent
changes at the National Museum of American History, the least
popular of the big Washington, D.C., museums that "has been
disappointing tourists for 44 years."
poem
"Wedding"
By Rachel Hadas
Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Rachel Hadas read
this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to
Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.
If rings exchanged do signify a wedding,
or a couple standing face to face
making a promise, then it was a wedding
I dreamed, all draped with garlands of green meaning.
August meanwhile was reeking with black smoke.
Day's broadcast or night's scenario:
which message was—was either message—true?
Confusedly through sleep I recognized
my bridal pair. But at the same time, something
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pressed against the haven of the night.
Sheet lightning? The air trembled
as if, hooves thundering, a nightmare galloped
past the house along the empty road.
Summer was waning. I was getting old.
The vision of the wedding fell away
and launched me, weary, into a red morning.
The world was warring, drowning, catching fire.
politics
How the Rich Are Different From You
and Me
Places that went for Obama are richer and smarter than places that went for
McCain.
By Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing
Last month's election was historic and may even have been
transformative, as many commentators said. But in one
important respect, it changed nothing. The divide between
Republicans and Democrats in America continues to grow.
And it isn't just about politics. The division is also between rich
and poor, between those with college educations and those
without. On average, Republican communities have lower
incomes and less education than Democratic communities. And
those differences are growing as people migrate.
Just more than 600 counties (of more than 3,100 nationally)
voted Republican more heavily in this year's presidential contest
than in 2004. The average per capita yearly income in those
counties was about $18,800, according to county income tallies
issued each year by the Internal Revenue Service. (Income in
this article is determined by the amount of adjusted gross taxable
income listed on individual tax returns from 2004-07. Per capita
income equals gross income divided by the number of personal
exemptions.) By contrast, those living in the 500-plus counties
that voted more heavily Democratic this year than in 2004 had
average personal incomes of $28,000—nearly 50 percent higher
than the communities trending Republican. The most
Democratic counties (those where Barack Obama won by more
than 20 percentage points) had average per capita incomes of
$28,207. Those counties where John McCain won by similar
margins had average personal incomes of just $21,308.
Places divided by income are also separated by education. In
landslide Democratic counties, 32.7 percent of the adult
population had a bachelor's degree or better. In Republican
counties where McCain won by 20 points or better, 20.4 percent
of adults had finished college or graduate school.
More than 30 years ago, pollster Everett Carll Ladd Jr. wrote
about the "inversion of the New Deal Order." Ladd was one of
the first to notice that white workers without a college degree
were voting Republican in larger numbers and that educated
white workers were turning Democratic.
The debate over whether working-class white voters have
abandoned the Democratic Party rages on. (See this recent paper
on the "shifting and diverging white working class in U.S.
presidential elections.") In the meantime, the results from this
year's election show that there is certainly a geographic division
in America based on class and status. Democrats won in the
richest and most educated communities in the country.
As people migrate, these divisions (political, educational, and
economic) among American communities are increasing. Again
using IRS records, we tracked the average income of people who
moved between counties since the 2004 election. Those who
trekked across state lines from 2003-07 and settled in counties
that grew more Republican this year had average incomes of
$18,300. The people who moved into counties that became more
Democratic in 2008 averaged $28,100 in yearly income. So
those who moved to blue counties had incomes more than 50
percent higher than those migrating to the reddest of counties.
And in the "flip" counties, the contrast is even starker. In all of
the United States, there were only 44 counties that voted for
John Kerry in 2004 but for John McCain in 2008. The average
annual per capita income of the people who moved into these
counties between the two elections was $16,500. That's 34
percent less than those who migrated into the 331 counties that
went for George Bush in '04 but Obama in '08.
People with fewer money-making skills are moving into
counties that are voting increasingly Republican. Those with
higher incomes (and more education) are moving into counties
that are voting more Democratic. The more lopsided the local
political victory, the greater the differences in income and
education.
This phenomenon held true in cities and rural communities alike.
In those urban centers that voted overwhelmingly for John
McCain, 23.6 percent of the adult population had at least a
bachelor's degree. In urban counties that voted in a landslide for
Obama, 33.3 percent had at least a college degree. In rural
counties that voted in a landslide for McCain, 15.2 percent of
adults had a college degree or better. In rural Obama landslide
counties, it was 19.2 percent.
We don't pretend to understand the full meaning of how this
country is dividing. We can see, however, that America is
becoming more polarized not only politically but also
educationally and economically—and that a country Balkanized
by skills and by income has more troubles than one that is
simply divided by votes.
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politics
The Obama School of Crisis
Management
Coming soon to a press conference near you: full disclosure!
By Christopher Beam
The first rule of political crisis management: Tell everything.
Every megascandal, from Watergate to Monica, was exacerbated
by the slow trickle of embarrassing information. Better to put it
all out there at once, take the heat, and move on.
On Day 3 of the Blagojevich affair—which needs a name: send
nominations here—Barack Obama obeyed that rule, but with a
twist: He promised to tell everything soon.
At a morning press conference in Chicago, Obama assured
reporters that he had never spoken with Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich about filling his empty Senate seat, despite a
previous statement to the contrary (since retracted) by his own
senior adviser. Obama said he was "certain" there was no dealmaking between his office and the governor's. And he promised
to "gather the facts of any contacts with the governor's office
about this vacancy so that we can share them with you over the
next several days." (In other words, "I'll find some and I'll bring
them to ya!") Obama thus disavowed any connection to
Blagojevich's crimes while leaving open the door for future
revelations.
On the one hand, this response doesn't satisfy: How hard is it to
figure out who was the Obama team's liaison to Blagojevich?
(Some think Rahm Emanuel, who replaced Blagojevich in his
House seat, would be the obvious tie.) It's only natural that
Obama would share his views about his replacement with
Blagojevich—did they really have no contact regarding the seat?
(We know they met as recently as last week.)
Feed the sharks. Navigating a crisis is a fine balance. If you say
too much, you might give the story oxygen. If you don't say
enough, people will think you're evading tough questions.
Obama knows that reporters need a story for the next day's
papers, and that if they don't get one, the story will be: "Obama
Stonewalls." He therefore called for Blagojevich to resign,
cranked up the Emote-a-Tron from 3 to 6 (saying he was
"appalled and disappointed" by the revelations), and said
definitively that his aides did not bargain for the Senate seat.
Dangle a shiny object. Maybe you missed it, but the actual
purpose of today's presser was to introduce the leaders of
Obama's health care team: Tom Daschle as secretary of health
and human services and head of a new White House Office of
Health Reform, and Jeanne Lambrew as its deputy director. That
gives Obama cover to answer questions about Blagojevich
without appearing to make it his focus. It also guarantees that at
least some column inches will be devoted to something other
than the Blago-sphere.
Express outrage only when pressed. Obama raised eyebrows
when his first statement after the arrest of Blagojevich left out
the whole disapproval part (especially compared with
Fitzgerald's impassioned presser). He made up for that today.
Outrage does not come easily to Obama. He denounced the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright only after a series of middling statements. His
equanimity serves him well when it comes to decision-making,
as well as in campaign contexts like debates, where coolness
reigns. When it comes to denouncing disgraced politicians,
though, the crowd wants blood.
Answer questions at length. Obama took only four questions
today, but the answers went on forever. He turned a question
about corruption in Illinois into a disquisition on the nature of
public service. He went on about all the different ways in which
he knew nothing about Blagojevich's dealings. The long answers
are a relief for veterans of President Bush's press room, but they
also obscure the occasional dodge. Today, Obama was asked
how Blago got the impression he was being uncooperative if he
had no contact with the governor's office—the key question in
the whole mess. We're still waiting on an answer.
On the other hand, Obama is a delegator, not a micromanager:
He can't possibly know every last interaction between his office
and the governor's. Plus, caution behooves Obama right now.
The scandal isn't about to disappear—U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald still needs to decide whether to hold a preliminary
hearing or bring an indictment. And it's best to make sure you've
got the facts straight before issuing a blanket denial. Creating a
fact-finding committee is often a way of deflecting questions.
But this time, at least, the questions aren't going away.
Obama's still in a good spot: The Blagojevich complaint leaves
him pretty much untainted. And the questions raised—did he
want Valerie Jarrett to replace him?—don't necessarily have
embarrassing answers. But if he's going to keep invoking a new
kind of politics, one that is honest and transparent, Obama will
have to put all his cards on the table.
Meanwhile, Obama honed a few other approaches that are
forming the foundations of the Obama school of crisis
management:
politics
What Didn't He Know, and When Didn't
48/104
He Know It?
Obama's unsatisfyingly vague response to the Blagojevich scandal.
By John Dickerson
When a president-to-be does anything for the first time, it's
interesting. Today we saw Barack Obama give his first denial
related to a scandal. It's good practice, because sooner or later, a
scandal (real or manufactured) will confront him while he's in
office. As New York Sun reporter Josh Gerstein (I think it was
he) used to joke: On any given day, you could ask President
Clinton, "Mr. President what about the allegations?"
How did Obama do when asked about Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich's effort to hawk his Senate post? It was a bit of a
muddle.
Obama was asked: "Were you aware at all about what was
happening with your Senate seat?" He responded: "I had no
contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was
not aware of what was happening." He didn't want to go any
further, citing the ongoing investigation.
It's hard to know what to make of this. As I wrote initially,
Obama and his team come off quite well in the indictment. They
didn't want to pay-or-play in any of the governor's games. In
fact, this is what seems to have propelled Blagoevich into
several bouts of plenteous profanity.
But Obama's answer wasn't terribly nourishing. First, as Jake
Tapper notes, this seemed to contradict a statement last month
by David Axelrod, Obama's top strategist. "I know he's talked to
the governor," Axelrod said about the Senate seat, "and there are
a whole range of names, many of which have surfaced, and I
think he has a fondness for a lot of them."
Maybe he's just really, really focused—though he did say on
Meet the Press, when ducking a question about Caroline
Kennedy being appointed senator from New York, "The last
thing I want to do is get involved in New York politics. I've got
enough trouble in terms of Illinois politics."
Obama refused to elaborate on the Blagojevich business, citing
the ongoing investigation. But an Obama aide responded to my
questions by telling me that Axelrod was mistaken.
So much for the first part of the president-elect's answer. We
now know, according to transition officials, that Obama did not
speak with the governor or anyone else from his office about
who would replace him.
What we don't know, and what the aide would not address, is
what Obama meant by the second part of his statement. Did he
really know nothing at all about what Blagojevich was doing
with his Senate seat? If so, that would seem to be as easy to clear
up as the Axelrod mix-up. But the aide wouldn't go any further.
This could just be a function of an aide not wanting to speak for
the next president. That's a healthy instinct—for the aide's
survival and for all of us.
So we're left with vagueness. Why does it matter? It always
matters when a politician won't say the simple thing. Maybe it
matters a little more with Obama, who can answer the dickens
out of a question when he wants to. There's evidence that Obama
wanted Valerie Jarrett to take his seat—the governor sure
seemed to think the president-elect wanted that. Suddenly, in the
middle of the process, Obama stopped wanting that. Why?
politics
The second part of Obama's answer was so vague as to be nearly
meaningless. "I was not aware of what was happening" can
mean anything you want it to. It can mean you weren't aware of
anything relating to the Senate seat, or that you weren't aware
the governor was trying to sell the Senate seat, or that you
weren't aware the governor was under federal investigation for
trying to sell the Senate seat. Or it could mean you were not
aware that Blagojevich was using hairspray (or not, as the case
may be).
The answer has the whiff of imprecision we're familiar with
from politicians. They want to sound definitive without being
definitive. But it's also true that officials can also run into trouble
by acting in good faith. They try to give a short, simple,
digestible denial, and by going for brevity, they unwittingly
leave a door open. Was Obama purposefully trying to be
unclear? It's hard to say. It's a little hard to believe that he didn't
know anything that was happening relating to his old seat.
No Change for Sale
Obama looks great amid Gov. Rod Blagojevich's scandal.
By John Dickerson
The list of federal charges against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich
is a many-splendored thing. Each act it describes is more
outrageous than the last. For the moment, my favorite quote is
the governor's maxim that a Senate seat "is a fucking valuable
thing, you just don't give it away for nothing." So true. Michael
Huffington spent $30 million, John Corzine $60 million. Perhaps
the devaluation of a Senate seat, like that of a governorship, only
happens once you're in office.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement this morning
that the breadth of corruption "would make (Abraham) Lincoln
roll over in his grave." Blagojevich's phones were bugged for
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more than a month, which captured a lot of rich material and
dark psychological terrain. While Blagojevich contemplated the
string of difficulties and liabilities stemming from a three-year
investigation into his administration, he was still confident
enough to muse about a 2016 presidential campaign. He tried to
leverage the power to appoint the next senator to replace
President-elect Barack Obama into a job as Obama's secretary of
health and human services. If that didn't work, he wanted Obama
to name him an ambassador or help his wife get on some
corporate boards in exchange for naming his preferred candidate
to the post. (I called Obama's office to see what it makes of all of
this but haven't heard back.)
After trying so hard to price the Senate seat at top dollar,
Blagojevich may now have made it almost worthless. The 78page rap against the sitting governor throws the question of the
Illinois Senate seat into turmoil. If Blagojevich takes the Eliot
Spitzer route and resigns, the lieutenant governor gets to name
the pick, and the race is back on. But what if he's as delusional
as the wiretaps make him seem? That would suggest he'll take
the Ted Stevens route and stay in office while he fights the
charges.
If he goes with the Ted Stevens model, one way to show that
he's innocent of nothing more than playing backroom hardball
would be to proceed as planned and name Obama's successor.
But what senator would want to have "D-Blago" after his name,
to be forever tainted by having been appointed by a man whose
corruption appears to have been so splendid?
The charges also raise some tricky questions for all of those
vying for Obama's Senate seat. What did they or didn't they say
on the phone to the governor (or his chief of staff, John Harris,
who was also indicted)? What might those working on behalf of
a prospective candidate have done? There are allegations that the
governor took money from at least one individual in connection
with naming a successor to Obama, which means that one of the
candidates for the job is having a very difficult conversation
with aides right now.
If you're a candidate for that office, how do you play it? Do you
immediately denounce Blagojevich? That would ruin your
chances if he stays in the job. On the other hand, if you are the
first to throw him under the bus, it might put you in the best
position to be appointed as a clean candidate by Democratic Lt.
Gov. Pat Quinn, who would take over if Blagojevich leaves
office. Denouncing Blago might also put you in a good position
to run in 2010. (I called the office of Jesse Jackson Jr., one of the
leading candidates to replace Obama, but haven't heard back.)
The person who looks great in this sordid affair, in fact, is
Barack Obama, whom Blagojevich refers to by another name.
According to the charges:
ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the
consultants ... are telling him that he has to
"suck it up" for two years and do nothing and
give this "motherfucker [the President-elect]
his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck
him."
According to the charges, "Blagojevich said he knew that the
President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but
'they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation.
Fuck them.' " (Senate Candidate No. 1 seems to be Valerie
Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama.) In another passage,
Blagojevich fumes that if Obama doesn't show him some love,
he'll appoint a person Obama doesn't want. Obama comes off as
good as he could possibly have hoped for: He's behaving well
even when you don't think anyone is watching.
Still, there are questions for Obama and his team. Jarrett is one
of his top advisers, and, in keeping with Obama's public
comments about transparency, she should tell the story from her
side. Aides have suggested that Obama didn't want her in the
Senate but thought she would be more valuable in the White
House. The indictment suggests he was pushing for her to get it.
Which is it? On Nov. 9, Obama seemed to want her for the
Senate seat. On the 10th, he didn't seem to. What happened in
between? Jarrett pulled herself out of the running for the Senate
seat rather abruptly—did she know something funny was going
on? Did Obama know something funny was going on? There are
loose threads that should be taken care of.
As the old bulls retire from the Senate and Change with a capital
C comes to Washington, it's quaint to see a throwback to 19th(or 20th-) century money-grubbing. It's a little incredible that
prostitutes weren't involved (or aren't yet, at least). Perhaps even
more staggering is that the man at the center was so reckless
while simultaneously aware of the advances in modern
surveillance. As Blagojevich says at one point: "You gotta be
careful how you express that and assume everybody's listening,
the whole world is listening. You hear me?" Right you are,
governor.
politics
Case Not Closed
After losing at the Supreme Court, Obama conspiracy theorists meet the
press.
By David Weigel
For the lawyers, radio hosts, and denizens of the Internet who
want Barack Obama to be disqualified from the presidency, it
was Black Monday. The Supreme Court had finally read
50/104
Donofrio v. Wells, the lawsuit that accuses both Obama and John
McCain of lacking "natural born citizenship." The court
dismissed it. Its denial of cert was so curt—"The application for
stay addressed to Justice Thomas and referred to court is
denied"—that you might have thought the case had blown across
a receptionist's desk and been filed by accident.
"Yes, they didn't take it to the next level of full briefs and oral
argument," Donofrio wrote on his blog after the news came in.
"But they certainly heard the case and read the issues. … Getting
the case to the full Court for such consideration was my goal."
That was not what Donofrio's supporters had wanted. On Friday,
about two dozen of them gathered outside the Supreme Court to
talk to reporters, wave flags, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Some of them questioned whether they could prosecute Obama
for spending "foreign money" they alleged had been donated to
his campaign. One questioned whether Barack Hussein Obama
Sr. was the president-elect's real father or whether his real filial
relationship to Frank Marshall Davis or Malcolm X had been
covered up.
"There aren't a lot of people out here today," admitted Steve
Brindle, a Pennsylvanian huddling in the cold. "There are a lot of
people talking about this back home. Really, everyone's asking
questions."
Robert Schulz, whose We the People Foundation had bought
full-page newspaper ads questioning Obama's citizenship, was
ready for the high court outcome. On Monday afternoon he
asked Donofrio and two other lawyers with outstanding suits
about Obama to come to the National Press Club to discuss their
next steps. Donofrio didn't show, but Pennsylvania attorney (and
occasional 9/11 skeptic) Philip J. Berg joined California attorney
Orly Taitz at the podium of the club's Murrow room.
The room filled up early: About half of the small room's
overflow crowd consisted of worried Obama skeptics who
gasped and nodded at the testimonies of the attorneys and their
litanies of facts that the press had covered up. Most members of
the media were, themselves, part of the Obama Truth squad.
Shelli Baker, the host of AM radio's Morning Song, spent five
minutes unspooling a theory that tied Obama to Arab sheiks and
world government. "I would be willing to testify," said Baker,
"that, indeed, the media has been corrupted by foreign oil
money."
Thus corrupted, reporters spent two full hours listening to
Schultz, Berg, and Taitz describe their allegations accusing
Obama of document forgery, arrogance, radical ties, and
"foreign allegiance" to Kenya. "This is the largest hoax in 200
years," said Berg. "Obama knows where he was born. He knows
he was adopted in Indonesia. Obama places our Constitution in a
crisis situation, and Obama is in a situation where he can be
blackmailed by leaders around the world who know he is not
qualified."
Taitz, one of the lawyers representing Alan Keyes in his suit to
stop California electors from voting for Obama next week,
argued that her client had been injured by Obama's hoax—he
was on the ballot in California and had to compete against a fake
candidate. (Keyes won 0.4 percent of the vote there.)
"I was born in the former Soviet Union," Taitz said. "I have to
tell you, one of the reasons I am so up in arms about this case is
that during this election, the media in the United States was
worse than Communist Russia."
"You guys have been traveling with him for two years!" Berg
said, white knuckles gripping his podium. "You guys have
access. Someone could stand up and say where's your birth
certificate? What's your status in Indonesia?"
After the lawyers had their say, Schultz recognized Rev. James
David Manning, the Harlem preacher who has called Obama a
"long-legged mack daddy," and a member (alongside Jeremiah
Wright and Oprah Winfrey) of the "Trinity of Hell." For some
reason, Shultz gave Manning a microphone to talk about
Obama's parents.
"It is common knowledge," explained Manning, "that African
men, coming from the continent of Africa—especially for the
first time—do diligently seek out white women to have sexual
intercourse with. Generally the most noble of white society
choose not to intercourse sexually with these men. So it's usually
the trashier ones who make their determinations that they're
going to have sex."
Manning grew more intense as he went on. Berg and Taitz
seemed to squirm in their chairs; Berg started taking quiet cell
phone calls before Manning evoked the memories of Africans
who lost their lives "packed like sardines" onto slave ships, now
in "a watery grave." "Do you think we want to wake those
people up and tell them that the womb of a 16-year-old white
girl has produced your redeemer? Has produced your savior? I
don't think they want to wake up to that. I think they want to
keep sleeping in that grave until true justice might be given."
Every possible reason for disqualifying Obama was laid out,
laboriously, if not exactly backed up with facts. After it was
pointed out that the "forensic experts" who have accused Obama
of forging the birth certification reproduced on
FightTheSmears.com have not even revealed their names, Berg
pointed out that the certification denoted the race of Obama's
father as "African." "In 1961, no one talked 'African.' It was
'Negro.' I mean, that's what shows how phony this document is."
"How about that?" murmured Shelli Baker.
51/104
Still, none of the lawyers, nor Manning, could agree on a path
forward for Obama birth certificate skeptics. Schulz proposed a
citizens' convention—"continental congress, We the People
congress, call it what you like"—that could hash out the issues
around Obama's eligibility. Taitz was still working her cases and
claimed that Obama could be held liable for an Illinois bar form
on which he didn't list any other names he'd gone by. Berg
hinted at a secret lawsuit that he was participating in and couldn't
discuss, as well as information from an unnamed "barrister from
England, who spoke to me on his nickel," that the FBI and CIA
had information proving Obama's Kenyan birth.
The press conference wrapped up with the lawyers meeting wellwishers and handing out documents, as the few reporters still in
the room headed for the door. Ruth Mizell, the widow of former
Rep. Wilmer Mizell and a volunteer for two of George H.W.
Bush's campaigns, idled in her chair for a little while longer. She
was frustrated that the people she'd told about this story kept
blowing her off.
"I can't stand to watch Obama," Mizell said. "He looks so
deceitful. I feel like it's witchcraft going all over everybody, that
he's witchcrafting everybody. He doesn't say anything. He uses a
lot of good words."
Can we sue him for that?
politics
She's No Jack Kennedy
Why Caroline Kennedy shouldn't be New York's next senator.
By Richard Bradley
long experience fulfilling ceremonial obligations, another
senatorial duty—they are far from sufficient. Sometimes a
senator has to get her hands dirty.
Disclosure: My view of Kennedy is shaped by personal
experience. Before my book American Son, about working with
John Kennedy Jr. at George magazine, was published in 2002,
surrogates of Caroline tried to prevent its publication. They
failed, but it was ugly stuff. If Caroline Kennedy didn't know the
specifics of their efforts—which ranged from threatening my
original publisher to planting negative stories about me in the
media—she certainly knew of their existence. How do I know?
Because I told her, in letters to which she never responded. (By
contrast, I corresponded with Sen. Ted Kennedy's office several
times, with his aides informing him of the book's progress, and
before it was published they asked for advance copies.)
Still, my lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of Sen. Caroline
Kennedy is more than personal. (In fact, the toughness I
encountered would probably serve her well on Capitol Hill.) In
several important ways, she's also considerably less suited for
public office than the two senators who currently represent New
York, Clinton and Charles Schumer.
Unlike Clinton and Schumer, Kennedy has always seemed more
interested in avoiding public issues than engaging them. As an
adult, she has tended to work at jobs that didn't require her to
work all that hard and didn't require her to mingle with ordinary
people. She has a law degree but does not practice law, instead
co-writing two books about important Supreme Court cases. The
books were typical of Kennedy: high-minded, earnest, but
distant, as if she never really wanted to take a position on
something relevant to the events and debates of the day. More
recently she has published books on more domestic matters,
such as A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children
and The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
I can't imagine Caroline Kennedy campaigning for the job of
U.S. senator through traditional methods: shaking hands outside
factory gates on a cold winter morning, granting interviews to
reporters other than sycophantic morning-show hosts, explaining
and defending her positions on the issues of the day. Just as she's
never shown any enthusiasm for public office, so Kennedy has
never shown much interest in the things candidates have to do to
get elected.
In a recent column, Michael Wolff tells a story about Kennedy
catching wind of a New York Post inquiry about the alleged
misbehavior of one of her children. So, Wolff writes, Kennedy
called an aide to Rupert Murdoch, and the Post's owner had the
story killed. In turn, Kennedy wrote a letter of recommendation
for Murdoch's daughter to Brearley, an exclusive private school
in Manhattan. Of course, Kennedy is the caretaker of the family
legacy and a mother. So in that sense her actions are
understandable. But would she ever risk damaging her image on
behalf of the public?
Which is why Hillary Clinton's Senate seat may be perfect for
Kennedy. Under the most widely discussed scenario, New York
Gov. David Paterson would name Kennedy to replace Clinton,
who is resigning to become secretary of state. Kennedy would
become senator simply by doing something at which she has
long excelled: working the phones with powerful people who
take her calls because of her last name. And though such talents
aren't irrelevant to a senator's job—and though Kennedy has
She received lavish praise when, in 2002, she joined New York
City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein in his efforts to improve the
city's public schools. Yet her work with the city's schools was
limited to part-time fundraising. No one has said anything bad
about her participation—there's not much upside to criticizing
Caroline Kennedy—but then, if you work at a hedge fund and
52/104
Kennedy calls you in the middle of a bull market to ask for
money, are you really going to say no?
As a Kennedy, Caroline can hardly shirk public service. But her
commitment to it has always seemed essentially ceremonial.
When she was 9, she broke a bottle to help christen the aircraft
carrier John F. Kennedy. As an adult, she was the honorary chair
of the American Ballet Theater and founder of the Profiles in
Courage Award, given out by Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government. She balanced New York society parties with a
devotion to preserving the family memory. Otherwise, she has
largely hid herself from public life.
You can't blame her for her reticence—it's her life, after all. But
the truth is that Kennedy has ventured into the public arena as
little as possible, and when she has, she has endeavored to
dictate the terms. Perhaps now, with her brother dead and her
Uncle Ted extremely ill—and her children of college age—
Kennedy is changing her mind. But can she change her patterns
of behavior?
Again I should disclose a personal bias. Of the two children of
John F. Kennedy, John Jr. always struck me as the one destined
to run for office. He had an affinity for it. John enjoyed meeting
regular people far more than he liked palling around with the
rich and famous. Caroline is a Democrat, but not a democrat.
John lived in Tribeca when Tribeca was still counterculture;
Caroline lives on Park Avenue. John rode the subway frequently
and happily. Caroline, not so much. John started a magazine
whose intention was to popularize politics. Caroline was about
the only one of John's relatives who didn't at some point appear
in its pages. I could see John having a beer with those factory
workers. Caroline would look for some hand sanitizer.
She'll probably have the same response to this column—which is
one reason that, despite all the buzz, I find it hard to believe that
Caroline Kennedy actually wants to become a senator. (I'm not
exactly Walter Winchell.) Maybe Uncle Ted is pressuring her to
continue the family place in the Senate. Maybe she's convinced
herself that she does want the job. Regardless, she wouldn't be
good at it, and she shouldn't get it.
When I was a kid, my brother Jon and I would collect the empty
aerosol cans from the trash and toss them into the 55-gallon
drum that functioned as the family incinerator. We'd wait until
the parental units went shopping or golfing and then cover the
Right Guard and Aqua Net containers with a pile of combustible
trash and put a match to the whole thing.
Sometimes we were rewarded with the rocket's red glare as the
burning cans would spiral toward the heavens. On other
occasions, the cans would blast flame posies of burning
newspaper in the air that would float to the ground and start tiny
brush fires. Disappointment arrived when the cans merely made
whooshing sounds without exploding at all.
Such is the bond between teens—especially of the male
variety—and the story about the teenager blowing off a hand in
his basement bomb factory has become a staple of American
newspapers. Blind to this long love affair is the CBS Evening
News With Katie Couric, which on Dec. 9 aired a ridiculous
piece it titled "Made in the U.S.A.: Teen Bombers" on its Web
site.
In her very scary intro, Couric reports that:
A government report out tonight may surprise
you. It says there were more than 2,700
incidents involving bombs and explosive
devices last year, right here in the United
States. What's truly shocking is who was
behind most of them.
The shocking, shocking, shocking news according to CBS
reporter Armen Keteyian is that:
The latest figures, gathered by the [Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives]
and obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal
that between 2004 and 2007 juveniles
accounted for well more than half of all
reported traceable explosive incidents—far
exceeding gangs and hate groups combined.
By Jack Shafer
When you follow the CBSNews.com link to the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' U.S. Bomb Data
Center Web site and look at the statistics, you discover that
explosives incidents are demonstrably down in recent years. The
CBS News broadcast (and the transcript offered on its Web
adjunct) doesn't mention this fact. In 2004, the ATF recorded
3,790 explosives incidents. In 2005, the bureau noted 3,722
incidents. In 2006, it collected data on 3,445. (See this ATF
PDF.)
Teenagers and bombs go together like peanut butter and
chocolate.
(What exactly is an "explosives incident"? Glad you asked.
According to the Bomb Data Center, incidents include
press box
Bogus Trend of the Week: Teens and
Bombs
CBS News With Katie Couric hypes a nontrend.
53/104
bombings, attempted bombings, attempted incendiary bombings,
premature explosion, stolen explosives, recovered explosives,
hoax devices, and accidental explosions. In 2007, 2,061 of the
2,772 explosives incidents were recovered explosives.)
A graphic that appears at about the 44-second mark in the CBS
News segment posted to the Web states by year the percentage
of cases in which juveniles were involved: In 2004, 57 percent;
in 2005, 63 percent; in 2006, 76 percent; in 2007, 59 percent.
That the number of explosives incidents fell to just 2,772 in
2007 (PDF) should have suggested to CBS News a segment
titled "Hey, Where the Hell Have All the Explosives Incidents
Gone?"
Instead, CBS News hangs its story on the hook that teens
"accounted for well more than half" of all explosives incidents
between 2004 and 2007. If it's true that teens are behind more
than half of all incidents—and, given my past, I don't doubt it for
a moment—shouldn't the network have done the arithmetic to
produce the raw number of incidents involving juveniles?
Had the network gone that route, here's what it could have
reported, year by year:




Year 2004: 2,160 incidents
What to make of CBS's assertion that it's an "alarming trend"
that more than half of all incidents involve kids "under the age of
18," even though the raw number—that was once fairly steady—
has plummeted? That the network is desperate to inflate a
nontrend into a real one.
Jon and I never graduated from aerosol cans to pipe bombs. He
discovered the greater incendiary potential contained in girls,
and I discovered firearms.
******
Later we both discovered alcohol. Send your bomb memories to
[email protected]. (E-mail may be quoted by name in
"The Fray," Slate's readers' forum; in a future article; or
elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise. Permanent
disclosure: Slate is owned by the Washington Post Co.)
Track my errors: This hand-built RSS feed will ring every time
Slate runs a "Press Box" correction. For e-mail notification of
errors in this specific column, type the word bombs in the
subject head of an e-mail message and send it to
[email protected].
press box
Sympathy for Blago
Granted, he's a sleaze, but how solid is the government's case?
By Jack Shafer
If Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is immediately guilty of
anything, it's of making overt what other politicians make covert,
and doing so while the wiretaps roll.
Despite the sensational treatment given the arrest of Blagojevich
and aide John Harris in today's New York Times, Washington
Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune, the governor has
yet to be charged with attempting to sell Barack Obama's
vacated Senate seat. All those juicy details about Blagojevich
making plans to trade the Senate seat for a position in the Obama
Cabinet, another job, financial support, or jobs for his wife
appear in the complaint brought yesterday.* But U.S. Attorney
Patrick J. Fitzgerald has yet to file charges over the alleged
attempt to sell the seat.
It could be that Fitzgerald will eventually file expansive charges
against Blagojevich for discussing the sale of the Senate seat and
the other allegations he detailed in a press briefing yesterday. As
Fitzgerald put it, he'd arrested the governor "in the middle of
what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree"
and that "we're not going to predict that other charges will or
will not be filed." (Scott Turow speculates in today's New York
Times that Fitzgerald accelerated the investigation to block
Blagojevich from peddling the Senate seat.)
So far, the actual charges against Blagojevich and Harris are
very narrow. The complaint says they "corruptly solicited and
demanded a thing of value"—the firing of Chicago Tribune
editorial writers by the paper's owners—in exchange for
"millions of dollars in financial assistance by the State of
Illinois" for Wrigley Field, which is owned by the newspaper's
corporate father, the Tribune Co.
Blagojevich's first mistake was asking the Tribune Co. for way
too little in return for the state's financial favors. What allegedly
angered him was a Sept. 29 editorial calling on the Illinois
House to explore his impeachment and an Oct. 25 endorsement
of a state representative—a dentist—for re-election. The
editorial observed that the representative was the "only dentist in
the legislature. Can he extract a governor?"
I can't believe that the governor wanted to extract absolute
revenge for these minor offenses. Besides, there is no way that
the scalps of a bunch of meddlesome editorial writers are worth
54/104
the $100 million in financial assistance mentioned in the
complaint. For purposes of comparison, I could have Arthur
Sulzberger Jr. vanquish the entire New York Times editorial
board tomorrow for $11,524, and if I really wanted to rub
Sulzberger's nose in it, I could make him extend William
Kristol's op-ed page contract for another year. If Blagojevich is
as corrupt as the headlines make him out to be, wouldn't he hold
the Tribune Co. up for something a little more tangible than a
few firings? Or is he really that dumb?
Blagojevich's second mistake was to air his demands in a phone
call to Harris. Crime bosses and corrupt politicians never say
anything of substance in meetings or phone calls. When
engineering a transaction, they know enough to insulate
themselves beneath layers of underlings—or to encourage their
trading partner to figure out which quid pro quo is desired.
Correction, Dec. 10, 2008: The original version of this article
mistakenly referred to an "indictment" in the Blagojevich case
when it should have referred to a "complaint." The article has
been changed. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
Unremarked upon in today's coverage is the question of why the
state of Illinois is in the business of dispensing $100 million in
financial favors to billion-dollar corporations like the Tribune
Co. in the first place. To paraphrase Michael Kinsley, the
scandal isn't what's illegal. It's what's legal. (Over at Cato, Jim
Harper writes of how politicians fawned over by lobbyists and
staff "tend to collapse together the public interest and their
personal interests.")
As for the accusation that Blagojevich was prepared to sell
Illinois' open Senate seat, the only concrete information I can
find about that in the complaint is intercepted conversations
between the governor and his associates, a fundraiser, and a
union official speculating about what he could expect to get in
return for the appointment.
Before we turn down the sheets on Blagojevich's prison cot, let's
see transcripts of him actually making a money deal or power
deal with somebody for the Senate seat. Even U.S. Attorney
Fitzgerald says his office isn't "trying to criminalize people
making political horse trades on policies or that sort of thing."
As for other possibly criminal conduct by Blagojevich—such as
attempting to shake down corporations for campaign
contributions in return for state funding—he appears oblivious to
how easy it is to legally swap political favors for position,
power, and money. And for that ignorance the governor has my
complete sympathy.
******
"The subject of criminal rehabilitation was debated recently in
City Hall. It's an appropriate place for this kind of discussion
because the city has always employed so many ex-cons and
future cons," Mike Royko wrote in the Chicago Tribune on
March 6, 1985. Send appropriate Roykoisms to
Slate runs a Press Box correction. For e-mail notification of
errors in this specific column, type the word Blago in the subject
head of an e-mail message, and send it to
[email protected].
press box
Unsolicited Advice for David Gregory
Upon taking the wheel at Meet the Press.
By Jack Shafer
Instead of dissipating, the cult of Tim Russert has only swollen
in the six months since his death. One measure of the cult's
staying power has been the media's incessant speculation on who
would replace him as host of Meet the Press. Would it be NBC
News' political director, Chuck Todd? An "ensemble of hosts"
led by Todd and correspondent/MSNBC anchor David Gregory?
NBC had approached Gwen Ifill about the job, the network was
said to pine for the return of Katie Couric, and even Ted Koppel
was being considered as a long shot. And though nobody asked
him, USA Today founding editor Al Neuharth nominated Bob
Costas for the slot.
The media fuss wasn't so much about the importance of who was
good enough to sit in Russert's chair but—like the over-coverage
of Russert's death, funeral, and memorial service—another
demonstration of the Washington press corps's extraordinary
high regard for itself. All the conjecture reinforced the notion
that the people who ask politicians questions are so very, very
important. But Meet the Press draws an average of only 3.7
million viewers, making it a TV flyspeck compared with ABC's
Dancing With the Stars, which recently drew an audience of 21
million.
Having finally settled on David Gregory this week as the new
moderator, NBC News brings much-needed relief to a harassed
nation of news consumers. Yet the cult lives on in the utterances
of Gregory, who genuflected toward his predecessor, telling the
Washington Post's Howard Kurtz that "[s]ucceeding Tim Russert
55/104
is humbling" and the Los Angeles Times how "daunting and
humbling" the new assignment is.
Gregory's executive producer. It would be a pity if she insisted
on turning the show into a permanent memorial service for her
old boss.
Note to Gregory: It's only a gig. Please get on with it.
Gregory seems to be a fine choice as moderator: Although a
pathetic dancer, he has a reputation for being a tough, fair
reporter. If you have a reputation for being tough, it makes it a
lot easier to be tough, which I reckon he will exploit on Meet the
Press.
But what kind of tough? The most difficult aspect of a Sundaymorning show is source maintenance. Until Sunday show
moderators obtain subpoena power, they've got to keep
politicians feeling good about themselves or else they won't
come on. Russert was a master of source maintenance, which
made his show a destination for politicians. For all his legendary
hardness as an interviewer, most of Russert's pitches were
hittable. For example, throwing up on a screen those trademark
graphics that proved that his interview subject had flip-flopped
was completely overrated. A politician had contradicted
himself? Is a hypocrite? Double wow. As Tom Carson wrote for
Esquire in 2004, "Russert rarely shows much interest in which
position is wrong." This shtick was completely beatable.
Gregory comes to his post at an opportune moment. After an
engaging presidential campaign, the whole nation remains fired
up about politics. An activist Congress stands ready to change all
the rules, and the economy has gone MIA. All we need is a new
war some place in the world and the table would be completely
set.
Gregory won't shake up the show right away. He'll both avoid
impersonating St. Russert, lest anyone make unfavorable
comparisons, and lull the loyal Meet the Press audience back
into its comfort zone. After getting them there, he should begin
remaking the show. First step:
Get rid of the Russert regulars. Who hasn't heard enough from
James Carville and Mary Matalin by now? Hasn't plagiarist
Doris Kearns Goodwin run out of gas? Doesn't William Safire
phone it in? Can't NBC do the right thing and give Andrea
Mitchell her own show? And why does the mere sight of David
Broder, Bob Shrum, E.J. Dionne, or Peggy Noonan on television
make me want to kill myself?
Blacklisting these usual guests from the Meet the Press round
table and recruiting a younger band of participants would mark
the passing of an era and acknowledge the arrival of a young
president. It's not even a very radical step. Russert was known to
experiment with formula, adding Matt Drudge and Rush
Limbaugh to the mix. So it's not too much to ask some new
voices to suit up for play. The office politics of such a move will
be tricky. Betsy Fischer, Russert's executive producer, is
For starters, I'd have the Gregorized Meet the Press Rolodex add
Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, who had a great run covering
the Obama campaign. Nobody knows more about the next
president and is more resistant to his charms than Lynn Sweet of
the Chicago Sun-Times. Helene Cooper, who just moved over to
the New York Times' White House beat, is a fine reporter. As
resident progressive egghead, sign up Thomas Frank, who now
writes a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal. Add George
Mason University economic professor Tyler Cowen, a regular
New York Times contributor, as counterweight. Also allow me to
put in a good word for two of my Washington Post Co.
colleagues: Washington Post editorial writer and columnist Ruth
A. Marcus files consistently excellent op-eds these days, and
Terence Samuel, deputy editor of The Root, who also writes for
the American Prospect. Samuel commands an original, wicked
mind. Next step:
Invent a great gimmick. Russert had a dozen gimmicks. He had
the flip-flop graphic. He had Buffalo. The Bills. His blue collar.
The whiteboard. His dad. Gregory needs a similar signature, and
I've got just the thing. Good politicians are evasion artists, able
to field a difficult question without answering it and making it
sound as though they did. When confronted with such
maneuvers, Gregory could pursue his prey with three follow-up
questions. If the politician didn't answer satisfactorily, Gregory
could give his best grin and say, "Senator, that's three and you're
out" and move on to the next question. If deployed artfully,
"That's three and you're out" could become the most feared
phrase in political reporting and just maybe it could get
politicians to respond truthfully. After that:
Add a reported segment. Every Sunday talk show tries to
generate news for the Monday newspapers by prodding a
politician to say something interesting. The politicians know
this, so the smarter ones know well enough to drop a bomb or
bomblet and frag for the moderator. Instead of relying on guests
for news, a Sunday show could break the mold by filing a
reported story that makes news. (The lack of reported news
stories on the Sunday show is one of economics. Reported
stories are about 10 times more expensive to produce than studio
chatter.) Lacking the budget or gumption to break news,
Gregory's show could at least broadcast a reported segment that
put into context the top story that everybody was about to
discuss. It's not a revolutionary idea: Jack Smith used to file
Sunday stories for This Week With David Brinkley. Finally:
Get out of the office and stay out of the office. As Washington
bureau chief for NBC News, Russert could sponge up details and
tips from his reporters. I'd have Gregory, who isn't bureau chief
(and shouldn't be), walk the political beat all week in preparation
for his show and not let his Today assignments get in the way of
56/104
his real work. If he runs the show more like a reporter and less
like a Washington institution, he'll already have a leg up on
Russert.
******
Perhaps I overdosed on the political talk shows when watching
them was part of my job description. Send diagnoses to
Slate runs a "Press Box" correction. For e-mail notification of
errors in this specific column, type the word Gregory in the
subject head of an e-mail message, and send it to
[email protected].
recycled
Marathon of Mirth
Think you have a lot of Christmas parties? Be glad you're not the president.
By John Dickerson
In a bad economy, office holiday parties usually get scaled down
or canceled. But George W. and Laura Bush are still expected to
throw a number of parties at the White House this holiday
season. In 2005, John Dickerson described the arduous social
obligations imposed on the president and first lady during the
month of December. His original article is reprinted below.
No matter how much you may enjoy your office holiday party,
there's always someone you'd like to avoid running into at the
punch bowl: Bob from the seventh floor who won't shut up about
his Big Bertha Fusion golf club, or Felicia in accounting who
wants to know where your expense reports are.
Imagine hosting a party for only the people you've always
wanted to avoid. The president and the first lady will hold two
such events next Thursday as they welcome the press corps into
their home. They are less the hosts of these parties than their
victims. The first couple will not sip at eggnog or nibble on tiny
lamb chops in the state dining room. They will stand in one spot
in the Blue Room, next to a Christmas tree, as hundreds of
correspondents, sound people, and photographers line up to have
individual photographs taken with the first couple.
During the holidays, the president is a virtual prisoner in the
White House. He and his wife will perform this grueling act of
cheer at 26 holiday parties between Dec. 4 and Dec. 20. There's
one for the diplomatic corps, members of Congress, the Secret
Service, and top military brass. Invites also go out to political
donors and allies across the country. The last evening is reserved
for the White House staff—the plumbers, electricians, cooks,
and butlers who hang the president's towels when he leaves them
on the bed and polish his floor. For most of that period, the
Bushes will have "two-a-days," hosting one party from 4 to 6
p.m. and a second from 7 to 9.
This year's theme (because Jackie Kennedy insisted there must
be one) sounds secular—"All Things Bright and Beautiful"—but
it comes from a religious hymn. The Bush White House isn't
hiding the baby Jesus. There He is among the wise men and
barnyard creatures in the 18th-century Italian crèche. Mrs. Bush
calls the 18-and-a-half-foot Fraser fir from Laurel Springs, N.C.,
a Christmas, not a "holiday," tree.
It takes three days to fill the public rooms with decorations. The
White House florist directs a team of volunteers to drape the
fireplaces with boxwood garlands, stand topiaries of lemon
leaves and tangerines in the state dining room, and arrange
dozens of paperwhite narcissus, amaryllis, and wreaths of pears.
Few tabletops are left alone. On one sits a gingerbread White
House, a tradition started by Richard Nixon, and on another
squat topiaries of the White House pets, a tradition that one
hopes will begin and end with Bush. The press release
promoting the decor reads like Southern Living: "The color
schemes of tangerine, lime green and hot pink boldly accent the
traditional touches of the holiday decorations."
The 9,500 guests will consume roughly the same menu of ham,
turkey, lamb, cheeses, and gnocchi from an enormous candlelit
table in the State Dining Room. The first lady's office reports
that when the last guest collects his coat, 30,000 Christmas
cookies, 10,000 petit fours, 1,100 truffles, and 2,100 pounds of
sweet potatoes will have disappeared. At the Hanukkah party
tonight for Jewish religious and community leaders and Jewish
members of the staff, there were also the traditional latkes, or
potato pancakes, and a kosher buffet. The spiked eggnog is the
only thing available for anyone who needs a bracer before
standing in line.
The parties run with the precision and efficiency of a military
parade, while making an effort to have you feel like you're the
only guest invited for the night. Smiling, uniformed military
personnel appear at every turn, directing you to the coat check or
staircase or bend in the hallway. They're glowing and you almost
forget that they'd pin you like a bug if you tried to scramble
upstairs to the residence.
White House staffers moan about having to attend so many of
these events every year, but both Republicans and Democrats
start to sound like children when they look back on the party
season. Bruce Reed, who served as Bill Clinton's domestic
57/104
policy adviser before rising to become a blogger on Slate,
describes it this way: "With the giant, over-decorated tree in the
Blue Room, the pastry chef's marzipan model of the White
House in the dining room, the boughs and lights twinkling in the
East Room, and a Marine band playing Christmas songs on the
grand piano in the foyer, visiting the White House is as magical
as climbing aboard the Polar Express."
Reagan's speechwriter Peggy Noonan describes her first
impression with the same misty nostalgia: "I was new at the
White House. I walked over from the EOB, entered the White
House and thought it was like walking into Santa's playhouse—
trees, garlands, sparkling stars. Everything shined and there were
red velvet bows. It was a wonderland. It had everything but elves
and then I saw the NSC staff in their little beards."
The Christmas parties have grown considerably in scale and
number since President Benjamin Harrison dressed as Santa in
1893 and handed out gifts beside the White House Christmas
tree in the oval library. Now Mrs. Bush and the White House
staff start planning Christmas events in April.
Karl Rove starts checking his list even earlier. The president's
top political aide keeps an extensive record of the donors and
allies across the country who have worked to help Bush and who
might help Bush (and Rove) in the future. The president of a
small college in a swing district who let Bush speak at his school
during a key moment in the campaign might get an invitation. So
might the local pol in Tampa, Fla., who hustled to get voters to
the polls on Election Day. Donors known as Rangers who raised
$200,000 or more for the last campaign will certainly be asked
to attend. Rove's office had better make sure Tom Donahue, the
president of the Chamber of Commerce, is on the list this year.
Two years ago, the important ally somehow fell off. Rove had to
act quickly to keep from needlessly alienating a friend and
crucial corporate ally.
If we could get a peek at Rove's list, we could probably divine
from the people he wants to please what he has planned for
Bush's second term. We could also get an early hint of how he
sees the 2006 congressional elections playing out—in which
races he thinks the party needs help and where he's building
allies. The most tantalizing thing we might learn would be who
he's courting that might be helpful to the GOP in 2008. Rove has
said he will stay out of the next presidential election. Does his
guest list say that?
The true Washington cave-dwellers who have received
invitations over many administrations affect a weary air about
these nights. Just one more social obligation, they sigh. They've
been to so many of these parties. This year, they might not even
go. Don't let them fool you. In Washington, eminences need to
pretend that they're bored with such events, but for weeks after
they've gone to the party they will be starting sentences this way:
"When I was at the White House Christmas party …"
In fact, for guests anxious to trade on White House proximity,
the photography line is an efficient machine for maximum
distribution of glory by association. Guests can leave with two
nuggets: a picture they can hang on their "glory wall" to impress
visitors and a little anecdote about presidential face time.
Holiday pictures with the first couple can wind up anywhere.
They show up in local newspaper profiles or Web pages of law
offices and foundations, as proof of a person's Beltway
credentials. Washington-establishment types who have intimate
pictures with the president don't think the holiday snaps have
much cachet, so they send the staged photos to their parents to
sit on the breakfront. Rita Cosby* used her White House photo
with President Bush in the ad promoting her talk show on
MSNBC. Monica Lewinsky's Christmas party picture with
Clinton is in the book about her affair with the president.
But all who stand in line can also legitimately claim they've had
a chat with the president, even if the conversation is measured in
tenths of a second. Lobbyists can boast to clients that they've
taken their case to the highest levels. Lawmakers will be able to
tell their constituents they talked Iraq by the fireplace with the
leader of the free world.
In reality, a lightning exchange takes place. A marine reads your
name and the clock starts. You walk a few paces from the line
into place, the camera snaps, and you're expected to withdraw
immediately.
In the two years my wife and I stood in line, we did not make
good use of the moment. She told Bush she thought it was nice
for him to invite in the street people. He understood that she was
comparing the press to hobos and laughed knowingly. The next
time, my wife was weeks away from delivering our daughter.
The four of us exchanged a few distinct sentences about 1)
children; 2) making it home for bath time during campaign
season; and 3) children's names, before the next couple was in
place behind us. (My in-laws have enjoyed their photos.)
The president and his wife have to produce such sheer tonnage
of cheer in those 26 photography sessions that it must affect the
cheek muscles. Yet they never seem to show fatigue. I imagine
stewards prepare bowls of crushed ice so that afterward they can
soak their weary faces. All invitees can bring one guest, so the
president and first lady have to be emotionally nimble enough to
react to many different kinds of characters. They must deliver a
compliment to a staffer's mother without necessarily
remembering what the staffer does. Smile for a same-sex couple
the same way they would for any other pairing. They need to
show ready grief if someone announces they're scheduled for
surgery the next day or elation when presented with a happy
couple newly engaged.
Some presidents can't stand the false bonhomie. Nixon stayed
upstairs as the Watergate scandal heated up, unwilling to mingle
58/104
for his last White House Christmas party with the press. The
journalists waited and waited and finally Pat Nixon and daughter
Tricia arrived for the unhappy chore. Clinton did just the
opposite. The House voted to impeach him during the party
season, and he not only went to his party but mingled with the
members of Congress who had voted to remove him from office.
When it's time to go, doors start quietly closing. Velvet ropes
appear. The crowd moves without realizing it's being herded and
only occasionally must one of the ushers hustle people along.
When they do, they use some kind of elfin Ninja technique.
They smile and lift a hand. The latticework of cheer propels you
outward, until you're back standing on the curb in the cold.
Correction, Dec. 14: The article originally and incorrectly
spelled the MSNBC host's name Crosby. (Return to the corrected
sentence.)
In exchange for political support, ethnicities would be given
virtual fiefdoms within city government; the Irish, for example,
were given police work, and the Italians jobs at the transit
authority.
Of course, none of this was unique to Chicago. New York City
had large immigrant populations and the notorious political
machine at Tammany Hall. But machine politics faded away in
New York, due in part to external pressure from former New
Yorker Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected president in
1932.
In Chicago, corruption persisted, to some degree because the city
never had the benefit of a reformist mayor like New York City's
Fiorello LaGuardia, who had political ties to FDR. Instead,
Chicago moved towards a one-party system that made it even
more vulnerable to corruption: The city's last Republican mayor
left office in 1931. Today, not even the Democratic primaries are
competitive—for the most part, once you're in office, you stay
there. The weak campaign finance laws in Illinois probably
helped to stave off competition in recent years.
recycled
Why Is Chicago So Corrupt?
And how do you measure corruption, anyway?
By Daniel Engber
On Tuesday, Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was taken into
federal custody on corruption charges, one of which entails
attempting to sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat to
the highest bidder. In 2006, Daniel Engber explained why
politicians in the Land of Lincoln are so corrupt. The article is
reprinted below.
Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan received a sentence of six and
a half years in prison on Wednesday, after being convicted on
charges of racketeering, mail fraud, filing false tax returns, and
lying to investigators. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that in the
last three decades, at least 79 local elected officials have been
convicted of a crime, including three governors, one mayor, and
a whopping 27 aldermen from the Windy City. What makes
Chicago so corrupt?
City government experts point to a political culture that's been in
place for more than 100 years. This culture dates back to the late
19th century, when a gambling-house owner named Michael
Cassius McDonald created the city's first political machine.
Under machine-style rule, those in power would hand out
contracts, jobs, and social services in exchange for political
support.
Chicago's large immigrant population made it easier for political
machines to grow in power. Poor ethnic communities could be
played off against one another and manipulated with petty gifts.
The star power of Chicago politicians may also contribute to the
city's continuing problems with corruption. Incumbents tend to
be big personalities who get celebrity coverage in the local
papers—which sometimes translates into ethical leeway from
voters. (In cities like Los Angeles and New York, local
politicians take a back seat to the media celebs.)
Bonus Explainer: How do we know that Chicago's so corrupt?
The most straightforward way to measure corruption is to check
the number of convicted local officials. Between 1995 and 2004,
469 politicians from the federal district of Northern Illinois were
found guilty of corruption. The only districts with higher tallies
were central California (which includes L.A.), and southern
Florida (which includes Miami). Eastern Louisiana (and New
Orleans) rank somewhat further down the list.
But a high conviction count doesn't necessarily mean more
corruption. It could mean that a district happens to have very
strict transparency laws or a zealous and effective federal
prosecutor—like Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago. You might try to
measure corruption by checking the number of city employees
per 1,000 people. (Bigger governments suggest patronage-style
politics.) Or you could check to see how long it takes to acquire
a construction permit through legal means. (Long delays may
reflect a system of rampant bribery.)
Public perception may be the most useful measure. If the
inhabitants of a city view corruption as a given, they'll be more
inclined to forgive politicians who have already been tainted by
scandal, like Chicago's current mayor, Richard Daley.
59/104
Explainer thanks Ester Fuchs of Columbia University, Michael
Johnston of Colgate University, Mike Lawrence of Southern
Illinois University, Dick Simpson of the University of Illinois,
and Jay Stewart of the Better Government Association.
earrings that I could convince my sister I'd bought from a Soho
vendor. There are no 12-year-old-girls on my shopping list, but I
could have stuffed stockings for an entire sixth-grade clique with
plastic bangles, sparkly hairclips, and "I Heart SATC" shirts. I
also could have picked up some basics (cotton underwear for
$2.98!) but decided it was too early in the game to give up on
dazzle.
shopping
Whitehall Jewelers
With shiny things on my mind, I headed over to a Whitehall
Jewelers in Jersey City, N.J.; the store is in the process of
shuttering all of its 375 stores. I'm not in the market for fine
jewelry myself, but I'm frequently consulted by my hapless
father about my mother's taste in such things. As it turned out, a
simple way of describing her taste to my dad would be to say
"Nothing they sell at Whitehall Jewelers." Tennis bracelets and
diamond cross pendants abound at Whitehall, the sort of
generically gaudy pieces my mom would never wear. And yet,
while no one on my list needs a diamond-encrusted Tiffany heart
necklace knockoff, Whitehall was the most fun I'd had shopping
in a long time. The sensation of having a salesclerk hold up a
bauble, punch a large number into a calculator, and then reduce
it by 60 percent or 75 percent is a thrilling one. Over and over, I
made the clerk complete the ritual. The markdown was
astonishing every time: Simple freshwater pearls, formerly $502,
now $191! A killer onyx cocktail ring even my mom might like,
formerly $326, now just $110! A large diamond ring, down from
$8,000 to a mere $2,560, once the clerk threw in an extra 20
percent discount I hadn't angled for the tiniest bit. (Perhaps she
mistook my careful note-taking for the work of a particularly
diligent fiancee—or maybe just a sad, lonely case who deserved
an extra break.)
Shop Till They Drop
How to buy all your holiday gifts at going-out-of-business sales.
By Noreen Malone
Many people greeted the recent news that several major retailers
are going out of business by pondering what this means for the
broader U.S. economy. Those people make more money than I
do. Big bankruptcies mean big sales, and for me, the timing
couldn't have been better. Armed with a few clippings from the
Wall Street Journal and a sense of dignity as slender as my
checking account, I set out to see whether I could find suitable
presents for everyone on my list at liquidation sales—the
cheaper, the better.
Steve and Barry's
The first stop on my bankruptcy bonanza tour was Steve and
Barry's, known primarily for selling college T-shirts and
downscale clothing lines by celebrities like Venus Williams,
Amanda Bynes, and Stephon Marbury. Earlier this year, word
that Sarah Jessica Parker would be creating a line for Steve and
Barry's occasioned admiring coverage from the New York Times,
which praised the company's ambitious but bare-bones business
plan. By late November, the company had announced it was
liquidating all of its stores.
The first sight that greeted me at a forlorn S&B's in midtown
Manhattan was a shelf full of battered wooden hangers.
Previously used proudly to display Michigan Wolverines
sweatshirts and FDNY tees, these little pieces of retail history
were now on sale, five for $1. They seemed positively
overpriced, however, compared with some of the other stuff on
offer. T-shirts were on sale at the cut rate of two for $13. The
selection, however, wasn't fabulous. Determined to take
advantage of the twofer deal with an Ohio State (I'm from
Cleveland) and a Georgetown (my sister's a Hoya), I was left
swimming in a sea of XXXL disappointment. Why couldn't
anyone on my list have gone to Fordham?
I had better luck in the women's section, where I discovered a
pair of red patent-leather heels for $12.98. Test-driving the
surprisingly stable shoes, I sashayed over to the wantonly
ransacked jewelry section, which was offering two pieces for $8.
I settled on a bright geometric ring and delicate gold wire-hoop
In an otherwise emptyish mall, the Whitehall store was packed.
The case displaying engagement rings was the most crowded of
all, with cheerful men consulting sisters, mothers, and
saleswomen about which reduced rock might win their lady's
heart. I saw one man grab a pretty solitaire that, with the
reduction, was less than just one of my paychecks (perhaps a
new measurement to replace the punishing three months' salary
that was standard when investment bankers roamed the land).
Linens 'n Things
While still in Jersey City, I headed over to Linens 'n Things, the
bankrupt home-goods retailer that's been liquidating all its stores
since early October. It looked a little the way I imagine Rome
must have looked during the holiday season in A.D. 455.
Displays had been destroyed, and bedding was strewn
everywhere. There were lots of yellowed, dusty boxes that
looked as if they'd been sitting in the back of a warehouse for
decades. Yet none of this deterred the delighted nesters grabbing
at $33 castle-shaped muffin tins or 17-piece stainless-steel
Phillipe Richard (who?) cookware sets for $199.99. For a while,
I looked for sensible gifts—measuring cups, serving spoons,
60/104
fluffy bath towels—before realizing that these items were both
the most shallowly discounted and the most picked over.

The linens, thus, were disappointing—oh, but the things! Pink
Cuisinart soft-serve ice-cream maker? Still a little steep at
$179.99, but can you really put a price on at-home, push-button
fro-yo? A heated shiatsu massager for $59.99? Perfect for a
soon-to-be-lonely significant other you're planning to dump once
the holiday season has passed. A tropical green Margaritaville
"Frozen Concoction" Maker for $172.42? Pair it with a shaker of
salt, and scratch all the Jimmy Buffet fans right off your list.

Large sections of the Linens 'n Things store I visited were now
nothing but empty shelving. But the beauty of a liquidation sale
is that everything really must go. The Ikea-like shelving units
were on offer for a mere 60 bucks, according to a bright orange
sticker that could easily be replaced by a tidy red bow. For the
rest of the fixtures and equipment in the store, prices were
available upon request, as is the case with all truly fine goods.
Circuit City
Perhaps the most hyped liquidation sales have been the ones at
Circuit City, which has filed for bankruptcy protection and is
closing 155 of its stores. But if you're hoping to get a 46-inch
LCD screen for a song, stop reading this right now and go shop,
because when I visited a Manhattan location in late November,
the only televisions left were the ones on the floor. (A man
bought one from right out under me, as I was inspecting it.)
You're probably equally out of luck if you were hoping for an
iPod—all sold out, though there were plenty of off-brand MP3
players left. Same thing with virtually all digital-photo printers
and all but the very cheapest of speakers. A robust selection of
DVDs at 25 percent off remained, depending on your definition
of robust. I counted at least four thick stacks each of Made of
Honor and, for the John C. Reilly enthusiast lurking in every
family, Walk Hard and Talladega Nights. There was plenty of
merchandise still left in the gaming section, too, but the games
were a mere 10 percent off. I pictured a future in which a dozen
Guitar Hero Aerosmith Limited Edition bundles—stubbornly
still at $89.99—stood between this poor Circuit City and a
peaceful death.
These four retail biggies are just a few of the stores closing up
before the holidays—there are plenty of others to explore. But
before you venture into the growing retail graveyard, a few tips I
gleaned from my adventures:

Don't go shopping alone on a bone-chillingly cold day
when you've just seen a play about the Iraq war with a
recently laid-off friend, for instance. Everything about
liquidation-sale shopping, other than the bottom line, is
depressing: The stores look sad, the products look sad,
your fellow bargain hunters look sad. Maybe preface
your expedition by basking in the warm glow of It's a
Wonderful Life with a few friends while secretly
downing whiskey out of a teacup to numb the emotions.
It might seem easier to do your liquidation shopping
online at the stores offering simultaneous sales through
their Web site. But you can generally get deeper
discounts if you actually trek out to a store, and online
you're less likely to stumble upon a gem like the $14.99
singing baseball glove chip-and-dip I found at Linens n'
Things. (You really have to hear its rendition of "Take
Me Out to the Ballgame" to appreciate it.)
A quick word about ethics. Whether or not you reveal
the origin of your liquidation gifts to their recipients is
up to your discretion. Some people are delighted by
bargains; knowing you saved a few precious bucks will
be the tinsel on their tree this year. Other people think
tinsel is cheap-looking. And no woman wants to know
you purchased the symbol of your till-death-do-us-part
devotion at a 90 percent markdown. I don't want to lead
anyone astray, but in my religious tradition at least, sins
of omission committed at Christmas are nothing that
Easter can't fix.
And if you don't feel like you've gotten your money's worth out
of this pre-Christmas round, there's something to look forward
to: Historically, the peak season for major retail store bankruptcy
filings has been January. So start cross-checking catalogs with
third-quarter sales numbers. Zales, for instance, isn't looking
great. I'm predicting a rash of Valentine's engagements.
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If you're a great Web designer or developer who loves Slate, we
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61/104
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Please send URLs to show work, not attached image or PDF
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Web Designer
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62/104
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responsible for prototyping, designing, and coding major
portions of Slate, and you'll function as the development group
lead, performing reviews of infrastructure, code, release
procedures, and other development and tech lead duties as
required. You'll need the following skills:
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
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
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
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Ability to design and code medium- to large-sized
projects
Five years' experience in software design and
development
Project-lead skills
Engineering core skills (data structures and algorithms,
coding, formal test techniques, etc.)
Excellent written and verbal skills
Knowledge of C#.NET 2.0, XML, SQL, ASP .NET
caching, XPath, IIS administration, XSL
transformations in .NET
Strong experience with object-oriented design and
implementation
Ability to work in a Windows .NET environment
Experience using a source-code control system
Experience with Web site back-end and middle-layer
design and implementation
Conceptual knowledge of front-end development
Experience with content-management systems
sidebar
Return to article
Web Designer
The Slate Group seeks a talented, hard-working designer to join
our team. This person will be working on a wide range of
creative projects for all our sites: Slate, Slate V, The Big Money,
The Root, and Double X.
We're looking for someone who is self-directed, well-organized,
flexible, inclined to ask the right questions at the right time,
graceful under pressure—in short, a dedicated, collaborative
player.
Responsibilities:



Work closely with design director, art department,
editorial, engineering, and business to develop and
deliver high-quality editorial features and advertising
concepts. Our projects include Web designs both static
and interactive, house ads, and sales presentations, with
an occasional item for print.
Manage multiple projects and tight timelines
Stay up-to-date with the field's concepts, practices, and
procedures
Requirements:
63/104
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Minimum 5 years concept, layout, and Web site design
experience
High level of CSS, HTML, and Flash expertise.
Familiarity with Quick Time, AVI, and MPG formats.
Photoshop and Illustrator expertise
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Art direction and project management tendencies
Experience working with developers and copywriters
Keen understanding of branding and online marketing
Ability to work in a fast-paced, hands-on, rapid
development cycle environment
Strong sense of humor, abundant common sense, and
(nearly) infinite patience
Education Required:

B.A. degree or related work experience in related
design or online fields
Send resume to Vivian Selbo [email protected].
Please send URLs to show work, not attached image or PDF
files.
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Knowledge of C#.NET 2.0, XML, SQL, ASP .NET
caching, XPath, IIS administration, XSL
transformations in .NET
Strong experience with object-oriented design and
implementation
Ability to work in a Windows .NET environment
Experience using a source-code control system
Experience with Web site back-end and middle-layer
design and implementation
Conceptual knowledge of front-end development
Experience with content-management systems
Knowledge of network systems, Web site
infrastructure, and release deployment tools and
technologies
Bachelor's in CS, CIS, math, or equivalent
The following skills are also desirable:
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Database knowledge
Tableless CSS, Javascript, AJAX, XML, XSLT,
XHTML
Data warehouse experience
sidebar
Return to article
Senior Web engineer: This is an ideal position for someone
with great ideas about and significant experience in Web-media
architecture and development. It entails working closely with our
editorial staff and business team to address recurring issues and
build new functionality. You'll collaborate frequently with the
editorial team on tech-heavy stories and features. You will be
responsible for prototyping, designing, and coding major
portions of Slate, and you'll function as the development group
lead, performing reviews of infrastructure, code, release
procedures, and other development and tech lead duties as
required. You'll need the following skills:





Ability to design and code medium- to large-sized
projects
Five years' experience in software design and
development
Project-lead skills
Engineering core skills (data structures and algorithms,
coding, formal test techniques, etc.)
Excellent written and verbal skills
sidebar
Return to article
Web developer: This Web developer will support and develop
our Web applications, editorial features, and other technology
projects. This is a great position for someone entering the work
force with a computer-science degree, or for anyone with an
interest in the media and with significant Web-programming
experience in CSS, DHTML, XSLT, and ASP.NET applications.
You will work closely with the editorial and business staffs as
well as the development team, so good communication skills are
a must.
Your day-to-day responsibilities will include supporting our
content-management system, modifying existing XSLT
templates in line with stylistic updates, and developing new Web
features and applications on both short- and long-term schedules.
We're looking for the following:

Microsoft .NET, ASP .NET
64/104
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XML/XSLT
C#
DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and knowledge of the
Microsoft DOM
SQL
Microsoft IIS
Excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving skills
Above-average written and verbal communication skills
Experience with Flash action scripting is also a plus.
slate v
Human Guinea Pig: Colonial ReEnactors
A daily video from Slate V.
slate v
Mind-Melding With Your Avatar
slate v
How a Lost Pearl Became a Poem
By Dahlia Lithwick
Is the claim that former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI
Director Robert Mueller were involved in post-9/11 detention
policies more or less plausible than the assertion that the CEO of
Coca-Cola has intentionally slipped a mouse into your soda
bottle? How busy do you have to be in order to evade a civil
lawsuit? What is the plural form of mouse? These are the big
questions the Supreme Court grapples with this morning as it
sticks a toe into the waters of a raging national debate about
legal accountability for high-level government actors for wrongs
committed in pursuit of the war on terrorism.
Javaid Iqbal is a former cable installer and Pakistani citizen who
was swept up along with more than 700 Muslim and Arab men
in the massive post-9/11 terrorism dragnet. Not one of them was
ever charged with terrorism-related crimes. Some of those
deemed, like Iqbal, to be of "high interest" were detained under a
"hold until cleared" policy at a high-security facility in
Brooklyn. Iqbal claims that during 150 days of detention based
solely on his religion and national origin, he was subject to
solitary confinement, repeated cavity searches, denied medical
care, and brutally beaten. He pleaded guilty to immigration
charges (unrelated to terrorism) and was sent back to Pakistan in
2003. He then sued 34 current and former government officials,
right up the chain of command from the prison staff to John
Ashcroft and Robert Mueller. Ashcroft and Mueller moved to
get themselves out of the case, claiming, among other things,
that any connections between themselves and the Brooklyn
detention policies were based on mere "conclusory allegations."
A federal district court and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals
disagreed, allowing the suit to go forward against the two men
based on the "likelihood that these senior officials would have
concerned themselves with the formulation and implementation"
of these policies.
slate v
Dear Prudence: Difficult Dinner Guest
Solicitor General Gregory Garre opens his argument this
morning with the claim that high-ranking officials are entitled to
qualified immunity—the doctrine that shields government
officials from personal liability for actions taken in their official
capacities. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stops him short,
explaining that qualified immunity is a defense, yes, but not a
mechanism for tossing the lawsuit altogether.
supreme court dispatches
The Attorney General Is a Very Busy
Man
The Supreme Court seems to think that also makes him immune from
litigation.
Justice David Souter pokes at the government claim that there is
nothing connecting Ashcroft and Mueller to the detention policy,
asking whether the complaint doesn't quite specifically allege
that Ashcroft and Mueller "willfully and maliciously" designed
it. Garre responds that the formal policy of "holding persons
until cleared" was neutral and reasonable on its face. He says
racial or religious classifications under the policy were made by
FBI officials in the field. (You may remember this as the "bad
apples" defense born at Abu Ghraib.)
65/104
The sticky wicket in this case is a 2007 Supreme Court decision
called Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, which changed the test for how
much evidence a plaintiff needs to show to keep from being
tossed out of court. This may not sound all that consequential to
you, but to America's civil-procedure professors, the effect of
Twombly was akin to releasing a live ferret amid the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure.
But Garre makes a big point of arguing that he's not seeking
higher pleading standards for his clients. He just wants the court
to take "context" into account. And the context here seems to be
that some people are just too busy to be sued. This arises both
insofar as Ashcroft and Mueller are evidently too busy to be
subjected to the discovery-and-trial process but also because
they were too busy, post-9/11, to bother with "microscopic"
decision-making about "micromanaging" detention policy in
Brooklyn.
Justice Steven Breyer then offers up the hypothetical that keeps
on giving: Suppose, he asks Garre, "Jones sues the president of
Coca-Cola for personally putting a mouse in his bottle. Where is
the rule that says he can go to the judge and say, 'I have no time
for this'?" Garre says the plaintiff needs to show some kind of
plausible claim. Souter points out that "plausible" claims are not
the same as claims that can "probably be proven true." Souter
says an allegation that "the president of Coke is personally
putting mouses [sic] in bottles" is simply bizarre. Whereas
Iqbal's allegation that the FBI director was involved in its
detention policies is not.
Breyer—claiming to be forgetting civil procedure ("it was
probably taught on Day 4 ...")—repeats that he knows of no rule
allowing people to evade the discovery rules because they are
too busy. "Yes, the attorney general is very busy, and what he
does is very important," Breyer says. "The president of CocaCola is very busy. The president of General Motors is also very
busy. In fact, he's very busy at the moment. Lots of people are
very important and very busy. ..."
Ginsburg asks about the findings of a report that came out of the
Inspector General's Office in 2003 faulting government officials
for a system that was at times chaotic and abusive. Garre replies
again that whatever allegedly discriminatory actions were taken
occurred "on an ad hoc basis."
Alexander Reinert represents Iqbal, and he rejects the idea that
this is all about "ad hoc decisions at low levels." Justice Samuel
Alito immediately starts to grill him about what specific
allegations he has that Ashcroft or Mueller "approved of an
illegal policy." Justice Antonin Scalia says there are "two
possibilities here," one being that there was a perfectly "valid
policy that was subject to distortions at the lower levels," the
other being that "high-level officials themselves directed
unconstitutional acts." In his view, the second is b-a-n-a-n-a-s.
Reinert replies that both would be illegal.
Chief Justice John Roberts asks Reinert whether the president of
Coca-Cola would be subject to the same pleading standards as
the attorney general or the FBI director for decisions made "on
the evening of Sept. 11." Reinert responds "certainly," and
Roberts, aghast, therefore asks him the same question three more
times, concluding: "You at least accept that because we're
looking at litigation involving the attorney general and the
director of FBI in connection with their national security
responsibilities, that there ought to be greater rigor applied to our
examination of the complaint." Reinert says no such special
scrutiny is required under the federal rules. The rules are the
rules no matter how busy or important the defendant might be or
how terrible the national-security crisis.
Stevens will then ask a question about the insertion of rats into
Coke bottles, leading Souter to redouble his efforts to introduce
the word mouses into mainstream legal discourse. Scalia then
points out that the ability of the attorney general and FBI
director to do their jobs should not be dependent on the
discretion of a district court judge. He pronounces district court
judge the way you or I might say serial wife-beater. Not to be
outdone, Alito will later wonder, in horror, "How many district
judges are there in the country? Over 600? One of those district
judges has a very aggressive idea about what discovery should
be. What's the protection there?"
That's right. This case is about the Supreme Court justices
protecting Americans from out-of-control district court judges
and their out-of-control discovery rules. And that is the case
even when, as here, both the lower court and the appeals court
crafted sensible, nuanced limits on discovery, protecting
Ashcroft and Mueller from precisely the sort of burden the court
is worried about. America has survived liberal pleading rules for
a very long time, in part because judges are pretty good at
identifying and discarding the lame cases. But the justices seem
determined to shut down just a few more trials by spontaneously
manufacturing a rigorous pleading standard for high government
officials who are busy with national security emergencies.
And humility that ain't.
By the end of the morning, even Breyer and Stevens start to go
wobbly at the prospect of busy important men caught up in civil
litigation for a decade. Hey, let's reserve trials for just the
mediocre and the lazy! The stunning thing here is that, without
any apparent basis in case law, statute, or the Constitution, there
are at least three votes to create different pleading standards for
the high and low ranking, the busy and unbusy. It's the kind of
magical legal thinking that got us into the war on terrorism and
the kind of magical thinking that will never let us out.
66/104
technology
The Shopper's Revenge
How Amazon's cell phone app can save you money at Best Buy, Target, and
Wal-Mart.
By Farhad Manjoo
Sometime this shopping season, you'll find yourself stuck in a
big-box store agonizing over an attractively priced television,
DVD player, high-end blender, or some other amazing thing.
Can I get it somewhere else cheaper, you'll wonder—or should I
snap it up now? And anyway, is this thing all it's cracked up to
be? Do other people like it? Do I even really need it?
There was a time when you couldn't really ask such questions of
products; every purchase was a gamble, a leap of blind faith that
you wouldn't get too terribly ripped off. Then came the Internet:
During the past decade, many of us have adopted a mode of
shopping that smacks of private detective work—before we
commit to buying anything of consequence, we embark on epic
research missions to seek out the best prices and the most
thorough reviews. You consult the experts at CNET before
choosing a TV, then you stop by your local Best Buy to see how
it looks, and you order it from a discount store on the Web, taxfree. This process has liberated us from the tyranny of shifty
salesmen and gouging retailers; it's also changed the way
businesses operate, prompting many to lower their prices and
boost their customer service in an effort to compete with the
Web.
And yet for all the ways that the Internet has transformed
shopping, we still make most of our purchases in retail stores,
just out of reach of the tide of consumer advice available online.
Several new pieces of mobile phone software, however, are
starting to transform the way we navigate through the aisles—
and with a little improvement may revolutionize both how we
shop and how we manage the many things we buy. If I sound a
bit overheated, it's because I've been blown away by the best of
these new apps: Amazon Mobile, the amazing program that
Amazon.com put out for the iPhone last week. Just take a photo
of any item you come across in a store—a book, a CD, a cereal
box, an oven thermometer, tennis shoes, anything. The app sends
the picture to Mechanical Turk, Amazon's freelance service,
where anonymous hordes stand ready to identify the item.
(Amazon pays people 10 cents for each ID; the service is free for
you to use.) A few minutes later, your phone displays Amazon's
listing for the product, including the site's invaluable user
reviews. If you like what you see, you can buy the item straight
from Amazon over your iPhone—even while you're still
browsing the aisles of Best Buy or Target.
As a piece of technology, Amazon Mobile is a marvel. The
company's Mechanical Turk service has always seemed like a
lark—an interesting concept looking for a practical use. The
system allows businesses to put up requests for small, repetitive
tasks that only human beings can handle—writing up
descriptions for photos, doing simple Web searches, etc.; anyone
with an Amazon account can take a stab at doing these tasks,
earning a few cents per fulfilled request. The presence of a large,
anonymous workforce willing to do menial tasks has made
Mechanical Turk a hideout for vaguely scammy businesses. One
current request, for instance, offers you a nickel to write a fivestar review of Golden Memories 1, an album of piano music;
three people seem to have taken the bait, with one writing, "Note
after note, key after key, the music keeps on flowing."
This store-browsing app, though, is perfect for Mechanical Turk.
Other companies have tried to build automated iPhone shopping
programs, but they've been hindered by a key limitation of the
device—unlike the T-Mobile G1, Google's first phone, the
iPhone camera's lens can't focus close enough to get a good read
on product barcodes. (You can buy a lens attachment that
improves its focus.) So how do you identify a product without its
barcode? A company called SnapTell is trying to use
computerized image recognition: With its iPhone app, you snap
a photo of a product and, within a few seconds, the company's
servers will analyze the picture and send back a product link.
SnapTell is more limited than Amazon's app—it is only meant to
identify books, CDs, DVDs, and video games—but it did
identify most of the books and some of the CDs I threw at it
nearly instantly.*
Amazon's service was slower—I had to wait between two and 10
minutes before I got a listing for my product—but because there
were humans on the other end, I got much more accurate results.
Amazon identified the Cheez-Its, the Arm & Hammer detergent,
a copy of the Collins Gem English Dictionary, a Sylvania
portable LED light, a Waterpik, a package of Oreos, a copy of
my book, and a copy of A Briefer History of Time. It failed only
when Amazon didn't carry the product I'd photographed—when
I snapped a shot of Fre nonalcoholic red wine at the
supermarket, a helpful Mechanical Turker directed me to an
Amazon listing for sparkling grape juice.
Intrigued by the photo-identifying elves on the other end, I
logged on to Mechanical Turk to offer my help in finding
listings for people. My first test: a slightly blurry, dim photo of a
black Bluetooth headset. It's a good thing I've got a job that
requires me to try out a lot of Bluetooth headsets—I knew
immediately that this was the Aliph Jawbone. Within 30
seconds, I found the Jawbone's Amazon listing and sent it in,
hopefully surprising the fellow on the other end with my
accuracy. (Alas, Mechanical Turk offers no way for searchers
and searchees to talk.) The next photo would also have stumped
a computer. It was an upside-down shot of one-thong sandal,
slightly blurry and pretty small. You could just barely make out
a logo on the insole—a red drawing of what looked to me like an
ocean wave. For about 20 seconds I wracked my brain trying to
identify it. I Googled "Billabong logo"—wrong. "Hang Ten
67/104
logo"—nope. "Quiksilver logo"—yup, that was it! Next I
searched Amazon for men's Quiksilver sandals and found a pair
that seemed to be a pretty close match to the ones pictured. I'd
done about a minute's work, which seemed a lot more than was
merited for the dime Amazon was paying me. It was quitting
time.
television
Because phone shopping apps give shoppers power in a place
where they've long had none, they're bound to create some
tensions with local retailers. One shopper in Michigan was
recently admonished for using ShopSavvy, a barcode-scanning
app for Google's Android mobile phones, at his local Target
store. (Target later said that the employees acted in error and that
the company has no policies on barcode scanning.) Last week,
Nate Anderson of Ars Technica wrote a thoughtful piece
worrying about the ethics of Amazon's app: "For Amazon to
explicitly suggest that shoppers take advantage of bricks-andmortar stores—an expensive investment that Amazon has
purposefully not made—and then use the benefit derived from
those stores to order the product cheaply online, well, that's a
pretty straightforward declaration of war." Some consultants
have even suggested that retailers fight back by installing cell
phone jammers or banning iPhones from their stores.
The septic new dating show A Double Shot at Love With the
Ikki Twins (MTV, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET) follows on the fuckme heels of A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, a singleelimination tournament wherein skanks of both sexes vied for
the heart of a moderately greasy bikini model. On Double Shot,
the objects of affection are Erica and Victoria Mongeon,
calendar girls known to a discerning elite as Rikki and Vikki, the
"Ikki twins"—avowedly bisexual and, obviously, monozygotic.
According to their online biography, Rikki came out of the
womb a few moments earlier, and they came out of the closet
almost simultaneously while waitressing at Hooters. It's no threat
to their dignity or ours if we don't bother distinguishing between
them.
But I'd caution the bricks-and-mortar crowd to hold their fire—
it's possible that Amazon's app might even help them. I was at
Wal-Mart this weekend when I saw that Sylvania portable LED
light. I wondered if it would be bright enough to light up some
dark areas in my closets. The packaging offered no help—so I
took a photo and, after getting back a positive ID, consulted
Amazon's listing. For one thing, I found that Wal-Mart was
much cheaper than Amazon (no surprise). But Amazon's reviews
also convinced me that the light worked pretty well—in other
words, Amazon pushed me to buy the item from Wal-Mart.
The same thing could work elsewhere, of course. Next time you
want a good book, try this: Go to Barnes & Noble, and find
something that looks interesting. Not sure it's as good as the
blurb says? Check Amazon for reviews. If you like what you see
and the book's cheaper online, go to the store manager, show her
your iPhone, and ask her to match Amazon's price. If she says
yes, buy the book there—otherwise, click Buy right in front of
her. Remember: He who has the phone makes the rules.
Correction: Dec. 10, 2008: This piece originally criticized
SnapTell's iPhone application for failing to recognize products
like a bag of Cheez-Its and a bottle of Arm & Hammer laundry
detergent. The SnapTell application is only designed to identify
books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. (Return to the corrected
sentence.)
Meet the Ikki Twins
Identical, bisexual, and ready to snuggle.
By Troy Patterson
In the introduction, the Ikki twins, who meet the minimum
requirements of generic hotness, briefly reviewed their joint
career. Photos slid past, demonstrating their talent for standing
next to Corvettes and proudly clenching hockey sticks. They
clarified that each is looking for the love of her life here on
MTV, saying in stereo that they don't intend to share. They
explained the evening's twist. In this initial episode, as in David
Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, the protagonists would pretend to
be one person. Then the thwomp of rotors ripped through the
inky sky outside the Ikki manse. Here was a pair of helicopters,
each dangling a cargo crate. One, lined in pink polyester, bore a
dozen "sexy lesbians." The other, decorated in blue, held 12 "hot
straight guys." Each crate featured a disco ball.
The ladies romped out of their holding pen, so crazed with thirst
that they immediately began doing body shots. Nikki took the
first turn mingling while Mikki hid herself away to watch the
action on a monitor. The twins share a numbingly low idea about
what is attractive or meaningful or halfway interesting. One
contestant was praised as "super-superhot, like, stepped-out-ofa-magazine hot," which would only be true if we're talking Field
& Stream. Later, Doohikki snuggled by a fire pit with a dude
who worked his rap thusly: "I don't know if I'm hot because of
you or because we're sitting by the fire, but I know you're hot."
Her impression? "He's definitely smooth."
The twins insist on the cast's sex appeal relentlessly, pleading
with the audience to disbelieve its libido. Still, the slatternly
attire and attitudes of the women will suffice to captivate the
core demographic—that is, semi-tumescent ninth-graders and
the girls who seek their attention by making out with other girls
at keg parties. On the other hand, there must be a few genuine
lesbians among Double Shot's constituency; tackiness doesn't
discriminate.
68/104
In the "Petting Zoo" segment, the female contestants don lingerie
and tails and snouts to strut around a mock barnyard as kitties,
piglets, ducklings, donkeys, and such. Watching it, I held
depression at bay by hoping, as never before, that a reality show
might inadvertently radicalize some militant feminists. At least
the women on Double Shot boast stable jobs in the service sector
(bartender, personal trainer, dominatrix, lifeguard). The men,
mooks that they are, are a shadier lot. There's a party promoter, a
club promoter, a "Wall Street sales rep" who lives in
Massachusetts. "Boston accents are wicked sexy," Gimmikki
said.
Double Shot offers cynicism without irony and nihilism without
surcease. It gives trash TV a bad name. It's so patently
deplorable that it's not even any fun to deplore. So let us
appreciate its lone moment of self-consciousness, a line from the
montage of highlights of the soul-corroding season ahead. One
of the male bimbos smirks at the camera: "This house is full of
surprises. And douche bags."
.
television
Coulda Been Faulkner
The foremost burnout of the Paris Review generation.
By Troy Patterson
Harold Louis Humes Jr.—H.L. Humes on the jackets of his two
novels, Doc to peers and pals—is the man standing just left of
center in Cornell Capa's famous Life photo of a swell party at
George Plimpton's place. There's a calabash pipe in his lips as he
leans forward into whatever scrumptious gossip or merry slander
Truman Capote is squeaking. The photo was taken in 1963, 10
years after Humes had co-founded the Paris Review, a time
when he was cutting an eccentric figure in the middle of many
good parties. Two years later, he cracked up flamboyantly. By
the end of decade, Humes was an acid casualty, a paranoid freak
who'd inaugurated a habit of crashing with college students. In
1969, he commandeered the apartment of Columbia senior Paul
Auster for a nonstop salon where, styling himself a philosopher
king, he riffed on the true nature of the cosmos for hairy
undergraduates. "I could no more ask him to turn them away
than I could ask the sun to stop shining," Auster writes in the
memoir Hand to Mouth. "Talk was what he lived for. It was his
final barrier against oblivion."
Plimpton and Auster are among the authors and scenesters who
laugh, frown, and goggle their eyes over Humes in the highly
entertaining Doc (PBS, Tuesday; check your listings), an
Independent Lens number shot by his daughter Immy Humes
over many years. The documentary makes a persuasive case for
Humes, who died in 1992 at age 66, as the first hipster of
Quality Lit, as a proto-Yippie and avant-garde Zelig, and as the
foremost burnout of his literary generation, a kind of Brian
Wilson of the backlist.
Less persuasively, it states that Humes was the equal of Faulker
and Hemingway, or would have been without the burning-out
business. His reputation rests on two novels, The Underground
City (1958, about the French underground and World War II)
and Men Die (1959, about the destruction of a Navy munitions
base). Of The Underground City, critic Alan Cheuse here says,
"It's an authentic novel of ideas. Certainly in American
literature, there are very few authentic novels of ideas." First, it
must be said that there actually aren't few enough. Second: The
Underground City, which runs 755 closely printed pages, is a
ropy-muscled and fine-nerved thriller, and its principal pleasures
are sensual. When you can describe the rush and dust of an
airfield as well as Humes can, philosophy is only going to get in
the way. For a novel of ideas, you'd do better with Men Die,
which, being laced with ragged fake Beat poetry, is not entirely
readable. In any event, Humes is the sort of literary figure whose
work is peripheral to his glamour. For the purposes of
mythmaking, it suffices that he put a rich voice—a wine-dark
shade of prose—to use in one book of daunting scope.
Humes enrolled at MIT at age 16, left early to join the Navy, and
by 1949 was continuing his education in Paris, where he
discovered Bohemianism in flower and a lax attitude toward the
public consumption of hashish. He founded a rag called the
Paris News Post—"sort of a fourth-rate version of the New
Yorker," he drolly croaks here. He got Plimpton very, very high
on Easter Sunday in 1952, and it is worth tuning in to Doc just to
hear Plimpton's voice rise when he imitates his own stoned
giggle of that afternoon. Somewhere in there, the Paris Review
started. Humes claims that the magazine evolved from "a
conversation between Jimmy Baldwin and myself." George,
Being George, the new oral history of Plimpton's life, suggests
that Peter Matthiessen nudged Humes toward the idea partly
because Matthiessen was working for the CIA and needed a
good cover. Everyone agrees that Humes was too wild actually
to manage a publication. Still, it was poor form for them to
knock him down the masthead, where, for a time, he dwelled
ridiculously as the advertising manager.
Doc, the film, might have slowed down a bit at this point to sort
out some chronology and tell us more fully about its subject's
cafe-society rambles, his labor-rights and free-speech agitations,
and his Buckminster Fuller-lite scheme for utopian housing. It's
a touch sloppy that way, and its production values can be
downright homely—unforgivably bad lighting, weird framing
choices, ill-chosen camera angles. (The audience is very
interested in what William Styron has to say but somewhat less
compelled by his wattle.) At points, however, the willful DIY
69/104
quality and intimate home-movie vibe yields serendipitous
results. When Immy Humes goes in search of a lost movie her
father shot in the early '60s—Don Peyote, a psychedelic take on
Cervantes meant to be scored by Ornette Coleman—she follows
a false lead to filmmaker Jonas Mekas. This scene is, structurally
speaking, pointless, but it's an utter delight to see the awesome
stacks and shelves of film canisters in Mekas' endless basement
archive. Immy, sharing this pleasure, turns the camera on herself
and giggles like George Plimpton on hash.
The bad trip began in 1965, when Timothy Leary delivered a
quantity of LSD to London, taking Humes' consciousness in the
other direction. His paranoia acquired heaviosity, and his
universe started making rather too much sense, as demonstrated
by the notes and spiraling diagrams the documentary spookily
shows us over a plaintive horn. He was beating his wife. When
his family and friends had had enough of it, they told him that
Queen Elizabeth wanted to see him, and his agent arranged a
limousine to ferry him to a mental hospital. The wife and kids
went back to the States. After Doc cooled out a bit, he did, too.
His daughters found out that he was still alive after reading a
New York Times story about a guy who was hanging around
Morningside Heights, dispensing his inheritance to strangers $50
at a time.
Doc Humes spent the next long chapter of his life making
mischief and holding forth, mostly in college towns, where there
was always a fresh supply of young people eager to audit his
freelance lectures—"his own floating university of Humesism"
says one Oliver Trager, Bennington '79. None of them minded
too much when he now and then accused them of being CIA
agents. He seems to have met his second wife at a food coop/massage academy/open classroom in Cambridge, Mass. Then
he unraveled Howard Hughes-style for a while, and then got
medicated and approachable, and then moved on.
In closing, Doc offers, a touch too triumphantly, the revelation
that Humes was not entirely as crazy as everyone had thought.
"It turned out that the U.S. government was keeping tabs on Doc
for at least 30 years," goes the voice-over as snippets of his FBI
file scroll past. (It's like an epitaph reading, "He was paranoid …
but also important enough that they were after him!") Humes, in
all his charm and madness, might have been served better by an
anecdote relayed earlier by his friend Russell Hemenway. One
day in Paris, Doc walked onto the terrace of the Brasserie Lipp
and joined a group. "Somebody ask me a question," he said. "I
feel like explaining something."
the best policy
A Better Car-Bailout Plan
The Big Three would bid against one another for bailout money, and only two
would get it.
By Eliot Spitzer
Friday, December 12, 2008, at 12:46 PM ET
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. This moment of decision
about the auto bailout should be when we summon the courage
to reject broken policies, not just to throw more capital at them;
use market forces to drive restructuring, not just provide bridge
loans; and put in place true market-based pressures, not a veneer
of government oversight that will substitute poorly for tough
decision-making.
The unfortunate reality is that we are straying further from
market-driven principles and moving to an economy that relies
on government as benefactor. We have nationalized the
financial-services sector and are on the cusp of nationalizing the
automotive sector, yet we have failed to demand anything nearly
adequate in the form of genuine competition, rules changes, or
transparency from the affected firms.
The current iteration of the auto bailout—car czar and all—is a
move in the wrong direction. Despite the appropriately rough
ride the auto CEOs were given on their first jet-ferried trip to
Washington, the House, faced with mounting job losses
economy-wide—caved on the auto leaders' second, carpooled
road trip. Senate Republicans blocked a congressional bailout on
Thursday, but it now seems likely that the White House will use
financial rescue money to fund some version of the bailout plan.
The Big Three will receive an initial payout of billions, and
nobody believes that the first check is anything more than a
down payment. As with the financial services bailout, once
Washington is in the game, it is almost impossible to turn off the
spigot. Yet the companies have proffered only paper-thin
platitudes about possible actions to restructure, platitudes that
are neither binding nor creative. And we still know precious
little about the finances of the companies, especially
Chrysler/Cerberus.
Even worse, the Big Three may be subject to the authority of a
car czar with theoretically almost unfettered power. Yet this
modern Wizard of Oz will have no more real power than did the
original. I have yet to find a single person who believes that the
czar would really be able to guide or force real change on the
industry—or will have the wisdom to do so. Progress comes
from competition, not from oligarchs or bureaucrats.
So here is a better—and tougher—way to proceed.
We all know that a significant downsizing of auto-industry
capacity is necessary. Maintaining all three companies is
probably not economically feasible. We also know that the
incipiency of bankruptcy tends to focus the mind and produce
real offers. Why don't we tell the current Big Three that $25
billion in capital is available—but only to two of them? The
surviving two will be those that submit the best, and final,
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binding bids, supported by all the necessary constituencies:
boards, managers, suppliers, vendors, creditors, and the UAW.
The plans that are the best, as judged by a panel of private- and
public-sector figures—Jack Welch, Warren Buffet, or Felix
Rohatyn, plus OMB and CBO officials—are the plans that will
get funded. The measures they will be judged by will be
announced ahead of time and will be a combination of
retained/gained market share, return on capital, jobs retained,
and mileage and environmental efficiency gains. The company
with the least impressive plan will be denied funding. To avoid
letting the third parties—creditors, the UAW, or vendors—pick
the winner by refusing to sign on with their least favorite of the
Big Three, third parties will be required to offer the same deal to
each of the three. This process will force the companies to bid
against one another for aid, giving us the benefit of genuine
competition. This is better than an "oversight board" of Cabinet
members who have no real understanding of the industry.
This auction process should be accompanied by radical
transparency. Before we fund the auto companies, we need to
know whether they will live up to the promises they will be
making, and that means discovering how truthful they have been
in the past. We should demand immediate public release of the
following information: projections, at each point over the past
two decades, of what each company then believed it could
produce in terms of fuel efficiency if we funded their ongoing
research; all information pertaining to why they did not fund
such research; all information about environmental measures
that might have been taken and their consequences; and all
contacts with energy companies and other auto companies about
the impact of any of the steps above.
A simple reality should frame the bailout conversation:
Taxpayer dollars are being used to cover the enormous legacy
costs that resulted from the industry's failure to navigate through
a changing business environment. In virtually any other context,
the result would have been bankruptcy, creating the appropriate
accountability for those whose capital was invested, those who
benefited from unsustainable labor agreements in the short term,
and those who extended credit to the company. Shifting this
burden to the public makes sense only if we can begin the
transformation of the industry. A car czar will not do so;
competition among the companies might.
the breakfast table
Obama Law
Loose legal ends.
By Emily Bazelon, David Iglesias, Dahlia Lithwick, Joseph
Rich, and Stuart Taylor Jr.
From: Emily Bazelon
To: David Iglesias, Dahlia Lithwick, Joseph Rich, and Stuart Taylor Jr.
Subject: Where Should the New Department of Justice Start?
Updated Tuesday, December 9, 2008, at 11:49 AM ET
When Barack Obama becomes president in January and his
chosen lawyers take over the top positions in the Justice
Department and the other legal levers of the federal government,
the sigh of relief will be loud and long. And then lawyers and
commentators inside and outside the government will start
asking, "Now what?" Indeed, they already have.
How exactly does the new Obama legal corps go about
diverging from the Bush era? Which precedents do they
repudiate, what do they simply ignore, and what do they keep?
For every potential goal, there's a complicated set of underlying
and interlocking questions about the nuts and bolts. How exactly
do you go about closing Guantanamo? What should happen next
in the long battle over access to the federal courts for inmates
there? How should DoJ reinvigorate civil rights litigation?
Protect voting rights? And what do the Obama lawyers do about
investigating their Bush predecessors for potential crimes and
ethical violations, about everything from torture to the
suspicious firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006?
Dahlia, Stuart, Joe, and David—please do serve up your
expertise on some of these questions, as well as anything else
you come up with to ask and answer. I'm especially interested at
the moment in how seriously you think the new administration
is, and should be, taking the idea of a new detention law that
could establish a national-security court for trying some
terrorism charges. Should Obama go in this direction, or should
he stick with the rules that provide for secrecy and security in
the regular federal courts? I also want to hear from Joe and
David about voting rights. Before the November election, David,
you decried the Bush DoJ's investigation of the liberal group
ACORN for potential voting fraud. If that probe was a partisan
scare tactic, where should the new DoJ put its energy instead?
And, Stuart and Dahlia, what's your current feeling about the
new DoJ investigating the old one? Should the Obama folks
stick to a truth commission-like function, and pardon the old
guard, as Stuart has suggested? Or is it premature to give up on
potential criminal indictments, as Dahlia has?
Grab your coffee mugs, thank you for joining us, and may the
Breakfast Table be seated.
Thanks,
Emily
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More soon on your other questions.
From: Stuart Taylor Jr.
To: Emily Bazelon, David Iglesias, Dahlia Lithwick, and Joseph Rich
Subject: The Case for a New Detention Law
Best,
Stuart
Dear Emily, et al.—
Great questions. Here's the first part of some tentative answers,
focusing especially on the questions that you directed to Dahlia
and me. My answers are tentative in the sense that many turn on
factual matters that the Obama team should explore before
locking itself into prefabricated answers:
New detention law? I lean toward thinking that Obama should
propose such a law. But to do so right at the start might be
premature. Instead, I have advocated that he appoint a blue
ribbon, bipartisan commission to study all available information
about the 250 or so detainees who remain at Guantanamo and to
issue detailed findings that would be, as much as possible,
public.
It seems likely that, as the military claims, the facts will show
that a great many of these men are both very dangerous and
impossible to convict of any serious crime in ordinary civilian or
military courts. Why impossible? In many cases because the
strongest evidence would be inadmissible based on ordinary
rules of evidence such as the hearsay rule and based on the
requirement that even the most sensitive classified evidence that
is shown to the jury also be shown to defense counsel and the
defendant. Also, based on rules against use of statements made
in coercive interrogations, without Miranda warnings, and the
like. In addition, some prisoners who have committed no known
or provable crimes have made it clear in statements at
Guantanamo that they want to kill as many Americans as they
can if and when released.
What to do with dangerous prisoners who cannot be prosecuted?
Bush's system of military commissions has failed so badly for so
long that it does not provide a credible solution. The best
alternative—as ideologically diverse experts including Neal
Katyal, Jack Goldsmith, Andy McCarthy, and Ben Wittes have
argued—might be a new national-security court staffed by
Article III federal judges, on the model of the FISA court. If
properly designed by the administration and Congress, such a
court could provide fair and credible opportunities for detainees
to show that they should be released without compromising
national-security secrets.
Would this be preventive detention? Yes, it would. Can we do it
without violating the Constitution? Yes, we can.
Subject: Against Big Investigations
Emily, you asked about the new DoJ investigating the old one.
Obviously, the new DoJ needs to finish up all pending
investigations, including the criminal investigation into
destruction of the videos of CIA interrogations, the investigation
of the Office of Professional Responsibility into the genesis of
the deservedly criticized Yoo-Bybee "torture memo" and other
Office of Legal Counsel memos. (Here's a link to Slate's
interactive guide to these and other allegations.) And obviously
the new DoJ should look into any specific, credible allegations
of criminality that come to its attention.
But it would be a terrible mistake, in my view, to launch
anything like the big, public criminal investigation that almost
60 House liberals, human rights groups, and others are seeking
into allegations that John Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney,
Colin Powell, Condi Rice, President Bush, and other top
officials reportedly approved harsh interrogation methods
including water-boarding (subject to limitations that have not yet
been publicly identified). I suspect, without benefit of inside
information, that Obama attorney general pick Eric Holder and
other top officials of the incoming administration would agree
with me.
First, such investigations and prosecutions would tear apart the
country and blow up Obama's hopes of lifting us out of our
multiple crises. Note that Obama himself cited in April the need
to distinguish between "really dumb policies and policies that
rise to the level of criminal activity." He also said, "I would not
want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part
of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've
got too many problems to solve."
Second, while I deplore profligate use of the brutal interrogation
methods that were approved at high levels and the rhetorical
encouragement of even worse low-level abuses, and while some
detainees were certainly tortured in the usual meaning of that
word, there is no credible evidence that any high-level official
acted with criminal intent to violate either the narrowly drafted
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anti-torture law or the War Crimes Act. All of them were
relying, in good faith, on advice of government lawyers,
especially the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. It
would be unconscionable and unlawful—under a specific
provision of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 as well as
general legal principles—for the same Justice Department that
advised that water-boarding and other brutal methods were legal
to turn around and prosecute people for acting on that advice.
It's true that reliance on advice of counsel is no defense if the
client is acting in bad faith, with reason to know that the advice
is bogus. But that is not the case here. Indeed, all of the methods
approved at high levels have been found lawful not only by the
gonzo executive-imperialist Yoo-Bybee "torture memo," but
also by several respected mainstream lawyers who carefully
analyzed the issues after the Yoo-Bybee memo had been
repudiated.
As to water-boarding, while a strong case can be made that it
violates the anti-torture statute, a strong case can also be made
that if carefully controlled, it does not necessarily violate that
statute. I will elaborate later, if anyone would like.
Water-boarding and other interrogation methods approved at
high levels did violate the ban against "humiliating and
degrading treatment" in Common Article 3 of the Geneva
Conventions, which is enforced by the War Crimes Act. But
those violations cannot be prosecuted in American courts unless
the officials acted with criminal intent. They did not. Rather,
they acted in reliance on another OLC memo, which advised that
Common Article 3 did not protect stateless terrorists like those
from such groups as al-Qaida. Although a bare majority of the
Supreme Court held otherwise in the June 2006 Hamdan
decision, there were very respectable legal arguments for the
OLC position. I thought it was correct. In any event, Congress
explicitly amended the War Crimes Act later in 2006 to
effectively immunize from prosecution any officials who
violated Common Article 3.
Greetings, everyone, and thanks for joining in on this discussion.
Emily and Stuart, under each of your posts lurk really interesting
questions about how the Obama administration might move
forward while still acknowledging what's happened before.
Emily, you ask how the new DoJ should handle the sins of the
old one. Stuart, you argue against a big criminal proceeding
against the architects of the Bush administration's interrogation
policy, in part because "such investigations and prosecutions
would tear the country apart and blow up Obama's hopes of
lifting us out of our multiple crises." David and Joe, I am sure,
will have thoughts on the extent to which the solution to the
myriad legal sins of the past eight years will be to hit "control +
alt + delete" and just start up the Rule of Law over again. I do
understand the appeal of rebooting the whole system, as Stuart
suggests. There is a slightly crazed tone to some of the efforts to
avenge the wrongs of the past eight years. (See, for instance, the
Berkeley City Council's efforts to micromanage John Yoo's
employers at the University of California-Berkeley.) Like Stuart,
and probably Eric Holder, I see the benefits of just
acknowledging that mistakes were made, but usually in good
faith by people who believed themselves to be following the law.
I am less certain than Stuart, however, that the country will
explode under the weight of a truth commission. And I am really
quite certain that some Americans are going to find it awfully
hard to just get over everything from warrantless wiretapping to
Abu Ghraib to the U.S. attorney purge to partisan hiring at the
Justice Department, all in the spirit of moving on. I am not sure
anyone can ever move forward without accountability for the
past. I guess the whole purpose of this conversation is to try to
tease out some nuanced solution between these poles.
Best,
Stuart
To that end, I'd be curious as to what David and Joe think about
the morale problem at the DoJ. Sometimes I hear from readers
that claims about a demoralized department are hugely
overblown. Other folks tell me it's even worse there than we
have heard. And I also wonder—do you all think the solution is
to just bring in new leadership or whether fixing the department
will require a scrub brush, a firehouse, more investigations, and
even, if warranted, some sanctions?
From: Dahlia Lithwick
To: Emily Bazelon, David Iglesias, Joseph Rich, and Stuart Taylor Jr.
Subject: Before We Reboot
Subject: Second Thoughts on Pardons
In short, as Talleyrand (or some other old French guy) once said:
"It was worse than a crime. It was a blunder."
73/104
Should Bush pardon any or all top officials who might be in
jeopardy of prosecution, to the extent that they acted in goodfaith reliance on advice of government counsel? I so suggested
in a Newsweek piece in April. I advocated instead that Obama
appoint a truth commission of some sort, and I suggested that
pardons might actually make it easier for a truth commission to
get at the truth. I am less confident now that either pardons or a
truth commission would be a good idea, although both should be
considered.
My reasons for being less confident: First, if it becomes clear
before Bush leaves office that Obama has no intention of
throwing the book at Bush's team based on abusive
interrogations, pardons might not be necessary. Second, it would
be a tricky and arguably impossible business to issue pardons
conditioned on proof of good-faith reliance on advice of
government counsel. Third, an Obama campaign adviser told me
that a truth-commission-type inquiry would stir up partisan
animosities (though less than a criminal investigation would) in
a way that could create problems for Obama's forward-looking
agenda.
I was in the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice
from 1968 to 2005, and from 1999 to 2005 I was chief of the
Voting Section, and so I'll focus on that aspect of the DoJ.
How to reinvigorate the Department of Justice and, more
specifically, the Civil Rights Division? Initially, it is important
as soon as possible to finalize and release the fourth report
concerning the Civil Rights Division, by the department's
inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility. This
report is about the politicization of the Civil Rights Division.
The new leadership of the division needs the result of this
review. If there are ongoing criminal investigations of former
division leadership, then this may affect the timing of the
release. But since formal complaints made about the Civil Rights
Division's leadership and Voting Section management have been
pending for more than three years, it is time to make the
information public.
The new division leadership, when in place, needs to address the
following:
The hiring process in the Civil Rights Division: It was badly
politicized from 2002 through 2007. I recommend:
1.
Jack Goldsmith recently laid out other compelling arguments
against truth-commission-style investigations in a Washington
Post op-ed. He points out that investigations have costs. In
particular, he argues, "the greater danger now is that lawyers will
become excessively cautious in giving advice and will substitute
predictions of political palatability for careful legal judgment.
This was a serious problem before Sept. 11, and many believe it
led to governmental structures and attitudes that precluded
detection of the Sept. 11 plot."
2.
Goldsmith was, of course, a Bush appointee. But I have heard
some very astute Obama supporters express similar views.
Best,
Stuart
3.
From: Joseph Rich
To: Emily Bazelon, David Iglesias, Dahlia Lithwick, and Stuart Taylor Jr.
Subject: How To Fix the Civil Rights Division
Publicly announcing hiring procedures as soon as they
are formulated
Returning to the pre-2002 system for the DoJ honors
program for hiring lawyers out of law school. Division
line attorneys do the initial interviewing and then make
recommendations to section chiefs and division
management. Section chiefs should make
recommendations, too. Then the final decision should
be made by the assistant attorney general for civil
rights. For lateral hires to fill vacancies caused by
attrition, pre-2002 procedures should be reinstituted. At
that time, each section typically created a hiring
committee of line attorneys and section management
that selected persons to be interviewed and made
recommendations to division management. Division
management should be able to request persons to be
considered by the section people to be interviewed. If
division management wants to do second interviews of
candidates, that can be made part of the process.
The new hiring procedures should be posted on the
division's Web site for transparency.
Morale: Dahlia, you asked how bad a morale problem the DoJ
has. To find out, we need a careful review of each section of the
Civil Rights Division, as soon as possible. The review should
include the effect of section management on line attorneys and
administrators. Any changes in section management that follow
should be done section by section, with emphasis on
management performance and impact on morale.
Resetting priorities. My partial list includes the following:
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1. Cases attacking discrimination against racial minorities
2. Fair-lending enforcement, focusing on charges of
discrimination in the subprime lending market
3. Increase cases that address a widespread pattern or practice of
discrimination, especially in employment, voting, and housing
4. More amicus work at the trial and appellate levels
5. Police-misconduct cases in the criminal and special-litigation
sections
6. Guidance to school districts to address the Supreme Court's
2007 ruling in the Seattle-Louisville schools cases
7. On the legislative front, voting legislation introduced last year
to address deceptive voting practices. In addition, investigation
and formulation of a universal voter-registration law should be a
high priority.
8. Hate crimes legislation previously introduced in Congress
So far, when Guantanamo cases have actually come before
federal judges, despite all the Bush administration's efforts, they
have taken steps—like closing court and keeping documents
sealed—to protect classified information and other nationalsecurity interests. If the judiciary has also dismissed the
government's case against a particular set of detainees as
impossibly thin, as Republican-appointed Judge Richard Leon
did last month, well, that's what I'd like to think we call justice.
Best,
Emily
Click here for the next entry.
From: David Iglesias
To: Emily Bazelon, Dahlia Lithwick, Joseph Rich, and Stuart Taylor Jr.
Subject: An Argument Against Bygones
From: Emily Bazelon
To: David Iglesias, Dahlia Lithwick, Joseph Rich, and Stuart Taylor Jr.
Subject: Before We Bypass the Federal Courts
Stuart, you cogently (and provisionally, I understand) lay out the
case for a new national-security court. I confess the idea makes
me feel more nervous than reassured. To begin with, Congress
doesn't have a great record here. Its past efforts to muck around
in the Guantanamo litigation—the Detainee Treatment Act of
2005, the Military Commissions Act of 2006—have only made
the muck deeper. In twisting traditional habeas protections, they
left the Supreme Court a big mess to clean up. I know that now
we're talking about a different, more Democratic Congress. But
all I have to do to stay suspicious is think back for a moment to
the overhaul of surveillance law last summer, with its expansive
and permissive stance toward domestic-to-international
wiretapping without a warrant. When Congress fools around
with the courts and procedural protections, defendants almost
always emerge worse off (Exhibit B: federal sentencing laws,
with their ever-loving mandatory minimums and lengthier
punishments).
The second reason I'm skeptical about the wisdom of a new
detention law is that we haven't yet sufficiently tested the regular
old federal court system. As Marty Lederman has persuasively
argued on Balkinization, we should give the processes we
already have in place a chance to work before we resort to
special measures. Another Lederman point: There are salient
provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that we can
employ, without any Gitmo-only legislation. We haven't really
tried this route yet.
Emily, yesterday you asked what the Obama lawyers should do
about investigating their Bush predecessors for crimes and
ethical violations, "about everything from torture to the suspect
firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006?"
I'm sure there will be some on both sides of the aisle who will
argue that the Obama administration should let bygones be
bygones regarding the ongoing probe of special counsel Nora
Dannehy into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, myself included.
If these were penny ante traffic-court offenses, I'd agree. But the
numerous investigations and hearings have uncovered some
modicum of evidence showing felony-level criminality on the
part of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and possibly
other former Bush administration officials. Whether or not the
evidence rises to the level of an indictment remains to be seen
and rests solely in the considered judgment of Ms. Dannehy.
Should we tolerate possible criminal activity on the part of the
former chief law enforcement officer of the United States?
Should a former AG or other former high-level officials be given
a pass on possible perjury and obstruction of justice charges just
for the sake of moving on? In my view, clearly not. To do so
would send an unmistakably clear signal to law enforcement
officials throughout the world that the rule of law applies to all
but the well-connected. It would also set a terrible precedent for
future attorneys general. As a former state and federal
prosecutor, I want to believe to the molten core of my being that
when the attorney general of the United States says something,
he is being 100 percent truthful, 100 percent of the time.
Otherwise, he is just another pettifogging, parsing, and
mendacious politico. If anything, prosecutors should be held to
the same, if not a higher, standard, than the nonprosecutor
75/104
"civilian." One practical way to begin to repair the damage done
to the reputation of the Justice Department is to treat this
particular investigation like any other high-level criminal case.
The political appointees need to stand back and let the
prosecutor do her job. Just as confidence is the key word in the
stock market, integrity is the key word in the prosecutor's world.
The public has the absolute right to believe that when someone
is charged with a crime, whether they are a "coyote" on the
southwest border or the former attorney general of the United
States, the prosecution's bases are the law and evidence, nothing
else.
Obama's team should allow special counsel to take her time to
do it right, and if the evidence supports a grand jury indictment,
then indict the case. If it doesn't, don't go forward. Justice is not
measured by notches on the belt; it is assuredly not about
winning a case. Sometimes, it's about reviewing the evidence
and not proceeding with a nonprovable case. I know this
dynamic from personal experience, as I felt pressured by
Republican officials to indict cases I knew I could not prove and
to rush a political corruption case that was not ready to indict for
partisan gain in a midterm election cycle. To reduce the clamor
that this would be merely a hypocritical "political prosecution"
motivated by the same type of improper partisan reasons I just
described, Dannehy needs to be fully independent and not have
her ultimate decision approved or rejected by a political
appointee. As I understand it, the AG has the final say in this
probe. This is regrettable and does not take the political
component out of the charging decision.
Finally, Dec. 7 marked the second anniversary of the infamous
phone calls from Main Justice to the seven of us U.S. attorneys.
When all the dust finally settles on this scandal, it will be seen as
a frontal assault on the independence of the prosecutor. With no
independent prosecutors, you cannot have a criminal justice
system that is characterized by integrity and fairness.
Subject: An Overabundance of Caution
Some responses to the excellent posts by all of you:
Emily, you (and Marty Lederman) make a very good point in
saying that we should give the post-Boumediene habeas
litigation that is already under way a chance to work before we
resort to special measures. I wish I had taken that into account
before sending my post yesterday.
In fact, I spoke later on Monday with a person I cannot name
who has deep insights into how the D.C. federal courts are
handling—and are likely to handle—those cases. My source's
view was that in principle, the handling of these detainees
involves issues of high legislative policy that should be decided
by Congress. But, the source added, given the mess that Bush
has made and the Supreme Court's rulings, and given the healthy
level of both talent and ideological balance on the D.C. Circuit
and district courts, Obama should let the habeas litigation play
out before making any big legislative proposals.
I suggested in my post yesterday that Obama should hold off for
a different reason: to let a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission
sort out the evidence on who these detainees are before deciding
what would be the best system for deciding their fates. Maybe
the courts will do that well enough to obviate any need for a
commission.
But maybe they won't, because maybe existing law won't let
them. I have been told by well-informed sympathizers with the
administration that the rules—and vast uncertainty about what
the rules are—in the habeas litigation might make it impossible
for the government to put before the courts its best evidence that
particular detainees are terrorists or would-be terrorists.
The main problem may be treatment of highly sensitive
classified evidence, including some that was provided by foreign
intelligence services to the CIA only on the condition that the
agency won't share them with anyone else.
The government's problem is that if it wants the judges to
consider such classified evidence, it runs a risk that the judges
will require disclosure not only to defense counsel (who have
been known to leak, if not in this litigation) but also, perhaps, to
the detainees. I have heard it suggested that the CIA is unwilling
to identify some of its sources and methods even to the Justice
Department, for fear that the habeas process will 1) violate the
CIA's promises to its sources and 2) risk leaking the information
to the public or to enemies.
Consider the Justice Department's decision to withdraw its claim
in Judge Leon's court that the Boumediene group of Algerianborn Bosnian citizens were plotting to blow up the U.S.
Embassy in Bosnia. Did Justice give up on that claim because it
had no real evidence? Or because it was unwilling, for valid
national-security reasons, to disclose that evidence to the
defense? We don't know. Nor, I suspect, does Judge Leon, who
had no choice under the circumstances but to rule for these
detainees.
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In my view, the best way to resolve these problems would be
legislation that would specify that the Justice Department may
show its classified evidence to the judges, with no risk that the
judges will share the evidence with the defense over the
government's objections. If the judges then choose to disregard
the evidence because of lack of adversarial testing or related
constitutional problems, so be it. At least the judges' decisions
would be fully informed. And the habeas litigation may well end
up pointing to the conclusion that the least-bad approach is to
establish a new national-security court with clear rules on how to
handle classified evidence and other knotty problems that are
especially pressing in international terrorism cases.
As for Emily's concern that Congress would make a mess if it
created such a court, remember that one model—the FISA
court—was reviled when created in 1978, and for many years
thereafter by civil libertarians, as a cover for sham proceedings
that provided no protection for civil liberties and would open the
floodgates to all manner of abuses. And remember that, as we
have learned in recent years, the opposite turned out to be the
case. I am aware of no evidence of any abuses under the aegis of
the FISA court. And as documented by the 9/11 commission and
others, the FISA rules for protecting civil liberties, and the
understandable overabundance of caution that those rules
inculcated in the DoJ, FBI, CIA, and NSA, are among the
reasons that the 9/11 suicide hijackers escaped detection.
Subject: Rethinking the Voting Rights Division
Emily, in your very first post you asked me and Joe about
possible fixes to the Voting Rights Division. I view the voting
section of the Civil Rights Division to be the fulcrum of the
office. The right to vote is, in my view, essentially sacred, and it
needs to be guarded zealously. Any scheme or artifice deployed
to deprive legitimate voters from their right is abhorrent.
It was deeply troubling to see that the discredited specter of
voter fraud once again was resurrected this fall to try to get the
DoJ involved in high-visibility investigations just before the
elections. Joe wrote about the long-standing DoJ policy of
maintaining a low profile on voter-fraud investigations before
the election. I have heard that this policy was recently changed
to allow for more visible, pre-election investigations. If that's
true, this needs to be changed back to the historic policy. The
DoJ should stick to its bread-and-butter cases, which have
traditionally been immigration crimes, narcotics, and white-
collar cases. The new administration will send its priorities out
to the field, where new U.S. attorneys will come into line and
enforce the law. The new DoJ should also affirm the historic
practice of prosecutorial independence in its first meeting of
U.S. attorneys.
Subject: A Revealing Closer Look
I respectfully disagree with Emily's criticism of the overhaul of
surveillance law last summer. Unfortunately, the details are so
complicated and intricate that I doubt any of us fully understands
FISA or the 2008 amendments. Certainly, I don't. But after
consulting people who do understand, I argued in my most
recent National Journal column that, in fact, the government still
has too little power to intercept communications and at the same
time too few safeguards against misuse of the information.
As I argued in my column last week, FISA is badly outdated. It
has always required judicial permission based on "probable
cause" to target calls and e-mails between parties inside the
United States but not calls from or to targets outside the United
States. (The rules for e-mails have been different, for no very
good reason.) But it is often impossible to tell where the parties
to a cell call or an e-mail are. In addition, "the surveillance it
authorizes is unusable to discover who is a terrorist, as distinct
from eavesdropping on known terrorists—yet the former is the
more urgent task," as Judge Richard Posner has written.
Obama, a harsh critic of Bush's secret, unilateral defiance of
FISA's rules from 2001 through 2005, wisely broke with most
liberals by voting in July to relax those rules. He should propose
a complete overhaul and simplification of the almost
incomprehensibly complicated law. It should be easier to use
sophisticated computer data-mining programs to fish through
millions of calls and e-mails for signs of possible terrorist
activity. At the same time, privacy protections should be
improved by tightening the rules to detect (through use of audit
trails) and prevent unnecessary dissemination or retention of the
intercepted information and to punish severely any misuse of it.
An additional privacy protection, suggested by Posner, would be
to forbid use of this information for any purpose (including, say,
tax-fraud prosecutions) other than to protect national security.
In response to Dahlia and David, some clarifications: In
opposing any big, public criminal investigation into the strong
evidence that the entire top echelon of the Bush national-security
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team approved water-boarding and other allegedly torturous
interrogation methods, I did not mean to rule out a truth
commission. Rather, I qualified my previous advocacy of a truth
commission by noting that some Obama people fear it would
create partisan animosity that could hurt his forward-looking
agenda.
Nor did I mean to suggest a pass for the people responsible for
Abu Ghraib, the U.S. attorney purge, or partisan hiring at
Justice. Indeed, all of these matters have been, or are being,
investigated criminally and otherwise. They are thus covered by
my earlier assertion that the DoJ needs to finish up all pending
investigations.
At the same time, I believe that all plausible Abu Ghraib
prosecutions played themselves out long ago. And although I
know very little about the U.S. attorney purge or the partisan
hiring, I have seen no evidence that the firings or hirings
themselves involved criminality—as distinguished from sleazy
and unethical conduct that may have violated civil laws—on the
part of high officials. In this regard, David, I would be grateful if
you could elaborate on your view that there is some modicum of
evidence showing felony-level criminality on the part of former
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and possibly other former
Bush administration officials.
Whether there is substance to the related allegations of perjury
and other cover-ups by former officials, including Gonzales, is a
different question that can be answered by only the kind of close
factual inquiry that is now under way. I certainly agree with
David that the Justice Department should prosecute if there is
strong evidence of criminality by these officials.
I respectfully disagree, however, with David's view that
Dannehy needs to be fully independent rather than to have her
ultimate decision approved or rejected by a political appointee.
The now-defunct independent-counsel statute and its
administrative analogues seemed like good ideas in the wake of
Watergate. But more than 20 years of experience with it
convinced many of us—including Democrats outraged by Ken
Starr—that assigning a special independent prosecutor to go
after a single (or a few) specific targets, with no competing
demands on the prosecutor's resources and no admiring
headlines if she decides not to prosecute, is a formula for
overzealousness.
I plead ignorance on most of the matters that Joe discusses. But I
have my doubts about whether racial discrimination in
employment and voting are all that widespread these days—
doubts that were reinforced by witnessing the supposedly
impossible election of an African-American to the presidency
with more support from white voters than John Kerry had in
2004.
What Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson said in 1991 has
become truer and truer ever since: "America, while still flawed
in its race relations … is now the least racist white-majority
society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of
minorities than any other society, white or black; [and] offers
more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than
any other society, including all those of Africa."
From: Joseph Rich
Subject: Fleeing Civil Rights Lawyers
First, in further response to Dahlia's question about morale, I
want to emphasize that there is no question that morale in the
Civil Rights Division was badly damaged during the Bush
administration. When I testified before the House judiciary
committee in March 2007, I noted that since April 2005, when I
left the voting section, of the five career attorneys in section
leadership (the chief and four deputy chiefs), only one deputy
chief remained. In the same time period, 20 of the 35 attorneys
in the section had either left DoJ, transferred to other sections (in
some cases involuntarily), or gone on details. Similarly, since
2002 in the employment section, the section chief and three of
the four deputy chiefs had been involuntarily reassigned or left,
and 21 of the 32 attorneys had either left or transferred. The
chiefs for the housing and criminal sections were involuntarily
removed in 2003 and 2005. It is my understanding that the Civil
Rights Division lost more than half of its career attorneys
(nonpolitical hires) during the Bush administration.
Such loss of experienced staff tells only part of the story. From
the outset, there was a conscious effort to wall off career
managers and attorneys in the Civil Rights Division from
participation in decision-making. Perhaps the most astounding
example was instructions from political appointees to appellate
section attorneys not to discuss their briefs with trial section staff
about a case the trial lawyers were handling. The damage to
effective law enforcement is obvious. Brian Landsberg, a former
career attorney now at McGeorge Law School, explains the
importance of close working relations between political and
career staff in his book Enforcing Civil Rights. He writes that the
design of the department "requires cooperation between the two
groups to achieve the proper balance between carrying out
administration policy and carrying out core law enforcement
duties. Where one group shuts itself out from influence by the
other, the department's effectiveness suffers."
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During the Bush administration, such crucial communication
was consciously discouraged. One of the first jobs of the
incoming division management will be to address this.
Subject: Crimes?
Stuart, you asked me to say more about the evidence of crimes
related to the 2006 U.S. attorney firings. The best source
document is the official report into the scandal by DoJ's Office
of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility.
It carefully documents the "sleazy and unethical conduct" that
you mention and specifically refers to a possible false statement
that former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson made before
Congress. It also says that "those seeking Iglesias' removal" may
have obstructed justice. (See Page 198 for all of this.) The report
further details possible wire fraud by those who "sought to
pressure Iglesias to take partisan political considerations into
account in his charging decision." (That's on Page 200.)
Who was seeking my "removal"? The term could refer to
Republican activists in New Mexico, members of the New
Mexico congressional delegation, or White House officials. The
report laments the fact that Sen. Pete Domenici and his chief of
staff, Steve Bell, did not cooperate with the investigation.
Neither did former DoJ staffer Monica Goodling. The White
House refused to produce some documents and e-mails related to
our firings. This is precisely why Dannehy will likely, if she
hasn't already, issue grand jury subpoenas to get the documents
that the White House failed to voluntarily produce.
As I wrote this summer in Slate, I am waiting with great
anticipation to see whether the vastly overused executive
privilege will be trotted out again in this criminal investigation.
Take a look at the Supreme Court's decision in United States v.
Nixon. It is well-settled that executive privilege cannot be used
to shield the president's staff members from criminal liability.
Regards,
David
From: Joseph Rich
Subject: Voter Fraud Is a Made-Up Problem
With respect to Dahlia's question as to whether there should be
adverse action taken against people hired or promoted to
management positions under the politicized hiring regime at
Justice, my short answer is no. That kind of retribution is
repeating the wrongs committed by the Bush administration.
That said, I repeat what I said in my first post: The incoming
division leadership must carefully examine the impact of
existing career management on the morale of section staff and
decide whether repair of that morale requires a change in section
management. In addition, the expectation of vigorous
enforcement of civil rights laws and of the priorities set by the
new administration must be clear to all staff.
Emily asked about the criminal investigation of alleged voting
fraud by ACORN shortly before the election. Last month, I
wrote a letter to Attorney General Mukasey, along with other
alumni of the Civil Rights Division—Brian Landsberg, whom I
mentioned earlier; Steve Pollak, assistant attorney general for
civil rights from 1967-69; Jim Turner, who served as the career
deputy assistant attorney general from 1969-94, and two
longtime career civision managers, Paul Hancock and Sandra
Coleman. We wrote:
As you are aware, activities by the Department
before and on Election Day have been limited
primarily to the important role of the Civil
Rights Division in placing federal observers to
monitor elections pursuant to provisions of the
Voting Rights Act. The activity is designed to
protect minority voters from racial
discrimination or intimidation. On the other
hand, the Department has long recognized that
initiating federal criminal investigations into
allegations of election fraud in the immediate
pre-election period can have a serious chilling
effect on voters, especially minority voters
who have experienced a long history of
discrimination and intimidation at elections.
This is recognized by the Criminal Division in
policies set forth in its manual addressing
federal prosecutions of election offenses. …
Allegations of voter registration fraud should
not be taken lightly. But, it is because of the
long recognized sensitivity to the role of
federal law enforcement officials in elections
that we have concern about press reports,
apparently leaked to the press by FBI officials,
that the Department recently opened a
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nationwide criminal investigation into the
allegations of fraud in the voter registration
efforts of a national community organization
that was engaged in registering low income
voters who are predominantly minority. It
would seem that this is the kind of
investigation that longtime Department policy
dictates should not be initiated until after an
election. We understand there may be
exceptions to this policy, but it is not clear that
this particular investigation should be one of
those exceptions.
We have not received a response to this letter. The only point I
would add is that, in my mind, there is little or no evidence of
systematic vote fraud in this country. Those concerned with
voter fraud point only to anecdotal cases, most of them never
prosecuted. The so-called Help America Vote Act, passed in
2002 in response to the 2000 election, includes several
provisions designed to address the specter of voter fraud that do
not help Americans vote but rather make it harder for them to do
so. That's why many-voting rights specialists are advocating for
new legislation to eliminate unnecessary barriers to voting and
particularly voter registration.
pass a preventive detention statute any time soon. The best way
to find out which of these cases are the ones that will be hard for
the courts to wrestle to the ground is to watch them try.
And while the lower courts hash out the Guantamo cases, the
Supreme Court has finally decided to hear Al-Marri v.
Pucciarelli, the case in which a guy captured inside the United
States has been held in a military brig indefinitely—suspected of
war crimes but never charged. What's the Obama DoJ going to
do with this one (briefs aren't due until after the new president
takes office)? I can't wait to find out. And I can't wait to see the
Obama administration actually put on its new legal running
shoes and take DoJ and the rest of the federal government out
for a spin. In the meantime, many thanks for your excellent
contributions to this discussion. You've been great, and we are
grateful.
Best,
Emily
.
.
From: Emily Bazelon
To: David Iglesias, Dahlia Lithwick, Joseph Rich, and Stuart Taylor
Subject: Al-Marri and a New Pair of Running Shoes
A few final thoughts here: Stuart, I'm glad you agree that there is
wisdom in letting the habeas litigation play out in the courts. I
understand your potential criticisms of dealing with highly
sensitive information in the federal courts. But they are just
that—potential. If there is confusion about the existing rules for
habeas litigation, as you say, well that's because the Bush
administration fought like hell to keep these cases walled off
from regular judges. All those rounds of Supreme Court
litigation weren't much about the actual standards for hearing
evidence—they were primarily about the preliminary call about
if and where the evidence would be heard. Now that we have a
different administration that presumably won't keep fighting that
already-lost battle, the courts will get to give developing
appropriate detention standards a real go. That helps explain, I
think, why Marty Lederman and others keep resisting calls to
From: Dahlia Lithwick
To: Emily Bazelon, David Iglesias, Joseph Rich, and Stuart Taylor
Subject: Loose Legal Ends
This has been an incredibly useful discussion, and yet I suspect
we have touched only the tip of the iceberg on some of these
issues! Just a few quick notes and loose ends, if I may. Stuart, I
am sure you have seen this report by Human Rights First
suggesting that having prosecuted more than 100 terrorismrelated cases, the government is actually pretty well-equipped to
try terrorists in the conventional court system. I don't dispute that
there are serious problems associated with the criminal courts.
But after the circus at Guantanamo this week, I am more
inclined than ever to go with the devil of a system we know.
Joe and David, your thoughts on vote fraud are very welcome,
especially given that the hysteria about this issue seems to be on
the rise, despite all the empirical evidence to the contrary. So I
end echoing the observation that you made in your first post,
Joe: The time to fix the voter-registration and voting laws is
now. As Justice Stevens noted in his Crawford opinion,
regardless of the actual data, voter confidence is ever-more
shaky. This has happened for many reasons, and vote fraud is
just a part of it. Still, here's hoping the new DoJ can rededicate
itself to safeguarding the right to vote, as David suggests, and
here's hoping that happens sooner rather than later. Thank you
all so much for your thoughts and insights.
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Dahlia
the chat room
Shredded Newspaper
Daniel Gross takes your questions about the decline of the Tribune Co. and
the future of fish wrap.
Slate's "Moneybox" columnist Daniel Gross was online on
Washingtonpost.com to chat with readers about Sam Zell and
the fall of the Tribune Co. An unedited transcript of the chat
follows.
Tokyo, Japan: It's Bill Ackman, not Dan Ackman.
Daniel Gross: correct you are. We will fix.
_______________________
Brooklyn, N.Y.: Would this have been a less awful move had
the credit crisis not hit? Or was it that dumb money was always
gonna come back to show us just how dumb everyone was?
Daniel Gross: In theory, yes, it would have been less awful. A
year ago, to think that he could get, say, $1 billion for the
Chicago Cubs, which is a great franchise and would attract lots
of bidders, was perhaps not entirely unrealistic. And he could
have taken those proceeds a decent sized chunk of debt—not to
make it in the long-term, but perhaps to get through this year.
I think, though, in the end, it was a question of "when" not "if"
for Tribune, given the underlying businesses. It's one thing to
have a company with relatively stable revenues and profits, like
a manufacturer of soup, supporting big debt. It's quite another
thing for a bunch of newspapers, whose revenues have been
unstable and whose profits have been tough to come by, to
support a massive amount of debt.
_______________________
Not anyone from The Post, honest: Do you think the future of
newspapers are their online versions? How do you judge (at the
risk of an appearance of conflict of interest) washingtonpost.com
and its online newspaper? Personally, I find The Post far ahead
of most other newspapers in developing an online site.
Daniel Gross: So, while I work for the Washington Post
Company (my salary comes from Newsweek & Slate), I don't
work directly for the Washington Post. So no big conflict of
interest. And it's how I read the Post (it's not on the newsstand
where I live). I think it's very good. The New York Times has
been doing an excellent job, and so has the WSJ, except you
have to pay for that.
That said, in answer to your question, I think it's likely that, say,
30 years from now, newspapers in their current form may not be
with us. However, for the near future, I think the newspapers'
future will be in a combination of print and online. When things
are going well in the economy at large, newspapers have proven
they can be profitable businesses, and the revenues from online
only aren't enough to support the newsgathering and all the other
resources that make the online publications great.
_______________________
New York, N.Y.: Who would you compare the situation with
the Tribune to the situation with the New York Times? I know
the Times has its troubles but—or am I wrong—there seems to
be a family ownership that has kept the paper in check and is
fighting to see that the Times survives.
Daniel Gross: The situation with the Times is very different
than that with the Tribune. For one, the level of debt at the
Times Co. is much more manageable—it's a challenge for the
Times to manage, but nothing on the scale of what was piled on
the Tribune.
Family ownership at publicly held companies (the washington
post co. falls into this category) can be a double-edged sword at
times. On the one hand, it encourages long-term thinking,
preservation of capital, and guards against things like the Zell
takeover. On the other hand, it sometimes means there are other
interest at work. Take, for example, the New York Times and its
dividend.
Right now, the Times' main operating businesses—the New York
Times and the Boston Globe—don't seem to be making money.
About.com seems to be generating some cash. And it has some
valuable assets—its building, a chunk of the Boston Red Sox—
but it can only monetize those by selling. In an environment
where cash is king and access to credit is difficult, you would
think a company in the Times' situation would be doing
everything it can to preserve capital. Eliminating your dividend
would seem to be a no-brainer.
And yet in recent years, the Times increased its dividend—only
to cut it sharply (but not eliminate it). One of the reasons, of
course, is that there are a few generations of Sulzbergers who
depend on the Times Co.'s dividends to support themselves in
comfort. So there are times when family control can influence
corporate policies in ways that are not always optimal.
81/104
On the whole, however, in this climate, companies are
frequently off under family control than under the control of
highly indebted private equity types.
Daniel Gross: Hi Philly—I don't know much about the situation
with the Inquirer and Daily News. But it's quite similar to that of
the Tribune—a leveraged play by non newspaper people.
_______________________
_______________________
Texas: How likely is it that the Cubs would be sold by the
Tribune Company and for how much? Based on past interest, do
you have any ideas as which parties would be interested buyers
of the franchise?
Baltimore: So Sam Zell has ruined a huge media company, but
he managed to put up only $315 million out of his many billions
to do it. Yes, it was rapacious and unconscionable, but if you
have to do something rapacious and unconscionable, at least he
picked a smart way to do it.
Daniel Gross: Interesting questions. So, a year ago, it was
common to hear people say that the Cubs could go for $1 billion,
which is a lot of money. And of course, there's more to the Cubs
(in terms of what Tribune owns) than the team. I believe they
might have owned the stadium, as well as all or part of WGN,
the tv station that carries the cubs' games.
Lots of names have been floated. Mark Cuban, owner of the
Dallas Mavericks, various Chicago-based financiers. But pretty
much all the names floated have seen their net worths hacked
significantly in the past year. I'd say it's likely to be a consortium
rather than a single individual.
Now I hope that maybe my hometown paper, the Baltimore Sun,
can fall under local ownership and not be the piece of trash it's
become.
Daniel Gross: "only $315 million"? Even for Zell, that's real
money.
re: future ownership. That's the big question. Will the papers be
sold off individually or in groups? Will someone come in and try
to run the whole company. We don't have any answers yet.
_______________________
_______________________
Dunn Loring, Va.: You and others commenting on the
Tribune's failure have focused on Sam Zell's incompetent
management, but since most newspapers are slumping, aren't
there other factors (such as the lack of objective reporting) that
greatly contribute to the overall decline?
Daniel Gross: Newspapers' decline stems from two factors. One
is secular (i.e. it's a long-term trend)—and that is that advertising
dollars, resources, and eyeballs are moving away from printed
newspapers to tv, online, mobile, etc. Also, classified ads, which
were a big moneymaker for newspapers, have basically gone to
Craigslist.
The second factor is more cyclical—namely the recession, and
the fact that advertising always shrinks during recessions across
the board. Virtually every form of media is finding reduced
advertising spending.
_______________________
Philadelphia: There was a sense of some that a few years ago, a
partisan political operator with little newspaper experience got a
group of investors to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer and
Philadelphia Daily News at an overvalued price. These company
is declining in value, I am not sure how readership is (they
proclaimed in an ad that it is up). So I wonder: Do you have any
sense on what the future may hold for the Philadelphia dailies?
Reston, Va.: There is a Web site which lists Tribune's
acquisitions from 1924 forward. You can look at the acquisitions
year by year.
Eventually you get to 2007, and there it is: Zell buys Tribune.
And whoosh, only one year passes and the whole enterprise files
for bankruptcy.
It seems to me something is off-base. This company made
acquisition decisions going back 80 plus years, then suddenly
Zell appears, buys it, and they go bankrupt. Is it possible that this
was orchestrated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or perhaps
an investment group (hedge fund in particular) with very
influential members?
Daniel Gross: i don't think the u.s. chamber of commerce had
anything to do with this.
This deal was thought up by someone whom the world had
dubbed to be an investing genius, it was backed and advised by
all the blue-chip investment banks, and name-brand banks lent
tons of money to the company. The net worth—and reputation—
of all involved has taken a significant hit.
It was just a miracle of poor timing.
_______________________
82/104
Your blog: After reading your book, Pop!, I went to your Web
site.
next industry to successfully pull off that business model will be
the first.
Do you not update that anymore?
Daniel Gross: that might be a simplification. I don't think he
really had a strategy to deal with the newspapers per se. This
was a guy who probably hadn't thought for more than a few
minutes about how to run a newspaper before taking control of
the companies. Basically, he saw a financial opportunity—
acquire control of Tribune with very little down and lots of debt
and hope to flip pieces of it.
Daniel Gross: First, thanks so much for reading. And, yes, when
I joined the staff of Newsweek in the summer of '07 I stopped
updating the blog. Basically, you can see all my work on Slate
or on Newsweek.com
_______________________
_______________________
Baltimore: What happens to all the people who took the
Tribune buyout during the last year? Do they still get paid, or are
they now unsecured creditors?
Seems pretty slimy if they get rid of workers with the promise of
severance, even while knowing they're about to declare
bankruptcy and not make good on those obligations.
Daniel Gross: That's a good question. To a degree, it depends
where the buyout money came from. Sometimes, if companies'
pension funds are overfunded, they can use those assets to fund
buyouts and severance. And in that case, a bankruptcy wouldn't
mean the workers were out of luck. I know one of the big
creditors of Tribune Co. is Mark Willes, who was a former CEO
and is owed several million in retirement money. oh well.
_______________________
New York Times: I had to look with one eye closed when the
New York Times company mortgaged their building to fund
current operations.
If real estate has not hit a bottom, won't this endanger the
company long term.
Didn't anyone read your book, Pop?
Daniel Gross: The Times basically took out a home equity line
of credit on its new home in New York. It wants to borrow about
$225 million, I believe, which is probably only about 1/3 of the
value of the building. So it's a pretty conservative move. And
they're not using the proceeds to fund current operations. They
want to use it to pay down some debt and have cash on hand in
case they have difficulty rolling over existing credit lines.
Washington, D.C.: It's been my understanding that many
(most?) newspapers are still profitable—there just isn't any
growth, which isn't good enough for shareholders. Incorrect?
I know that some people did read my book, Pop.
Daniel Gross: I think many newspapers are profitable, although
this year—and this quarter in particularly—I would guess that
not all that many are. Newspapers are really tied to the economic
cycle—when a recession hits, people cut back on discretionary
spending, like newspaper subscriptions, and advertisers pull
back.
Evanston, Ill.: Hey Dan, you wrote a provocative book about
why bubbles are good for the economy. Of course there are
beneficial side effects but I think the questions is what is the net
effect of a given bubble. Is it safe to conclude that the housing
bubbles benefits are outweighed by fallout we are now living
through?
You could check out the quarterly results of Gannett Co.
Daniel Gross: Hi Evanston—I don't want to give away the
whole book here. It's still available for sale, after all. But
basically, the argument is that bubbles are good when they leave
behind a new commercial infrastructure that others can use—
like the telegraph, the railroad, or the Internet. In other words,
without Web bubble 1.0, we don't get Google. Without the
telegraph bubble of the 1840s and 1850s, we wouldn't have got
the Associated Press and Western Union. When the bubble is in
something like paper (credit, stocks) or in something that doesn't
really create a new commercial infrastructure (housing), we don't
get the same benefits.
Seems like they made a pretty decent profit on newspaper
operations in the most recent quarter
_______________________
Hartford, Conn.: From where I sit the Zell strategy seems to be
to cheapen the product so its inherent value to the consumer
(news) is even less so, in the hopes that it can shrink its way
back to profitability, then regain its lost luster in some way. The
_______________________
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_______________________
Toronto: How do the sellers of the Tribune Co. feel about their
sale to Zell now?
together and work out deals under the supervision. There's a lot
of negotiations, threats, discussions, and sometimes litigation in
bankruptcy court. But in a typical bankruptcy, the parties work
out deals without massive intervention from the judge.
Do they feel as though they erred in selling to a person who used
other peoples money and saddled the company with large debts,
as opposed to selling parts of the Co. piecemeal to people like
David Geffen, or do you think they simply do not care, because
they made a lot of money in the sale?
_______________________
Daniel Gross: I think the people who sold the Tribune Co.
actually feel pretty good. They got a good cash price for their
stock at what turned out to be the top of the market. Had they
said no, and held on, that stock would probably be cut in half,
just like every other media stock.
See you next time
Daniel Gross: Looks like the hour is coming to a close.
Thanks for all the great questions.
Dan
_______________________
Miami, Fla.: Any idea why they took on additional $3B in debt?
Seems they paid for business with $300 million from Zell and
$9B from banks to pay off family, Wall St and Fitzsimmons.
After this transaction Zell was able to add $3B additional debt—
seems like straight forward corporate looting, especially when
the business reported $100M-plus profits each quarter in 2007
and 1st 1/2 of '08.
Daniel Gross: I think—not sure, though—that the $3 b may
have been existing debt. In other words, when you buy a
company you assume all its assets and liabilities. That's why it's
sometimes confusing when we report about the size of deals. If
you put $1 billion cash down, and borrow $9 billion to pay $10
billion for a company that has $5 billion in debt, the price of the
deal is $10 billion, but the value of it may be $15 billion, since
the new entity is assuming that existing debt.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: In the early '90s, when my cousin used to
connive to me about terrorists hijacking jets with box knives, I
used to tell him that Communism was coming to America
through the federal bankruptcy courts, not through firebombs in
the streets. Then his younger brother would chime in that the
government was going to provide us all with the cure for anthrax
after a bioweapon attack—in exchange for our guns.
How much power does the federal court's overseer have in
deciding which Tribune creditors get paid and which do not?
That would be the most powerful job in the company, wouldn't
it?
the chat room
Holiday Survival Guide
Advice columnist Dear Prudence answers readers' Christmas conundrums.
Emily Yoffe, who dispenses advice as Slate's "Dear Prudence"
columnist, was online at Washingtonpost.com to take readers'
questions about holiday-related quandaries. An unedited
transcript of the chat follows.
Emily Yoffe: Happy holidays everyone! Okay, let's try to get
some of the bah humbug out of the season.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: With the economy the way it is, my wife
and I had to immediately cancel all gifts to each other (The kids'
gifts were purchased mostly over the summer). I'm in the middle
of home repairs/improvements which will be complete by the
weekend in time for the holidays. Given that there's no time at
all to come up with a thoughtful poem and my wife will not
consider the home improvements as a sort of gift, what can I do
that's both free and doesn't take up time I don't have?
Emily Yoffe: I'm not quite understanding your agreement—no
presents for each other, except your wife expects a present?
Since it sounds as if a poem will do, hit the anthologies, find a
love poem that expresses what she means to you, especially
during these tough times, hand copy it (but don't pretend you
wrote it!) and attach a rose.
_______________________
Daniel Gross: Bankruptcy court isn't supposed to be a place
where the judge decides who gets paid and who doesn't. It's
supposed to be a place where the creditors and debtors get
Alexandria, Va.: I am a Muslim man who is dating a Christian
lady. She has invited me to spend Christmas with her and her
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family this year. I have never celebrated Christmas and would
feel uncomfortable celebrating it now. When I raise the issue of
not going, she gets upset and her feelings are hurt, which makes
me just want to give in so that she is happy. How can I handle
this? Knowing that this will be an issue every year, and an even
bigger issue if we ever get married and have kids. Help!!!
Emily Yoffe: If you're thinking about getting married, you need
to work this out before you do—and certainly before you have
kids. The question of what religion to observe is not just a
Christmas issue, but it's particularly loaded then. But your
attending your girlfriend's festivities does not mean you are
abandoning your own religion, just that you acknowledge she
has a different faith, and you are happy to share this happy
occasion with her.
indicate that attendance is de riguer, but less than half of the
company attended my office party this past weekend. Is my
office atypical?
Emily Yoffe: See the letter above. I'm wondering if you may be
the victim of office overkill with people feeling, "I just can't
attend one more office event!" But if you are having THE office
party, you're right, people should make every effort to attend.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: Ugh—parents and in-laws and siblings are
already fighting over the 72 hours I have "at home." I also want
to make time to see friends with whom I get together every year.
How do you deal with guilt tripping relatives, particularly the
moms?
_______________________
Oak Creek, Wis.: Dear Prudence, how can I get my three
bosses to stop buying me a holiday gift? It's not that I don't like
the joint gift, it's just that then I have to buy something for the
three of them. Their incomes greatly exceed mine, so buying
three gifts of a quality I think they would appreciate really is a
strain on my pocketbook. I would feel awkward receiving a gift
but not giving. What do you suggest?
Emily Yoffe: Your bosses do not expect you to reciprocate on
the same level—they know what you make and that you're their
subordinate. Simply write them each a note expressing your
thanks. You could attach it to a small box of fudge or a
gingerbread cookie.
_______________________
Huntsville, Ala.: How do I get out of these stupid office holiday
celebrations without looking anti-social? There is a holiday party
for everything—the org, the dept., the workgroup, the team, the
contractor group, and a December birthday party outing. To top
it off, we have to pay for our meal ourselves or bring in a dish.
Do they not realize I have a family I need to provide for? Bah
humbug!
Emily Yoffe: A group of you have to get together right away
and declare a holiday policy (although it may be too late for this
year). One general party, and another for a group in a specific
division is fine, but a month long series of celebrations, at which
you're expected to supply the victuals, is ridiculous. Once you've
made an appearance at one or two, you can politely decline the
rest.
_______________________
Ellicott City, Md.: What is the real etiquette with attendance at
holiday office parties? Newspaper and online articles seem to
Emily Yoffe: There's nothing more festive then being forced to
enjoy the company of relatives for 72 hours straight because IT'S
THE HOLIDAYS! You do have an obligation to your family—
Christmas does mean more than spring break. But families have
to be flexible enough to understand that people grow up, create
families of their own, and required attendance just increases the
desire for a prison break. Before you go home tell your family
(Mom) that you've scheduled a couple of visits with old friends
and alert her when you'll be gone, then explain you'll be around
the rest of the time. If she knows what to expect there may be
less drama.
_______________________
Memphis, Tenn.: I finally got up the nerve to ask my boyfriend
of almost two years if I could join him in visiting his small,
close-knit, east-coast family for the annual Christmas
pilgrimage. To my delight he said yes but is concerned about his
mother, who just had a heart attack in the fall and is still not
"herself" though is home and recovering. I know she'll try her
best to be a hostess as is her nature, but I'm no ordinary house
guest and she doesn't need to impress me. I'd like to make
myself useful even though I've never celebrated Christmas
myself. How to best show her that I'm game and incidentally that
I'm daughter-in-law material? She and I have met and she does
seem to like me.
Emily Yoffe: I'm a little worried about the relationship if after
two years it took "getting up the nerve" to see about spending the
holidays together. The best thing you can do is not try to impress
your possibly future mother-in-law that you desperately want her
to be your mother-in-law. Relax! Enjoy yourself. Ask how you
can make yourself helpful, then do so. If you're not allowed to
help, then play with the little kids or offer to take the dog for a
walk. Don't make this into an audition for family membership—
your tension is all anyone will notice.
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_______________________
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: What do I do when I receive a gift from
someone I have no plans on getting a gift for? I have a very tight
budget. I also do not want to start a trend of giving gifts to
people that I don't feel close to. If they feel I am close to them, I
appreciate that, but I am not going to fake that we are closer than
I actually feel we are!
Fairfax, Va.: Hi Ms. Yoffe. I am a student, so obviously on a
budget, but I have noticed that gifts I give to my brother (usually
DVDs or CDs since he never gives my family any idea what he
wants) get thrown away by his wife. This has happened several
years in a row and I'm frankly pretty tired of throwing money
down the drain.
I will write a thank you note. That's as far as I will go; am I
terrible?
Emily Yoffe: Write a gracious note and let it go.
Emily Yoffe: Why not make an agreement that the adults will
only get gifts for the children and not exchange gifts this year?
Even if they don't agree, you can declare this is what you have to
do this year, then stick with it.
_______________________
_______________________
Suggestions for Washington D.C.: A handwritten gift
certificate for a foot massage, complete with baby oil.
Washington, D.C.: To Alexandria, Va.:
A handwritten gift certificate for a candelit bubble bath, either 1.
solo, with you keeping the kids away from the bathroom for one
whole hour. Or 2. bubble bath for two, if the kids are old enough
to understand the bathroom restriction.
A promissory note for one month of the chore she dislikes the
most.
I'm sure you can think of one or two other things along this line.
Emily Yoffe: See these good suggestions for the husband with
no time and money and whose wife, after agreeing to no gift,
wants a gift.
_______________________
Philly: Hello—last Christmas, I gave all of my husband's family
members cute (but inexpensive) ornaments with some
homemade cookies. I don't have a lot of money so I am planning
on giving the same family members either a collage of family
pictures, a frame, or other small items. Money is tight, as we all
know. However, last Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a
very expensive gift—I know it was ten times as much as I had
spent on them because she left the price tag on! I feel like this
big, nice, expensive gift has sort of upped the gift ante, so to
speak. Should I get something a little nicer for the mother/father-in-law? Money is an issue for me but is definitely not an
issue for them. Help!
Emily Yoffe: Resist the temptation to enter into this potlach
ceremony. This is the hospitality tradition of some Northwest
tribes (I believe) where they bankrupt themselves by exchanging
ever more elaborate gifts. Stick with your plans, and don't act
defensive or embarrassed about the gift imbalance.
As a Catholic woman who has dated non-Christian men (and
who has non-Christian friends), I thought I would offer one
perspective. When I invite others to holiday celebrations
(Christmas, Easter, etc.), my goal is not to convert them or have
them take part in any overtly religious activities. Rather, I want
to spend time with them and share the holidays with them. I
assume the same thing when others invite me to their religious
events. If what you are concerned about is overt religious
celebration, perhaps you can make a compromise—joining her
family for the Christmas gathering but not going to church with
them. She might be upset because she feels that, by not coming
to the gathering, you are snubbing her family.
Emily Yoffe: This is in response to the writer who is Muslim
and is uncomfortable about spending Christmas with his
girlfriend's family. You are exactly right—don't look at sharing
the holiday as a conversion event, but enjoying someone else's
(someone you love, presumably) tradition.
_______________________
Capitol Hill, D.C.: Do you have any suggestions for how to disinvite relatives who have declared their intent to crash chez moi
for the Inauguration? I have told them that it will likely be cold,
there will be a shortage of port-a-potties on the Mall, no large
bags will be allowed on the Mall, if you live within two miles of
the Capitol you have to walk (stay off public transportation), I
have three cats and four litter boxes, bars will be open till 5 am,
there will be no smoking in my condo, and other things that
would dissuade any rational person. So far they are still coming.
Help. Thank you.
Emily Yoffe: Normally I am in favor of just flat out telling
friends you don't want to play host to that that while you'd love
to see them, this simply isn't a good time. For many people this
Inaugural is not a normal time, but an historic time. I think you
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should be flexible on this and open your home for a few days. So
what if they get stuck freezing on the mall looking for a portapotty—you will be home all cozy and curled up with the kitties.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: My husband doesn't want us to spend
money on gifts, which is fine, but he already bought me a purse.
I was going to buy some tickets to his favorite team at a venue
within driving distance and an inexpensive hotel room so we can
stay overnight, but he says he doesn't want it. For my sports (and
music) fanatic husband, what can I get him that isn't too
expensive, but that still gives him SOME type of gift?
Emily Yoffe: If the sports fanatic has said no to this gift, he
really wants no gift. So see a previous list of suggestions—you
can delete bubble bath and give your husband a gift certificate
for a massage (from you), or make his favorite meal, etc.
_______________________
Cincinnati, Ohio: My sister flies to my house every year for
Christmas. Last year, we drove to my parents' house in the
Detroit area for the actual holiday. My parents' house is a
mess—crammed with stuff, nowhere to sit, and, now that their
dog has cancer, it smells like urine. My sister wants to go to their
house again this year, and my stomach is in knots at the thought.
I've done everything I can to get their house cleaned up, but it
never works. My parents could come to my house (they have
many times in the past), so it's not a question of leaving them
alone on Christmas. What can I do? She doesn't understand how
awful it has become.
Emily Yoffe: It sounds as if your sister just can't let go of the
idea that Christmas means coming home to your parents house,
even if the dog is peeing on the Christmas tree. Since your
parents have agreed to Christmas at your home previously, they
sound as if they are more than happy to pass on the hosting
responsibilities. So simply make an executive decision and tell
sis and the parents it's Christmas at your house this year, and
make the arrangement to get your parents there.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: I'm dreading the holidays "back home"
because many members of my family are very racist, and they
know my politics and know I voted for Obama. I'll hear a lot of
really awful things. My Mom (an Obama supporter) can't stand
any kind of discord, and has asked me to just keep my mouth
shut. I feel that my nieces and nephews should see and hear an
adult who thinks differently from their parents. Am I right?
Emily Yoffe: Not getting into political squabbles for the sake of
a placid holiday and letting openly racist remarks pass are two
different things. On the other hand, are you possibly reading
racism into remarks that are simply critical of Obama? If family
members complain they wish McCain had won, just shrug it
off—he didn't after all. But for racist remarks go ahead and say
something like, "Uncle Stan, I find those kind of comments
deeply disturbing. It's fine that you don't like the President-elect,
but I wish you would keep your remarks about him civil."
_______________________
Chicago: What do I say to my mother-in-law when she
comments on my real or supposed weight loss. I have lost a few
pounds—somehow it isn't really noticeable to anyone but her.
The problem is that she then tends to remark that she's never had
weight problems. I usually lie and deny that I've lost any weight.
Is there a better way to handle this?
Emily Yoffe: Ah, the annual passive-aggressive weigh-in. It
doesn't sound as if your mother-in-law is really that interested in
whether you've lost weight, she just wants everyone to register
her marvelous shape. So disarm her. When she comments on
your weight loss just smile and say, "Thanks for noticing!"
When she adds how great she looks, keep smiling and say,
"Louise, you have always had an enviable figure!"
_______________________
Phoenix, Ariz.: Hi Emily!
I'm a middle-aged lesbian. My parents have never liked my
partner or taken our relationship seriously, even though we have
been together for 25 wonderful years. The holidays are
especially stressful and I tend to visit my parents alone for a few
days before Christmas. Their health is failing, however, and I
feel pressured to be with them on Christmas eve and day. I'd like
my partner to attend (she is anxious to, by the way) and give
family togetherness another shot before it's too late. Any
suggestions?
Emily Yoffe: Just try being honest. Don't get into the past, but
tell your parents you're looking forward to seeing them, but the
holidays are meaningful to you and your partner as well. Say
that the best way to make everyone happy is for all of you the
spend the time together. If your parents don't outright refuse,
then do it. If they make a fuss, then explain you won't be able to
spend as much time with them as you would like because you're
not going to leave your partner alone for the whole holiday.
_______________________
Maine: I have gotten a lot of negative responses from people
who have asked about my family's Christmas plans. Because my
husband's office is closed for much of the holidays we tack on
some vacation days and take an extended trip to see his parents
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who live rather far away. The drive is no fun, but once we get
there we are able to have a nice, long visit with my husband's
family who we don't see as much a we'd like. It's a good place to
visit, we all get our own rooms and the kids get to spend a lot
time with their extended family. However, many people have
been saying to me, "How can you do that to your kids, they
should be home for Christmas." Sure, there is part of me that
would like to just stay home, but family is important to us and
these plans are working for our family for the time being. How
do I respond to the negative comments without being overly
defensive?
Emily Yoffe: There are people in your life who make you feel
defensive for having a wonderful time with your in-laws? Who
are these people? Why are you listening to them? If you find
yourself discussing this issue with any of these people just say,
"I am so blessed to have wonderful in-laws and lucky that we
have enough time off so that the kids can really spend time with
their grandparents." Then change the subject!
_______________________
Christmas Blues: My youngest (age 21) sister has a deep, deep
anxiety regarding all things holiday-related. It has increased over
the years to the extent that she will hide in her room during all
family meals, movie watching and "let's go look at the lights"
type activities. I would really like to make sure I spend time with
her over Christmas, but in ways that respect her anxiety. Do you
have any suggestions? Thanks.
Emily Yoffe: Your sister needs to see a doctor. If she hides in
her room for family meals, she has crippling anxiety or possibly
other disorders. Get the family member closest to her help her
seek help (she may be unable to take these steps herself). There
are wonderful medications and therapies that can help her
conquer this and rejoin life.
_______________________
Re: Inauguration: I have to disagree with you heartily on the
Inauguration question. It's historic, yes, but it's not ever
permissible to just invite yourself to someone's house. Sounds
like they decided they'd crash at his/her place, and that was that.
Emily Yoffe: I know what you mean, but usually when you
don't want to host family members you can say, "There's a Motel
6 not to far from me that serves wonderful hard-boiled eggs at
breakfast." There's no Motel 6 available in this case. I say let
them crash. They'll be spending most of their time caught in a
huge crush anyway and out of her hair.
_______________________
Reference: The Office Party: I straight up told my coworker
that I wasn't going to an office holiday party with those who talk
about me behind my back the rest of the year! She told me to get
into the festive spirit and let her know of three occasions when
she talked about me! Yes Virginia, there is a Bah Humbug!
Emily Yoffe: Hoo boy, if everyone refused to attend an office
party with anyone who ever talked about them behind their back
we finally, finally would end the tradition of the office party.
Everybody talks about everybody at the office. Given the tone of
your note, there may be a reason people talk about you. Your coworker is right—lighten up, and not just at this time of year.
_______________________
Los Angeles: Dear Prudie,
Love your advice! Look forward to it each week. Here's my
dilemma: Every Christmas for the past 12 years, I have sent out
cards with a funny Christmas letter about our lives over the past
year. I really enjoy writing it and many friends tell me they look
forward to my letter every year. This year is different because
my husband's mother is terminally ill. She may not even make it
through Christmas. I'm at a loss as what to do. If I send the letter
do I mention my mother-in-law, or just what our family has been
doing? If I do not include a letter, how do I respond to those who
want to know what happened to the letter? I don't want to gloss
over this sad time in our family, but I don't want to dampen
anyone's Christmas cheer with a sad letter. My husband says he
can't even think about Christmas right now.
Yours faithfully,
Sad Writer
Emily Yoffe: I know we're all supposed to cackle at the
Christmas letter, but I love them. But there is no obligation to try
to write something worthy of David Sedaris every year. You can
write some of the fun, happy things that happened to you, then in
another paragraph you can say 2008 has had its painful parts as
well because your beloved mother-in-law is gravely ill. Write a
few words of tribute to her and say that you feel so blessed to
have had her in your life for so long. You will not bring people
down—they will be touched, and you will probably move them
to appreciate their loved ones more.
_______________________
Mixed-Language Family: I am spending Christmas with my
boyfriend's family for the first time. In addition to his parents,
his two married brothers, their wives, his unmarried teenage
brother, and the wives' mothers will be present, making for quite
a tribe. My boyfriend and his brothers grew up in a Spanishspeaking country. Most of us (including myself) are bilingual,
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but some people only speak English, and some only speak
Spanish. We are spending several days with them, so I expect to
engage in lots of different activities with different combinations
of people. When is it appropriate to speak English and when is it
appropriate to speak Spanish?
Emily Yoffe: It sounds like you're in for a busy, fun holiday. It
also sounds as if there are no hard rules in this Spanglish
household. What people need to do is keep in mind the linguistic
abilities of everyone. If the conversation is all in Spanish, or
English but there are people in the room who are being left out,
then recommend you switch. But it sounds as if in this group
anyone can move on a find a conversation to join.
_______________________
Durham, N.C.: I have a group of friends who get together at
Christmas and do a gift exchange—everyone brings one gift
worth about $25 and then the fun ensues. Except that I'm a grad
student and I only spend about $25 on family members (each,
not total). I'd rather just give each of them a little homemade
goodie. I've successfully avoided the party in the past, but I'm
tired of coming up with excuses for not going. I don't want to
end their fun, but I don't want to have to put out another $25 as
the cost of playing. What to do?
Emily Yoffe: Just explain to the group that you'd love to come,
but the entry tab would bust your budget, so you're going to give
cookies. It may inspire everyone to lower the gift fee. Or if they
are really fanatics on this $25 gift tab, say you'd love to join
them, but when the gifts start being exchanged, you'll happily
watch as a spectator.
short time-line tell them you need it extended. Sounds like you
have a nice boss.
_______________________
Inauguration (again): Wow, I usually agree with you, but you
got it way wrong this time.
You're telling the poster that she has no right to her own privacy,
just because she happens to live near a place where an
interesting event is occurring?
Let's leave alone the argument of "it's history"; that is irrelevant.
Someone else's desire for free accommodations never trumps
your right to say no. Period.
"I'm sorry, I just don't have room for guests." That's all you owe
them. They can't get a room someplace? They can if they're
willing to pay enough. They're not willing to pay enough? Then
they can't come. The same holds true for my desire to go to
Paris.
Emily Yoffe: Lots of people are mad that I said let the family
crash for the Inaugural. Okay, tell the family, "Sorry if you care
enough about this event, go to Craig's list and find someone else
willing to have you. I hear rooms are starting at about $500 a
night."
You're right, no one can invite themselves. And people who live
in desirable cities have to be firm about not being taken
advantage of year in and year out. But is saying no to a few days
of family visiting for this specific occasion really worth all the
years of resentment it will engender? I say make an exception.
(But if Obama gets re-elected, no crashing in 2012.)
_______________________
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: My boss gave me a generous gift certificate
to a high-end spa as a holiday gift. I truly appreciate his
thoughtfulness and have already given him a thank-you note
with a box of his favorite gourmet cookies. The problem is that
even the least expensive services that the spa offers significantly
exceed the value of the gift certificate. Money is very tight for
me and I don't see being able to come up with the difference
during the next few months, before the certificate expires. What
should I do? He has already asked me when I plan to schedule
my "spa day"! I also really hate to think that he has wasted his
money. The certificate is addressed to me personally, so I can't
even give it to someone else who has the means to pay the
difference.
Emily Yoffe: You need to contact the spa and explain your
problem. Surely if your boss gave you a "generous" gift
certificate that would cover a pedicure at this place. Talk to the
manager about how you can take advantage of this gift. And
usually such gift certificates are good for a year—if yours has a
Gaithersburg, Md.: Worst office party Christmas gift: used,
empty pepper grinder. I kid you not.
Emily Yoffe: I'd love that gift! My pepper grinder just broke!
_______________________
Emily Yoffe: Thanks everyone for your fascinating holiday
dilemmas. Best wishes for 2009!
the green lantern
Should I Buy a Fake Fir?
Or is it better for the environment to cut down a real Christmas tree?
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By Brendan I. Koerner
Please help settle an argument that's threatening to tear my
family apart this holiday season: What's worse for the
environment, a real Christmas tree that lasts just a few
weeks, or an artificial one that we can haul out every
December for the next 15 years?
Crunching the numbers on this quandary is tough, if only
because so much of the public information is skewed in favor of
natural trees. America's Christmas tree growers have a fearsome
lobby, one that's spent the past few years demonizing the
artificial competition; check out this hilariously alarmist FAQ by
the National Christmas Tree Association, which lambastes fake
firs and pines as beetle-infested fire hazards descended from
toilet brushes. (According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the
NCTA started going on the attack in 2004 in response to
declining sales.)
Despite its hyperbolic rhetoric, the real-trees industry makes at
least one excellent point when denigrating the fakes: The needles
on artificial trees are usually made from polyvinyl chloride, or
PVC, which is anathema to Greenpeacers and their ilk. As the
Lantern discussed two weeks back, PVC is widely reviled as a
major source of dioxins. To make matters worse, cheap PVC is
sometimes stabilized with lead, which can break free as harmful
dust as a fake tree ages.
Growing concern over PVC has led fake-tree manufacturers to
develop polyethylene needles; according to one prominent
treemaker, 20 percent of artificial Christmas trees are now PE
rather than PVC. But watch out for sleight of hand when it
comes to "eco-friendly" fake trees; most of those 20 percent still
contain PVC interior needles in order to create a fuller look.
As you note, the chief environmental selling point with fake
trees is the fact they can be reused, which means that energy
doesn't have to be expended year after year getting the product to
market. But how much transportation fuel does an artificial tree
really save? Let's make an estimate based on shipping each type
of tree to a decidedly average American burg: Lebanon, Kan.,
claimant to the title of Geographic Center of the Lower 48.
The vast majority—at least 85 percent—of fake trees come from
Asia, so we'll base our estimate on a Shanghai-to-Long-Beach,
Calif., voyage aboard a container ship. A large ship capable of
holding 2,125 40-foot containers will consume about 1,000
metric tons of fuel during its two-week journey across the
Pacific Ocean. Let's say that there's only one container of fake
trees on that ship, which means the trees' share of that fuel is
roughly 1,037 pounds. On the last stretch of the journey, from
Long Beach to Lebanon, the Yuletide cargo travels on a truck
that gets six miles per gallon. On that 1,160-mile road trip, the
truck will consume about 193 gallons of gas, which weighs
around 1,158 pounds. Total for the trip from Shanghai to northcentral Kansas: 2,195 pounds of fuel.
Now let's compare that fuel usage to 15 years' worth of real
trees. (The Lantern is actually skeptical that most artificial trees
last that long—especially the cheapest ones—but let's go with
it.) In order to consume 2,195 pounds of fuel, your real trees
would have to average a farm-to-retailer journey of 146.3 miles,
assuming they are transported on the same six-mpg trucks
mentioned above.* And even though the NCTA likes to point
out that tree farms operate in all 50 states—yes, even in
Florida—odds are the trees at your local lot traveled farther than
that.
Yet the Lantern is still going to cast his vote for real trees: PVCs
are just too worrisome, and so is the disposal issue. It's easy to
track down a local program that will turn your real tree into
mulch, but even the hardiest plastic tree is doomed to wind up in
a landfill, where it will remain intact for ages. As for the fakes'
advantage in terms of transportation energy, you can minimize
this by being an informed consumer and trying to buy as locally
as possible. (Also, don't worry about deforestation—98 percent
of American trees are farm-raised, and they are usually replaced
on a 3-to-1 basis after each harvest.)
The Lantern realizes, though, that raising Christmas trees may
not be the most efficient use of land, and that pesticides are an
integral part of the farming process. You may also blanch at the
idea of killing a living thing solely so you and yours can enjoy a
few weeks of pine-scented joy. In that case, lessen your guilt by
buying a tree that you plan on planting after the holidays,
complete with roots; just make sure you don't keep it indoors for
more than a week, or it might become so acclimated to your
living room that it won't survive outdoors.
There are also a few cities, like San Francisco, that offer rent-atree programs; they'll bring you a potted tree, then take it back
after the holidays and plant it somewhere that needs a dash of
green. A smart idea, but traditionalists beware: The trees on
offer don't look like the ones you grew up with, but are rather
very young Southern magnolias and small-leaf tristanias. They
certainly don't appear capable of supporting that massive Three
Wise Men ornament you inherited from Grandma.
Is there an environmental quandary that's been keeping you up at
night? Send it to [email protected], and check this
space every Tuesday.
Correction, Dec. 18, 2007: This piece originally stated that real
trees would have to average a farm-to retailer journey of 4.1
miles in order to consume 2,195 pounds of fuel. That distance is
actually 146.3 miles. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
90/104
the green lantern
How To Spend Your Christmas Cash
What's the best environmental value for your dollar?
By Jacob Leibenluft
Every Christmas, my grandmother puts a check for $100
into my stocking. This year, I want to spend that money on
reducing my carbon footprint. How can I do the most good
with that money?
What a good boy you are! The Lantern is glowing with pride.
Unfortunately, this is a thorny question, and your most
fundamental assumption may be wrong: It's possible that
Grandma's check shouldn't be spent on reducing your own
carbon footprint at all but instead on larger-scale efforts to help
the environment. While the Lantern firmly believes individual
choices can make a difference, efforts to combat global
warming, protect biodiversity, and keep air and water clean will
ultimately depend more on government action than consumer
choices. So there's a strong case to be made that your dollars will
go furthest in support of groups that lobby for environmental
issues. If public advocacy is not your bag, you might donate that
money to environmental charities that run their own green
projects—like, say, rain forest adoption programs.
If these ideas don't excite you, the Lantern recommends putting
the new cash toward insulating your family's home. Of course,
whether this makes sense depends on your local climate and
whether you buy or rent. (Likewise, the current state of your
home will determine just how much insulation your $100 will
buy.) For the rest of you, it might be wisest to replace any
antiquated, energy-inefficient appliances you might have—along
the lines spelled out here. (Let's put aside the complicated
question of carbon offsets, which will be addressed in a future
column. Suffice to say that they wouldn't be the Lantern's first
choice.)
much money it would take to prevent 1 ton of greenhouse-gas
emissions through different approaches, from improving lighting
systems to carbon capture and storage. (Worth noting: The firm's
work has been supported by utility companies, among others.) If
you look at that graph—found here—you'll notice that many of
these costs are actually negative, meaning that reducing carbon
emissions actually saves money. For example, through 2030,
every ton of carbon-equivalent emissions reduced by improving
fuel efficiency will save about 50 euros. Globally, investing in
insulation gives the largest financial return—earning more than
100 euros per ton of emissions. While your specific location may
change the numbers some, McKinsey data suggest that
insulation—along with energy-efficient appliances and compact
fluorescent light bulbs—are usually good bets.
MacKay, for his part, is skeptical about how much consumers
can do to reduce carbon emissions absent significant regulatory
changes, pointing out that "if everyone does a little, we'll only
achieve a little." But he does identify a few individual behaviors
that can make a difference, taken together. He starts with the
steps that won't even require cashing in Grandma's check: eating
less meat, driving less, and, perhaps most crucially, flying less.
His other top choices for action include double-glazing your
windows and—you guessed it—improving your insulation.
For practical advice on how to go about insulating, the Lantern
defers to the Department of Energy's compendium of
information here, as well as this nifty program for determining
how much money you might save. Keep in mind that all types of
insulation can save energy, but some insulating materials are
greener than others. The Lantern's recommendation? Thank
Grandma for the check, and tell her you've got your eye on a
nice bag of cellulose.
Is there an environmental quandary that's been keeping you up at
night? Send it to [email protected], and check this
space every Tuesday.
the has-been
Insulation doesn't sound as sexy as, say, a solar-panel messenger
bag. But to understand why it may be the best choice, the
Lantern recommends a report from the McKinsey Climate
Change Special Initiative, and a free online book by Cambridge
professor David MacKay called Sustainable Energy—Without
the Hot Air. Neither is framed as a how-to guide for personal
conservation, but they both provide information on how we
might make the biggest environmental impact for the least
money.
Bare Ruined Careers
The last humiliations of Larry Craig, who knows what Rod Blagojevich meant
about giving up a Senate seat for bleeping nothing.
By Bruce Reed
Hours after NBC announced that Jay Leno was taking over its
prime-time lineup, Rod Blagojevich demonstrated why shows
like Leno's are so cheap to produce: all the best material comes
from people on the public payroll.
The McKinsey report (PDF) tries to answer that question by
constructing a "cost abatement curve," which describes how
91/104
Tuesday's jaw-dropping, grave-roiling news from Illinois
completely obscured another politician's more workmanlike
efforts to humiliate himself. Like Leno, Larry Craig can't bear to
walk away from the laughter. As a result, he lost yet another
appeal Tuesday in a Minneapolis court. Craig promptly issued a
statement maintaining his innocence and holding out the promise
that he will launch one last embarrassing appeal before leaving
public life next month.
In the league of bare ruined careers, Craig has actually had a
better year than many. Never mind what his appellate briefs now
contend: Craig's ridiculous strategy to cop a misdemeanor plea
in August 2007 and appeal it ever since may have been the only
plausible strategy to keep himself in office for the rest of his
term. Confronted with more serious but less Leno-prone charges,
Senate colleague Ted Stevens chose the road Craig didn't take—
to fight in court and run for re-election. Stevens lost in the
courtroom and at the ballot box and ended up with a felony
conviction that would have forced him to step down even if he'd
been re-elected.
Meanwhile, the once-considerable shock value of Craig's creepy,
boneheaded antics in an airport bathroom has since been
eclipsed by scandals that make his seem minor league. Eliot
Spitzer threw away a shot at the presidency to become Client
No. 9. And this week, Blagojevich trumped Spitzer with one of
the most megalomaniacal implosions since Watergate—right
down to the secret recordings and expletives deleted. The
federalist in Craig can take consolation in knowing that, as much
as Washington prides itself as the scandal capital, Blagojevich's
Illinois is proof that every now and then the laboratories of
democracy still produce a mad scientist.
Try as he might, Larry Craig simply can't compete on that stage.
As schools for scandal go, an Idaho sleazeball just doesn't have
the strength of schedule to top the BCS rankings—while the Big
Ten and Big East champs get automatic berths.
Besides, Craig may be the most colorless figure to stumble into a
modern political scandal. The man's harshest expletive is
"Jiminy God!" Blagojevich and his wife curse more in one
criminal complaint than Craig has cursed in his entire life.
So with no presidential aspirations to squander and no sordid
traditions to uphold, Larry Craig soldiers on, sullying his
reputation the way he knows best—through sheer determination
and hard work. His latest appeal is a testament to perseverance.
What he wanted the court to do—overturn his own guilty plea—
was embarrassing and improbable enough the first time. Asking
his lawyers to reprise the performance before the Minnesota
Court of Appeals (and if he gets the chance, the Minnesota
Supreme Court) takes a thick skin and a big line of credit. As a
lame duck and lost cause, Craig isn't getting much help in his
quixotic exercise: The Senate ethics committee told him to stop
using campaign money, and his legal defense fund has collected
less than $5,000.
Based on this week's appeals court decision, Craig's arguments
might not be worth even that much. Craig's brief contended that
he couldn't possibly be held to his written admission that he
"engaged in conduct which I knew or should have known tended
to arouse alarm or resentment [in] others." According to Craig's
lawyers, the plea should be invalid because the public nuisance
statute says "others," which is plural, while the creeped-out
police detective in the neighboring stall was (no thanks to Craig)
singular. With Whitmanesque sweep, however, the court ruled
that "the singular includes the plural; and the plural, the
singular"—and that in any event, everyone else in the men's
room would have been creeped out, too.
Craig's lawyers also tried to argue that their client's conduct was
free speech and therefore the nuisance statute was
"unconstitutionally overbroad." The court disagreed, ruling in
essence that even the First Amendment is not broad enough to
cover so wide a stance: "Even if appellant's foot-tapping and the
movement of his foot toward the undercover officer's stall are
considered 'speech,' they would be intrusive speech directed at a
captive audience, and the government may prohibit them."
Citing a Supreme Court precedent that would make Craig's
constituents proud, the Minnesota court ruled that the senator
picked the wrong place to intrude upon "the right to be let
alone." The appellate opinion declared that "the 'privacy interest
in avoiding unwanted communication' is very strong in a stall in
a public restroom." Craig spent his entire career trying to stop
courts from finding a right to privacy in the Constitution, only to
end up helping a court find one in the bathroom.
Even in defeat, Craig can remind himself that he's no Rod
Blagojevich. Craig never even rated a federal wiretap: The
closest he came was when he tried to leave his lawyer a fishy
voicemail but called the wrong number. In fact, the two men
couldn't have charted more divergent paths to infamy. According
to the government's complaint, Blagojevich said of the Senate
seat, "I'm just not giving it up for [bleeping] nothing." In the end,
that may be the best description ever given of just what Larry
Craig did.
the spectator
Give the Guy a Butt!
Let Obama smoke in the White House.
By Ron Rosenbaum
92/104
Let me offer a somewhat hyperbolic hypothetical. It's the winter
of 2009, and a crisis has erupted between the United States and
the former Soviet Union. Putin (surprise!) is acting arrogantly
and aggressively, trying to push the new American president
around. Do you want Barack Obama, the guy who has his finger
on our nuclear trigger, notorious nicotine addict, to be dying for
a smoke? All irritable, his nerves and famously smooth temper
on edge? No outlet for his intolerable frustration but ... a butt.
But no butts to be found.
The White House, of course, has been a butt-free zone since the
Clinton administration. That pack of Marlboro Reds he's kept
stashed under a bush in the Rose Garden, hoping it'll be
camouflaged? Out of reach. The only thing that looks like a butt
is, well, a button, and it's looking good. Why not reach for it?
Then he won't have to put up any longer with the insane
puritanical rules imposed by those who don't know, will never
know, the knife-edge of nicotine desire.
Do you want to die because President Obama is dying for a
smoke? It's true that smoking would be bad for our 44th
president, who's been trying to kick the habit. Lung cancer
caused by smoking is a major cause of death in America. Even
secondhand smoke is deadly, we're told. But how about
secondhand radioactive plutonium? Might that turn out to be a
major cause of death (for those not already dead in a nuclear
exchange)? Do I have to answer that?
OK, so Obama isn't going to start a nuclear war because of the
well-meaning but counterproductive no-smoking rule. At least, I
hope he isn't. I don't smoke, but I know smokers, and I know
smokers trying to quit, and they scare me.
Which is why those who say a president who smokes in the
White House would be a bad role model are all wrong. In fact,
consider the possibility that he'd be a better, perhaps more
effective, negative role model. He'd teach the nation's youth how
scary an addiction smoking is: Even the most powerful man in
the world is putty in its tobacco-stained hands.
The media don't seem to share my views on this, at least if their
recent bout of hysterical scolding is any indication. (Perhaps
they're using this issue to show they can be tough on the
president they helped elect—about something, however trivial.)
First there was Barbara Walters, who came close to implying, in
a face-to-face interview, that poor Obama's pledge to quit
smoking was more important than any of his other presidential
priorities. A collapsing economy? Mumbai terror heading this
way? No worries. Will he live up to his no-smoking pledge?
Now, there's an issue.
Walters had asked whether he still sneaked smokes, and Obama
had said something vague about his pledge to observe the nosmoking rules in the White House.
Then eagle-eyed Tom Brokaw demonstrated the way a hardnosed reporter goes after a cover-up. On Meet the Press last
weekend, Brokaw picked up on what he thought was wiggle
room in Obama's Barbara Walters response and treated the
president-elect to a bit of journalistic inquiry that surely ranks
with Woodward and Bernstein's challenges to Deep Throat
(another smoker?).
Brokaw: "Finally, Mr. President-elect, the White House is a nosmoking zone, and when you were asked about this recently by
Barbara Walters, I read it very carefully, you ducked. Have you
stopped smoking?"
(He "read it very carefully"! Wow, are we impressed by his
journalistic excellence, or what?)
Obama's answer was a classic recidivist's evasion:
"You know, I have, but what I said [to Walters] was that there
were times where I have fallen off the wagon," Obama told
Brokaw.
"That means you haven't stopped," the steely NBC interrogator
asserted.
Obama's response: "Well, the—fair enough. What I would say
is, is that I have done a terrific job, under the circumstances, of
making myself much healthier, and I think that you will not see
any violations of these rules in the White House."
Gotcha! Way to go T.B.! (Perhaps not the best initials here.)
Savvy observers and addicts could spot Obama's evasiveness,
which wouldn't survive a minute in a 12-step meeting.
Don't you love the ambiguity, the weasel-worded squirming? It's
so human, it's endearing. All us sinners—of various habits and
forms—loved Obama for it and loathed Brokaw, Walters, and
the nation of scolds we have become in their collective attempt
to shame the poor guy (yes, president-elect, I know, but here,
just a poor, conniving backslider) into some self-scourging
confession.
You have to admire Obama's good nature as he puts up with
these narrow-minded nannies (addicted to tobacco in their own
perverse, negative way) and offers up this masterpiece of
obfuscation.
Let's parse the statement. I like his assertion of greater
healthiness as an excuse for this minor failing. Not gonna work,
93/104
but it shows his desperation. Still, the key evasion is "you will
not see any violations of those rules in the White House." (The
italics are mine.)
Note that he doesn't say "outside the White House," leaving
himself room to sneak a smoke in the privacy of the Rose
Garden. And then, of course, there's the fact that a president
doesn't spend all of his time "in the White House." He goes to
Camp David, Europe, South Dakota, Iraq. Surely, there's a spot
in one of those locales to sneak a puff or two undisturbed? With
that phrase, "in the White House," Obama has his own "depends
on what the meaning of the word is is." He's left himself a hole
big enough for Richard Nixon to fit all of Watergate through or
Bill Clinton to maneuver a strip club's worth of babes. Don't a
few sneaky puffs seem innocent by comparison?
Obama—who, according to a wide array of sources, has smoked
for years, but promised his wife, Michelle, that he'd quit in
exchange for her help with his presidential campaign—has never
said that smoking is good or healthy or that quitting is easy.
Quite the opposite. He's made clear that quitting is a struggle
and, like others who struggle with their demons, he's fallen off
the wagon.
So what? This is probably the most sinless president we're likely
to get in the foreseeable millennium, and yet he's already got the
health Nazis on his tail. He's human, he's not on Mount
Rushmore yet. (Although I kind of like the idea of a giant,
granite Obama next to the Rushmore four, a stone cigarette
dangling from his lips.)
In fact, I'd argue that Obama's smoking habit gives us another
reason to like him: He's not a perfect paragon of the Whole
Foods boho sensibility, comments about arugula
notwithstanding. I'm told there are people who were surprised to
learn he smoked, as if it was somehow shocking he didn't fit all
the virtuous liberal-elite stereotypes. It would be refreshing (and
not in that cool-menthol way) if he's more a democrat, less a
virtue-crat.
I also wonder—and this will seem wildly heretical to virtuecrats, so hide the children—whether some of Obama's finer
qualities aren't bound up in his alleged nicotine sins. That
contemplative self-possession that so many admire him for. It
might come from Obama's ability to sit back, inhale a puff or
two, slow down and think—meditate, cogitate—before acting.
Sure it's a trade-off. Lung cancer later in life: the percentage
grows grim. But isn't it possible that, without the mediating
thoughtfulness of a nicotine break, Obama would still be a
"community organizer"? Not that there's anything wrong with
that.
Look, people, we have what looks to be an incredibly thoughtful,
long-view-taker as president, and maybe we owe it to cancer
sticks. That's the tragedy of life. You don't get somethin' for
nothin'. Maybe you don't get the Obama we think will make a
great president without the devil weed. Maybe we owe him some
cancer sticks if that's what he chooses. Because—and here I take
the libertarian view—you choose your poison. He knows the
stats and the risks. Maybe he makes a choice to have a butt or
two despite the stats and the risks. Bill Clinton knew the odds
and chose his butt or two with consequences that were arguably
graver for the country as a whole. (By the way, you know who
made the White House into a smoke-free zone? Hillary Clinton.
We'd all be better off if Bill had thought "smoking hot" meant he
was hot for smoking.)
If Obama were still a senator, a largely do-nothing job (at least if
you consider senators' achievements), fine, take time, enroll in
an anti-smoking program, white-knuckle it, whatever you
decide: You have the leisure. But he's going to be president, with
the fate of the nation, of the Earth, in his hands. Did George W.
Bush make great decisions as a president while abstaining from
alcohol? Maybe a sip of sherry or a cold brewski might have
calmed him down enough to think twice about invading Iraq or
deregulating the markets.
Look at all the great presidents we had during Prohibition:
Harding, Coolidge, Hoover … Wow, makes you wonder if
abstemiousness is to blame for turning out mediocre-todisastrous louts in the Oval Office.
Come Jan. 20, Obama will be the president of a nation whose
entire economic infrastructure is collapsing and who faces
renewed tensions with a nuclear superpower. Such tensions
could easily lead us to the nuclear brink. Is this the precise time
we want our president to undergo the ordeal that giving up
smoking represents?
Give Obama a break ... a smoking break. No president has come
into office facing the massive problems he does. And now he's
got Chicago politics, like another monkey on his back, following
him there. Let him enjoy a few contemplative moments as he
works a problem. Let him have his down time. We'll probably be
better off for it. So get off his case, all you holier-than-thou
Puritans. I'm not advocating smoking for anyone else, and I
think he should make a point of telling kids what a horror
quitting is. But, meanwhile, cut the guy some slack. He's risking
his health for you.
today's business press
Markets Crash on Auto Blowout
By Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
94/104
today's papers
Senate: Drop Dead, Big Three
By Daniel Politi
The Senate didn't reach a deal. After some brief bouts of
optimism throughout the day, senators failed to reach a
compromise on a $14 billion rescue package for Chrysler and
General Motors last night. "It's over with," Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid said, suggesting that lawmakers won't take up
the issue again until January. GM and Chrysler have both said
they might not be able to survive beyond this month without
help. "There is always a chance Congress will act sooner if one
of the companies totters on the brink," notes the Wall Street
Journal, "although that possibility appears remote." The
Washington Post specifies that it's not clear "whether GM, in
particular, could survive until January," when Democrats will
have a larger majority in the Senate. USA Today points out that
GM and Chrysler could save money "by shutting down
operations between now and Jan. 20," but it would be a risky
gamble that could end up devastating suppliers.
The New York Times characterizes the failure to get Senate
Republicans to agree on a rescue for Detroit as "bruising defeat
for President Bush in the waning weeks of his term, and also for
President-elect Barack Obama," who had urged lawmakers to act
quickly. The Los Angeles Times notes that Bush personally
lobbied reluctant Republicans after Vice President Dick Cheney
failed to change their minds at a meeting Wednesday at which he
told them, "If we don't do this, we will be known as the party of
Herbert Hoover forever." Last night, Reid warned that financial
markets would feel the effects of their inaction. "I dread looking
at Wall Street tomorrow," he said. "It's not going to be a pleasant
sight." Indeed, Asian markets tumbled today, and European
markets were also in negative territory this morning.
Negotiations in the Senate essentially broke down over one
issue: the timing of wage cuts. The two sides had agreed on most
other issues, including a controversial Republican proposal that
would have required the automakers to cut their debt obligations
by at least two-thirds by the end of March. There was even
agreement that the automakers needed to bring down their wages
and benefits to match those of U.S. employees of foreign
automakers.
The problem was the date. Republicans insisted that these wage
cuts had to come by a specific date in 2009, while Democrats
and the United Auto Workers said the deadline should be 2011,
when the UAW contract expires. After the talks broke down,
union representatives said they were willing to do their part but
asked only that they not be treated unfairly. "Unfortunately,
Senate Republicans insisted that workers and retirees be singled
out and treated differently from all other stakeholders," said the
UAW's legislative director. Of course, Republicans quickly
blamed the union for the failure to reach a deal.
At this point, it might be worth asking how much of a big deal
this wage issue is in the grand scheme of things. The WP takes a
stab at the question by pointing out that GM told Congress that
in 2010 their labor costs would add up to around $14 per hour
more than what Toyota pays at its plants inside the United
States. But to really understand the meaning of all the numbers
that get thrown around, TP recommends a piece by the NYT's
David Leonhardt from earlier this week, where he specified that
there really is a disparity between the Big Three and foreign
automakers, but it's not as big as one might think. Bottom line?
"[T]he main problem facing Detroit, overwhelmingly, is not the
pay gap," Leonhardt wrote. "That's unfortunate because fixing
the pay gap would be fairly straightforward." Detroit's unionized
workers make about $10 an hour more than those at
nonunionized plants, mostly because of benefits. In addition, the
Big Three pay more in retiree benefits, but that's mainly due to
the obvious fact that they're responsible for more retired
workers. Ultimately, and perhaps most importantly, despite all
the attention that is paid to the issue, labor costs add up to about
10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle.
So, what now? As soon as the rescue package failed in the
Senate, Democrats urged the administration to act on its own to
make sure that GM and Chrysler don't go under. The White
House has so far been resistant to push the Treasury to provide
the auto companies with emergency loans from the $700 billion
bailout package, but now it may have no other choice. The
problem is that there's only around $15 billion left of the initial
$350 billion that was disbursed by Congress, and Treasury
officials have been adamant that they need the money as a
cushion in case any of their other rescue efforts run into trouble.
There's also a possibility that the Federal Reserve might step in,
but it has been reluctant to get involved so far.
The prospect of collapse is real enough that both GM and
Chrysler have hired some of the top lawyers in the business to
help them figure out whether they should file for bankruptcy.
But they're hardly the only ones at risk. As the NYT details in a
separate front-page piece, an increasing number of auto
suppliers, which employ more than twice the number of workers
as the Big Three, are getting worried they won't be able to
survive much longer. "I don't think that suppliers will be able to
get through the month without continued payments on their
receivables," the head of a supplier trade group said. If suppliers
start collapsing, it wouldn't affect just the Big Three but the
entire auto industry, since they often sell their products to both
American and foreign manufacturers. GM and Chrysler owe
their suppliers around $10 billion, and while that may not have
been a big deal in a normal economic environment, it could
prove lethal at a time when credit markets are frozen.
95/104
In other news, Obama made his first lengthy comments about the
scandal surrounding the Illinois governor and vowed to release a
list of contacts between his transition team and Gov. Rod
Blagojevich. "What I'm absolutely certain about is that our office
had no involvement in any deal-making around my Senate seat,"
Obama said. "That would be a violation of everything that this
campaign has been about." As the WSJ details, there are some
key questions that remain unanswered, and one of the main ones
is the identity of the Obama adviser whom, according to the
federal affidavit, Blagojevich ordered his staff to contact. There
are rumors that the person identified as "President-elect Advisor"
referred to Rahm Emanuel, who will be Obama's chief of staff.
Still, despite the unanswered questions, the LAT notes that
Obama "struck an emotional chord that had been absent" by
noting how "appalled" he was by the scandal. Many who had
criticized Obama's early response to the scandal said he managed
to hit the right tone yesterday.
The NYT talks to Obama's successor in the state Senate, Kwame
Raoul, who said he was approached by Blagojevich about the
president-elect's old seat, but he withdrew his name from
consideration after he felt pressured to provide something in
return for the position. "It was open knowledge among people in
and around Springfield," Raoul said. "Legislators and lobbyists
alike openly talked about the fact that the governor would want
to appoint somebody who would benefit him." Of course, just
because Blagojevich wanted someone who "would benefit him"
doesn't mean he's guilty of criminal activity, and Raoul refused
to get into details with the NYT.
The NYT is alone in fronting news out of Iraq, where a suicide
bomber detonated explosives inside a packed restaurant north of
Kirkuk and killed at least 48 people. (The WP says 57 people
were killed.) It was the deadliest bombing in Iraq in six months.
The apparent target was a meeting that was taking place in the
restaurant between Kurdish officials and Sunni Arab members of
the Awakening movement, which is mostly composed of former
insurgents.
The Post fronts, and everyone mentions, a bipartisan report
released yesterday by the Senate armed services committee that
says decisions made by former Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and other top administration officials were directly
responsible for widespread detainee abuse in Guantanamo and
other detention facilities. The report says that the most severe
cases of prisoner abuse, including Abu Ghraib, weren't simply
due to "the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," as
the Bush administration has always claimed. Rather, decisions
made by high-level officials in the administration "conveyed the
message that physical pressures and degradation were
appropriate treatment for detainees."
Bettie Page, the legendary pinup model, died last night. Her
controversial, and extremely popular, photos that were
seemingly everywhere in the 1950s helped set the stage for the
sexual revolution of the '60s. At the height of her fame she
decided to walk away from everything and had a rough life in
seclusion that was marked by her fight against mental illness. In
the late 1980s, "she was rediscovered and a Bettie Page
renaissance began," notes the NYT. She would occasionally grant
interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken. "I want to
be remembered," she told the LAT in 2006, "as I was when I was
young and in my golden times. ... I want to be remembered as
the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning
nudity in its natural form."
USAT reports that your community's nativity scene may have
gone high-tech. A number of churches, synagogues, and others
that display holiday scenes are embedding Baby Jesus,
menorahs, and other figures with satellite tracking devices to
avoid theft. "Given the storied history of the nativity scene," the
Rev. George Smith explained, "we were interested in seeing if
having a GPS would deter people from 'borrowing' from it."
today's papers
Will Senate Kill GM?
By Daniel Politi
The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street
Journal's online newsbox lead with the House approving a $14
billion bailout package for U.S. automakers last night. Now it's
up to the Senate to decide whether General Motors and Chrysler
will get the emergency loans, and things aren't looking good for
Detroit. Many Republican senators continue to oppose the
legislation, saying that it doesn't provide enough oversight of the
ailing companies and could end up being a huge waste of
taxpayer money. The New York Times leads with President-elect
Barack Obama and the entire Senate Democratic caucus calling
for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to resign after he was arrested
in a corruption scandal. Illinois lawmakers are trying to figure
out a way to fill Obama's old Senate seat without the governor,
and Majority Leader Harry Reid warned Blagojevich that he
should "under no circumstances make an appointment."
USA Today leads with a look at how the effort to ease the pain of
the financial crisis and recession through government spending
is increasing "the federal share of the nation's economic activity
close to $1 out of every $4," which is the highest level since
World War II. The previous record was set in 1983, when the
federal share of the nation's economy was 23.5 percent. Many
warn that all this spending could bring more troubles down the
road as the government will eventually have to begin taming the
growing budget deficit.
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The rescue plan for U.S. automakers was approved largely along
party lines, with 32 Republicans joining Democrats in voting for
the measure. Republican support is much more important in the
closely divided Senate and several lawmakers were openly
pessimistic about the chances that Democratic leaders will be
able to garner enough support to ensure that the legislation
passes. "I don't think the votes are there on our side of the aisle,"
said Sen. George Voinovich, one of the few Republican senators
who have openly expressed his support for the package. The
White House sent a group of high-level administration officials,
including Vice President Cheney, to Capitol Hill to try to
convince lawmakers but Republicans refused to budge. "They
probably left with less support than they came in with,"
Republican Sen. Bob Corker said.
Some Republicans are holding on to the opinion that the
companies have a better chance of long-term survival if they're
pushed toward filing for bankruptcy protection. But others said
they'd be willing to consider voting in favor of the loans if the
so-called car czar is given more power to force the auto
companies to restructure. The problem now is that lawmakers
may have run out of time to make changes to the legislation
since lawmakers will be leaving Washington for the holidays.
The WP points out that while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
she might call lawmakers back, a "senior House aid" said that's
unlikely. But the legislation that was introduced in the Senate is
already slightly different from what the House passed because it
makes it clear that automakers would only have to comply with
federal fuel efficiency and emissions requirements rather than
stricter standards in several states.
As Democrats tried to deal with the fallout from the Blagojevich
scandal, Reid warned that the Senate leadership may not seat
anyone the Illinois governor appoints. Members of the Senate
Democratic caucus want Blagojevich to resign and allow his
successor to make the appointment. Meanwhile, Rep. Jesse
Jackson Jr., a rising star in the Democratic Party, found himself
embroiled in the scandal when federal authorities identified him
as the man referred to as "Senate Candidate 5" in the criminal
complaint. The 76-page affidavit filed in support of the charges
against Blagojevich quotes the governor saying that he'd been
offered $500,000 or more by a representative of Candidate 5 in
exchange for the Senate seat. Jackson strongly denied he had
sent anyone to offer the governor money and said he was
unaware that the selection process had become tainted.
Even as more members of his own party are calling for his
resignation, the WSJ points out that the case against Blagojevich
might not be as open-and-shut as the headlines make it seem.
The recorded conversations might be shocking but they're not
necessarily criminal. One criminal defense attorney tells the WSJ
that the portions of the governor's conversations that were
released don't necessarily add up to crime. "Every politician
keeps accounts," the lawyer said, "what is horse trading, and
what is hyperbole?"
In a separate story inside, the NYT points out that the
Blagojevich scandal "could be the first test of the Obama team's
ability to manage a growing scandal" and whether it can avoid
making mistakes that could raise even more questions about the
president-elect's involvement. Obama's aides have avoided
answering questions about any discussions they had with the
Illinois governor about the Senate seat but the president-elect
might finally discuss the issue today during a scheduled news
conference on health care.
The WP and NYT front, and everyone mentions, that Obama
appears to have settled on some key choices to run his energy
and environmental initiatives. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prizewinning physicist, will be nominated as secretary of energy,
while Lisa Jackson, a former environmental policy official in
New Jersey, was picked to head the Environmental Protection
Agency. Carol Browner, who led the EPA under President
Clinton, will fill a new White House "energy czar" role. The WP
says the team suggests Obama "plans to make a strong push for
measures to combat global warming and programs to support
energy innovation." The WSJ says that after the president-elect
faced some criticism from supporters that his early Cabinet picks
were too centrist, Obama "appears to be moving to the left with
some of his new choices."
In what everyone says is a horrible sign for economies across the
globe, China announced yesterday that its November exports
plunged 2.2 percent from a year earlier, which marked the first
decline in seven years. The decline marked a sharp change from
even a month earlier when exports rose 19.2 percent. "The most
striking real economic fact of the past several months is not
continued U.S. economic weakness, but that China's economy
has slowed much more quickly than anyone had forecast,"
Australia's central bank governor Glenn Stevens said this week.
The WSJ fronts the news and points out that the slump raises
questions about whether China "can help support growth and
stave off deeper financial pain elsewhere around the world." In a
front-page piece the WP points out the World Bank predicted
that global trade will fall 2.1 percent next year, the first decline
since 1982. "The slowdown illustrates how globalization, which
fed rapid growth during times of plenty, can quickly turn against
nations during times of bust," says the Post.
The LAT and NYT both front must-read dispatches from Africa.
The NYT's Lydia Polgreen takes a look at how the recent killings
in Kiwanja, Congo, not only displayed the brutality of rebel
groups fighting for power in the troubled country but also
provided "a textbook example" of how United Nations
peacekeepers continue to fail in their efforts to protect the
Congolese people. While the killings were taking place, 100
peacekeepers were less than a mile away but they didn't fully
understand what was happening outside their base as they
focused on rescuing aid workers and searching for a kidnapped
journalist. They have almost no intelligence capabilities, and at
the time didn't even have a translator on base. "Kiwanja was a
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disaster for everyone," a Human Rights Watch senior researcher
said. "The people were betrayed not just by rebels who
committed terrible war crimes against them but by the
international community that failed to protect them."
In another of her strikingly vivid dispatches that chronicle the
desperation of everyday life in Zimbabwe, the LAT's Robyn
Dixon takes a look at how cholera is taking hold of the country
and how relatives are often left with no choice but to watch their
loved ones die of an easily treatable disease. There's a shortage
of medicine so patients often have to bribe doctors for care and
clinics are suffering from huge staff shortages as nurses are
severely underpaid and overworked. Cholera is spreading
quickly and many fear the problem will persist for a long time
due to Zimbabwe's rapidly decaying infrastructure.
The LAT's Rosa Brooks says the Blagojevich scandal "should be
a cautionary tale for Democrats" because it serves as a reminder
that "powerful Democrats aren't immune to human weaknesses."
Democrats shouldn't just be careful about the obviously illegal
forms of corruption, they also need to watch out for the "far
more subtle ways" that corruption can seep into a party in power.
"For in the end, arrogance and groupthink can prove far more
lethal than even the most scandalous financial shenanigans,"
writes Brooks. "Just ask the thousands dead in Iraq."
today's papers
Widespread Corruption Charges Shock
Illinois
By Daniel Politi
All the papers give top billing to news that Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich was arrested yesterday on wide-ranging corruption
charges, including an attempt to sell President-elect Barack
Obama's recently vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.
Prairie State residents might be used to seeing their executives
embroiled in criminal charges—the Los Angeles Times specifies
that Blagojevich is the fifth Illinois governor to be charged with
criminal conduct over the last 50 years—but the arrest yesterday
revealed such brazen corruption schemes "that veteran
investigators and prosecutors could barely contain their
revulsion," notes USA Today. Prosecutors "portrayed
Blagojevich as a brazen crook," says the LAT. "The conduct
would make Lincoln roll over in his grave," said U.S. attorney
Patrick Fitzgerald. The Washington Post points out that by filing
charges in the form of a criminal complaint, U.S. officials were
able "to share more details about their investigation and the
conversations they captured than would normally appear in a
federal grand jury indictment."
Federal authorities have been investigating Blagojevich for more
than five years and have been listening on wiretaps for the past
two months that leave little to the imagination. While the Illinois
governor's alleged illegal activities are far-reaching, most of the
papers naturally focus on the claims that he tried to profit from
his authority to name a successor for Obama in the senate. "The
allegations suggest a breathtaking degree of brazenness on the
part of the Illinois governor," says the Wall Street Journal,
which points out the governor continued to talk about his
schemes by telephone even after the Chicago Tribune reported
Friday that his phone lines had been tapped. And it seems his
actions on Obama's Senate seat were par for the course. The
conversations recorded by authorities "laid bare a 'pay for play'
culture that, according to prosecutors, began shortly after he took
office in 2002 and continued until before sunrise yesterday,"
when the governor and his chief of staff were arrested. The New
York Times says that the charges "left many wondering who else
might yet be implicated," particularly since it seems some were
willing to go along with the governor's schemes to enrich
himself.
The 76-page complaint details how Blagojevich and his chief of
staff carried out a "political corruption crime spree," as
Fitzgerald called it, in an effort to raise as much money as
possible from people with state business before an ethics law
that bars the practice takes effect in January. The governor
allegedly discussed withholding state funds from a children's
hospital until its chief executive would write a $50,000 check
and tried to use his political clout to get some editorial writers at
the Chicago Tribune fired. But by far the most eye-catching
allegation is that Blagojevich "put a 'for sale' sign on the naming
of a United States senator," Fitzgerald said.
Prosecutors allege that Blagojevich was quite flexible in what he
could accept in return for the Senate seat, including a post in the
administration, an ambassadorship, a leadership post in a prolabor nonprofit, campaign funds, and a seat on a corporate board
for his wife. In recorded conversations, Blagojevich appeared
ready to appoint a candidate Obama wanted but was frustrated
by the president-elect's team's unwillingness to play ball. In an
apparent reference to Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to
Obama—none of the potential candidates are named—
Blagojevich told an adviser he knew the president-elect wanted
her as his successor but complained that "they're not willing to
give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them."
If Blagojevich didn't receive an enticing enough offer from any
of the potential candidates, he was apparently ready to appoint
himself. "I've got this thing and it's fucking golden," Blagojevich
told an adviser. "I'm just not giving it up for fuckin' nothing. I'm
not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me
there." The NYT and WP both take front-page looks at how the
people of Illinois and federal investigators, who have seen their
fair share of corruption, were struggling to understand how the
governor could have been so brazen in seeking personal gain
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from his office, even when he knew he was under investigation.
"I almost fell over," a frequent critic of the governor tells the
NYT. "I was speechless and sickened. In all of the millions of
indictments I've read over the last years, I can't remember
anything as vile as this."
Everyone seems to agree that the possibility that a senator might
be picked through corrupt means is the main reason why
prosecutors decided to act now after investigating the governor
for more than five years. "We're talking about tainting the
selection of a U.S. senator," which could have much more farreaching repercussions than "a continuation of the let's-make-adeal, where's-mine part of Illinois politics," a political science
professor tells USAT.
Fitzgerald took pains to emphasize that the case "makes no
allegations about the president-elect whatsoever." Obama also
tried to distance himself yesterday. "I had no contact with the
governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was
happening," Obama told reporters yesterday. In his first
newspaper interview since the election, which the LAT fronts,
the president-elect refused to elaborate on any conversations that
members of his team had with the governor's office about the
Senate appointment. Last month, David Axelrod, a senior
adviser to Obama, said the president-elect had talked to the
governor about the appointment, but he issued a statement
yesterday saying he had misspoken.
Slate's John Dickerson notes that "[i]t's a little hard to believe
that [Obama] didn't know anything that was happening relating
to his old seat." There's evidence that Obama wanted Jarrett for
the seat, but then all of a sudden "in the middle of the process,
Obama stopped wanting that," writes Dickerson. "Why?"
As much as he tries to distance himself, it's clear the Blagojevich
scandal will, at the very least, prove to be a distraction to
Obama. Plus, as the LAT highlights, it also brings back
memories of Obama's relationship with Antoin Rezko, since the
governor's arrest was the result of the same investigation that led
to the conviction of the real estate developer earlier this year.
The NYT points out that, in a way, Blagojevich, who will surely
have the worst birthday of his life today, has Obama to thank for
his fate. In a phone call three months ago, Obama urged the
president of the Illinois Senate to urge passage of a state ethics
bill that he was opposed to, as was Blagojevich. After the call,
the Senate overrode Blagojevich's veto, which led the governor
to pressure state contractors for campaign funds before the law
took effect in 2009. Hearing word of these efforts is what pushed
federal agents to obtain the wiretaps that recorded all the
compromising conversations.
In the interview with the LAT, Obama avoided answering most
of the questions about specific issues. But the piece does reveal
that the president-elect intends to use his full name—Barack
Hussein Obama—when he's sworn in, and he plans to give a
major address in an Islamic capital as part of his push to "reboot
America's image around the world."
The WP and WSJ front, and everyone mentions, that the White
House and Democratic leaders have almost finalized a deal to
rescue U.S. automakers. A vote in the House could come as
early as today, but its passage is far from a done deal,
particularly since many Republicans continue to be reluctant to
pour money into the Big Three and might not be persuaded by a
lame-duck administration. One of the main changes to come out
of the negotiations is that Democrats agreed the new "car czar"
would review any transactions by the automakers of $100
million or more, rather than the $25 million that lawmakers
initially proposed. The new czar would also have the power to
revoke the loans and push the companies toward seeking
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection if they fail to make progress
on a plan to return to profitability. Still unclear is the fate of a
Democratic-backed provision that would bar the carmakers from
fighting state laws that impose higher limits on greenhouse-gas
emissions, but there are hints that Democrats could give it up in
exchange for Republican support.
In an op-ed piece, the NYT's Timothy Egan says that the
complaint against Blagojevich "showed a man trolling the depths
of darkness," where nothing was sacred and anything could be
used for political and personal gain. "It would be somewhat
comforting if there were a larger lesson here, or a map out of the
banality of evil," writes Egan. "But there is no trend or modern
twist, no evidence of a greater criminal web, no overarching
moral. Like a kid who beats up old ladies just because he knows
no other way, the allegations against Blagojevich amount to
what Fitzgerald called a crime spree, of the political variety."
today's papers
Government Could Control Automakers
By Daniel Politi
The New York Times leads, and the Washington Post off-leads,
news that Congress and the White House are getting closer to
agreeing on a plan to rescue the U.S. auto industry by providing
$15 billion in emergency loans as long as the companies agree to
grant the government broad oversight powers. Assuming a deal
is reached, "the car industry would be the latest to submit to
strict government scrutiny in return for a bailout," declares the
Wall Street Journal, which gives top billing to the news on its
front page. USA Today leads with a new report by the Pentagon's
inspector general that says the military was well aware of the
dangers posed by roadside bombs before the Iraq war but did
little to develop vehicles that could have done a better job of
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protecting service members in the war zone. The Marine Corps
leadership basically ignored a 2005 request for Mine Resistant
Ambush Protected vehicles and said that outfitting more armor
in existing Humvees was the "best available" option. A study
earlier this year claimed hundreds of Marines died unnecessarily
because of delays in getting the appropriate vehicles to the war
zone.
The WP leads with news that the five Guantanamo detainees
accused of planning the Sept. 11 attacks said they were ready to
confess and plead guilty. The offer to plead guilty was later
withdrawn after the military judge raised a number of legal
questions, but this latest development could complicate things
for President-elect Barack Obama, who has vowed to close the
detention camp. The Los Angeles Times devotes its top nonlocal
spot to the unsealing of the Justice Department's case against
five private security guards for their role in the shootings in
Baghdad's Nisoor Square last year that killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
A sixth Blackwater guard provided information to authorities as
part of an agreement to plead guilty to lesser charges.
Under the plan currently in the works in Congress, President
Bush would appoint an official who is being referred to as the
"car czar" to oversee the rescue program. The WP specifies that
the car czar would be at the head of a seven-member "auto
board" that would not only make sure the government money is
used properly but also that the industry is taking steps to return
to profitability. The czar would have to approve any business
transaction of $25 million or more. The NYT points out that
Democratic officials hope the new car czar will be able to stay
put when President-elect Barack Obama gets to the Oval Office,
which suggests the White House will work with the incoming
administration to select someone.
Ford announced yesterday that it would not seek short-term
federal aid, but if the other companies agree to take the money,
they'll have to accept some restrictions on executive
compensation. They would also be barred from paying dividends
to stockholders until the loans are paid back, and they'd be
forbidden from leasing or owning private jets. The WSJ says that
the government would receive stock warrants that would add up
to at least 20 percent of the loans a company receives, which
would mean taxpayers could benefit if the firms manage to turn
around. The WP highlights that the government could demand
that the auto companies get rid of their top executives and points
out that Senate banking committee Chairman Chris Dodd said
yesterday that General Motors' chairman "has to move on."
The LAT points out that the details of the rescue package "appear
to match most of the terms Bush has been insisting on," but the
WSJ says that the White House would prefer that the package
"were even tougher on the car makers" and the administration
"gave a chilly reception to the latest overture by Democrats."
The WP details that the proposal drafted by the White House
includes a "financial viability adviser" within the Commerce
Department that could force the auto companies to declare
bankruptcy while the Democratic plan would allow the oversight
board to develop goals for the company but "could not compel
them to act." Despite the disagreements, officials are optimistic
they'll be able to reach a deal that will win passage by the end of
the week.
In a front-page analysis, the NYT's David Sanger says that while
the one word that no one in Obama's team "wants to be caught
uttering" is nationalization, in many ways that is pretty much
what the rescue plan proposes. The "car czar" would essentially
be "a one-man board of directors" who would essentially have
unfettered power to decide how the companies operate. The
problem with this is not just that the government might make a
bad corporate manager or that taxpayers could lose billions of
dollars but also that the United States would officially be
contradicting what it has been advocating to countries around the
world for years. While Detroit's Big 3 are in talks with the
government, there's no hint that foreign automakers who have
factories in the United States would get anything. "If Japan was
doing this, we'd be threatening billions of dollars in retaliation,"
one expert said.
The move by Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants
to plead guilty "seemed to challenge the government to put them
to death" and suggested they intended to weaken the
government's plan to hold a high-profile trial, notes the NYT.
Some of the five men have declared their desire for martyrdom
and seemed shocked that their guilty plea might prevent them
from receiving the death penalty. "Are you saying if we plead
guilty we will not be able to be sentenced to death?" Mohammed
asked the judge. The judge also said that two of the codefendants haven't been deemed competent to represent
themselves, and the three others said they would hold off on
their guilty plea until the five could act together. If their guilty
plea is ultimately accepted, it could complicate Obama's efforts
to close down the military tribunals, since it might be difficult to
transfer the case to federal court. On the other hand, if they're
allowed to continue, the new administration might have to
"oversee an execution resulting from a process that many Obama
supporters and legal advisers regard as deeply flawed," points
out the WP.
The case against the Blackwater guards that was unsealed
yesterday provides the most complete details of the shootings
that severely strained relations between Iraq and the United
States and raised questions about the use of contractors in a war.
The five guards were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter,
and 20 counts of attempting to commit manslaughter.
Prosecutors claim that none of the Iraqis killed that day posed a
threat to the guards but said manslaughter was a more
appropriate charge than murder because of the difficulties of
operating in a war zone. The five men surrendered to federal to
authorities in Salt Lake City in a move to support efforts to get
the case out of Washington, D.C. and into a more conservative
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part of the country. But a judge rejected the request and ordered
the five men to appear at a hearing in Washington early next
year.
The WP's Eugene Robinson writes that while the indictment of
the Blackwater guards may appear to be a commendable effort
to hold private guards accountable for what appears to be an
indefensible massacre, it really represents "a whitewash that
absolves the government and corporate officials who should bear
ultimate responsibility." Just like in Abu Ghraib, the government
is singling out a group of individuals for an atrocity and ignoring
the larger corporate and governmental policies that allowed it to
happen in the first place. "The five Blackwater guards may have
fired the weapons," writes Robinson, "but they were locked and
loaded in Washington."
The WSJ leads its worldwide newsbox with word that Pakistani
officials raided a camp run by the terrorist group believed to be
responsible for the Mumbai attacks and arrested two of its senior
leaders along with 10 other people. It appeared to be the first
concrete step by the Pakistani government to fulfill Indian and
American demands for action against Lashkar-e-Taiba. The NYT
also fronts the news but says the information is less than clear, as
the paper couldn't even obtain definite confirmation that Zaki urRehman Lakhvi, who is believed to be the group's operational
commander and the mastermind behind the attacks, was arrested.
The LAT seconds the confusion and says it got contradictory
information from several Pakistani officials. But the WSJ affirms
that Lakhvi was indeed captured, along with Zarar Shah, another
top commander. Still, many experts say "the raid was a good
first step but also a relatively easy one," notes the WSJ, because
the real question is what Pakistan will do about the group's
parent organization that has a high public profile.
In an op-ed piece in the NYT, Pakistan's president, Asif Ali
Zardari, says that the "Mumbai attacks were directed not only at
India but also at Pakistan's new democratic government and the
peace process with India." Reminding readers that militants
killed his wife, Benazir Bhutto, Zardari writes that Pakistan is
also a victim of terrorism and warns against jumping to
conclusions about his country's involvement in the attacks. "For
India, Pakistan and the United States, the best response to the
Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of
terrorism," he writes.
The NYT and LAT front, and everyone covers, news that NBC
managed to keep Jay Leno and will announce today that he will
host a show each weeknight at 10 p.m. that will follow a format
similar to The Tonight Show, which he has hosted since 1993.
The move will keep Leno in the network after Conan O'Brien
takes over the show next year and will save the company lots of
money in production costs since a talk/variety show is much
cheaper to produce than a scripted show. But it also represents a
huge gamble since a show of its kind hasn't flourished in prime
time for several decades. The WP focuses most extensively on
how the move will affect O'Brien and says many industry
executives "bet Conan must be madder than a wet hen."
today's papers
Bailout, With Strings Attached
By Joshua Kucera
The two biggest stories in the papers continue to be the U.S.'s
economic crisis and the fallout from the terror attacks in
Mumbai, with attention increasingly focused on Pakistan. The
Washington Post leads with progress made on an auto industry
bailout: Democrats are advancing a new plan that would loan
$15 billion to automakers while taking broad authority to
manage the companies' operations. The Los Angeles Times leads
with Barack Obama saying that the country's economic woes
"are going to get worse before they get better" and supporting
the Democrats' bailout plan.
The New York Times leads with U.S. counterterrorism officials
taking a closer look at the group behind the Mumbai attacks,
which has links both to Pakistan's intelligence service and to alQaida. The Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide newsbox
with a catchall of Pakistan news, including an attack on a
transportation depot in northwestern Pakistan that resulted in the
destruction of "scores" of vehicles taking supplies to U.S. and
NATO forces in Afghanistan. USA Today leads with an
interview with the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan,
who says he needs nearly double the number of troops over
several years to stabilize the country.
The new Democratic auto bailout plan would create a sevenperson government board, consisting mainly of Cabinet
secretaries who would oversee the companies' restructuring. The
proposal would also ban any dividend payments or executive
bonuses as long as the loans were outstanding. All the papers
quote President-elect Obama supporting the bailout but talking
tough about the companies' executives: "If this management
team that's currently in place doesn't understand the urgency of
the situation and is not willing to make the tough choices and
adapt to these new circumstances, then they should go," he said.
Some in the auto industry are looking to an authority higher than
Congress for help, too: The NYT has a dispatch from a Detroit
Pentecostal megachurch where the bishop, in a sermon titled "A
Hybrid Hope," prayed for a bailout. The story includes priceless
photos of gleaming white SUVs on the altar.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group implicated in Mumbai, has received
support from Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, which "has
shared intelligence with Lashkar and provided protection for it,
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the officials said, and investigators are focusing on one Lashkar
leader they believe is a main liaison with the spy service and a
mastermind of the attacks," the Times writes. But that support
was now more in the past, the Times notes. Lashkar "has
outgrown ISI's support," one analyst says. In fact, Pakistan
carried out a raid on a Lashkar camp on Sunday though, as the
LAT points out, it's not yet clear whether or not the raid was
serious or symbolic.
The LAT also features Lashkar on the front page, focusing on its
recruitment of westerners, in particular Britons and Americans.
Both the LAT and the Journal, in stories on how Lashkar
indoctrinates young members, note that the group is a sort of
minor-league terror group, being easier for foreign would-be
jihadis to join than the better known al-Qaida. Famous alums
include Richard Reid, the shoe bomber.
And it doesn't just happen to Sarah Palin: The Post stuffs a story
about how someone pretending to be the Indian foreign minister
prank-called the Pakistani president's office threatening Indian
military action. Pakistan apparently took the threat seriously
enough to put its air force on high alert. India says Pakistan's
publicizing of the story is a ploy to deflect attention from its
citizens' role in the Mumbai attacks.
The Journal apparently broke the news that the Tribune Co.,
publisher of newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, was
exploring options for bankruptcy and had hired an investment
bank known for its debt-restructuring prowess. But the LAT
followed up and got an interview with a company executive:
"Revenue declines have been dramatically worse, even over the
last couple of weeks. It's just really rough … A number of
advertisers just don't have the money to spend right now."
Also in the papers … the CEO of Merrill Lynch is arguing that
he should get a bonus of $10 million, while those in charge of
such things argue that despite his apparent skill in managing the
mess the company is in (he's only been boss for a year) public
mood is against huge executive bonuses. The Journal airs the
dirty laundry on the front page. Russia is using the financial
crisis to renationalize strategic industries, particularly in natural
resources, the NYT reports on Page One. Writing music for video
games is fast becoming a lucrative market for composers, paying
up to $2,000 per minute of music, and music schools are offering
classes in scoring games, the LAT reports. Unmanned aircraft
will soon be patrolling the U.S.-Canada border, says the NYT.
today's papers
It's All in the Works
By David Sessions
Sunday, December 7, 2008, at 6:44 AM ET
The Washington Post leads with the first look into Barack
Obama's "massive public works program," the most expansive
and ambitious since Dwight Eisenhower instigated the federal
interstate highway project in the 1950s. The plan will attempt to
pump money into highway renovation, school repairs, and
expansion of broadband Internet coverage. The New York Times
leads with additional U.S. troops moving to Kabul, a move that
signals the increasing delicacy of the situation near
Afghanistan's capital. It also "underscores" the hard choices,
regarding how to best divide troops between Iraq and
Afghanistan, that U.S. military officials face. The Los Angeles
Times leads with its occasional series on Mexican drug
trafficking. Today's installment tells the story of four people
gunned down in a jewelry store near Monterrey, where the drug
war has infiltrated what was previously one of Mexico's safest
large cities.
In an address delivered on radio and YouTube yesterday, Barack
Obama divulged a few more details about the massive public
works program he promised a few weeks ago. The presidentelect responded to November's depressing unemployment
numbers (we shed more jobs in the past month than we have
since 1974) by reiterating the need to create 2.5 million new
jobs, most of them to replace the 2 million we've lost since the
recession began last year. Obama said explicitly that his plan
would be massive and far-reaching, though the ultimate price tag
remains among the classified details. The NYT calls it
"government-directed industrial policy," which means the
administration will pick among competing private contractors on
which to "rain money."
Any talk of raining money is sure to make conservative
economists unhappy—the NYT is the only paper with that
angle—but the governors love it! Several state governors
highlighted road and school programs just waiting for an
injection of federal cash, projects that add up to an estimated
$136 billion.* Obama gave them no promises, which the WP
says is "in keeping with the secrecy that surrounds the
development of his recovery plan."
Congress worked through the weekend to hammer out a bailout
proposal for the "big three" U.S. automakers, and it's looking as
if General Motors might have the most convincing case for a
federal lifeline: the fact that nearly three-fourths of its employees
work outside the United States. A GM failure at home could
have global implications, meaning it would be best for us and
the rest of the world if the company stays afloat. (Republicans
still aren't convinced, arguing that the automakers must be
forced to cut labor costs and reduce debt.* The WP editorial
page agrees.) But some people are in deep trouble whether it
survives or not, particularly those who run certainly doomed
vehicle dealerships. GM wants to shed increasingly unpopular
lines like Hummer, a family of vehicles that have become a
national symbol of gas-guzzling inefficiency, which would leave
tons of dealership owners stranded. (Though it may be
102/104
necessary, it would also be extremely costly because of
"stringent franchise laws across the country.")
Political stability in Iraq may have come at the cost of increased
tribal suppression of women, a front-page WP story postulates.
Many of the religious leaders the U.S. supported for the sake of
stability have rejected Saddam's secularism, "imposed strict
interpretations of Islam and enforced tribal codes that female
activists say limit their freedom and encourage violence against
them." Thirty percent more women were killed in the first six
months of 2008 than the previous six months, most of them
"honor crimes" involving fundamentalist Islam and more than
half ending with the woman being burned to death. Some
women are boldly and publicly decrying the violence, including
one Kurdish journalist who rails against oppression and head
scarves in her magazine columns.
In the NYT "Week in Review" section, Ross Douthat rebuffs the
broadening consensus that the Republican Party should ditch its
anti-abortion contingent.* Contrary to the notion that this
interest group harbors the radicals who most hurts the right's
image, pro-lifers have met their opponents halfway, accepting
public opinion and stricter restrictions, and many have
abandoned politics altogether for personal activism. But to give
up on overturning Roe v. Wade is to abandon the heart of the
cause, to leave "pro-choice absolutism" in place to dominate the
abortion debate.
The NYT reports the survival of two cultural institutions, one
good and one bad. The bad news first: a dogfighting subculture
is now thriving in Texas. In addition to established rings, the
cruel sport is attracting a younger generation from "hardscrabble
neighborhoods," where "gangs, drug dealing and hip-hop culture
make up the backdrop."
The good news is that college radio is still alive and well, despite
the near-fatal hit music radio has taken from the likes of iPods
and imeem. College DJs say they don't listen to much radio aside
from their own—they have iPods, too, and many are also
bloggers. But America's 700 college stations have kept the music
spinning—"settling into a role as the slower but more loyal foil
to the fickle blogosphere"—and deserve more credit than they
get for breaking new acts.
Correction, Dec. 8, 2008: This article originally mislabeled the
name of the New York Times "Week in Review" section as the
"Weekend" section. (Return to the corrected sentence.) It also
incorrectly stated that Senate Republicans want lawmakers to
cut costs and reduce debt at auto companies—it's the
automakers themselves who Republicans want to do the costcutting. (Return to the corrected sentence.) The article also
misstated the cost of state road and school programs awaiting
federal cash. Those project total an estimated $136 billion, not
$136 million. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
today's papers
North Dakota Is the Place To Be
By Arthur Delaney
Yesterday's monthly report from the U.S. Labor Department is
the big news in today's papers: The nation's employers cut
533,000 jobs in November, the largest monthly job-shedding
since 1974. Congressional Democrats are near a deal with the
White House to help out the flagging auto industry with the goal
of preventing even nastier unemployment numbers.
The New York Times notes high up in its lead story that the bad
numbers do not include people who are underemployed or who
have simply stopped looking for work. Counting those folks
would nearly double the November unemployment tally, putting
it at 12.5 percent instead of 6.7 percent. President-elect Barack
Obama called for public spending to solve the crisis, but the
Times says Obama's vague plan to create 2.5 million jobs would
"barely recover the jobs that have disappeared over the last
year," given the accelerating losses.
The Wall Street Journal points out that the 1.9 million jobs so
far lost in 2008 makes the current recession the worst downturn
since the years following World War II. The government revised
down its data for the previous two months, and the WSJ says
could do the same for November, which could leave us with a
final figure even worse than the 602,000 jobs shed in December
1974 (though the paper provides perspective, noting that because
the 2008 economy is 75 percent larger than its 1974 counterpart,
today's bad numbers are less dramatic).
The Washington Post highlights the low price of oil and high
number of homeowners behind on mortgage payments or in
foreclosure—10 percent. Some predict unemployment will rise
to 10 percent as well by the end of 2009. The situation is
"unraveling so fast as to deny analysis by the usual statistical
models," says the Post. The paper points out what colorful
language economists are using to describe the situation,
including such terms as "god-awful" and "indescribably
terrible."
Even small businesses are firing people, which the Los Angeles
Times says is a particularly bad sign because small businesses
typically hang on to their trained workers in anticipation of
better times. The Times finds husband-and-wife owners of two
heating and air-conditioning firms who fired their own daughter
two weeks before her wedding.
Congressional Democrats are nearing a compromise with the
White House to provide loans to the flagging Big Three
103/104
companies of the U.S. auto industry. The WP reports that in talks
with the president's chief of staff, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
dropped her opposition to tapping an existing program for
funding fuel-efficient car development to provide the loans. The
NYT says congressional Republicans and concern about massive
default risk could still sabotage the deal. The WSJ reports that
Chrysler has hired a bankruptcy firm.
Enough gloom—let's turn our attention toward sunny North
Dakota, where, according to a Page One NYT story, everything is
just fine. In North Dakota, auto sales are up, unemployment is
down, foreclosures are few, and the budget is in surplus. Why
are things so great in North Dakota? Partly because of surging
oil production and a good farming year, but also because of a
"never-fancy culture that has nurtured fewer sudden booms of
wealth." In other words, "Our banks don't do those goofy loans,"
as the co-owner of a local car dealership puts it.
The WP fronts a four-pager on the tricky question of what to do
with the thousands of prisoners held in Iraq by the U.S. military.
The recently-approved security pact between the Iraqi and U.S.
governments calls for all 16,000 prisoners to be released or
referred to courts. The story describes a tribunal of U.S.
servicemen who decide not whether a detainee is guilty or
innocent but whether the person would be dangerous if released.
The Post reports that the military has at least made a significant
effort to improve the conditions of its prisons.
Evil geeks are winning a global cyber war and malicious
software is spreading faster than ever, according to a front-page
piece in the NYT. Hackers thrive in foreign countries with little
interest in prosecuting cyber misdeeds, and so cyber criminals
raise an army of remotely-controlled zombie computers to send
penis-enlargement e-mails and stealthily steal your money.
Some fear an erosion of confidence in the foundation of 21stcentury commerce.
Only the LAT fronts a story on the sentencing of O.J. Simpson to
up to 33 years in prison for his attempt to rob a pair of
memorabilia dealers. Simpson surprised even the judge by
apologizing and getting misty-eyed in a pre-sentencing
statement.
Greeting-card companies, their fingers ever on the pulse of the
American psyche, are muting the tone of holiday cards this year.
The WSJ reports that one company sensed waning consumer
confidence and started toning down its cards months before the
housing bubble burst. According to card salesmen, people want
more sentimentality, fewer garish colors, and still fewer symbols
of gross consumerism. The businesslike language industry
insiders use to describe their calculations—"Santa is a true,
traditional red, instead of the cherry red we've used in the
past"—makes the story a must-read.
104/104

Slate.com

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